“Hometown” Banks Continue to Locate Away From Home

Apparently hometown pride and banking are mutually exclusive – or at least travel well. The volume of banks bearing a community’s name that are opening branches far, far away from home continues to grow, which suggests that banks have clear and convincing evidence that the distant moniker just isn’t an issue for consumers.

The latest: Vernon-based Rockville Bank is asking state approval to open a Hamden branch, its first retail incursion into New Haven County, the Hartford Business Journal has reported. The bank is planning to establish a 2,000-square-foot, full-service retail branch near the commercial- and residential-loan production office the bank opened in July 2011. Earlier this year Rockville Bank crossed the Connecticut River to open a high profile branch in thriving West Hartford Center.

Connecticut by the Numbers has previously reported on the increasing number of banks with the name of a Connecticut town within the bank’s name that have opened branches – and many of them – in other towns. An increasing number are opening in towns far afield, and last month, Massachusetts-based Westfield Bank opened a branch in Granby, CT.

Already, the list of town names doing double-duty as bank names is lengthy, with the institutions numbering two dozen: Fairfield, New Canaan, Groton, Darien, Essex, Farmington, Greenwich, Suffield, Guilford, Jewett City, Litchfield, Milford, Naugatuck, Putnam, Rockville, Salisbury, Danbury, Simsbury, Stafford, Thomaston, Torrington, Wilton and Windsor. And those are only the Connecticut towns, of course.

Among the town-line-jumping trendsetters: Farmington Bank in South Windsor, Essex Savings Bank in Madison, Jewett City Savings Bank (“your hometown bank”) in Brooklyn, Simsbury Bank in Bloomfield, and the Savings Bank of Danbury in Waterbury. There are many more.

Although there are 25 out-of-state banks with a presence in Connecticut, only Rhode Island-based Newport Federal Savings Bank, with an office in Stonington, included the name of a town – until the arrival of Westfield Bank. Other well-known names, evoking out-of-state regions, include Bank of New York, Berkshire Bank (which is now in the process of purchasing 20 Bank of America branches in New York State), First Niagra Bank, and Hudson Valley Bank.