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HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | MAY 18, 2026 21 FOCUS | COMMERCIAL RE AL ESTATE LENDING EST. 1869 | MEMBER FDIC Community Banking Lives Here ™ It's your bank. Your choice. Your Dime. Local Businesses Deserve Their Own Local Lenders Working together, local lenders and business owners can help their neighborhoods thrive. If your community matters to you, come join our community. EST. 1869 | MEMBER FDIC Community Banking Lives Here ™ Colchester | East Lyme | Glastonbury | Ledyard | Manchester | Montville New London | Norwich: Broadway, Corporate, Norwichtown Stonington Borough | Taftville | Vernon | Westerly, RI dime-bank.com • 860.859.4300 • NMLS ID # 493990 sion-making to the actual outcomes and impact is much more direct. There are fewer levels and layers of bureau- cracy. And, as a public company, you're beholden to shareholders, so depending on the institution, 30% to 80% of your profits are returned back to the shareholders. In this case, all of our profits will be reinvested into our customers and communities and employees. Q: Do you have plans to expand the bank's footprint beyond its 14 branches in Fairfield County? A: No, not at the moment. I'm going to distill all of the feedback that I receive from our employees, our clients and community partners. We will build a plan together, but the focus would be, more than anything else, on becoming a high-performing institution that retains and amplifies its purpose. Q: How do you view the Fairfield County and state economies? A: Fairfield County and the state of Connecticut broadly have always been a more educated, more affluent market. The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis expects the population to grow by about 2% and household income to grow by about 10%. It feels like we have a good momentum right now in Fairfield County and the state. How do we participate in that growth, and how do we allow our clients to become even more successful in that momentum? I think that is going to be the operating principle. Q: The bank has about $17.3 billion in loans and leases, with roughly 94% tied to residential and commercial real estate, according to FDIC data. Do you plan to make changes to the portfolio? A: I think staying disciplined is what the teams do very well already. I think we should maintain that momentum and stay in that lane. It's working for us. Q: What is your commercial lending outlook? A: It is tight. I think the opportu- nities are fewer. I think most of our clients are also impacted by this uncertainty that's out there, whether it's the tariffs, whether it's the geopo- litical situation. There are fewer opportunities, but they also happen to be invariably better-quality opportunities. I would say the growth will continue to be there. Q: Where are you seeing demand for commercial loans? A: I think in large part it's coming from our existing (customers) that are expanding their businesses or properties. Some part of the residen- tial demand is relatively slower and declining, while commercial real estate remains solid and stable. Commercial and industrial have been slow, and we're looking to find opportunities to grow that faster, along with small business lending. Source: Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. data FIRST COUNTY BANK ASSET GROWTH 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 $1.5B $1.5B $1.6B $1.7B $1.9B $1.9B $2.1B $2.2B $2.3B $2.3B