Mainebiz

V O L . X X I N O. I V F E B R UA R Y 2 3 , 2 0 1 5 18 "We thought of the skill set, and we want to make sure employees have a livable wage," he says. e includes benefits, such as medical, matching (k) plans and tuition assistance. "is raise initially affects people and will cost a few hundred thousand a year," he adds. Tellers, many of whom are part-time, were making . just three years ago. Adds Breen, "Tellers need to do a lot more than they were expected to do before. People are looking for a whole host of financial advice." Another differentiator is that the bank owns a payroll company called Bangor Payroll that services more than , Maine companies and generates more than , payroll checks. Montgomery-Rice says it's a way to become a trusted advisor to a com- pany that could then, in turn, become a customer of the bank. Payroll generates million in income, so it is about to of top-line revenue for the bank. Bangor Savings also is a mutual savings bank, which in also became a mutual holding company called Bangor Bancorp to allow for future acquisitions and the option to raise capital by issuing securities or selling stock while protecting the bank's assets. Mutual savings banks started as eleemosynary institutions, that is, charitable or belonging to the community, explains Pinkham of the Maine Bankers Association. Many date to the s and might have been owned by a mill or other business. Laws allowed only tax-free savings accounts at such banks, but as more services and retail business came into play, banking rules changed, and retail branches sprang up. Maine has retail banks, of which are headquar- tered in the state. Of those , are mutual banks, and nine of those also have a mutual holding company. One advantage of a mutual bank is that it can take a long-term vision of its business, out years or so, says Montgomery-Rice. at proved to be a positive during the recession. When other banks curtailed loans, especially to small businesses and would-be home buyers, Bangor Savings remained active. Consumer and commercial loans totaled million in and million in , with consumer loans being just over of the annual lending. And in the first nine months of its current fis- cal year, it has loaned more than million. "We have the structure to think long term," Montgomery-Rice says. "So we lived through the recession." L V , M a i n e b i z s e n i o r w r i t e r , c a n b e r e a c h e d a t @ . » C O N T I N U E D F RO M P R E V I O U S PA G E There's a shift going on now within most banks of realizing the retail systems we've grown in the past 40 to 50 years have plateaued, and customer use of branches is changing and Internet competitors are huge now. — Christopher Pinkham, president Maine Bankers Association

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