The winner: M&T Bank in Sanatoga
SANATOGA PA – Like any customer who is paying for, but unhappy with, services being provided lately by their bank, Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township has decided to take its money and do business elsewhere.
The loser is First Niagara Bank; the winner, M&T Bank, the township Board of Commissioners decided Thursday (Aug. 18, 2011).
For several years Lower Pottsgrove held its “trash lock-box service” at the former Harleysville National Bank. It’s a depository arrangement which allows taxpayers, most of whom make payments twice a year for garbage hauling, to send their checks directly to a township account. Tens of thousands of dollars funnel through the account annually.
Harleysville National was bought by First Niagara in April 2010. Things haven’t gone well since, Manager Rodney Hawthorne told board members. “We lost the good service we used to have,” he said.
First Niagara, in a cost-cutting move, terminated employees with which the township had a working relationship, Hawthorne claimed. Then it was unable to provide computer files in a format that could be imported into township accounting software. Finally the bank, despite repeated requests, failed to provide pricing to continue the service. “We just haven’t been happy,” he noted.
After some bidding research, township bookkeeper Michele Christman suggested M&T Bank – which operates a branch office on East High Street, about a mile south of the township municipal building – would provide the same service at the lowest price, $3,400. Commissioners took her recommendation and authorized the switch.
Related (to the Lower Pottsgrove Board of Commissioners’ meeting of Aug. 18):
- Township, An Unhappy Bank Customer, Goes Elsewhere
- Township May Put Money Where Authority’s Mouth Is
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