Todd Burton
Senior Vice President and Senior Retail Banking Officer, Thomaston Savings Bank
Age: 49
Industry experience: 23 years
Amid branch closures and merger activity, some Connecticut community banks have expanded in recent years, including Thomaston Savings Bank. After first expanding into Bristol, Thomaston Savings Bank opened a Farmington location about two years ago and plans to open a second branch there this spring. The bank now has more than $1.5 billion in assets, and the new location will be its 15th branch in Litchfield, Hartford and New Haven counties.
Todd Burton has a key role in that expansion as Thomaston Savings’ senior retail banking officer. When he arrived at the mutual bank 11 years ago, he said it had about $500 million in assets and half the branches that it does today. Previously working at what he calls “big-box” banks, Burton said working at a community bank has been a good fit for him. Burton was also involved with bringing Thomaston Savings into the national Bank On initiative to provide affordable products to unbanked and underbanked individuals.
Q: What are your plans for expanding in Farmington?
A: When we went into the Bristol community and started heading in that part of Connecticut, we saw how successful and how accepted we were in the Bristol community. We saw the same need in the Farmington community, which continues to see bank closings, continues to see mergers and acquisitions. We recognized an opportunity for us to bring that community bank culture to Farmington. We opened up our first office, and it’s been very successful. We were accepted by the community and the customers. We have very good growth from both deposit and a lending standpoint, both consumer and commercial, and we really wanted to reaffirm our commitment to the Farmington community by opening up our second office, which will open hopefully in the spring of this year.
Q: What are some lending opportunities and needs in your market?
A: Last year, interest rates were at a record low, and we actually, over the last few years, had our best years as a residential lender. We were able to provide lending opportunities to both our customers as well as realtors and other centers of influence who saw that – despite the pandemic, despite the lower interest rate environment and the increase in volume – we were still able to maintain a quick turnaround time on our decision-making and our underwriting. We were the top lender in the majority of the communities that we serve. When you’re up against not just national banks or other peer banks, but also a lot of online lenders that tout their process and speed of doing things, we consistently have outperformed.
We did see mortgage volumes redact because of the interest rates, but we’ve seen an increase in homeownership by first-time homebuyers. We’ve developed several programs to satisfy the first-time homebuyer, including one designed to promote homeownership for low- and moderate-income homebuyers that requires only a 3 percent down payment and has no private mortgage insurance. We have internal programs to help with down payment assistance. Because we hold our own paper and are underwriting locally, we’re able to offer lending products that other banks cannot, and that gives us a little competitive edge.
Q: Why did Thomaston Savings Bank join the Bank On initiative?
A: It’s something that the FDIC promoted through various organizations. Our CEO, Stephen Lewis, included both myself and the senior vice president of deposit operations on a call to talk about the Bank On initiative about two years ago. Some of the stats for the unbanked and underbanked community were quite surprising to us. We pride ourselves on always looking for ways to help members of the community improve their financial standing. We know a lot of people could benefit from financial education, so we’ve introduced the iFi University, which is a free educational platform, for both our customers and external customers, that is now also available in Spanish.
When we understood how big of a need there is in the unbanked and underbanked population within our own footprint, we knew we had the means and capability to design a Bank On product in our system that we could service. We were the first mutual bank in Connecticut to launch a Bank On product, and we call it the Uncommon Account. It’s an opportunity for a customer that maybe had distrust in the banking system or did not have a very good track record getting into the banking industry in the past that now could have another opportunity to access financial services rather than using check-cashing services or payday lending or banks that had hidden fees. It’s been very successful for the bank. I think we probably opened up close to 400 accounts since we started in March of this past year.
Q: What are some challenges you see for retail banking?
A: Being able to provide electronic banking services to customers, but at the same time having that retail staff so that customers can come into the branch and do that banking personally. I think as the environment changes and there are more apps that people could use, it’s really about educating the younger generation that everything doesn’t have to be electronic. What I see is having the tools to obtain a new customer with electronic services, but taking it that additional step by having an individual proactively reach out to that customer to let them know of the services that we can provide to them on a personal level.
Q: Are you facing challenges in finding staff who can support the digital side while providing that personal service?
A: The more digital capabilities that we put in place, it creates opportunities for people to support that digital process. We do have an onsite contact center and a deposit operations team that has been growing as our digital platform has been growing. But at the same time as our branch footprint grows, it allows for opportunity for us to hire branch staff, and I think we do a very good job looking at our staffing levels within the branch system.
Since I started here 11 years ago, we’ve more than doubled our staffing as we continue to grow and continue to expand both digitally and organically into the different communities that we serve. We have a very good culture here at Thomaston Savings Bank. We have a very good retention rate and a very good reputation within the community as a great place to work. It feels like you’re just part of a family rather than just a number working in an organization.
Burton’s Five Favorite Movies
- Any Marvel movie
- The “Star Wars” trilogy
- “The Godfather”
- “The Shawshank Redemption”
- “Goodfellas”
