Home-grown staff solidifies M&T lending

CNY Business Journal (1996+), Nov 12, 2004 by Dickinson, Casey J

SYRACUSE - M&T Bank likes to raise its own commerciallending staff, says Matthew Schiro, regional president for M&T Batik's Central New York Region.. The bank recruits new graduates from a number of upstate colleges and trains them to become commercial-loan officers. Training the staff from their first banking job, says Schiro, helps ensure that they are in tune with M&T's values and corporate culture.

"You don't have to convert other backgrounds into the M&T approach.." he adds. "I think they can move things through the system faster for our customers."

M&T Bank's Central New York Regional headquarters is in downtown Syracuse. The bank's CNY region includes the cities of Watertown, Auburn, and Utica, as well as Syracuse. The region's business-banking staff consists of 10 loan officers while the mid-market/commercial real-estate section adds another 14 business lenders.

Cortland, Ithaca, and Binghamton are served by M&T's Southern Tier.

M&T seeks out candidates with educational backgrounds in business, accounting, or other financial skills. The bank recruits at schools across the region including Syracuse University and Le Moyne College. Educational backgrounds in business, Schiro explains, help ensure the candidates have a solid foundation in financial concepts before beginning their lending training.

New loan officers head to M&T headquarters in Buffalo for six months of initial training. The candidates learn how M&T operates its loan department and how to deal with clients.

"For the first four or five months, they're just getting oriented to the bank," says Schiro.

Other skills taught at headquarters include the mechanics of credit, credit analysis, and analyzing trends. The future lending officers learn how the financial markets and the bank itself works. After learning the basics in Buffalo, the new employees head to their regional offices to learn from experienced lenders. Following their first months of training, M&T's loan officers apprentice with regional banking staff. Each will shadow an experienced lending manager and learn how to make loans and identify risk. The new loan officers will train for 18 months to two years, says Schiro, before working alone.

Building a staff from within, says Schiro, allows M&T to provide uniform service throughout its regions. The bank does hire from outside when it needs to fill special lending needs. Sometimes the market won't wait for the bank to "grow" a new commercial lender.

"It's all about talent, he adds. "We think it's important to have the right talent and meet the right needs."

Founded in 1856, M&T Bank is one of the nation's 20 largest banks. The Buffalo-based bank has more than 650 branches across New York, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, and Washington, D.C. Last year, the bank posted net income of $573 million on $2.9 billion in annual revenues. M&T employs more than 14,000 and has $52 billion in assets.

Last year, M&T expanded its footprint in the Mid-Atlantic states through the acquisition of Baltimore-based Allfirst Financial, Inc. in a $3.1 billion stock-and-cash transaction.