Banks seemed to dodge the projected worst-case scenarios outlined for Irene due to a lighter punch from the storm and extensive contingency plans from management teams at banks from North Carolina to Maine.
Flooding and power outages served as the greatest challenges for banks, though most had found ways to work around closed branches and staffing shortages. A number of banks stationed employees at branches that were closed, either to direct customers to nearby branches that were open or to provide depositors with assistance for online banking needs.
"We're staffing closed offices with two people per branch to direct customers to the closest branch, so that the customers are not looking at a sign, they're actually talking to employees of the bank," said Domenick Cama, the chief operating officer at Investors Savings Bank, which closed 10 New Jersey branches on Monday. Investors Savings Bank is a unit of $10.2 billion-asset Investors Bancorp Inc. of Short Hills, N.J.
Irene made landfall in North Carolina as a hurricane on Saturday but was downgraded to a tropical storm by the time it hit New York the next day. Millions of people were without power on Monday afternoon.
But as bankers across the East Coast reported to work Monday morning, many found that the planning they conducted last week paid dividends, as many branch offices were able to open.
Joseph DePaolo, the president and chief executive of Signature Bank in New York said that all 25 branches in New York City and suburban Long Island and Westchester County opened on Monday morning. Clifton Savings Bancorp Inc., a $1.13 billion-asset company in Clifton, N.J., reported the same, as did the $16.2 billion-asset Fulton Financial Corp., which has branches in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
First Niagara Financial Group Inc. closed about two dozen offices in Connecticut on Monday due to power outages, and there were about 40 automatic teller machines taken offline, said Mark Rendulic, the company's senior vice president of retail banking. Rendulic declined to say when branches of the $31 billion-asset bank would reopen, or when the ATMs would be back online.
In spite of flooding and power outages in Connecticut, things could have been worse for First Niagara, Rendulic said. "We had a team spread out in advance of the storm. We have a business continuity plan," he said. "We were well-prepared coming into the storm and as a result have had fewer issues."
Large banks with a Northeast presence reported nominal business disruption. Bank of America Corp. spokeswoman Kelli Raulerson said, "We anticipate minimal disruptions to our banking center operations today. All administrative and operations facilities will be operational today."
