M&T Bank has hired former USAA Chief Risk Officer Neeraj Singh to fill the same position, the Buffalo, New York-based company announced on Monday.
Singh will assume his new post on Jan. 31. He will replace the bank's outgoing chief risk officer, Mike Todaro, who M&T said is about to begin a long-planned retirement.
"We are thrilled to welcome Neeraj Singh to our executive team," René Jones, M&T's CEO, said in a statement. "Neeraj's extensive experience and deep understanding of risk management will be instrumental as we continue to develop and scale our capability to manage risk in support of our continued growth."
M&T has $211.9 billion of assets and operates in 12 states along the East Coast, from Maine to Virginia.
Though the bank is new for Singh, the job is not. Before M&T, he was chief risk officer at USAA, and previously held senior positions in risk management at Citi, TD Bank and Barclays. He will be moving from San Antonio, Texas, where USAA is based, to Buffalo.
"I am honored to join the bank and look forward to working with the talented team to further enhance the bank's risk management capabilities," Singh said in a statement. "Together, we will continue to build a resilient and forward-thinking risk culture that supports M&T's mission and values."
Singh left USAA at a tumultuous time for the firm, which has found itself in hot water with regulators. In 2019, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau fined USAA $3.5 million for errors in customer payments. In 2020, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency hit the company with an $85 million penalty over consumer protection violations. And last year, USAA paid $64 million to settle a lawsuit accusing the firm of overcharging military members.
Singh left USAA in August 2024. That same month, CEO Wayne Peacock announced that he would retire in 2025.
Todaro, Singh's predecessor at M&T, has been the company's chief risk officer since 2021. He has worked at M&T for close to 30 years, including as a senior executive vice president for enterprise transformation, mortgage banking, consumer lending and customer asset management.
"Mike Todaro has been a pivotal figure in M&T's growth and success during his nearly 30-year career at the bank," M&T said in a statement. "Since assuming the role of chief risk officer in 2021, he has significantly enhanced and scaled M&T's risk management capabilities as well as developed talent within the division."
One hot topic at M&T over the last couple of years has been commercial real estate lending. But in recent months, M&T has been feeling "really good" — in the words of Chief Financial Officer Daryl Bible — about its CRE portfolio as the Federal Reserve has begun edging down interest rates. Borrowers in the CRE sector are now better positioned to repay their loans, reducing potential problems for the bank, Bible said at a Barclays conference in September.
"The loans you can make now in the CRE space are probably some of the best loans you could ever have in that space," Bible said. "So we want to be supportive of our communities and our clients in that marketplace."
