PUTNAM — Thomas A. Borner, president  and CEO of Putnam Bank,  announced recently that its Application  for a Connecticut State Banking Charter, with Federal Reserve membership,  has been approved. 

“This is an important structural change” said Borner. “This will serve to reinforce our eastern Connecticut-based community commitment.”

 Putnam Bank was originally chartered in Connecticut in 1862 as Putnam Savings Bank and has maintained its headquarters  in Putnam while its branch network  has grown to eight branches along the Route 395 corridor to Gales Ferry. 

Current assets stand at $477 million. After the regulatory broadening of lending products in the 1980s between savings banks and commercial banks the bank dropped “Savings” from its name to Putnam Bank. 

The charter was converted to a federal charter in 2003 under the federal agency of the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS). Congress dissolved the OTS as part of its recent banking reform, renewing the opportunity to convert the charter to one more favorable to a community bank.

“This will serve to confirm  our dominant presence as not only a major retail lender of mortgages and home equity loans, but also our ever expanding commercial portfolio” according to Borner. “Our identity as a long serving eastern Connecticut bank is very important to us and to our customers. This change will be seem less to our customers in any fashion and rather will ease some of the regulatory burden and reduce expense to the bank,” he added.