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Community Bank refreshing tech for increased digital banking

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John Montgomery

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Rick Shrum/Observer-Reporter

Rick Shrum/Observer-Reporter

John Montgomery, president and CEO of Community Bank, speaks Wednesday during an event celebrating the 120th anniversary of the bank.

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Below: Community Bank opened for business on July 1, 1901, in Carmichaels – where it still has its main corporate offices. Courtesy of Community Bank

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Courtesy of Community Bank

Courtesy of Community Bank

Community Bank’s Barron P. McCune, Jr. Corporate Center sits in North Franklin Township, near Wild Things Park.

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Above: Community Bank Barron P. McCune Jr. Corporate Center. Courtesy of Community Bank

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Left: John Montgomery, left, president and CEO of Community Bank, and Ben Brown, then CEO of Mon Valley Alliance, current director of client experience and innovation at Community Bank, with the certificate of title as the two entities joined forces to create the Mon Valley Business Resource Center at the former Community Bank branch office at 235 W. Main St. in Monongahela. Paul Paterra/Observer-Reporter

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Community Bank donated $30,000 to the City Mission as part of their anniversary giving.

John Montgomery arrived from the St. Louis area a little more than two years ago, adhering to a cardinal rule of banking: adapt with the times.

“The pandemic has accelerated technological changes in banking, and we’ve done that. There are things we’ve had to adjust,” said the president and CEO of Community Bank, an independent financial services institution that launched in Carmichaels 121 years ago.

Community Bank is a wholly owned subsidiary of CB Financial Services, Inc., both of which have their main corporate offices in the Greene County borough.

Banking, for many clients, has evolved dramatically over the past decade. Gone are the days of dutifully walking into a neighborhood branch, filling out a deposit or withdrawal slip, strolling to a cashier’s window and completing a transaction.

This is the digital age when a customer can also take care of business online or inside a vehicle. This has helped to enable some banking companies – including Community – to cut costs by consolidating branches.

Yet many customers still prefer the physical locations, and CB strives to accommodate them.

“Things look a little different in today’s world,” said Montgomery. who works out of the Barron “Pat” McCune Corporate Center in North Franklin Township. “Our business is a clicks vs. bricks investment. People want electronic access, but we’re still committed to all of our community resources, whether it’s physical branches or electronic needs.”

Community Bank is ramping up electronically, to be sure. And that ramps up Montgomery’s enthusiasm.

“The weekend of Oct. 8, we had a big technological upgrade to our core system that went very well,” he said during a late November interview. “That’s positioned us over the next several weeks to start rolling out i-Cams and integrated cashiers. We’ll be taking ATM operations to a different level.”

That includes Interactive Teller Machines, or ITMs, which he describes as “an ATM with the ability to talk with a person like a video chat. You can speak from a car to a teller. We can expand hours, offer almost all services with our new technology.”

The company also is upgrading its website, which Montgomery said is targeted to start operating by the end of the second quarter of 2023. “We’re doing a lot of planning now. The website is so important. We want to get all of that right.”

That bricks element in the bricks-clicks dynamic will endure, the bank’s top executive assures. “Branches are very important to us and will continue to be. Our surveys show a lot of folks want to use a branch. Also, a lot of people have the mobile capability to balance both.

“We’re totally rebuilding the Rostraver branch, and we’ll be making investments in other areas to spruce up other branches. We want to invest in them as it makes sense. We want to be in communities, but we have to have a balance between bricks and clicks.”

Community Bank has been in an acquisition mode at times. While the president/CEO Bank acknowledged that “stocks are down a little, so that might be a little more challenging now,” he is not ruling the possibility of purchasing a financial entity down the pike.

“That certainly would be an arrow in our quiver,” Montgomery said. “It is something to look at in the future. Stability brings benefits to our stakeholders.”

A business can grow or wither over time. Community Bank has expanded over the past century-plus. It is the 34th largest bank in Pennsylvania, one that, as of June, had to 201 employees at 16 locations. CB Financial Services, a publicly traded company, had a solid third quarter this year, with revenue exceeding analyst estimates by 6.4% and earnings per share bypassing forecasts by 37%.

Montgomery, who succeeded McCune as president/CEO on Sept. 1, 2020, has devoted 30-plus years to banking. He came to Community Bank after six years in Missouri. His roots, though, are decidedly in eastern Pennsylvania, where he earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees and where he has served during much of his career.

He relocated from the Midwest to Western Pennsylvania five months after the pandemic arrived here and admitted that navigating it has been turbulent at times. “Early on, we had to adjust to a more remote environment. We’re in the office now, although we’ve had to adjust to hybrid situations. It’s probably going to be that way for certain positions.

“We also had a little flareup a few weeks ago when we went remote for a couple of days. But we got through that very well, and through the (federal Paycheck Protection Program), clients have come through it very well.

The pandemic has had another effect on Community Bank – likely a positive effect. It sped up tech changes.

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