Hudson City Savings Bank will merge with M&T Bank next week: What’s coming to the Riverhead branch

Hudson City Savings Bank will complete its merger with M&T Bank this Sunday, introducing a wealth of new commercial services that were previously unavailable to Hudson City customers.

So what does this mean for the Riverhead branch?

New services. Hudson City was a savings and loan bank that only offered bank accounts and residential mortgages, but M&T is a full commercial bank. Unlike Hudson City, M&T offers a complete set of products and services for small business customers as well as other consumer loan products, like credit cards.

Hudson City had already been developing plans to transform into a community commercial bank when M&T first proposed the merger in 2012, according to Denis Salamone, Hudson City chairman and CEO.

“We quickly realized [M&T] had the business model we aspired to and that M&T could deploy it much more quickly for the benefit of our customers and the community,” Salamone said in a press release about the merger.

Hudson City’s Riverhead branch will therefore be turned into an M&T branch that provides both checking and savings accounts, debit and credit cards, home equity and other lending options, investment and insurance services, small business and commercial banking services and wealth management and corporate trust solutions, according to the press release.

A new name. Until Hudson City’s branches are converted onto M&T’s technology network, they will continue operating under the Hudson City name as a division of M&T bank, according to Chet Bridger, M&T vice president of corporate communications.

Once that happens, the branches will begin operating under M&T’s name. M&T expects to switch the name over in the first quarter of 2016, according to Bridger.

More Long Island branches. M&T’s eight existing branches on Long Island will now be available to customers at Hudson City’s 12 Long Island branches.

While Hudson City’s Long Island branches are primarily located in eastern Suffolk County – the westernmost branch is located in Stony Brook – M&T’s branches are located throughout Nassau and western Suffolk County. Customers of both banks will now have branches available to them across the entire island.

The same customer service staff. The tellers and customer service representatives that have been working at Riverhead’s Hudson City branch will be offered jobs in the conversion, according to Bridger.