2020 Annual Report

While the pandemic is now a focus of our daily lives, I would be remiss to ignore the first half of our fiscal year. In December, our Farmington branch opened and was met with a very warm reception from the community. With our retail, lending, and investment teams in place and outreach starting prior to opening our doors, the branch shattered their initial goals and continue to grow their customer base at breakneck speed.

To continue enhancing our convenience services suite, we introduced Zelle® at the end of 2019. Zelle is a fast, safe, and easy way to send money directly between almost any bank account in the US, typically within minutes, using just an email address or US mobile phone number. For ease of use, Zelle is accessible through Online Banking and our Mobile Banking App.

Our 2019 fiscal year was off to a great start with very strong deposit growth, commercial loans positioned to meet the budgeted goal well ahead of schedule, and record month after record month in our residential lending department. The Bank was well prepared to handle the low interest rate environment we were encountering and remained well-capitalized. Even though we could not predict a global pandemic, the Bank was, and still is, prepared to persevere challenging times and economic recessions.

As we entered March and the country realized the threat COVID-19 posed, the health and safety of our employees and customers was paramount. We closed lobbies to walk-in traffic for a time, transitioned a majority of our team to work-from-home, and ensured that CDC and State cleaning and sanitizing guidance was being followed in all locations, including personal work stations, common areas, and ATMs. Ongoing precautions for everyone’s health remains a priority, especially as we reopened branch lobbies and brought many employees back to working on site.

Protecting our customers’ financial well-being was a main focus as we put safety precautions in place and deployed relief efforts. We regularly communicated and updated our website with COVID-19 resources and relief information to ensure our customers and community were aware of their options. We experienced an incredible influx of businesses applying for Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans, residential mortgage applications and inquiries from customers seeking loan deferrals. Furthermore, we were reversing and waiving a variety of charges including CD early withdrawal penalties, non-sufficient funds fees and unavailable funds fees. We called upon over 50 employees to work across different departments so we could be as responsive as ever to these incredibly urgent requests, and deliver the level of service our customers expect and deserve.

With communities in quarantine, we saw an incredible increase in Online and Mobile Banking use as well as an increase in calls to our Contact Center. With this in mind, we fast-tracked the launch of eOpen, our online account opening service for new customers, to allow easier access to those wishing to establish a relationship with us. Ensuring our customers have access to user-friendly digital services is of significant importance and we continue to look for ways to improve upon our customer and user experience.

Now, more than ever, I am incredibly appreciative of our employees’ commitment to our customers and community. They continue to donate their time and money to local areas in need and went through extraordinary measures to ensure Thomaston Savings Bank was able to supply COVID-19 relief measures to as many businesses and individuals as possible. We are grateful to serve such a supportive community and strive every day to be the best and only bank in town. We remain focused on offering our customers incredible service and continuously exceeding expectations.

I look forward to when reference of the pandemic is in past versus present tense, and remain hopeful that time will come soon. I wish good health for all in our community, now and always.

Sincerely,

Stephen L. Lewis

Thomaston Savings Bank President & CEO