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Posted Dec 7, 2007, 9:27 PM
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Join Date: May 2007
Location: Hamilton
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After a 10-year hiatus, BMO moves back in
From today's Hamilton Spectator:
Quote:
After a 10-year hiatus, BMO moves back in
When they closed the branch, there were some very unhappy customers. They'll be back, too.
Paul Wilson
The Hamilton Spectator
(Dec 7, 2007)
Ten years ago the Bank of Montreal closed down the oldest branch in the city, the one it erected in 1909 at Barton and Victoria.
BMO's senior public relations manager said at the time that the branch "just is not generating the volume of business we'd hoped .... Once that corner at Victoria would have been a destination. But the shops are gone. The mall has become the destination."
The timing was cruel, as the city was spending millions to try to resuscitate Barton -- new lights, sidewalks, islands, trees, banners.
And the branch's customers were unhappy. If they wanted to stay with the Bank of Montreal, they would be forced to hike several kilometres east to the branch at Barton and Gage.
Then an interesting thing happened. Not so long after BMO abandoned that building, the Banco Comercial Portugues moved in.
And whereas the Bank of Montreal had been running the branch with a staff of three, BCP put eight people to work.
Portuguese-based BCP opened eight branches, the other seven in the GTA. And then it must have decided that it's hard to be a little bank in a big country and put the Canadian operations up for sale last year.
The winning bidder was the Bank of Montreal, which paid $41 million. A few weeks ago, it announced that the integration of BCP was complete and that all branches are now wearing BMO blue.
At Barton and Victoria, next door to the General hospital, this second coming has left some rubbing their eyes in disbelief.
The same vintage lamps flank the front door. And the historic plaque is still up, the one the city affixed to the stone front just before the Bank of Montreal left.
Inside, all is thoroughly modern. Lots of honey-coloured panelling, brushed-steel accents and a gleaming ebony floor that must be murder to keep clean.
Financial services manager Marlene Dias -- born in Canada, raised in Portugal, returned at 20 -- says some 90 per cent of the branch's business is Portuguese. But other persuasions have been coming through the door since the Bank of Montreal name went back up.
There's somebody I need to see. Back in 1997, when I wrote about the branch closing, I ended up talking to Eric and Margaret Campbell.
They had been Bank of Montreal customers since the 1940s. They didn't use debit cards, didn't go online. They always went to the bank, talked to a teller, presented a pass book.
Eric, retired mechanic, was treasurer of the Experimental Aircraft Association -- he built one, too -- and banking was an important duty.
The two were unhappy that the bank they'd been faithful to for so long was forcing them 20 blocks east.
Eric would be 82 now, Margaret a few years younger. They lived just around the corner from Barton and Victoria.
And sure enough, they're still there, in the frame bungalow they bought 53 years ago.
Yes, they've been trekking down to Barton and Gage. Sometimes, when the weather's right, Eric leaves the car in the drive and rides his bike down there. He's big on reducing pollution.
But no, no one had told them yet that the Bank of Montreal has returned to their neighbourhood. Eric can hardly believe it. "I'm going down there this afternoon."
That stretch of street still struggles. But George Heisz, BMO's vice president of Hamilton operations, says that corner will work well for the bank -- even if it didn't before.
"We certainly want to reach out to new Canadians," he says. That bank has extended hours and is open Saturdays.
So this is a long-term return to Barton and Victoria? "For sure."
Funny how it turned out, that it took a banker from distant Portugal to show there's still business to be done in this old part of town.
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For the past fifteen years, Canada's major banks have underestimated the potential in Hamilton's downtown, be it in providing services for downtown customers, or in providing business startup loans and/or mortgages for downtown entrepeneurs. Will a lesson be learned here? Hopefully, but not likely. Too many decisions are made by fresh-faced bankers who are too busy looking up case studies from their university textbooks to get out of their cubicles and learn first-hand about the neighbourhoods where they conduct their business.
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