CLAY — Oswego–based Pathfinder Bancorp (NASDAQ: PBHC), parent of Pathfinder Bank, has been generating much of its recent growth in Onondaga County and is continuing full steam ahead with its expansion there.

Pathfinder Bank recently announced it will be opening a new branch in Clay this fall, making it its third Onondaga County office.

The bank has purchased the building at 3775 State Route 31 in Clay, which used to be home to a KeyBank branch. 

Pathfinder Bank bought the property for $625,000 from KeyBank and plans to spend at least another $625,000 to upgrade the appearance of the branch, including enhancing the drive-thru lanes and improving access to the site, Tom Schneider, president and CEO of Pathfinder Bank and Pathfinder Bancorp, tells CNYBJ.

The nearly 2,500-square-foot building, situated on 2.4 acres, was valued at more than $431,000 in 2017, according to the Onondaga County Office of Real Property Services’ online records. JF Real Estate listed the property for sale. 

Pathfinder Bank is planning to open the branch in October, after interior renovations wrap up. Pathfinder hasn’t hired a general contractor for the project yet, but Rowlee Construction Inc. of Fulton is handling the initial demolition work, Schneider says.

The new office will be a full-service branch, offering retail, residential mortgage, commercial lending, and wealth-management services, as well as bank teller and ATM drive-thru service. 

Pathfinder Bank plans to hire six new employees, which would increase its companywide total to 160 employees.

Schneider says Pathfinder needs the branch to support its rapid growth and increase its points of contact with customers for their convenience.

“What we found with the unprecedented growth we generated last year, [nearly 20 percent], our ability to service our customers is impeded by lack of convenience,” he says.

Pathfinder Bank’s newest location will sit alongside the proposed Widewaters Commons project located at 3715 Route 31. Widewaters Commons — a project of DeWitt–based real-estate development and management company Widewaters Group — is about halfway through the planning-board approval process, according to Pathfinder. The proposal calls for a 100,000-square-foot-plus retail complex with restaurants and stores. 

That made the site attractive to Pathfinder as well as the fact it was a former bank branch that could be converted quickly, says Schneider. Also, the location allows the bank to serve customers from Clay, Radisson, and Baldwinsville.

The CEO says Pathfinder found out about the property from a customer and also from John Funiciello, president of JF Real Estate, who serves on the Pathfinder Bancorp board of directors.

Pathfinder’s other two Onondaga County branches are in Cicero and downtown Syracuse, respectively. The bank opened the Syracuse branch in September 2014 as a limited-service business banking office and then expanded it to a full-service retail branch in early 2017. 

Schneider says that 90 percent of Pathfinder’s growth is coming from the Onondaga County market. As a result, still more expansion is on the way. He says the bank plans to open two more branches in the city of Syracuse within the next 24 months.

Pathfinder Bancorp reported net income of $3.5 million, or 86 cents a share, in 2017, up from $3 million, or 74 cents, in 2016. 

The banking company’s total assets surged nearly 18 percent in 2017 to finish the year at $881.3 million. The increase was primarily driven by loan growth, led the bank’s increased penetration of the Syracuse market and surrounding Onondaga County areas.

Pathfinder Bank has nine branches, with six in Oswego County in addition to the current three in Onondaga County. It has a 42 percent share of total market deposits in Oswego County, per FDIC data. 

UTICA — Utica Police on April 10 arrested a Whitesboro man, charging him with robbing the GPO Federal Credit Union.

Joshua M. Smith, 38, was arrested a day after police said he entered the credit union located on Genesee Street in Utica shortly before 5 p.m., approached a teller, and handed her a note demanding money.

Police said the teller turned over an undisclosed amount of money and Smith fled the credit union. 

Smith is charged with robbery in the third degree, a felony punishable by up to seven years in prison.

Police said they believe Smith had entered Adirondack Bank’s Genesee Street, South Utica location prior to robbing the GPO Federal Credit Union. There, they said, “Smith engaged employees in conversation but left the bank without incident.”

Following the robbery, police shared several surveillance photos of a bearded man in a dark coat, dark glasses and a Yankees cap and said they wanted to speak with him. “At this time the male is not a suspect, only an individual we would like to speak to relative to the investigation,” police said at the time.

In his arrest photo, Smith is clean shaven on his face and head.

Utica Police said that the surveillance photo and arrest photo are of the same man.

ELMIRA — Chemung Financial Corp. (NASDAQ: CHMG) reported net income of $4.4 million, or 92 cents a share, in the first quarter, up 49 percent from $3 million, or 62 cents, in the year-ago period.

Chemung Financial, parent company of Chemung Canal Trust Company, had a “great start” to 2018 with “strong” growth in year-over-year net income, which its commercial and indirect loan portfolios and improving margins continue to drive, according to Anders Tomson, CEO of Chemung Financial.

The banking company’s strong profit rise was led by a 13 percent increase in non-interest income, a 10 percent rise in net interest income, and a drop in NBT’s effective tax rate from 30 percent to 19.3 percent, following passage of the federal tax-cut bill.

In the earnings report, Tomson discussed Chemung Financial’s outlook.

“Due to the seasonality of our commercial and indirect consumer portfolios, we expect to see stronger growth in our loan portfolios during the next two quarters. We remain optimistic about the strength of the economy, however, the environment for deposits and commercial loans remains intensely competitive. We continue to assess our environment to meet the expectations of our clients, while tightly managing our cost of interest-bearing liabilities,” 

Elmira–based Chemung Financial is a $1.7 billion financial-services holding company. It operates 34 branches through its Chemung Canal Trust unit. Founded in 1833, Chemung Canal Trust says it is the “oldest” locally-owned and managed community bank in New York. Chemung Financial is also parent of CFS Group, Inc., a financial-services subsidiary offering non-traditional services including mutual funds, annuities, brokerage services, tax preparation services and insurance, and Chemung Risk Management, Inc., an insurance agency based in Nevada.   

New York Credit Union Association President/CEO William J. Mellin had a different opinion than the judge or the ABA. “The New York Credit Union Association disagrees with the court’s ruling that NCUA overstepped its authority when it modernized its field of membership rules. NCUA correctly and accurately understood that their field of membership rules needed to be updated to reflect the changing nature of financial services,” he said.

Mellin urged the NCUA to push hard to maintain its power to make rules for credit unions. “Going forward, we urge NCUA to continue to pursue every effort to uphold its rulemaking authority, and the association will explore all of our options for assisting the agency, credit unions and their members.”

In contrast, the ABA said the judge’s ruling “affirms what we have known for years — NCUA won’t hesitate to push the boundaries of reason for the credit-union industry even at the expense of taxpayers, small banks and the communities those banks serve.”

The American Bankers Association represents small, regional, and large banks that together employ more than 2 million people, hold $13 trillion in deposits, and extend nearly $10 trillion in loans.

The New York Credit Union Association is the trade association for the state’s credit unions, which collectively hold more than $76 billion in assets and serve 5.6 million members. 

NCUA is the independent federal agency created by Congress to charter, regulate, and supervise federal credit unions.          

DeWITT — Community Bank System, Inc. (NYSE: CBU) reported record first-quarter net income of $40.1 million, up 53 percent from $26.3 million in the year-ago period. Earnings per share (EPS) soared 37 percent to 78 cents from 57 cents in the same period.

A pair of acquisitions the banking company made last year and lower taxes resulting from the federal tax-cut bill played a big role in Community’s profit rise.

“We’re very pleased with this quarter’s results and the continuation of our earnings acceleration, due principally to the strategic deployment of capital last year with the NRS and Merchants Bancshares transactions,” Community Bank CEO Mark E. Tryniski said in the company’s earnings report. “In addition, our fee-based businesses continue to grow both revenue and margin, contributing significantly to earnings and cash flow. EPS growth of 30 percent over last year, excluding acquisition expenses, was also supported by a lower effective tax rate that contributed approximately one-fifth of that improvement. We are very well positioned for the remainder of the year.”

Community Bank posted total revenue of $142.1 million in the first quarter, up 27 percent from the prior-year quarter, and included the results from both the Merchants Bancshares and NRS (Northeast Retirement Services, Inc.) acquisitions completed in the first half of last year. Merchants Bancshares was a banking company serving Vermont and western Massachusetts and NRS was a provider of benefit-plan accounting, transfer agency, fund administration, trust, and retirement-plan services.

Community Bank’s higher revenue resulted from a 21.5 percent increase in average earning assets and continued growth in noninterest income, as well as improvement in the banking company’s net interest margin from the prior-year quarter. 

A combination of acquired and organic growth generated a 30 percent jump in Community’s wealth management, insurance, and employee-benefit services revenue compared to the prior-year quarter, according to the earnings report. Deposit service fees increased 30 percent year-over-year, primarily the result of the addition of Merchants, as well as increased debit card-related revenue. 

Community Bank produced first-quarter net interest income of $84.6 million, up 26 percent from the first quarter of 2017, and included the impact of the Merchants Bancshares acquisition. 

Wealth management and insurance-services revenue rose 25 percent to $14.1 million in the first quarter, compared to a year ago, driven by both acquired and organic growth, Community Bank reported. Employee-benefit services revenue increased by 33 percent to $23 million, primarily attributable to the NRS acquisition.

Excluding acquisition expenses, Community Bank’s first quarter 2018 operating expenses of $86.3 million, which included a full quarter of operating activities from both Merchants and NRS, increased by $14.5 million, or 

20 percent, over the first quarter of 2017. Salaries and employee benefits increased by $9 million, or 21 percent, and included employees added from the two acquisitions, as well as annual merit and performance-based increases. 

All other operating expenses increased 19 percent year-over-year, and reflected the occupancy, equipment, and other operating costs of both Merchants and NRS.

Community Bank said its effective tax rate for the first quarter of 2018 was 23 percent, down from 27.4 percent in the first quarter of last year — boosting earnings by 4 cents per share. That reflected the lower federal tax rate that resulted from the Tax Cut and Jobs Act passed in the fourth quarter of 2017. 

Community Bank System has more than 230 branches across upstate New York, northeastern Pennsylvania, Vermont, and western Massachusetts. Headquartered in DeWitt, the banking company has more than $10 billion in assets.

The Upstate Capital Association of New York announced it has named Lindsay Stencel of Launch NY and Rick Clonan of Genius NY as its newest board members.

Stencel is the chief operating officer for Launch NY and a partner at Ohio–based NCT Ventures. She has a passion and expertise is assisting small-business clients, investors, and managers with their legal needs — from concept and business formation to investment documentation and exit transactions, according to an Upstate Capital Association news release. She guides Launch NY’s seed-stage investment arm, leading that organization to be the most active seed-stage investor in upstate New York in 2017. She was elected to the board of directors as a voting member and is based in Buffalo. 

Clonan, VP of innovation and entrepreneurship at CenterState CEO and head of Genius NY, was elected to serve as a board observer. He is a retired Major for the U.S. Air Force, where he served for 23 years as a base civil engineer. He founded and ran an automotive aftermarket company based on his patented innovations. He is a passionate entrepreneur, innovative business builder, and advocate for Central New York. Genius NY is a 2018 gold sponsor for the Upstate Capital Association, the release stated. 

The Upstate Capital Association of New York says it connects investors across the “capital stack” to opportunities all over New York state. It increases access to capital for companies and deal flow for investors by maintaining a statewide network of capital providers, professional advisors, and supporting organizations.