Merchants Bank announced Wednesday that it will close its Malletts Bay branch in Colchester early next year as part of its corporate consolidation.
The Valley News reported Tuesday that Vermont’s only statewide bank was laying off 16 employees, mostly those involved in direct customer contact, to reflect changes in the way people access their bank accounts.
The bank, based in Burlington, said in a news release Wednesday that it would close the branch at 22 Bissette Drive in Colchester on Jan. 15. The bank said customers of the Malletts Bay branch could continue to access their accounts online or at branches in Burlington and Winooski. Merchants Banks also has an ATM located in the Costco store in Colchester, the news release said.
The closure will leave the bank with 32 offices and 38 ATMs statewide, the release said.
“We continue to stay in touch with our personal, municipal and commercial banking clients to understand their needs,” Merchant Bank’s CEO Geoffrey Hesslink said in the release. “The feedback we’ve received is clear: customers want competitive pricing with excellent service. In today’s world, that means continued reliance on the hardworking people in our branches, supplemented increasingly with online services.”
The bank said in its release that the consolidation “follows an evaluation of their retail branch infrastructure in the face of consumers’ ongoing migration to online and mobile banking technology.”
