M&T Bank: No major concerns for People's Bank Customers

Some are so worried they may lose all their account history.

Mark Sudol

Aug 11, 2022, 9:19 PM

Updated 616 days ago

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Editor's Note: The following story is from Aug. 12. Here is the latest as of Sept. 6. 
As People's United Bank customers are getting ready to transition to the M&T takeover of their bank, many are getting frustrated in the process.
Some are so worried they may lose all their account history.
As M&T Bank looks to make inroads in the community, a lot is going to change for People's customers by Labor Day weekend.
Their online and mobile banking will transition to M&T accounts, and customers may not have the ability to view their transactions for four days.
"They should have no disruption in how they use their credit cards, how they use their depository checking accounts. Their interactions should not change going forward," said Frank Micalizzi, regional president and head of commercial banking for M&T.
Micalizzi assured News 12 Connecticut that People's customers should have nothing to worry about.
"Certainly there may be some hiccups, but again I think we have channels to satisfy those in short order," said Micalizzi.
But one People's customer told us she recently went into a branch to retrieve her account history and was told to either print it out at home or the bank would charge her $5 for every page.
The customer says she needs at least five years of statements, and each monthly statement is six pages. Getting all that paperwork from the bank would cost her $1,080.
"If there's situations like that I would just say go to the branch, there's customer service lines that are published in the literature that's gone out," said Micalizzi.
M&T reached out to News 12, stating that it is waiving a standard fee of $5 per monthly statement, meaning customers will be able to request copies of statements without any charge for at least 60 days after their accounts are converted to M&T. 
"In addition, all of the customer documents and statements are available to download digitally today free of charge through People’s United digital banking," it said in part. 
Literature has gone out to customers in the mail and gives People's customers a heads up about the transition, but some customers feel they are still not getting their questions answered.
News 12 reached out to the New York state Department of Financial Services for comment since M&T is a New York state-chartered bank but has not heard back.


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