mt bank Corporation is an American bank holding company headquartered in Buffalo, New York.M&T means: Manufacturers and Traders Trust Company bank It operates 780 branches in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia, Washington, D.C., and Connecticut. M&T is ranked 462nd on the Fortune 500. Until May 1998, the bank’s holding company was named First Empire State Corporation.
M&T Bank has been profitable in every quarter since 1976. Other than Northern Trust, M&T was the only bank in the S&P 500 Index not to lower its dividend during the financial crisis of 2007–2008.
The bank owns the Buffalo Savings Bank building in downtown Buffalo. M&T Bank also sponsors M&T Bank Stadium, home of the Baltimore Ravens. M&T Bank is the official bank of the Buffalo Bills in Western New York and of their home Bills Stadium in Orchard Park, New York. Wilmington Trust is a subsidiary of M&T Bank Corporation, offering global corporate and institutional services, private banking, investment management, and fiduciary services.
History of M&T Bank
In the mid-19th century, few banking options existed for the growing number of manufacturers in the city of Buffalo. As a result, businessmen Pascal Pratt and Brownson Rumsey founded M&T Bank in 1856 as “Manufacturers and Traders Trust Company”. The company opened its first office on August 29 of that year at 2 East Swan Street in Buffalo.
In 1983, Robert G. Wilmers was named Chairman and CEO, a position he held until his death in December 2017.
Between 1987 and 2009, M&T Bank acquired 20 financial institutions, as follows:
- December 1987: East New York Savings of New York City
- January 1989: Monroe Savings Bank of Rochester, New York
- September 1990: Assets of Empire of America Savings Bank of Buffalo (along with KeyBank and others)
- May 1991: Assets of Goldome Bank of Buffalo (along with KeyBank and others)
- July 1992: Central Trust and Endicott Trust of Rochester, New York and Binghamton, New York.
- December 1994: Hudson Valley branches of Chemical Bank; New York and Ithaca Bancorp of Ithaca, New York.
- July 1995: Hudson Valley branches of Chase Manhattan
- January 1997: Green Point Bank branches of Westchester, New York
- June 1999: First National Bank of Rochester
- April 1998: OnBank of Syracuse, New York
- September 1999: 29 Chase Bank Branches in Buffalo, Jamestown, and Binghamton
- October 2000: Keystone Financial of Central Pennsylvania
- February 2001: Premier Nation Bancorp of Newburgh
- April 2003: Allfirst Bank of Baltimore, a subsidiary of Allied Irish Banks of Ireland, in exchange for 26.7 million shares of M&T and $886 million in cash. At the direction of Irish government financial regulators, AIB sold its 22% ownership interest in M&T in 2010.
- July 2006: 21 Citibank branches in Buffalo and Rochester
- December 2007: Partners Trust Financial Group, including 33 branches in upstate New York, for $555 million.
- December 2007: 12 First Horizon National Corporation branches in the greater Washington D.C. and Baltimore markets.
- May 2009: Provident Bank of Maryland in a stock transaction.
- August 2009: The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) seized Bradford Bank and sold all its deposits and most assets to M&T. M&T and the FDIC agreed to share future losses on $338 million worth of Bradford’s assets.
In May 2011, M&T acquired Wilmington Trust for $351 million in stock.
On August 27, 2012, M&T announced the acquisition of Hudson City Bancorp for $3.7 billion. The bank had $25 billion in deposits and $28 billion in loans and 135 brick-and-mortar branch locations including 97 in New Jersey. The acquisition was delayed for 3 years due to a money laundering case involving an M&T branch and the acquisition closed on November 2, 2015.[25][26]
In 2008, M&T received a $600 million investment by the United States Treasury as a result of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and M&T assumed another $482 million in TARP obligations from its acquisitions. In 2011, the bank repaid $700 million of TARP funds.
On December 16, 2017, Robert Wilmers died and non-Executive Chairman Robert T. Brady became acting Chairman and CEO. On December 20, 2017, René F. Jones was appointed Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.
On February 22, 2021, M&T Bank announced an agreement to acquire People’s United Bank in an all-stock transaction valued at approximately $7.6 billion. The acquisition was completed on April 2, 2022.
In May 2022, M&T announced a £25 million imitative to support lower-income communities and underrepresented groups. The new Amplify Fund will be deployed over 3 years with most of the funds set to be distributed to Connecticut-based organizations and other north-eastern states where People’s United had operated. M&T announced that $9-$11 million will be distributed by the end of 2022, with the rest of the funds to be distributed over the next two years,s and expects to fund approximately 60-70 organizations in the initiative’s first phase.
Legal issues of mt bank
Money laundering
In June 2014, a U.S. District Judge ordered M&T Bank to forfeit $560,000 in drug proceeds that had been laundered through its Perry Hall, Maryland, branch. At least 8 times from 2011 to 2013, Deanna Bailey, a drug dealer, went to the branch and had head teller Sabrina Fitts convert cash amounts from $20,000 to $100,000 into larger bills.
Fitts accepted a 1% transaction fee in exchange for not filing a currency transaction report. This violated the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970 which requires all cash transactions of more than $10,000 to be reported to the Internal Revenue Service.
The acquisition of Hudson City Bancorp was delayed for more than 3 years by the Federal Reserve Board, which was unconvinced that the bank’s anti-laundering controls were strong enough.