Strength and Stability
Even as recent events have undermined the confidence in and performance of many financial institutions around us, we are happy to report that Brentwood Bank remains one of Western PA’s most trusted, highly regarded, and fiscally solid financial services providers.
First and foremost, we want to make sure you know that we’ve had absolutely no involvement in any of the practices that led to the recent sub-prime mortgage meltdown.
Second, we think you’ll find the reasons why to be both reassuring and (perhaps) even enlightening: you see, we’re simply not like those institutions in some other very important ways, as well...
"Portfolio Lender" Benefits
We are longstanding “portfolio lenders” – which means we typically fund our own loans and hold them in our own portfolio as assets. As such, we take great care to ensure the value of every loan we underwrite and the credit worthiness of each applicant. This has become especially relevant given the current sub-prime instability being experienced by larger commercial banks. At Brentwood Bank, we don’t put borrowers in homes if we believe they won’t be able to afford them. We don’t engage in sub-prime lending practices or predatory tactics. We don’t paper-over bad credit risks, and we’re not looking to sell loans to the secondary market. While our loan portfolio has experienced record growth over the years (and continues to do so), our delinquencies have remained few and far between. We rarely have foreclosure properties on our hands or bad loans to write-off. It’s an institutional emphasis on credit quality and conservative value-based portfolio lending that has served the Bank well – and one we have every intention of maintaining.
Core Values
We are traditional bankers with traditional banker core values. We are fundamentally committed to institutional integrity and sound financial operations. Our assets are local and conservatively valued. Our reputation is impeccable because we run a tight ship. At the community banking level, we answer to multiple regulatory oversight authorities (state and national), and satisfy criteria “over and above” many of our non-bank industry counterparts (such as mortgage brokers and credit unions).
Management Philosophy
We maintain standards of operational safety and soundness that are second-to-none, and loan loss reserves at higher-than-required levels. (Loan loss reserves are the safety net that ensures a bank’s ability to weather even the worst financial conditions.) We are community-minded. We give back to the communities we serve and finance many of the homes, public projects and business properties within our immediate footprint. Yet in terms of management philosophy and approach, we also have a dynamic, growth-oriented outlook. We have been profiled in a recent annual report by the Federal Home Loan Bank as an example of the kind of progressive institution that knows how to balance institutional needs and fund growth while getting bottom line results.
Some might argue that “mutuality” makes all the difference. Yes, Brentwood Bank is one of the few remaining community-based “mutual” institutions in PA. And yes, because we are not owned by outside shareholders, there isn’t the usual shareholder pressure to maintain (or inflate) earnings levels or temptation to engage in short-term thinking. But anyone looking to confirm that Brentwood Bank is a safe haven for their deposit dollars will find the reasons don’t begin and end there.
Favorable Economies of Scale
With an average of over $125 million in assets per Branch Office (as of this writing),
our economies of scale are the envy of the industry. As Brentwood Bank’s financial statements show, our performance is exemplary – and we’ve been able to achieve it without emulating the big bank growth model (one which requires opening branch offices right and left at great expense). We take pride not only in local decision-making, but in providing our customers with direct access to decision-makers, in offering the kind of multi-million dollar lending know-how one might not expect to find at a community-based institution, and in being recognized for our unique brand of 100% South Hills-based local loan servicing. Our size and scale also give us the ability to offer custom-tailored commercial loan terms and conditions bigger banks simply won’t or can’t offer. And they give us the ability to be responsive to the needs of our customers and to know our customers on a basis that’s not possible at any mega-bank level.
Value Creators, Innovators
We also have unique areas of specialization and expertise that allow us to be surprisingly innovative, in the right kinds of ways. We’ve launched new products that introduced things like high-yield “Free Worldwide ATM” relationship accounts to Western PA years before larger local commercial institutions followed suit. We created the first state- chartered Mobile Bank Branch to serve the needs of retirement residences and assisted living facilities. We are the first bank in the entire Commonwealth to be approved by the PA Department of Banking and licensed by the Department of State to sell real estate (which we now offer as a service to customers of the Bank). And, of course, we embrace new technologies that help create greater convenience and customer value. We continue to invest in infrastructure essential to protecting customer confidentiality and integrity of operations, ensuring both long-term stability and an un-compromised ability to grow “in the right way”.
Long-Term Commitment
Perhaps more than anything, there’s one characteristic that defines who we are and what we’re all about above all else:
We are here to stay.
We are committed to making a real and meaningful difference; to making the strongest possible value proposition for our customers; to creating “win-win” situations – the kind that benefit customers and communities, as well as borrowers and builders alike; and to growing long and productive “mutually beneficial” relationships.
It is this commitment that has served Brentwood Bank since its founding in 1922, and allowed us to become “The Go To Bank” we are today. And it’s this commitment that will continue to be the source of both our strength and our stability for years to come.
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