The 2025 merger between Reading Cooperative and Wakefield Co-operative banks is yielding healthy results for CEO Julieann Thurlow and her team.
Perhaps most notably, net interest margin, or NIM, for the combined bank — which retained the Reading Cooperative name — rose from 2.59% in 2024 to 3.18% in 2025 and 3.36% in the first quarter of 2026. Thurlow attributes last year's NIM gain to an easing of short-term rate pressures and the first-quarter gain to a falling cost of funds.
The bank's bigger asset base of $1.2 billion came at slight cost, though. The deal temporarily curbed profitability growth, with return on assets, or ROA, at 0.38% last year and return on equity, or ROE, at 5.6%. But annualized ROA increased to 0.66% in the first quarter of 2026 and annualized ROE climbed to 8.7%. And while merger-related expenses elevated the bank's efficiency ratio to 84.7% in 2025, the ratio dropped to 81.28% in the first quarter of 2026.
However, Thurlow said, Reading didn't approach the Wakefield Co-operative merger "as a cost-cutting exercise." In fact, the bulked-up bank retained staff and kept branches open. Rather, the deal was done "based on shared values and community interests," she said, with no "clear buyer and seller" due to their status as depositor-owned mutual banks.
Reading board member Kevin Smith said Thurlow's superpower in the merger talks was the creation of a negotiating atmosphere that "was consistent with her leadership style, which is to have the community's best interests drive decision-making."
Thurlow described the merger as a "slam dunk" for the bank, enabling it to enter three new markets without a significant investment of capital. Each Wakefield Co-operative branch operated at or above the break-even point on the day the deal closed. Still, although Reading is within this year's budget thus far, "we are not killing it because some initiatives did not have the customer outcomes we expected," she acknowledged.
"Because we are watching, reporting and closely following outcomes every week, we know quickly when something is off track and can identify the issue, determine the cause and adjust course," Thurlow said.
With merger integration well underway, Reading has proposed a proof of concept for selling special shares to raise capital, she said. Outside the bank, Thurlow is chair of the American Bankers Association and also co-chairs the Massachusetts Fintech Hub, with Reading serving as the beta bank for Rebolt Financial Technologies' payment tech for community financial institutions.
"As payments speed up, businesses are demanding the ability to move money faster. For community banks, this is really a question of relevance," said Thurlow. "Rebolt gives us an opportunity to meet that demand while differentiating Reading Cooperative Bank from other community banks in Massachusetts."
