Fifty years ago Ridgewood Savings Bank of Brooklyn built New York City’s first drive-through banking lanes as a convenience for busy Brooklyn and Long Island residents.
Now many of those residents are seniors who no longer drive, and Ridgewood is taking a branch to them. The 84-year-old mutual thrift has developed New York State’s first mobile branch for senior citizens and others who have a hard time getting around.
The 40-foot-long, custom-made recreational vehicle is equipped with teller windows, an exterior automatic teller machine, and an office where customers can meet with bankers or fill out loan applications. It hit the road last week, making its first three stops at retirement homes on Long Island.
William C. McGarry, Ridgewood’s chairman and chief executive officer, said the roving branch could be used to drum up business at college campuses, condominium developments, and homebuyer workshops. Workshop attendees could apply for a Ridgewood mortgage on the spot at the RV branch, which could be stationed in the parking lot.
“Retirement communities are the logical place to start, but we’re going to be looking to expand its range continuously,” Mr. McGarry said. “The ideal is for it to be on the road all the time.”
It cost the $3.3 billion-asset Ridgewood $400,000 to build the branch-on-wheels, so the last thing the CEO wants is to have it sit in the garage.
Others have deployed drive-around branches, but their use has been more limited. The $1.4 billion-asset Vineyard National Bank of Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., used one to serve customers stranded by the wildfires in southern California in the fall of 2003.
Richard Cadena, Vineyard’s chief community banking officer, said the mobile branch has been used only a few times since then, during remodeling of regular branches. Mr. Cadena said Vineyard kept the mobile branch mainly so it could be used in case of other disasters.
Mr. McGarry said a brainstorming group he created a few years ago proposed that Ridgewood Savings create a roving branch. The group is led by Walter Reese, a Ridgewood vice president, and has representatives from all of the bank’s departments.
“We look to them to come up with some radical ideas that our executives reject,” Mr. McGarry said. “One of their first was for a mobile branch, and I told them to run with it.”
The New York State Banking Department had no rules covering such a branch, so it had to come up with some. They say that Ridgewood can use the branch anywhere as a promotional tool but must get the regulator’s approval before the roving branch can set up shop as a bank.
That is fine by Mr. McGarry. After all, he said, “You can’t just stop a bank on any corner like an ice cream truck and start doing business.” He sees the RV making visits to minor-league baseball games and other community events.
Regulators seemed almost as excited as McGarry about the mobile branch’s debut.
“I think this is absolutely great,” said Diana L. Taylor, New York State’s superintendent of banks. “When I heard about this, the first thing I thought was, ‘Why hasn’t anyone done this before?’ We’ve got mobile blood banks and libraries, so why not mobile banks?”
Ms. Taylor praised Ridgewood for the convenience it was bringing to seniors and said she fully supported Mr. McGarry’s goal of using the mobile branch to develop new business.
“It gives them a great way to test the demand for banking services in a neighborhood before they take the plunge” and build a traditional branch, she said.
Mr. McGarry said so many Ridgewood employees wanted to work in the traveling branch that he decided to assign it a rotating staff. Several volunteered to obtain commercial driver’s licenses, giving the branch a large driver pool.
“They’re enthusiastic,” Mr. McGarry said of his employees. “They want to be part of it.”
