North Shore Bank’s fiscal year 2022 wrapped up on September 30, and we’ve got a lot to be proud of in every part of the bank — and plenty to look forward to, as well!
Retail banking: Checking production fell a bit short, but many of our branches finished the fiscal year strong and hit their September targets. After Kenosha South moved out of Festival Foods to a stand-alone building, the branch saw checking and lending production grow by over 150 percent. Remodels at Franklin, Southridge, and Westgate also enhanced the customer experience. And our video tellers continued to support acquisition of new accounts (checking, deposit, loans, and cards) and servicing of existing accounts.
Lending: Consumer loans exceeded our home equity targets, which made up for small shortfalls on fixed-rate loans. Business lending also exceeded expectations, and consumer indirect lending (boats and RVs) experienced the largest growth overall.
Investment and retirement services: Investment production was over plan, resulting in their strongest year ever. And Municipal Retirement Services met new municipality employer targets and were among the top three qualified referrers. Our top five business partner referrers were Robin Tegel and Sherry Leanna in mortgages, Roxanna Bruss in investments, and Becky Reinhardt and Vikki Dolezal in Municipal Retirement Services. Collectively, this group produced half of all qualified referrals.
Marketing: Credit and debit card marketing campaigns supported SOAR conversations in the branches and led to solid results. We saw continued growth in audience and engagement on social media platforms, and the Playmaker Profiles series told interesting, engaging stories about people and places in our community with tens of thousands of followers. The Bank on Kindness campaign continued to draw attention, with the “Be Kind” art installation at North End and the kindness wall and rock painting experiences at major community events supported by the bank were big hits with attendees.
We are continuing to grow our social media presence and can definitely use help from all of our employees. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok, and Pinterest and like and share the bank’s posts with your followers!
What’s Ahead
As we enter 2023, we want to grow our loan portfolio, with branches focused on strengthening our consumer loan portfolio (home equity, auto, and installment) and making referrals to business banking and mortgage loan officers to grow our assets further.
More than anything, we will be focused on acquiring new customers — with an emphasis on checking. The checking account is the cornerstone of the relationship with each of our customers, and we build on it to add even more value. Broadening our relationships with customers means growing their deposit balances, increasing their usage of North Shore Bank credit and debit cards, using our electronic banking services, bringing their investments to us, and converting business banking relationships to personal banking relationships and vice versa.
Our objective is for more customers than ever to choose North Shore Bank as their primary bank. And as we keep learning, growing, and executing, we’re confident we’ll see that happen over the next 12 months.