Despite economic climate, this banker is still bullish about Long Island

Interest rate hikes. Inflation. And more than a few failed banks recently closed by regulators. It’s been a rough climate for the banking industry.

To ride out these and other storms, it helps to be strategic.

Consider, for example, Dime Community Bank.

“Over time, the bank has evolved, and leadership has moved forward over the many, many years,” said Stuart Lubow, president and CEO of Dime Community Bank, which is headquartered in Hauppauge.

Formed 160 years ago at the foot of the Williamsburg Bridge in Brooklyn at the time of the Civil War, the bank went on to survive two world wars, two pandemics, the Great Depression, not to mention the recent banking crisis. What started as a community bank serving immigrants in Brooklyn has since gone public, and now offers business, lending and personal services.

Helping to transform the bank is Lubow, a seasoned banker who joined Dime in 2017. Dime went on to change from a savings bank charter to a commercial bank charter.

“We brought in new commercial bankers and really revamped the organization to a relationship-based community commercial bank,” Lubow said.

These are challenging times for community banking. For example, Hicksville-based New York Community Bankcorp announced Wednesday that it has agreed to sell around $5 billion in loans to JP Morgan Chase.

In the current climate, community bankers say that profitability, business conditions and regulatory challenges remain concerns, though in the last three quarters bankers are increasingly showing more confidence, according to the most recent Community Bank Sentiment Index, which was released in April.

All of this comes on the heels of the recent span of bank failures, including Signature Bank, Silicon Valley Bank and others.

“During this time of disruption in the marketplace that we've all seen,” Lubow said, “we've taken a somewhat strategic offensive approach and been able to really continue the transformation of Dime.”

The bank has more than 60 branches from Manhattan to Montauk, more than 800 employees and $13.5 billion in assets. This includes the opening of a new branch in Westchester on Tuesday.

The bank had already been in growth mode. In 2021, Dime merged with Bridgehampton-based BNB Bank, with all locations rebranded as Dime banks.

“Since our merger, we’ve really continued to grow out and expand upon the commercial banking aspect of the bank,” Lubow said.

In the last year, Lubow said, “we brought on 12 teams from what was the former Signature Bank to enhance what we already had in our private bank,” Lubow said. “We already had a private commercial banking group with white glove service, one-stop single-point-of-contact . We've been very successful in bringing on a significant number of customers through these new teams.”

The bank has also announced the hiring of a national deposit team, as well as a healthcare vertical and a new head of middle-market lending.

In the midst of it all, the lending climate on Long Island is “still fairly robust,” even though “the economy has suffered a bit with the higher rate environment.

“We're still bullish on Long Island and in the area that we do business in,” Lubow said.

Meanwhile, Lubow said, the bank continues to lean on its roots.

“We never lost focus on the fact that we're a community commercial bank,” Lubow said. “That's our strength, and that's our opportunity.”

He added that the bank is “big enough to provide exemplary service and products. But we're not too big to forget that the most important assets are our customers and our people.”

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