M&T Bank looks to soothe customers after merger mess on accounts

A week after M&T Bank’s bungled combination with accounts from former People’s United Bank customers, a bank executive said Tuesday customer troubles are subsiding but the bank will have the challenge of repairing damaged relationships.

The New York State Department of Financial Services said it has received 31 complaints since the banks' merger of operations left some customers shut out of accounts. M&T now has 50 branches on Long Island out of about 1,000 from Virginia to Maine.

"There are still customers who we are working with to troubleshoot issues and improve their overall experience," a statement from the Buffalo-based bank said Tuesday.

“We want to make sure any disenfranchised customer gets a full acknowledgment of what we put them through, and get back on track and that we have a long-term relationship with them,” said Mike Keegan, executive vice president and head of M&T’s community markets. “We know we have some work to do, and we will get it right,” he said;

M&T acquired People’s United for $8.3 billion in April. The day after the Labor Day holiday weekend, social media lit up with complaints and lines formed in branches with unhappy customers.

“Some of these things are just not obvious when you’re doing the [planning] even when you are doing mock conversions,” Keegan said.

For example, M&T found that it needed to update the mobile apps for Android and Apple devices so customers could successfully access mobile bill-pay. All app changes then needed to be approved by those stores before they could be offered for download.

Keegan said Tuesday the biggest trouble spot was in online and mobile accounts, specifically logging in for the first time. In some cases, special characters in usernames were causing problems, an issue that has been resolved, Keegan said.

Wait times for questions on digital banking on M&T’s customer service line were averaging about 2 hours Tuesday, down from 3-plus hours a week ago, according to a bank spokesman.

With Sarina Trangle