Roslyn Savings Bank name replaced after 149 years with the Flagstar Bank brand

New York Community Bancorp Inc. has dropped the 10 brand names on its branches — including Roslyn Savings Bank, Queens County Savings Bank and New York Community Bank — in favor of the name of a Michigan-based lender that it purchased in December 2022: Flagstar Bank.

The move, months in the making, retires the Queens County Savings name, which dates from 1859, and Roslyn Savings, which goes back to 1875.

Flagstar signs were erected at NYCB's Hicksville headquarters and at branches and ATMs on Long Island, in New York City and across 12 states between last Friday and Monday, spokeswoman Nicole Yelland said on Thursday. The new brand also now appears on the website as well as documents and other materials. 

Yelland said customers were informed of the changes last month, including the rollout of a new Flagstar mobile app and a unified online platform that replaces the previous multiple platforms for banking services. 

"Customers are encouraged to download our new mobile app to fully experience the new brand," she said.

The renaming comes as NYCB attempts to recover from a stock sell-off where its share price lost more than 50% of its value after an unexpected loss in the October-December quarter and a dividend cut to conserve cash.

The stock closed up 12 cents, or nearly 3%, to $4.62 per share on Thursday in New York Stock Exchange trading. NYCB shares were trading above $10 last month.  

“The merging of NYCB's and Flagstar's operating systems… and national rebranding is an important inflection point in our history,” the bank’s new executive chairman Alessandro “Sandro” DiNello said on Wednesday in announcing the conclusion of the renaming project.

The bank is “committed to growing stronger as one company aligned under the Flagstar name. We remain confident in the strength of the bank, and believe we are well-positioned to deliver the full range of our products, services, and expertise under a single foundation,” he said.

DiNello was appointed executive chairman on Feb. 6 after the stock meltdown. He had been non-executive chairman of the board of directors.

He and other executives have been telling investors about how DiNello turned around the original Flagstar, bringing its share price from $14.01 in May 2013 to $46.54 in April 2021 when the purchase by NYCB was announced.

“We have a strong retail franchise with reliable deposits… a significant amount of insured deposits,” states an investor presentation filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. “We have been upgrading select areas in our management and will continue to invest in strengthening our risk capabilities.”

The presentation also notes that executives and others have been buying shares to demonstrate faith in the new Flagstar.

Still, the bank faces a number of lawsuits from dissatisfied shareholders and its credit rating has been downgraded to “junk” by the ratings agency Moody's.

On Wall Street, the lender's woes have been compared to those of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, which both failed last year and were taken over by government regulators. NYCB eventually purchased some Signature assets. 

By James T. Madore

james.madore@newsday.comJamesTMadore

James T. Madore writes about Long Island business news including the economy, development, and the relationship between government and business. He previously served as Albany bureau chief.