President's Letter

From the 2012 Annual Report

By Peter L. Judkins
President & Chief Executive Officer

While thinking about my annual message, I found a Statement of Condition for Franklin Savings Bank from September of 1968, one hundred years after the bank opened its doors for business in Farmington.

At the time, the bank consisted of the main office and a new branch office in Rumford. Asset size was $17.7 million, of which $11.1 million, or 63 percent of the assets, were in consumer mortgages. The bank was doing some other consumer lending, but no commercial lending. We were paying depositors 5 percent on their passbook savings accounts and advertising free parking and a drive-up window for customer convenience.

Today, we have eight branches, including our branch at Mt. Blue High School. The bank has grown to $327 million in assets, with $164 million, or 50 percent of assets, in consumer mortgages. Some things have not changed. Among other things, we still offer free parking and drive-up windows for customer convenience and we have added a VISA debit card that can be used for purchases and cash access around the world. ATMs, online banking and Internet bill pay are now so much the norm, we take them completely for granted. On the horizon now are new ways to deliver our services to customers, such as, perhaps, mobile banking. Much of our focus now is on keeping ahead of the criminals in protecting the safety and security of our customer accounts.
The banking environment has changed but Franklin Savings Bank continues to operate with the same principles that guided its establishment in 1868; we are still here to provide financial services to our communities and our customers. The rate environment has changed considerably since those early days, but time has shown that the industry and the economy move through cycles. While it has become increasingly challenging to balance a competitive rate structure and shrinking margin with the long-term financial health of this institution, our team is up for the task. I am confident that we will once again return to more prosperous times, when deposit rates will rise to a level that will enable the bank to offer reasonable investment options for our depositors and the economy will expand to offer new opportunities for growth and increasing loan demand.
Franklin Savings Bank continues to be a leader in community giving. The bank and our Community Development Foundation contributed more than $170,000 to various non-profit, economic development and educational efforts in 2012 and our employees were involved in many organizations and activities that exist to make our communities better places to work, live and play. We are committed to serving our communities and the people who live in them.
As a side note, Franklin Savings Bank is pleased to bring back another link to its past and that of Farmington by constructing a staircase connecting Main and Front Streets. As noted in the letter below from Gwil Roberts, this stair link goes back a long time. We are pleased to see so many people already using it.

Financial Highlights

The bank ended the year with total assets of $329 million and net income of $2.95 million. We closed 405 consumer mortgages and home equity loans for a total of $42.9 million. We also closed 383 commercial loans, totaling $38.5 million and 1,020 non-mortgage consumer loans totaling $7.0 million. Deposits totaled $240.0 million at year end.
Many thanks to our Board of Directors, our Corporators, our customers and our dedicated and very capable staff who help make Franklin Savings Bank an integral part of our communities.

See the financials