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New bank busts into Boston market; hopes to embed employees as professors at local universities
By adamg on Thu, 04/29/2021 - 9:28am
A Buffalo-based bank called M&T Bank has bought People's United Bank, which itself moved into the Boston area from away a few years back. The Boston Business Journal interviewed M&T's CEO, and part of his strategy for getting entrenched here and hiring local talent is to convince local universities to hire bank employees as professors.
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That's a strategy that the
That's a strategy that the Koch brothers have been employing for decades. Not thrilled to hear that additional ghoulish corporations are hopping on that train.
People's Bank
I don't normally do bad reviews but I'll make an exception for People's bank. While the employees were friendly, they were the most incompetent bank I ever dealt with. I had a non-profit organization account and every. single. transaction they got wrong. They would intermix our groups personal and organization accounts, resetting info on the wrong one. They could not update mailing addresses.
I was so glad to finally drop them. I used to think all banks were basically the same until I had the misfortune of dealing with People's.
I would question any university that hires any of their executives. (And becides adjunct positions, that's not how the larger schools work when it comes to faculty.)
Is he aware of how the academic job market works?
Maybe I'm missing something, but I'm not seeing where local universities are just bursting with unfilled openings for professors and are desperate to hire whoever they can get. Much the opposite, really.
"Embed"
Perhaps the bank plans on including the academic job salary/bennies on the bank side? That is, offer universities free (to them) labor.
Exactly
How it works:
There are full time academic positions, some being tenure based and others being non-tenure track. Irrespective, there are not many opening and they are extremely competitive. Since the hiring is run by other faculty, you need to have some academic connection and a advanced degree (Ph.D, etc) to be considered at all. The pay is not that great and there's a lot of tedious work at junior faculty level. (Relatively, speaking.)
Then there are adjunct positions in which someone is hired to teach one or two specific classics. These people aren't considered "real" professors by the schools although that might not be obvious to a student. This might be attractive to a bank executive since they can teach one or two nights a week and claim they teach at NEU, BC, Harvard, etc to pad their ego. But as an adjunct you're not getting any of privileges of being a professor, it's only a few thousand in income, and no one takes it that seriously. You don't publish or speak as a member of the University and you are hired for only a semester at a time.
As an adjunct you don't normally attend faculty meetings. You have no say or power within the department. You might be respected as a good teacher but the idea an adjunct can be an emissary to the school is just not how it works. However, if the adjunct is teaching higher level classes they might be able to ID good students and encourage them to apply for bank jobs. That might actually be what M&T is looking to do but it's a very roundabout way of finding new hires.
How nice of them.
No more Finance Industry Defense Lawyers at the SEC. And no bank employees as professors.
Keep the Kochtopus out of Boston.
Physical banking?
Somehow this guy is proud about a merger that will have around 1,200 branches and 2,400 ATMs when it's complete. 1997 must've been "his year" and he seems to be stuck there, reimagining what the supergroup scene would look like if he could just convince Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Smashing Pumpkins and The Prodigy to merge together and play as one band.
I'm not saying this and I'm not saying that, but the last time I walked into a branch was a year ago because I needed a certified check. And it was probably three years since the previous one when I needed a replacement ATM card that day. I'd rather walk into a post office than suffer the indignities of a corporate bank.
Also, the only time I need cash is when I wash my car or buy a banh mi in Chinatown, because those folks only take cash, so an ATM is next to useless at this point and bragging about 2,400 of them is like telling me how many cylinders your combustion engine has.
Yes, YMMV but physical banks aren't going to be much of a thing any more.
I disagree.
I disagree.
Look at places in europe, like Ireland.
They were and to some extent still are ahead of us on mobile banking and advanced credit or debit cards, microchips etc. Physical banking has been cut to the Bone. It is a horror show to get anything done. You want that certified check? You would practically need an appointment.
Call me crazy, but that seems...fine?
I haven't needed to do anything in-person at my bank in over a decade and I don't think I've ever needed a certified check more than once or twice in my entire life. If I had to make an appointment to get one, that seems like a pretty reasonable thing to do.
And I can definitely think of a lot of better uses for the enormous amount of space that that bank branches are currently taking up in our neighborhoods.
M&T BANK
has this bank in Baltimore (that's their secondary market, M&T Bank Stadium is where the Ravens play). Its a really bad bank.