Billy Carroll, president and CEO of SmartFinancial, speaks during an interview in the offices of Cornerstone Bank onTuesday, Sept. 1, 2015, in Chattanooga, Tenn. About SmartBank
Parent company: SmartFinancial Inc. based in KnoxvilleAssets: $980 millionBranches: 12 branches and two loan production offices, including five branches in ChattanoogaCEO: Billy Carroll in KnoxvilleChairman: Miller Welborn in ChattanoogaStaff: 225 employees, including about 100 in Chattanooga
Chattanooga is getting a new bank over the weekend.
Cornerstone Bank is converting its five offices to the SmartBank name and will enter the residential mortgage market at three branches on Tuesday.
The changes reflect the merger last September of the 30-year-old Cornerstone Bank in Chattanooga with the 9-year-old SmartBank in Pigeon Forge to create the biggest independent bank in East Tennessee.
The new SmartBank name, which bank Chairman Miller Welborn said is ideally suited for Chattanooga’s growing innovation and entrepreneurial focus, will replace the Cornerstone name at all five of the Chattanooga branches by Monday morning.
“It’s a whole brand redo,” Welborn said Friday as bank employees prepared for the weekend conversion of bank systems and signage. “We’re changing everything from the maroon pens on the teller lines to the deposit and withdrawal slips used by our customers to the business cards and the apparel worn by our associates.”
Along with the new name, consumers will see some new product offerings next week. SmartBank is adding residential lending at three of its five local offices on Tuesday. SmartBank also has some expanded technology and mobile platforms to allow customers the ability to do more banking on their mobile phones and to gain options for more treasury management products for business clients.
Credit limits for the former Cornerstone Bank also have tripled following its merger last year with SmartBank.
“We’ll have the same great people delivering the same great services, but we will have some more products and some additional technology,” said Barry Watson, president of SmartBank in Chattanooga, which is in the process of creating a new local advisory board to maintain the local perspective for the Knoxville-based holding company.
SmartBank is also adding residential lending in Chattanooga on March 1. SmartBank has built a back office mortgage operation in Florida to help support the new mortgage lending service.
SmartBank already extended the hours of some of its branches in Chattanooga last month, opening drive-through windows as early as 7:30 a.m. and keeping drive-through windows open until 6 p.m. on weekdays. SmartBank also added Saturday hours at three of its offices.
Billy Carroll, CEO of SmartBank, said Cornerstone “has had to play defense” in the past when the Chattanooga bank operated for several years under an FDIC consent order.
“But now we are playing offense and we have a very energetic, entrepreneurial sales culture, which is fun,” Carroll said Friday. “We put a lot of energy in our culture.”
Although banks have historically been places where employees wear suits and ties, SmartBank is sporting a more informal and inviting look.
“I think you’ll see a much more casual, user-friendly and uninhibiting environment where you will find a more comfortable setting when you come in,” Welborn said. “I think you’ll see as our branches start to be rebranded, some brighter colors and not the dark, old mahogany smoke-filled rooms. And if one of our bankers has a tie on, he’s probably headed to a funeral.”
The downtown main office of Cornerstone at Georgia Avenue and M.L. King, which is jointly owned by SmartBank and the Lamp Post Group, may be revamped to help conform with the Miller Park revamp in the midst of the Innovation District.
“One of the things we are committed to do is to plug some of our younger lenders into many of these new startups in Chattanooga to help work with businesses as they grow,” said Welborn, one of the partners of the Lamp Post Group.
Carroll said he was attracted to Chattanooga by its growing entrepreneurial climate and the shared philosophies of the two banks.
“As we went through the process of putting the banks together, we found the philosophies are very similar,” Carroll said. “Both of our banks have stayed aggressive in the market in their deposit pricing so our clients will be happy with the rates we will offer.”
SmartBank sent out thousands of new debit cards to bank customers over the past couple of weeks in preparation for this weekend’s conversion to the new SmartBank system. But the bank will continue to honor and use Cornerstone-marked checks, deposit slips and other forms until they run out.
Unlike many bank mergers, the combination didn’t require any staff cuts or as big of a software conversion and employee training program.
“Both banks were very lean and since we both had the same software system, we won’t have to be learning a whole new system,” Carroll said.
Much of the combined bank’s back office operations will be done at Cornerstone’s operations center on Lee Highway.
SmartBank made a similar, though smaller conversion three years ago after buying the assets and liabilities of the former GulfSouth Private Bank, which had offices in the Florida Panhandle cities of Destin, Fort Walton Beach, Pensacola and Santa Rosa Beach.
The combined bank has assets of nearly $1 billion at its offices in the Knoxville, Chattanooga and Destin, Fla., metropolitan areas.
Contact Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com or at 757-6340