Hingham Institution for Savings recently opened this branch on Tremont Street in Boston’s South End, its first outside of the South Shore.

Two financial institutions have opened branches in Boston’s South End in the past few months – with completely different objectives, their presidents said.

Winthrop Federal Credit Union, a member-only institution directed at those who live, work or attend church or school in certain Boston neighborhoods; and Hingham Institution for Savings, a $684 million, state-chartered savings bank seeking to expand its commercial lending business, among other objectives, opened within blocks – and weeks – of each other on Tremont Street.

“We want the people that really need help Â… That is what we are looking for,” said Joseph M. Clark, chief executive officer of Winthrop Federal, which he’s worked for since it was founded (his father was a board member) in 1963, although both he and Branch Manager Joanne Evans acknowledge that the institution needs customers with a range of incomes to succeed.

Robert H. Gaughen Jr., president and chief executive officer of Hingham Savings, said his interest in the South End was prompted by the fact that the bank does a lot of lending in Boston.

“More than half of our overall lending is on commercial or investment properties and multifamilies, and a lot of that has been in the city, for the past six or seven years,” he said. “Our thinking was we’d follow some deposit business off that lending.”

He also noted – as did others, about the South End, in particular – that “there aren’t as many community banks in the city.”

Winthrop Federal’s site at 410 Tremont St., within the Castle Square public housing, is the $41 million credit union’s only location outside Winthrop.

It’s actually had a South End branch since May 2005, when it took over the failing South End Credit Union at the request of its governing federal agency, the National Credit Union Association. But the West Dedham Street location, on the grounds of the Villa Victoria public housing, had such limited hours and visibility that few people knew about it, and many who did weren’t eager to join, explained Clark.

“Some people who wouldn’t join at the old location, when they saw we were in a location that had the feel of a storefront financial institution, that immediately brought in new customers,” he said. “And some of the people took a look at our CD [rates] and said, ‘That’s where I want to go.'”

The credit union also offers “competitive” mortgage rates, according to Evans. “We can get almost anybody a mortgage, because we use credit union servicing companies,” she said.

In fact, Winthrop Federal’s strategy depends on attracting members in all income brackets, since – like most community banks – it needs a certain level of money on deposit to be viable.

“We need at least 40 percent high depositors, and we are probably higher than that,” Clark said. The credit union considers those who direct-deposit their paychecks its “lifeblood,” he added – although all that’s required to be a voting member is a $25 deposit.

‘In the Right Place’
Staffers at Hingham Institution for Savings refer to the South End branch – the South Shore-based bank’s eighth, and the first outside the Hingham-Scituate-Weymouth area, as President Robert Gaughen’s “baby.” It doesn’t seem so far off: Gaughen speaks fondly of the “high-touch” planning and nurturing that went into the month-old addition to the Hingham Savings family.

The new branch features “senior, experienced people,” he noted, “not a recent hire [whom you might encounter] at one of the big banks.”

Gaughen noted that the bank also wants to attract customers seeking a smaller business loan (for example, $1 million), “smaller Â… than someone at Sovereign [Bank] might get excited about.”

“And in many instances, we are paying higher [deposit interest] rates than the big banks,” he added.

To attract new in-city accounts, the bank is attempting to counter the lack-of-convenience perception by reimbursing customers up to $20 a month for ATM fees they’d encounter from using other banks’ ATMs, Gaughen said.

Clark and Evans have an equal love and loyalty for their business.

“We’ve more than doubled the size of [the bank’s assets in] the South End. We were at $1.6 million, in August, to over $4 million there now,” said Clark, adding that he wouldn’t be surprised if that number became $10 million within a year.

Banks can get sensitive when credit unions expand, because unlike a bank, they’re tax-exempt, industry observers say.

The Massachusetts Bankers Association, a trade association representing all 210 Massachusetts banks, maintains a Web site called creditunionruse.com, and there are other indicators of a strained relationship between the two types of institutions.

MBA President Daniel Forte called it “interesting that you have a bank and a credit union pursuing the same location.”

“Credit unions are acting just like community banks” but they aren’t taxed and have fewer regulatory burdens, he said.

Massachusetts Credit Union League President Dan Egan countered that credit unions actually aren’t new in the neighborhood. South End Credit Union, which Winthrop Federal took over, had been at Villa Victoria for at least 20 years, he said.

Credit unions also meet the needs of lower-income residents whom banks won’t serve, he added – and in the South End, there’s a need.

“If you look at where they’re located, you will see that many times, community banks have abandoned that area,” said Egan.

Banks seem to get annoyed when a competitor steps on their turf – and credit unions criticize some of them as mercenary or rigid.

“We had someone come in here [who] had a Bank of America card with 32 percent interest,” Evans said. “We got the woman a 9 percent interest credit card. The woman absolutely qualified.”

She said the South End resident had been told she had the rate because she charged over her credit limit once.

But Sean Mahoney, an attorney at Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Nicholson Graham in Boston, said there’s “probably enough business to go around” in the South End for smaller banks and credit unions.

“That is what community banks have been doing – finding underserved markets that need a high level of service, and also need someone to fill a niche,” he said. “The good ones, that is what they are doing to survive. The community banking model needs branches Â… in the right place.”

Staffers at Winthrop Federal and Hingham Savings didn’t mention a problem with each other’s existence, and Forte noted, “No one is afraid of competition, as long as it’s exercised on a level playing field.”

Winthrop Federal, he said, “is not a large player, and they haven’t been a major violator of the tenets.”