Hal Tovin
Title: Executive Vice President and Chief Operating
Age: 57
Experience: 15 years in packaged goods marketing; 21 years in banking
Hal Tovin worked for a short while as a salesman after finishing an undergraduate degree in political science at Brown University. Then, he earned an MBA and intrigued by packaged goods marketing, he wound up at General Mills working in the classic Betty Crocker baked goods department, where he helped introduce beloved favorites like the Chewy Granola Bar.
In the early 90s, he says, he was “tricked into” banking, and he’s been there ever since. He worked for Belmont Savings Bank President and CEO Bob Mahoney while they were both at Citizens Bank, and when Mahoney moved over to Belmont Savings, Tovin followed him. Now executive vice president and chief operating officer, Tovin says it’s the most fun he’s ever had.
Q: You have big bank experience and small bank experience, so what can the little banks offer that the big banks can’t?
A: Well, nothing, really. The whole point is, when a big bank gets to a certain size, its strategy has to change. They make decisions across large entities. Fees, for example, are very important to a big bank. When you have hundreds of thousands of customers, a minor change in a fee is hundreds of thousands of dollars. When you’re in a community bank, in today’s world, you can provide the same products and services, but you don’t have to structure yourself the same way as a big bank, so your fee structure can be very different.
Our whole strategy is about building customers and offering the products and services of the big bank, with the personal delivery and community neighborhood involvement of the little bank.
Q: What are some of those products and services?
A: You couldn’t have done what we’re doing today 15 years ago. Today there are companies where we can outsource our technology and have as good an online banking product as you have at any of the large banks. We offer an iPad app and a mobile banking app. We introduced this iPhone app where you can take a picture of your check, and you don’t have to come to the bank. You just deposit it online.
So now our products and services can look exactly the same as the big bank.
Q: You mentioned earlier that your fee structure can be a little different – can you elaborate on that?
A: We just eliminated a dozen or so fees. They’re a nuisance to people, they don’t like them. And we make some money on them, but at the end of the day, it wasn’t worth it, so we eliminated them. There are a few we also adjusted, but the numbers that we adjusted are much smaller than the ones we eliminated.
To eliminate fees in a bigger bank would be much more difficult. You can also do some of the things that you know worked in a big bank. And you can do them quicker.
Q: How do you market yourselves to prospective customers?
A: Our general advertising campaign is about switching. We offer a switch guarantee. We’ll switch you in 60 minutes or pay you $60. Switching banks is not easy. You’ve got to be ready to do it, so we’ve created a switch kit. Ironically, very few people actually take us up on the guarantee.
People change banks either when they have a life event – the birth of a child, for example, or they get married – or their other bank does something to annoy them. That’s really what creates the switching, so we have to be there when those moments occur.
Belmont Savings BANK’S Five Community Events for 2013:
- Waltham YMCA Family Event Series
- Watertown Education Fund/Belmont Foundation for Education Spelling Bees
- Walk for Belmont/ Partners in Play
- Belmont Brendan Grant Annual 5k Run
- Watertown Mt. Auburn Club Events
