HARRISBURG – As Northwest Bank adapts its practices to prevent the spread of Coronavirus and to ensure the well-being of its customers and employees, the bank will further limit access to its branch lobbies and continue to serve customers through its retail drive-thru network and alternative banking channels.
Starting Monday, March 30, the bank will reduce its branch lobby hours and limit in-person banking appointments to weekdays between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. and Saturday during normal business hours.
Bank Practices
- Lobbies will be open by appointment only to limit the number of people in a branch at any one time.
- Customers, who need access to a safe deposit box or have specific needs that can only be addressed in person, can schedule an appointment by calling their preferred branch or banker.
- In addition, through a new scheduling tool, customers can visit www.northwest.comand in “three easy clicks” schedule a call or in-person appointment at one of the local branches.
- Drive-thru services will remain open during normal business hours.
o Those branches without drive-thru services will remain open with lobby access by appointment only.
- As an alternative to branch banking, bank staff are encouraging customers to use Northwest’s online tools and other resources for self-service banking and 24/7 account access.
o Customers can bank virtually anywhere, anytime through a wide array of channels including online and mobile banking, our telephone banking system, Bankline, on premise depository ATMs and access to 55,000 ATMs through the Allpoint Network. Customers can easily make payments, view transactions, check account balances, find an ATM and much more.
It was noted that these temporary realignments are being made out of an abundance of caution and are being put in place as a preventative measure to decrease the number of people interacting in branch offices, creating greater social distance between bank staff and customers, as recommended by the Federal Coronavirus Task Force and Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention.
Bank staff are fully-committed to ensuring that every customer can interact with them and continue to conduct all banking transactions. However, these steps are critical to the prevention and spread of the disease and necessary to ensure the health and safety of everyone.
Bank staff are closely monitoring the situation, collecting first-hand knowledge from each of its operating regions, state and local governments and its regulators (FDIC, OCC and Federal Reserve), and will continue to adapt its retail delivery model and workforce as the situation evolves.
Bank staff thank all of their customers for their patience and understanding as they navigate this crisis.