Northwest Bank has issued a statement regarding operational changes due to COVID-19. The statement reads:
“At Northwest, the health and safety of our customers, employees and the communities we serve is our top priority.
As the number of COVID-19 cases across our footprint continues to rise, we’ve decided to limit access to our branch lobbies and move to serve customers through our network of drive through locations and alternative banking channels, effective Monday, November 23, 2020—a preventative measure we successfully employed this past spring with minimal customer impact.
Northwest Bank lobbies will be open by appointment only during normal business hours to control the number of people in a branch at any one time. Customers who need to access a safe deposit box or have banking needs that can only be addressed in person can schedule an appointment one of two ways—
1. Calling their preferred Northwest office or calling or emailing their preferred Northwest banker
2. Using our online appointment scheduler—customers can simply select their preferred location and enter their name, email address, telephone number and desired appointment date and time to schedule a call or in-person appointment.
All Northwest drive throughs will remain open during normal business hours.
We encourage customers to use channels like Northwest Online and Mobile Banking, our network of free and deposit-accepting ATMs and telephone banking, which allow convenient, 24/7 access to check balances, make deposits and payments, get cash and more. Customers can learn more at www.northwest.com/coronavirus-readiness.
These temporary changes are being made out of an abundance of caution as preventative measures to decrease the number of people interacting within our branches and create greater social distance between our teams and customers, as recommended by the Federal Coronavirus Task Force and Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
We are fully-committed to ensuring that every customer can interact with us and continue to conduct all banking transactions. However, these steps are critical to help prevent the spread of the disease and necessary to ensure the health and safety of everyone.
We are closely monitoring the situation, collecting first-hand knowledge from each of our operating regions, state and local governments and our regulators (FDIC, OCC and the Federal Reserve), and will continue to adapt our retail delivery model and workforce as the situation evolves.
We thank all of our employees and customers for their patience and understanding as we navigate this unprecedented time.”
