The story
19th century
In the mid-19th century, few banking options existed for the growing number of manufacturers in the city of Buffalo. As a result, businessmen Pascal Pratt and Bronson Rumsey founded M&T Bank in 1856 as "Manufacturers and Traders Trust Company". Henry Martin, former president of the Attica and Buffalo Railroad, was appointed the first president and assigned a salary of $1,000 a year. The company opened its first office on August 29 of that year at 2 East Swan Street in Buffalo. In 1885, Martin retired as president, at the age of 83, and was succeeded by Pascal Pratt, who had served as Vice President since the bank was formed.
20th century
In 1901, the bank built a new headquarters on a site purchased for $210,000 near the southwest corner of Main and Swan Streets in Buffalo. The granite neo-classical building was designed by architect E. B. Green of Green & Wicks. By 1914, Robert Livingston Fryer was the bank's President. In 1917, Harry T. Ramsdell, the bank's fourth president, served as a district chairman for a special subscription committee of the national Liberty Loan program.
Following the 1925 merger with Fidelity Trust, the $100 million company was headed by Fidelity's President, 36-year-old Lewis G. Harriman. Harriman and a group of investors including A. H. Schoellkopf, from the founding family of the Niagara Mohawk power company, and James V. Forrestal, who would become the first U.S. Secretary of Defense, own enough shares to control both Fidelity and M&T.
In 1961, M&T acquired an entire block on Main Street between North Division and Eagle Streets in downtown Buffalo and began plans for a $12 million skyscraper to become the bank's new headquarters. In 1963, architect Minoru Yamasaki, who was featured on the cover of Time magazine that year as he was designing the World Trade Center in New York City, was retained by M&T to design its new building in Buffalo, which was completed in 1967. In 1964, Charles W. Millard succeeded Harriman as chairman of M&T.
In 1969, M&T's stockholders voted to create a multi-bank holding company known as First Empire State Corporation. In 1983, the bank which had assets of $2 billion and operated 60 offices, named Robert G. Wilmers as chairman and CEO, a position he held until his death in December 2017. In 1995, First Empire formed a national bank subsidiary, M&T Bank, N.A.
21st century
In 2008, M&T received a $600 million investment by the United States Treasury as a result of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and M&T assumed another $482 million in TARP obligations from its acquisitions. In 2012, the bank repaid $700 million of TARP funds.
In June 2014, a U.S. District Judge ordered M&T Bank to forfeit $560,000 that had been laundered through its Perry Hall, Maryland, branch; from 2011 to 2013, Deanna Bailey went to the branch and had head teller Sabrina Fitts convert cash amounts from $20,000 to $100,000 into larger bills. Fitts accepted a 1% transaction fee in exchange for not filing a currency transaction report. This violated the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970.
On December 16, 2017, non-executive chairman Robert T. Brady became acting chairman and CEO. On December 20, 2017, René F. Jones was appointed chairman and CEO. In 2021, M&T Bank contributed $33.9 million to over 3,000 nonprofit organizations across eight states and the District of Columbia. The bank has donated more than $279.4 million to nonprofits over the past decade, and over $437.5 million to nonprofits over the past two decades.
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In May 2022, M&T announced a $25 million initiative to support lower-income communities and underrepresented groups. The new Amplify Fund will be deployed over three years with most of the funds set to be distributed to Connecticut-based organizations and other north-eastern states where People’s United had operated. M&T announced that $9 to $11 million will be distributed by the end of 2022, with the rest of the funds to be distributed over the next two years and expects to fund approximately 60 to 70 organizations in the initiatives first phase. In August 2022, M&T announced a partnership with Stefon Diggs; Diggs served as a brand ambassador for M&T’s “Football Brings Us Together” campaign. In October 2022, M&T launched its Multicultural Banking Center in East Hartford, Connecticut; the bank has 118 multicultural locations. In 2022, M&T was listed as one of the Best Places to Work for Disability Inclusion by the Disability Equality Index (DEI) for its fourth consecutive year.
From Wikipedia’s article on M&T Bank, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.7