MMB Merger

This morning Merrill Bank announced it is merging with Chittenden Corporation. A large company based out of Vermont. Chittenden owns 5 other banks, Merrill will make it 6. We will keep our name, our logo and decision making power. BUT, most operation departments will become centralized in Vermont. This is me. My job will probably either disappear entirely or change SIGNIFICANTLY. All loans will be processed in Vermont (with the exception of loans we call "portfolio loans" that will stay within Merrill Bank, these loans total about 6 per month!). Today turned out to be very unproductive. Most of us spent the day talking about the merger and what it could mean for us. There will be more departments opening up and current areas will be expanding. We have 2 more branches opening up that will need to be staffed - so jobs will be available once the merger is final. The actual merge will take until about June, but we will not begin changing our functions right away. I'm looking at the end of the year before my job could actually change. The merge could open up many new doors for me. As most of you know from past posts I am not too excited about staying a processor forever. Hopefully some really good jobs will be available and HOPEFULLY I'll get an opportunity to apply for one of them. It also will give me an opportunity to relocate. Like I said earlier Chittenden is based out of Vermont, they have many company's within 4 different states. Some of you may have heard of Maine Banking & Trust. They are owned by Chittenden - which if you know of this Bank you may not have known about Chittenden because they are not advertised as a subsidiary company. Merrill Bank's top competitors are Bank of America, Bangor Savings & TD Banknorth (to name a few). Merrill Bank is significantly smaller than these company's, but still competes with the best of them. NOW, Merrill Bank WILL end up on top and that is very exciting for Senior Management, since I'm sure they'll reap the benefits from that!
It's all a little shocking since Merrill Bank has worked so hard to stay a competitive, but small local bank. I think they did it for good reasons - it'll increase there loan capabilities and they won't need to deal with the compliance and regulatory side of things. (which can be a very unfriendly side - for instance we set aside $400,000 in our budget for this stuff).
As time goes on we'll start to learn more about the merger. There's a lot of unanswered questions for all of us - even senior management. As the time gets closer to the merger and the end of the year we'll start to find out more and more. I just hope this is an opening I've been looking for! I'm excited to see what it brings my way.