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November 28, 2016 Edition
Focus on Banking & Finance

Maine-based banks fill a void left behind

Jennifer Van Allen

TD Bank, KeyBank and Bank of America have closed branches in Cumberland County over the past decade, while community banks like Gorham Savings Bank, Bangor Savings Bank, Camden National Bank and Norway Savings Bank have stepped up their presence in the market.

  • Banks, wealth management firms gear up for new fiduciary rule

    James McCarthy

    Maine banks, wealth management firms and other financial advisors who work with retirement plans or provide retirement planning advice are gearing up to meet a new fiduciary rule from the Department of Labor that's scheduled to be gradually phased in beginning next April.

  • How To's
    How To's

    Prepare a data center for disaster recovery

    Mike Reed

    The top 15 employers in the state of Maine are all medical centers, universities, financial institutions or government entities. All of these organizations have something else in common — they have serious privacy and security concerns and are under pressure to protect their business systems, applications and data.

  • Take advantage of new tax incentives for year-end equipment financing

    Stephen Krolikowski

    Forward-thinking business leaders should consider acquiring new or updated equipment before the end of 2016 to take advantage of legislation that both expands deductions and extends depreciation benefits for qualifying equipment purchases.

  • Business advice that's free and anonymous

    Lori Valigra

    They come to be judged without being pre-judged. That's the premise of the House of Genius, where 10 panelists from firemen to financiers share business advice based on a single question presented by each of two entrepreneurial companies.

  • Opinion
    Opinion

    Maine needs TIFs that would benefit communities, businesses and workers

    Jennifer Mckenna

    Many Maine communities use Tax Increment Financing to provide incentives to corporations and developers to attract new jobs and jumpstart major construction projects, from business parks to hotels to condominiums.

  • How 'plywood on steroids' reduces construction time and payroll costs

    James McCarthy

    Sometimes referred to as “plywood on steroids,” CLT and related engineered wood products such as nail laminated and glue-laminated timber have been identified by the Maine Forest Products Council as among the forest products with growing potential to boost the state's forest products industry.

  • Advice: Free and anonymous

    Lori Valigra

    There's no shortage of opinions about the usefulness of advice. Take Lucy van Pelt's psychiatry booth in the comic strip “Peanuts,” where she tells the depressed Charlie Brown, “Snap out of it, five cents please.”

  • In Short
    In Short

    IN SHORT

    New hiresVerrill Dana, a law firm in Portland, hired Anya Endsley, Samuel Baldwin, Christopher Monroe and Michael Kebede as associates.

Today's Poll

Is it time for the Federal Reserve to start cutting interest rates?
Poll Description

Over the past several months, banks and other businesses have been looking for the Federal Reserve Board to cut interest rates, but the waiting game continues.

Basing its decision on new economic reports, the Fed on May 1 said it doesn’t plan to cut rates until it has “greater confidence” that inflation is slowing toward the central bank's 2% target. Three rate reductions have been projected for 2024, likely starting in June.

But for now, it appears the key borrowing rate in the U.S. will stay at a two-decade high of roughly 5.3%.

Keeping the rate so high for so long may tame inflation, but can also discourage new investment and business growth.

“The Fed is really stressing the banking industry,” said Andrew Silsby, president and CEO of Augusta-based Kennebec Savings Bank, in a Mainebiz story last month. “The economic environment is really quite difficult, but I haven’t quite figured out whether we’re through the storm or in the eye of the storm.”

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