Wilmington Trust merger will take time

No changes at Wilmington Trust until summer 2011

It will be at least 6 months perhaps longer before people who bank at Wilmington Trust will see any changes as a result of this week’s merger with M&T bank.

Spokesman Mike Zabel says the process will follow two tracks.  The first is the regulatory and shareholder approval process.  The other is systems.   He says there is a lot of paperwork to file with the Federal Reserve Bank, but he says there is nothing about this proposed merger that should delay the merger.

He also says Wilmington Trust and M&T officials are trying to go through what parts of their corporate and bank structures over lap and what should be added on to the current M&T banking set up.

“Everything from deciding what to do with ATM cards and checks right up to how to incorporate Wilmington Trust’s wealth managment and corporate trust business is what we’re doing now,” Zabel said.

Zabel also noted that Chairman and CEO Robert Wilmers was impressed with two guests who stopped into Wilmington Trusts offices in Wilmington right after the announcement was made.  Governor Jack Markell and Senator Tom Carper were in Wilmington and went to see Wilmers who was meeting with Wilmington Trust officials.   Zabel said Wilmers noted “we’d never get that kind of response in Buffalo.”

Governor Markel was in our WHYY studio to talk about how he viewed Wilmington Trust as an important part of Delaware and the he believed M&T bank got that message.

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