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Aiming for a local market on the borderless Internet, Stonebridge Bank seems built on a contradicition.
A state-chartered commercial bank with headquarters in West Chester, Pa., Stonebridge has fixed its focus primarily on the Delaware Valley, an area that crosses counties in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey. It offers its banking products and services through Stonebridge-- bank.com, a subsidiary of the holding company Stonebridge Financial.
"The local Internet was the niche we picked," said Christopher J. Annas, president and CEO at Stonebridge Bank. "When the Internet banks first came out, they tried to take a national footprint. We decided on a specific geographic area."
In another example of reverse strategy, virtual Stonebridge originated out of the brick and mortar of Community Bank of Chester County in Exton, Pa., which Annas, a former divisional vice president in charge of corporate and media lending for Summit Bank, opened in 1999. Seeing banks and brokerages convert to the Web, "we decided that's where we wanted to head," Annas said.
Stonebridge opened its Web doors in February 2000, keeping the Exton location as a full-service...