The Community, Connections & Commerce Podcast, presented by OUE & St. Clairsville Chamber - Community and Connections Season 2 Episode 9 with Belmont Savings Bank

Episode Date: December 22, 2025

Hi everyone and welcome back to Community Connections. My name is Wendy Anderson and I'm here with Jason Garsick. Hi Jason. Hey Wendy, how are you? I'm good, how are you? Good, good. I'm glad you're back. Yeah, glad to be here. Okay, we're here also with the BSB crew, the Belmont Savings Bank crew, Todd Kover. What's going on, Wendy? Welcome and Alicia Jordan. Hi, Wendy. Hello. So Todd, we were just talking before we went on air. So give me a little. little bit of this information about baseball. What's this baseball thing in you? Yeah. So as my stress reliever, I coach high school baseball. It's something, you know, I've coached baseball since my oldest kid who's 23 was five years old. So, you know, it's been 18, almost 20 years. It's just something I like doing. I like being around the kids. It keeps me young, you know, keeps me involved and just something I really like doing. So this is my third year of coaching. Second year is the head coach at Wheeling Central. And, you know, we just. just qualified on Saturday for the state final four, which is awesome. Thank you. Yeah. So we're

super excited and hopefully we can get down there and win a couple more games and come in with the trophy. Yeah. Well, that's awesome. I love that little insight to who Todd Kover really is. Yeah. Yeah. The man behind the bank. Right. That's right. So let's talk about Belmont Savings Bank. So you were here last, our last season. And you talked about Belmont Savings Bank. So how many years is it that it's been up in Belmont? How many years has it been Belmont Savings Bank? Well Belmont Savings, we've been around 140 years. So we've been around a long time.

We're still doing the great thing. This will be, believe it or not, this will be my 10th year come December of me being there. So yeah, super exciting. It's a great place to be. It's a great place to bank. You know, we're super involved in a community. You know, we like to give back to the people that help us, help make us who we are. who we are so um you know if you're looking for a community bank that you know uh is low on fees and

and high on energy and high on uh high on life and just excited to help people out and you come see us check us out okay all right so who did you brought alicia here leisha hello well i can't really move because jason's talking the mic but hey how are you i am really excited to be here i think Todd, what Todd said, really sums up who we are. It sums it up, but we are news radio 1170, WWVA. Our people are amazing. Todd is amazing. He allows us to give back to the community in such a big way. And so the good news is our brand is out there and our brand is out there as giving back to the community and being a part of the community. But as Todd also said, we're also a great bank and I think sometimes that gets lost because we are so community driven

but I guess me being here is to really say to second what Todd said and come check us out I mean from the products we offer to the folks that we that work at the bank and that you get to work with they know your name you don't get like a computer generated person that says please hold you get a real person when you call our bank and our our folks are so knowledgeable. We just have a, I'm not saying it because I work there, but we really just have a great team from mortgage to checking, to our managers. Commercial. Commercial lending, yeah.

Business banking. Yeah. I mean, it's just, it's great. And that's one thing I think, too, that gets lost, that we provide service to businesses. So, yeah, so I'll quit talking because I could talk forever about the bank. It's so great. And if I weren't for this guy, I wouldn't be here. So, yeah, so, okay, I'm going to stop talking now. So tell me a little bit more about this business. Yeah, so for the past nine years, my background has been in a credit underwriting

and specifically in the commercial lending area. So we have, I think, five people in that department now. So we can handle anything from a small line of credit for an auto up to, we can actually go up to $12 million is how much our bank can lend to you. So if your business fits in that category, which I would think the majority of businesses in the High Valley fit in that category. Come see us, come check us out.

I guarantee we're the lowest fees around. You know, we're going to be very, very competitive on the rates and we can help your business be successful, more successful. So you just don't give, which I know in your personal and like savings accounts and stuff, you just don't take people's monies and that's it. You walk them through all the process, the whole process and you hold their hands even afterwards right and make sure that everything is still

going well with them yeah you know my my vision i guess 10 years ago was to uh you know offer every product that the big banks do so if you think about that you know the big big regional banks that we have around here i don't want to name them and give them any props but you know who they are you know who they are you know we can do anything they can do uh it's just on it's on a more personal level as as to Alicia's point, more on a consumer service. We're very, very focused on customer service and how can we help you today, which is kind of our tagline. You know, yeah, so we'll walk you through the whole process.

You know, we can do anything, ACH transfers, payroll. We can handle all that thing, all those things for you on the business end, as well as, you know, we can lend you money. So, you know, the good thing about us is all four of our branches are within Beaumont County right now, you know, but we do service outside. We service West Virginia. We service Pennsylvania. We can service, you know, our kind of target area is anything within a two-hour drive.

So if you're within that two-hour market, you know, that you're who we want to come be a business partner with us. And it's not about us making money. It's about us being a partner. And I think that's what really sets us apart is we try to find solutions to what your problems are. And we're not just trying to make a quick buck off you. And I think all those points lead to a great testament in seeing, at least in my line of work, being in a recorder's office, you know, you're the biggest filer in our office in terms of local banks. Yeah. Actually, any banks, really.

Yeah. So I think that's a testament to that. Yeah, I think we're getting out now. You know, I think where's you getting out now? I think we're pretty easy to deal with, you know, our turnaround time on the mortgage side. So if you're looking for, you know, a new house or just refinancing or upgrade or downsize, whatever you're looking for, you know, I think our turnaround time right now is averaging two and a half to three weeks. So if you compare it out to the big banks, they're over a month. So, you know, if you're time crunched or you just, want to have your deal done quicker come see us come check us out you know we'll be we'll be happy to

help you okay and go ahead yeah i'm so sorry and i just want to say too that we're we're partnering with a lot of businesses here in wheeling on their large projects so we're really excited about that if you drive around wheeling you'll see those projects happening i think todd summed it up one day in a meeting and he was like yeah we're helping to build wheeling and he's it's he's right uh we really are helping with those projects here in wheeling so it's not just in belmont county we can service everywhere and we love being part of those big projects that are happening because a lot's happening

here in Wheeling and we're happy to be part of that. Right. And I think, and I love that. And I think my personal thing to do is to incorporate the whole Ohio Valley. It is the whole Ohio Valley. It is not just Belmont County or Ohio County or Marshall County or Wetzel County or Jefferson. It's the Ohio Valley.

And I think people get stuck in, oh, I'm only in Belmont County, so I can only stay in Belmont County. Oh, I'm in Ohio County. I can only stay in Ohio County. I have so many people that I talk to that are afraid to cross that bridge. I know. And I hate that. Yeah, it seems more like an ocean than it does the river. Right.

But, yeah, we're trying to break down those barriers. And again, you know, if you're a business in Wheeling or a business that, you know, can't come to one of our brands, and we have all the products that you can, you know, all the digital products. The bridge starts right now. You can do it all on your phone. You can do it all through the computer. So there's really no excuse for not coming to bank with us. Right, exactly.

Give us a shot. I promise you guys won't be disappointed. Right. And you guys are always out in the community. You are, your bank is really the only bank that I see that is really invested in the community, the whole Ohio Valley. Yeah, that's been one of our priorities. Again, in the past 10 years that I've been there.

You know, we wanted, first of all, it was to build the brand. You know, but as Alicia said, I think our brand's built now, but it's still, you know, being part of a, being a community bank is being part of the communities that you serve. So, you know, the people that bank with us, we want to give back to them. So, you know, my kids, and I'm trying to teach them financial literacy, which I, which is why I think it's so near and dear to my heart as I have three sons. And, you know, the financial literacy, I think everybody should have to go through that to just understand how money works. And it's not just growing on trees. So what do you see in the future with banking? How do you see Belmont Savings Bank continuing what you're doing in the future? Well, I think for us is, you know, the word's out about our brand. So that's been accomplished. That's good. The second part for us is people understand that we are a bank, what we can offer.

We can offer anything that the big banks do. That's, we're kind of in the midst of that. But where we're going to go take it from here, I think AI is going to be super. involved in banking, not the only, not the only industry, but I think there's, there's so much AI that's coming into play in the financial, financial world that it's going to be hard to avoid it. And again, one of my big things, and Alicia can tell you, is from day one, I always wanted a human answer in the phone. And that's going to be as long as we can hold off and keep humans answering the phones, that's going to be good for us. But there's going to be technology.

There's going to be chat boxes, obviously, pop up. You know, we're getting. getting ready to launch a new website soon. So we'll incorporate some of the AI stuff into that, but I really see AI becoming more prominent in the banking industry. Wow. I know that your bank is very, and I'm sure all banks are, very cautious about fraud and trying to get the word out to their customers about that. Do you have any recommendations to listeners about how to avoid fraudulent traps?

Yeah, you know, fraud happens every single day. I just had some of my one of my credit cards so yeah it's it's just for the big thing for me is just keep an eye on your accounts keep an eye on your accounts again you know we're we as the bank and this financial institution we're responsible for that so we have three people that dedicate you know their whole basically their whole day to watching transactions and if it's if you call in and tell us it's fraud and they investigate it a little bit further but yeah there's part of the AI, part of the technology is just getting reports that come in and say, hey, you might want to check this situation out.

This looks suspicious, you know, because the technology can kind of read what you've done over the past history with us, and then if there's something that looks out of line or suspicious, you know, we'll contact you as best we can. Again, we're not going to be able to catch it all, but to answer your question, Jay, just be on a lookout, check your statements. I know it's sometimes it's a pain to get in there. you know look over every transaction uh especially when your kids are using it but uh yeah just keep an eye on what's going on and um you know be be careful all the phone calls these people are pretty um

the phone calls the emails um these people are pretty sophisticated uh these criminals so be on the lookout um always question something if it sounds too good to be true uh it probably is so yeah just just keep an eye out on again on your statements on your transactions that happen and also if it comes through an email or comes through a phone call, just think about it before you make any actions. No, absolutely. And just, that's a great question, because fraud is very heightened, as Todd has said.

But if you receive a call, please know that we will never ask you for your account number or your PIN number. The bank will never ask you that. And I had a call last night, and Todd said he just got hacked. I just got hacked last night, and they called and said,

someone changed your PIN, we're sending you a new PIN, please type it in. I did not type it in I actually called the phone number and it was not a legitimate phone number so just be very very careful because they're getting very smart because people are getting

they're scared you know because I get these I get emails all the time your cloud storage needs upgraded you need to do this you need to send us this information about you know and on your credit your credit card the last four digits

is really all we need and so I've been like it's been happening a lot yeah so Todd say you get into the situation and I think inevitably it's going to happen to everyone at some point but how can Belmont Savings Bank help us through that yeah so you know obviously we don't want it to happen to anyone but it does every day so you call us and we'll kind of walk through your transaction history so we'll kind of hold your hand through this you know it depends on how deep it is I guess Jason If it gets into, like, your credit report starts affecting things like that, we'll help you get a hold of the Credit Bureau, help that get that straightened out. You know, we'll file all the forms on your behalf if it becomes a criminal activity. So we can help you walk through that. But, yeah, just give us a call if it happens with one of our accounts. We'll hold your hand through the process and tell you what you need to do.

That's wonderful. Wow. Okay. So what's next for Belmont Savings Bank? what's next okay oh we're excited so wait i'm really excited to say this part because i think it's important to highlight again that we're celebrating 140 years with no name change um i mean we were belmont federal savings bank but then we just switched that to belmont savings bank but no acquisitions no mergers this bank has been around for 140 years we are planning so many

things, a huge celebration in September. We just want to celebrate with the community. I probably shouldn't have to put that out there because Todd's going to have to pay a lot of money, but we are really excited because it is a big deal. It is a big deal. And we're one of the only banks around this community, this area, the Ohio Valley, I should say, that has been around that long. So we're super excited to be celebrating that. So in my mind, when you say what's next, I'm like, Todd, plan something for another 140 years. So I will let him. him move on with the next phase of that question yeah so it is it is you know my goal is to be around the next 140 years you know truly our board of directors is is in line with that vision we

want to be around we want to remain independent so you know our goal I guess for the next four or five years is to probably open another branch or two you know that being said the construction costs have skyrocketed so you know we had some projects we had to put on hold simply for that reason. You know, the price is almost one and a half time. So, yeah, but if we can find a great location that's going to make sense for us, our goal is going to be to expand the next couple of years. Oh, that's great.

All right. Do you guys have anything else you want to add? No, just come check us out. And thank you guys so much for giving us this opportunity because I feel like everything that we touched on, all the questions that you asked are important for the community to hear so yeah but I yeah say it again Todd yeah no come check us out if you're a customer we thank you if you're not a customer I promise you come give us a chance and you won't be disappointed I can actually say I I have my personal accounts there and my business has an account

there and I have been 100% happy so thank you guys I can attest this while you can do okay we thank you guys that Jason been all my adult life I've been. Okay, well, there you go. All right. Well, on behalf- He looks so much smarter, right? Yeah.

All right. Well, thank you, Todd, and thank you, Alicia. We really appreciate you guys coming in. Thank you, Jason, for being my co-host today. So if you out there would like to have a question for Belmont Savings Bank, Todd or Alicia, just send us an email at OUE Podcast. at ohio.edu that's ohio e podcast at ohio edu so for wendy anderson and jason garsick we're out and we're out thank you thank you