First National Community Bank

Is the goal going to move the needle?

First National Community Bank (FNCB), in northeastern Pennsylvania, was chartered in 1910. It manages $1.7 billion in assets and operates 16 retail branch facilities across four counties.

Tom Lunney, Vice President, talks with Ted Jackson, ClearPoint co-founder, about goal-setting, organizational buy-in, and adaptability.

Watch the full conversation here!

About First National Community Bank

First National Community Bank, known as FNCB Bank, was a community bank. Effective July 1, 2024, FNCB Bank merged with and into Peoples Security Bank and Trust Company, the surviving bank. Peoples Financial Services Corp. is the bank holding company of Peoples Security Bank and Trust Company; see psbt.com. The combined organization is a $5.5 billion community bank (2024). Peoples Bank serves customers through 44 full-service community banking offices. The case study below describes FNCB as it operated before the merger.

Performance Management at FNCB

FNCB’s strategic planning starts with a meeting between executive and middle management. Each quarter, the managers discuss long-range options to accomplish in the next two to three years. The fourth quarter is spent building goals and specifying metrics. The bank stays fluid, because the industry is highly regulated and constantly changing.

FNCB’s goals have evolved a lot. The bank went from 155 long-term goals to 35, prioritizing quality over quantity and making its strategic plan more manageable. These goals highlight items that will move the bank forward. Lunney asks: “Is the goal going to move the needle?” and stresses linking the budget to the strategic plan: “they have to be married.”

These goals are centered on the bank’s six pillars, among them Customer Experience and Growth, Enhancing the Banking Experience, and Enterprise Risk and Compliance. FNCB’s 35 goals stem from each pillar so that each one improves. An executive management member is assigned to each pillar and reports status at quarterly strategy meetings.

Before ClearPoint, FNCB managed this cycle in Excel spreadsheets on a shared drive. Lunney recounts that it was not the most efficient way to operate. Members manually updated their own goals, and two strategic plan managers oversaw the process. FNCB now uses automatic workflows for monthly reporting reminders and ClearPoint to house high-level overviews for 12, 24, and 36-month goals. Reminders go out on the first of each month, and members have 15 days to update their goal progress in ClearPoint. The time savings for the administration team are significant: Lunney can now manage the entire process alone.

“ClearPoint saves me days per quarter.”

FNCB is led by a progressive management team with lots of legacy - Lunney himself has been with the bank for 37 years! Buy-in from the top was easy to secure. Leadership feels ClearPoint helps everyone at the bank do their jobs and has made them more efficient. It has improved internal communication by promoting collaboration across the organization, and the cross-departmental perspective means there are never any surprises.

The banking industry is constantly evolving, and there’s been an emphasis throughout the last several years regarding the digital sphere - around 95% of FNCB’s operations are online. The bank's mission: "to make your banking experience simply better." Lunney hopes to maintain that the bank provides the latest and greatest services to its clients. As circumstances change, ClearPoint allows the bank to be flexible in a dynamic environment.

Struggling to start up strategy reporting at your organization? Lunney’s advice: Don't put too much pressure on yourself to master it, let it evolve over time. Be intentional in figuring out where you want to be, how you're going to get there, and putting the components in order for you to achieve your goals. "The system itself is open-ended, it does what I want it to do." And, don't forget to take advantage of your ClearPoint Account Executive's software knowledge and learn as much as possible!

“We've survived since 1910 without ClearPoint. But with ClearPoint, it certainly helps us moving forward for the next 100 years. I hope it's that long with you guys!"