The signs and name are changing at Hampshire First Bank a year after it was purchased by NBT Bank of upper New York, but everything else is staying the same, officials say.

On Saturday, the five branches of Hampshire First Bank, including its first branch on Main Street in Nashua, will officially become known as branches of NBT Bank. They are the bank’s only branches in New Hampshire.

Branch locations, deposit and loan account numbers will stay the same, online banking will be unchanged, and direct deposits and payments will go on as before – even Hampshire First Bank checks can still be used.

Staffing and hours will be unchanged, too, according to the bank.

The name change is the last step in the purchase of the small, Nashua-based bank, integrating it into the regional NBT, which is headquartered in Norwich, N.Y., a small town not far from Cooperstown. NBT – an abbreviation of The National Bank and Trust Co., of Norwich, which dates to 1965 –
has 150 branches in New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont and now New Hampshire, including branches in Manchester and Londonderry.

The name Hampshire First Bank was kept for a year “as a means of introducing customers to NBT,” said Forence Doller but the firm wants to change the name to reflect “larger location network, more capabilities.”

This naming strategy is different than the one employed in a similar situation: The 2012 purchase of The Nashua Bank by New Hampshire Thrift Bancshares.

The Nashua Bank has kept its name, adding “a division of Lake Sunapee Bank,” which has scores of branches in New England, including one in Milford.

Both the $19 million purchase of Nashua Bank and the $45 million purchase of Hampshire First Bank by regional institutions with several billion dollars in assets were reflections of a trend in banking.

The complexities of regulation and the cost of technology have made it harder for banks with just a few hundred million in assets to compete, particularly because low interest rates have squeezed a traditional source of banking income.

Hampshire First Bank, which was created by Manchester-based business people in 2006, and The Nashua Bank, created in 2007 by Nashua business people, were the first new banks to start in Nashua since 1890.

In recent years, a number of other regional banks have moved into Greater Nashua, including Amesbury, Mass.-based Provident Bank; Lowell Five, of Lowell, Mass.; and St. Mary’s Bank, of Manchester.

David Brooks can be reached at 594-6531 or dbrooks@nashua
telegraph.com. Also, follow Brooks on Twitter (@GraniteGeek).