🔒Dime Bank’s new CEO, Statoulas, charts Greater Hartford growth path

Norwich-based Dime Bank has grown from $341.5 million in assets to $1.2 billion over the past 25 years without a merger or acquisition, relying on a conservative approach that minimizes risk, even while pursuing new opportunities. That philosophy guided the bank’s expansion into Greater Hartford beginning in 2020, when it opened branches in Glastonbury and Manchester, followed by Vernon in 2022. Each location had previously housed a community bank, allowing Dime to minimize build-out costs by retrofitting shuttered branches. The same mindset carried over when the bank’s board of directors began searching last year for a successor to retiring President and CEO Nick Caplanson. Rather than conduct an external search, the board focused exclusively on internal candidates. “If you go external, you can find whatever you want,” Caplanson said in a recent interview. “You can find skill set, you can find style, you can find background — whatever the case. But there’s uncertainty unless it’s a known entity. And that’s a bigger risk than a lot of organizations realize. Maybe some don’t emphasize cultural fit and the motivations of the CEO as much as we do. That’s really what made the difference.” After vetting a small group of candidates, the board selected Nicholas J. Statoulas, then Dime’s vice president and chief operating officer. Statoulas, who joined the bank in 2018, became president in October and assumed the CEO role Jan. 1, as Caplanson gradually shed duties ahead of partial retirement. Caplanson remains chair of the bank’s board, a role absorbing nearly 20 hours per month, leaving time for personal pursuits, including fly fishing. Caplanson said Statoulas brings the right skill set for the right time. Caplanson became president in 2011 as the bank navigated the fallout from the 2008 financial crisis. He described himself as finance- and accounting-centered rather than “customer facing.” Statoulas, by contrast, led Dime’s retail banking and wealth management divisions and is “very dialed in” to customer service and perspective, Caplanson said, qualities that are increasingly important as banking habits evolve. “We need to have someone who is able to at least know how to gain or have a perspective on the customer base, which is clearly changing,” Caplanson said. “It’s a dramatic shift. And we’re obviously serving multiple generations with different banking styles and different approaches to how they bank and what they like. Nick is very dialed into that.”

Strength in steady habits

Statoulas acknowledges the need to adapt to changing customer behavior, but emphasized that Dime’s smaller size allows it to maintain a personal touch with customers. He said Dime’s strategy is to keep pace with core banking technology and digital services rather than try to be a first mover on newer tools, noting the mutual bank does not have the budget to pursue emerging trends at the industry’s experimental edge. Instead, Statoulas said Dime is leaning into its community-bank model as consolidation continues to shrink that segment of the market, betting there remains demand among some customers for locally based institutions and in-person service. That dynamic helped drive Dime’s entry into Greater Hartford, which Statoulas said had seen “a complete exodus of community banking.” He pointed to consolidation that ultimately brought Rockville/United Bank and Farmington Bank under People’s United Bank and later M&T Bank, and folded The Savings Bank of Manchester into First Niagara and later KeyBank.

Statoulas, who lives in Glastonbury, previously spent 22 years at Rockville Bank and United Bank, before joining Dime in late 2018 as senior vice president of banking and sales. While at Rockville, he led the opening of a Glastonbury branch now occupied by Dime. “So, I knew that location really well,” Statoulas said. “I live about a mile up the street from that location, so I felt very comfortable about the opportunity that was there. And then we looked at sites in Manchester and Vernon, which were former community banks that had closed their doors when they were absorbed by larger entities. And we’re able to get into those communities and do that at a very reasonable cost in what we believe to be an opportunity for us to really bring community banking back into those communities.” Hiring proved to be the biggest challenge in opening the Hartford-area branches, Statoulas said, but he was able to recruit former colleagues familiar with the market. “And I would say that we are firing on all cylinders right now, especially on the lending side, which took some time for us to really gather the folks that were going to translate into success,” he said. As of June 30, 2025, Dime Bank had $68.3 million in combined deposits at its three Hartford area branches, up from $64.9 million two years earlier, according to Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. data. Overall, Dime operates 14 branches, including in Colchester, East Lyme, Glastonbury, Ledyard, Manchester, Montville, New London, Stonington, Vernon, four branches in Norwich and one in Westerly, Rhode Island. While there are no firm plans for additional branch openings, the bank remains open to opportunities, particularly in Greater Hartford. “We look at Greater Hartford as the future of our organization,” Statoulas said. He added that the bank remains committed to its long-established southeastern Connecticut and Westerly, Rhode Island market, where it has operated for 155 years, but sees Greater Hartford as its main growth opportunity. Statoulas said that growth potential is driven in part by the continued departure of smaller community banks known for “white glove” service, along with the availability of former branch locations that can be repurposed at significant savings. Constructing a new branch can cost up to $2 million, compared with $300,000 to $500,000 to retrofit an existing outpost, he said. “We’re going to be very nimble about opportunities,” Statoulas said. “Because of all the consolidation that we see in our market, I think there’s an exceptional opportunity to look at potential sites that have value to us.” Dime is willing to invest where needed to project the right image. In December, the bank launched a $3 million renovation of its branch on the first floor of its roughly 40,000-square-foot headquarters on Salem Turnpike in Norwich. The project is expected to wrap in late February or March. “When people come into our corporate location, we want a progressive, nice-quality space,” Statoulas said.

Steady growth

Meanwhile, roughly 40% of the bank’s asset growth has occurred over the past five years, Statoulas said, even as staffing levels have remained relatively flat at around 170 full-time-equivalent employees amid increased adoption of digital banking. Loan demand has also grown in southeastern Connecticut, with both volume and size increasing. Where commercial loans once averaged about $2 million, Statoulas said requests of $7.5 million to $10 million are now common. At the end of the third quarter of 2025, Dime Bank reported $884.1 million in total loans and leases, up 12.3% from a year earlier and 33.4% from five years ago, FDIC data shows. “You hear some things in the market about things slowing down,” Statoulas said. “We certainly aren’t seeing that here. There is an incredible, robust pipeline for us on the commercial lending side of the house, and we anticipate that is something that will continue into 2026.” Lower interest rates have encouraged some investors to move forward with real estate purchases and business expansions, he said, while Dime has also attracted customers whose former community banks were absorbed by larger institutions. In southeastern Connecticut, economic growth tied to Electric Boat has been a significant driver, alongside the region’s casinos. “As those two industries continue to drive forward, that provides opportunities for us,” Statoulas said. “But it was also equally important for us to take a look at some diversification. That’s one of the reasons that we looked at Greater Hartford. Because if there is any sort of interruption of those two major industries in southeastern Connecticut, you want to have a diverse portfolio that allows you to weather some of those downturns.” Statoulas said he sees no need for major strategic shifts. As a mutual savings bank, Dime does not face shareholder pressure to pursue higher-risk growth. “There’s not a need for us to do any drastic changes because what we’re doing resonates with our customer base and resonates with our prospects,” he said. “So, it’s my job to make sure that we can continue that momentum and do so in a way that we can meet the needs of our customers. But we’re not doing that through any type of aggressive moves that potentially puts the bank at risk.”