Erie County will now exclusively do its banking with M&T Bank. Erie County Comptroller Stefan Mychajliw announced the $1.8 billion agreement Tuesday.
The agreement between Erie County and M&T is expected to save taxpayers at least $500,000 in the first year by utilizing electronic banking and eliminating the disbursement of paper checks.
Mychajliw says up until now the county did its banking with six different banks. He says the new deal will not only save time and money associated with dealing with paper checks, but it will reduce the fees associated with banking at multiple locations.
“We were able to consolidate a lot of our accounts. When we went into the weeds and tried to get a snap shot of what our banking business even looked like we found that we had duplicate accounts with multiple banks. So, we’re also saving money by closing a lot of our accounts and folding them into M&T,” said Mychajliw.
Mychajliw says Erie County has not solicited banking bids since 2006 and since then, technology has changed making it cheaper and more convenient.
“Other departments across county government can now accept credit cards for payments. The Health Department can now accept credit cards to collect fees. It’s also going to benefit our employees. Right now, we have 1,700 checks per month that are cut to employees and now with M&T our workers are going to have a lot more choices when it comes to cashing those checks and conducting their banking,” said Mychajliw.
Mychajliw says currently 6 percent of the county’s vendors take advantage of electronic payments. He says M&T Bank will help the county increase the number of vendors utilizing electronic banking, potentially saving more tax dollars.