What People's United Customers Need to Know as M&T Completes Transition

M&T bank has taken over People’s United Bank and the final transition is set to happen over the long weekend.

So, how does the changeover impact the thousands of customers here in Connecticut?

Bank officials tell us on Friday, Sept. 2, ATMs will be down in the morning and will be back working in the afternoon. People’s United branches will close their doors early and stay closed through Monday.

Closure times vary by branch location, but just expect this to happen by 1 p.m. if you need to withdraw funds. We’re told the latest some branches will stay open is until 3 p.m.

After 5 p.m. Friday, you will not be able to access your mobile and online accounts through the long weekend. But during this time, you can use ATMs and debit and credit cards.

We’re told People’s United customers were sent M&T debit or ATM cards a couple of weeks ago.

By Tuesday, Sept. 6, the transition should be complete.

“What we don’t want to do is to have somebody going into a long weekend, the last official weekend of summer, kids are back in school, for people to experience any kind of disruption. There will be some. We understand that in terms of the online and web banking over the weekend, but we use long weekends as a way of getting it right, so that when we reopen on Tuesday, things work as well as you’d expect them to” said Mike Keegan, head of community banking for M&T.

Unfortunately, bad actors are always taking advantage of big, publicized events like this and M&T is already seeing it happen. An NBC Connecticut viewer sent us in this example.

M&T said they’ll never contact customers through text or email asking for personal information.

If you have a strange feeling, delete the message or hang up the call and then call their customer service line to see if they really need something.

Help is available through the transition weekend. You can call:

• Personal Account Questions: 1-800-414-9435
• Business Banking Questions: 1-866-632-4512