WSFS Bank
Encyclopedia
Wilmington Savings Fund Society, FSB, branded as WSFS Bank, is a federal savings bank
Federal savings associations
Federal savings associations , in the United States, are institutions chartered by the Office of Thrift Supervision pursuant to the provisions of the Home Owners' Loan Act, a U.S. federal statute...

 headquartered in Wilmington, Delaware
Wilmington, Delaware
Wilmington is the largest city in the state of Delaware, United States, and is located at the confluence of the Christina River and Brandywine Creek, near where the Christina flows into the Delaware River. It is the county seat of New Castle County and one of the major cities in the Delaware Valley...

, U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, and is the retail banking subsidiary of WSFS Financial Corporation. The bank operates 41 retail branches in Delaware, Pennsylvania and Virginia. WSFS offers traditional retail banking services such as checking and savings
Savings account
Savings accounts are accounts maintained by retail financial institutions that pay interest but cannot be used directly as money . These accounts let customers set aside a portion of their liquid assets while earning a monetary return...

 accounts, certificates of deposit
Certificate of deposit
A certificate of Deposit is a time deposit, a financial product commonly offered to consumers in the United States by banks, thrift institutions, and credit unions....

, consumer mortgages
Mortgage loan
A mortgage loan is a loan secured by real property through the use of a mortgage note which evidences the existence of the loan and the encumbrance of that realty through the granting of a mortgage which secures the loan...

, lines of credit
Line of credit
A line of credit is any credit source extended to a government, business or individual by a bank or other financial institution. A line of credit may take several forms, such as overdraft protection, demand loan, special purpose, export packing credit, term loan, discounting, purchase of...

, and home equity loan
Home equity loan
A home equity loan is a type of loan in which the borrower uses the equity in their home as collateral. These loans are useful to finance major expenses such as home repairs, medical bills or college education...

s, and also offers commercial banking services for small businesses, business banking and middle market customers, and for real estate development and investment. WSFS also offers investment products through its subsidiary WSFS Investment Group, and wealth and trust management services through its WSFS Trust & Wealth Management subsidiary. WSFS's Cash Connect subsidiary provides ATM support services across all 50 states for more than 10,000 ATMs. Cash Connect operates the second largest ATM servicing platform in the United States.

History

Wilmington Savings Fund Society was chartered as a Delaware thrift in 1832 by a group of Wilmington community leaders and businessmen. The bank was formed for the working citizens of Wilmington to encourage thrift, and safeguard and increase their savings in a community bank
Community development bank
- Community Development Banking in the United States :In the United States, community development banks are commercial banks that operate with a mission to generate economic development in low- to moderate-income geographical areas and serve residents of these communities...

. The bank's first day of business was February 18, 1832, in a rented room "one door below" Town Hall on Market Street. The bank grew steadily through the 19th century, and moved locations twice more before constructing their own building at 838 N. Market Street in 1895. The building stood until 1929, when the current building was constructed and opened for business. Three years later the building would receive its landmark mural, Apotheosis of the Family by N. C. Wyeth
N. C. Wyeth
Newell Convers Wyeth , known as N.C. Wyeth, was an American artist and illustrator. He was the pupil of artist Howard Pyle and became one of America's greatest illustrators...

. The mural, 60'x19', was commissioned by Frederick Stone to celebrate the bank's 100th anniversary, and a smaller version of this mural still hangs in the bank's new headquarters at 500 Delaware Avenue in Wilmington.
WSFS's growth continued in the 1950s and 60s, and was the first bank in the United States to issue debit card
Debit card
A debit card is a plastic card that provides the cardholder electronic access to his or her bank account/s at a financial institution...

s in the late 1960s. By the 1980s, WSFS had expanded from northern New Castle County
New Castle County, Delaware
New Castle County is the northernmost of the three counties of the U.S. state of Delaware. As of 2010 its population was 538,479, an increase of 7.6% over the previous decade. The county seat is Wilmington. The center of population of Delaware is located in New Castle County, in the town of...

 into Kent
Kent County, Delaware
Kent County is a county located in the central part of the U.S. state of Delaware. It is coextensive with the Dover, Delaware, Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of 2010 the population was 162,310, a 28.1% increase over the previous decade. The county seat is Dover, the state capital...

 and Sussex
Sussex County, Delaware
Sussex County is a county located in the southern part of the U.S. state of Delaware. As of 2010 the population was 197,145, an increase of 25.9% over the previous decade. The county seat is Georgetown. The Seaford Micropolitan Statistical Area includes all of Sussex County.Sussex County is...

 counties, and went public
Public company
This is not the same as a Government-owned corporation.A public company or publicly traded company is a limited liability company that offers its securities for sale to the general public, typically through a stock exchange, or through market makers operating in over the counter markets...

 in March 1990 on the NASDAQ
NASDAQ
The NASDAQ Stock Market, also known as the NASDAQ, is an American stock exchange. "NASDAQ" originally stood for "National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations". It is the second-largest stock exchange by market capitalization in the world, after the New York Stock Exchange. As of...

 market. By the early 1990s the bank was in poor financial shape, and was near bankruptcy
Bankruptcy
Bankruptcy is a legal status of an insolvent person or an organisation, that is, one that cannot repay the debts owed to creditors. In most jurisdictions bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor....

. The Board of Directors hired Marvin "Skip" Schoenhals in 1992, and began a dramatic turnaround. Nearly all of the lower Delaware branches were sold to Wilmington Trust
Wilmington Trust
Wilmington Trust was founded on July 8, 1903 as a banking, trust, and safe deposit company by DuPont president T. Coleman du Pont.On November 1, 2010, Wilmington Trust announced a merger with M&T Bank, of Buffalo, NY. The deal values 107-year-old Wilmington Trust at $3.84 a share, or 46 percent...

, and lending practices and credit quality were administered more closely.

Over time, the bank gradually strengthened and was reintroduced to Kent County and Sussex County. In 1995, WSFS Bank opened its first branch in Kent County in the new Dover Metro Supermarket
Shoppers Food & Pharmacy
Shoppers Food & Pharmacy is a chain of 65 supermarkets in the Baltimore, northern Virginia, and Washington, D.C. areas...

 since the mass closings of 1991 (this location closed in 2009 due to the closing of Metro, but was relocated across from Target
Target Corporation
Target Corporation, doing business as Target, is an American retailing company headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is the second-largest discount retailer in the United States, behind Walmart. The company is ranked at number 33 on the Fortune 500 and is a component of the Standard & Poor's...

). The first new branch in Sussex County since the closings was in July 2003 in Rehoboth Beach
Rehoboth Beach, Delaware
Rehoboth Beach is a city in Sussex County, Delaware, United States. According to the 2010 census, the population is 1,327, a decrease of 11.2% from 2000...

. The banking office was temporarily located in Lighthouse Plaza between Super Giant and Kmart
Kmart
Kmart, sometimes styled as "K-Mart," is a chain of discount department stores. The chain acquired Sears in 2005, forming a new corporation under the name Sears Holdings Corporation. The company was founded in 1962 and is the third largest discount store chain in the world, behind Wal-Mart and...

. The branch relocated to its new building behind Super Giant upon completion in June 2004. The new branch location was a prototype and the second built identically to the Fox Run location. The same style for the branch has become the standard for new branch offices being built. New branch locations have since opened in Smyrna, West Dover, Camden, Lewes, Millsboro-Long Neck, Millville, and Selbyville.

WSFS Bank has the largest ATM network in Delaware. The bank has ATMs located in all Happy Harry's Pharmacies
Happy Harry's
Happy Harry's, a Walgreens Pharmacy, is a division of the Walgreens Company which operates 76 locations in Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland and New Jersey. It was founded in 1962 by entrepreneur Harry Levin...

. Fee free ATMs are also located in most Grotto Pizza and Food Lion
Food Lion
Food Lion LLC is an American grocery store company headquartered in Salisbury, North Carolina that operates approximately 1,300 supermarkets in 11 Mid-Atlantic and South Atlantic states as well as Tennessee, Kentucky and West Virginia under the Food Lion, Harveys Supermarket, Bloom, Bottom Dollar...

 locations. There are over 350 WSFS-owned ATMs in Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.

In 2007, WSFS Bank moved its corporate headquarters from 838 N. Market Street, Wilmington, Delaware, where it had resided since 1885, to 500 Delaware Avenue. The 838 Market Street location is listed on the United States National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

. The new location is the first multi-tenant building to be constructed in Wilmington since c. 1988.

In 2009, the bank announced,
WSFS Bank was recognized as #1 on the list of Delaware’s outstanding companies and 2009 marks the fourth consecutive year that WSFS has made the "Best in the Business" list. This is the News Journals tenth year of analyzing Delaware’s business community in its “Best in the Business” supplement. WSFS was ranked 1st overall out of 26 in the large company category and its leadership style was singled out for a special award. The 26 participating large companies with more than 240 employees were judged in the categories of engagement, direction, execution, career, conditions, managers and pay and benefits based on employee surveys.

Memberships

WSFS Bank is a member of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation is a United States government corporation created by the Glass–Steagall Act of 1933. It provides deposit insurance, which guarantees the safety of deposits in member banks, currently up to $250,000 per depositor per bank. , the FDIC insures deposits at...

, and is an Equal Housing Lender
Equal Housing Lender
The terms equal housing lender and equal opportunity lender are synonymous and refer to all banks insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in the United States. Such banks are prohibited from discriminating on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, handicap, or...

. WSFS Bank uses STAR
STAR (interbank network)
STAR is an interbank network and EFTPOS network in the United States. It is the largest American interbank network, with 250,000 ATMs, 134 million cardholders and over 5,700 participating financial institutions. The network is owned and operated by STAR Networks, a subsidiary company of First Data...

, and PLUS for its ATM transactions.

External links

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