Presidential News

Presidential Bank today announced a partnership with Knowbl, Inc., launching a new digital concierge platform powered by Knowbl’s BrandGPT on the Bank’s websites. Presidential’s new digital concierge is assisting website visitors with their questions regarding banking services with fully conversational and contextual communications.
 

“Knowbl’s technology improves the visitor’s experience on the websites, answering most questions accurately and quickly, or, for more complicated questions, refers users to the right resource, providing improved visitor engagement. Additionally, this reduces the volume of calls to our call centers, creating greater efficiencies. We are proud to partner with Knowbl, a leader in digital engagement technology, to continue identifying and implementing opportunities that improve how we manage user experience as a team, engaging customers and clients online,” said Steven Reynolds, SVP of Consumer Lending and Retail Banking at Presidential Bank. “One of the things that differentiates Presidential Bank is our passion for serving our online customers as though they just walked through the front door of a local branch.”
 

The Knowbl BrandGPT concierge platform is designed to help organizations improve the speed, ease, and scalability of virtual assistant support. Backed by the company’s proprietary approach to leveraging Large Language Models (LLMs), Knowbl’s innovative technology improves customer engagement with the use of brand-specific content. Knowbl BrandGPT processes unstructured data, automates contextual conversations at scale, and provides actionable insights. Its proprietary learning engine seeks out existing content, regularly monitors for content updates, and learns how to use the brand’s specific content to avoid generative hallucinations and best answer customer questions. Presidential Bank and Knowbl worked together to launch new BrandGPT-supported customer engagement features on the bank’s websites.
 

In 1995, Presidential Bank became the first bank in the U.S. to offer bank accounts over the internet. In 1997, it was one of the earliest banks to offer online account statements and then real-time digital banking services, including account transfers and current balance look-up. Presidential Bank, FSB, a privately held $800 million bank, is headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland and was founded in 1985. With ten bank branches in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, DC, and online customers in every U.S. state, they are regulated by the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency as a federal savings bank and deposits are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).
 

“We are honored to work with Presidential Bank to bring this revolutionary technology to their customers and prospects,” said Jay Wolcott, Co-Founder and CEO at Knowbl. “The future of digital customer engagement is effortless and conversational, an extremely important capability for financial services. This partnership is another great example of how customer-first organizations like Presidential Bank use innovative new technology tools to improve how they proactively interact with customers, managing the nuances of a customer’s individual needs.”
 

Based in Northville, Michigan, Knowbl Inc., launched in 2021 with a revolutionary platform designed to enable the next generation of conversational AI development. The platform is designed to leverage pre-existing business compliant content to enable conversational and contextual experiences at scale. The client engagement technology is fast and easy to deploy, reducing latency for improving and delivering better customer experiences across digital user interfaces. Knowbl specializes in delivering relevant and contextual information to users when and where they need it for effortless self-service experiences. The Knowbl BrandGPT platform takes the best of large language models to make implementation simple and quick when delivering personalized, brand-centric customer interactions immediately.

The Mortgage Division of Presidential Bank announced the acquisition of several mortgage industry leaders, continuing its expansion of mortgage lending services in key Maryland communities. Presidential has been able to avail itself of the opportunities created by turmoil in the financial services industry over the past year to selectively recruit additional talented mortgage executives. Recently added mortgage professionals include:

• Keith Brewer, formerly branch manager of the mortgage origination office of BayFirst National Bank in Eldersburg, MD, recently joined Presidential Bank Mortgage as SVP, Mortgage Lending, in the Baltimore market area. Mr. Brewer has been in the mortgage industry for 25 years and significantly grew the BayFirst production as manager of its Baltimore area office. Nine additional loan officers and processors from BayFirst, all with over 20-year experience, have joined him at Presidential, providing exceptional access and service for the greater Baltimore area.

• Cody Gaertner, Secondary Marketing and Lock Desk Manager, joined Presidential Bank Mortgage from Compass Analytics, where he served as Hedge Manager. As an advisor to numerous mortgage companies and their Secondary Marketing departments, Mr. Gaertner developed an advanced understanding of Mortgage Capital Markets, fixed income trading, and various risk management techniques, which helped the companies he advised to maximize loan sale profitability and improve their hedge reporting capabilities. In this role for Presidential, he continues to advance Presidential’s capital markets capabilities, improve its originator service and create efficiencies.

• Tom O’Keefe joins Presidential Bank Mortgage after managing Mission Mortgage. A life-long Bethesda, MD resident, he has been a leader, mentor, and originator in the mortgage business in the Washington, DC metropolitan area for over 27 years. He has enjoyed multi-year recognition as one the nation’s top lenders by Scotsman Guide and Mortgage Executive Magazine. Mr. O’Keefe will work from Presidential’s Gaithersburg, MD office, serving Montgomery County and surrounding markets.

Anyone can be susceptible to financial scams. Fraudsters are an ever-present threat, looking to steal personal information and gain access to your money and account information.

According to the Insurance Information Institute, 47 percent of Americans experienced financial identity theft in 2020 totaling $712.4 billion.

What are money scams? Money scams take all shapes and forms. Typically, a fraudster will charm or bully you into forking over money or valuable personally identifiable information by impersonating someone you know or an institution you trust.
The scammer may pretend to be a bank representative or impersonate a tax collector – and threaten to throw you in jail unless you pay up. The fraudster may even take the guise of a charity and scam you into donating funds to a bogus organization.

Avoid Bank Scams. There are lots of types of bank scams. Fraudsters will email you from an address that looks like your bank's email address and ask for your login and password. Or they might impersonate bank representatives over the phone and charm their way into learning your account information. Presidential Bank will never call or write to ask you to reveal private, personal, or account information.
Scammers are not just targeting bank information. Apply the same good sense when dealing with someone claiming to be from the IRS, tax preparers, or financial investment personnel. Scammers may try to acquire or use information via text, email or over-the phone.
 

Remember these important tips:

• Responding to your bank. If someone claiming to be from your bank, insurance company or even the IRS calls, ask for their name and call them back at the published contact number for that institution. Presidential Bank’s Customer Service Center number is 800-383-6266 and is open from 8am – 10pm Monday thru Friday.
• Think before you click a link or download an attachment. Think very carefully before you click on any link or download any attachment in an email or on a website.
• Be extra careful before conducting financial transactions over a public Wi-Fi network, which makes it more vulnerable to fraudsters.
• Slow down and breathe. Scammers thrive on panic and fear. If you get a call from a debt collector, take a breath and slow down. Debt collectors are not allowed to threaten to arrest you.
• Run it by someone else. If you're unsure of a financial transaction or the validity of an email, reach out to someone you trust. That person may be able to see that you're dealing with a thief, even when you can't.
• Put your phone number on the National Do Not Call Registry. Add your number to the Federal Trade Commission's National Do Not Call Registry. This should stop legitimate telemarketers from calling your phone and encourage you to treat unsolicited calls with a bit more wariness.
• Guard your personal information. Scammers aren't just out to get your cash. They want your Social Security number, address, email, and other personal information. Unless you are expecting to hear from an institution or office, never authenticate yourself to anyone who contacts you. Instead, hang up and call them back on their published customer service number. Always use caution.

What to do if you're scammed.

If you are the victim of a scam, don't let embarrassment prevent you from reporting the crime to the authorities. If your identity has been stolen, call the companies where the fraud occurred and let them know that someone has taken your identity. Ask them to place a fraud alert on your accounts, then change your login and passwords. Some financial accounts, such as your credit card, are required to limit your financial liability if your information is stolen. Contact the credit-reporting bureaus to correct any false information and ask for a fraud alert or a freeze on your account.
Depending on the type of identity theft, you may also need to alert authorities about your misused Social Security number and replace it at your local SSA office or stop debt collectors calling you about a debt you don't owe.
Depending on the type of scam, you may want to report it to one or more official organizations that deal with specific categories of lawbreaking. Most financial scam reports can go to the Federal Trade Commission, through its Complaint Assistant. You can report IRS impostors to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. Investing scam complaints may go through the Securities and Exchange Commission or your own state's securities regulator. Report fake check scams to the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. You may even file a report through your local police department. Conduct a quick online search if you're unsure of where to report the type of scam you've experienced.