New England's Only Indian Bank Opens Fourth Branch

BELMONT, Mass. - The only Indian-owned bank in New England will open its fourth branch here this winter.

Leader Bank, which already has two branches in Arlington and a branch in Cambridge, will open its largest facility in Belmont on January 14.

The 3,500-square foot branch, which will be located about a half mile from Belmont center, will feature a parking lot, a drive-up teller window, safe deposit boxes and a conference room for customers who like to discuss their financial matters privately, said Jay Tuli, Leader Bank's director of business development. The bank will employ seven people in the new branch.

"We are already supporting a lot of customers in Belmont, so this is a good move for us to grow in that area," said Tuli, who is also the son of the bank's owner Sushil Tuli.

Leader Bank customer Sunil Saxena, who lives in Belmont, said the opening of the new branch will save him time on weekends every month.

Sexana, a 38-year-old Harvard IT manager from India, currently drives about 25 minutes on Saturdays to neighboring Arlington for his banking needs.

"I hope when this one [the Belmont branch] opens it's going to reduce my commute by at least half," he said. Saxena said he and his two daughters, who are 9 and 14, bank with Leader Bank because there are no transaction fees and because of the bank's personalized service.

The daughters are too young to work, but not too young to do house chores and they "somehow get some money to go to the bank," Saxena said.

"Because we are a smaller bank, we offer a higher level of service," Tuli said. "Bank of America has millions of customers, [but] we have customers who call branch managers directly. We have customers who call the CEO directly because we're smaller."

The bank already began taking an active role in the Belmont community.

In recent months, Leader Bank joined the Watertown-Belmont Chamber of Commerce and donated $3,000 to the Belmont Police Department toward the purchase of a defibrillator device used to restart the hearts of heart attack victims.

Leader Bank was founded in 2002 and opened its third branch in 2005. It currently has $210 million in assets, and offers free checking accounts for everyone, Tuli said.

Leader Bank's new branch will be located at 363 Pleasant Street in Belmont.

For more information, go to www.leaderbank.com.

Source: IndiaNewEngland.com

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