InTouch with Southern Kentucky June 2020 | Page 20

IN TOUCH
Business
How banks carried
on throughout the
COVID-19 pandemic
BY CARLA SLAVEY
COMMONWEALTH JOURNAL
Has banking changed in the age of COVID-19?
Well, yes and no. Yes, in the sense that precautions
had to be made. Different ways of conducting
business were thought up so that people
could comply with social distancing guidelines.
Making an in-person trip to the bank required
much more planning than in the past.
But no, the basics of banking didn’t change.
Donald Bloomer, the president and CEO of Citizens
National Bank, Michael Noftsger, executive
vice president of Forcht Bank, and Kelli Chaney,
marketing director of United Cumberland Bank,
all said their respective banks continue to offer
all of the services that their customers have
grown to expect.
While that may be true, it is also true that the
coronavirus pandemic that closed businesses,
shuttered doors and caused economic headaches
– if not outright panic – may in the future prove to
be the hastening of true electronic banking.
20 • In Touch with Southern Kentucky June 2020