Sovereign closes Somerset branch

SOMERSET, Mass. – Sovereign Bank has closed its doors on its only branch in Somerset because bank officials say it was located too close other Sovereign branches.
Employees from office that was closed late last month have been transferred to other branches, according to the bank.
Sovereign spokeswoman Ellen Molle said the branch, at 54 County St., was shuttered after the bank reviewed the location of its branches and their proximity to other Sovereign offices.
Molle told the Fall River Herald News that the Somerset branch was only three miles from an office on North Main Street in Fall River and it made sense to merge the two locations.
The Somerset location was a former Compass Bank and former Fall River Five Cents Savings Bank. Sovereign Bancorp took control of the location when in 2004 it acquired Seacoast Financial Services Corp., which owned Compass Bank.
Sovereign Bank – a U.S. financial institution with 750 community banking offices, more than 2,300 ATMs and about 11,000 employees, mostly in the Northeast – is a subsidiary of Madrid-based Grupo Santander (NYSE: STD), the parent of Banco Santander SA. For additional information, visit www.santander.com (go to the “Idioma” box at the top of the page and click on “English”) or www.SovereignBank.com.