One of Liberty Bank's Connecticut branches appears in this 2019 file photo. Photo courtesy of Liberty Bank

The Pioneer Valley banking scene has a new entrant, in the form of Liberty Bank.

The Middletown, Connecticut-based lender got its final regulatory approval, from the Massachusetts Division of Banks, last month to open a branch in East Longmeadow. The bank had earlier received the OK from Connecticut’s bank regulator.

The branch will open in space currently occupied by a Liberty loan production office, the $7.06 billion-asset bank’s Massachusetts market president Tony Liberopoulos said, and the loan production office will move to downtown Springfield. The office had been in East Longmeadow since 2021.

“When David Glidden started here as CEO, he had a vision that we’d have an I-91 corridor for commercial lending” running from New Haven, Connecticut to Western Massachusetts, Liberopoulos said.

Liberopoulos said the bank’s decision to open a branch in Massachusetts – its 54th – followed the loan production office’s success building a client base on the north side of the state line, many of whom have become Liberty depositors and now need a branch to services them.

“The commercial lending is what’s bringing in the business and once we get the branch up and running that will bring in the residential customers and the depositors,” he said. “It’s enhancing the relationships we’ve already made.”

Liberty aims to keep growing its commercial lending once the new branch is set up this fall, but has “no long-term strategy to open up a lot more branches outside this area,” Liberopoulos said.

The bank also recently launched a digital bank aimed at small business-owners across the country, with marketing at Massachusetts customers expected to begin this summer.