Responding to the Needs of International Business

Customer Spotlight: Chant Engineering

Too often, companies that do business around the world think they have to choose a bank with either international banking capabilities or personal customer service. But New Britain-based Chant Engineering and its relationship with Penn Community Bank proves that you can have both.

Phil Chant is the second generation to lead the company that his father Jim launched in 1970. Today, Chant Engineering custom builds testing machinery for companies worldwide in the aerospace, automotive, hydrostatic and rigging industries, as well as the military.

Because Chant Engineering needs to process financial transactions with customers in dozens of countries around the globe, the company felt trapped into banking with large, multinational banks. But after becoming increasingly dissatisfied by the lack of personal customer service from commercial banks, Phil set out to find a bank that could meet his international banking needs and also treat him and his business like they were important.

Phil talked to several local banks and ended up settling on Penn Community Bank after working closely with lender Trevor Harrison.

“People don’t necessarily think of banks as helping them, but when you’re a business, you realize how important it is,” Phil said. “The great thing about Penn Community Bank is, they’re actually interested in helping us. With other banks, we’d call them and say, ‘Hey, I want to borrow some money,’ or ‘I want to do this or that,’ and end up having to chase them because they never call you back. You don’t have to worry about that with Penn Community Bank.”

Phil wanted a bank that would treat him and his company with the same type of respect and commitment to customer service exemplified by his father. Born in London, Leonard James “Jim” Chant was recruited as an engineer for the NASA space program, bringing his wife and three sons to the United States in December 1959. Jim worked on the Johnsville human centrifuge operated by the U.S. Navy at the Naval Air Development Center in Warminster. At the height of the U.S. space program, the world’s largest centrifuge produced the powerful G-forces required to train fighter pilots and the nation’s first astronauts, including Alan Shepard, John Glenn and Neil Armstrong.

Over the years, Jim Chant began to specialize in testing equipment, and in 1970, he launched his own consulting business, L.J. Chant Associates, from his basement. Phil joined his father as the business’ only full-time employee in 1985, and the company moved to New Britain and built a 10,000-square-foot facility a few years later. Phil became company president in 2000 after Jim retired. Today, the company employs about 60 people, including the third generation of the Chant family, and continues to grow.

To fuel that growth, Phil needed a banking partner that would be responsive to his needs, and he found that partner in Penn Community Bank. In 2019, Chant Engineering refinanced business loans it had held at other banks, and established a relationship with Penn Community Bank. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Penn Community Bank also was able to help the company secure two Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans backed by the U.S. Small Business Administration. But it was Penn Community Bank’s decision to join the SWIFT network that enabled Chant Engineering to bring its full banking relationship to our bank.

SWIFT – Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications – is a member-owned cooperative that facilitates safe, secure, accurate financial transactions worldwide. Each member institution is assigned a unique code that identifies the bank name, along with the country, city, and branch from which the transaction originates. The system allows individuals and businesses to accept electronic payments regardless of which bank the customer uses.

“We sell and service customers all around the world, so we get payments from customers in every kind of country you can think of,” said Phil. “Originally, one of the challenges of working with a smaller bank was that most don’t have the wire transfer set up needed to do transactions internationally. When we started talking to Penn Community Bank, we told them we needed that capability. They committed to doing that, and they’ve done so – which is tremendous, because it’s a big investment by the bank.”

In addition to the commercial banking products and services for Chant Engineering, Phil Chant also relies on Penn Community Bank for financing for his real estate investments.

“I’ve been doing this for nearly 40 years, and by far, Penn Community Bank is the best bank we’ve ever dealt with,” Phil said. “I would tell anybody who has a small business to at least take a look and talk to Penn Community Bank, because it is a different bank and it’s a different way of doing business. It’s a friendly, old fashioned, service-focused way of doing business, which you don’t see much anymore, and it’s tremendous.”