New chief lending officer at State Bank of Long Island

State Bank of Long Island has a new chief lending officer.

He's Thomas A. Iadanza, who comes from Sovereign Bank, where he ran that bank's metropolitan area commercial banking sector.

State Bank spokeswoman Deborah Kendric said the appointment solidifies the bank's efforts to tighten loan underwriting, which has helped return the bank to profitability after a couple of years of turmoil driven by bad commercial real estate loans.

Meanwhile, another bank now plagued by such loans, Bank of Smithtown, got a vote of confidence from analyst Dennis Askew of Smallcap Network. He said the bank's move to jettison its bad loans "is taking ... the right courses of action to better its situation; although it won’t happen overnight."

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