Marc Czosnowski never planned on a career in banking. In high school he wanted to be a meteorologist, and actually started his career in sales. But twenty-six years later, he’s a commercial lender at Rosedale Bank in Baltimore, and he’s spent nearly his entire career on the commercial side, working through three mergers in six years along the way.
Rosedale Bank is named for the small Baltimore town where Marc grew up, so joining the bank felt like a homecoming for him and It’s also where he plans to retire. In this episode of Bound by Banking, Marc talks about what keeps him in commercial lending, what bank mergers really change for clients, why community banks still win on judgment, and how fraud has grown alongside digital banking.
Some of The Best Bankers Started as Salespeople
Marc’s path into banking started with a relocation he didn’t want to take. He was a sales manager for a Milwaukee-based manufacturer, selling power tools and generators to hardware stores and contractors. He had just moved back home to Maryland when the company asked him to relocate again, this time to New Jersey or Los Angeles, and he just flat out said no.
His sister worked at Provident Bank and told him they needed branch managers, but Marc pointed out he had no finance degree and no banking experience. Her answer was simple: “No, we need sales people.” It was 2000, and banks were trying to shift from a service culture to a sales culture.
About three years in, Provident launched a commercial manager program that placed 12 managers in larger branches around Baltimore to work alongside commercial lenders. Marc took a seat in Parkville, Maryland, working only with small businesses and learning credit. He told us that he already knew how to talk to business owners and that was the part he never wanted to give up.
Relationships Outlast the Name on the Building
We asked Marc what has kept him in commercial banking for more than two decades? He told us that learning how each business owner got started and helping them clear one hurdle at a time. Whether that’s financing a contract or getting through a tough stretch. Rosedale isn’t commission-based, so the question he asks is simple: can I make a good loan, and can I help this client grow?
Some of those relationships Marc has built now go back 15-20 years. Several clients have followed Marc from bank to bank, and others still call him for advice. One client he’d banked for about five years asked him to MC their company’s 50th anniversary celebration, and they’re still close friends to this day.
That’s the kind of loyalty a campaign can’t buy you no matter how much you spend. Clients don’t follow a logo across town. They follow a person they trust, which is why your lenders deserve a bigger role in your bank’s storytelling.
When Underwriting Gets Automated, the Story Gets Ignored
Marc has lived through three mergers in six years. The last one he went through didn’t go well. So when we asked what press releases and LinkedIn posts leave out, his answer was immediate: “The philosophy changes for employees and for clients.”
Banks always say the same thing after announcing a new M&A deal. “We’re keeping our local approach.” But as banks grow, lending policies change, certain industries get cut, and underwriting gets streamlined. Marc gave us a really good example: “A $1 million deal that would get personal underwriting at a community bank might go through automated underwriting at a big bank. Nobody’s looking at the why,” he said. A client with 10 good years and one bad year might get turned away.
He saw the same pattern during the 2008 housing crisis, when larger banks pulled credit lines arbitrarily and walked away from whole sectors entirely (like construction) because underwriting them took too much time. Marc’s view is that there are good businesses in every sector, and community banks will still look at every deal instead of writing the whole industry off.
His own career followed the arc many bankers will recognize. He climbed his way to larger banks, each time for the bigger opportunity. But then he eventually moved back to community banks to help them grow the small business lending division. Once he was in the community bank space, he realized how much it mattered to local businesses.
Build Something You Can Point to When You Retire
Marc joined Rosedale in 2025, after the bank changed its name from Rosedale Federal Savings and Loan, a name it had carried for 117 years. His former boss had come on board to grow Rosedale’s commercial banking practice organically, and he pitched Marc to join him on the mission.
The appeal for Marc was getting in on the ground floor and leaving behind a legacy. He is helping write loan policies and decide which customers the bank lends to. Meetings happen in person, not over the phone or Zoom, and credit decisions are made locally. His goal is that when people know Rosedale as a commercial bank, he wants to be able to look back and say he helped create it.
There’s a practical side too. Rosedale is a mutual savings bank, owned by its depositors, so it isn’t going to be acquired. At 57, Marc wants to retire without going through another merger. In fact on the day of the recording, another local bank had announced it was being acquired, and it was a bank Marc had once considered joining.
For community banks looking to recruit talent, that stability is a real selling point. Marc’s story shows it’s a message that resonates with experienced bankers who have been through the merger cycle. That stability can be a breath of fresh air.
Digital Banking Opened the Door to Fraud, and Relationships Close It
When we asked about some ideas that worked better than expected, Marc pointed to COVID. During PPP, community banks figured out a process quickly and got more loans done than the big banks, which took longer to get there. COVID also taught customers to bank digitally, even the ones who had insisted on writing checks. Marc remembers when banks questioned why a business right down the street needed a remote deposit capture scanner and now it’s become standard practice.
The downside is fraud. Compromised emails can send payments to the wrong place, and checks stolen from the mail get deposited through mobile apps without anyone looking. Marc has heard of a client who received a voicemail that sounded identical to the company’s CEO, and it was entirely AI-generated. Losses that used to run a couple thousand dollars now reach hundreds of thousands. He personally knows of clients and companies that have lost well over six figures in some fraud cases.
His best defense is the relationship. His clients have his cell phone number and pick up when he calls. If something looks suspicious, he’ll flag or block the transaction. “I’d rather err on the side of caution,” Marc said. It’s easier to send a letter saying a payment was returned in error than to watch a client lose money.
That’s a story worth telling in your fraud education content. A banker who knows you by name and calls before money moves is something big banks struggle to offer at scale.
Watch the Full Conversation
Marc’s career makes a clear case for community banking. Customers want the same services they’d get anywhere, delivered by someone who knows them, and listens to the story behind the numbers, and picks up the phone. That relationship shows up in lending decisions, in fraud prevention, and in client loyalty that lasts for decades.
Watch the full episode of Bound by Banking with Marc Czosnowski of Rosedale Bank:
