Joel L. Naroff is the Chief Economist for Commerce Bancorp. Naroff advises Commerce customers on a broad range of domestic and international economic issues and provides up-to-the minute insight regarding local, national and global financial trends and developments. He also serves as a valuable resource for governmental and business organizations in the Commerce banking region. Naroff’s work with Commerce reinforces the Bank’s commitment to providing customers and organizations with direct access to a locally based source of diversified financial services and advisory expertise.

Naroff has been quoted widely, including Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, Business Week, New York Times, USA Today, Bloomberg News, Barron’s and Investors Business Daily. He has appeared on The World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer and CNBC. Naroff frequently can be heard on national news radio networks.  

Naroff also is the founder of Naroff Economic Advisors, a strategic economic consulting firm. He advises companies across the country on the risks and opportunities that economic developments may have on their organization’s operating environment. 

Previously, Naroff was chief economist at First Fidelity Bancorp and First Union Corp. and a tenured professor in the School of Management at the University of Massachusetts.

Naroff received a bachelors’ degrees in economics and chemistry from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and his Ph.D. in Economics from Brown University.

About Commerce Bank

Commerce is one of the nation’s fastest growing financial services retailers. Since its inception in 1973, Commerce continually has honed a unique and very successful retail model, which fuels the Bank’s ongoing growth. Commerce has expanded substantially since opening its first branch in Marlton, New Jersey some 29 years ago. Today, the Commerce network comprises nearly 185 offices throughout New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York and Delaware.

Commerce is based in Cherry Hill, New Jersey and has assets exceeding $11 billion, making it the largest locally headquartered independent bank in the metropolitan Philadelphia area. Commerce trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol CBH.

At a time when other banks, both locally and nationwide, are abandoning branch banking and forcing customers to use remote delivery channels, Commerce will open 35+ additional branches during 2002, including the first branches in Long Island. In addition, Commerce is maintaining an aggressive expansion pace, working toward a total asset goal of $25 billion and a branch network of 375 offices by the year 2005.