Alliance Bank to Cut 98 Jobs

Alliance Bank, N.A., the primary subsidiary of Alliance Financial Corporation

, advised employees at its headquarters in Syracuse and at its operations center in Oneida of the anticipated elimination of certain positions that will be made duplicative upon Alliance's expected merger with NBT Bank, scheduled for March 2013, pending regulatory and shareholder approvals.  On October 8, 2012, NBT Bancorp Inc. and Alliance announced that they entered into a definitive agreement under which Alliance will merge with and into NBT.  Alliance expects that 42 positions at its headquarters and 56 in its operations center will be eliminated at the time of closing.