Webster Names Patricia Sze-Benash to Senior Vice President, Marketing Post

Jun 11, 2007

WATERBURY, Conn., June 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Webster Financial Corporation (NYSE: WBS), the holding company for Webster Bank, N.A., announced today the appointment of Patricia Sze-Benash to be senior vice president, Marketing. In this role, Sze-Benash will be responsible for the management of Webster's marketing operations and reports to Jeffrey N. Brown, executive vice president, Marketing, Communications & Strategy.

Prior to joining Webster, Sze-Benash was administrative vice president, director of brand development for M&T Bank in Buffalo, New York. In this capacity she was responsible for managing M&T's branding, advertising, sponsorships, business line marketing support, promotions and market research programs. Before her tenure with M&T, Sze-Benash was a vice president, Chase Card Services Marketing for JPMorgan Chase in New York where she was responsible for managing its Branding & Customer Experience Team, which oversaw branding, public relations and customer communications within the card services marketing group. Prior to her stint with JPMorgan Chase, she held senior corporate marketing positions with Kaplan Professional/Brassring.com of New York and Berlitz International Inc. of Princeton, New Jersey.

Sze-Benash earned a B.A. in social psychology, cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania and an M.A. in communications from the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Pennsylvania. She is married to Roger Benash, a detective in Yonkers, NY. They have two children, Eric Dziurzynski, who creates machinima for The Electric Sheep Company, and Jennifer Benash, who is a speech therapist in Yonkers, NY.

Webster Financial Corporation is the holding company for Webster Bank, National Association and Webster Insurance. With $16.9 billion in assets, Webster provides business and consumer banking, mortgage, insurance, financial planning, trust and investment services through 177 banking offices, 334 ATMs, telephone banking and the Internet. Webster Bank owns the asset-based lending firm Webster Business Credit Corporation, the insurance premium finance company Budget Installment Corp., Center Capital Corporation, an equipment finance company headquartered in Farmington, Connecticut and provides health savings account trustee and administrative services through HSA Bank, a division of Webster Bank.

For more information about Webster, including past press releases and the latest annual report, visit the Webster website at www.websteronline.com.

CONTACT: Webster Financial Corporation

Media: Clark Finley
203-578-2287
cfinley@websterbank.com

or

Investors: Terry Mangan
203-578-2318
tmangan@websterbank.com
SOURCE Webster Financial Corporation