Ambanc Holding Co., Inc. and Mohawk Community Bank Announce Sale of Branch Office to Peoples National Bank.

Business Editors

AMSTERDAM, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 19, 2001

Ambanc Holding Co., Inc. (the "Company" or "Ambanc", Nasdaq: AHCI), the parent company of Mohawk Community Bank ("Mohawk"), today announced that Mohawk has reached an agreement with Peoples National Bank ("PNB"), a national bank with its principal corporate office in Hallstead, Pennsylvania, for the sale of Ambanc's branch office at 5631 State Highway 12 (inside Price Chopper Supermarket), Norwich, New York. The office had total deposits of $6.8 million at September 30, 2001. The sale, which requires regulatory approval, is anticipated to close in the first quarter of 2002. If regulatory approval is received as anticipated and the transaction is consummated, PNB intends to provide banking services to Mohawk's former customers at the Price Chopper location.

PNB operates seven full-service branches in northern Pennsylvania, located at the Hallstead Shopping Plaza, Hop Bottom, Montrose, Susquehanna, Nicholson, Tunkhannock, and Meshoppen, PA. PNB provides a full range of retail and commercial banking services designed to meet the borrowing and depository needs of small and medium sized businesses and consumers in its market areas. PNB's deposits are insured up to the maximum legal amount by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation ("FDIC").

Ambanc Holding Co., Inc. is a unitary savings and loan holding company. The Company's primary subsidiary, Mohawk Community Bank, serves customers through fifteen upstate New York offices, located in Fulton, Montgomery, Schenectady, Saratoga, Albany, Chenango and Schoharie counties. Mohawk's deposits are insured up to the maximum legal amount by the FDIC. Ambanc recently announced that it had entered into an Agreement and Plan of Merger (the "Agreement") whereby Ambanc and Mohawk will be merged with and into Hudson River Bank & Trust Company, with Hudson River surviving the merger.

The foregoing material may contain forward-looking statements. We caution that such statements may be subject to a number of uncertainties and actual results could differ materially and, therefore, readers should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements. Ambanc and Mohawk Community Bank do not undertake, and specifically disclaim, any obligation to publicly release the results of any revisions that may be made to any forward-looking statements to reflect the occurrence of anticipated or unanticipated events or circumstances after the date of such statements.