Fifty-seven former National City bank branches in the region reopened under the blue and yellow First Niagara moniker yesterday after the Buffalo, N.Y., area-based bank completed the conversion of customer accounts over the long Labor Day weekend.

The switch-over went "perfectly," Executive Vice President Frank Polino said yesterday from the bank's Western Pennsylvania headquarters at the 11 Stanwix building, Downtown. "We balanced to the penny."

Some customers had a different assessment of the transition: Their new ATM cards weren't working, or they didn't receive them as expected.

"I have never yet received any debit card from First Niagara" despite assurances "they were on their way," one irate customer said in an e-mail to the Post-Gazette.

Other customers said that when they tried to get help by calling First Niagara's customer service line, they couldn't get through.

Mr. Polino acknowledged that the call center was overwhelmed at times, ringing busy Saturday morning and again yesterday morning as a flood of customers tried to dial in. But he said wait times to speak with a customer service representative were minimal the rest of the holiday weekend.

Call volume yesterday was "typical" for day one after a big conversion, he said. "We have plenty of agents working" in the call center, he added.

"It's going to be a busy few days. It will calm down [tomorrow] and Friday."

He said there were no widespread problems with customers accessing their accounts. He acknowledged a few glitches, however, that may have caused some confusion.

For one thing, some customers mistakenly received multiple ATM cards and personal identification numbers, although only one of the cards was for an active account. That's because the customer data base that First Niagara used kept expired cards on file.

"We issued plastic and PINs for some cards that don't work. That could have been confusing," he said.

In addition, some accounts that First Niagara originally planned to acquire "didn't end up with us," he said. Some of those customers may have received new ATM cards from First Niagara and tried to use them, but they did not work.

"I understand that people are nervous," Mr. Polino said. "But we successfully moved $3.9 billion in deposits and $757 million in loans from National City this weekend. Once people can check, they will find the information [in their account] is correct."

First Niagara acquired the branches from PNC Financial Services Group, which was required to divest them to settle antitrust concerns when it took over ailing Cleveland-based National City Corp. in December.

PNC kept about 110 National City branches in Western Pennsylvania, which it plans to convert to the PNC system in November.