Pathfinder Bancorp Inc

To the Board of Directors and Shareholders of

Oswego, New York:

Opinion on the Consolidated Financial Statements

We have audited the accompanying consolidated statements of condition of Pathfinder Bancorp, Inc. and subsidiaries (the “Company”) as of December 31, 2023 and 2022, and the related consolidated statements of income, comprehensive income, changes in shareholders’ equity, and cash flows for each of the years in the two-year period ended December 31, 2023, and the related notes (collectively referred to as the “consolidated financial statements”). In our opinion, the consolidated financial statements present fairly, in all material respects, the financial position of the Company as of December 31, 2023 and 2022, and the results of their operations and their cash flows for each of the years in the two-year period ended December 31, 2023, in conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America.

Basis for Opinion

These consolidated financial statements are the responsibility of the Company’s management. Our responsibility is to express an opinion on the Company’s consolidated financial statements based on our audits. We are a public accounting firm registered with the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (United States) (“PCAOB”) and are required to be independent with respect to the Company in accordance with the U.S. federal securities laws and the applicable rules and regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the PCAOB.

We conducted our audits in accordance with the standards of the PCAOB. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the consolidated financial statements are free of material misstatement, whether due to error or fraud. The Company is not required to have, nor were we engaged to perform, an audit of its internal control over financial reporting. As part of our audits, we are required to obtain an understanding of internal control over financial reporting, but not for the purpose of expressing an opinion on the effectiveness of the Company’s internal control over financial reporting. Accordingly, we express no such opinion.

Our audits included performing procedures to assess the risks of material misstatement of the consolidated financial statements, whether due to error or fraud, and performing procedures that respond to those risks. Such procedures included examining, on a test basis, evidence regarding the amounts and disclosures in the consolidated financial statements. Our audits also included evaluating the accounting principles used and significant estimates made by management, as well as evaluating the overall presentation of the consolidated financial statements. We believe that our audits provide a reasonable basis for our opinion.

Change in Accounting Principle

As discussed in Note 1 to the consolidated financial statements, the Company adopted Accounting Standard Update No. 2016-13, Financial Instruments – Credit Losses (Topic 326): Measurement of Credit Losses on Financial Instruments as of January 1, 2023.

Critical Audit Matters

The critical audit matters communicated below are matters arising from the current period audit of the consolidated financial statements that were communicated or required to be communicated to the audit committee and that: (1) relate to accounts or disclosures that are material to the consolidated financial statements and (2) involved our especially challenging, subjective, or complex judgments. The communication of critical audit matters does not alter in any way our opinion on the consolidated financial statements, taken as a whole, and we are not, by communicating the critical audit matters below, providing separate opinions on the critical audit matters or on the accounts or disclosures to which they relate.

In accordance with Accounting Standards Update (the “ASU”) 2016-13, Financial Instruments —Credit Losses (Topic 326): Measurement of Credit Losses on Financial Instruments, the Company adopted Accounting Standards Codification (“ASC”) 326 as of January 1, 2023 as described in Notes 1 and 6 of the consolidated financial statements. See also explanatory paragraph above. The ASU requires the Company's loan portfolio, measured at amortized cost, to be presented at the net amount expected to be collected. Estimates of expected credit losses for loans are based on evaluation of the size of the portfolio, current risk characteristics, past events, current conditions, reasonable and supportable forecasts of future economic conditions and prepayment experience. The Company disclosed the impact of adoption of this standard on January 1, 2023 with a $1.9 million increase to the allowance for credit losses and a $2.1 million decrease to retained earnings for the cumulative effect adjustment recorded upon adoption. Provision expense for the year ending December 31, 2023 was $2.9 million and the allowance for credit losses as of December 31, 2023 was $15.98 million.

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The Company’s methodology for estimating the allowance for credit losses on loans includes quantitative and qualitative components of the calculation. The Company’s loan portfolio is segmented by loan types that behave similarly during economic cycles. The quantitative analysis includes using a discounted cash flow (DCF) model for determining the allowance for credit losses. Economic forecasts are used in the model to estimate the probability of default and loss given default through regression which are key inputs into the DCF model calculation. Quantitative model assumptions include, but are not limited to the discount rate, prepayment speeds, and curtailments. The quantitative model output is adjusted with qualitative adjustments. Management develops a qualitative framework that serves as the basis for determining the reasonableness of the model’s output and makes qualitative adjustments as necessary. The allowance methodology is inherently complex and requires the use of significant management judgment.

We determined that auditing the allowance for credit losses on loans was a critical audit matter because of the extent of auditor judgment applied and significant audit effort to evaluate the significant subjective and complex judgments made by management throughout the initial adoption and subsequent application processes, including segmentation, the economic forecasts used to calculate the regressions within the DCF model, the quantitative model assumptions as mentioned above, and the qualitative adjustments made using the qualitative framework.

The primary procedures performed to address this critical audit matter included the following:

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Evaluated management’s selection and application of the DCF model, including the evaluation of the reasonableness of the segmentation, the reasonable and supportable economic forecasts, the significant model assumptions, and the relevance and reliability of data used in the model, and the validation of the DCF model outputs.

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Evaluated management’s review of the appropriateness of the qualitative framework, the reasonableness of significant assumptions applied, the relevance and reliability of data used in the qualitative adjustments, and the mathematical accuracy of the qualitative adjustments calculation.

•

Evaluated the reasonableness of management’s judgments related to the selection of the segmentation, DCF model, the reasonable and supportable economic forecasts, the significant model assumptions, and the relevance and reliability of the data used in the DCF model.

•

Tested the mathematical accuracy and application of the DCF model to validate the DCF model outputs.

•

Evaluated the reasonableness of qualitative adjustments, including evaluating the appropriateness of the qualitative framework, the assumptions and judgments applied in the determination of the qualitative adjustments, the relevance and reliability of data used in the qualitative adjustments, and the mathematical accuracy of the qualitative adjustments calculation.

•

Performed a sensitivity analysis on the components of the calculation.

We have served as the Company’s auditor since 2011.

/s/ BONADIO & CO., LLP

Bonadio & Co., LLP

Syracuse, New York

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