PNC Financial Services
PNC Financial Services is a prominent regional financial services company based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, founded in 1983. It operates across 27 states and the District of Columbia, ranking as the sixth-largest commercial bank in the United States as of 2023. PNC offers a wide array of services including retail and commercial banking, wealth and asset management, mortgage services, and corporate banking. The company has a historical lineage tracing back to two banks established in the 19th century, and it has expanded significantly through various acquisitions over the decades.
In 2022, PNC reported a net income of $5.95 billion, demonstrating robust financial performance. The company emphasizes technological advancements and operational efficiency, reflecting trends within the banking industry, such as the recent closure of multiple branches attributed to the rise in online banking. PNC is also noted for its commitment to corporate social responsibility, supporting initiatives aimed at early childhood education and community development. However, like many financial institutions, PNC has faced legal and regulatory challenges, including lawsuits regarding its lending practices and fees. Overall, PNC Financial Services plays a significant role in both local economies and the broader financial landscape.
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Subject Terms
PNC Financial Services
Company information
- Date Founded: 1983
- Industry: Financial Services
- Corporate Headquarters: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
- Type: Public
PNC Financial Services is a regional financial services company that serves individuals, corporations, and governmental agencies. While its headquarters are in Pennsylvania, PNC boasts branch offices in twenty-seven states and the District of Columbia. In the mid-2020s, PNC Bank was the sixth-largest commercial bank in the United States. It reported a net income for 2024 of $6 billion. Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, and Bank of America are its main competitors.
PNC's services include retail and commercial banking, wealth and asset management, mortgage services, corporate banking, and real estate lending. One of the largest financial services corporations in the United States, it is organized into four main divisions. The first of these is Retail Banking, which provides both banking and brokerage services and services residential mortgage loans. Second, the Corporate and Institutional Banking division provides treasury management (i.e., administration of institutional assets and holdings, including liquidity and risk management) and capital markets products and services for both the private and public sectors. Customers with a high net worth, as well as businesses and nonprofits, are served by PNC's Asset Management Group, which provides estate planning in addition to investment and fiduciary services. Finally, PNC has a minority ownership stake in BlackRock, a major global investment management firm.
History
PNC's institutional roots date back to the Provident Life and Trust Company (established 1865) and the Pittsburgh Trust and Savings Company (established 1852). The merger of those two banks in 1983 formed the combined PNC Financial Corporation.
Deregulation brought profound changes to the banking industry as a result of deregulation and among these changes was the increase in the number of bank acquisitions and mergers. In 1986, three years after its formation, PNC acquired its first bank and followed that with another acquisition a year later. Growth by acquisition continued through the 1980s and 1990s until PNC eventually became larger than its main rival, Mellon Financial, which for many years was the dominant financial services and banking entity in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, area.
In the early 1990s, PNC had to consolidate. In taking other banks into its organization PNC had grown but had also inherited various activities of the new components of the corporation. Some of these, such as real estate loans for commercial projects, were not producing a good return. Between liquidating these kinds of accounts and focusing its operation goals, PNC could concentrate on fewer areas in which to operate. In addition to selling off real estate projects and its home mortgage operations, PNC closed or sold some branches and also sold its credit card operation, which in the 1990s totaled at least 3.3 million accounts. Even with its narrowed focus, PNC's program to acquire more banks, all of them in the Pennsylvania region, continued. Major additions to PNC in the 1990s were the First Eastern Bank (1994), Midlantic Corporation (1995), and First Data Investor Services Group (1999). By the late 1990s, PNC's assets totaled $75.8 billion.
PNC continued its acquisitions into the early twenty-first century, buying the Automated Business Development Corporation in 2000. Employing new technology was also an important part of PNC's activities in that period. The corporation worked with Perot Systems to develop a platform for business-to-business electronic billing.
In 2007 and 2008, PNC's acquisitions continued with the purchase of banks in Maryland, the District of Columbia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, and Florida. In 2008, simultaneous to its acquisition of National City Corp., PNC sold a 15 percent stake in its operations to the federal government as part of the bank bailout program. That stake was later purchased back by PNC.
In April 2016, PNC joined forces with four other banks and Safeguard Scientifics to invest in an electronic billing and payment company, Transactis. Each institution contributed $5 million toward this venture. In 2017, PNC announced agreements to acquire the Trout Group, a leading investor relations and corporate communications firm, and Fortis Advisors, a provider of merger and acquisition services.
Impact
PNC has had a significant economic impact both in the local communities it serves and in the realms of national and international finance. As a highly successful consumer bank, the company touches the daily lives of many people, and operations such as BlackRock play a major part in public asset trading. The company also directly employs tens of thousands of people. It continues to seek business and technological improvements to reduce operating costs and increase efficiency in an increasingly competitive financial services environment.
PNC also makes an effort to have a positive impact on local communities and the environment through corporate social responsibility programs. The company operates the PNC Foundation to partner with and fund nonprofit organizations engaged in social programs such as early childhood education and economic development, and the PNC Grow Up Great initiative was begun in 2004 to assist at-risk children in school readiness. The company aimed for an eco-friendly, LEED-certified design in the development of its new headquarters, the Tower at PNC Plaza, which opened in Pittsburgh in 2015. In March 2015, in what was considered by environmentalists to be a major victory, PNC announced that it would no longer finance mountain top removal mining, a process by which a mountain is excavated down to the coal seam prior to extracting that coal.
Despite these successes, PNC, like other financial services corporations, has faced legal and regulatory problems in the twenty-first century. In 2002, PNC's accounting practices were investigated by the Federal Reserve Board and the Securities Exchange Commission. In the same year, PNC was named in a lawsuit alleging that it and its auditor, Ernst & Young, misrepresented PNC's 2001 financial results in violation of federal law. The company agreed to a $16 million settlement in 2017 in a dispute over loan officers' overtime wages.
Many of PNC's troubles have come from its fees. In 2013, PNC paid a $35 million settlement in a case where it was alleged that National City had charged African American and Latino borrowers higher mortgage loan rates. The following year, it paid its customers a $90 million settlement in response to charges that it had manipulated the sequence of customers' debit card transactions to charge overdraft fees. Also in 2016, PNC settled in a class-action lawsuit for $32.3 million, although it denied wrongdoing. The suit was initiated by Florida homeowners who alleged that they were forced to buy additional insurance for their homes (for example, hazard, wind, or flood) at higher than standard rates. Further, the over 130,000 plaintiffs claimed that PNC was receiving commissions from the insurers.
In April 2023, PNC announced it would be closing forty-seven branches in fifteen states by June 2023. PNC attributed the closings to efficiency evaluations it had performed. Reportedly, the closing of brick-and-mortar locations is part of a national trend and is related to the popularity of online banking. In 2024, PNC closed seventy-three branches across various states, including Pennsylvania and Texas, each with twelve closures. Despite these closures, in November 2024, PNC announced plans to open over 100 new branches and renovate 200 existing locations, at a cost of about $1.5 billion. However, in early 2025, PNC announced the closure of ten branches in six states.
Bibliography
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Farrell, Maureen, et al. "First Republic Bank Is Seized by Regulators and Sold to JPMorgan Chase." The New York Times, 1 May 2023, www.nytimes.com/2023/05/01/business/first-republic-bank-jpmorgan.html. Accessed 5 Feb. 2025.
"PNC Corporate Profile." PNC, 31 Dec. 2024, www.pnc.com/content/dam/pnc-com/pdf/aboutpnc/Fact%20Sheets/CorporateProfile.pdf. Accessed 5 Feb. 2025.
"PNC Reports Full Year 2024 Net Income of $6.0 Billion, $13.74 Diluted EPS." PNC, 16 Jan. 2025, investor.pnc.com/news-events/financial-press-releases/detail/646/pnc-reports-full-year-2024-net-income-of-6-0-billion. Accessed 5 Feb. 2025.
Reinhard, Abby. "PNC Bank Is Closing 47 More Branches in 15 States, as of June 23." BestLife, 3 Apr. 2023, bestlifeonline.com/pnc-closing-47-branches-june-2023-news. Accessed 5 Feb. 2025.
Sabatini, Patricia. "PNC Bank Refunding Customers Hit by Fees." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 15 Apr. 2014, www.post-gazette.com/business/finance/2014/04/15/PNC-Bank-refunding-customers-hit-by-fees/stories/201404150023. Accessed 5 Feb. 2025.