Banking giant JPMorgan Chase has already launched a full retail branch strategy in Boston and now another large bank may soon follow suit.
Pittsburgh-based PNC Financial Services, the eighth-largest bank holding company in the country, announced in a recent earnings call that Boston is one of four cities it is planning to open branches in.
“On the retail side, our national digital expansion effort continued to make good progress this quarter,” William Demchak, chairman, president and CEO of PNC, said on the call. “Looking ahead, we plan to accelerate the pace of new solution center openings over the next 18 months or so in Boston, Dallas, Houston and Nashville.”
PNC’s solution centers are smaller branches that mainly offer digital-only savings accounts that pay high rates in order to attract deposits. The bank has already launched these centers in the Dallas and Kansas City markets and is seeing great success.
“Our high-yield savings product continues to be an attractive entry point for new customers in our expansion markets and beyond,” Demchak said. “And we’ve now opened three new branch locations under our solution center model in Kansas City and Dallas to support our digital offerings and outreach in our expansion markets. And we’ve been very pleased to see the growth in those branches. They are growing at nearly five times the pace we’d expect for a de novo branch in our legacy markets.”
Prior to its announcement that it would open retail branches, PNC had already been bulking up its presence in the Boston.
The bank hired Jon Bernstein in March as regional president for the city as part of a broader plan to introduce its regional leadership model to Boston.
The $380 billion-asset institution also already has a significant corporate and institutional banking business in Boston. The company said along with the announcement about Bernstein at the time that it was planning to expand its management team in Boston, with the addition of a client and community relations director to deepen PNC’s community involvement and visibility in the region.
