By David Mildenberg and Wil Speir
- It’s becoming much tougher for banks and credit unions to achieve the goal of earning a profit of 1% of total assets. Only 14 institutions achieved that profitability last year versus 23 in 2023 and 31 in the previous year.
- Southern Bancorp and Fidelity Bankshares are defying the odds. Each had return on asset ratios topping 2.8% in 2024. Southern has $4.2 billion in assets, while Fidelity is at $5.4 billion.
- Dogwood State Bank has been among the state’s fastest growers, with assets doubling to $2.2 billion over the past three years. Internal gains and the purchase of Community First Bank of South Carolina propelled the growth.
- State Employees’ Credit Union has sustained its ranking as the nation’s second-largest U.S. credit union, with $53 billion of assets. Over the past three years, profit has declined from $626 million in 2022 to $364 million in 2023 to $193 million last year.
- Assets at First Carolina Bank of Rocky Mount have increased from $2.1 billion to $3 billion over the past three years. It has also diversified by adding businesses that aren’t tied to traditional net interest margin.
- Bank branches are not going away. There are 11 groups with at least 75 branches in North Carolina, topped by Truist, with 276 offices and State Employees’ Credit Union with 275.
- Raleigh’s First Citizens Bank selected veteran North Carolina CPA Matt Snow as its newest director in December. Snow retired this year as chairman of the
Forvis Mazers accounting firm after leading predecessor firm Dixon Hughes Goodman of High Point from 2014 to 2022. - Asheville’s HomeTrust Bank showed similar resilience to its customers who faced the historic flooding in western North Carolina last fall. The bank reported a $54 million annual profit, down 3.4% from the previous year.
- Columbus, Ohio-based Huntington Bank wants to become a name brand in the Carolinas, plotting about 30 branch openings over the next two years. The first North Carolina branches will be located in Charlotte, Raleigh and Winston-Salem. Several of the bank’s senior regional leaders previously worked at Truist.
- Wells Fargo is in the middle of a $500 million upgrade of its facilities in the Charlotte area, where it has about 27,000 employees. About 10,000 work from the Customer Information Center, a 2.1 million-square-foot campus that opened in northeast Mecklenburg County in 1996 under predecessor First Union. ■
