An out-of-state bank has set its sights on the Carolinas, and its regional leader says there’s a lot for Huntington National Bank to like about its plans to open about 55 branches in North and South Carolina over the next five years.
First, both states rank in the top 10 for population and economic growth. That makes the region attractive to any financial services company, says Heath Campbell, Huntington’s Charlotte-based executive managing director of the Carolinas.
Then, he adds, “There’s a lot of disruption happening in North and South Carolina” in financial services. The former Truist executive declined to go into specifics about his former employs, but says the Columbus, Ohio-based company sees an opening here.
“We saw it as an opportunity to bring a culture-rich, people-first organization to the Carolinas and this was the right time to do it,” says Campbell, who until October had been president of the North Carolina West Region for Charlotte-based Truist, the nation’s sixth-largest bank with about $520 billion in assets.
While Campbell sidestepped questions about Truist, industry analysts and executives of rival lenders have cited its leadership departures and other changes as creating business opportunities. Truist this year closed about 80 of its approximately 2,000 branches and has significantly changed its senior management as part of a $750 million cost-cutting effort.
Huntington, the nation’s 24th largest bank, operates about 970 branches in 11 states. Charlotte-based Bank of America, the nation’s second-largest bank, has more than $3.2 trillion in assets. San Francisco-based Wells Fargo, which has a large presence in Charlotte, and ranks third nationally, has more than $1.7 trillion in assets.
Huntington National’s addition of bank branches will add 350 workers to the 200-plus employees already in the two states, he says. Five branches will come by 2025, with the first coming in either December or January at a former First Third Bank branch in Charlotte’s SouthPark neighborhood. Other branches will be in Raleigh and Winston-Salem, and Charleston and Spartanburg areas of South Carolina.
The divide between how many jobs and branches will go to either state hasn’t been nailed down, says Campbell, adding that it will roughly be determined by the population size and economic development occurring in the two states. North Carolina has about 10.7 million residents, about twice as many as South Carolina.
Huntington ranks second in North Carolina for Small Business Administration loans, says Campbell. Having people see brick-and-mortar bank branches will raise its profile in the two states, he says. Last year, Huntington opened a regional headquarters in Charlotte had more than 40 employees in the center city.
“What I’ve found being a part of Huntington is a lot of similarities and familiarities with Midwest values being a real nice complement to Southern hospitality,” he says.
“If we earn the trust of our constituents each and every day I like our chances of being successful in the long run,” he adds.
Campbell also believes Huntington National has another advantage of locating in North Carolina, especially banking-heavy Charlotte when it comes to filling jobs. “I believe there’s available talent that we can welcome into the Huntington culture from North and South Carolina,” he says.
Part of the region’s growth, is people wanting to move to the Carolinas, adds Ian Wyatt, a director of economics for Huntington, who previously worked for BofA in Charlotte.
Opening branches in the two states will mean Huntington providing its full services to the area, which includes insurance, wealth management and commercial and business banking. Huntington’s nearest retail branches are in West Virginia, with most of its offices spread from Ohio to Minnesota.
The types of branches Huntington will open will be determined by AI-driven data on traffic patterns, demographic trends, economic activity, says Campbell.
“We have a lot more data to make more informed decisions than we would have if we were building these branches 20 years ago,” he says.
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story included a dollar amount for the investment Huntington National was making with the additional bank branches. The information given was not accurate, according to Huntington.