UPDATE: This article includes additional information from PwC and Truist analyst Brian Foran.
Reports of tariff uncertainty hurting bank M&A are greatly exaggerated, according to new research.
Mergers and acquisitions in the banking world did not slow down after early April, when the Trump administration announced close to 90 new tariffs, a
"They weren't stalled as a result of the tariffs," Dan Goerlich, PwC's banking and capital markets deals leader, told American Banker. "I think, as you look from 2021 through 2025 … [merger activity] has picked back up in a way that things have returned to a more normalized level."
As of May 15, PwC found that bank deal announcements had "remained steady," and deal values had more than doubled — from $10.9 billion to $22.4 billion — since the first quarter of 2025. The rising tide has been driven largely by smaller bank consolidation, the firm wrote.
Brian Foran, an analyst at Truist Securities, agreed that bank M&A has not been slowed down by the flux in U.S. trade policy — but,
"It's kind of steady, against a backdrop of initially thinking it was going to double," Foran said of banks' merger activity. "Steady is a disappointment from that standpoint."
Why hasn't the tumult over trade policy had more of an impact? One reason, Goerlich said, is that bank mergers are a slow process, typically driven by long-term strategies. As a result, deals are unlikely to get derailed by headlines in a fast-evolving news story like Trump's tariffs.
The same has not been true of other businesses. In another May 2025
Banks, meanwhile, have had an easier time staying the course.
"I don't think that the tariffs or the 'Liberation Day' had no impact — that would be false," Goerlich said. "But banks, as lending and depository institutions, obviously aren't going to be as immediately impacted as the manufacturing and brick-and-mortar companies that have supply chains that are impacted by the tariffs."
There's also another, longer-term reason bank M&A has continued: the decades-long trend toward consolidation. In 1980, there were about 14,000 commercial banks in the country, according to the
Today, that trend continues to push deals forward, Goerlich said. Meanwhile, there have been two main forces exerted by the Trump administration — deregulation and economic uncertainty. The former factor has been positive for M&A, and the latter one has been negative, so to some extent they've cancelled each other out, according to Goerlich.
"Banks are just going through a push-pull," he said. "I think you have a tailwind and a headwind happening at the same time in banking … and the undercurrent that continues to move forward is just the consolidation in the sector."
As for the rest of the year, PwC wrote that it's "optimistic" that this trend will continue.
"As we gain further insight into the impact of the new administration's actions on trade and policymaking, we anticipate an increase in both the number and size of banking deals through the remainder of the year," the firm wrote in its report.
As a consulting firm, Goerlich pointed out, PwC is privy to bank deals already "in the pipeline," which is part of the reason for this optimism. But another factor is the Trump administration's slashing of regulations during its first 100 days, before it shifted its focus to tariffs.
"A bit of it just comes down to the easing in the regulatory space around bank M&A," Goerlich said. "I think that everybody in the marketplace is observing that to try to understand if that increases deal velocity."
In addition, Goerlich said, new markets are opening up in digital assets. On Tuesday, the U.S. Senate
With this growing clarity about the rules, many lenders see new opportunities in the crypto space. Just last week, as the GENIUS Act gained steam, some of the nation's largest banks
In this context, Goerlich predicted, more banks are likely to acquire fintechs and other firms that have crypto expertise.
"That's where we would see a spur of deal activity," he said, "where potentially banks would need to inorganically grow through some form of acquisition to take on a nascent organization that already plays in digital assets, versus trying to build that infrastructure concurrently."
However unpredictable 2025 has been so far, Truist's Foran agreed that bank M&A deals will probably increase in the second half.
"I think the bet I and most people would make is it's up, not down," he said. "I think we all feel a little bit wrong-footed after the past six months … but the industry consolidation still is a very long-term trend that you'd think would be intact."
