City National joins crowded field of banks in the Carolinas

• Key insight: City National has added nearly 120 employees in the Carolinas, split between new offices in Greenville, South Carolina and Charlotte, North Carolina.
  
• What's at stake: Many banks based in other regions, including Los Angeles-based City National, are vying for business in the fast-growing Carolinas.
  
• Forward look: The lender, which is a subsidiary of Royal Bank of Canada, plans to keep hiring bankers who have long worked in the Carolinas.
  

West Coast-based City National Bank marked a milestone Monday in its Southeast expansion by opening a nearly 23,000-square-foot office in Charlotte, North Carolina.

City National has recently added nearly 120 employees in North Carolina and South Carolina, and with the opening of the Charlotte office, as well as the January 2025 inauguration of a 5,700-square-foot space in Greenville, South Carolina, those staffers no longer have to work remotely.

Chris Edmonds, City National's executive vice president of middle market banking, told American Banker that the lender plans to keep adding bankers in the two neighboring Southeast states. The Charlotte and Greenville offices are anchored by City National's commercial banking division, the company said.

"We're really targeting local talent who have been in the Carolinas for their entire careers and know the market," Edmonds said.

City National, which is headquartered in Los Angeles but has offices in the Southeast U.S. cities of Nashville, Atlanta and Miami, is hardly the first out-of-state bank to eye the Carolinas. Indeed, the region has been a hot spot in recent years for banks seeking growth.

In 2023, JPMorganChase announced plans to double its branch footprint in the Carolinas. Pittsburgh-based PNC Financial Services Group said last year that it intended to add branches in Raleigh and Charlotte. Cincinnati-based Fifth Third Bancorp recently opened its 100th branch in the Carolinas.

Huntington Bancshares, headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, said in April that it was looking to add 55 branches in the Carolinas over the next three years.

And the list goes on. Minneapolis-based U.S. Bancorp has been opening branches in Charlotte. FNB Corp., a Pittsburgh-based lender that's acquired two North Carolina banks in the last decade, is planning additional growth in the Carolinas. Virginia-based Atlantic Union Bankshares, which already operates 11 branches in North Carolina, has plans to add 10 more.

What's more, two of the nation's 10 largest banks are based in Charlotte, and both of them have designs on a bigger share of their home turf.

Truist Financial is looking to bolster its mass-affluent business in numerous Southeast markets, including Charlotte. Bank of America has also been opening new branches in the Queen City.

In 2024, South Carolina recorded the fourth-highest population growth rate among U.S. states, while North Carolina's was seventh highest, according to an analysis of Census data by the National Association of Realtors.

"There is just a huge amount of growth that's happening in the Carolinas, and I think the banks are seeing these opportunities," said Yongquiang Chu, a professor of real estate, urban economics and finance at UNC Charlotte's Belk College of Business. "Almost every week we will see some announcements that companies are moving part of their business, or moving their headquarters, to the Carolinas."

"You still need to have people on the ground to establish the relationships," he added.

Seeking to differentiate

Edmonds, who joined City National in July 2025 from Zions Bancorp., indicated that he's not daunted by the increasingly crowded field of banks competing in North Carolina and South Carolina.

"I think banking in general is competitive," he said. "We think we can really differentiate in the Carolinas."

One way that City National is zigging where other banks are zagging is by eschewing a branch-focused approach. That's in line with the branch-light U.S. strategy that City National's parent company, Royal Bank of Canada, laid out at its investor day in March.

City National Bank

RBC has been revamping its stateside plans following a stretch of sizable losses at City National, which was hurt by the sharp rise in interest rates in 2022 and 2023. Part of the focus now is on integrating City National's historical strength in middle-market commercial banking with RBC's capital markets business.

"Core middle-market clients need strong cash management and capital market services," Greg Carmichael, executive chair of RBC's U.S. operations, said at the company's 2025 investor day.

In the Carolinas, City National plans to marry its relationship-banking model with RBC's capabilities in capital markets and wealth management, Edmonds said. The company's $96.5 billion-asset U.S. subsidiary can differentiate itself from other banks with expertise, advice, products and capabilities, he said.

RBC has been seeking to integrate City National more fully into the Canadian parent company, and Edmonds said those efforts are progressing.

"We're definitely doing that better and better every day. We refer to it as 'One RBC,'" he said.

City National's commercial banking team in the Carolinas is being led by Charlie Arndt, who joined the bank in 2024 after more than a decade at Fifth Third, where he worked as South Carolina market leader. Arndt will split his time between Charlotte and Greenville, the bank said.

City National's recent buildout in the Carolinas is not RBC's first expansion in the region. In 2001, RBC bought Rocky Mount, North Carolina-based Centura Banks, which had $11.5 billion of assets, in what was then the largest U.S. bank acquisition by a Canadian lender.

RBC originally called the bank it acquired RBC Centura Banks but later renamed it RBC Bank. It sold the bank to PNC in 2012.