First Citizens deepens presence in Midwest, Great Plains

Published September 11, 2026 3:17 PM

1 Min Read

In this week's banking news roundup:

First Citizens BancShares in Raleigh, North Carolina, completes its acquisition of 138 branches across 11 states
City National Bank appoints Chad Lloyd senior vice president and head of RBC U.S. Mortgage
London-based payments processor Checkout.com launches its U.S. subsidiary in Georgia; and more

Elijah Nouvelage/Bloomberg

First Citizens gains scale with new branches

First Citizens BancShares in Raleigh, North Carolina, completed the acquisition of 138 branches across 11 states, deepening its presence across the Midwest and Great Plains.

The regional bank acquired the branches from BMO Financial Group in Toronto. BMO sold the offices as part of a branch realignment plan, which involves closing locations in slower-growth markets and opening branches in markets with better growth prospects, such as California.

First Citizens, which now has more than $225 billion of assets, assumed approximately $5 billion of deposits and $650 million of loans as part of the acquisition. The deal included branches in North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Idaho, as well as certain branches in western Minnesota, one branch in eastern Oregon and one branch in southern Illinois. —Allissa Kline

Chad Lloyd appointed SVP and head of RBC U.S. Mortgage

City National

Chad Lloyd joins City National to lead RBC U.S. Mortgage

Chad Lloyd has been appointed senior vice president and head of RBC U.S. Mortgage at City National Bank, the firm announced in a Sept. 10 press release. He will report to David Cameron, City National's chief operating officer, and lead the team responsible for developing and delivering mortgage and home equity lending products and services tailored to meet the diverse needs of RBC and City National clients.

Lloyd has over 25 years of experience leading large-scale lending organizations across mortgage, consumer and business banking. Most recently, he was senior vice president and director of consumer and business lending at Comerica Bank, where he oversaw $11 billion in diversified lending portfolios. Prior to that, he spent 17 years at Truist Financial in various senior leadership roles, including head of transformation during the SunTrust and BB&T merger integration and head of consumer product delivery. —Traci Parks

Jordan Reynolds, MALPB CEO and head of North American banking for Checkout.com.

Checkout.com

Checkout.com launches in US with limited-purpose charter

Checkout.com, a London-based payments processor, announced the launch of its U.S. subsidiary under a Merchant Acquirer Limited Purpose Bank, or MALPB, charter in the state of Georgia.

The company was approved for an MALPB charter in January of this year as one of the few firms (including Fiserv and Stripe) to have the special purpose charter. It is designed for nonbank firms to obtain and maintain payment card network memberships.

"As we begin processing through the charter we are bringing more control into the payment lifecycle, which will help us deliver more flexibility for enterprise merchants over time," said Jordan Reynolds, MALPB CEO and head of North American banking at Checkout.com.

Now that the charter is live, according to a company statement, Checkout.com is building out its U.S.-based teams in San Francisco, Atlanta and New York. —Melinda Lucy

Bloomberg News

Fifth Third completes Comerica systems, brand conversion

Fifth Third Bancorp completed the technology and brand conversion of the Comerica Bank franchise over the Labor Day weekend, seven months after it acquired the Dallas-based bank.

The technical conversion involved roughly 600,000 customers' accounts and 293 branches in Arizona, California, Florida, Michigan and Texas, Cincinnati-based Fifth Third said in a press release. The combined banks are now operating on a single platform, under a single brand.

Fifth Third is leveraging the acquisition to position itself for more growth. In Texas, where it now has 107 branches, it plans to invest nearly $1 billion over the next five years, including opening 150 new financial centers by 2029. By 2030, the bank expects to have 1,750 total branches. —Allissa Kline

Text message-based ID verification is now an open door for fraudsters

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PayNearMe acquires conversational AI company

Bill pay fintech PayNearMe has acquired the assets and hired key employees of Y Combinator-backed Marr Labs, a conversational artificial intelligence company, which will allow PayNearMe to offer agentic automation tools to its clients.

"AI provides powerful opportunities to further improve the experience delivered by our PayXM platform" said Danny Shader, founder and CEO of PayNearMe, in a statement. "The Marr Labs team has proven its ability to build and deploy sophisticated AI systems at massive scale."

PayNearMe processes more than $50 billion in annual payments volume, according to the company.

"Agents provide only one part of the equation," said Han Shu, co-founder and CTO of Marr Labs, in a statement. "To take meaningful action, agents need access to the right data, business rules and workflows. And in payments, they have to operate reliably and within compliance requirements while maintaining natural conversational experience." —Joey Pizzolato

Mercury

Mercury gets FDIC insurance approval

Mercury, a business-turned-consumer banking fintech with conditional approval for a de novo bank charter, has now also received approval for its FDIC insurance application. The approval, issued on Tuesday, is the second of three that the company needs to fully operate as a bank, and its Federal Reserve master account application is still pending.

The agency said in its decision letter that the proposed bank, which will be headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, must provide initial paid-in capital of $300 million to open. Mercury co-founder and CEO Immad Akhund said in a LinkedIn post that he anticipates Mercury Bank will open in 2027.

Mercury Bank is the second bank in the last two weeks to get a nod from the FDIC. VALT Bank, a proposed digital bank for businesses, received deposit insurance approval on Aug. 25 and plans to open its doors later this year. —Melinda Lucy

Ebony Sunala Johnson is named COO and CLO of FTA

FTA

Ebony Sunala Johnson named first COO and CLO of FTA

The Financial Technology Association announced Ebony Sunala Johnson as the organization's first chief operating officer and chief legal officer. She will oversee legal and operational functions for the network of fintech industry leaders.

FTA President and CEO Penny Lee praised Johnson's expertise in a Sept. 8 press release. "Her experience operating at the highest levels within government, a bank, a fintech, and a trade association will be invaluable to FTA as we continue advocating for thoughtful, forward-looking policy," said Lee.

Most recently, Johnson served as head of regulatory affairs at Block. Before that, she served as senior vice president and associate general counsel for consumer regulatory and public affairs at Truist and as vice president and associate general counsel at the Consumer Bankers Association. Prior to her work representing financial institutions, Johnson served as senior litigation counsel in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's Office of Enforcement for two administrations. —Traci Parks

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NYCUA’s board of directors announces leadership transition

The board of directors of the New York Credit Union Association announced the departure of its longtime president and CEO, WIlliam J. Mellin. He will remain in his role through Dec. 31 to focus on succession planning.

Under Mellin's leadership, total credit union assets in New York have grown from $36 billion to over $133 billion, and total credit union membership has grown from 4 million to almost 7.5 million.

"Since 2000, Bill has led NYCUA with vision, integrity, and an unwavering belief in the power of the 'people helping people' philosophy," said Ryan Roberts, NYCUA board chair and president & CEO of Great Meadow Federal Credit Union in a Sept. 10 press release.

Chief Operating Officer Chris Pajak will assume responsibility for day-to-day operations of the organization and its affiliated entities until the formal appointment of the organization's next president and CEO. —Traci Parks

Hollie Adams/Bloomberg

HSBC Private Bank announces senior appointments

This week, HSBC Private Bank made two senior appointments to better serve its growing number of ultra-high-new-worth and family office clients.

Starting Sept. 10, Hannes Hofmann will take on the newly created role of global head of family offices. He will be based in London and work in conjunction with HSBC's corporate and institutional banking teams to deliver the full capabilities of HSBC to family office clients.

Hofmann most recently was global head of the family office group at Citi Private Bank. Prior to that, he worked at J.P. Morgan Private Bank for 20 years, including in New York, Hong Kong and London.

On Sept. 20, Cayman Wills will join the firm as head of U.S. Private Bank. She will be based in New York, focusing on the firm's high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth clients in key markets and corridors.

Cayman joins HSBC from Citi Private Bank, where she headed the Northeast region. Before that, she worked at JPMorgan for 18 years in a variety of leadership roles. —Traci Parks

The Acropolis overlooking buildings in Athens.

Ioana Epure/Bloomberg

JPMorgan expands corporate banking business to Greece

JPMorganChase is expanding its global corporate banking business to Greece, broadening the services that the bank provides in the country, according to an internal memo seen by Bloomberg.

The lender's expansion will be led by Konstantinos Makrydakis, who will serve as head of global corporate banking Greece and oversee the large and mid-cap coverage in the market, according to the memo.

JPMorgan already operates an investment banking franchise in the country. Stelios Papadopoulos will remain senior country officer for Greece, Cyprus and Malta.

The move comes as Greece has achieved a significant turnaround in recent years from the depths of its decade-long debt crisis. The Greek economy is now growing faster than many of its European peers, unemployment has fallen to the lowest levels since 2008 and the country is rapidly reducing its public debt.

Since 2023 Greece has regained investment grade status from all major rating companies, while earlier this year the country's stocks were upgraded to developed-market status by MSCI. —Sotiris Nikas, Bloomberg News

Michael M. Santiago/Photographer: Michael M. Santiag

Goldman expands in Canada via asset management deal with IG

The money management arm of Goldman Sachs Group is pursuing further expansion in Canada through a new advisory deal with IG Wealth Management. Goldman Sachs Asset Management's multi-asset solutions team will help manage five IG Wealth portfolios. The products are designed for retail investors seeking a globally diversified approach, the firms said in a news release Tuesday.

IG Wealth, a division of Winnipeg-based IGM Financial, has about C$178 billion of assets under advisement. Goldman is bringing "world-class institutional investment capabilities" to the portfolios, which include income, balanced and growth equity products, according to Florence Narine, head of investment solutions at IG Wealth.

GSAM has been sub-advising National Bank of Canada's investment division since 2015.

The global firm has also made a bigger push into outsourced chief investment officer services in Canada by winning a deal to manage Bombardier's pension plan assets in 2022. Since then, Goldman has also added the Canadian pension assets of United Parcel Service and Shell Plc, among others. —Mathieu Dion, Bloomberg News

Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg

Deutsche Numis co-chair of corporate broking is retiring

The co-chair of corporate broking at Deutsche Bank's U.K. investment banking unit Deutsche Numis, Mark Lander, is retiring, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Simon Alexander joined in April as co-chair of corporate broking and Charles Farquhar is another co-chair, the person said, asking not to be identified discussing the private matter.

The German lender agreed to acquire Numis in early 2023 to bolster its footprint in the country. It has since renamed the unit as Deutsche Numis.

Deutsche Bank has hired several bankers in the U.K. over the past year including Anthony Parsons as executive chairman of its investment bank and capital markets business and Robert Farrington as head of U.K. technology investment banking. —Leonard Kehnscherper and Arno Schütze, Bloomberg News

Alex Kraus/Bloomberg

Centerbridge-backed Aareal Bank studies HCOB acquisition

Centerbridge Partners-backed real estate lender Aareal Bank is considering a potential bid for Hamburg Commercial Bank, people familiar with the matter said.

HCOB investors including Cerberus Capital Management are working with advisors on a possible sale and talks are underway, according to the people. A deal could come together later this year, they said.

Bloomberg News reported late last year that HCOB was exploring a sale and seeking a valuation above its tangible common equity of €3.3 billion ($3.8 billion).

Deliberations are ongoing and there's no certainty they'll result in a deal, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing confidential information.

Aareal Bank's backers Centerbridge and Advent are supportive of deliberations around a potential acquisition of HCOB, the people said.

At the same time, Centerbridge and Advent are reaching out to potential advisors about a so-called dual track process that could kick off next year and result in a sale or initial public offering of Aareal Bank, some of the people said. —Eyk Henning, Swetha Gopinath, Pablo Mayo Cerqueiro and Arno Schütze, Bloomberg News