- Key insight: PNC’s recent acquisition of FirstBank is expected to drive growth in loans, net interest income and fee income in 2026 as the company seeks scale across the country.
- Supporting data: The Pittsburgh-based bank expects the acquisition to contribute $850 million to $900 million of net interest income this year.
- Forward look: PNC is aiming to compete with megabanks like JPMorganChase and Bank of America as it builds out its footprint.
It’s rare that PNC Financial Services Group CEO Bill Demchak gets through a public appearance without emphasizing the importance of scale.
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His $574 billion-asset company isn’t a regional bank, he said Friday. It’s a national bank.
“The distinction is as much aspiration as it is where we are from the starting point,” Demchak told analysts during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call.
PNC has retail and commercial banking operations in markets across the country, and its management team has been openly ambitious about its growth efforts, as it looks to compete with megabanks like JPMorganChase and Bank of America. Demchak called the strategy a matter of “long-term survivability.”
“But more importantly, perhaps, is the strategic direction and belief that ultimately to succeed, particularly with the retail platform, you have to have a national and ubiquitous presence, and share in each market that allows you a fair fight,” Demchak said Friday.
He added that as PNC expands — such as in Colorado, where it recently closed the acquisition of FirstBank Holding, and through its
“I don’t think anybody has an ability to defend home turf here,” Demchak said. “We’re coming into your market. If you’re not coming into our market to come fight us, we’re coming to your market to come fight you, and we’re going to get some percentage of your market.”
The Pittsburgh-based company isn’t the only bank targeting new markets. Megabanks like JPMorganChase and Bank of America along with regionals such as Ohio-based Fifth Third Bancorp are also bulking up their footprints in fast-growing parts of the country, like the Southeast and Texas.
PNC’s stock rose nearly to an all-time high on Friday after the bank announced its fourth-quarter results that beat analyst estimates. The company was trading at $223.72 by the early afternoon.
Demchak said that 2026 is also looking positive. The bank expects loans and total revenue to climb by about 8% and 11% this year, respectively.
“The basic business of running the bank against the economy — customer demand and the health of the consumer — we have a lot of tailwinds this year,” Demchak said. “It should be a great year for banks.”
PNC’s fourth-quarter results showed some of that dynamic.
Demchak said that after being hamstrung for much of 2025 by tariff uncertainty, clients have started making moves.
“The logjam in middle-market investments, the willingness to do M&A, the willingness to take down credit, to get a deal done, has opened up,” Demchak said. “It was kind of on hold for a long period of time because of tariffs. … We saw that kind of pipeline crack in the fourth quarter.”
Commercial-and-industrial loans in the quarter were up 8% from the same period in the prior year.
That activity also spurs capital markets and advisory activity, Demchak said. At some of the money-center banks, the capital markets business helped buoy earnings in 2025, as volatility lit a fire under trading desks.
While the capital-markets unit at PNC doesn’t account for as much earnings as it does at some other large banks, Demchak said under that umbrella, advisory services are more important to PNC than the equities business.
PNC’s revenue from capital markets, including advisory services, in the fourth quarter grew by 41% from last year. Across the entire company, noninterest income rose by 14%.
During the fourth quarter, the bank logged $4.88 in diluted earnings per share, handily beating the consensus analyst estimate of $4.21.
Also on Friday, PNC highlighted its recent $4.2 billion purchase of FirstBank, which gives it immediate major scale in Colorado and Arizona. The company will spend $325 million on integration costs, but expects the deal to add about $1.00 to earnings per share in 2027.
PNC also expects the FirstBank deal to contribute about $850 million to $900 million of net interest income in 2026. Last year, the bank earned $14.4 billion of net interest income, and it’s forecasting a $2 billion increase next year.
Notably, PNC seems to have finally shaken investor jitters that it will buy another bank in a slapdash deal to achieve its dreams of scale. The FirstBank
Over the last year,
PNC’s share price fell some 12% in the month after it first announced the FirstBank deal. The stock didn’t fully recover until mid-December, when Demchak said at a conference that investors misunderstood the company’s long-term plans and didn’t appreciate the value of FirstBank as a franchise.
“It’s really frustrating,” Demchak said at the time. “I mean, literally, it’s like the whole world has bet that I’m going to do something stupid. That’s caused the stock to go down.”