Retaining deposit market share is challenging in big bank deals

Large bank buyers have returned to the M&A market, but a review of some previous big-ticket deals shows how difficult it is to maintain the pro forma deposit market share totals.

Four US bank deals with a deal value of at least $5 billion have been announced since 2025, after no deals of that size had been completed during the three previous years. The number of $1 billion-plus deals has reached 15 since 2024, after a total of two were announced in 2022 and 2023 combined. The hope in any M&A deal is that the combined entity can create synergies that help maintain and grow the customer base. However, an analysis of six large bank deals underscores the challenges buyers face in trying to grow deposit market share after announcing the large deal.

The S&P Global Market Intelligence review examined the deposit market share of the surviving independent entities that were buyers in the largest bank M&A deals announced since 2018 that had been closed for at least four years through June 30, 2025, the date of the most recently available Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Summary of Deposit market share data. The review showed that banks struggled to grow market share without executing another deal.

Through June 30, 2025, three of the banks — Fifth Third Bancorp, Huntington Bancshares Inc. and SouthState Bank Corp. — had surpassed their large-deal pro forma deposit market share total, but in each of those cases, the companies announced at least one other deal to help boost market share. First Horizon Corp., PNC Financial Services Group Inc. and Truist Financial Corp. are the three banks that have yet to match their large-deal pro forma deposit market-share totals.

An analysis of six of the largest bank deals in the last decade shows just how difficult it is to retain customers and maintain deposit market share in the years after announcing the big-ticket transaction. The S&P Global Market Intelligence review examined the pro forma deposit market share of the surviving independent entities that were buyers in the largest bank M&A deals announced since 2018 that had been closed for at least four years through June 30, 2025, the date of the most recently available FDIC Summary of Deposit market share data. The review showed that banks struggled to grow or maintain market share without executing another deal.

The decliners

The companies that recorded the largest market share deterioration in wake of the large deals both took part in a merger of equals (MOE). The national deposit market share of First Horizon Corp., which announced its $3.97 billion MOE with IBERIABANK Corp. in November 2019, has declined each year since the deal. It fell to 0.367% as of June 30, 2025, down from the pro forma level of 0.446% based on data as of June 30, 2019. The national deposit market share of Truist Financial Corp., which was created through a February 2019-announced $28.39 billion MOE between SunTrust Banks Inc. and BB&T Corp., fell to a low of 2.28% as of June 30, 2024, from a pro forma level of 2.70% as of June 30, 2018.

PNC has helped offset some of its drop with the $4.08 billion September 2025 announced acquisition of FirstBank Holding Co., a transaction that boosted its pro forma national deposit market share to 2.52% based on June 30, 2025, data. Still, that national deposit market share remains below PNC's pro forma level of 2.72% after it announced the $11.57 billion acquisition of BBVA USA Bancshares Inc. in November 2020.

This analysis represents a case study of how well six banks defended their national deposit market share after executing large transactions. The review examines the largest bank deals announced since 2018 that have been closed for at least four years as of June 30, 2025, which is the as-of date for the most recently released FDIC Summary of Deposit market share data.

For PNC, a decline was expected. PNC CFO Robert Reilly noted during an earnings call in January 2022 that the company experienced some deposit runoff "related to the strategic repricing of certain BBVA USA portfolios." Soon after, the Federal Reserve began raising interest rates to combat inflation, and PNC's stated deposit strategy was to avoid growing in every market by chasing expensive funding options. In its 2022 annual report, PNC said "competitive pricing dynamics and inflationary pressures" led to a reduction in deposits on a "spot basis."

PNC is now in an expansion mode that includes a plan announced in November 2025 to open more than 300 branches by 2030. However, its branch network was down to 2,344 as of June 30, 2024, after nearing 3,000 on a pro forma basis when it announced the BBVA deal.

Even with the FirstBank deal, PNC's branch footprint was 18.9% smaller on a pro forma basis as of June 30, 2025, compared to the combined PNC and BBVA USA as of June 30, 2020. Still, the company is a believer in using the branch network to take market share.

"The science is pretty well developed that once you get 7% or 8% branch share in the market, you have disproportionate deposits per branch share," Chairman and CEO William Demchak said in December 2025.

Cutting of the branches

Of the banks in the analysis, Truist recorded the largest drop in number of branches. The company's branch count is down about 40% to 1,928 as of June 30, 2025, from the June 30, 2018, pro forma total of 3,216 after the announcement of the SunTrust and BB&T MOE.

Part of the drop was forced as the company divested 30 branches with some $2.3 billion in deposits to First Horizon to help satisfy the Justice Department's antitrust concerns. Much of the decline in branches came in the first two years after the MOE's completion, as the year-over-year decline in the number of branches was 12.2% in 2021 and 17.3% in 2022. During a January 2022 earnings conference call, Truist CEO William Rogers said, despite the branch closures, the client retention numbers had been in the high upper 90% range. However, even at that level of retention, deposits are leaking.

Truist's deposit market share made its largest year-over-year drop in the year ended June 30, 2024, when it was 2.28%, down from 2.42% the year prior. In 2024, Truist pursued a cost-savings plan that included branch reductions, and it also executed a balance sheet restructuring plan, along with the sale of its insurance business, that reduced the company's funding needs.

The result has been a nearly across-the-board drop in deposit market share across Truist's footprint. Out of 195 MSAs, Truist has lost deposit market share in 178 as of June 30, 2025, from June 30, 2019.

Still, the company has touted the positions it has defended.

"We've exceeded what people have told us on the market share challenges are from a merger," Rogers said during a January 2025 earnings conference call.

The deposit market has not been all down for Truist. The company recorded year-over-year deposit market share gains in 2022, 2023 and 2025, but these were not enough to offset the declines in the other years.

Steady decline

First Horizon's national deposit market share has steadily declined since executing its merger of equals with IBERIABANK. During the period, First Horizon dealt with the distraction and fallout related to the 2023 termination of its 2022 announced sale to Toronto-Dominion Bank. After the deal was terminated, First Horizon's executives emphasized the company was moving forward with its own growth plan.

"With TD kind of moving aside, it's given us a chance to really kind of lean in and run our own playbook," First Horizon Chief Banking Officer Anthony Restel said in June 2023 when he was president of regional banking.

Part of the playbook has been attracting new customers with higher rates, but the company is not just trying to attract wholesale funds through the use of special rates on certificates of deposits. Instead, a goal has been to start relationships that could lead to offering other services such as wealth and lending, CFO Hope Dmuchowski said.

"We really see it as an introductory product to First Horizon and allows us to make that call, whether it's on the consumer side, the commercial side, the wealth side and start building a long relationship with that," Dmuchowski said in March 2025.

Fierce competition also challenges First Horizon in its core markets in the Southeast as a number of players have expanded there in an effort to take advantage of the area's growth.

On a local level, the deposit market share was down in each of First Horizon's top 15 metropolitan statistical areas by deposits as of June 30, 2025, compared to its pro forma levels with IBERIABANK as of June 30, 2020. Some of the largest drops came in the Miami and Orlando MSAs, two areas where IBERIABANK had a bigger presence, thanks to acquisitions.

However, Dmuchowski said Florida — especially South Florida — is the most competitive market she has seen in her career. "It's amazing to me how many new banks pop up in Miami," Dmuchowski said in March 2025.

Still, Dmuchowski said the market is growing, and First Horizon has had success. "It has continued to be a great market for us," she said.

An expansion story

SouthState Bank expanded in Florida through the $3.22 billion MOE with CenterState Bank Corp. announced in January 2020. In recent years, SouthState's growth plans in Florida have been more organic, and the company has used acquisitions to grow in other areas.

SouthState's national deposit market jumped to 0.300% as of June 30, 2025, from 0.214% the year prior as a result of the company's $2.021 billion acquisition of McKinney, Texas-based Independent Bank Group Inc., a deal that closed in January 2025. The July 2021 announced acquisition of Atlanta-based Atlantic Capital Bancshares Inc. helped boost SouthState's national deposit share to 0.212% as of June 30, 2022, from 0.193% the year prior.

In the years in between those deals, SouthState's national deposit market increased to 0.213% as of June 30, 2023, and 0.214% as of June 30, 2024. That growth came during a time when the industry was grappling with fallout from two large bank failures in March of 2023, and many banks felt funding pressure, especially those that had a degree of deposit accounts of uninsured deposits. SouthState, however, reported loan and deposit growth that was better than its guidance during a July 2023 earnings release.

At the time, CEO John Corbett said that the company benefited from the fact that it had the lowest average deposit size of its peer group at $25,000 per account, far below the uninsured deposit cap of $250,000. SouthState executives have also noted that its deposit-gathering has benefited from the company's presence and recruiting efforts in fast-growing states such as Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina and Georgia.

M&A boost

Huntington and Fifth Third have stayed near their large-deal pro forma deposit market share levels, and more recent acquisitions should help them stay above those marks.

Huntington's national deposit market had mostly been on the upswing since announcing its roughly $6.0 billion acquisition of TCF Financial Corp. in 2020. An initial drop was driven in part by the company's sale of 14 branches and $976 million in deposits to Horizon Bancorp Inc., but Huntington's June 30, 2023, market share was 0.880%, up from 0.820% as June 30, 2022, and near the 0.885% pro forma level of the combined TCF and Huntington based on June 30, 2020, totals.

By June 30, 2024, the company surpassed the pro forma deposit market share with a total of 0.915%, and that number jumped to 1.23% as June 30, 2025, when factoring in the 2025-announced acquisitions of Cadence Bank and Veritex Holdings Inc.

Fifth Third also recorded a jump in national deposit market thanks to M&A announced in 2025. Fifth Third Bancorp's acquisition of Comerica Inc. helped move the company's pro forma national deposit market share total to 1.27%.

While Comerica is a larger target, the Fifth Third deal that is part of this analysis was its acquisition of MB Financial Inc., which was announced in 2018 with a value of $4.62 billion. The Fifth Third-MB pro forma national deposit market share was 1.00% as of June 30, 2018, and fell to as low as 0.918% as of June 30, 2022. However, Fifth Third increased its market share in 2023 to 0.982% and 0.988% in 2024. Fifth Third Chairman, President and CEO Timothy Spence said the company's expansion into the Southeast helped drive the expansion.

"These market share gains are the byproduct of multiyear strategies that are not easily replicable by competitors," Spence said during an earnings conference call presentation in October 2023.

This article was published by S&P Global Market Intelligence and not by S&P Global Ratings, which is a separately managed division of S&P Global.