Huntington Bancshares Incorporated
Huntington Bancshares Incorporated (HBAN)
Overview
Huntington Bancshares Incorporated is a regional bank holding company headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, whose primary subsidiary, The Huntington National Bank, provides retail and commercial banking services across the Midwest and, increasingly, the Southeast and Southwest United States. Huntington is a member of the S&P 500 and trades on Nasdaq under the ticker HBAN. The bank operates roughly 1,000-plus branches concentrated in Ohio and Michigan but extending into Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois, Minnesota, Colorado, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Kentucky, and — following a string of acquisitions — the Carolinas and Texas. With total assets that have grown from about $53.8 billion in 2010 to well over $200 billion today (swelling further with the pending/recently closed acquisition of Cadence Bank), annual revenue near $9-10 billion, and roughly 20,000-plus employees, Huntington ranks among the 20-30 largest bank holding companies in the country.
What They Do & How They Make Money
Huntington makes money the way most commercial banks do: it gathers low-cost customer deposits (checking, savings, money market accounts) and other funding, then lends that money out at higher rates through commercial loans, consumer loans, mortgages, auto loans, and credit cards — earning "net interest income" on the spread between what it pays depositors and what it charges borrowers. It supplements that with fee-based ("noninterest") income from services such as wealth management and trust fees, treasury management, capital markets and mortgage banking activity, service charges on deposit accounts, card and payment processing fees, and insurance commissions. Huntington has also built a niche as a top national originator of SBA 7(a) small-business loans, and it runs specialty finance businesses (equipment leasing, floorplan/dealer financing, asset-based lending) that lend against specific asset types for corporate customers nationally rather than just in its retail footprint. Growth in recent years has come substantially through acquisition — notably FirstMerit (2016), TCF Financial (2021), Veritex Holdings, and Cadence Bank (announced October 2025) — expanding its geographic footprint and balance sheet scale.
Business Segments
Huntington organizes its business into four reportable segments:
- Consumer & Regional Banking — The retail banking franchise: branch banking, consumer deposits, home lending/mortgage, auto finance, and small-business banking delivered through Huntington's branch network, ATMs, call centers, and digital/mobile channels across its multi-state footprint. This is typically the largest segment by revenue and deposits.
- Commercial Banking — Middle-market and corporate banking, government/public-sector banking, and specialty commercial banking, including treasury management, commercial lending, and capital markets services for mid-sized and larger business clients.
- Wealth & Asset Management — Investment management, personal trust, brokerage, and private banking services for high-net-worth and institutional clients, along with insurance products.
- Asset Finance — Equipment leasing and financing, asset-based lending, and dealer/floorplan financing — specialty lending businesses that operate somewhat independently of the core branch footprint and serve customers on a national basis.
The bank does not break out detailed segment-level revenue in most summary sources, but Consumer & Regional Banking and Commercial Banking together account for the large majority of both net interest income and overall profitability, consistent with Huntington's identity as a traditional relationship-banking institution rather than a capital-markets- or trading-driven bank.
Competitors
Huntington competes primarily against other U.S. regional and super-regional banks, particularly those with overlapping Midwest and Southeast footprints, as well as the large national money-center banks for larger commercial and wealth clients:
- Fifth Third Bancorp — direct Midwest regional competitor headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio.
- KeyCorp — Cleveland-based regional bank with an overlapping Ohio/Midwest and Northeast presence.
- Regions Financial — Southeast-focused regional bank increasingly overlapping with Huntington's expansion into the Carolinas and South.
- PNC Financial Services Group — larger super-regional bank headquartered in Pittsburgh, competing across nearly all of Huntington's markets and products.
- Citizens Financial Group, M&T Bank, and Comerica — other super-regional/regional banks competing for similar commercial and consumer customers.
- Truist Financial and U.S. Bancorp — larger regional/super-regional players competing in overlapping Southeast and national commercial segments.
- Large national banks (JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo) compete indirectly, especially for larger corporate and wealth management clients, and community banks/credit unions compete at the local branch level.
Competitive Position
Huntington's competitive advantages stem from deep, long-standing customer relationships in its core Midwest markets (especially Ohio and Michigan, where it holds leading deposit market share in many metro areas), a diversified revenue mix that blends traditional branch banking with specialty national lending businesses (auto, equipment finance, SBA lending), and a track record of successfully integrating acquisitions to add scale and adjacent geographies. Its position as the top SBA 7(a) lender nationally gives it a differentiated small-business franchise that many peers lack. The bank has also emphasized customer-friendly consumer products (such as overdraft-relief features) to build retail deposit loyalty, a relatively low-cost, stable funding base that supports net interest margin.
The principal risks facing Huntington are those common to regional banks generally: sensitivity to interest-rate movements and the shape of the yield curve, which directly affects net interest margin; credit risk in its commercial and consumer loan portfolios, particularly in a slowing economy or a downturn in commercial real estate; deposit competition and funding cost pressure from both larger banks and higher-yielding alternatives (money market funds, online banks); and regulatory/compliance costs that have risen for banks near or above the $250 billion asset threshold, a marker Huntington is approaching or crossing as its Cadence Bank acquisition closes. Integration risk from that acquisition — combining systems, retaining customers and employees, and realizing projected cost synergies — is a near-term execution risk. Longer-term, Huntington must continue investing in digital banking capabilities to compete with both megabanks and fintech disruptors for deposits and payments relationships, while its concentrated Midwest footprint leaves it exposed to regional economic cycles even as recent acquisitions diversify that geographic base.