TD Bank will expand its Charlotte, North Carolina, presence with 15 new branches by 2025, the bank announced Thursday, citing the city’s fast-growing population. The first two branches are set to open next summer.
The move will bring 100 full- and part-time jobs to the area, and at least 25% of the locations will be in majority-nonwhite or low- to moderate-income (LMI) areas, the bank said.
That last point may be meant as an olive branch to community advocates who last month laid out their concerns that TD’s proposed merger with First Horizon Bank would negatively affect customers of color or those who live in LMI areas.
"We recognize the need for many consumers to obtain convenient access to banking services, and we look forward to serving these diverse communities," TD’s U.S. CEO, Leo Salom, said Thursday in a statement.
TD operates 11 branches in North Carolina but none in Charlotte. However, the city has been home to the bank’s commercial real estate, middle-market and commercial lending segments since 2013.
The expansion also appears separate from any brick-and-mortar presence TD would gain in acquiring Memphis, Tennessee-based First Horizon, which also has locations in Charlotte. TD pledged not to close any branches because of the deal.
"We were looking at this [expansion] for a long time, even before First Horizon," said Ernie Diaz, TD's head of consumer distribution, told American Banker. "We've got the belief that this market is going to show substantial growth over the next five years."
Charlotte has exploded in recent years, with 84 people moving into the region every day in 2020 and 2021. The city’s population grew by nearly 20% from April 2010 to April 2020, and the metro area has experienced similar growth. Charlotte ranks as the 23rd-largest metro area nationwide and, according to U.S. News & World Report, is the 24th-fastest-growing city in the country.
TD recently opened an office in Fort Mill, South Carolina, a Charlotte suburb, after closing a branch in that building in 2013.
When TD announced the First Horizon acquisition in February, the Canadian lender’s CEO, Bharat Masrani, said it would give TD “immediate presence and scale in highly attractive adjacent markets in the U.S. with significant opportunity for future growth across the Southeast.”
The no-closure pledge may run counter to recent trends, though. Early last year, TD shuttered 82 locations nationwide to reallocate its resources to digital banking. The closings were among a record 2,927 across the nation’s banking sector in 2021. That momentum, however, has slowed, according to a report last month from S&P Global Market Intelligence.
