Detroit Free Press: Manoj Kulchania on evolution of consumer banking habits
The planned merger of Detroit-based TCF Financial Corp. into Huntington Bancshares of Columbus, Ohio, will be the latest test of whether banking consumers — and not only executives and shareholders — are served by having bigger, yet fewer, competing banks to choose from. If federal regulators and the banks' shareholders approve the $6 billion all-stock deal, TCF bank would be absorbed into Huntington in the second quarter of 2021, giving the newly enlarged Huntington a $22 billion market value and ranking it as the second-biggest bank in Michigan by deposits, behind JPMorgan Chase, according to data from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. To be sure, counting the number of banks doesn't capture the phenomenal growth of Internet- and smartphone-enabled financial service providers that compete against traditional banks and can help fill voids left by shuttered bank branches. For example, Detroit-based Quicken Loans isn't a bank and barely existed 30 years ago, yet today is the nation's No. 1 provider of home mortgages. “A lot of these local mortgages would probably have gone to TCF Bank 10 years back, but now you are shopping online for the cheapest rate you can find," said Manoj Kulchania, associate professor of finance at Wayne State University's Mike Ilitch School of Business. “A good way to think about this whole story is to think, ‘How do you bank? How have your banking habits changed over the last few years?' And that will tell you why the smaller banks are facing that much heat," he said.
