On September 8, PNC Bank announced that it had made a deal to purchase FirstBank Colorado for $4.1 billion. This deal means that the more than 700,000 FirstBank customers in Colorado and Arizona will see their banking switch to PNC sometime in 2026. By acquiring FirstBank and its $28 billion in assets, PNC will become the largest bank in the Front Range as far as customer deposits and banking locations.
FirstBank Colorado was founded in 1963 in Lakewood and is one of the largest and most successful privately owned banks in the United States. Across five and a half decades, FirstBank’s independence allowed them to focus investment on local community interests and philanthropy, which became the basis of their motto “Banking for good.” This includes their sponsorship of Colorado Gives Day and over $90 million in charitable donations.
These community-centric practices helped FirstBank grow in size and reputation. FirstBank currently has 95 branches across Colorado and Arizona, including one in Firestone, one in Erie, and two in Longmont. FirstBank has also been the number one financial institution in customer satisfaction for the past five years.
These locations and reputation made FirstBank a highly sought-after acquisition for PNC. PNC started in 1983 as a result of a merger of two Pennsylvania banks that had “PNC” as their initials: the Pittsburgh National Bank, established in 1865, and the Provident National Corporation, created in 1922. In the past decade, PNC has shifted its focus from being a regionally based medium-sized bank (not unlike FirstBank) to one of the largest banks in the US. Last year, PNC announced a commitment to open 1,200 new branches nationwide by 2028.
Such a large number of branches opening in such a short period could only happen without PNC acquiring rival banks and converting them to PNC locations. FirstBank was an ideal acquisition target for them in Colorado, where PNC currently only has 38 branches (about half of which are in the Denver metro area).
The FirstBank purchase would bring this total up to 120 branches in the state, making PNC the undisputed king of banking in Colorado. With 120 branches, PNC would have the most locations (14%) in Colorado but also the largest share of customer deposits in the state (20%). Overall, PNC would become the fifth-largest bank in the country, about equal in size to Capital One and US Bank.
This increased size may be a good thing for FirstBank customers. FirstBank’s CEO Kevin Classen (who is slated to become regional president for PNC’s mountain territory) told the press that PNC’s “scale, technology, and breadth of financial services will allow us to offer even more to our customers, while ensuring that our employees and communities continue to thrive.” The presence of a larger bank with more resources in the region may also be good for local businesses, as a bigger bank can provide more options for loans.
PNC’s purchase of FirstBank could also negatively affect FirstBank customers. One concern some analysts have is that PNC looks to be growing too big too fast—while they want to open hundreds of branches, they have also been closing almost as many as they open. This indicates that PNC is much more likely to go under than the very stable FirstBank.
Others are concerned that PNC won’t be as locally focused as the Colorado-based FirstBank, and thus the community may suffer. While PNC has said in their press statement that they do not plan to close any Colorado branches or fire any FirstBank bankers, there will doubtless be some layoffs in IT support and upper-level management. The move to a larger national corporation may also affect charitable events that FirstBank currently sponsors, like Colorado Gives Day.
As of writing, the deal has not been finalized, though it is very likely to go through early next year during a FirstBank shareholder’s meeting. Shareholders controlling around 45.7% of FirstBank have already agreed to vote in favor of the buyout. Once the deal is legally finalized, FirstBank customers will be switched to PNC customers within a couple of days.
