David Kordalski
Huntington Bank’s regional headquarters in downtown Cleveland.
Having apparently wrapped up a $16.1 billion community benefits plan — spurred by the 2016 acquisition of Akron’s FirstMerit Corp. — a year early, Huntington Bancshares has announced a new five-year, $20 billion investment and philanthropic commitment for its seven-state Midwest footprint in response to the economic challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The parent company of Columbus-based Huntington Bank said its 2020 Community Plan is developed in concert with community organizations and will include a variety of initiatives to be revealed in the coming months.
Here are three categories of focus as described by Huntington:
• Access to capital: Huntington is investing in small businesses, with a special emphasis on those owned by minorities, women and veterans. The bank’s $7.6 billion commitment to helping businesses will be bolstered by additional investments in business-planning and educational programs to help bring business owners the relief, recovery and growth they are seeking as the cornerstones of the American economy.
• Affordable housing and home ownership: Huntington is expanding lending programs and educational services to support increased home ownership by minority and low- to moderate-income borrowers throughout the Midwest. The bank’s $7.5 billion commitment will enable greater opportunities for first-time home buyers, improve housing security for financially distressed consumers and create generational wealth building through home ownership. It will also enable home rehabilitation and the refinancing of existing homes to unlock the cash-flow needs of borrowers.
• Community lending and investment: Huntington said it recognizes the barriers to banking that exist for some people and businesses and is investing $4.9 billion toward community efforts related to affordable housing, food security, workforce development and social equity. Huntington said it thinks these areas are fundamental to helping people not only find basic economic security, but also prosper.
“Huntington is a purpose-driven bank, and our purpose of looking out for people leads us to do more to support underserved people, businesses and communities,” said Huntington chairman, president and CEO Steve Steinour in a statement. “Together, the COVID-19 pandemic and recession, as well as critical issues related to racial and social inequity, have highlighted the need for increased economic opportunity for people in our region and across America. As a bank, our desire is to help drive meaningful change and to improve the economic vitality and financial security of those we serve.”
The announcement drew the praise of Sen. Sherrod Brown, the ranking member on the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, as well as the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) — Huntington chartered a National Community Advisory Council with NCRC in 2017.
“Huntington Bank sets the bar for their commitment to increasing working-poor people’s access to credit, capital and basic banking services,” said NCRC president and founder John Taylor in a statement. “Their previous 2017 Community Development Plan with NCRC was completed more than a year ahead of schedule. Recognizing the need to build upon that commitment and success, the bank met with community groups, including many of NCRC’s members, as well as its leadership, to draft yet another larger community plan. This new plan commits $20 billion, a $4 billion increase over their previous commitment. This will bring desperately needed investment, loans and philanthropy to the many low- and moderate-income cities and towns in the bank’s footprint.”
Indeed, community benefits plan by regional financial services companies have become bigger and better in recent years. Efforts by Huntington and KeyBank have helped set that bar higher, as NCRC told Crain’s in 2019. That has almost certainly spurred other regional banks to follow suit with similarly ambitious plans.
Huntington Bank, with assets of about $118 billion, is the third-largest bank in Ohio and largest in Northeast Ohio proper by deposit market share, according to the most recent federal data. The bank, a top lender of U.S. Small Business Administration loans, was also the most-active lender of government-backed Paycheck Protection Program loans in the state.