Rethinking Regional: Why some of the most interesting moves in banking are no longer just a Wall Street story
- Between the hometown feel of community banks and the reach of global giants, regional players like PNC and Truist are making effective moves to merge tradition with innovation.
- In today’s 10Q edition, we explore the strategies behind their momentum.
The future of banking? It’s not all in Manhattan…
Caught between the community banks that know every face in town and the global big ol’ boys that span continents, regional banks are increasingly making meaningful strides in marrying tradition with innovation.
In today’s 10Q edition, we spotlight two such publicly traded regional banks and the strategic moves they’re making.
Part 1: The PNC Case
A Pittsburgh-based institution with a national footprint: PNC Financial Services, headquartered in Pittsburgh, isn’t just a “regional” bank in the narrow sense. With assets of over half a trillion dollars and operations stretching from the Northeast to the Sun Belt, it occupies that increasingly blurred category of “super-regional.” It has a significant footprint in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and other Midwestern states, but its 2021 acquisition of BBVA USA widened its reach drastically into Texas, Arizona, and Alabama, giving it true coast-to-coast visibility.
PNC has positioned itself as an active player in a fast-evolving financial landscape. The bank has been steadily investing in technology, digital banking platforms, and financial literacy tools. But its most recent move signals a brave step into a territory still considered high-risk or unproven by many traditional banking peers.
Crypto, carefully – PNC’s partnership with Coinbase: In July 2025, PNC announced a partnership with Coinbase to expand access to crypto-related financial services for its clients.
Unlike many crypto service launches that flood retail markets with apps and coins, this collaboration is institutional in focus. The partnership is structured to serve institutional clients — institutional investors, businesses, high-net-worth individuals, and possibly fintech infrastructure needs — rather than the average retail investor.
The move allows PNC’s banking clients to buy, hold, and sell cryptocurrencies directly through PNC’s own platform, powered by Coinbase’s Crypto-as-a-Service (CaaS) infrastructure. This gives PNC a “plug-and-play” model for digital asset access, while maintaining the brand consistency and trust it has built over the decades.
It also works the other way around.
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