Citizens Financial

Citizens Financial Group, Inc. is an American bank headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island, which operates in the states of Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont.

Citizens was a wholly owned subsidiary of The Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS), headquartered in Edinburgh, Scotland, from 1988 until it began to sell its holding in the bank through a phased Initial public offering (IPO). RBS sold its final 20.9% stake in the company in October 2015.

As of 2015, Citizens is the 13th-largest bank in the United States,[1] and operates more than 1,200 branches and approximately 3,200 ATMs across 11 states under the Citizens Bank brand.

Early history

Citizens was established in 1828 as the High Street Bank in Providence, Rhode Island. In 1871, the Rhode Island legislature gave a second charter to establish the Citizens Savings Bank which eventually acquired its parent group to form Citizens Trust Company. The bank then expanded through Rhode Island, opening a total of 29 branches in that state. It established Citizens Financial Group as a holding company when the bank acquired The Greenville Trust Company in 1954.

In 1985, Citizens changed status from a mutual savings bank to a federal stock savings bank. Expansion into other states began with Massachusetts in 1986.In late 2004, Citizens Financial acquired Cleveland-based Charter One Financial, parent company of Charter One Bank, with branches in Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, upstate New York, and Vermont. Because Citizens Republic Bancorp of Flint, Michigan already operated under the Citizens Bank name in most of Charter One's territory, Citizens Financial elected to keep the Charter One name in Charter One's old Midwestern footprint. However, it rebranded the New York and Vermont branches as Citizens Bank.

Despite the use of the different names, the two banks were otherwise the same. Charter One was fully integrated into Citizens, and adopted an identical logo. The websites for both banks were identical, with the only difference being the name. Citizens customers could bank at Charter One locations and vice versa.

In early 2005, the Charter One name replaced the Citizens Bank banner on seven branches in Butler County, Pennsylvania. This rebranding resolved a 3½-year-old name dispute with Butler-based Citizens National Bank. By mid-2005, Citizens National and Citizens Financial agreed to a compromise. Citizens National Bank changed its name to NexTier Bank, while the Citizens Financial Group branches reverted to the "Citizens Bank" name.

In 2003, Charter One purchased Advance Bank, Inc. with 14 branches in Chicago's southern suburbs.

Financial crisis

On April 18, 2008, RBS revealed that it would post almost $8 billion in losses related to subprime mortgage securities. Less than a month earlier its CEO, Fred Goodwin, denied rumors that losses were possible.In May 2008, Citizens Financial Group failed to publicly announce that it was under investigation by the SEC for its involvement in the sub-prime mortgage crisis that devastated the U.S. housing market and bond investors around the world.

 The SEC only investigated banks it suspected of involvement in the purchase and sale of subprime securities.

A Philadelphia developer sued Citizens Bank January 27, 2010, for $8 billion, under a claim that the bank used sham accusations of default to recall loans in an effort to prop up its failing parent companies, Citizens Financial Group and "its ultimate parent, The Royal Bank of Scotland Group.