Citizens Financial Group

Citizens Financial Group Inc, subsidiary of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group, is based in Providence. The structure has offices in Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

The bank was founded under the name High Street Bank in 1828 and re-established according to a second charter, issued by the Rhode Island legislature, as the Citizens Savings Bank. Initially, the bank expanded across Rhode Island, opening 29 offices. Later, in 1954, the body bought out the Greenville Trust Company and this is how the Citizens Financial Group holding was created. In 1985, the bank was transformed from a mutual savings institution to a federal stock savings one. The Royal Bank of Scotland took over Citizens Bank in 1988, as a part of expansion of its activities overseas. Within 16 years, the bank managed to become the second largest bank in the area. Its growth continued with the buy-out of Mellon Financial Cooperation’s retail banking division, with branches in Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. In 2004, RBS acquired Charter one Bank in Cleveland, after which Citizens made it to US top ten largest banks. Its assets were worth $128 billion, its offices in 13 states numbered 1400, and the body put in one quarter of RBS’s profits. After acquiring the credit card division of People's Bank, Connecticut, Citizens was able to issue credit cards with the bank label. In 2007, all individual banking establishments, part of the Citizens Financial Group (apart from Citizens Bank of Pennsylvania) were united under the name RBS Citizens, N.A.

The buy-out of Mellon Financial Corporation’s retail division brought Citizens an additional advantage – a full-blown network of branches in supermarkets. An exclusive feature of the supermarket branches is that they are open on Sunday, when regular banks are closed.

The variety of services offered by the Group expanded after RBS obtained Atlanta’s Lynk systems, which allowed the processing of credit, debit, loyalty, gift and check operations, EBT and other non-cash transactions. The respective new division was named RBS WorldPay.

RBS, and Citizens Financial Group in particular, has been affected by the recent economic turmoil. In 2008, the Group was investigated for suspected involvement in the purchase and sale of subprime securities which invoked the sub-prime mortgage crisis and the global recession. In 2009, Citizens Bank undertook layoffs in all of its branches. Its losses for the first quarter of 2009 totaled $114 million.

Commercial Banks Guide > Citizens Financial Group