Pittsburgh National Bank

Those of you old timers may remember when PNC Bank was plain ol' Pittsburgh National Bank instead of the lumbering juggernaut that you see today on the Fortune 500 list. I remember my local branch vividly, but now there's over 800 branches all up and down the east coast.

"Pittsburgh" indeed.

And, of course, following the recent acquisitions of United National Bancorp and Riggs National Bank, you have the just announced acquisition of Mercantile Bankshares Corp, which make PNC even larger.

But consider this: PNC is a big bank for around here, but it is still a regional bank and is not a major player in the world of international finance. All indicators show, however, that PNC is trying to make a move into "the big leagues" of banking. There are two options should PNC continue this course of action: keep gobbling up smaller banks, making PNC bigger OR be gobbled up by an even larger multinational.

Just a hunch, but we could see some massive layoffs around here should PNC readjust their core business functions or eliminate redundancies.

Tag(s): PNC