Huntington name will soon replace TCF around Twin Cities

The name Huntington Bank is not well known around the Twin Cities — yet.

Radio commercials have begun airing on the sports radio station KFAN to introduce Minnesotans to the Columbus, Ohio-based bank, which closed on its merger with TCF Financial earlier this summer. As part of the deal, the TCF name is being replaced by Huntington.

Signs with Huntington's green-and-white logo will go up in the next couple of weeks around the University of Minnesota football stadium, swapping out the TCF name. When the Gophers take the field against Ohio State on Sept. 2 for the first home game of the season, it will be clear they're playing in Huntington Bank Stadium.

The rebranding will be complete in mid-October when TCF branches will start using the Huntington name, including 80 locations around the Twin Cities. TCF customers will also transition then to using the Huntington website and app.

"Our goal is really to build upon the rich history that TCF had here and bring a greater expansion of products and services and capabilities," said Mike Jones, a Twin Cities-based senior executive who has been with TCF for more than a decade and is now heading up Huntington's Minnesota and Colorado operations.

He added that TCF has built a strong brand on the consumer banking side of the business over the years.

"Our opportunity is how do we broaden that into small business and medium-sized businesses here in the Twin Cities," he said. "I think Huntington allows us to do that with all the capabilities of a much larger bank but bringing it with a community bank local-type feel."

As part of that push to broaden its services beyond what was offered under TCF, he said Huntington plans to hire 50 to 100 people in the Twin Cities in areas such as wealth management and business banking. The bank is also looking to expand its home-lending services in the region.

In addition, TCF customers will have access to Huntington's products and services such as being able to access their paycheck a couple of days early, personal lines of credit based on deposit history at the bank, and a 24-hour grace period on overdrafts if they're resolved by the next day.

TCF was based in Wayzata until it was swept up in two mergers in the last couple of years. It combined with Chemical Bank in 2019, which led to its headquarters moving to Detroit while temporarily keeping the TCF name until the more recent merger with Huntington.

The company still has about 1,200 corporate employees around the Twin Cities with offices in Minnetonka and Plymouth, with the latter now being a tech hub for Huntington. It has another 400 or so Minnesota-based employees who work in branches.

Like many other companies, Huntington's corporate offices in the Twin Cities have put on hold plans for returning more workers to the office next month amid the delta variant and the recent surge in coronavirus cases. Some employees are already coming in on a limited basis.

The hiring Huntington plans to do in the coming years around the Twin Cities will make up for some of the corporate downsizing as it consolidates functions between Columbus and the Twin Cities.

"There is some overlap, so there are going to be some positions impacted," Jones said. "But one of the things the pandemic has taught us is that we can work remotely and interact remotely. So we've leveraged that in keeping some of the great talent that we had on the legacy TCF side to serve some of these corporate functions."

A company spokesman said Huntington has retained about 85% of TCF employees across all states where it operates. That percentage also reflects some branch consolidation in other markets outside of the Twin Cities. No TCF branches were closed in the Twin Cities as a result of the merger.

Darrel German, an executive from Wells Fargo, joined the company in November to become regional president for the Twin Cities market.

In addition to providing more services, German said being part of a larger combined company means that Huntington will also be able to provide more community support. In June, Huntington unveiled a $40 billion commitment to support communities of color and other under-resourced groups over the next five years in areas such as affordable housing and small-business loans.

At least $2 billion of that will be directed toward the Twin Cities, he said. Executives have been meeting with community groups around the Twin Cities to get a better idea of how best to start spending that money beginning in 2022.

TCF last year announced a $1 billion community pledge over five years that would be shared among states and regions, including the Twin Cities.