Banks' market shares of deposits steady

Despite last year's banking turmoil, there was little change in deposit market share at banks with branches in the Philadelphia area, according to data released yesterday by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Wachovia Bank, which was scooped up last fall by Wells Fargo & Co. amid the chaos of a near meltdown of the financial sector, maintained its No. 1 spot in the region with $26.8 billion in deposits at 191 branches in the eight-county Philadelphia region.

TD Bank and Citizens Bank of Pennsylvania kept the Nos. 2 and 3 spots, respectively.

The biggest shifts involved Bank of America and PNC Bank.

Deposits at PNC branches climbed to $12.9 billion as of June 30 from $9.7 billion the year before, but $2.4 billion of that gain came from two branches in Center City. PNC spokesman Fred Solomon declined to comment because he had not yet seen the data.

The big gain, which helped boost PNC's market share to 10.1 percent from 8.5 percent, mostly likely came from a shift in corporate deposits from branches elsewhere.

The opposite move at two Bank of America branches caused the local share of the nation's largest bank to slump to 5.6 percent from 8.5 percent. "That is typically due to some type of reclassification of corporate deposits" from this region to another, company spokesman Don Vecchiarello said.

In all of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, Bank of America consumer deposits and investments under management increased, Vecchiarello said.

Beneficial Mutual Savings Bank stood out with a 16 percent gain in deposits, to $3.1 billion, giving the largest bank with headquarters here a 2.4 percent market share, up from 2.2 percent a year ago.

After 11 years of gains in the number of branches in the region, banks here closed more branches than they opened in the year ended June 30. In the region including Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, and Philadelphia Counties in Pennsylvania and Burlington, Camden, and Gloucester Counties in New Jersey, there were 1,703 bank branches, down from 1,714 the year before.

Overall deposits climbed to $126.8 billion, up 7.2 percent from $118.3 billion in 2008, the strongest gain since 2006.