By Andrew Welsch

PNC Bank's parent company is launching an integrated wealth management and banking service for clients on the lower end of the wealth spectrum.

PNC Financial Services unveiled the service, PNC Premier Client, on Wednesday. The service will provide customers with a dedicated personal banker and a financial advisor who will work together to address their savings, borrowing, spending, insurance, and investing needs.

PNC Bank is the nation's eighth largest bank by assets, according to Federal Reserve data. Shares of its parent, PNC Financial Services, closed Tuesday's session down 0.3% at $240.33.

Rich Guerrini, president and CEO of PNC Wealth Management, says that customers sometimes think about banking and investing as discrete activities. "One of our goals is to break that silo down and make it one conversation where we bring all our products and services together for them," he says.

To serve clients using the service, PNC intends to hire hundreds of advisors and bankers. It is also refurbishing and transforming 200 existing branches into what it calls Premier Branches. "It's basically a higher end look and feel," Alex Overstrom, head of PNC Retail Banking, says.

PNC Wealth Management, the bank's wealth unit, oversees approximately $95 billion in client assets, according to the company. The bank says it can expand the business by targeting what it calls emerging and mass-affluent clients -- that is, individuals with $100,000 to $3 million of investible assets. This client segment is largely being neglected by other banks, which have been moving upmarket, according to the PNC executives. "We'll happily take care of that customer who has $200,000, and offer them an exceptional experience," Overstrom says.

There are independent wealth management firms that cater to mass-affluent clients, but many don't have banking capabilities, Overstrom says.

PNC already provides wealth management for clients in the mass-affluent category. But it hopes the new service may help it win over new clients and gain more wallet share with existing ones.

"We have many clients who use us as their primary bank but not their wealth manager," Overstrom says. "So we have a meaningful opportunity to give them a reason to bring more of their financial needs to us."

PNC also operates a private bank that serves high-net-worth and ultrahigh-net-worth clients.

Other banks and brokerage firms also have been trying to grow their businesses by providing customers with both banking and investing services (or, in the industry's parlance, serve both sides of the client's balance sheet). For instance, Bank of America has been trying to build more connections between its Merrill wealth unit and its consumer bank.

Write to Andrew Welsch at andrew.welsch@barrons.com

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February 11, 2026 08:00 ET (13:00 GMT)

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