SYRACUSE — A year after completing the acquisition, KeyBank’s top regional official in Central New York says he “would characterize our conversion a success.” Cleveland, Ohio–based KeyCorp (NYSE: KEY) completed its acquisition of Buffalo–based First Niagara Financial Group on July 29, 2016. KeyCorp is the parent company of KeyBank, while First Niagara Financial Group was […]
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SYRACUSE — A year after completing the acquisition, KeyBank’s top regional official in Central New York says he “would characterize our conversion a success.”
Cleveland, Ohio–based KeyCorp (NYSE: KEY) completed its acquisition of Buffalo–based First Niagara Financial Group on July 29, 2016.
KeyCorp is the parent company of KeyBank, while First Niagara Financial Group was the parent company of First Niagara Bank.
The process of converting First Niagara Bank branches to KeyBank branches is “by and large” complete, says Stephen Fournier, Central New York market president of KeyBank.
The bank had been dealing with an issue surrounding electronic commercial payments of commercial clients, but Fournier called it a “minor” problem.
He spoke with CNYBJ on July 14 at the KeyBank office at 201 S. Warren St. in Syracuse.
When asked what were the easiest and hardest parts of the conversion process, Fournier said the easiest part was not having to change “our clients’ account numbers.”
“We didn’t have to reissue debit cards or anything like that, so that was probably the easiest part,” says Fournier.
As for the “difficult part,” some First Niagara Bank customers had some trouble after the conversion in logging on to KeyBank’s online-banking website.
“And in response to that, we sent out $100 to anybody that couldn’t sign on within the first 24 hours,” he says.
He also noted that KeyBank had the online-banking service issue rectified within a few weeks.
Fournier said he believes the majority of KeyBank clients “were pleased” with the banking company’s communication about the process both before and after the conversion.
Expanded footprint
As market president following the acquisition, Fournier now oversees a 16-county area that stretches from Pennsylvania to the Canadian border.
“We added Broome … Tioga, Tompkins,” he says.
KeyBank has “no plans” to close or open any new branches after having expanded its footprint with the First Niagara acquisition from 54 branches to a net of 75 branches.
The company closed some branches during the fourth quarter of 2016 and opened branches in markets such as the Southern Tier and Utica, where KeyBank didn’t previously operate.
“We expanded our presence in Utica. We expanded our presence in Auburn. We acquired a presence in Tompkins County, so we feel like we’re well positioned in the counties that we’re in and in the communities that we reside, so we feel pretty good about the presence right now,” says Fournier.
KeyBank closed branches that, “in some cases,” were “literally across the street from each other,” says Matthew Pitts, communications manager for KeyBank’s Western New York region. Pitts joined Fournier for the CNYBJ interview on July 14.
HelloWallet acquisition
Fournier also discussed KeyCorp’s July 3 acquisition of HelloWallet, a personal-finance software platform, from Chicago, Illinois–based Morningstar, Inc.
Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
The HelloWallet platform provides clients with tools that can help them make more confident financial decisions. The platform provides KeyBank with an understanding of each individual client’s financial circumstances and goals that “drive every interaction with clients,” according to a KeyBank news release.
The platform gives a user a financial-wellness score out of 100 points and that score compares you to your peers.
“It enables you to see how you are progressing against your peer group and how financially stable you are personally,” says Fournier.
Second quarter profit
KeyCorp (NYSE: KEY) on July 20 reported second quarter net income from continuing operations attributable to Key common shareholders of $393 million, or 36 cents per common share
That’s more than double the $193 million, or 23 cents a share, it reported in the second quarter of 2016.
During the second quarter of 2017, Key’s results included a number of “notable” items, including a gain related to its merchant-services business; the finalization of purchase accounting; merger-related charges; and a charitable contribution.
These items had a pre-tax net benefit of $43 million, or 2 cents per common share, the banking company said.
Key’s adjusted earnings per share of 34 cents met analysts’ expectations, according to a Zacks Investment Research survey of 12 analysts.
