PNC Bank 2014 Annual Report Download - page 4

And, we advanced to No. 2 among super-regional banks on Fortune’s annual list
of most-admired companies.
We have achieved all of this in the current environment in much the same way
we established ourselves as one of the strongest-performing fi nancial services
companies and grew through the crisis – by focusing our efforts on helping our
customers realize their fi nancial goals without expanding our risk appetite and by helping
our communities prosper. That’s what it means to us to be a Main Street bank rather than
a Wall Street bank.
Calling ourselves a Main Street bank is not a declaration of our capabilities or a comment on the
sophistication of our people; it is a statement about the philosophy that governs how we relate to and
serve our customers and communities. Those relationships are at the heart of our business model.
By and large, we live and work where our customers live and work. We understand their fi nancial goals.
Whether they are saving for retirement, looking to buy a new home, building a small business
or growing a large company, we are there to help. When they thrive, we thrive.
We have the experience, expertise and innovative products to provide
our customers with the insight they need to chart their fi nancial future
and to match up against our Wall Street competitors, but we don’t take the
same risks, and we don’t trade long-term value for short-term opportunity.
At the heart of our corporate culture is the fundamental belief that if
we always strive to do right by the people we serve and if we treat our
customers well, we will make money and be profi table through time.
It is a simple model, the purity of which is well suited for the environment in
which we are operating.
This is a very challenging time for our industry. The regulatory environment
continues to evolve, and the cost of compliance continues to rise.
Competition grows more intense, even appearing at times to be irrational
as other institutions seem to compromise long-term profi tability for the
sake of winning new business. And the perpetuation of historically low
interest rates has made it extremely diffi cult for banks to grow net interest income.
At PNC, we expect that interest rates will begin to rise later in the year as the domestic economy
continues to expand. However, global macroeconomic factors are likely to persist and could affect the
timing of otherwise anticipated rate increases.
#2
among super-regional
banks on Fortune’s
annual list of most-
admired companies
At the heart of our
corporate culture
is the fundamental
belief that if we
always strive to
do right by the
people we serve
and if we treat our
customers well,
we will make money
and be profi table
through time.