PNC executives have made it clear the bank is able to pursue another acquisition as the lender seeks greater scale. But not at the expense of the bank’s artificial intelligence objectives, PNC’s CFO said Monday.

If anything “were to impede our AI priorities, we would pass on the acquisition, because we wouldn’t want to miss out in terms of everything that AI has potentially to deliver, by being distracted by some big acquisition,” Rob Reilly said during an appearance at a Barclays investor conference. 

The comments from the Pittsburgh-based bank’s finance chief speak to the distraction factor some have said mergers and acquisitions present, as banks scale their AI initiatives with an eye toward big results few have yet achieved. 

Similarly, Regions CEO John Turner said Tuesday that pursuing a deal could divert attention from the Southeast regional’s ongoing projects.

With the bank focused on completing its deposit system conversion in 2027, Birmingham, Alabama-based Regions has directed resources toward that, and “anything that would distract those teams from the work they’re doing, I think, brings risk to the company and risk to anyone we would potentially acquire,” Turner said at the conference. 

“Today, we're not interested in depository M&A,” Turner said. “Our position’s unchanged–” 

“How about tomorrow?” Barclays analyst Jason Goldberg interjected.

“Tomorrow either,” Turner said, adding that Regions should have more flexibility once that conversion is complete.

Citizens CEO Bruce Van Saun also said his company doesn’t want to “get distracted” by M&A while working to grow its private bank and execute its Reimagine the Bank initiative.

“When I look around at what there is to buy, there's nothing that we feel that if we plug it in, it's going to make a dramatic difference,” Van Saun said Monday at the Barclays conference.  

Bank M&A expectations were high for 2026, due in part to a far more favorable regulatory environment. But while smaller bank deals have continued at a solid clip, bigger transactions have been fewer and farther between, which Goldberg noted in conversation with bank executives at the conference.  

This year’s biggest deals include Spanish lender Santander’s purchase of Stamford, Connecticut-based Webster for $12.3 billion, announced in February, and Jacksonville, Florida-based EverBank’s $3.9 billion tie-up with Seattle-based WaFd, announced this month. 

Regions’ Turner and M&T CEO René Jones noted the bank seller pool hasn’t been as big as some might have expected early in the second Trump administration. 

The current regulatory environment might have buyers thinking it’s the right time to get a deal approved, but that same regulatory climate has potential acquisition targets thinking it’s an easier time to do business, delaying their need to sell, Jones said Wednesday at the Barclays conference. 

“People are sitting around probably looking at the midterms and trying to think if there's another two or three years of good growth and increases in stock prices, and everybody, I would presume, wants to sell at the high,” the CEO of the Buffalo, New York-based regional said.

As the end of President Donald Trump’s term approaches, banks may rethink their buyer-versus-seller positioning, Turner said.

Bain & Company Partner Joe Lischwe attributed the bigger-bank deal lull to macroeconomic concerns, but expects consolidation to continue in the years ahead. The firm issued a report last month predicting one to three banks will move into the $1 trillion in assets category by 2030. In that same time frame, the industry will go from about 50 large regionals to 30 to 40, Lischwe said.

“The 17 [banks] that hold $10 billion in excess capital, I think, are the most likely to be buying others and gobbling them up,” he said in an interview. 

Although they underscored their focus on organic growth opportunities, bank executives this week indicated they’re always watching what’s going on in the market. When a possible bank deal comes up, “of course we would look at it, and so would everybody else, even if they tell you that they wouldn’t,” PNC’s Reilly said. 

However, current valuations of potential targets “are very high right now, and I think the bar to get over is really high,” he said.

Citi CFO Gonzalo Luchetti and Wells Fargo CFO Mike Santomassimo each downplayed the idea of a bank acquisition, but suggested this week at the conference the mega-banks may do smaller deals that add capabilities. 

Regions CFO Anil Chadha said bolt-on deals – such as the bank’s recent purchase of Frazer Lanier – aren’t “glamorous” but they’ve diversified revenue streams, and the bank will continue to do those.

Zions Bancorporation was an outlier, with CEO Harris Simmons saying the lender is in a great position to acquire larger community banks at the right terms, similar to what he said at the conference last year. 

Simmons suggested Utah-based Zions would have been interested in Colorado’s FirstBank, which PNC bought for $4.1 billion, “but not at the price, for us.”

“That’s a deal that a PNC can do and digest in a way that somebody our size relative to that size can’t,” Simmons said at the Barclays conference.