TD’s aim to open 100 U.S. branches by 2028 is “a today strategy,” not simply a revival of branch expansion plans shared in 2023, U.S. executive Allison Robinson said Wednesday. 

The Canadian bank said last week it intends to open 100 branches in the U.S. by the end of 2028, as it purses organic growth. The lender also plans to hire more retail and commercial bankers, U.S. CEO Leo Salom said during the bank’s fiscal third-quarter earnings call Aug. 27. 

In May 2023, Toronto-based TD shared plans to open 150 U.S. branches by 2027, with a focus on the Southeast – just a few weeks after its proposed $13.4 billion acquisition of Memphis, Tennessee-based First Horizon was terminated. At the time, TD circled south Florida, Atlanta and North Carolina as targeted areas for branch expansion.

But as the bank tackled anti-money laundering issues and was hit with a related $3.09 billion penalty and $434 billion asset cap on U.S. retail operations, those branch opening plans slowed “dramatically,” then-CEO Bharat Masrani acknowledged in 2024. TD has also closed about 91 branches over the past two years, Salom said last week.  

Robinson, the bank’s head of U.S. retail distribution, contact centers and client experience, on Wednesday pointed to Charlotte, North Carolina, and south Florida as areas where TD can increase its branch density to boost market share – echoing the bank’s 2023 intentions. 

In Boston, New York City and Philadelphia, where TD already has a solid market share, the bank may open a new location or reposition an existing branch with greater convenience in mind, Robinson said. The bank’s U.S. operations are based in Mount Laurel, New Jersey.

“I would call it a new plan that is focused on, where do we want to go over the next, say, 24-plus months?” said Robinson, who was head of branch and premier banking at Truist before joining TD in late 2024.

With Charlotte and south Florida, “the data tells you people want to be in those places, and so then for us, it makes it a really easy decision to say we’d love to physically represent TD more in those places,” Robinson said in an interview. 

‘A new pond’

The lender has about 1,050 U.S. branches, according to Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. data. Of the 100 new locations, about 65 will be in the Southeast, between the Carolinas and Florida, Nick Miceli, TD’s regional president for the Southeast metro area, said Wednesday.

“Each time we open up a new branch, it's a new pond for our teams to fish in,” Miceli said. As the bank opens more locations in a certain market, “that pond becomes a lake, eventually becomes an ocean, and that's where you're really getting the economies of scale and the market share that you can command.”

The bank has also expanded its corporate footprint in Charlotte. At a TD ribbon-cutting Wednesday for a 91,000-square-foot office space in the city’s Ballantyne neighborhood, Salom said access to Charlotte’s “skilled labor pool” is a key reason the bank opted to make it another corporate hub, Salom said. 

About 104,000 people work in financial services in the area, according to the Charlotte Regional Business Alliance.

TD’s Charlotte office can accommodate up to 540 employees, and houses finance, audit, compliance, regulatory and legal employees. TD CEO Raymond Chun said Wednesday the new location triples the bank’s corporate footprint in the city, and the amount of additional space Salom is now looking for “is triple the space of this space,” Chun said. 

TD, Canada’s second-largest lender, has about $2.1 trillion in assets overall. Bank executives at Wednesday’s event made clear their aspirations to move up the ranks of North America’s biggest banks.  

TD’s aim to have 20 branches in the Charlotte area, for example, is “just a first step, because I believe that in the state of North Carolina, we need a footprint of 100 branches to be able to fully realize our potential in this marketplace,” Salom said.

What about the asset cap?

There was no mention Wednesday of the asset cap on the U.S. retail bank. After the growth constraint was imposed, TD reduced its U.S. assets by about $48 billion, American Banker reported. 

A TD spokesperson Wednesday pointed to Salom’s earnings call comments, when he was asked about the growth plan even as the asset cap remains in place. Salom told analysts the AML program “remains our No. 1 priority,” and the bank has made “significant progress” on it.  

“Today, the degree of maturity and effectiveness of that program is much stronger,” Salom said Aug. 27. “As a result, in discussions with our regulators, etc., I feel quite comfortable to be able to announce today that we'll be opening up those 100 stores.”

The branch announcement wasn’t intended to suggest anything about the asset cap, Salom told analysts. “The consent order is still in place and we are working hard to satisfy every aspect of that consent order, and there is no greater priority for me than resolving that – comprehensively and urgently,” he said.

TD’s branch opening plans are in an early stage. The bank is in the process of standing up three North Carolina locations: two in Charlotte and one in Raleigh, Robinson said.

With the rest, “we know where we want to be, so we're currently working with our partners to solicit and formalize the site selection,” Robinson said. 

Robinson said she has “great confidence” TD can simultaneously grow and make progress on its standing with regulators.

“All the work that we're doing across all of our businesses is helping move us forward,” she said. “I see so much potential and opportunity for us here in the U.S. franchise that it's hard to feel any other way than excited about what's coming.”