The Pittsburgh-based bank reported Wednesday that it met or beat nearly all its financial expectations for the latest quarter. PNC reeled in $1.8 billion for the quarter, or $4.35 in diluted earnings per share, handily beating the analyst consensus estimate of $4.04.

"We delivered another great quarter with better than expected financial results and steady client growth across all our business lines," said PNC CEO Bill Demchak in a prepared statement Wednesday morning.

The company is starting to see stronger rises in net interest income, which increased 7% from the prior year, due to the continued repricing of fixed assets from the zero-rate era, and loan growth. While borrower demand has been tepid for years, PNC started guiding for stronger loan origination earlier this year amid more political and economic certainty.

But the $569 billion-asset bank also guided for a slightly weaker fourth quarter, predicting fee income to drop some 3%, a decline in noninterest income, total revenue to be stable or down 1%, a higher amount of net charge-offs and slower growth in lending and net interest income.

In the third quarter, loans grew 1% from the prior quarter, and 2% year-over-year, driven by commercial and industrial lending. The bank offset some of its loan growth as it continues to pull back on its commercial real estate lending portfolio, which is down 13% from the previous year, as the sector has proved a thorn in many banks' balance sheets for nearly three years.

Banks have seen their Wall Street business spike in 2025, attributable to a renaissance in dealmaking and an active trading market. PNC saw jumps in its capital markets and advisory business and its residential and commercial mortgage business push fees to $2.1 billion for the quarter, up 9% from the prior quarter and up 6% from 2024.

Recent moves for scale

PNC's earnings news comes about five weeks after it announced plans to acquire Lakewood, Colo.-based FirstBank Holding Co. for $4.1 billion. The deal, expected to close in the first quarter of 2026, will rapidly scale the bank's presence in Arizona and Colorado.

Alex Overstrom, head of retail banking at PNC, told American Banker when the transaction was announced that the purchase of the $26.8 billion FirstBank will "take 10 years of investments, and bring it forward to today" in those markets. PNC will more than triple its branch footprint in Colorado, to 120, and grow its branch count in Arizona to more than 70.

"We just effectively bought Colorado," Demchak said at a conference the day after the deal was announced.

But he said the company won't make a habit of buying smaller banks, mainly because of how those institutions are priced today. Although he added at the conference on Sept. 9 that big banks aren't putting themselves up for sale.