Customer base drives Huntington

Staff report

COLUMBUS

Huntington Bancshares Inc. customer growth is helping the bank drive its way out of the recession.

Frank Hierro, president of Huntington Bank’s Mahoning Valley region, said greater customer activity helped grow the bank’s net income from $312.3 million in 2010 to $542.6 million last year.

Consumer checking account households grew 10.3 percent in 2011.

The percentage of consumer checking account households with four or more Huntington products also got a boost; that category jumped from 69.4 percent to 73.5 percent.

Hierro said 2011 was the first full year of the bank’s comprehensive customer-service based plan, which included the debut of 24-hour grace, an overdraft protection program and asterisk-free checking accounts, which have no monthly debit, balance or maintenance fees.

Huntington said the fourth quarter could have been even better.

But the fourth quarter marked the first quarter of the Durbin Amendment, which set fee limits on debit-card transactions.

“In our case, that cost us $17 million in the fourth quarter versus the third quarter,” Hierro said.

“We’re going to make that up by doing business with more customers,” he said.