North Carolina-headquartered First Citizens Bank has announced it will bring together its factoring, supply chain finance and asset-based lending businesses into a single working capital finance division.
The bank has offered working capital finance products to mid-market companies under its CIT Commercial Services brand since a 2022 merger, but plans to bring these services together with lending against assets, such as inventory and equipment, when the new unit launches in Q4 this year.
Michael Hudgens, head of the working capital finance group at First Citizens Bank, told GTR the move will allow the bank to provide a more cohesive set of products to its clients, covering both domestic and international transactions.
“What we have figured out with these products is that they’re complementary,” he says.
“Quite often, we might have two or more products in the same company: they might have an asset-based need and certain receivables they want to sell to us in bulk, or they might also want to use supply chain finance.
“We’re able to go in with an entire basket of products, and work on a consultative effort to come up with the best solution.”
The reshuffle comes amid a broader rebranding exercise at First Citizens Bank.
The commercial arm of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), which First Citizens Bank acquired in 2023 after the tech-focused Californian lender fell into insolvency, will rebrand as First Citizens Innovation Banking, while SVB’s private equity and private credit division will become First Citizens Fund Banking.
Brenda Santoro, head of global trade at the SVB division, said in a GTR roundtable last year that combining these entities “present[s] significant opportunities in the trade space”.
For Hudgens, working capital solutions “span everything”.
“There’s pretty high demand,” he said. “It’s become a much more accepted part of the capital stack for companies because working capital is what they use to run their business. Companies are figuring out how to better tap into their working capital assets.”
