This Bank Stock Has Something Its Rivals Don't
Citizens Financial Group (NYSE: CFG), with $187 billion in assets, has been on a great run, with the stock up more than 49% in 2021. Like most of the banking industry, the Rhode Island-based lender has benefited from the recovering economy after a difficult year in 2020. Although Citizens is a standard regional bank in many respects, its strategy and balance sheet are different from its peers. That makes it an interesting play in a crowded industry.
Since the Great Recession, many banks have focused less on consumer credit and more on commercial lending. If you look at any of Citizens' peers, their loan books are weighted more heavily toward the commercial sector than the consumer market. Citizens, on the other hand, has focused a lot more on consumer lending. At the end of the third quarter, the bank had more than $65 billion of consumer loans compared with almost $58 billion of commercial loans. That mix probably will be closer to a 50-50 split once commercial lending bounces back. Even then, Citizen's loan portfolio will lean more toward consumer lending than its peers.
Image source: Getty Images.
Source Fool.com
