This top-20 bank announced its planned merger with CIT Bank in October 2020, adding to First Citizens’ low-cost retail deposit franchise and full suite of banking products. The complementary CIT acquisition included CIT’s national commercial lending business (which would retain the CIT name); CIT’s OneWest Bank retail branches (which had previously retained the OneWest name); and CIT’s leading direct bank. 

The legal close was January 2022; conversion to First Citizens operating platforms took place in two phases, with CIT commercial and OneWest in the summer of 2022, and the remaining personal and business customers later in the year.  It was essential that expectations across the CIT segments were set clearly as to what would occur and the timing of the changes.

Following the same overall communication strategies, different versions of a welcome package for retail (personal and business) and commercial customers addressed the transition information and product changes. Additional personalized communications provided details of changes to treasury management users.

Implementation of direct mail, email, a merger microsite and in-session online messaging were well-timed to inform customers while introducing the First Citizens brand and meeting legal disclosure requirements.