Lending should continue to increase in the third quarter, but at a slower pace than the second quarter, CEO James Rohr of regional bank PNC Financialsaid on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” Tuesday.
“We're continuing to see loan growth in the third quarter,” the PNC CEO said. “It's not quite as robust as it was in the second quarter. People are being more conservative, waiting for the election.”
During the first half of the year, Rohr pointed out that “revenues were up 10 percent and core fee income at the consumer and corporate bank was up 8 percent.”
He added, “The earnings power of the company is very strong and the second half should be really strong, too.”
Rohr also weighed inon former Citigroup Chairman and CEO Sanford Weill’s call to separate investment and commercial banking. The callwas an abrupt change for Weill, who is considered the architect of the “financial supermarket” concept in the 1990s.
Rohr said that having commercial and traditional banks together helps minimize the risks of a lack of liquidity.
“What’s happened is when we put investment banking together with the traditional bank, where there's real funding and core funding, you don’t have the liquidity problems that they’ve had,” Rohr said. “I think we do better with them together over time because it eliminates the liquidity risk of the investment banking part.”
Rohr added, “Clearly, there needs to be more capital involved and counterparty risk has to be more heavily monitored.”