Huntington is in the post-Cadence and Veritex integration phase, using a much larger national commercial-bank platform to expand in Texas and the Southeast while building fee businesses such as payments, wealth management, and capital markets. The second quarter showed that scale arriving quickly: acquisitions and organic growth drove major loan, deposit, and fee-income increases, but also left Huntington managing higher-cost funding and integration-related execution.
| Metric | January FY2026 expectations | Current outlook | What changed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Net interest income growth | 39–43% | ~35% | Lower |
| Average loan growth | 36–37% | ~36% | Essentially maintained |
| Average deposit growth | 33–34% | ~33% | Essentially maintained |
| Noninterest-income growth | 31–33% | ~32% | In line to slightly better |
| Implied revenue growth | ~37% | ~34% | Lower |
| FY2027 adjusted EPS target | — | $1.75–$1.83 | New conservative target |
The core earnings engine has been reset lower. Huntington says the operating environment after second-quarter earnings produced lower-than-expected loan volume and additional pressure on net interest margin, with sustained high short-term rates raising deposit costs and weaker yields in some loan categories. 〔0〕 The clearest market-relevant change is therefore not slower franchise growth: it is less earnings conversion from that growth. The company cuts FY2026 net-interest-income growth to roughly 35% from 39–43% and implied revenue growth to roughly 34% from roughly 37% (FY26 Guidance, slide 17).
Balance-sheet execution is holding, but the mix is becoming less attractive. Loan growth remains approximately 36% and deposit growth approximately 33%, so Huntington is not abandoning its expansion plan. But the filing explicitly says higher short-term rates and elevated loan and deposit pricing competition are moderating the expected margin expansion (Execution Remains Strong, slide 9). In plain English, the bank is still gathering and deploying money, but it must pay more for deposits and cannot price loans aggressively enough to preserve the earlier profit outlook.
Fee income and merger synergies soften the downgrade, rather than reverse it. Management now expects FY2026 revenue synergies above $75 million versus its prior $50–$75 million range, while expense synergies are described as fully delivered. 〔1〕 Fee businesses are also scaling, with the presentation highlighting growth in payments, wealth, and capital-markets activity (Value-Added Services, slide 7). Those are genuine offsets because they reduce reliance on spread income, but they do not fully compensate for the lower NII outlook today.
The larger buyback is a capital-allocation response to weaker near-term operating leverage. Huntington raises expected share repurchases to $1.3–$1.4 billion, while presenting a FY2027 adjusted EPS target of $1.75–$1.83. That supports per-share earnings and signals confidence in capital generation, but it does not change the underlying message: management is protecting shareholder returns while becoming more conservative about the earnings path.
Bottom line: This is a meaningful guidance reset, not a routine conference presentation. Huntington’s growth platform and merger synergies remain intact, but higher funding costs and weaker loan economics have pushed the near-term revenue and margin story below its earlier plan.
Read the original 8-K on SEC EDGAR ↗