What Happened to TCF Bank After It Converted to Huntington?

A nearly $6 billion deal changed the course of TCF Bank in a significant way. The merger deal led to a rebranding of TCF’s branches and also impacted its customers. Most people still wonder what happened to TCF Bank.

The transition from TCF Bank to Huntington Bank has faced issues, which led to frustration among customers over the last few days.

In December 2020, Huntington Bank agreed to acquire TCF in an all-stock deal valued at about $6 billion. The deal closed in June 2021. The combined company is now one of the top 25 banks with $175 billion in total assets. The TCF acquisition expanded Huntington’s leadership position and density in Michigan, bolstered its scale in cities like Chicago, and also added new growth markets in Denver, Twin Cities, and Milwaukee.

The long-awaited switch from TCF Bank to Huntington started on Oct. 8. The change was signaled well in advance by Huntington. Customers have been warned for weeks that their accounts and online services will be migrated in early October.

A rebranding will be completed by the end of October 2021, which will be most evident by branch sign modifications and at the University of Minnesota’s football stadium, where TCF held the naming rights. Customers got welcome kits that walked them through the process of accessing their bank accounts step-by-step.

TCF customers have jammed the bank’s support center and website with concerns about missing access to critical financial services after the transition started. The rollover resulted in some people losing access to their debit cards and internet banking.

TCF Bank customer Jeremy Bond was repeatedly denied access while attempting to set up accounts with Huntington. Bond said that the Huntington customer service officer informed him that he couldn’t access his accounts because of the high transaction volume. The bank recommended that he try again later at odd hours when the online traffic volume would be lower. Despite many attempts, Bond wasn't able to access his accounts.

Greg Ott of La Quinta, Calif., attempted to access his home equity loan, which was acquired by TCF and is now with Huntington. However, he wasn't able to log in and spent several hours on the phone waiting for assistance. He was advised to go to a Huntington branch, but there aren't any in his region.

Apart from internet access issues, several customers who were assured that they could still use their TCF cards over the Oct. 9–10 weekend discovered that their cards had been denied. While Matthew Koscielski of Bertha, Minn., was able to use his debit card for credit purchases, he couldn't use it for debit transactions, which are required by some retailers.

Customers like Koscielski claim that they were informed ahead of time that internet banking wouldn't be available during the transition period over the weekend, but that they could continue to use TCF and Huntington Bank ATMs without incurring any ATM transaction fees. However, customers say that they didn't get an outage notification regarding debit cards.