First Citizens Takes Over 138 BMO Branches — and $5 Billion in Deposits

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First Citizens Bank has completed one of the larger U.S. bank branch transfers of the year, taking control of 138 BMO locations across 11 states and adding approximately $5 billion in deposits to a balance sheet that already exceeds $225 billion.

The acquisition became effective Sept. 4, and First Citizens announced Tuesday that it had completed the conversion of the acquired branches and moved associated customer accounts onto its banking platforms.

The completion was also disclosed Tuesday in a Form 8-K filed by First Citizens BancShares with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Along with the deposits, First Citizens acquired approximately $650 million in loans.

That difference — roughly $5 billion of deposits against $650 million of acquired loans — helps explain why this transaction is more significant than the addition of 138 locations.

First Citizens has acquired a sizable pool of funding along with an expanded physical distribution network across parts of the country where its presence had previously been limited.

A major expansion across the middle of the country

The acquired branches are located in North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Idaho, along with western Minnesota, eastern Oregon and southern Illinois.

Following the conversion, First Citizens says it now operates more than 600 branches and offices nationwide.

The bank described the acquisition in its Sept. 8 completion announcement as part of a broader strategy to expand its relationship-banking business across the Midwest, Great Plains and West.

Customers transferred from BMO will continue working with local banking teams while gaining access to First Citizens’ broader national banking operations, according to the company.

First Citizens has also appointed regional executives to oversee portions of the expanded footprint, including leadership covering the Heartland, St. Louis, the West, Kansas and Missouri, and Omaha.

The deposits are the more important number

When First Citizens originally announced the agreement with BMO in October 2025, it expected to assume approximately $5.7 billion in deposits and acquire approximately $1.1 billion in loans.

Those estimates changed as the transaction moved toward closing.

In its second-quarter 2026 earnings release, First Citizens said it expected approximately $5.3 billion in deposits and approximately $700 million in loans.

The final figures disclosed after closing were approximately $5 billion in deposits and $650 million in loans.

The changes are worth noting, but they do not alter the central economics visible from the completed transaction: First Citizens acquired substantially more deposits than loans.

Based on the disclosed approximate figures, the acquired deposits are roughly 7.7 times the acquired loan balance.

For a bank, deposits are not simply customer accounts. They are a fundamental source of funding that can support lending and other balance-sheet activity.

First Citizens made that point when the acquisition was first announced. Chairman and CEO Frank B. Holding Jr. said at the time that the net deposit position was expected to strengthen liquidity and give the company additional flexibility to pursue strategic initiatives.

What happens to that funding now matters

There is an important limit to what can be said about the transaction from the disclosures currently available.

First Citizens has not said that the $5 billion in acquired deposits will specifically be deployed into mortgages, construction loans, commercial real estate or any other particular lending category.

WRE News therefore is not making that assumption.

But the acquisition materially expands the funding base of a bank already active across numerous areas of real estate and commercial finance.

At June 30, First Citizens BancShares reported approximately $151 billion in loans and leases and $173.4 billion in deposits. The company’s investment portfolio also included agency mortgage-backed securities, according to its second-quarter results.

The bank operates consumer and business banking as well as a large commercial bank, equipment finance operations, Silicon Valley Bank and other specialized lending businesses.

The relevant question for housing and commercial real estate professionals is therefore not whether the acquired BMO loans themselves constitute a major real estate portfolio. At $650 million across the entire acquired loan book, that would overstate what First Citizens disclosed.

The question is what First Citizens ultimately does with the additional deposit funding and expanded customer network.

First Citizens has become an experienced acquirer

The BMO transaction also continues an acquisition strategy that has dramatically increased First Citizens’ scale.

Its most consequential expansion came in March 2023, when First Citizens acquired substantially all loans and certain other assets and assumed all customer deposits and certain other liabilities of Silicon Valley Bridge Bank from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation following the failure of Silicon Valley Bank.

That transaction transformed First Citizens into a much larger national financial institution.

The BMO deal is fundamentally different.

This is a negotiated branch acquisition rather than a failed-bank transaction, and First Citizens is primarily expanding its deposit franchise and geographic reach rather than acquiring an institution wholesale.

Still, the common thread is the bank’s willingness to use acquisitions to add scale.

First Citizens now describes itself as a top-20 U.S. financial institution with more than $225 billion in assets.

BMO is narrowing its U.S. footprint

The transaction also says something about the seller.

BMO confirmed Sept. 4 that it had completed the sale of the 138 branches, saying the transaction supports its strategy of optimizing its U.S. financial-center network and redirecting capital and resources toward markets where it sees stronger client engagement and long-term growth potential.

The divestiture therefore creates two different strategic outcomes from the same branch network.

For BMO, it is a geographic rationalization.

For First Citizens, it is expansion.

The transfer gives First Citizens an immediate presence across markets where building a comparable branch and deposit network organically could have taken years.

Why the deal matters beyond 138 bank branches

Bank branch transactions rarely attract the attention of major mortgage-company acquisitions or multibillion-dollar bank mergers.

But the economics of banking begin with funding.

“First Citizens didn’t just acquire buildings and customer relationships from BMO. It added approximately $5 billion in deposits while taking on a comparatively modest $650 million loan portfolio.”

First Citizens didn’t just acquire buildings and customer relationships from BMO. It added approximately $5 billion in deposits while taking on a comparatively modest $650 million loan portfolio.

That creates capacity.

Exactly how First Citizens uses that capacity remains to be seen, and the bank has not committed the acquired funding to a particular lending business.

But as banks compete for deposits, manage funding costs and decide where they want to put capital to work, this transaction offers a useful reminder that a branch network can be valuable for something much larger than the real estate it occupies.

For First Citizens, 138 former BMO branches are now part of a national banking operation with more than $225 billion in assets.

The next story will be where the money goes.