Citizens Financial CEO Rebuffs Idea of Takeover by a Megabank

New England’s biggest bank, Citizens Financial Group Inc., is determined to go it alone as long as the regulatory burden on big regional lenders remains tolerable, the company’s chief said.

“I don’t see the need to combine and get more scale – although you will just have to wait and see what happens with regulation,” said Chief Executive Officer Bruce Van Saun. “If there’s a significantly higher cost of doing business, then at that point there might have to be a reassessment.”

Speaking in an interview yesterday on Bloomberg Radio’s Baystate Business, Van Saun added, “At this point I ...