Fifth Third Bank closing 44 Chicago-area branches

Fifth Third Bank will close 44 Chicago-area branches as it consolidates operations after its acquisition of MB Financial. The closures will happen July 9 or 10 and will leave Fifth Third with 190 branches in the region, spokesman Larry Magnesen said Tuesday.

He said 19 of the closed branches were Fifth Third operations and 25 were part of MB Financial. Eight of the closures are in Chicago and the rest in the suburbs, Magnesen said.

Fifth Third tried to keep overlapping branches with the best facilities, traffic patterns and space to add services such as mortgage bankers and small-business specialists, he said.

A “relatively small” number of jobs were cut because of the branch consolidation, Magnesen said, adding that Fifth Third has about 3,200 workers in the Chicago area.

By absorbing MB Financial, Cincinnati-based Fifth Third appears to be close to Northern Trust in its share of the Chicago area’s banking market, according to Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. data on local deposits.

Fifth Third and Northern Trust are vying for fourth place in market share after leaders JP Morgan Chase, BMO Harris and Bank of America.