If you don’t live in Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, West Virginia or Michigan, you might not be familiar with Huntington Bank.  

Huntington is a regional bank with more than 200 locations scattered over the above-mentioned states (and a few in neighboring areas).  Huntington does offer some services on a more national level, in addition to supplying national online retail services.  

When you add it all up, Huntington is near the 600 slot of the Fortune 1000 and is the 29th largest bank in the United States.

Huntington appears to have a strong commitment to small business lending.  A recent press release published at MarketWatch trumpets Huntington’s performance in the area of Small Business Administration lending.  According to the release:

Huntington ranked first in both loan dollar volume and number of loans among all SBA lenders in Ohio with 791 loans for a total of $73.7 million. In Indiana and Kentucky, Huntington ranked first in loan dollar volume with a total of $23.6 and $6.6 million, respectively. Huntington also ranked No. 1 for the number of SBA loans in the state of West Virginia with a total of 44 loans.

Huntington moved up from its 2007 ranking to now become 11th in the nation for number of SBA loans and 15th in the nation for total 7(a) loans, the most common type of loan used by small businesses.

Huntington’s National Director of SBA Lending, Craigh Street, noted that the bank is “committed to helping helping business owners identify solutions so they can achieve their goals.”

That interest in small business lending is evident in some of Huntington’s outreach, too.  For instance, the bank recently issued a series of tips and recommendations to assist small business owners in dealing with medical coverage costs.

Huntington might be doing well with its business lending practices, but it’s had a little trouble with respect to mortgage lending.  Like so many U.S. banks, Huntington Bank suffered some serious blowback from the sub-prime mortgage market collapse.  

When Franklin Credit Management was getting smacked around in the meltdown, Huntington was watching carefully.  That’s because Franklin owed Huntington over a billion dollars.  During the darkest days of subprime chaos, Huntington saw its stock value drop considerably–down 13% in a single day on one occasion.

The aftermath is still being felt at Huntington today.  A Pittsburgh Tribune-Review article entitled “Stressed Banks Suspend Dividends” specifically mentioned HB as one of the institutions who are still feeling some pain in the wake of the subprime ugliness.  

According to Columnist Thomas Olson, “For instance, the parent of Huntington Bank, which has 41 branches in this region, cut its quarterly dividend in half to about 13 cents a share, on April 15.”

There’s no reason to think that this large bank is in any real trouble.  It’s one of the biggest in the country and appears to be solid and solvent.  Even so, it was unable to escape taking a few punches during tough national economic times.

In terms of Huntington’s services, they do offer a full range of banking options.  They’re part of a large bank company that’s running a series of “neighborhood” banks, as those who live in the area serviced by HB undoubtedly know.  Initial research indicates that they offer a full slate of products to their clients and that they operate a robust Internet banking system.