The banking landscape is one that is constantly changing, and 2014 saw its share of mergers, acquisitions, openings and closings in Butler County.

Most of the major activity occurred during the final quarter of 2014, when WesBanco announced the acquisition of ESB Bank and NexTier Bank and Farmers & Merchants Bank finalized their merger.

PNC Bank remains the county’s top bank by deposit market share at 24.8 percent.

Citizens Bank grew its county deposits more than $30 million, taking over the No. 2 spot from First National Bank of Pennsylvania.

Part of that boost came from Citizens opening a new office in Buffalo Township. It is the bank’s 10th office in the county.

NexTier Bank held on to the county’s fourth spot and is poised to become a larger regional player after the October completion of its merger with F&M.

The bank now has 23 banking offices in Butler, Armstrong and Allegheny counties, plus the operations center in Butler Township, where it is headquartered. NexTier Inc., the parent company of the bank, is now headquartered in Kittanning, where F&M was headquartered. NexTier also has an office in Arizona.

“Our plan from day one was that nobody would lose their job, and nobody has,” Rich Krauland, president and CEO of NexTier Bank, said of the merger.

Krauland added the merger puts the organization at about $1 billion in assets.

He explained the bank is at a good size to remain community-minded, but large enough to handle additional regulatory requirements the federal government has enacted because of the financial crisis at the end of the 2000s.

He explained the regulatory environment continues to be difficult for many community banks because they are held to the same rules as large institutions.

“The regulators have to treat us as though we’re some highly complex, risk-taking institution,” he said.

Krauland said ensuring compliance creates additional costs for banks. On top of that, low interest rates and low loan demand make it harder to profit from traditional loans.

He said one way banks like NexTier have benefited is by working together on large lending projects — deals usually for $25 million or more.

He explained that one bank will take on the loan but then sell off parts of it to other banks. The practice helps to both distribute risk among multiple institutions while helping all make money.

Krauland said NexTier is adding to its commercial lending staff, and also is in talks with a handful of smaller banks in the region about joining NexTier at some point.

“We’re very much interested in having folks like that join us whenever they decide that they’re ready to do that,” he said.

Huntington Bank, the institution with the fifth most deposits in the county, increased its deposits from last year despite closing an office and making plans to close another.

In late 2013, the bank closed its drive-through office in Evans City. At the end of December, it will close its full-service office on Main Street in Butler, dropping its number of offices in the county to four.

John Durant, retail area manager for Huntington, said the Butler office will be consolidated with the office in the Stirling Village development on Route 68 in Butler Township.

While Western Pennsylvania is a growth market for the Columbus, Ohio-based institution, Durant said customer traffic, transaction trends and proximity to other offices led to the decision. He added advances in technology also have led to less emphasis on physical branches.

Also closing an office during the past year was Mars National Bank, which shut down its drive-through facility on Route 228 in Adams Township. Stephen Eckert, a bank spokesman, said that facility closed at the end of 2013 because older, single-service locations are becoming less common in the industry.

He said the full-service office farther east on Route 228 that opened five years ago, as well as the headquarters in Mars, have assumed all the business of the closed location.

Northwest Savings Bank, which has the seventh most deposits in the county, opened a new office in Zelienople at the end of 2013.

Farmers National Bank of Emlenton also opened a new office during the past year.

In the spring, the Venango County-based institution finished construction and opened its fourth Butler County office along Route 19 in Cranberry Township.

William Marsh, president, CEO and chairman of the board for Farmers, said while bank consolidations will continue nationwide, independent, community-based banks such as Farmers will continue to have their place in Western Pennsylvania.

He said the bank is committed to remaining independent and has its sights on continued growth — both in expanding existing offices and adding new ones. One new office is planned to open in Hermitage in 2016, he said.

He added that in four of the bank’s 15 locations, they are the only bank in the area.

“We like our footprint,” he said.

Marsh also said Farmers is looking for other institutions to acquire.

When Wheeling, W.Va.-based WesBanco’s acquisition of Ellwood City-based ESB Bank is completed during the first half of 2015, it will create an institution with about $200 million in deposits, making it the seventh largest in the county.

Activity among other banking institutions remained stable, although Indiana, Pa.-based S&T Bank is in the process of acquiring Integrity Bank for about $155 million.

S&T has two locations in Butler County, one in Butler Township and one in Cranberry Township.

Integrity Bank, which is based in Cumberland County, has eight branches in southeastern Pennsylvania.

The banks expect to formally merge by early next year.