CIT Group Inc.

CIT Group Inc. sits closer to corporate finance and lending than to an ordinary retail bank, so it is a name that matters more to businesses than to people looking for a checking account. By our assessment, that kind of company can be useful because it lives in loans, asset-based finance, and structured business banking rather than in branch counters. The drawback is that it is not built for simple consumer use, and the name alone does not promise a broad everyday banking experience. In practice it feels like a business-facing financial group, with less of the visible storefront and more of the credit side. Against a local bank it is more specialized; against a giant universal bank it is narrower, and that narrower shape is exactly what the name suggests.