A New York-based consumer watchdog group is challenging Huntington Bancshares' proposed purchase of Akron-based FirstMerit, saying the plan to close 107 offices as part of the deal will hurt consumers and small-business owners.

A New York-based consumer watchdog group is challenging Huntington Bancshares� proposed purchase of Akron-based FirstMerit, saying the plan to close 107 offices as part of the deal will hurt consumers and small-business owners.

The group, Inner City Press/Fair Finance Watch , has complained to the Federal Reserve as part of the public comments the Fed is collecting about the deal before it decides whether to approve it.

Fair Finance also said Huntington has done a poor job of loaning money to minorities to buy homes or refinance mortgages in the Cleveland and Akron areas.

�The branch closure really set this apart (from other mergers). It�s very stark,� said Matthew Lee, executive director of the group, which is based in the South Bronx and tracks bank mergers across the country to see how they affect communities.

Huntington announced in January that it would buy FirstMerit for $3.4 billion. The deal would create a bank with about 1,100 offices in Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

This month, the bank announced that it would close 107 of those offices, many of them in northeastern Ohio and around Detroit, as part of $2 billion in cost savings that Huntington has identified.

Huntington has said the closings will not hurt consumers and the communities they serve because there is so much overlap between the banks. About two-thirds of FirstMerit offices are within 2 1/2 miles of a Huntington office.

If the deal is approved as expected this fall, the branch offices targeted for closing would shut their doors early next year.

Huntington spokesman Brent Wilder said the bank respects all opinions about its plan to buy FirstMerit.

�We welcome the opportunity to respond directly to commenters about the advantages the merger will provide through a stronger combined institution, and also as part of the formal comment period response process with the Federal Reserve,� he said.

Fair Finance would like to see federal regulators block the deal as it is currently proposed, largely because of the plans to close so many branch offices, Lee said.

Even if there is another office available nearby, he said, it can make a big difference in serving a neighborhood�s small businesses and consumers.

�Customers are served in a certain way, and you�re going to make that more difficult,� he said.

While the group is still researching which offices would be closed, it looks like many of them are in moderate and lower-income communities, he said.

Removing the offices can force consumers to turn to costlier alternatives such as payday lenders for banking services, he said.

mawilliams@dispatch.com

@BizMarkWilliams