Peoples Financial Services (NASDAQ:PFIS) and Citizens Financial Group (NYSE:CFG) Head to Head Survey

Citizens Financial Group (NYSE:CFG) and Peoples Financial Services (NASDAQ:PFIS) are both finance companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, valuation, earnings, dividends, institutional ownership, risk and profitability.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings for Citizens Financial Group and Peoples Financial Services, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Citizens Financial Group	0	2	18	0	2.90
Peoples Financial Services	0	2	1	0	2.33

Citizens Financial Group presently has a consensus target price of $72.38, indicating a potential upside of 0.86%. Peoples Financial Services has a consensus target price of $58.50, indicating a potential downside of 14.01%. Given Citizens Financial Group’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, research analysts clearly believe Citizens Financial Group is more favorable than Peoples Financial Services.

Dividends

Citizens Financial Group pays an annual dividend of $1.84 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.6%. Peoples Financial Services pays an annual dividend of $2.50 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.7%. Citizens Financial Group pays out 43.5% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Peoples Financial Services pays out 27.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years. Peoples Financial Services has raised its dividend for 8 consecutive years. Peoples Financial Services is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

94.9% of Citizens Financial Group shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 31.7% of Peoples Financial Services shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.7% of Citizens Financial Group shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 8.2% of Peoples Financial Services shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Profitability

This table compares Citizens Financial Group and Peoples Financial Services’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Citizens Financial Group	16.21%	8.31%	0.88%
Peoples Financial Services	21.29%	18.06%	1.76%

Risk and Volatility

Citizens Financial Group has a beta of 0.66, suggesting that its stock price is 34% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Peoples Financial Services has a beta of 0.77, suggesting that its stock price is 23% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Citizens Financial Group and Peoples Financial Services”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Citizens Financial Group	$8.48 billion	3.58	$1.83 billion	$4.23	16.96
Peoples Financial Services	$192.40 million	3.54	$59.19 million	$9.03	7.53

Citizens Financial Group has higher revenue and earnings than Peoples Financial Services. Peoples Financial Services is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Citizens Financial Group, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

Peoples Financial Services beats Citizens Financial Group on 9 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Citizens Financial Group

Citizens Financial Group, Inc. operates as the bank holding company that provides retail and commercial banking products and services to individuals, small businesses, middle-market companies, corporations, and institutions in the United States. The company operates in two segments, Consumer Banking and Commercial Banking. The Consumer Banking segment offers deposit products, mortgage and home equity lending products, credit cards, business loans, wealth management, and investment services; and auto, education, and point-of-sale finance loans, as well as digital deposit products. This segment serves its customers through telephone service centers, as well as through its online and mobile platforms. The Commercial Banking segment provides various financial products and solutions, including lending and leasing, deposit and treasury management services, foreign exchange, and interest rate and commodity risk management solutions, as well as syndicated loans, corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, and debt and equity capital markets services. This segment serves corporate banking, healthcare, technology, asset finance, franchise finance, leasing, asset-based lending, commercial real estate, mid-corporate, and private equity sponsor industries. The company was formerly known as RBS Citizens Financial Group, Inc. and changed its name to Citizens Financial Group, Inc. in April 2014. Citizens Financial Group, Inc. was founded in 1828 and is headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island.

About Peoples Financial Services

Peoples Financial Services Corp. operates as the bank holding company for Peoples Security Bank and Trust Company that provides various commercial and retail banking services. The company accepts money market, negotiable order of withdrawal, savings, individual retirement, demand deposit, and certificates of deposit accounts. It also provides residential real estate, automobile, manufactured housing, personal, and home equity loans; and commercial real estate, working capital, construction, small business administration, and agricultural loans, as well as loans for equipment and other commercial needs, and mineral rights. In addition, the company offers fiduciary and investment services; investment management, IRA trustee, estate administration, living and life insurance trust, trustee under will, guardianship, custodial/IRA custodial, and corporate trust services, as well as pension and profit-sharing plans. Further, it provides wealth management products and services comprising investment portfolio management, estate and business succession planning, annuities, insurance, retirement plan, and tax planning, as well as education funding strategies; and securities, brokerage, and investor services. Additionally, the company offers small business checking and merchant money market accounts, online and telephone banking, business credit cards, merchant line of credit, and financial checkup services; and remote deposit capture, automatic clearing house transaction, cash management, automated teller machine, point of sale transaction, safe deposit box, night depository, direct deposit, and official check services. It serves business, non-profit, governmental, municipal agency, and professional customers, as well as retail customers. Peoples Financial Services Corp. was founded in 1905 and is headquartered in Scranton, Pennsylvania.