According to the Post, PNC Bank — the Pittsburgh-based financial corporation that recently bought Washington’s own troubled Riggs Bank — announced yesterday that it plans on hitting the District ground running in early May with extended service hours, no ATM fees, and a series of new branches. This plan comes amidst increasing bank competition in the Washington region and in the wake of last month’s purchase of Riggs’ 51 local branches for roughly $650 million.

Riggs Bank was, prior to a spate of legal, financial and public relations difficulties, a well-respected Washington institution. Established in 1836, Riggs was designated the federal government’s only depository in the region in 1844. Best known for serving the city’s many embassies, Riggs is also known for loaning the U.S. government $16 million to fight the Mexican-American War in 1847, providing $7.2 million in financing for the 1868 purchase of Alaska, and serving as a bank of first resort for Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, and Dwight D. Eisenhower. In 1981 the Albritton family took control of the bank, only to lose it 23 years later amidst controversies concerning the laundering of money tied to ex-Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and the corrupt government of Equatorial Guinea — accusations for which they recently agreed to pay $16 million in fines.

No word from PNC officials yet as to whether improvements in customer service will include more discrete ways to launder money or trips to the bank’s tony London apartment aboard corporate jets. And wild rumors that Pinochet and Equatorial Guinea’s Brig. Gen. Teodoro Obiang Nguema may serve as PNC’s chief bank tellers at the Dupont Circle branch are, as of yet, unconfirmed.

(The image above is of the Farmers & Mechanics Branch building in Georgetown, which has served as a Riggs Bank since 1928.)