{"id":24667,"date":"2026-01-16T21:59:28","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T21:59:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/?p=24667"},"modified":"2026-01-16T21:59:28","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T21:59:28","slug":"regions-financial-continues-to-hire-bankers-in-so-called-priority-markets-where-its-seeking-more-market-share","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/?p=24667","title":{"rendered":"Regions Financial continues to hire bankers in so-called &#8220;priority markets&#8221; where it&#8217;s seeking more market share."},"content":{"rendered":"<div wp_automatic_readability=\"142.14767616192\">\n<ul class=\"rte2-style-ul\">\n<li><b>Key insight: <\/b>Regions Financial CEO John Turner said new and expanding entrants into Regions&#8217; longtime home territory presents an opportunity for his bank to grow.<\/li>\n<li><b>What&#8217;s at stake: <\/b>Regions will need to defend itself from large and regional banks that continue to expand into the Southeast.<\/li>\n<li><b>Forward look: <\/b>The Alabama-based bank is forecasting expense growth of 1.5% to 3.5% for full-year 2026.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div class=\"Enhancement\" data-float=\"\" data-align-left=\"\">\n<div class=\"Enhancement-item\">\n<figure class=\"Figure\">  <\/p>\n<div class=\"Figure-content\"><figcaption class=\"Figure-caption\">John Turner, CEO of Regions Financial<\/figcaption><p>Regions Financial<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p><ps-link>Regions Financial<\/ps-link><span class=\"QModMiniQuotesRichText\"> <span class=\"QModMiniQuotesRichText-tool\"> <span data-qmod-tool=\"miniquotes\" data-qmod-params=\"{\" lang\":\"en\",=\"\" \"symbol\":=\"\" \"rf\"}\"=\"\" class=\"qtool\"><\/span> <\/span> <\/span> is in good shape to defend its position as a dominant bank in the Southeast, its CEO says, even as competitors continue to expand with urgency into that part of the country.<\/p>\n<p>Processing Content<\/p>\n<p>The parent company of <ps-link>Regions Bank<\/ps-link> has a long history in some of its core markets, as well as &#8220;a really strong brand \u2026 very good market share and bankers that are well-known in their communities,&#8221; CEO John Turner said Friday during the company&#8217;s fourth-quarter earnings call.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s also continuing to hire bankers in what it calls &#8220;priority markets,&#8221; including 50 who were hired last year, he added. In total, it expects to hire about 120 new bankers over a two-year period.<\/p>\n<p>Other banks pushing into its territory presents &#8220;an opportunity to continue to grow,&#8221; Turner said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re going to take care of our customers, and I think we&#8217;ll have an opportunity to continue to grow our business, regardless of what the conditions are in the markets we operate,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p>Turner&#8217;s comments came on the heels of a warning shot from Bill Demchak, CEO of PNC Financial Services Group: The Pittsburgh-based bank, which has been <ps-link><u>investing in its Southeast footprint<\/u><\/ps-link> for years, is ready to go to battle with other banks for more market share.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t think anybody has an ability to defend home turf here,&#8221; <ps-link><u>Demchak said earlier Friday <\/u><\/ps-link>during PNC&#8217;s fourth-quarter earnings call. &#8220;We&#8217;re coming into your market. If you&#8217;re not coming into our market to come fight us, we&#8217;re coming into your market to come fight you, and we&#8217;re going to get some percentage of your market, as is [JPMorganChase and Bank of America.]&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>One analyst wanted to know how Alabama-based <ps-link>Regions<\/ps-link> is going to keep spending in check as it protects its position in the Southeast and continues to hire bankers in its priority markets, which includes Nashville and Atlanta. Currently <ps-link>Regions<\/ps-link> is the largest deposit holder in its home state, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. It&#8217;s the third-largest deposit holder in Tennessee, the fourth-largest in Louisiana and Mississippi and the seventh-largest in Florida.<\/p>\n<p>For 2026, the bank predicts that noninterest expenses will rise 1.5% to 3.5% year over year.<\/p>\n<p>Anil Chadha, <ps-link>Regions&#8217;<\/ps-link> controller and its incoming chief financial officer, said the bank is focused on making the necessary investments for growth while figuring out &#8220;ways to fund that growth.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s incumbent upon us every day to make sure we&#8217;re making the right investments to grow revenue [and] making the right investments in technology, but also find ways to fund those investments,&#8221; said Chadha, who will <ps-link><u>succeed longtime CFO David Turner<\/u><\/ps-link> on March 31.<\/p>\n<p>One area at <ps-link>Regions<\/ps-link> that appears to be less of a priority for spending is bank acquisitions.<\/p>\n<p>The bank&#8217;s appetite for M&amp;A has been a topic of curiosity for industry observers. In November, American Banker reported that <ps-link>Regions<\/ps-link> <ps-link><u>tried to buy Dallas-based Comerica<\/u><\/ps-link> earlier this year, but that Comerica rejected the offer and instead made a speedy deal with Fifth Third Bancorp.<\/p>\n<p>On Friday, CEO Turner doubled-down on some of the M&amp;A-related comments he made last month at an industry conference, saying that &#8220;depository M&amp;A is not part of our strategy today.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Notably, the $158.1 billion-asset bank is in the midst of a core systems modernization project, which it expects to complete in the latter half of 2027. <\/p>\n<p>John Turner acknowledged that while the project &#8220;technically \u2026 does not restrict [the bank&#8217;s] ability to do an M&amp;A transaction, practically it would be very challenging.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><ps-link>Regions&#8217;<\/ps-link> fourth-quarter earnings came in a touch worse than analysts had been forecasting. Net income of $534 million was flat with the year-ago quarter. Earnings per share totaled 58 cents, 4 cents shy of the average estimate of analysts who were polled by S&amp;P Capital IQ. <\/p>\n<p>The results included a few one-time items, including $26 million of after-tax additional income tax expenses that were primarily tied to an increase of state income tax reserves as well as $7 million in pretax costs related to salaries and employee benefits severance, the bank said.<\/p>\n<p>Revenues totaled $1.9 billion for the period ending Dec. 31, up 5.8% year over year. Net interest income was $1.3 billion, up 4.1% from the year-ago quarter. Total loans declined 0.8% year over year, in part because of a decrease in <ps-link>Regions&#8217;<\/ps-link> home improvement financing book as well as decreases in owner-occupied commercial real estate and commercial-and-industrial loans.<\/p>\n<p>Fee income of $640 million rose 9.4% year over year, led by increases in wealth management income, bank-owned life insurance fees and commercial credit fee income, the bank said.<\/p>\n<p>Noninterest expenses for the quarter rose 5.8% from the prior-year period. Historically, the bank&#8217;s technology spend has made up 9% to 11% of total revenues, but on Friday executives said that spending category would now be about 10% to 12% of total revenues going forward.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.americanbanker.com\/news\/regions-financial-continues-to-hire-bankers-in-so-called-priority-markets-where-its-seeking-more-market-share\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Key insight: Regions Financial CEO John Turner said new and expanding entrants into Regions&#8217; longtime home territory presents an opportunity for his bank to grow. What&#8217;s at stake: Regions will need to defend itself from large and regional banks that continue to expand into the Southeast. Forward look: The Alabama-based bank is forecasting expense growth<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24668,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[218],"tags":[1252,1463,191,7412,94,175,7351,7392,6060,2123,2459],"class_list":{"0":"post-24667","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-banking","8":"tag-bankers","9":"tag-continues","10":"tag-financial","11":"tag-hire","12":"tag-market","13":"tag-markets","14":"tag-priority","15":"tag-regions","16":"tag-seeking","17":"tag-share","18":"tag-socalled"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24667\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}