Regions Financial Corporation

Good morning, and welcome to the Region's Financial Corporation's quarterly earnings call. My name is Shelby, and I'll be your operator for today's call. I would like to remind everyone that all participant phone lines have been placed on listen only. At the end of the call, there will be a question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. I will now turn the call over to Dana Nolan to begin.

Thank you, Shelby. Welcome to Region's fourth quarter 2020 earnings call. John and David will provide high-level commentary regarding the quarter and full-year results. Earnings documents, including forward-looking statements, are available in the investor relations section of our website. These disclosures cover our presentation materials, prepared comments, and Q&A. I will now turn the call over to John.

Thank you, Dana, and thank you for joining our call today. Let me begin by saying that we are very pleased with our fourth quarter and full-year results. We achieved a great deal despite a challenging interest rate and operating environment. Earlier this morning, we reported full-year earnings of $991 million, reflecting our highest level of adjusted pre-tax, pre-provision income in more than a decade, resulting in adjusted positive operating leverage of 2.6%. Over the last 10-plus years, we've made significant strides toward our goal of positioning the company to generate consistent, sustainable long-term performance. We've enhanced our credit, interest rate, and operational risk management processes and platforms. We've sharpened our focus on appropriate risk-adjusted returns and capital allocation. These actions position us well to weather the economic downturn caused by the pandemic and to serve as a strong foundation for growth. Despite a year of unprecedented uncertainty, we remain focused on what we can control, and our efforts are paying off. During 2020, we grew consumer and small business checking accounts by 1.5%. We increased corporate loan production by 6%. We made investments in talent, target markets, technology, and digital capabilities. and we expanded and enhanced products across the consumer and corporate bank, incorporating changing customer preferences and learnings from the pandemic. In 2021 and beyond, we will continue to focus on growing our business by investing in areas that allow us to make banking easier for our customers. And while continuing to provide our associates with the tools they need to be competitive, we will make incremental adjustments to our business, by leveraging our strengths and investing in areas where we believe we can consistently win over time. We did this by adding mortgage loan originators when rates were still rising, positioning us to better capitalize on mortgage activity. We also expanded our small business platform through the Ascentium acquisition, as well as our enhanced SBA technology platform. In closing, We're very proud of our achievements in 2020, but none of these would be possible without the hard work and dedication of our 20,000 associates. This year has posed a myriad of challenges. However, our associates took action, providing best-in-class customer service, successfully executing on our strategy, and maintaining strong risk management practices in the face of a rapidly evolving operating environment, all of which contributed to our success. Now, David will provide you with some details regarding the quarter.