Regions Financial Corporation

Good morning and welcome to the Region 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 third quarter 2021 earnings call. John and David will provide high-level commentary regarding the quarter. Earnings documents, which include our forward-looking statement disclaimer, 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 good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining our call today. We're very pleased with our performance this quarter as we achieved earnings of $624 million, resulting in earnings per share of 65 cents. Adjusted pre-tax, pre-provision income increased 4% sequentially, and we generated year-to-date positive operating leverage. Our ability to keep the momentum going and deliver solid third quarter results comes from three primary factors. First, we continue to benefit from our growing footprint. Unemployment levels are improving, and most of our markets are well below the national level. People and businesses are continuing to move into our 15-state footprint, and that bodes well for our growth prospects for the remainder of the year and into 2022. We'll continue to make strategic investments in core and growth markets where we can grow new customers and deepen existing relationships. On that note, We're also pleased to share that year-to-date net account growth has exceeded account growth for the preceding three years combined. Second, credit quality has demonstrated incredible resiliency and continues to exceed our expectations. Businesses across all industries have found ways to adapt and prosper despite ongoing supply chain and labor issues, and consumers continue to cautiously manage their finances. Overall, we feel very good about the health of our business and consumer customers. Third, we continue to take advantage of opportunities to invest in talent, technology, and capabilities to support growth. For instance, earlier this month, we closed on our acquisition of Interbank, a leading home improvement point-of-sale lender, a key part of our strategy to serve as a premier lender to homeowners. We also entered into an agreement to acquire Sabal Capital Partners Sabal has a strong reputation and a proprietary technology platform that will expand our real estate capital markets capabilities. Once the transition is complete, we expect to be a top five bank agency producer. The Interbank and Sabal acquisitions complement our existing portfolio of products and capabilities in the consumer and corporate bank. we will continue to evaluate prudent non-bank M&A opportunities that will allow us to expand our products and services and enhance our relevancy with our customers. Also, we recently launched our BankOn certified Now Checking account. This new product has all the benefits of a traditional checking account without the concern of overdraft fees. And finally, our investments in digital and data are positioning us for growth. Through a technology-enabled seamless experience in branches and across all platforms, customers are responding to the personalized service, advice, and guidance they receive from regions. Today, more than two-thirds of our customer transactions are digital. Further, over the last two years, active mobile banking users are up 23%, and notably, Zelle transactions have more than tripled. We feel really good about our progress and momentum. We operate in some of the best markets in the country, have a solid strategic plan, an outstanding team, and the experience to compete effectively. We focus every day on delivering products and services that are valued by our customers while continuing to support our communities and provide an appropriate return to our shareholders. Now, David will provide you with some details regarding the quarter.