Truist: 60% of Transactions Are Now Digital

Truist says it is seeing a jump in digital engagement as it continues its cost-cutting measures.

Speaking during an earnings call Thursday (Oct. 19) CEO Bill Rogers said the regional lender’s digital transactions jumped 9% year over year, fueled largely by Zelle users, with those transactions up 32% since last year.

“Due to the rapid growth we’ve experienced, digital has quickly become a preferred channel for interacting with Truist,” he said. “In fact, digital transactions now account for more than 60% of total bank transactions.”

His comments came during an earning season that, as noted here earlier this week, shows the digital shift and mobile banking are still trends in the financial world.

“In many cases the rate of growth is slowing, indicating some critical mass as consumers continue to use online channels to conduct at least some aspects of daily financial life,” PYMNTS wrote.

Among the banks reporting earnings was JPMorgan Chase, which said its active mobile customers were up 9% year on year, to 53.2 million. The number of active digital customers, overall, rose 8% during the same time period to 66.8 million.

During a conference call with analysts, CFO Jeremy Barnum was asked about the company’s “record tech spend,” where JPMorgan has committed to investing billions of dollars a year to upgrade systems and enhance security.

“The growth in digitally engaged consumers is higher than the overall growth in consumer accounts, meaning that we’re continuing to increase the percentage of our consumers that are digitally engaged,” he responded.

Meanwhile, Bank of America reported Tuesday (Oct. 17) that digital adoption has reached 74% of the bank’s consumers, making up 46 million digital active users, and 3.2 billion digital logins. Zelle transactions rose 27% year over year, to 323 million, and are outpacing checks written by Bank of America clients by two-fold.

Truist CEO Rogers also said on Thursday that the bank’s $750 million cost-saving program designed to keep expense growth flat to up 1% next year “is well underway.” That 1% target is in stark contrast to the 7% it projected earlier this year.

Last month, Truist, which is one of the 10 largest commercial banks in the U.S., announced it would make “sizable reductions” in its workforce that will last through the first quarter of 2024 to rein in expense growth.