Digital banks may be sprouting up all over the banking world, but don’t look for one from U.S. Bank.

On this morning’s earnings call, CEO Andy Cecere noted the bank was looking to expand beyond its current 25-state branch footprint, which covers the Midwest and the western U.S. The bank is national in terms of its mortgage and auto lending products, Cecere said, and the opportunity now is to expand its relationship with those customers.

The move will likely not involve creating a digital-only bank, as competitors such as JPMorgan Chase and PNC have done. PNC and Bank of America have both discussed moving into Minneapolis, Minn., U.S. Bank’s home turf.

Mike Mayo of Wells Fargo Securities asked:

So this strategy to expand outside of your 25-state network to cross-sell to mortgage and auto customers that could potentially take you to all 50 states or most of the states and what gives you confidence that that strategy will succeed. And the opposite of that strategy, it seems like everyone’s doing a national digital bank now, from Citigroup, PNC, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, and we tend to hear Minneapolis pop up every now and then.

Cecere countered that the bank had seen no decline based on increased competition in the Mini Apple. He again emphasized that U.S. Bank would leverage existing relationships to expand, rather than entering a new market entirely, as Chase did with Finn.

I think if you go into a market without a customer base and you either compete on price or product you could get negative selection. So that’s why we’re focused on current customers, who already have a relationship with the bank, who we can expand that relationship with other products and services, because they already have U.S. Bank as part of their wallet, so to speak, part of their relationship. We think that’s the way to do it, and again, we’re focused on a few markets as we started out and we’ll continue to update you on the results as we go forward.

The growth initiative was started this year, Cecere noted. He also said the bank was “stepping up our business investment in digital-first capabilities, revenue enhancing initiatives and business automation as we position this company for the future.”

Bank Innovation reached out to U.S. Bank for further information on this initiative.