Fifth Third Bank is gaining momentum from its tech investment, with an uptick in both digital and mobile adoption.
Fifth Third in the first quarter reported 3.14 million active digital users, a 1.6% increase from the previous quarter and up 1.9% from Q1 2024. Active mobile users in Q1 were 2.4 million, up 1.3% sequentially and up 4.3% year over year. Digitally assisted mortgage applications remained steady from the past four quarters at 98%, according to the $212.2 billion bank’s earnings presentation.
Other FIs, like JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, also reported a rise in mobile adoption, reporting a 6% and 2.1% annual increase respectively. Bank of America reported active mobile users of 40.5 million during the first quarter. up 1.3% quarter over quarter and up 5.2% YoY.
THE BIG PICTURE: Fifth Third expects to see continued growth in Q2 as a result of its technology and marketing investments, Chief Financial Officer Brian Preston said today during the bank’s earnings call.
Fifth Third has also been tapping into the lucrative, banking-as-a-service and embedded finance markets, Bridgit Chayit, executive vice president and head of commercial payments and treasury management, said at the CBA Live 2025 conference last month.
BaaS serves as “a way to actually engage in the whole revenue cycle that is surrounding it. It will continue to happen and to grow, but it is about approaching it as though it is going to be a long-term asset and not just a single opportunity that you build with it,” Chayit said.
The bank’s API-powered embedded payments platform, Newline, launched in 2023, continues to be a source of growth in its commercial payments business, the bank said in its January earnings report.
The growth continued in Q1, with commercial payments reeling in $153 million in revenues, a 1% decrease from the previous quarter, but a 6% year-over-year jump, which Chief Executive Tim Spence in the earnings call attributed to Newline.
BY THE NUMBERS: In Q1, Fifth Third also reported:
- Noninterest income of $694 million, down 5% QoQ and down 2% YoY;
- Noninterest expense of $1.3 billion, up 6% QoQ and down 3% YoY;
- Technology and communications spend of $123 million, flat from Q4 2024 and up 5% YoY;
- An efficiency ratio of 61, compared with 56.4 in Q4 2024 and 63.9 in Q1 2024.
The bank’s investment in technology and automation helps it keep overall expense low, Spence said in the call.
OF NOTE: Fifth Third’s AI strategy centers on making its employees and internal processes more efficient, Chief Information Officer Jude Schramm said during Bank Automation Summit 2025 in March.
MARKET WATCH: Shares of Fifth Third (NASDAQ: FITB) were down 0.7% from market open to $34.15 as of market close today. Fifth Third has a market capitalization of $22.7 billion.
