Birmingham, Ala.-based Regions Bank is throwing its weight behind technology as the bank pulls back in other areas to keep overall expenses flat.

“We have places and levers to pull on expenses. It’s really hard because we have to make investments in technology, in digital, in people, to continue to grow revenue and grow customers for our company,” said Chief Financial Officer David Turner on the bank’s third-quarter earnings Tuesday. “So while we’re doing that, how do we keep our expenses flat?”

Headcount will be a major hurdle for the $145 billion bank as it looks to boost operational efficiency and balance expenses; salaries and benefits account for 55% of Regions’ expense base. Branch consolidations have been a main driver of the bank’s cost savings, Turner said, as nearly half of Regions’ workforce is within the branch network. The bank will look to technology to take over positions lost to attrition.

Regions is prioritizing investments in its digital capabilities as it tackles costs in the current environment, transitioning dollars and human resources from longer-term projects in the wake of the pandemic, President and CEO John Turner said at Barclays Global Financial Services Conference in September.

“We’ve elected to accelerate our investment in both mobile and enhancing our mobile app and in our digital origination capabilities,” John Turner said. “Those things will be a real focus of us, of ours internally over the next six to nine months.”

In 2019, Regions spent $625 million in technology investments, according to a September investor presentation, with 48% committed to system maintenance and infrastructure related to data centers, network and user hardware, 42% allocated to new tech investments, and 10% to cybersecurity and risk management. The presentation notes that such trends are expected to continue.

Along with investments to mobile and digital origination capabilities, Regions’ other near-term priorities include self-service portals for customer claims and consumer collections planning, expansion of e-signature across various products, and digitizing the mortgage origination and servicing journey, according to the investor presentation.

Regions active mobile banking users increased 9% year over year to 2 million, but remained flat since the second quarter. Digital banking logins grew 22% year over year, but quarterly growth was relatively stagnant, bumping up 1 million between the second and third quarters to 286 million mobile and online banking logins.

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