Citizens Financial continues to prioritize its technology enhancement initiative for the bank’s legacy infrastructure and platform updates in the year ahead through its Top 8 efficiencies plan. 

WHY IT MATTERS: The $222 billion bank announced during its fourth-quarter 2022 earnings call that Top 8 would assist with several tech-related efforts, including moving to the cloud, converting legacy platforms to modern banking platforms and standardizing applications and technology platforms, an initiative reiterated by Citizens Chief Financial Officer John Woods during today’s earnings call.

“Reimagining how we operate from an automation perspective is something that, structurally, we’ve been making investments in, and we can double down on that going forward,” Woods said. 

BY THE NUMBERS: Citizens reported for Q4: 

• Noninterest expenses increased 17% year over year to $1.3 billion; 
• Net income rose 22% YoY to $511 million; and 
• Equipment and software expenses grew 13% YoY to $169 million. 

FLASHBACK: Top 8 is just one of Citizens’ technology initiatives since the company announced a redesigned mobile experience last October. The bank announced plans to provide more self-service capabilities within a new mobile app, with the expected launch to come later this year, Woods previously said. 

MARKET REACTION: Citizens closed at $30.50 per share today, up from the market open of $29.51 per share.

FUTURE LOOK: Economic turbulence and a Federal Reserve interest rate hike are expected by the bank in May, but Citizens is focused on increasing efficiencies through automation when market uncertainty subsides, Chief Executive Bruce Van Saun said during the call. 

When the economy settles later in the year, Citizens wants to be “rolling faster than peers, and we’re in good position to grow both customer base as well as our revenue,” said the CEO added. “That’s the balancing act is to keep looking for efficiencies while making sure that we were prioritizing the things that really are important to future positioning.”  

THE BOTTOM LINE: With economic uncertainty expected in the short-term, the bank is considering “further simplification of our operations models, taking a harder look at our third-party spend, reimagining how we operate from an automation perspective,” Woods said. 

Citizens will continue to look at efficiency opportunities “and we’re going to intensify those efforts here in the coming months,” he said.