Huntington Bancshares is planning to self-fund tech investments as it prepares to close 31 branches in early 2023.

The $179 billion bank’s noninterest expenses fell 18% to $1 billion, largely due to lower personnel costs and cutbacks on equipment and outside data processing compared with the same reporting period last year, according to Huntington’s Q3 earnings report.

The Columbus, Ohio-based bank reported for Q3:

• Total revenue grew 12% year over year to $1.9 billion;
• 2.5 million mobile users, a 42% YoY jump;
• Digital logins increased 47% to 200 million; and
• Average monthly active digital users grew 36% YoY to 3.3 million.

Huntington has extended its commitment to a tech spend increase since announcing it would double its investment in innovation during last quarter’s earnings report, Chief Financial Officer Zachary Wasserman said during today’s Q3 earnings call.

“What’s happening in consumer is a bit of a tale of two cities where the underlying trend in customer acquisition, household acquisition and primary bank relationship growth — and the deepening efforts that we’ve got both in our offline channels and increasingly now on the digital channels — are really working, and we’re seeing nice expanding deposit gathering from those activities,” Wasserman said.

Meanwhile, Huntington is migrating TCF Financial Corporation’s systems as the bank “remain[s] focused on driving the incremental revenue opportunities from the [2021] acquisition,” Huntington Chief Executive Steve Steinour said during the call.

The bank’s increasing tech investments combined with its skyrocketing digital engagement shows that digitization is producing intended results, Wasserman said.

“The model … is for us to self-fund investments in our strategic initiatives, execute on the [acquisition of TCF Financial Corporation] revenue synergies and our continued technology development program by driving efficiencies in the core operating expense base of the company through scale, process, automation,” he said. “An indication of that is we’re continuing to optimize our branch network.”

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