The Future of Payments

State of Banking 20 BANKING PERSPECTIVES QUARTER 4 2018 When we look at expanding into markets, we ask ourselves, “Would a market benefit from the differentiated expertise that we can offer?” Further, for us, the best way to stay competitive is to be extremely agile with our teams working together in the best interests of our clients. We do this by bringing our commercial, corporate banking, investment banking, and private wealth teams together. It’s an effective approach. If you watch what we’re doing and where we’re going, we typically plant a flag somewhere with one particular business line and then very quickly add SunTrust’s other specialties to build the whole approach to that market. Pick your city – Houston, Dallas, New York, Cincinnati, Cleveland – we’ve been consistent. We’re seeing lots of success, and we are encouraged that people want to be a part our platform. The key is to get great talent and allow that talent to leverage all the solutions SunTrust brings to the table. ARAMANDA: You’ve got a great reputation and great name recognition, so I’m not surprised. Do you think you have the economies of scale you need everywhere? Do you see any acquisitions in the future? ROGERS: We do feel like we’ve got the scale and the capacity we need to serve our clients well, to invest in the requisite technologies, and to provide the platforms our clients need. We feel really good about where we are. Scale is important, but you also need agility. Many things are scale busters, whether they’re cloud-based technology, partnerships, or APIs. We have, of course, leveraged many of these. We always think about economies of scale as a broader ecosystem, not just size. Do we have size and agility and ability to leverage resources to maximize the benefit for clients, teammates, and shareholders? ARAMANDA: You’re absolutely right. I think technology has been a great enabler of scale as well. It used to be equated to just size, but certainly not anymore. Let’s switch to the economy. We’ve had a lot of growth over the last couple of years, and small businesses in particular seem to be doing well. What’s your take on economic growth, and are there sectors for which you have some concern, either because they’re overheated or they’re lagging? ROGERS: I think the overall economy is in good shape. Consumer confidence is high, which you certainly see in consumer spending. Business confidence also is high, evidenced by the continued increase in business investments. Despite the choppy stock market, consumers and businesses are in good health, and they’re generally optimistic about the future. That’s the macro overlay. But there also are micro challenges. Individual companies within a segment or geographic region might have inflationary pressures, tariff-related impacts, or workforce availability challenges. Nonetheless, while there are some micro issues, I think the overall macro environment continues to be very positive. ARAMANDA: You don’t have any concerns at this point about the economy, or certain areas of it being overheated? ROGERS: We’re bankers, so we’re always trying to look around the corner. Just as much as we can think about all the positives, we also think about the challenges. We stress-test our portfolios for everything: inflation, commodity prices, tariffs, and concentration. Certainly, at SunTrust, we’re a much more diversified business today than we were pre-crisis, and we’re diversified in every sense: our balance sheet, our business, The best way to ensure stability is to allow banks to have the maximum capability to serve their clients, support their communities and compete effectively, while always retaining appropriate levels of safety and soundness.