SunTrust 2013 Annual Report Download - page 8

SunTrust Banks, Inc. 2013 Annual Report
II. Deepen Client Relationships
We are acutely focused on deepening client
relationships. During 2013, we enhanced training
and teammate tools to execute against this priority
and made strides in deepening client relationships
in each of our business segments.
We continue to make investments to help teammates
identify and meet more clients’ needs. In Consumer
Banking, we enhanced the functionality of our
branch platform application. In Private Wealth
Management, we recently launched an innovative
fi nancial planning tool that measures progress
toward each client’s fi nancial goals, integrating
all of their fi nancial information including items
held outside of SunTrust into one easy-to-use
online portal. In Wholesale Banking, we continue
to successfully deliver a comprehensive suite of
fi nancial products and services though our uniquely
positioned middle-market investment banking
business, SunTrust Robinson Humphrey. We expect
to better leverage our investment banking success
with our corporate banking, commercial and
business banking, and commercial real estate
clients so that we can improve penetration and
expand client relationships. We also believe we
can improve the delivery of mortgage products
to our consumer banking and private wealth
clients, and we have initiatives in place to capture
this opportunity.
III. Improve E ciency
Improving the e ciency ratio of the company is a
critical priority, and we made notable progress in
reducing our adjusted tangible e ciency ratio in
2013. Revenue is one component of the e ciency
ratio, and I’ve outlined some of the initiatives we are
pursuing to drive growth, but expense management
has been a very important part of our e orts.
Expense management intensity continues across
the organization, but some larger initiatives will
help drive future progress. First, we are rightsizing
our Mortgage Banking business due to both the
resolution of legacy matters and as a response to
the current origination environment. Moreover,
we continue to focus on our digital channels to
improve the client experience and reduce our cost
to serve. The usage of self-service channels has
steadily increased, and concurrent with this trend
we reduced our branch count by 7% during 2013.
Additionally, we are streamlining operations and
support functions to remove redundancy and
improve e ectiveness.
To be clear, our focus is on improving the
e ectiveness and e ciency of our organization,
as measured by our e ciency ratio. Revenue is an
important component and some of our revenue
growth initiatives will require investment. We will
reinvest in areas that we believe will generate
revenue growth and improve our long-term
profi tability profi le.