Synovus Financial Corp. is overhauling its consumer banking operations in a broad initiative that will expand products and services, renovate its 281 branches, and add 25 in fast-growing markets.
The Columbus, Ga., company said Monday that it had promoted two executives to help improve retail banking results and overall efficiency.
Leila S. Carr, formerly director of sales, service, marketing and product development, was named retail banking executive. Ms. Carr helped the $25 billion-asset company develop a new retail banking strategy over the past year; her new job will be to oversee its implementation, she said in an interview Monday.
James L. "Jimbo" LaBoon was promoted to lead a quality and efficiency effort in Synovus' banking and support operations. He had been a regional chief executive in the banking division and the chairman of Athens First Bank and Trust Co. of Athens, Ga. He retained the latter title.
The focus on consumer banking is "our most important initiative in 2005," president and chief operating officer Richard Anthony told analysts during a Jan. 19 conference call after Synovus released fourth-quarter financial results.
The company wants to improve retail deposit gathering and other consumer banking results at its 40 subsidiary banks.
"We have been performing well in our commercial deposit growth and basically on the business side of our banking operation," Mr. Anthony said during the conference call, "but we have some unrealized potential on the retail side.,"
Jennifer Demba, an analyst at SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, in Atlanta, said Ms. Carr's new job essentially formalizes the role she has been playing at Synovus for more than a year.
Ms. Carr led a team of 25 executives from across Synovus' five-state southeastern banking network that developed the new retail strategy. She said Monday that the changes would improve service and product choices for consumers but also maintain the company's decentralized local banking structure.
Through dozens of acquisitions over the past two decades, Synovus has grown to encompass 40 subsidiary banks in Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Tennessee. and South Carolina. The company typically keeps banks' names and local management intact after deals. But in recent years it has been trying to take advantage of its size to improve operations, systems, and other behind-the-scenes aspects.
"We're striving for a consistent customer experience," Ms. Carr said Monday. "This wouldn't suggest that we really need a common name to be successful ... but we do need a common customer experience."
To achieve that, Synovus plans among other things to introduce a new branch design, with an "open floor plan" aimed at improving customer traffic flow and creating a more sales-friendly environment. Synovus also has invested millions of dollars in a new branch computer desktop called S-Link meant to make it easier for branch bankers to open new accounts, view customer information, and cross-sell.
"We intend to invest to stay progressive, but we will still have our traditional differentiators of local presence, local commitment, high quality, and high standards related to our talent and … to our sales and service delivery," Ms. Carr said.
Synovus also plans to train or hire licensed investment sales representatives in many branches to boost sales of investment products. Until now, branch bankers have referred customers to a centralized investment sales staff.
That shift in strategy came as the company began searching for a new executive to run its wealth management business.
Last Tuesday, Walter A. "Sonny" Deriso Jr. resigned as a vice chairman and the head of the financial management services group, which includes investment management, private banking and insurance services. G. Sanders Griffith 3d, the general counsel and secretary at Synovus, was named to oversee the group until a permanent successor is found.
Synovus executives are counting on the new retail strategy to improve deposits, loans, and fee income. Mr. Anthony predicted last month that "as a result of these changes, we expect to grow the retail balance sheet faster than in the past, and profitability as well."
He expects deposit growth to speed up to more than 10% annually, from a current 4%, and fee income from investment products sales to increase too.
Jefferson Harralson, an analyst at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods Inc., said Synovus is being "as aggressive in enhancing its business model as any bank around."
"With the strong steps they're taking in retail and with their big plans for financial management services, they are looking to transform the bank over the next several years," he said.
