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Regions Financial has unveiled a new line of Visa credit cards, following its repurchase of its card portfolio from Bank of America's FIA Services last summer.
July 12 -
More banks are likely to follow in Regions Financial Corp.'s footsteps and bring their credit card portfolios back in-house as the worst of the recession's damage recedes and they look to increase revenue.
June 10
Regions Financial (RF) is looking for new business in its own backyard.
The Birmingham, Ala., bank announced last week that it's
"We're interested in making sure we have a competitive credit card offering for customers that would like to bank with a single financial institution," says Tom Brooks, Regions' head of cards and payments.
"When you provide a cornerstone product through a third party, you're not necessarily providing the level of service you want every single day," he adds.
Regions plans to introduce four consumer credit cards, including a student card, and two business cards. The cards offer a mix of rewards points with the bank or the opportunity to elect a lower interest rate. Its Visa Signature Preferred Card includes additional perks like lost luggage and trip cancellation reimbursements.
Regions intends to target customers who might be looking to consolidate their banking relationships and are craving more personal attention.
"It's really more about being able to know we are servicing it directly, and underwriting it directly," he says. "We can use depth and breadth of that relationship to know how to handle them in the proper way."
Several other banks, including
For example, at Regions bankers at individual branches will be able to answer more questions and have more control over fees than when the cards were outsourced, Brooks says.
"In our new environment, if a customer incurred a fee on a credit card, we may look at the depth of the relationship across Regions, and may go ahead and waive that fee. That wasn't possible in the past," he says.
"Previously, we might have been able to give them a balance and take a payment," in a branch, Brooks adds. "In the new environment, we can change an address, take a credit line request and resolve a dispute with them right there."
Brooks says the bank will focus on extending credit to existing accountholders, but acknowledges that not everybody will be swayed.
"There are people who are going to want to continue to have their co-branded American Airlines card," he notes. "We don't anticipate we'll convince that person to come here. The person we're looking to attract would like to expand relationship banking with a single institution."
To compete with affinity cards offered by rivals, the bank could consider co-branding down the line, but it's "not part of our current strategy," Brooks says.
Regions has about 500,000 consumer card accounts and 40,000 business card accounts, according to a bank spokesman. The bank has checking relationships with 4 million households, the spokesman adds.
Brooks also says that cardholders will
"That is a part of the portfolio that we purchased that's actually gone away. … It's not part of our product offering," he says.
Meanwhile, the bank has also recently revamped its rewards program to better engage customers, says Brooks.
Regions launched the rewards program in 2010, and it originally focused more on traditional metrics like account balances, according to Brooks. Like
"Now customers are rewarded much more greatly with how they interact with the company on a monthly basis, from doing an online transfer … to using bill pay," says Brooks. "We reward our customers for their activity with us, as well as for using new products and services."
"Really what you're trying to do with loyalty program is reward customers that are engaged with us," he adds.
