Regions Financial is adding new capabilities to the customer billing service that it offers to corporate clients, enabling them to deliver and track invoice-related communications with their own customers by text or email.
The communications service is the latest part of a suite of treasury management products that the Birmingham, Alabama-based bank provides to its business customers.
Expresso, an online dashboard for companies to manage communications with their customers, provides users with a platform to exchange documents such as billing statements and invoices, as well as to engage in email marketing campaigns, according to Florida-based Nordis Technologies, which developed the software that Regions is using.
Over the last year, many banks have bolstered their treasury management businesses, which provide fee income at a time when rising interest rates are cutting into the margins that banks earn on loans.
Citizens Financial Group, for example, launched a
Regions customers that sign up for Expresso will pay a fee to use a Regions-branded version of the product, said Greg Miles, the bank's manager of treasury management products and services.
He said that Expresso will enable the bank's corporate clients to interact with their customers securely.
"It facilitates a jump start into mass communication with our clients' customer base," Miles said.
The treasury management business provides the $156 billion-asset bank an avenue for expansion amid
After Regions reported 13% year-over-year revenue growth
Regions said that the Expresso communications platform will allow the bank's corporate clients to manage the entire lifecycle of accounts receivable from a single platform. Customers that prefer to use non-digital methods of communications will be able to use Expresso for print production and mail services.
Regions hopes the platform will complement its earlier adoption of BillerXchange, an automated billing service developed by Mastercard, according to Miles.
We’ve seen many companies embrace faster and easier payments systems, says Citizens' Matt Richardson.
Regions has rolled out a number of digital services as it focuses on expanding its treasury management business.
In September, the bank launched iTreasury, a real-time payments service for corporate banking clients. And in December, it added a new product for corporate business travel called Visa Commercial Pay.
Miles said that the bank's expansion of third-party treasury management services is less about finding "shiny objects" to offer clients, and more about identifying "what our customers need and want."
"What makes us successful is that our products represent demand from our clients relative to problems they're trying to solve," Miles said.
