Fifth Third

The Most Powerful Women to Watch honoree talks about what it means to lead, what's changed since she started on Wall Street, and why customers choose regional banks, in conversation with American Banker Editor-in-Chief Chana Schoenberger.

Stevens' expansive role at the Cincinnati-based lender includes head of enterprise workplace services, which puts her in charge of Fifth Third's properties.

Chayt started at Cincinnati-based Fifth Third as director of wholesale payments in 2016, after almost 19 years at Comerica leading its treasury management and business deposit services.

The bank's acquisition of embedded finance firm Rize Money and collaboration with open banking firm Trustly will enable the bank to grow real-time processing, account-to-account transfers and address emerging compliance challenges.

The expansion program, entering its sixth year, gives the Cincinnati-based company a regional profile few of its competitors can match, CEO Tim Spence said on a conference call with analysts.

The regional bank started making moves to protect deposits last year, which prevented steeper declines during a volatile first quarter, CEO Tim Spence says.

The regional bank's play for a piece of the wealth management pie, under wraps for more than a year, has a unique twist.

At the end of 2020, when Melissa Stevens began running both digital and marketing for Fifth Third Bank, fewer than 10% of new customer checking accounts came through the digital channel. Now the bank is on track to end 2022 with more than 25% of sales originating online or on mobile. 

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A conversation with Greg Carmichael, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Fifth Third Bancorp discussing the consumer banking trends and lessons learned during the pandemic.