As Regions faces increasing competition in the Southeast, the bank is working to reskill about 600 of its bankers that serve business and consumer clientele.

The Birmingham, Alabama-based bank is reskilling about 300 small-business bankers and 300 mass-affluent-focused senior consumer bankers, across 600 of its branches, said John Jordan, head of retail banking at Regions, during a recent interview.

As the lender assessed the skillsets of its bankers and the pace at which small businesses within its footprint are growing, the bank saw an opportunity for retraining designed to accelerate growth and enhance customer experience, said Jordan, who joined Regions a year ago from Bank of America.

“We're obviously seeing increased competition in all the markets we serve. Big banks and other regional banks are starting to enter into our market with great offerings,” Jordan said. 

Within the past two years, Bank of America, PNC and Fifth Third have all doubled down on branch expansion plans in the Southeast.

“We want to make sure that we're really putting our best foot forward with our customers and doing all the things we need to do to continue to earn their business,” Jordan said.

Regions found, through customer surveys, its clients want customized, personalized experiences that allow them to interact with the bank digitally, but also want the personal touch of a banker, said Shandra Tucker-Graf, the bank’s consumer sales support and onboarding manager. 

That’s fueled the push to equip the small-business bankers with in-depth knowledge of specific financial situations small-business customers might face and the roster of services the bank provides. Regions also aims to better understand its customers: how local entrepreneurs started their businesses, what their cash flow looks like and who else within the bank can help the business owner if their needs go beyond that banker’s focus.

Bankers are also learning to manage a portfolio of customers, rather than serving one in a more transactional way and moving onto the next. 

“We really spent some time talking to them about how to manage relationships for small-business customers,” Tucker-Graf said. 

On the mass-affluent side, the 300 bankers are getting enhanced training on credit and wealth offerings, opening up opportunities to help customers with more complex needs, Jordan noted. “When you have this more enhanced training,” he said, “you can just go further into that conversation.”

The $157 billion-asset bank, which has about 1,250 branches, mapped where executives saw the greatest need, from a customer perspective, and opportunity for growth, Jordan said.

The small-business segment is one of the most vital to Regions, Jordan said. There are about 12 million small businesses in the bank’s footprint, and it serves about 400,000 of them. 

With branch managers, too, “we spend a lot of time focusing on having them calling small businesses, reaching out to them, getting to know them, and just making sure that they are really keenly aware of all of the needs that [small businesses] have,” he said. Regions has also sought to step up its tools and resources for those clients, ensuring it’s improving its products and services so it can stay relevant.

For bankers, it’s also a development opportunity to expand skills and knowledge within the company, giving them a career path that leads toward branch manager and other roles, Tucker-Graf and Jordan said.

“Our workforce of today is really looking for: what does their career look like in the future?” Tucker-Graf said.

The bank started planning its reskilling effort mid-last year, implemented it at the start of 2025, and expects to be done by the middle of this year, Jordan said. The training is a mix of virtual, instructor-led sessions and video learning, facilitated by Tucker-Graf’s team, and the bankers have a dedicated “performance advocate” that shepherds them through the process, she said.

Much of the bank’s investment into the effort is “hard to quantify,” Jordan said, calling it a shifting of priorities. He said he doesn’t expect the bank to bulk up its workforce with similar roles, but said Regions may add to the bankers’ roster of skills. 

“We expect … this is going to open up our eyes to, what’s the next step?” Jordan said. 

That mindset may be crucial as the bank’s competition grows. Regions operates in a “highly competitive” market that’s only growing more so, Jordan said.

The bank is fortunate to be in high-growth markets, “but everybody sees that,” he said. Rivals – whether Midwestern or national banks – come in and aggressively market within the lender’s footprint. Still, Jordan sees “real inherent benefits” on Regions’ part, including its long-standing relationships with consumers, businesses and community organizations.

Competition “makes us sharpen our game a little bit, and it certainly gives us an opportunity to make sure we're doing all the little things to stay connected to our customers,” Jordan said.