Regional banks in the Southern U.S. have been busy enhancing their mobile offerings, and more upgrades are in the works.
Some companies have even rolled out new mobile features since S&P Global Market Intelligence researched regional and community bank apps in fall 2017 for our recently published 2017 U.S. Mobile Banking Landscape. This article focuses on the South, including the South Atlantic, East South Central and West South Central census divisions. The charts below reflect updates through Dec. 4.
Click here to read the full 2017 U.S. Mobile Banking Landscape. Click here for an article focused on mobile banking in the Midwest.

Bentonville, Ark.-based Arvest Bank Group Inc. released a new app in late November, and First Horizon National Corp.'s First Tennessee Bank NA just added fingerprint login capabilities. Gulfport, Miss.-based Hancock Holding Co. rolled out its updated app in October, shortly after President and CEO John Hairston remarked on a conference call that the revamped digital platform should help with account retention in a competitive deposit market.
Part of Hancock's new mobile offering is an Apple Watch app, a feature that S&P Global Market Intelligence found to be relatively rare among the smaller regional and larger community banks we researched. Columbus, Ga.-based Synovus Financial Corp. will add an Apple Watch app in 2018, joining Hancock, First Tennessee and Texas' Frost Bank among the Southern financial institutions offering this feature. Some other banks are keeping an eye on smartwatch adoption, not yet convinced that this channel merits serious investment or offers enough functionality to customers.
It can also be tough to make a business case for adding person-to-person payments, since the service does not tend to be profitable. Many digital product managers at banks around the U.S. like the idea of offering mobile payments, especially as customers increasingly expect to have this feature. Jackson, Miss.-based Trustmark Corp. has seen customer adoption of P2P payments increase steadily over the past year, although the bank is keeping an eye on competition from both fintech players like Venmo and Apple’s iMessage-based service.
In a crowded mobile payment landscape, bank product managers see promise in the Zelle network, which can allow for virtually instantaneous transfer of funds between users' bank accounts. But they also say it is a more expensive option than alternatives such as Popmoney. Tupelo, Miss.-based Renasant Corp. is planning to join the Zelle network soon, and First Tennessee Bank is planning to offer P2P payments early in 2018.
Synovus is taking other leaps in 2018, starting with the launch of a new app in the first quarter. Next year should see the bank start to offer cardless ATMs, which allow customers to withdraw cash using a mobile device. Synovus will also go from having no biometric authentication options to offering both fingerprint login and facial recognition. Results of S&P Global Market Intelligence's 2017 U.S. Mobile Banking Survey indicate that many app users want to see their banks add fingerprint login. Other forms of biometric authentication are likely to start receiving more attention as U.S. consumers embrace more advanced mobile devices such as Apple's iPhone X.
The banks we researched have no shortage of advanced mobile features under consideration on their product roadmaps, but enhancing the overall customer experience is priority number one. Frost Bank, for example, prides itself on customers' ability to reach a live banker in Texas with the tap of a mobile phone button. While not interested in engaging in an app features "arms race," the San Antonio-based bank has already added services such as P2P payments in response to customer feedback and, like other banks, will keep listening for enhancement requests.

Methodology
The 2017 mobile banking survey was fielded online between Jan. 26 and Feb. 1 across a nationwide random sample of 4,000 U.S. mobile bank app users 18 years and older. Results have a margin of error of +/- 1.6% at the 95% confidence level based on the sample size of 4,000.
S&P Global Market Intelligence researched mobile apps in June 2017 for more than two dozen financial institutions, including the biggest retail banking franchises in the U.S. and various large regional and branchless banks. Between Sept. 18 and Nov. 10, S&P Global Market Intelligence researched mobile apps for 45 smaller regional players and large community banks. The latter analysis focused, for the most part, on the top five leaders in retail deposit market share with under $50 billion in assets in each of the nine U.S. census divisions. This research is based on product descriptions available on bank websites and in app stores, as well as company-provided information. Some companies may offer additional features and services. Our analysis does not necessarily reflect functionality or services available through text banking, mobile browsers or secure messaging.
