After Comerica integration, Fifth Third vows focus on growth

• Supporting data: The Comerica systems conversion required four million hours of work and the onboarding of 600,000 accounts, Fifth Third executives said.
• Expert quote: "What's going to be exciting from here is being in a position to focus on growth now, because we're past the heavy conversion work." — Fifth Third Chief Financial Officer Bryan Preston

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In the third quarter of 2026, Fifth Third Bancorp reported solid bottom-line growth. But perhaps more importantly, it was the quarter when Comerica fully became part of the company.

Fifth Third, the Cincinatti-based parent company of Fifth Third Bank, closed its acquisition of the Dallas-based Comerica in February. In September, the bank completed the process of converting Comerica's systems into its own. And the day after Labor Day, coverings were removed from Comerica storefronts across the country, revealing Fifth Third signs underneath.

"This quarter was a defining moment in the history of our company," CEO Tim Spence said Monday during Fifth Third's earnings call. "We announced the acquisition of Comerica one year and 13 days ago. And throughout that time, all our people hustled and collaborated to complete the largest and most complicated conversion in our 168-year history."

That conversion, Spence estimated, required about four million hours of work from Fifth Third's employees, as well as the onboarding of about 600,000 accounts.

Now that the bulk of the integration is finished, Fifth Third's executives say the merger's true payoff can begin.

"We feel good about the trajectory of the company," Chief Financial Officer Bryan Preston told American Banker. "And what's going to be exciting from here is being in a position to focus on growth now, because we're past the heavy conversion work."

There is, however, still some work left to be done. In particular, Preston said, the bank's systems conversion must be followed by a cultural one.

"There's still a lot of cultural work in terms of aligning the organization," the CFO said. "More than a third of the people on our team weren't part of our team a year ago. So it is important to make sure that we're staying focused on bringing the team together as one company."

Fifth Third surpassed Wall Street's expectations in the third quarter. Earnings per share came out to 90 cents, beating analysts' consensus estimate of 82 cents, according to S&P Capital IQ. And after accounting for merger-related costs and other items, the bank's adjusted EPS was $1.13.

Net income for the quarter was $866 million, marking a 33% increase from the third quarter of 2025 and an 8% increase from the second quarter of 2026. Total revenue was $3.3 billion, up 40% from the same period last year and roughly flat from the previous quarter. The year-over-year comparisons were skewed by the impact of the Comerica merger.

Gerard Cassidy, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets, characterized Fifth Third's third-quarter results as strong. "In our view, revenue synergies are beginning to emerge as organic commercial relationship growth and deposit share gains in legacy Comerica markets broaden the earnings power of the combined company," he wrote in a research note.

The Comerica merger vastly expanded Fifth Third's footprint in the Southwest, bringing it many new branches in Texas, California and Arizona. In the third quarter, Preston said, the bank saw "strong household growth" in the region.

That may be thanks partly to a paper mail campaign to hold onto Comerica's retail customers — an effort that Preston called "incredibly successful."

"We had always believed strongly that our customer-acquisition tactics would be replicable in other markets, and the early campaigns have proved it," Preston said.

Total average deposits reached $238.3 billion in the third quarter, up 45% from the same time last year, prior to the merger's completion, and up 3% from the second quarter.