I work in Truist IT with prior years of experience in IT at BB&T. SunTrust IT was in shambles prior to the merger primarily because of management decisions to skimp on hard and soft resources. Heritage ST had outsourced the vast majority of their IT support positions and filled them with inexperienced, low skill contractors that were not qualified for the positions they were given. HST had also let hardware and software updates and security controls slide to an atrocious level of out of date states. BB&T had far superior data centers, hardware, code level, security controls and IT staff. ST desperately needed BB&T IT to run Truist IT to make the merger work and save hST from wildly expensive IT retooling. So they merged and hBBT IT was picked for the data centers, active directory domain, network equipment, etc for Truist. All the IT backbone picked was BB&T. But now hST management has chosen to do the same thing to Truist. It's all about this quarter's numbers with no concern or vision for the long term future for Truist much less any amount of concern about people or on shore jobs. These managers will get their expense reductions and soon walk away with substantial personal profits but will cause irreparable harm long term to Truist. The current Truist BOD are apparently either fools or collaborators or both.
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I had been with BB&T since the late 80's with several personal accounts and several business accounts. I did business with BB&T for 20+ years, and it was a GREAT BANK.
From Wilson to Winston Salem after the merger with Southern National. No issues.
My Mom had several accounts with SunTrust and this was before the merger. Trying to deal with Sun Trust was TERRIBLE. Had investment accounts at S&S and was happy period. When the merger with SunTrust, was announced, I had serious reservations as SunTrust was basically the acquirer. I stayed for a few months, and it was the largest mess I'd ever been through at the branch level, and literally TERRIBLE. I talked to several employees, and they were holding the company line for about a month. Then they started leaving in droves. I moved all my accounts to another bank.
I so miss the OLD BB&T under John Allison especially, and Kelly King to a lesser degree.
I think Kelly just wanted out and the money that went with it.
Such a Sad Thing!
in our departmenr, we are doing things the BBT way - and it's utter trash. Things take much longer to do and processes were being done wrong to the point of upsetting other banks we deal with.
also heard these extended to the Fraud division - Channel Link was superior to Client Central.
suntrust's Bluezome was also far superior to BBT's which requires several steps to go where you need to.
any time we make suggestions, it gets blown off and upsets the hBBT that manage us.
SunTrust was behind BBT in technologies and both were way behind others. Mix that with an SunTrust IT leadership that surgically removed BBT IT leadership and replaced with BOA and others who are now surgically removing SunTrust. It’s a big mess that will take a year or so to stabilized.
Does anybody know what’s going on with the Pension plan? Word is that it is going away to ALL. Not sure what is true anymore from this circus.
I worked at all 3 as separate entities: BBT, STI, and TFC. If banks do 6 things, BBT did three really well: retail (including investments), small biz, and insurance. all three require high levels of automation and efficiency, which was evident in BBT strong efficiency ratios over the years. STI did the other 3 things well: commercial, trust, and investment banking. Less automation, and more about relationships with less price sensitivity (also evidenced, in weak efficiency ratios).
So a bank with “decent” tech buys a bank with lagging tech, and then turns the new company requiring improved tech over to the guys who didn’t invest in tech. Yeah, thats a good idea, and thus the offshoring and consultants. This was doomed the moment they laid out the leadership succession.
WTH? The Honda Accord is a pretty decent car! Don't slander it like that! :)
100% correct. Found out when Joe Thompson was moved (THANKFULLY!) away from Wealth that he had blocked any and all recommended improvements because of costs. So we sit with cr-p trying to do our jobs. People that suffered working under that l-wlife are overjoyed he is gone.
The below is an excellent summary of everything wrong with Truist, to reiterate the basics
- Consultants for everything, the 2024 buzzword is remit (the British definition)
- Stock buybacks and executive comp in lieu of investment
- Risk management theater and a Rube Goldberg machine of pointless processes
- Management by fear or pet project with no business value
I was one of the fortunate ones that found an escape pod prior to this dismantling. What has occurred here with the ascendance of SunTrust Management to fully run Truist has become:
• Attempting to turn their previous experience driving their SunTrust Honda Accord into a self-driving Truist Tesla without any QA testing. No personal control or accountability – just turn control over to consultants, off-shore teams, and gut the legacy teams, management by buzzword bingo, and putting the whole enterprise on hands-off auto-drive thereby divesting any direct responsibility for results while keeping a handy rolodex of people/places to point the finger when things go south.
• Results achieved by financial engineering, and not solid business growth. Selling off profitable business units, shifting jobs overseas and rather than investing the proceeds for internal organic growth and modernization purposes, using for stock buybacks and transitional costs for severance and consulting.
• In regards to IT especially, due to lack of internal investment and trying to run out the clock with auditors and risk management, turning to nuking the entire Enterprise – regardless of BU or technology with full change freezes anytime a major incident occurs. If something in Alaska sneezes, everything in Florida is out on technological Covid lockdown because they have no understanding of how their business units technologies, dependencies and interconnections.
I was HBB&T and while far from perfect, the bank was certainly able to execute excellent customer service, healthy earnings and a stable culture while using on-shore resources while maintaining the balance of “returns” to Management, employees and shareholders alike. It’s a shame KK’s hubris allowed this to take place and make the deal with the devil he truly did. Good luck to what and who is left once the sc--ws have completed turning.
What I find funny is our current leadership has themselves that executing the SubTrust playbook will improve things in IT. As it becomes more of a sh-tshow I wonder if they’ll recognize their mistakes. I see no path to becoming more innovative and current with this transition to outsource everything. Complete id--ts running this show.
@gvy+1tJttY7Y neither bank was cutting edge, but if hSTI had been big enough for real audit scrutiny, they would have been toast as they were wild westing a lot of stuff. A few good people being made to do too much certainly, but mostly a smoke and mirror show.
I'm hBB&T, and I was lucky to leave this dumpster fire over a year ago. Over my 20+ years at BB&T, we were never on the cutting edge of technology (J. Allison's legacy, as it seemed he firmly believed banking was strictly people/relationships & that tech did not matter as much). KK firmly believed that BB&T needed to move significantly forward from a tech standpoint. I can't really disagree with his viewpoint on that topic. Where I do feel he got out over his skis was believing that no matter what merger/acquisition partner BB&T took on.....it was all going to work well....just because.....
We all saw the disaster that was SunTrust first and when they acquired the legacy CCB in the Carolinas back in 2006-2007. CCB had just done a big upgrade to their operating platforms prior to being bought.....all the while STI was still operating on systems that were 10+ years well past where tech was at that point in 2006-07. Customer deposits, payments, etc all disappearing into a black hole. Moving over legacy CCB customers to BB&T was easy as pie. If history taught anything to KK, he should have remembered how bad this same STI leadership group sc--wed up in 06-07. Buying STI, then letting that group of incompetents run the show going forward was a fatal mistake.
Historical BB&T here. While I too believe the current executive management team to be terrible, we wouldn't be here at all but for that buffoon Kelly King. He wanted, and got, more money. And he wanted a "legacy." He most certainly got that too. So pointing fingers in either direction is useless. It's taken id--ts on both sides of the divide to orchestrate this disaster.
This is gaslighting BB&T and Suntrust IT were both dinosaurs. The idea was to upgrade after the merger with new technology that would scal and reduce headcount. They’re doing everything they said they would do and now that it’s happening people that were on n cushy jobs are now upset they are getting shown the door. They feel entitled to work for Truist.
“This is not [an] abrupt, major change,” Truist CEO and former BB&T CEO Kelly King told the Charlotte Observer, adding that Truist expects to roll out its logo and branding early next year. “This is a seamless coming together of two great companies.”