Truist rides loan, fee growth to 19% profit boost in first quarter

Truist Financial Corp. continued to build momentum in key loan and fee revenue metrics during the first quarter, reporting Friday net income of $1.38 billion.

The profit was up 19% from a year ago and up 7% compared with the fourth quarter.

Diluted earnings were $1.09 a share.

The average earnings forecast was 99 cents by nine analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research. Analysts typically do not include one-time gains and losses in their forecasts.

"We delivered a strong first quarter, with earnings per share up 25% from the first quarter of 2025, driven by disciplined execution against our strategic priorities and continued momentum across the franchise," Truist chairman and chief executive Bill Rogers said in a statement.

"We continued to build new client relationships, grow in attractive markets and generate high-quality loan and deposit growth that is translating into improved profitability."

Rogers said during Friday's quarterly analysts call that "importantly, we're also seeing even stronger connectivity among our commercial, corporate and investment banking platforms."

"This is driving higher quality fee growth with an increase in the number of lead roles and meaningful contributions from existing commercial and wealth clients.

"We're also leveraging AI across Wholesale to enhance productivity underwriting and client engagement using predictive analytics to improve adviser effectiveness, accelerate underwriting speed and precision, and scale lead generation and conversion among payments and wealth."

Core quarterly details

Truist reported loan revenue of $3.64 billion during the second quarter, up 2.5% from a year ago, but down 2.8% from the fourth quarter.

The bank increased its loan-loss provision by $479 million, compared with $512 million in the fourth quarter and $458 million a year ago.

The provision offers a glimpse at how a bank expects its loan portfolio and revenue stream to perform as customers struggle to make monthly payments. It has a bottom-line effect on a bank's profitability.

Fee income rose 11.6% year over year to $1.55 billion, as well as up 0.5% from the fourth quarter.

In May 2024, Truist completed the sale of its remaining 80% stake in Truist Insurance Holdings to an investor group. The subsidiary had been by far Truist's largest fee-income source, generating $3.3 billion in fiscal 2023 revenue.

Rogers has expressed confidence that Truist will recapture much, if not all, of the insurance subsidiary's income over time through other fee-income sources.

Investment banking and trading income was the top fee-income revenue source during the first quarter at $372 million, followed by wealth management at $370 million, and card and treasury-management fees at $338 million.

Up for sale?

Rogers declined to address - when asked by an analyst - a recent Bloomberg News article that mentioned Truist as a potential acquisition target of national top-four bank Citigroup.

The article focused on Citigroup's potential targeting of a super-regional bank.

Truist was among the potential options given Citigroup's lack of a major Southeast presence and it is the 10th-largest U.S. bank.

"We've all been at this a long time and to ask me to speculate on some rumor and some article ... so let's just like put that aside," Rogers said.

Truist's total assets were $548.9 billion as of March 31, up from $547.5 billion on Dec. 31.

By comparison, Citigroup was at $2.78 trillion, trailing just JPMorgan Chase & Co. at $4.56 trillion, Bank of America Corp. at $3.41 trillion. Wells Fargo & Co. is fourth at $2.11 trillion.

Also, Citigroup was the initial acquirer of a collapsing Wachovia Corp. in October 2008 in a takeover deal being brokered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

However, Citigroup's $1 per share offer was surpassed by Wells Fargo's $7 a share offer.

"We feel great about our business, and we feel great about the trajectory that we're establishing," Rogers said. "We've set forth a plan that achieves mid-teens earnings per share growth over an extended period of time under a really good risk posture.

"It's always going to be the goal is let's make sure we have a plan that gives an advantage return to our shareholders. That's the 100% focus of our board, myself and our team."

Meanwhile, Citigroup chief executive Jean Fraser was asked a similar acquisition question Monday by an analyst who wanted to know if the bank was pursuing a deal or an acquisition.

"I am always transparent," Fraser said. "I'm always straightforward with you. I wanted to be crystal clear, we are not interested in anything other than organic growth."

Other details

Truist maintained its initial fiscal 2026 earnings projections of revenues up 4% from $20.32 billion in fiscal 2025. Noninterest expenses are now expected to rise 1.75%, compared with an initial range of 1.25% to 2.25%.

For the second quarter, it is forecasting $5.2 million in revenue, same as the first quarter. Noninterest expenses are expected up 3% to 4%.

Truist spent $1.1 billion on share repurchases during the first quarter.

In December, the board of directors authorized a new share-repurchase program in which it plans to spend up to $10 billion on buying back its common stock. The authorization does not have an expiration date.

Truist initially projected spending $1 billion on share repurchases each quarter of 2026, or $4 billion for fiscal 2026. On Friday, it said it planned to spend $1.2 billion on share repurchases during the second quarter.

Truist's workforce declined by 185 during the first quarter to 37,877. The workforce, however, is up 348 from a year ago.

Truist has not provided a Triad West workforce total for several years. The 14-county region, which covers the Triad, spans from Avery and Watauga counties in the west to Alamance County in the east.

Since BB&T Corp. completed its $33.4 billion purchase of SunTrust Banks in December 2019 to form Truist, the current workforce has decreased by 36.1% - or by at least 21,423 positions, from approximately 59,300.

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This story was originally published April 20, 2026 at 6:53 PM.