In banking circles, without a doubt, the biggest story of 2019 has been the successful merger between longtime rivals BB&T and SunTrust Banks. The merger was by far the largest in the industry since the mega-mashups of the early 2000s, creating not only the sixth-largest commercial bank in the country, with around $ 470 billion in assets, but also a whole new banking brand. , Truist Financial.

Yet the deal was not just about scale. BB&T’s Kelly King and SunTrust’s Bill Rogers also pitched it as a tech coin, promising to invest a large chunk of the estimated annual cost savings of $ 1.6 billion in technology that would allow Truist to better compete with it. giants with deep pockets like JPMorgan Chase. and Bank of America. In 2020, investors, customers, regulators and rival bankers will be following King and Rogers closely to see how well they are handling integration – and what they might have up their sleeves.

Another big story in 2019 was Wells Fargo’s continued inability to overcome the 2016 sales practices scandal that caused untold damage to the bank’s reputation and cost two CEOs their jobs. In 2020, all eyes will be on its new CEO, Charlie Scharf, to see if he can deliver the turnaround his predecessors couldn’t.

Others under the microscope this year include the new CEOs of regional banks Santander, Comerica and KeyCorp, fintech disruptors with big ambitions in financial services, and a governor seeking to deliver on his campaign promise to create what would be only the second. public bank in the continental United States