Nearly two million households have entrusted their financial relationships to AmSouth and have made us number one or two in deposit market share in eight of the ten key metropolitan areas we serve. We think there are two reasons for this
success.

First, we provide better customer service and offer greater customer access to our products and services than ever before. Today, our customers bank with us when, where and how they want. Our TeleBanking Center never closes and handled, on average, more than five million telephone calls a month last year. By year-end 2000, more than 300,000 AmSouth customers could bank by computer or telephone anytime from anywhere in the world. Our Web site, www.amsouth.com, received 11 million visits in December alone. And, on average, someone completes a transaction on an AmSouth ATM every single second of every day.

Second, we offer a wide range of competitive products and services that our customers want. We are a leader among regional Southeastern banks in consumer and commercial banking, annuities, small business loans, equipment leasing, asset-based lending and trust management of stocks, bonds and real estate. The family of AmSouth mutual funds has grown to include 28 funds with more than $7 billion in assets under management.

Addressing industry and economic issues Throughout our long history, our practice has always been to take prudent but decisive action to deal with economic adversity, such as the economy experienced in 1999 and 2000, and we have always emerged from these times as an even stronger company.

That’s exactly what we did with our comprehensive financial restructuring in the third quarter. The restructuring required a one-time pretax charge of $259.7 million in the third quarter, but it was the right decision. As a result, we can now concentrate on what we do best, serving our customers and generating strong internal growth across the expanded franchise.