Union Planters Bank customers in West Des Moines and Urbandale will encounter the first tangible signs of the bank’s new corporate identity — Regions Bank — this week.

Early Monday, the tarps came off the new signs at the bank’s Urbandale and West Des Moines branches. And employees at both offices have begun answering their phones as Regions Bank.

The name change, which Regions is now rolling out across Iowa, Illinois and Missouri, will mean more than new signs at each of the 24 former Union Planters Bank branches in Iowa, said Tom Killeen, Regions’ president and CEO for Iowa.

The bank plans an aggressive marketing campaign in Iowa — which includes sending out four truckers with semitrailer rigs emblazoned with the bank’s logo to drive throughout Greater Des Moines. The change also means the introduction of a series of new products, and in the long term, expansion in the Central Iowa market, Killeen said.

The merger of Birmingham, Ala.-based Regions Financial Corp. with Memphis-based Union Planters Corp. a year ago created the nation’s 11th-largest bank holding company, with $84.1 billion in assets as of Sept. 30. Union Planters’ $576 million in Iowa assets made it the ninth-largest bank in Central Iowa by asset size.

“We’re going to look at growth for key markets,” Killeen said. For Des Moines and West Des Moines, which have been recognized by Regions as growth markets, there will be opportunities for expansion, both in terms of potential new branches as well as expansion of private banking, commercial lending and mortgage origination staff, he said.

The bank, which currently has 455 employees in Iowa, has not eliminated any jobs since the merger announcement in January 2004, he said.

“We want to make sure that everyone knows there aren’t going to be any staff changes as far as individuals losing their jobs here in Iowa,” Killeen said. “If anything, we’re going to expand with more loan originators, more commercial lenders and more private bankers.”

For the bank’s investment customers, the changeover to Regions’ investment banking subsidiary, Morgan Keegan & Co. Inc., was already completed six months ago. It’s likely that Morgan Keegan, which has more than 200 offices in 18 states, will add to its existing branches in Iowa, Killeen said.

Union Planters came to Iowa in July 1998 when it purchased St. Louis-based MagnaBank, which had acquired Des Moines-based Homeland Bank in June 1996.

Similar to how Union Planters operated, the Iowa branches will be given autonomy to make local lending decisions, Killeen said. “If someone comes in for a loan, it’s approved right here,” he said. “We approve all of our loans right here in Des Moines.”

Though the Iowa banks are among the first Union Planters branches to have their name changed, they will be among the last to have their internal computer systems changed over to the Regions system this fall, Killeen said.

“Hopefully all the bugs will be worked out and we’ll have little or no impact to our customers,” he said. “In the real world, it would have been nice to have the sign changes and conversions all in one weekend, but with 800 branches, we had to break it up.”