Employee Benefit Plans Employee Benefits - Policies (Policies)

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2013

Share-based Compensation Arrangement by Share-based Payment Award [Line Items]

Share-based Compensation, Option and Incentive Plans Policy [Policy Text Block]

The Company sponsors various short-term incentive plans and LTIs for eligible employees, which may be delivered through various incentive programs, including stock options, RSUs, restricted stock, and LTI cash. AIP is the Company's short-term cash incentive plan for key employees that provides for potential annual cash awards based on the Company's performance and/or the achievement of business unit and individual performance objectives. Awards under the LTI cash plan generally cliff vest over a period of three years from the date of the award and are paid in cash. All incentive awards are subject to clawback provisions. Compensation expense for the AIP and LTI cash plans was $39 million and $36 million for the three months ended March 31, 2013 and 2012, respectively.

Stock-Based Compensation

The Company provides stock-based awards through the 2009 Stock Plan (as amended and restated effective January 1, 2011) under which the Compensation Committee of the Board of Directors has the authority to grant stock options, restricted stock, and RSUs to key employees of the Company. Some awards may have performance or other conditions, such as vesting tied to the Company's total shareholder return relative to a peer group or vesting tied to the achievement of an absolute financial performance target. Under the 2009 Stock Plan, approximately 21 million shares of common stock are authorized and reserved for issuance, of which no more than 17 million shares may be issued as restricted stock or stock units. At March 31, 2013, 17 million shares were available for grant, including 9 million shares available to be issued as restricted stock. Stock options are granted at an exercise price that is no less than the fair market value of a share of SunTrust common stock on the grant date and may be either tax-qualified incentive stock options or non-qualified stock options. Stock options typically vest pro-rata over three years and generally have a maximum contractual life of ten years and, upon exercise, shares are issued to employees from treasury stock.

The weighted average fair value of options granted during the three months ended March 31, 2013 and 2012 were $7.37 and $7.83 per share, respectively. The fair value of each option grant is estimated on the date of grant using the Black-Scholes option pricing model based on the following assumptions for the three months ended March 31:

	2013		2012
Dividend yield	1.28	%	0.92	%
Expected stock price volatility	30.98		40.41
Risk-free interest rate (weighted average)	1.02		1.07
Expected life of options	6 years		6 years