Fulton Financial (FULT) Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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DATE

Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026

CALL PARTICIPANTS

• Investor Relations Officer - Pat Lafferty
• Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, and President - Curt Myers
• Chief Financial Officer - Rick Kraemer

TAKEAWAYS

• Operating Net Income -- $119.8 million or $0.62 per diluted share, representing an increase from $115.9 million or $0.60 per diluted share in the second quarter.
• Net Interest Income -- $290 million, increasing 2% linked quarter due to higher interest income on net loans and investment securities.
• Net Interest Margin -- 3.58%, reflecting a 2 basis point decline from the prior quarter due to higher average cash balances and lower purchase accounting accretion.
• Customer Deposits -- $28.8 billion, including approximately 1 billion in customer deposit growth driven by new commercial acquisition and seasonal municipal inflows.
• Wealth Management AUMA -- $18.6 billion, reaching a record level with revenue growing more than 9% linked quarter.
• Commercial Sales Force -- 30 new bankers, representing a 14% increase year-to-date with over two-thirds of that growth occurring during the third quarter.
• Loan Originations -- 23% increase from the prior quarter, reflecting healthy production levels despite modest net balance growth.
• Efficiency Ratio -- 56.8%, improving from 57.3% in the second quarter due to disciplined expense management.
• Common Equity Tier 1 Ratio -- 12.2%, remaining stable compared to the second quarter.
• Share Repurchases -- $56.1 million, involving 2.3 million shares of common stock at an average price of $24.14 per share.
• FHLB Advances -- Zero balance, as the company reduced advances by $553 million during the quarter to fully pay off the remaining balance.
• Brokered Deposits -- $547 million, decreasing by $428 million as the company optimized its funding profile.
• Net Charge-offs -- 0.14% of average loans, improving from 0.34% in the second quarter.
• Non-performing Assets -- 0.52% of total assets, improving from 0.54% at the end of the second quarter.
• 2026 NII Guidance -- $1.125 billion at the lower end of the range, representing a 5 million increase to the previous forecast.
• 2026 Provision Guidance -- $30 million to 40 million, representing a reduction from previous estimates.
• 2026 Non-interest Income Guidance -- $295 million to 305 million, reflecting an increase to the prior outlook.
• 2026 Operating Expense Guidance -- $820 million at the lower end, representing an increase in the projected range for the full year.
• Non-interest Income -- $77.2 million, decreasing from $79.3 million in the prior quarter due to the sale of an equity method investment in the second quarter.
• Loan Growth -- $44 million, reflecting a $107 million increase in consumer loans offset by a $63 million decline in commercial balances.
• Tangible Common Equity Ratio -- 8.4%, primarily reflecting the impact of accumulated other comprehensive income.

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RISKS

• Myers stated, "multifamily payoffs were higher than we expected," noting that competitive rates and terms from insurance companies and non-banks led to asset attrition despite retaining the customer relationships.

SUMMARY

Fulton Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:FULT) reported record quarterly financial results, including record operating net income and a record level of assets under management in its wealth management division. Management stated that the company completed the integration of Blue Foundry Bank during the quarter and expanded its commercial sales force by 14% year-to-date. The company reported customer deposit growth of approximately 1 billion, which supported the full repayment of federal home loan bank advances and a reduction in brokered deposits. Rick Kraemer noted that the net interest margin was impacted by higher average cash balances and lower purchase accounting accretion while credit quality remained stable with improving asset quality metrics.

• The company reported that customer deposit growth was split between approximately $400 million in seasonal municipal inflows and $600 million in core commercial transactional wins.
• Management indicated that the Blue Foundry Bank integration is performing ahead of original estimates following its merger into Fulton Bank on July 11, 2026.
• CEO Curt Myers stated, "Our adoption has been so effective that our progress was recognized by Salesforce at Dreamforce, where Fulton was highlighted for its innovation and partnership," regarding the use of AI-enabled capabilities.
• Management noted that they are focused on the 2027 growth outlook as structural runoff and loan maturities are expected to abate.
• Rick Kraemer indicated that the company intends to target a securities portfolio size of approximately 17% of assets over the next two years.

INDUSTRY GLOSSARY

• AOCI (Accumulated Other Comprehensive Income): A component of shareholders' equity that includes unrealized gains and losses on certain investments and pension plans.
• AUMA (Assets Under Management and Administration): The total market value of assets that a financial institution manages or administers on behalf of its clients.
• Brokered Deposits: Large-denomination deposits obtained by a bank from a third-party deposit broker rather than directly from local customers.
• CET1 (Common Equity Tier 1): A capital ratio that compares a bank's core equity capital against its total risk-weighted assets.
• FHLB (Federal Home Loan Bank): A system of regional banks that provide liquidity to member financial institutions to support housing finance and community investment.
• PPNR (Pre-Provision Net Revenue): Net interest income plus non-interest income, minus non-interest expense, before taxes and the provision for credit losses.
• TCE (Tangible Common Equity): A measure of a bank's core capital that excludes intangible assets like goodwill and preferred stock.

Full Conference Call Transcript

Operator: Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Fulton Financial Third Quarter 2026 Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer section. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Pat Lafferty, Investor Relations Officer. Please go ahead.

Pat Lafferty: Good morning, and thanks for joining us for Fulton Financial's conference call and webcast to discuss our earnings for the third quarter ending September 30th, 2026. Your host for today's conference call is Curt Myers, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, and President. Joining Curt is Rick Kraemer, Chief Financial Officer. Our comments today will refer to the financial information and related slide presentation included with our earnings announcement, which we released yesterday afternoon. These documents can be found on our website at fult.com by clicking on Investor Relations and then on News. These slides can also be found on the Events and Presentations page under Investor Relations on our website. Today's conference call will contain forward-looking statements.

These statements represent our expectations about the future and are subject to risk and uncertainty. Our actual results may differ materially from these statements. Please refer to our earnings release and related slide presentation under the heading Forward-Looking Statements for a discussion of the factors that could cause actual results to differ. In discussing Fulton's performance, representatives of Fulton may refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to the supplemental financial information included with Fulton's earnings announcement released yesterday and slides 26 through 33 of today's presentation for a reconciliation of those non-GAAP financial measures to the most comparable GAAP measures. Now I would like to turn the call over to your host, Curt Myers.

Curt Myers: Well, thanks, Pat, and good morning, everyone. For today's call, I'll share a few details on our third quarter performance and provide some observations on current business trends. Then Rick will review our financial results in more detail and discuss our outlook for the remainder of 2026. After our prepared remarks, we'd be happy to take any questions you may have. The third quarter represented another period of strong performance for Fulton. Throughout the quarter, we supported our current customers, added new customers, executed on our strategy, and delivered value for shareholders. This all resulted in record financial results.

Our strategy is centered around four priorities: grow the company, deliver effectively for customers, operate with excellence, and serve all of our stakeholders. We believe these priorities provide a disciplined framework for operating the company, and we continue to perform across each of these priority areas during the quarter. In support of our growth objectives, we continued investing in talent and capabilities across our businesses. Year-to-date, we increased our commercial sales force by 14%, with over 2/3 of that growth occurring during the third quarter. These hires included experienced bankers, business development professionals who are helping expand customer relationships, complementing our strategic acquisitions in Northern New Jersey and Philadelphia.

These actions, combined with ongoing investments in commercial banking capabilities, including treasury management enhancements and embedded banking solutions, are helping us win new customer relationships. This is most evident this quarter in our commercial deposit growth as we added new customers at an accelerated pace and we grew commercial deposits materially. Additionally, our process improvements are helping our team serve customers more effectively and driving meaningful efficiency gains. We've expanded the use of Salesforce AI-enabled capabilities across the organization, powered by Coworker. Our adoption has been so effective that our progress was recognized by Salesforce at Dreamforce, where Fulton was highlighted for its innovation and partnership.

These investments and enhanced usage are helping improve productivity, customer engagement, and support our long-term efficiency objectives. Collectively, these efforts contributed to another quarter of strong performance. Profitability reached a record high. Operating net income available to common shareholders increased to $119.8 million or $0.62 per diluted share. Operating PPNR increased to $156 million. Operating return on average tangible common equity improved to 15.94%, and operating return on average assets increased to 1.4%. Additionally, our efficiency ratio improved to 56.8%, reflecting our continued focus on disciplined expense management. Our balance sheet also further improved during the quarter. Customer deposits grew by approximately $1 billion, reflecting both new customer acquisition and growth within existing relationships.

This further improved our funding profile as we reduced brokered deposits and other wholesale funding. We believe this is a significant strength for the company as our diversified customer deposit base continues to provide stability and support long-term balance sheet growth. While loan growth was modest during the quarter, underlying business activity remained solid. Customer engagement was high and pipelines continued to show good momentum. Total loan originations increased 23% from the prior quarter, reflecting healthy production levels. As we look forward to 2027, we believe several of the headwinds to loan growth should abate. This, coupled with increased production from the significant investments we are making in our people, capabilities, and market presence, should accelerate growth.

Our diversified business model continues to be a meaningful competitive advantage. Wealth management assets under management and administration reached a record $18.6 billion, and wealth management revenue grew more than 9% linked quarter. Commercial, consumer, and mortgage banking fees also increased from the prior quarter, highlighting broad-based growth across our fee businesses. As a result, non-interest income remained a meaningful contributor to overall performance, representing approximately 21% of total revenue. Our capital position remained strong during the quarter. We repurchased $56.1 million of common stock, returning capital to shareholders while still maintaining capital levels that provide flexibility to support customer needs, invest in the business, and pursue strategic opportunities.

Tangible common equity ended the quarter at 8.4%, primarily reflecting the impact of AOCI, while our CET1 capital ratio remains stable at 12.2%. Credit quality remained favorable during the quarter, demonstrating the strength of our underwriting and risk management practices. Asset quality metrics improved, reserve levels remained solid, and we continue to view the overall credit environment as stable. Looking ahead, we are optimistic about the opportunities in front of us. Our diverse business mix, loyal customer base, solid balance sheet, and experienced team provide a strong foundation for continued success. Overall, we are pleased with our third quarter performance, and we believe the company is well-positioned.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Rick to review our third quarter financial results in more detail.

Rick Kraemer: Thank you, Curt, and good morning, everyone. Fulton delivered another quarter of solid financial performance, highlighted by continued earnings growth, healthy deposit generation, favorable credit results, and momentum across our fee-based businesses. For the third quarter, net income available to common shareholders was approximately $114.1 million or $0.59 per diluted share. Operating earnings were $119.8 million or $0.62 per diluted share, compared to $115.9 million or $0.60 per diluted share in the second quarter. The improvement in operating performance was driven primarily by higher net interest income and non-interest income and lower provision expense. Net interest income increased $5.8 million, or approximately 2% linked quarter to $290 million.

Total purchase accounting accretion income was $12.9 million, consisting of $8.3 million related to the Republic acquisition and $4.6 million related to the Blue Foundry acquisition. This compares with $15.1 million in the prior quarter. Our net interest margin was 3.58%, compared to 3.6% in the second quarter. Margin reflected lower purchase accounting accretion and the impact of carrying higher average cash balances during the quarter, which reduced margin by approximately 2 basis points. Average cash balances were approximately $1.1 billion, compared to $842 million in the second quarter. Ending loans were relatively consistent during the quarter. Total loans grew by $44 million.

Consumer-related portfolios grew $107 million, while commercial balances declined by $63 million, driven primarily by declining levels of commercial construction. Deposits totaled $28.8 billion at quarter end, an increase of $571 million compared to June 30. Growth was driven by strong customer deposit inflows across our commercial and public funds businesses. Demand and savings deposits increased $879 million during the quarter, including growth of $601 million in savings deposits and $324 million in interest-bearing demand deposits. As customer deposit balances increased almost $1 billion during the quarter, we continued to optimize the funding profile of the balance sheet.

Brokered deposits declined by $428 million during the quarter, ending at $547 million, while federal home loan bank advances were reduced by $553 million and fully paid off during the quarter. Non-interest income totaled $77.2 million during the quarter. While total non-interest income declined modestly from the second quarter, the prior quarter included approximately $6.9 million of income recognized from an equity method investment that was sold in the prior quarter. Wealth management delivered another strong quarter, with revenue increasing $2.1 million linked quarter. Our commercial, consumer, and mortgage banking businesses continued to generate consistent growth. When combined with wealth, these four businesses grew at a 4% rate linked quarter or 16% annualized.

Operating non-interest expense was $211.2 million, compared to $210.6 million in the prior quarter. Items excluded from operating results included $5.6 million of intangible amortization and $1.7 million of acquisition-related expenses. Salaries and employee benefits increased during the quarter by approximately $5.6 million, primarily driven by higher incentive accruals, recruiting expense, and one additional day in the third quarter. Overall operating expenses remain within our expected range, and Blue Foundry targeted cost base remained favorable to original estimates. We continue to invest in talent across the franchise to support future growth while maintaining disciplined expense management. Credit quality remained sound during the quarter, with asset quality metrics improving linked quarter.

Net charge-offs were 0.14% of average loans, compared to 0.34% in the prior quarter. While non-performing assets improved to 0.52% of total assets from 0.54%. The allowance for credit losses was 1.45% of loans, compared to 1.48% last quarter. Provision expense totaled $4.1 million, down from $4.9 million in the second quarter. Overall, portfolio performance remains stable, and our reserve position continues to provide solid coverage against inherent credit risk. Our capital remains a significant source of strength. Common Equity Tier 1 capital was 12.2%, while total risk-based capital was 16%. Our tangible common equity ratio was 8.4%, which was impacted by changes in accumulated other comprehensive income. AOCI totaled approximately $370 million at September 30.

During the quarter, we repurchased approximately $56.1 million of common stock at an average price of $24.14, continuing our commitment to returning capital to shareholders while maintaining financial flexibility. On a year-to-date basis, we have repurchased 4.1 million shares at an average price of $22.58 per share. We have approximately $58 million remaining under our current share repurchase authorization. Our capital position remains strong and supports future growth opportunities, shareholder returns, and balance sheet flexibility. With one quarter remaining in the year, we are making the following updates to our 2026 operating guidance. Net interest income. We are raising the lower-end of our range for NII by $5 million to $1.125 billion.

We are lowering our range for loan loss provision to $30 million- $40 million. We are raising our non-interest income range to $295 million-$305 million. We are raising the lower-end of our range for operating non-interest expense to $820 million. There are no changes to our outlook for full-year tax rate. With that, I'll turn the call back to Curt.

Curt Myers: Thank you, Rick. The third quarter was another successful quarter for Fulton. We generated record financial results, maintained strong credit quality, and continued to return capital to shareholders. As we look ahead, we remain focused on serving customers, supporting our communities, and executing against our strategic priorities. We believe these investments we are making today position us well for future growth and long-term value creation. Operator, we'll now be happy to take questions.

Operator: As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one again. In the interest of time, we ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from Daniel Tamayo with Raymond James. Your line is open.

Tim Delaney: Hey, good morning, guys. This is Tim Delaney on for Danny this morning.

Curt Myers: Morning, Tim.

Tim Delaney: Hey, morning. Hey, maybe just starting off on deposits. It was pretty good customer deposit growth this quarter. I know that some of that reflects some of the normal seasonal rebound in municipal deposits, but you also kind of alluded to some of the commercial wins. Just curious if you can help us put a finer point on how much of the growth was impacted from those seasonal flows and whether you'd expect some of this solid underlying momentum in the commercial deposits to continue.

Curt Myers: Yeah, I appreciate that question. We had a really good quarter. Some of that is seasonal municipal inflows, and it was supplemented then by really good core relational transactional deposit wins within commercial banking. Our treasury management platforms are solid. We are winning new customers. We really feel good about the wins to date. You look at our business as we have really ramped-up commercial bankers, treasury bankers. We are building a lot of momentum growing customers, and you really saw that in the quarter. Overall, just commercial growth was almost $600 million. Muni flows are about $400 million. That is kind of the split between that.

You can see it is a really healthy split of just core transactional relational business that we are adding.

Tim Delaney: Okay. I appreciate that, Curt. Maybe just on the buyback, a lot more active this quarter. I know that you talk about a step up in loan growth going here. Is this kind of a fair pace that we should expect on the buyback front? Or could we see a step down as the loan growth is expected to ramp up here?

Curt Myers: Yeah. In the quarter, we certainly accelerated relative to the first and second quarter. We do have a fair amount of buyback remaining. It is really a strategic decision for us within the quarter based on what we see from a capital utilization standpoint. As growth and capital accelerate, you would probably see that moderate to more historical levels. But we think that there is opportunity there within the quarter, and we have been pretty active. But we would probably expect that to moderate linked quarter.

Tim Delaney: Okay. Appreciate that, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. I will step back.

Curt Myers: Thanks.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Casey Haire with Autonomous. Your line is open.

Casey Haire: Yeah, thanks. Good morning, everyone.

Curt Myers: Morning.

Casey Haire: Wanted to touch on the loan growth. Production up 23%, so pretty good there. It obviously didn't come through in the third quarter here. Can you give some color as to what the paydowns and payoffs were in the third quarter and where you expect that? Sounds like it's going to moderate. How much can that, what kind of line of sight do you have on that moderating? What level will that be going forward?

Curt Myers: Yeah, we appreciate the question specifically on loans. Consumer loans met expectations, were consistent. Net balance growth, feel good about those businesses. To your point, commercial balances trailed expectations, mostly due to accelerated CRE payoffs above what we thought they were going to be in the quarter. And then specifically within that, it's really multifamily. If you look linked quarter and year-over-year, multifamily payoffs were higher than we expected. And that market is competitive. So we're seeing rates and terms relative to when we originated those loans 5 or 10 years ago, just being more competitive. There's more players competing in that market as insurance companies, non-banks are in multifamily. So that was most of the story linked quarter.

So those are our customers. So we're keeping the customer. But in some cases, losing those assets as we make choices around pricing and credit.

Casey Haire: Okay. Then just switching to sort of the funding costs, deposit costs, and long-term NIM. Can we get an update as to what you guys are thinking in terms of cumulative interest-bearing deposit beta through this Fed hike cycle and the spot deposit costs at September 30 if you've got that?

Rick Kraemer: Sure, yeah, Casey, spot deposit costs were $1.90 in September. I would say from a beta perspective, I'll answer a couple different ways, but if we look back at the last rate hike cycle, over the cycle, we had just under 40% betas. I will say that was probably a more unique cycle given the starting point. Those betas didn't really do a whole lot for the first, call it, 18 months of that hike cycle. So it caught up really more towards the tail end. All that said, we do model historical betas into our forecasts.

Casey Haire: Okay, great. So that's 40% on a total basis. The $1.90, that's for September, right? That's not September 30?

Rick Kraemer: Yeah, that was September. But a couple of things just to point out, right? We have obviously a pretty substantial municipal portfolio. About 70% of that is indexed. So those deposits, the cost on those move more immediate, obviously following the September Fed hike. So that gets reflected into that portion of the portfolio a little bit sooner, and certainly faster than it shows up on the loan side. Just keep that in mind as you roll those deposit costs forward.

Casey Haire: Yep, will do. Thank you.

Curt Myers: Yep.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from David Konrad with KBW. Your line is open.

David Konrad: Yeah. Hey, good morning. I wanted to talk a little bit about maybe the star of the quarter wealth management. I mean, I think it was up high-single-digits quarter-over-quarter. I wouldn't think this would be a seasonally strong quarter. So maybe the strength that you had, outline the success there, and maybe what's the medium-term growth rate you expect in this business?

Curt Myers: Yeah, the business performed well, and the business has been performing well. We've had really consistent growth and performance in the wealth business overall. What's driving that business really across the board, we're adding new advisors, we're winning new customers, we're winning more assets with existing customers. When that's coupled with some momentum and consistency in the market, those things really have a tailwind and benefit. If you look at page 21 on the Investor deck, I think something to highlight there is just the diversification and kind of full service of that business. As we look at mass affluent, institutional, and high net worth, we're winning kind of in each of those categories.

We're a bank of choice for talent, so we've been adding talent in each of those categories as well. So we think that's sustainable. Certainly has the tailwind of a good market right now. That could go against you. But the core business of more wealth advisors, more customers, and winning assets for customers is just really solid.

David Konrad: Great. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Matthew Breese with Stephens. Your line is open.

Matthew Breese: Hey, good morning.

Curt Myers: Morning.

Matthew Breese: You talked about this a little bit. I was hoping for a little bit more specificity on recent hires across your footprint. Be curious in North Jersey in particular, just how many teams and how that sets you up for growth next year. You teased it a little bit. To the extent you hired folks, does this improve the growth outlook from low-single-digits to mid-single-digits?

Curt Myers: Yeah, I think we see growth accelerating. A couple things on adding talent. As I just mentioned in wealth, the same is true in commercial banking. We are a bank of choice for really high-caliber bankers. As we make opportunities available to join our team, we have been really impressed with the caliber of folks and the amount of folks that want to join the team. You look year-over-year, we are up, we mentioned there, 14% new overall team. That is 30 bankers.

You look at the production that 30 new kind of high caliber bankers can add to our existing team, that really gives us confidence to be even at a bigger balance sheet now compared to the last couple years. We feel that gives us the origination momentum to grow, certainly in that mid-single-digit in all things being equal to maybe even accelerating. We feel good about the momentum there.

Matthew Breese: Rick, securities were up a little bit this quarter. Just curious if there is a good level of securities assets you would kind of point us to. Could you help me out on upcoming kind of cash flows for securities? There is still a pretty wide delta between average yields on the average balance sheet versus new stuff. I am curious—

Rick Kraemer: Sure

Matthew Breese: —to what extent it fills that gap.

Rick Kraemer: Yeah. Thanks, Matt. I would say more of a medium-term target. Securities assets probably a point to a point and a half higher. So call it set targeting around 17%. That's probably over the next couple of years, right? In terms of cash flow, cash flow slowed a little bit during the quarter. I think they dropped from around previous quarter around $60 million-$65 million a month down to around $50 million a month. So some of that is obviously going to be level dependent, but obviously, we're reinvesting even on shorter duration securities right now well into the 5s.

Matthew Breese: Okay. Then just last one. Given rate hikes, potential for more rate hikes, shape of the curve, I would think that all bodes well for the NIM. Maybe help us out with kind of direction and extent we might see NIM expansion in the next handful of quarters. That's all I have. Thank you.

Rick Kraemer: Yeah, appreciate it. I think the NIM has a stable to slightly higher trend to it. This quarter, as we alluded to, there was a lot of excess liquidity that did have a little bit of drag on margin in the short term. We carried a lot of that excess and wholesale liquidity through quarter end. So that will abate some of that pressure in near term quarters. But certainly if the Fed continues on a rate hike cycle and the curve stays at this shape, yeah, there's a tailwind to NII and to NIM. But I would expect it to moderate somewhat dependent on obviously what deposit betas are. But directionally feel good about it here.

Matthew Breese: I'll leave it there. Thanks.

Rick Kraemer: Thank you [crosstalk].

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Manuel Navas with Piper Sandler. Your line is open.

Grant Zerlin: Morning. This is Grant Zerlin on for Manuel. Thanks for the earlier color on the pace of the buyback. I was just wondering if you could provide some more specifics into capital deployment priorities and maybe a particular focus on what you would consider in bank M&A.

Curt Myers: Yeah, thanks for that question. Our priorities remain the same. Supporting organic growth, then corporate initiatives, whether that's portfolios or banks, different corporate initiatives, and then finally, buyback. We look at each of those buckets. We look at the forecast for that. We look at stock trading price and really make adjustments between those three categories. As we see organic growth accelerate, we want to deploy capital that way. On M&A, the last part of your question, that strategy is the same as well. We're focused on that $1 billion-$5 billion bank.

We've done a pretty good job, we feel, on two acquisitions over the last couple of years on banks in that category that really add to and fill in our footprint. We're really happy with North Jersey and the Blue Foundry acquisition. That acquisition integration pro forma is ahead of expectations, and we now are a much more major player in that market. That's the kinds of things that we want to do as we look forward, and that strategy remains the same.

Grant Zerlin: Appreciate the color. Thank you. Then switching over to loan growth, could you just discuss a little more on the outlook into next year and what could drive an acceleration of trends here?

Curt Myers: Yeah. As we mentioned, we're really building for 2027 at this point. We've added commercial bankers. We have some just structural runoff and maturities abating if you look year-over-year. So the things that we've done throughout this year, we feel really position us for 2027 to have that strategic long-term organic growth target in the mid-single-digits as a base. If we can accelerate beyond that's what we'd really like to do.

Grant Zerlin: All right. Thank you. That's everything from me.

Curt Myers: Thanks.

Operator: Thank you. As a reminder, please press star one to ask a question. Our next question comes from Emily Graves with Hovde Group. Your line is open.

Emily Graves: Hey, good morning, everyone. I'm in for Dave Bishop today. So super quick question on the loan conversation. Do you have a new loan origination yield? Then can you provide some color on how the rate increases are affecting specific sectors of your loan portfolio?

Rick Kraemer: Yeah, Emily, just real quick on the loan yields. New originations were, I'll call it in the low 6s overall. Consumer originations a little bit higher than commercial on the mix. In terms of production of new, I think maybe just pointing to what Curt alluded to earlier, there's been some compression on certain pockets, a lot in commercial real estate. Even more specific on multifamily. So that's been an area where we've probably shown more discipline as of late, but that would be the one I would point to.

Emily Graves: Great. Thank you for your time.

Curt Myers: Thanks.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Chris Adama with Brean Capital. Your line is open.

Chris Adama: Hey, guys. This is Chris Adama on for Chris Marinac here. One quick question for you guys following back on, I think, an early question on deposits. Could you just provide, I guess, an average deposit rate for the quarter for, I guess, what would be the on-ramp of commercial client or small business client? What are you guys seeing on that front?

Rick Kraemer: Yeah. Average overall is there in that 1.87%. But if I look at commercial segmentation in that, call it mid-to upper-2s is where we're seeing some of that new deposit growth.

Chris Adama: Perfect. That is all I have for you guys. I appreciate the time.

Rick Kraemer: Thank you.

Curt Myers: Thanks.

Operator: Thank you. I am showing no further questions at this time. I will now look to turn it back to Curt Myers for closing remarks.

Curt Myers: Well, great. Thank you again for joining us today. We hope you will be able to be with us when we discuss the fourth quarter results in January of 2027. Thank you.

Operator: This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

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