Citizens (CFG) Q2 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Image source: The Motley Fool.

DATE

Thursday, July 17, 2025 at 10 a.m. ET

CALL PARTICIPANTS

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer — Bruce Van Saun

Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer — John F. Woods

Vice Chairman and Head of Commercial Banking — Donald H. McCree

Vice Chairman and Head of Consumer Banking — Brendan Coughlin

Investor Relations — Kristin Silberberg

Operator — Denise [last name not provided]

Need a quote from one of our analysts? Email pr@fool.com

RISKS

Allowance for credit losses on the general office portfolio declined for the first time since concerns began, as management reduced reserve coverage while working through the backlog.

Management acknowledged, "a delay in the completion of several significant M&A deals" with over $30 million in anticipated fees deferred to July 2025, citing ongoing market uncertainty as the reason for this shift.

Tariff-related issues and ongoing "machinations around tariffs" continue to present uncertainty in the second half, presenting a potential risk to deal activity and loan demand.

TAKEAWAYS

EPS: $0.92, up $0.15 or 19% from Q1 2025.

Net Interest Income (NII): Net interest income increased 3.3% from Q1 2025, driven by five basis points of net interest margin (NIM) expansion to 2.95% and modest growth in interest-earning assets.

Fees (Noninterest Income): Rose 10% sequentially, led by record quarters in wealth and card, with capital markets growth despite some M&A fee delays.

Efficiency Ratio: Improved to below 65% as expenses remained broadly flat sequentially, delivering about 5% positive operating leverage.

Shareholder Returns: Repurchased $200 million in common shares at an average price of $39, with total capital returned of $385 million (including dividends); repurchase authorization increased to $1.5 billion as of June 2025.

CET1 Ratio: Reported at 10.6% CET1; adjusting for the AOCI opt-out, CET1 was 9.1%.

Loan Growth: Period-end total loans were up 1% sequentially. Excluding non-core runoff of $700 million, spot loans increased approximately 2%.

Private Bank Performance: Private bank loans rose $1.2 billion to $4.9 billion; average private bank deposits up $966 million; $0.06 EPS contribution from private bank segment.

Deposit Mix: Noninterest-bearing deposits rose to comprise 22% of total book. Stable retail deposits are 67% of total deposits versus a peer average of about 55%.

Deposit Costs: Interest-bearing deposit costs declined by two basis points. Achieving a 54% cumulative down beta.

Credit Trends: Net charge-offs decreased to 48 basis points from 51 in Q1 2025 after adjusting for the non-core education loan sale; nonaccrual loans declined 4% sequentially.

Allowance for Credit Losses: Reduced slightly to 1.59% of loans, with general office portfolio reserve at $3.222 billion (11.8% coverage), reflecting active utilization of reserve as charge-offs occur.

Guidance: Management projects Q3 NII up 3%-4% sequentially, NIM improving about five basis points, noninterest income expected to be up low single digits, expenses projected to be up approximately 1% to 1.5%, and stable CET1 including planned $75 million share repurchases. Full-year outlook unchanged from January guidance.

Net Interest Margin Outlook: Management reaffirmed targets for NIM to reach 3.05%-3.10% by Q4 2025, 3.15%-3.30% in Q4 2026, and 3.25%-3.50% in 2027, with hedging strategies protecting downside in a lower rate scenario.

Strategic Initiative: Announced the launch of a multi-year "reimagining the bank" transformation program leveraging GenAI and AgenTik AI technologies, with work commencing in Q2 2025, led by Brendan Coughlin and a dedicated project team.

Private Bank Growth Target: Progressing toward a $12 billion deposit target for year-end 2025, with mid-July deposit levels exceeding $9.5 billion.

SUMMARY

Citizens Financial Group, Inc.(NYSE:CFG) management identified an inflection point, with all three business lines—commercial, consumer, and private banking—reporting net loan growth for the first time in recent quarters. Executives pointed to sequentially lower non-core runoff and higher line utilization in subscription and private credit lines as key drivers of results. Fee income saw a material boost from record wealth and card performance, as well as capital markets activity, although several M&A deals slipped into July, impacting the fee timeline. This included new wealth teams added in strategic markets and ongoing white-space opportunity cited as an earnings lever. Leaders detailed the next-generation "reimagining the bank" strategy, focused on comprehensive digital transformation and efficiency using emerging AI capabilities. Loans are secured by strong credit quality, with management citing high FICO scores (high 700s), prudent underwriting, and improved credit indicators as discussed in recent quarters, and commercial real estate headwinds diminishing as reserves were actively deployed and backlogs worked through.

John F. Woods explained that "private bank continues to steadily grow its profitability contributing $0.06 to EPS this quarter, up from $0.04 in the prior quarter" and exceeding prior quarter loan growth.

Brendan Coughlin noted, "We had a 95% growth rate linked quarter on originations on mortgage" within the private bank.

Bruce Van Saun highlighted that our diversity helped as strength in equity underwriting and loan syndications offset weaker debt capital markets and a delay in the completion of several significant M&A deals.

Deposit franchise demonstrated outperformance, with low-cost deposits in the retail franchise exceeding peer averages by over 300 basis points year-to-date, benefiting funding cost management.

Loan pipeline and capital markets deal flow are expected to remain robust in the second half of 2025, with over $30 million in anticipated fees from delayed M&A transactions expected to be recognized in July 2025 and healthy syndication market participation.

While competition for loans and deposits remains pronounced, management indicated focus on multiproduct, relationship-led growth to maintain pricing discipline and margin preservation.

The general office portfolio saw its first decline in ACL coverage since concerns began; This is the first quarter where we're really charging off against the reserve and don't feel the need to reprovide for those charge-offs, according to John Woods.

INDUSTRY GLOSSARY

BSO: "Balance Sheet Optimization" — Citizens' program to reduce lower-return assets (e.g., select CRE, noncore loans) and reallocate capital to strategic lending and relationship growth areas.

GenAI: Generative Artificial Intelligence — AI systems that produce content or solutions autonomously, cited as a key tool for Citizens' digital transformation.

AgenTik AI: Proprietary or next-gen artificial intelligence referenced in context of operational and client-facing enhancements at Citizens; precise competitive position or vendor unnamed in call.

ACL: Allowance for Credit Losses — Bank reserve for estimated losses on loans and lease financings, actively managed based on credit trends, loan mix, and macroeconomic factors.

Noncore Runoff: The scheduled paydown or sale of loans and portfolios no longer aligned with Citizens' ongoing strategy, notably including certain CRE and student loan exposures.

CET1: Common Equity Tier 1 Capital — Core capital measure under regulatory frameworks, directly highlighted in capital management and buyback disclosures.

Full Conference Call Transcript

Bruce Van Saun: Thanks, Kristin, and good morning, everyone, for joining our call today. We announced strong financial results today that exceeded expectations. Notwithstanding tremendous uncertainty in the macro environment during the quarter. Highlights include strong NII growth of 3.3% sequential quarter, faced by NIM expansion of five basis points and the resumption of net loan growth across consumer, private bank, and commercial. Good fee growth of 10%, which was paced by wealth, card, and mortgage. Good expense discipline with expenses broadly flat resulting in 500 basis points of operating leverage and credit trends remaining favorable and continued meaningful share repurchases. It's worth noting that capital markets still managed to have a pretty good quarter notwithstanding the uncertainty in the environment.

Our diversity helped as strength in equity underwriting and loan syndications offset weaker debt capital markets and a delay in the completion of several significant M&A deals. We expect that we will record over $30 million in fees on these deals in July and our pipelines remain strong setting us up well for the second half. Our balance sheet remains rock solid across capital liquidity, funding, our credit reserve position. Continue to execute well on our strategic initiatives. The private bank had strong growth in loans and AUM, with average deposits up nicely but spot deposits impacted somewhat by the timing of inflows and outflows. We remain on track to hit all full-year targets.

The business is on track to deliver in excess of 5% accretion to Citizens bottom line and a 20% plus ROE in 2025. In addition, efforts across New York City Metro private capital, payments, and BSO are all tracking well. We've commenced work on a project we are calling reimagining the bank which will be led by Brendan and other top leaders. The objective is to redesign how we serve customers and run the bank. Taking advantage of new technologies like GenAI and AgenTik AI. This requires changes to our organizational model, our underlying technology and data architecture, and imparting new skills to our colleague base. It will be multi-year in nature, and ultimately serve as our next top program.

Stay tuned for more details later in the year. With respect to the second half, we believe that economic conditions and markets are trending favorable, though further machinations around tariffs continue to present a degree of uncertainty. Unfortunately, the fundamentals to drive higher deal activity and a pickup in loan demand remain intact. And we feel well-positioned to capture the opportunity and to deliver good results. We remain comfortable with the full-year guide for 2025 we gave back in January, we're well-positioned to sustain that momentum into the medium term. In short, we feel good about our positioning overall from a strategic business and financial standpoint.

We will stay focused on execution and the things we can control as we continue our efforts towards building a distinctive great bank. With that, let me turn it over to John.

John Woods: Thanks, Bruce, and good morning, everyone. As Bruce mentioned, we delivered strong second quarter results with really good revenue performance and disciplined expense management resulting in positive sequential operating leverage of about 5%. Saw lending begin to pick up during the quarter with net growth across commercial, consumer, and private bank, more than offsetting our noncore Runda. Referencing slides five and six, we delivered EPS of $0.92 for the second quarter, a $0.15 or 19% improvement over Q1. Net interest income for the quarter was up 3.3% driven by margin expansion and interest-earning asset growth. Fees were up significantly linked quarter.

Wealth and card fees were a record for the quarter, and capital markets showed modest growth despite market uncertainty which resulted in several meaningful M&A deals pushing into July. Mortgage also increased largely due to an improvement in MS valuation. Expenses were well managed and net charge-offs came in as expected. With respect to our balance sheet, we continue to maintain robust capital, strong liquidity levels, and a healthy credit reserve. We ended the quarter with CET1 at 10.6%, while also executing $200 million in stock buybacks during the quarter. And importantly, we are executing well against our key strategic initiatives. Paced by continued momentum in our private bank and private wealth build-out.

The private bank continues to steadily grow its profitability contributing $0.06 to EPS this quarter, up from $0.04 in the prior quarter, and we delivered the strongest quarter of loan growth so far, adding $1.2 billion in loans. Also, we continue to make good progress in New York Metro, and our top 10 program is on target and progressing well. With work commencing on a multiyear transformational top program to reimagine how the bank operates. Next, I'll talk through the second quarter results in more detail, starting with net interest income on slide seven. Net interest income increased 3.3% linked quarter driven by continued expansion of our net interest margin and modestly higher interest-earning assets.

As you can see from the NIM walk at the bottom of the slide, our margin improved five basis points to 2.95% given the time-based benefits of noncore runoff and reduced drag from terminated swaps, as well as favorable fixed asset repricing. In addition, we continue to optimize our funding and well in our down rate deposit playbook as our interest-bearing deposit cost decreased two basis points. Moving to slide eight, Fees are up 10% linked quarter. Capital markets improved modestly, driven by higher equity underwriting and loan syndication fees. Bond underwriting fees were lower due to a tariff-driven pause in activity for part of the quarter.

Similarly, M&A advisory fees were lower with some sizable deals pushing into July given the market uncertainty during the quarter. We expect that we will record over $30 million in fees on these deals in July. We continue to perform well in middle market sponsored book runner deals, ranking third by deal volume in the second quarter. And our deal pipelines across M&A and DCM remain strong in terms of the number and value of transactions given pent-up demand. Our wealth business delivered a record quarter with increased transaction activity and higher advisory fees from continued positive momentum in fee-based AUM growth, in private bank.

Our card business also delivered a record quarter driven by a seasonal improvement in purchase volumes. Importantly, in consumer, we recently launched a new suite of Mastercard credit cards designed to address the distinct financial needs and preferences of our customers which should help us accelerate growth in this business. Mortgage revenue growth reflects an improvement in MSR valuation as well as seasonal growth in production. Lastly, other income was a bit higher than usual this quarter as we had a few things break our way. This line can move around a little from quarter to quarter.

On Slide nine, expenses are broadly stable linked quarter helping to drive positive operating leverage of about 5% and improve our efficiency ratio to below 65%. Our latest top program is progressing well and is on target to deliver a $100 million pretax run rate benefit by the end of the year. We've undertaken an effort to develop a much broader program to use new technologies to better serve customers and run the bank. We'll give you more on that later in the year. On slide 10, period-end loans were up 1%. This includes non-core portfolio runoff of roughly $700 million in the quarter. Excluding non-core, loans were up approximately 2% on a spot-based basis.

The private bank delivered its strongest loan growth quarter so far, which period-end loans up about $1.2 billion to $4.9 billion. Commercial loans were up slightly given some new money lending growth and a pickup in line utilization. We are past the peak in terms of client BSO exits, which is also creating less drag to growth. And core retail loans grew driven by home equity and mortgage. Next on slides eleven and twelve, we continue to do a good job on deposits, improving the mix with an increase in noninterest bearing to 22% of the book and lowering our overall deposit costs. Average deposits were up 1% driven by increases in lower-cost categories across consumer and the private bank.

We continue to focus on optimizing our deposit funding, with a further reduction of higher-cost treasury broker deposits this quarter and a decline in retail TVs. We delivered strong retail CD retention rates even as we reduced yields. This was a meaningful driver of our improving deposit cost this quarter as our deposit franchise continues to perform well in a competitive environment. Our interest-bearing deposit costs are down two basis points this quarter, translating to a 54% cumulative down beta. And importantly, stable retail deposits are 67% of our total deposits, which compares to a peer average of about 55%. Moving to credit on slide 13.

Net charge-offs of 48 basis points are down from 51 basis points in the prior quarter after adjusting for the seven basis point impact of the non-core education loan sale in Q1. Retail net charge-offs improved across both core and non-core down about 10 basis points after adjusting for the noncore education loan sale. This was partly offset by a modest increase in commercial net charge-offs primarily driven by an increase in C&I relating to several small idiosyncratic credits. Of note, nonaccrual loans continue to trend favorably and were down 4% linked quarter, reflecting a decline in C&I. Retail nonaccrual loans also decreased with a reduction in other retail and continued runoff of the non-core auto portfolio.

As we look across the portfolio, believe that credit trends are showing signs of improvement and that nonaccrual loans for this cycle likely peaked in the third quarter of 2024, and net charge-offs peaked in the first quarter of 2025. Turning to the allowance for credit losses on slide 14. The allowance was down slightly to 1.59% this quarter, as the portfolio mix continues to improve due to non-core runoff reduction in the CRE portfolio, and lower loss content front book originations across C&I retail real estate secured. The economic forecast supporting the allowance reflects a mild recession and macro impacts from tariffs, similar to last quarter.

The general office balance of $2.7 billion continued to decline modestly in the second quarter, driven by paydowns and charge-offs. The reserve for the general office portfolio is $3.222 billion which represents 11.8% coverage. It's worth noting that this is the first quarter since the general office concerns began that our ACL coverage level declined. We allowed the reserve coverage to come down slightly, utilizing the reserve as we make progress with the workout backlog and the rest of the book remain stable. Note that the cumulative charge-offs plus the current reserve translates to a total expected loss rate of about 20% against the March 2023 general office loan balance. Consistent with their view at the end of Q1.

Moving to slide 15, We have maintained excellent balance sheet strength. Our CET1 ratio is 10.6%, adjusting for the AOCI opt-out removal, our CET1 ratio was stable at 9.1%. Given our strong capital position, we repurchased $200 million in common shares at a weighted average price of $39 And including dividends, we've returned a total of $385 million to shareholders in the second quarter. Our share repurchase program was also increased to $1.5 billion by the board of directors in June. Moving to Slide 16, We are well-positioned to drive strong performance over the medium term with our overall three-part strategy.

A transformed consumer bank, the best-positioned commercial bank among our regional peers, and our aspiration to build the premier bank-owned private bank and private wealth franchise. In support of these businesses, we've commenced work on a broad reimagining the bank initiative that will drive meaningful benefits by revisiting how we operate front to back and leveraging new technologies like AI to serve customers in new ways and run the bank better. This will become a multiyear transformational top program and we will have more to say about this as the planning progresses later in the year. Moving to slide 17, our private bank continued to make excellent progress.

We delivered our strongest loan growth quarter so far adding $1.2 billion of loans to end the second quarter at $4.9 billion. This reflects growth in commercial as line utilization has picked up given increasing client activity as well as growth in mortgage. Average deposits were up $966 million for the quarter and stable on a spot basis given a temporary surge in deposits at the end of the first quarter and some outflows at the end of the Q2. We've seen good deposit gathering momentum early in the third quarter, with deposit levels over $9.5 billion in mid-July. The overall mix continues to be very attractive with about 36% in non-interest bearing, the end of the quarter.

We added three more strong wealth teams this quarter, one each in Northern New Jersey, New York City, and Los Angeles. We ended the quarter with $6.5 billion in AUM, up $1.3 billion for the quarter. With a $0.06 contribution to EPS from the private bank in the second quarter, we are tracking well against our targeted 5% plus accretion to Citizens bottom line in 2025, and to deliver a 20 to 24% return on equity for the year and over the medium term. Moving to Slide 18. We provide our guide for the third quarter, which contemplates a 25 basis point rate cut in September.

We expect net interest income to be up approximately 3% to 4% driven by an improvement in net interest margin of approximately five basis points with interest-earning assets up slightly. This pickup in net interest margin is primarily attributable to time-based benefits of noncore runoff. Reduced drag from terminated swaps, and a benefit from fixed asset rate repricing. We expect noninterest income to be up low single digits led by rebounding activity in capital markets which will be partially offset by reductions in mortgage and other income. We are projecting expenses to be up approximately 1% to 1.5% reflecting continued private bank build-out and broadly strong fee revenues.

We expect to deliver positive operating leverage for the second quarter in a row. Credit trends are expected to improve modestly from the second quarter charge-off level. And we should end the third quarter with CET1 stable, including share repurchases of roughly $75 million which could be impacted by the amount of loan growth. Our full-year outlook remains broadly in line with the guide we provided in January, which contemplated a pickup in business activity in the second half of the year. Looking out to the medium term, we see a clear path to achieving our 16% to 18% ROTCE target.

Expanding our net interest margin is also an important driver and we continue to project to be 3.05% to 3.1% in 4Q '25. 3.15% to 3.3% in 4Q '26, and in the 3.25% to 3.5% range in 2027. Slide 21 in our appendix provides some incremental details on our net interest margin progression to 2027. This combined with the impact of successful execution of our strategic initiatives and improving credit performance will drive ROC meaningfully higher through 2027. To wrap up, we delivered strong second quarter results that came in ahead of expectations highlighted by growth in net interest margin, good fee performance, and positive operating leverage.

We ended the quarter with strong capital, liquidity, and reserves, which puts us in an excellent position to support our clients and continue driving growth and progressing our strategic initiatives. With that, I'll hand it back over to Bruce.

Bruce Van Saun: Okay. Thank you, John. Denise, let's open it up for Q&A.

Denise: We are now ready for the Q&A portion of the call. Please unmute your phone and record your name clearly when prompted. Your name is required to introduce your question. To withdraw your question, and our first question to date comes from Ryan Nash with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Ryan Nash: Hey, good morning, everyone.

Bruce Van Saun: Hi. Bruce, you saw nice loan growth in the quarter. Obviously, a decent amount of it was idiosyncratic given the gains that you're making in private bank. So I know there's a lot of moving pieces with loan growth, runoff in CRE, strategic runoff. But maybe can you just talk about what you're seeing in terms of growth in sort of the private bank and then everything else? And how you're feeling about sentiment from borrowers for the remainder of the year? Thank you.

Bruce Van Saun: Sure. I'll start and then I'll take I'll pass it to Brendan and Don for more specific color. But I'd say it's felt a little like an inflection point that we finally saw all three of the businesses. Commercial, consumer, private bank have net loan growth and at the enterprise level we had loan growth that exceeded the kind of DSO and non-core rundown actions that we're taking. And when we look into the second half, I would say we're constructive on kind of the macro and the fact that there's been pent-up demand put money to work in the sponsor space. We're starting to see kind of some new deal flow.

We're starting to see a pickup in line utilization. There and a little bit also in the pure corporate banking side. Think the private bank is finding its footing in terms of we kind of get have the operation up and running. Initial focus is attracting the relationships and gathering the deposits in the operating accounts. And I think it's been a little slower to see the loan demand pick up, but we're now starting to see that. So some of the growth in the quarter was line utilization on some of the PE BC subscription lines we have. But also the individual consumer borrowing, particularly around mortgage that's starting to pick up as well.

And so we expect that now to continue clearly a little drop in rates if it happens in the second half would be a bit of a tailwind there. And then in consumer, we've been kind of just very steady. We have a great HELOC product lead the market in HELOC market share. That continues to be a product that is in demand. As well as mortgage being another area where we see consistent modest growth, but nonetheless its growth. And then we launched a whole new card complex during the quarter and we would expect to see balances in the card space pick up a bit.

So I'd say we see growth continuing really across the complex and the other net positive is some of the BSO is starting to wind down and become less of a headwind. So the non-core reductions are smaller as we go forward. Some of the work that's been done in commercial that's smaller as we go forward. And so that'll free up the overall net number to be a little bit more positive. So with that, why don't I go first to Brendan, and then we'll go over to Don.

Brendan Coughlin: Sounds good. That was all well said. So maybe I'll just supplement that with a few numbers. In the core retail business, excluding noncore, we were about $400 million quarter on quarter, about a $1 billion year on year. So we're seeing steady high-quality relationship-led growth. The HELOC progress that we're making has been substantial and with external numbers that are available on you know, record title recordings, it appears we've been number one in the States on originations in the last couple quarters, and the credit quality has been very, very high. High seven hundreds FICOs, mid-sixties CLTV. So we're very pleased with the yields above 7% So I've had room we're not playing across the country.

And we're only playing in or 15 space and number one. Nationally. So and those all come with deep deposit relationships as well given the structure of the product and our strategy. So we're very pleased with that. As Bruce mentioned, we're incredibly excited about the new credit card product launch. It will be mostly oriented around cross-selling into our retail customer base versus trying to be a national issuer. But we believe the products are very competitive. In fact, we're seeing, 30% of our early sales in our higher-end massive fluent oriented card, that we're calling Summit Reserve, which is a metal black card and also comes with an annual fee.

So it can reposition the profitability of the credit card business over time, and we expect balances, as purchase activity to scale in the in the back half of the year, start to see some modest high-yielding growth there. So we feel like we're well-positioned in consumer for that to and maybe accelerate a little bit on the yield side with card. In the private banking space, we're seeing really an unlock and growth across the board, $1.2 billion in growth linked quarter. 31% of the balances are consumer. That's up a little bit. From last quarter. We had a 95% growth rate linked quarter on originations on mortgage.

So, but we're hearing, in the market is that our customers, obviously, were dealing with higher interest rates for a while as we launched the business. You all saw that those metrics were heavy deposit led early on, and they're starting to adjust the new normal where interest rates are and business activity is starting to flow through. So the relationship started with day-to-day operating deposits and it's now moving into lending, which is great to see. Yields are strong, six fifty five on the private bank, which is four thirty three basis points over the deposit cost.

So we still have, margin in this business that is NIM accretive, which is driving the, obviously, ROE accretion at the at the top of the house. For us to deliver the rest of the year private banking, we need an average of you know, billion 1 a quarter versus billion 2 we just did. So we feel pretty good that story can continue and the pipelines are strong and demand is really increasing, you know, hopefully with volatility in the market staying in the same zone we're in now or better, we feel really positive. And then on the non-core side, just as Bruce mentioned, the rundown is easing.

Last year, we were running down about a billion a quarter. For the back half of the year it will be about a half a billion a quarter. So still a little bit of headwinds there but that's reducing which should be net accretive and hopefully allow us to all the front book activity we're seeing in the customer businesses to start to scale up.

Don McCree: Okay. Todd?

Bruce Van Saun: Yes. So I'll pick up where Brendan ended, is we've been reducing our book ex CRE by about $1 billion a quarter on our BSO agenda, and that's we're basically almost done with that. So that's gonna be a headwind that goes away. We'll continue to reduce CRE a little bit to the tune of $500 million a quarter or so, but that'll be a little bit of a drag. But we're I mean, what we're seeing is broad business optimism across the board. This quarter, it was really led by the private complex, which everybody knows we've put a lot of resources, a lot of strategic emphasis on.

So we saw a lot of great utilization in our subscription lines and our private credit lines. That was probably about 75% of our loan growth in quarter with about 25% coming from C&I. But as I'm out talking to C&I customers, they're starting to see the uncertainty around the different policy questions abate. So you've got the budget bill passed. You've got the Middle East solved. You've got tariffs moving behind us, and they're beginning to invest in their businesses again. And we're seeing quite dynamic pipeline growth across core C&I.

We're also people remember, we Bruce mentioned and John mentioned that New York Metro were two and a half, three years into now, but we've also opened up in Florida and California in terms of middle market growth and we're seeing very nice new business generation in those markets, which is generating not only loan growth, but it's generating full wallet relationships which we're really encouraged by. So, you know, very different from where I was six months ago. I'm very optimistic about what we see going forward. See how quickly it materializes, but it seems like the environment is a good tailwind to the next couple quarters. Yeah.

I would just put one asterisk on what you said, Don, is like, the worst case outcomes on tariffs seem to be behind us. I But, you know, it's still kind of out there as something to contend with, but I'd say most folks feel that we'll negotiate that results in fairer trade. There'll be a higher tariff rate, but it's not something that is going to knock people off their pack. And they're and they're adjusting their business models to deal with. Correct. So, let's hope that, is the case as we go forward. But in any case, I think that has turned into something that's not as big of concern in terms of causing uncertainty.

Also think besides the tax bill getting through regulatory appointees getting confirmed and having pushing that aggressive deregulatory agenda will also be positive in the second half of the year. Okay. Okay.

Ryan Nash: Ryan. Anything else?

Ryan Nash: Yes. No, that was a great in-depth response. I just I feel bad that John didn't get a chance to answer so maybe I'll just throw one out there. Well, I'll throw one out there for him and obviously, it's been great to see the NIM expansion and you sort of reiterated all the NIM expectations over the medium term. I guess, given the potential that we could have a more dovish Fed at some point in not so distant future, maybe just talk about what steps you are taking, if at all, to sort of try to lock in the higher end of those margin expectations.

And even if we're in a more dovish environment, can we see sort of the midpoint to higher in terms of the net interest margin? Thank you. No more for me.

John Woods: Yes. I appreciate that Ryan. And so I guess what I would talk about is, you know, we have this range, that we've talked about over the medium term of $325 million to $350 million And in our material we talked a little bit about what rate environment that range would be consistent with.

That rate environment, even with the Fed funds level that is, frankly, even below 3%, I'd say that, something even in the neighborhood of $2.75 which should be a significant amount of dovishness, a significant amount of reductions from the Fed, would still be consistent with the low end of that range of $3.25 And, and anything higher than that you know, what we what we message was, you know, something in the neighborhood of $3.50 probably puts us in the middle of our range and at $3.37 NIM. And anything that, you know, higher for longer gets us to the high end of that range. So we're feeling very, increasingly confident. In that in that range.

And, what we've been doing to try to quarter over quarter to protect that downside is opportunistically, you know, putting on hedges. In a forward starting way. And those hedges generally are well north of where we think the Fed will likely come out. So there'll be there'll be stable to providing protection against that lower end. So did a little bit of hedging in the second quarter, a little bit in the first quarter, and we'll continue to opportunistically look for our spots given rate volatility. And, that's playing out really as expected. And so, you know, feeling pretty good about that range.

Bruce Van Saun: Yep. I'll just I'll just add is that you don't wanna spend all your powder on the down scenario. So we've left some of the out years a bit open because you could get in a situation where you have stagflation and then wanna, you know, be able to participate and get the benefit of that in a in a higher rate environment. So, that's kind of a judgment call, but I think we have a really good buy box discipline, so to speak.

So we're we're waiting to see little spikes, and then we'll put some more on, but we're still kind of open to the possibilities that we could end up in a different scenario than what is the consensus scenario of the Fed kind of moving down. Thanks for the color. Yeah.

Denise: Thank you. The next question comes from Erika Najarian with UBS. Your line is open.

Erika Najarian: Yes, hi. Good morning. I just wanted to ask about the write hand side of the balance sheet in terms of the strategy for the second half of the year. Given everything that I've heard, from Brendan and Don, it sounds like it's going to be, a good second half for growth. And I've noticed, John, that you did have great NIB growth in the quarter. Total deposits were down a little bit.

As we think about the second half of the year and potentially a growth year outlook, how are you thinking about sort of growth versus optimizing the mix And or is there sort of more BSO consider that's coming on the asset side that could help fund that growth?

John Woods: Yeah. I think it's a tale of both of those, Erica. But well, I'll start off with the deposit side. I think we're pretty pleased with our low-cost deposit trends So the mix improved in the second quarter. Compared to the first quarter, in the on DDA and low cost overall. And that those contributions you know, are driven predominantly by, our private bank, you know, growth that comes in at 36% of non-bearing. So that's accretive to top of the house. But also the core retail deposit base has just been performing exceptionally well. Versus, versus peers from all that we can tell. So there's very strong momentum there.

And then we have really good seasonal factors that contribute on the commercial side in the second half typically. So all of that lines up for what we believe to be stable to improving mix on the deposit side while actually still being able to grow deposits to support, our loan growth outlook. And a stable, LDR. Output too. Stabilize it. Yeah. We excellent liquidity with very good LDR. So it gives point there. And then on the and then, of course, on the left side of the balance sheet, we are still rotating capital. You know, maybe to a declining degree.

But we've done a really nice job of rotating all of that capital out of noncore and deploying it into highly strategic opportunities in the front book across all three businesses, all three legs of the stool. So that's been really efficient. And that front book back book is extremely powerful and will continue for some time. You know, in the noncore space. And you heard Don talk about the fact that he's still rotating capital in C&I, although to a decreasing level such that we're seeing some of this growth fall to the bottom line.

Bruce Van Saun: Okay. I'm gonna just briefly ask for a brief comment. With color so we don't chew up too much of the clock. But Brendan, maybe anything to add on kind of strategies in the second half for consumer or private bank? And then, Don, I'll flip it to you also for a brief comment.

Brendan Coughlin: Yeah. Just quickly or to John's point, the benchmarks we see show that our low-cost deposits in the retail franchise are outperforming peer averages by over 300 basis points for the year so far, which is giving us a lot of optionality on how we manage our deposit strategy. So we generally have been flattish quarter on interest-bearing deposits, but we've actually grown retail core relationship deposits and released a little bit of bearing deposits on the Citizens Access side, which has given us a lot of ability to manage margin and the total yield on the consumer business is down three basis points as a result.

So all of that is giving us, the ability to, rotate to a higher quality deposit book, more relationship led, and given us some flexibility on the yield side. We had a lot of CD maturities, $8 billion in Q1, $6 billion in Q2. We're retaining about 87% of that. But the yields on that are down a 120 basis points when we save those balances. That's also allowing us to drive costs down. And we have you know, large maturities coming due. It's a little bit in the second half than the first half of the year, but we still have big maturities We expect that to continue to give us some cost value.

And on the private bank side, won't add a lot. You know, we've we've got confidence in the outlook on growth. 36% low, non-interest bearing, 42% low cost we had in seaweed. So the portfolio is of real high quality. We're starting to see the consumer side starting to gear up, on some growth. As well. We just expect those trends to continue through the summer and into the fall. We're pleased with that and that should give us the ability to have a decent cap in city. Idiosyncratic deposit growth.

Don McCree: And I'll be super brief. I'd I'd say the two things. Excited about on the deposit side is we are getting a nice win rate in our expansion markets, which is full wallet win rates. And then we've had a couple interesting wins on the payment side and other big merchant acquiring account and a couple other embedded finance type of accounts, which is coming with some nice low-cost deposit growth. So it's changing our mix a little bit, and the liquidity team on the commercial side of the house has done a great job building a bunch of product functionality, which is away from just the core client functionality. So we see nice momentum on that front. Good.

Bruce Van Saun: Anything else, sir?

Erika Najarian: Yeah. And just one more for you, Bruce. Just on the capital Obviously, large peers, their requirements have started to move down with this year's stress test. Potentially more with other types of recalibration. With Basel III endgame potentially getting finalized. You know, maybe the AOCI burden is, you know, just a third near term than the 150 basis point adjustment that we have fully accounting for it today. I guess, like, you know, in terms of regional banks CET1 and ex capital definition, how much of it can sort of ride with the momentum of the GSIBs versus potentially being also upheld by the ratings agency.

I know one ratings agency I know one of your peers talked about, that being a bit of a binding constraint for the regionals, and I'm wondering if you had any thoughts on that.

Bruce Van Saun: Yeah. Sure. So I would say it's it's good when you come through a turbulent period like we had in the industry through 2023 and first half of 2024, to build capital and run a little conservatively. And so I think you've seen all the regionals building their capital think the rating agencies view collectively is that profitability took a bit of a dip and needs to be kind of restored. And then also there was this overhang of commercial real estate office that needed to work itself through.

And so hold more capital until we see the flex point where profitability has rebounded and you've got through the kind of workout phase and substantially through when credit appears to be in good shape. So I'm hopeful that rating agencies start to look more out the front view mirror and don't hold on to that view for too long. But I think it's still there and it's probably on investors' minds too, is let's just make sure that we're in a good environment and then potentially capital can come down a bit. So I don't think it's going to happen right away. I think we've been running a bit above our 10% to 10.5% CET1 range.

Ultimately, I think we'll be able to bring it back into that range. And still probably stay a bit on the conservative side. That's been our MO really since the IPO is to run a little conservative on capital and there's some real benefit that come from that. If you have a fortress balance sheet, the industry economy is going to go through cycles. That means the industry is going to go through cycles, and there's gonna be opportunities with this When the West Coast banks failed, we were in position to go bid and ultimately to do the startup of the private bank. In a tough environment.

So actually running with a little more conservative in your capital structure proves to be a long-term benefit. So that's where I think it is Erica.

Ryan Nash: Thank you. K.

Denise: Thank you. The next question comes from Matt O'Connor. Your line is open. With Deutsche Bank.

Matt O'Connor: Thank you. I was hoping you could just elaborate a little bit on the reimagining the bank initiative, maybe any color if there's kind of a point person running it and how it's different from the top initiatives that we've seen over the last several years?

Bruce Van Saun: Okay. I'll start, and I think I'll flip it to Brendan. Who will be on point for this one. But you know, if you if you go back in the annals of our top program, number six, about five years ago. Was a bigger more complex program that kinda took a two-year time frame and had more technology investment to deliver the benefits. And so a lot of times when we focus on these annual top programs, we're going after faster wins that aren't as complex and across the enterprise and involve rolling out new technologies.

But we paused and did a two-year program in top six, I think we're at a at a flex point now what's happening with new technologies. That it's worth doing something similar for the next top program. And I think it's it's kind of broader top program may sound limiting. And, you know, when you say reimagining the bank, it's how you're serving your customers, what you can do for your customers, the efficiency of how you're running the bank, how you can just say things like, you know, I have all these people in the call centers. What are ways to deliver better outcomes and more cost-effectively what would it take to ultimately drive that?

What has to happen from a technology standpoint? Standpoint, a organizational standpoint, etcetera? So we're taking that step back now. We're talking with lots of outside consultants looking at scenarios across all industries across the planet in the banking industry, what is kind of the cutting edge right now in terms of how these technologies are being deployed that can be kind of a seismic shift in how your banks operating. It sounds you know, I don't wanna I don't wanna set expectations too high, but we are really at a exciting period now So we basically set up XCO like, mini XCO sponsorship group, is gonna be led by Brendan.

We have a kind of day-to-day lead project team from some key people across the bank that will focus on this mainly as their job now for the next few quarters. And then we have some idea on the silos that we can go attack So we're kind of setting up the structure and then we're gonna unleash this very shortly. But with that setup maybe Brendan you could add to that.

Brendan Coughlin: Yeah. I guess my thoughts here would be you know, after going through the IPO for ten years and then through COVID, I think for Citizens, it's natural reflection point on the next chapter for the bank. And kinda what got us here might need to shift a little bit on what's gonna get us to the next phase. And so good to just pull way back and have a broad lens on that. And then to Bruce's point, you combine that with the market dynamics that things are changing very, very fast. The use cases on AI are becoming a little bit more real versus hopes and dreams.

And, how do we combine those two dynamics to simplify the business model, get really crisp on where we wanna win, and then really reimagine how the bank works to get things done in a win-win fashion, faster, cheaper for the bank, better from a customer experience standpoint from our for our customers. So all things from operating, metrics and artificial intelligence and cost to our people strategy and corporate real estate to simplifying you know, our vendors and, getting really, really focused. Everything's on the table.

And so but what the work to be done over the next couple of months is just to hone that and get really focused on where we wanna get to, which is mentioned, hear from us as soon as we get, get more specific on what we're gonna tackle. But you know, it's been five or six years since we did the last really big top and that's probably the right timeline to move from, smaller programs back to a really large one.

Bruce Van Saun: And I would I would just, also add, Matt, that we get to some really good numbers in the medium term without this. And so we are aiming big on what the potential benefits can be, which could be quite beneficial to the overall financial metrics. Some of that is we'd like to free up the capacity to do more investment in some of our growth initiatives. So you know, you get that virtuous circle going.

And so you create some self-funding for the things that you think are going to drive the future So you are able to now accelerate the investment cycle and drive kind of top-line growth and efficiency growth And clearly, you're not gonna spend everything that you save. You're gonna some of that will drop through and benefit the margin and benefit ultimately the shareholder. But then there's some longer-term considerations where you can free up some investing dollars to actually accelerate the build-out of things like the private bank. So we're pretty excited by it. I don't want to oversell it at this early stage, but tuned. We'll be talking more about it in the next couple of calls.

Matt O'Connor: That's helpful. And then just as you think about kind of some of the upfront cost for this, are you thinking you can self-fund it like you've able to offer in the past or anything that we should be mindful of in terms of notable items and things like that? Thanks.

Bruce Van Saun: I guess it's TBD, Matt, is what we've decided to do now is if there these are modest costs, and they tend to repeat with each top program. We're kind of not posting them separately and breaking them out. But if there were some big things that look more like an expenditure of capital, and would affect the run rate, we can either call them out or we can notabilize them, but we haven't come across that bridge at this point.

Matt O'Connor: Okay. Thank you.

Denise: The next question comes from Ken Usdin with Autonomous Research. Your line is open.

Ken Usdin: Hey, thanks. Good morning. Just two quick ones. So first on the fee side, thanks for giving that color about the $30 million in the third quarter in capital markets. And we see the guide clearly Just wondering if you could talk a little bit more just about that capital markets pipeline, what you're seeing underneath on the advisory side and other capital markets and how you're feeling about the outlook there?

Bruce Van Saun: Sure. Let me just start and I'll quickly flip it Bon. But what I would say that is a real positive is that we do have some diversity in the fees within capital markets. So we started to see interestingly the equity market start to come to life and so we participated in some IPOs in the second quarter. Banks indicated low market stayed strong throughout the quarter. There was a pause in debt market deals early in the quarter. And then the kind of overall macro uncertainty is probably has the biggest impact on M&A. And people's willingness to go forward with deals and close deals.

So I think that right now we have a huge tailwind because of the deals that pushed that could have closed in Q2 or were expected to that pushed into Q3. But beyond that, we're seeing that pipeline refill We think the equity market continues a bit syndicated loan market, and then the debt market should come back as well. So we might be firing on all cylinders, but I'll turn that over to Don.

Don McCree: I won't go all the way there because I'll get I'll get my budget changed for the year. But we are seeing you know, remember that you know, away from m and a, which is obviously advisory and actually working with a lot of our private companies for generational change transactions, which is what our core franchise is. There's a big, big, pent-up kind of desire to transact. And know, it's only been recently where you're starting to see valuations come in line between buyers and sellers and a couple of the big things we've we've are kinda complete in July had nice economic kickers to them and were selling these companies for really high valuations.

The second thing I'd say is you know, on the on the financing side of things, whether it be syndicated lending or the bond businesses or even some of the equity businesses, it's largely been a refinancing of capital structure exercise, and we haven't really seen the new money engine kick in size yet. And it feels to me like that happening as I'm looking at our pipelines that we're starting to see the and it's not just continuation funds from the private equity guys, is the flavor of the month, but they're beginning to actually transact in a much more significant way.

So you're seeing the whole private complex beginning to, you know, come forward and look to put capital to use, whether that is a third quarter event or a fourth quarter event, I'm not totally sure yet, but the pipelines feel pretty good. So I'm I'm more optimistic than I've been in a while in terms of momentum across the diversified portfolio that Bruce mentioned in terms of cap markets.

Ken Usdin: Okay, great. And then just it's clear to see like the mortgage over earning in quarter, so that's clear in the forward guide. Just the other was a bunch smattering of items. Was there anything notably sizable in there or what a better run rate is for that other piece? Thanks, guys.

Bruce Van Saun: I would just say there, Ken, that you know, that other income line has got a collection of small things that you kinda have to take a view of the full year on that you're gonna some quarters where things run a little light and some quarters where they run a little heavier. And so I think that kind of evens out over the course of the year. So there's nothing really sizable and noteworthy to call out there. It just seemed like a few things broke our way and less things broke our way in the first quarter. Yes.

Denise: The next question comes from Steven Alexopoulos with TD Cowen. Your line is open.

Steven Alexopoulos: Hey, good morning everyone. Hi. I wanted to start, so first on the private bank, so if we look at the $12 billion deposit target for the end of this year, know the trends aren't linear, but just given what we saw at 2Q versus 1Q, what gives you confidence? It's roughly $3 billion or so growth for the second half. Can you talk about that?

Brendan Coughlin: Yes. Well, as John mentioned in his comments, mid-July, we're already up over 9 and a half billion. And so the $8.7 if you look at the average deposit growth was quite healthy, had some positive noise at the end of Q1 that slowed back out seasonally, and then we had some lumpy couple of days at the end of this quarter. So looking at the average balances is probably the right way to do it on the underlying momentum, and we're starting to see that ramp back up. So you know, it is true.

We'll need a strong, a strong summer and fall and a strong close to the year to get to get to the numbers, but we see the demand there. The platform is scaling. Our bankers are hitting their stride. They're getting used to the platform and used to the bank. We still see the white space as nobody has truly emerged to cover it. We're still seeing strong inflows. And, so demand is demand is high. It's gonna be about execution, and, and the underlying pace, I think, needs to be in line to maybe slightly better than what we saw in the second quarter for us to get there. But we've got confidence that's the case.

We also have had some new teams that have gone in Southern California as an example that are turning their feet under them. So we have some positivity there and very targeted. We've added a few folks in a handful of the markets. So, there's a lot of dynamics going inside. It certainly is an ambitious, target for us, but we do have confidence we can get there.

Steven Alexopoulos: Okay. That's helpful. And then for my follow-up, so this commentary around reimagining debate, the bank is really fascinating. When you talk to most banks, and they talk about AgenTeq AI, it tends to be call center and CRM focused. It seems that this is much broader. Are guys is this like everything on the table, client experience, cost saves, risk mitigation? Are you looking at everything? And then if you are, amazing if you could pay for that, not see an increase in expenses because if you look at the large banks, need to spend first to start seeing the benefits. Could you unpack that a bit for us?

Brendan Coughlin: Yeah. Everything is on the table, and we are bullish on long-term value creation from AI and AgenTik AI. But there's some tried and true things in there too in the program too that will help self on part of the journey. That aren't necessarily, the kind of the new, modern technology-led initiatives like vendor simplification at a broader scale with much more of a strategic lens, taking a look at, you know, how we're public company structure from a real estate standpoint. There's a lot of other more traditional things that we've we've hygiene cleaned up, on the various top initiatives, and now we're gonna take you know, an even bigger step back.

So it will be a myriad of things. And so our hope is and this is what we're going to scope out through the summer period, that we can, know, sequence all these investments in a way that has it smart and logical and, have some quick wins that can maybe supplement some the ideas that take a longer time. But the reason the reason we're having a much longer window in this top versus the other top is that some of these initiatives do take a little bit more time for the ship to come, and we wanna take that medium-term, longer-term lens on this.

So we're planting the right seeds, not just to impact the next year or two, but impact the next three to five years. And so it's a big I think a big difference in how we're approaching this program that allows us to be a lot more strategic.

Bruce Van Saun: Yeah. And I would just add also that the pace of innovation in this space, particularly around AgenTex, is really mind-boggling. So when you look back six months ago and where was this and how ready for purpose were some of these solutions to kind of where are they today. And I know, Brendan, you just spent a day with a bunch of fintechs and startups to try to look at this and kick the tires a little harder, but it's quite dramatic. And so the big banks may be spending a lot of money and doing some kind of pioneer work.

Oh, I think they'll be kind of more ready-made turnkey solutions available that hopefully we can take advantage of.

Steven Alexopoulos: Got it. Terrific. Thanks for the color.

Denise: Up next is John Pancari with Evercore. Your line is open.

John Pancari: Good morning. Just want to ask a little bit around competitive dynamics. You have a couple of peers out there citing some intensifying competition. We've heard both a bit on the loan pricing side as well as on deposits. And so I just want to see if you can us a little bit more color what you're seeing there in terms of on the deposit side, your confidence in your data expectations? And are you seeing any of that pressure? And then on the loan pricing side, specifically, as you see some acceleration, in loan growth and your strategies there, are you Are you seeing some intensifying competition from banks and nonbanks?

Don McCree: Let's start with Don on commercial. Yes. So John, yes, the answer is it's competitive out there. It's always competitive. But I think our secret sauce and what we're trying to do is stay focused on know, multiproduct relationships with mid-sized companies, and we've carved out a niche. And I think we've got an incredibly strong delivery model, which allows us not to just think about making loans or gathering deposit, but doing a multitude of things with our with our customers, and that's what we've tried to build over the last ten years. And it's it's interesting. The teams that we've hired in Florida and California have said the same thing to me, which is wow.

The way we're showing up as a company across product and industry expertise and core banking, is so different than my old firm showed up. It's becoming the differentiator of trying to win of being able to win business and win you know, broad wallet relationships with people. I mean, we're never gonna make a lot of money lending money to a to a company. I mean, it's about everything else we do with that company. So know, that's the way we try to make the market. And I've never been in a situation in my one years of doing this where I haven't had a ton of competition.

And you just gotta be day to day more focused and day to day better to create the kind of relationships that you want to bring onto the balance sheet and then also pass on the things where you're not going to make a lot of money, where it's just a price gain. And that's what BSO has been about for us. So we're really trying to rotate capital to where we can build those enduring relationships. And you know, knock wood so far so good. And know, the whole if you look at private credit, which is what a lot of people like to talk about, we're now bankers to the private credit complex.

And we've created an amazing business banking the private credit complex that actually is in a very equivalent way, replacing our leveraged finance kind of fee stream and our leverage finance earning stream with a much more attractive earning asset on the private credit side of things. So trying to stay ahead of the trends and trying to stay smart about where the where the market is going and then having your delivery cost being reasonable, which is what Brendan's gonna try to lead in terms of the reimagining the bank is really the name of the game. How do you do generate good earning assets and good deposit growth with a reasonable expense base? Got it.

Same things on my businesses. I'd say it's it is really intense. It's always been intense. I think it's largely been unchanged. Recently. So there's a lot of competition out there. There's always some irrational folks pricing out there. I think we were spending a little bit more time on is that if rates pull back, yeah, how do we play that? And do some competitors play it a little bit more irrationally on the deposit side and hold serve for a while to gain deposits and deteriorate margins or chase the market down really fast on lending. We'll see. What happens. But right now, we're we're competing well in a really intense market.

You know, when it's relationship led to Don's point, you tend to have a little bit more flex in yield pricing on both sides, deposits and lending. If you got through the primary banking relationship, you have to be the very best, and that helps a lot as we've regrounded the franchise and deep relationship based banking, both in retail and private banking. And the only thing you can count on us on is being return focused. So we're not gonna chase the market down if competitive dynamics get super intense, we'll make sure we're doing the right thing for capital allocation and the right returns.

We're very committed to on private, as an example, to have a 2024% return profile. So we're going to stick to our guns there. Price loans and deposits that we believe is appropriate for market conditions and then we'll have to compete and win on relationships. And we're doing that so far and I don't expect that to

John Woods: Yeah. Just two just two quick items here, just to add on top of that. One is, spreads are holding in. We're holding our discipline on the kind lending side of things and returns in retail and consumer look good. On the deposit side, we've had this outlook of low to mid 50s cumulative beta over the medium term and already through the end of the second quarter. We're at 54%, which is, you know, better than better than median, better than average, and a really, really strong performance, so far this cycle. And we'll, we have all of the, all of the foundation and mindset is there to continue that performance over the medium term. Maybe one more point.

I think we've made this on other calls that we've had. Probably a little bit more leverage than some of the other peers when you think about Citizens Access and now the private bank. So depending on how competitive dynamics flex across all the segments. We can know, capitalize where there's better crowd.

John Pancari: Okay. Great. Thanks. And then and then, Bruce, just curious on your updated thoughts around the M&A backdrop. We've seen some resumption of deals amid regional banks just wanted to get your thoughts there. And I know you've kind of implied that over time, if you get the you've got to work towards your results, and then that will drive a multiple in your stock and everything. Just curious how you see Citizens as being a potential player in the wave of consolidation that we could see?

Bruce Van Saun: Yep. So I think nothing's really changed there, notwithstanding it. Small deal that was announced last week. But our focus right now is driving this organic growth. We have a huge opportunity here to get our ROTC back where we'd like it to be to capture that white space that First Republic vacated and build up our private bank and private wealth business and really drive the growth in the New York City metro market that is sitting there in front of us to execute on. So I want to not get distracted and make sure that job one to continue to drive great execution and drive the ROTCE higher.

I have said though if there's a really attractive opportunity down the road, I have total confidence in this leadership team and our ability to integrate that and execute on that. But, you know, you'd have to be pretty high barred. I mean, sure that you had the financials, the strategic, the cultural fit in order to go do something. But I think that's more kind of down the road than it is imminently.

John Pancari: Got it. All right. Thanks, Bruce.

Bruce Van Saun: Yep. Denise? That's all you.

Denise: Oh, I'm so sorry. I had my mute button on. That is from Manon Gosalia with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.

Manan Gosalia: Hey, good morning all. I had a quick question on credit. Given that the office reserve was down about 50 basis points, can you update us on what you're seeing in the space? And I guess, if things are improving, how you're thinking about managing that reserve in the overall ACL over the next few quarters?

John Woods: You want to start, Chuck? Yes, I'll just go ahead and start off there. Thanks for the question. Are seeing some really good trends in credit as you saw in some of our results broadly charge-offs being down from last quarter to this and expect it to be down again. So you've got a we're we're keeping an eye on that, but the trends look good. Non-accrual trends look very good. And lastly, as you're asking about respect to general office, I mean, this is think the thing to keep an eye on is the dollar amount of reserves that we're allocating to this book. We've we are down this quarter, about 30 million or so.

That rate will jump around a little bit, but this is the first quarter where we're really charging off against the reserve and don't feel the need to reprovide for those charge-offs. That reflects some expectation of stability and valuations as well as, you know, an understanding and an outlook with respect to probability of default that are all feel, you know, well controlled and ring-fenced at this stage. So that's been a big level of uncertainty that we have a sense here may be starting to get behind us. We've we've had peak credit losses are behind us, we believe, for this for this cycle. As well as, I think, we mentioned peak, peak in non-accruals.

So I think that is all trending well. And I think the last thing to keep in mind is our front book, back book. So as we're running off other areas of the book, such as CRE, outside of general office, Most of the front book has a lower provision and ACL need compared to what's getting run off, including in noncore. So a lot of those trends, would be consistent with coverage levels being adequate now and possibly some opportunity to moderate that over time. You know, as long as the macro holds in.

So, you know, just you know, to wrap it all up, a lot of really solid tailwinds on the credit side, and feeling like, that looks good for the rest of the year.

Don McCree: Do you wanna add anything on Office? No. I just I just say that, you know, I don't think we've moved a Office property into our work at group in the last year. So, you know, the problem children who are going through the work out process and where we've got the reserves put up are well identified and well through their restructuring process. And the rest of the book, there's some good tailwinds in terms of the office environment in different cities across country, notably New York City, which is, which is quite strong. So I think, you know, if you go back two or three years from now, we had a lot of uncertainty.

Right now, we feel like we've got a really box We're we're comfortable with where we've got things reserved, as John said.

Manan Gosalia: That's very helpful. And then Bruce, I don't think I heard you talk about Stablecoin when you spoke about the reimagining the bank initiative. Is that an area of focus? And if that is, how are you thinking about the investments there? And in general, what impact do you think that will have on bank?

Bruce Van Saun: I wouldn't put that under the umbrella of reimagining the bank. I think that's more kind of an initiative for us to develop under kind of our overall payments business and payment strategy. And I think it's got a lot of buzz right now and there's some potential use cases that may ultimately establish themselves and cross-border payments is one everybody's talking about. But we're certainly monitoring developments there. We see you always want to make sure that you're capturing opportunities and minimizing risk when you see these trends develop.

But I think we've got, you know, smart people at these things we're talking to our customers we want to be there to serve our customers So I think we're positioned well, but I wouldn't call it out as something that in the near term is, that dramatic that'll have a that dramatic of an impact on us. And a lot of times you're going to look to do these developments in consortia with other banks or leveraging some of your key vendors like Fiserv. And so we're looking at all of that, but I don't I don't think there's a significant investment that's staring us in the face at this point.

Manan Gosalia: Fair enough. Thank you.

Denise: Thank you. The next question comes from Chris McGrady with KBW. Your line is open.

Chris McGrady: Great. Thanks for fitting me in. Bruce, on capital allocation broadly, given the momentum you have in your capital markets business is there a case to be made to be upping capital to these businesses? Any Anywhere you'd like to lean in a little bit more?

Bruce Van Saun: I think it's more of an OpEx question than a capital question. And so we've been adding coverage bankers and key industry verticals and corporate finance specialists And so we'll continue to do that. We've added coverage bankers in the middle market as mentioned in some of the expansion areas building up New York Metro and investing in Florida and California. So a lot of this is people cost. I think we have a good capital allocation to do the business that we focus on and underwriting limits etcetera for a bank our size that are prudent.

I think it would be a mistake potentially to say, well, let's just take more swings and raise that capital limit and do bigger deals. We tend to run into the big boys as we move up market and we also want to stay prudent in terms of the risk we're willing to take and making sure that we stay granular. So I'd say probably no in terms of additional capital We could continue to see some loan growth in terms of the sponsors that we cover we might broaden that universe a little bit so that might be one place that we earmark a little bit of capital.

But mostly right now it's about OpEx and making sure we have really great people lined up with where we see the best opportunities.

Don McCree: Yeah. I think that's right. And I think where you'll see us over index is probably building depth and industry specialization, as Bruce said, in of our corporate finance teams. I think we've got plenty of talent on our core underwriting desks and our core capital markets businesses and, we don't feel capital constrained. You know, at all for the business that we're trying to undertake. So we have a good comp complement of M&A. Professionals as well. And so And a lot of that doesn't take capital. Right? So that's pure advisory. If we were adding to that, it would maybe be to complement industry verticals.

If we go out and buy another boutique, it might be a place where we think we're a little short, and we could benefit from some expertise. But I don't see a huge amount taking place there either. Agree.

Chris McGrady: Okay. I appreciate that. And then the follow-up, the comments about charge-offs peaking likely in the first quarter and NPLs last third. If I separate the office discussion, which you which you just handled, anything notable to call out in terms of inflows or inflow reversals over the last couple of quarters to give you confidence in those numbers? Thanks.

John Woods: Yeah. No. The things are things are, are playing out, you know, as expected, you know, very nicely. And so I think the macro stability I think we were a little conservative with the this quarter. You know? So I think we're well positioned for any uncertainties going forward with respect to tariffs or unemployment, which we which we actually raised a touch in the second quarter. But to remain conservative on that, outlook. But when it comes to the back book performance, it's actually know, playing out as expected and, and now we expect charge-offs to be down slightly as we mentioned. So, yeah, nothing to really call out.

And I and I think part of that is just our risk appetite and where we focus our strategy So in consumer, we're focused more on mass affluent. Affluent is our sweet spot, so we have kind of less exposure to the mass customer who's the first segment to get stretched. And so you don't see any trends in our delinquencies or anything concerning at all. And then again, on the corporate side, we've moved up market a little bit and we've grown kind of the upper end of middle market and mid corporate and those tend to be a bit stronger credits as well.

And so we don't really see any hotspots across And where we do have risk exposures like leveraged finance for highly diversified with very small holds. Yep. We just distribute, you know, 90% of those transactions. So our average hold is, like, $12 million. So and the overall that overall book has been declining over the last couple of years. So we have a very kind of well-developed distribution strategy to make sure it doesn't stick to our balance sheet. Yep.

Denise: The next question comes from Scott Siefers with Piper Sandler. Your line is open.

Scott Siefers: Hey, thanks guys. I think most of my questions have been answered. I did want to ask Bruce or Brendan how does the private bank build out look after we get past this year or you hit the $12 billion deposit, $7 billion loan and $11 billion assets under management. Target. You know, will we kind of be you've talked about the white space, so presumably, there's much more to do. But is there a point where we get to toward more of a critical mass where profitability kinda begins to fly well upon itself, or will we continue to add more teams at similar pace to the last year or so?

Bruce Van Saun: Yeah. Let me start, and, Brandon, you can offer some color. But you know, I think it was really important when we when we initiated this startup that we put some markers out there, and we stayed disciplined, and we demonstrated that we could grow this business in a prudent fashion in a sustainable fashion profitably and that we would generate good returns. And so, we've felt that discipline, we've made and it partly it also makes sense because there's a lot to build in support before you really turn the crank. You want to make sure you've got the service levels and the systems of the customer interfaces at the right level.

So that all came together saying that we're gonna grow gradually through 2025 Once we hit those markers, which we expect to do, then where do you go from there? And I think continuing to add more private banking teams in attractive locations is part of the equation. Opening more private bank offices that are kind of attractive ground level facilities. We just opened one this week in New York City. You can go in for a cookie in fifty second and on the corner of 50 Second And Sixth. It's an awesome showcase for the private bank.

So we'll be doing more of that We're ramping up the wealth teams, so we can have kind of better solution set for folks both banking needs and their wealth needs as well. And so I would expect that to continue. But know, if you go out three to five years, this can grow quite a bit from being, you know, five to 6% accretive to the bottom line. It can easily scale up from there, and I think we can do it profitably. So, Brendan?

Brendan Coughlin: Yeah. Only thing I would add is that it's it's incredibly important. To us that we stay true to the financial guardrails we put in place. In terms of having this be you know, the loan growth be driven by first securing high-quality funding, and that will be a governor, on our growth that we won't we won't get out over our skis and that we have this be a financial profile that has return accretion to the franchise versus dilution. So those things are heavy considerations. Having said that, I agree with everything Bruce said. The opportunity is still very big. And as we consider growth, you know, ties a little bit into the reimagining the bank.

If we can self-fund the journey, maybe we'll go a little faster. But, we're gonna stay very true to the value proposition in the guardrail. We believe there's a white space in the integration of banking and wealth. And so we need talent that believes that too and can scale. And we certainly have other markets. That we operate in today in retail and commercial that we're not yet in private banking that are great markets for us to round out our full bank proposition and plant a private banking flag as well as sort of some of the newer like Florida and California that still provide a lot of running room for growth.

So right now we're focused on delivering the year but we definitely see opportunity for sustained growth into the future in '26 and beyond. So we'll give you more color on that actually when we get to the January guide and we talk about 2026. But, you know, I'd I'd like to be leaning forward as early as next year to actually continue to scale it up.

Scott Siefers: Perfect. All right. Thank you.

Denise: Thank you. The next question comes from Ebrahim Poonawala with Bank of America. Your line is open.

Ebrahim Poonawala: Good morning. Appreciate the call has gone on too long. Just a couple of quick follow-ups. One, in terms of outlook for deposit costs, it feels like CDs still have some room to go. Then we saw the checking account rates move up quarter over quarter. So just wondering if we don't get any rate cuts, John, our deposit costs still trending lower through the second half of the year.

John Woods: Yeah. You may have heard from Brendan that we had a nice rotation in the CD book. There was about $8 billion that matured in the second quarter. That we're actually, you know, rotating into much lower cost CDs that are a 120 to a 150 basis points below, where, where the maturity rates are. So the really nice front book, back book there. It steps down a tiny bit in the third quarter. So down a touch, maybe in the neighborhood of $6 billion in maturities, but still a really nice tailwind. For that front book back book and there's still more in the fourth quarter.

So I think we have got we've got nice benefit to be able to have the opportunity on the on the deposit side. I think I think as I mentioned earlier, keeping an eye on our deposit yeah, our cumulative deposit beta where we perform quite well. We're at 54% through the end of the second quarter. That's better than average we feel very good about deposit cost for the rest of the year based on not only interest-bearing costs themselves, but also some opportunities to stabilize and improve the mix.

Ebrahim Poonawala: Got it. And just one quick one for you, Don. We think about the lending outlook, I'm not sure if you addressed this. Any sign any uptick on the sponsor led side, anything about capital call line lending? Are seeing any pickup there? And how much of that's kind of baked in for the back half? Thanks.

Don McCree: Yeah. We've seen we've seen about a 8% increase in capital call utilization in the second quarter. So that drove a little bit of our loan growth in general. And the trending I heard from the team yesterday is they continue to expect further growth and utilization as we get it. We're not we're not adding a lot of new capital call lines, but we're just seeing utilization revert to normal, and we're about six points below our long-term average utilization in our capital call line. So you've seen the deal announcements going on out there, capital call lines get driven by not the deals we're doing, but obviously, the broad activity of the PE complex.

And they're beginning to get more active. So we think we there's some continued upside in utilization on that side of things. Things. Great. I think that's our last question.

Bruce Van Saun: Great. Before I leave, I just want to take the opportunity to thank John Woods for his contribution along our transformation journey. It's been great working with you, John. And, anyway, we wish you well on your next chapter.

John Woods: Thank you, Bruce.

Bruce Van Saun: Okay. And, with that, let me thank everybody for dialing in today. We appreciate your interest and support. Have a great day.

Denise: Thank you. That concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

Where to invest $1,000 right now

When our analyst team has a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, Stock Advisor’s total average return is 1,059%* — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 180% for the S&P 500.

They just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy right now, available when you join Stock Advisor.

See the stocks »

*Stock Advisor returns as of July 14, 2025

This article is a transcript of this conference call produced for The Motley Fool. While we strive for our Foolish Best, there may be errors, omissions, or inaccuracies in this transcript. Parts of this article were created using Large Language Models (LLMs) based on The Motley Fool's insights and investing approach. It has been reviewed by our AI quality control systems. Since LLMs cannot (currently) own stocks, it has no positions in any of the stocks mentioned. As with all our articles, The Motley Fool does not assume any responsibility for your use of this content, and we strongly encourage you to do your own research, including listening to the call yourself and reading the company's SEC filings. Please see our Terms and Conditions for additional details, including our Obligatory Capitalized Disclaimers of Liability.

The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.