Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the First Western Financial First Quarter 2026 Earnings 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 session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear a message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. Now it's my pleasure to hand the conference to Tony Rossi. Please proceed. Thank you, Carmen.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for First Western Financial's first quarter 2026 earnings call. Joining us from First Western's management team are Scott Wiley, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Julie Korkamp, Chief Operating Officer, and David Weber, Chief Financial Officer. We'll use a slide presentation as part of our discussion this morning. If you have not done so already, please visit the events and presentations page of First Western's Investor Relations website to download a copy of the presentation. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that this conference call contains forward-looking statements with respect to the future performance and financial condition of First Western Financial that involve risks and uncertainties. Various factors could cause actual results to be materially different from any future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These factors are discussed in the company's SEC filings, which are available on the company's website. I would also direct you to read the disclaimers in our earnings release and investor presentation. The company disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements made during the call. Additionally, management may refer to non-GAAP measures, which are intended to supplement but not substitute for the most directly comparable GAAP measures. The press release available on the website contains the financial and other quantitative information to be discussed today, as well as the reconciliation of the gap to non-gap And with that, I'd like to turn the call over to Scott.

Thanks, Tony, and good morning, everybody. We executed well in the first quarter and saw positive trends in many areas, including loan and deposit growth, net interest margin expansion, well-managed expenses, higher mortgage banking revenues and improved asset quality. This resulted in another increase in our level of profitability with DPS up 85% quarter over quarter. We continued to maintain a conservative approach to our new loan production with our disciplined underwriting and pricing criteria. As a result the additions we've made to our banking team over the past few years as well as a generally healthy economic conditions in our markets, we had a solid level of loan production, which was diversified across our market, industries, and loan types. As a result of our financial performance and the balance sheet management strategies, we had a further increase in both book value and tangible book value per share. Moving to slide four, we generated net income of $6.2 million, or 63 cents per diluted share, in the first quarter, which was higher than in the prior quarter. This represented our third consecutive quarter where we generated an increase in net income in earnings per share. With our prudent balance sheet management, our tangible book value per share increased 3.3% for the quarter. Now I'll turn the call over to Julie for some additional discussion of our balance sheet and trust investment management trends.

Thank you, Scott. Turning to slide five, we'll look at the trends in our loan portfolio. Our loans held for investment increased $41 million from the end of the prior quarter. We continue to be conservative and highly selective in our new loan production, but with the higher level of productivity we are seeing from the additions to our banking team that we have made over the last several quarters, we are seeing a solid level of new loan production. New loan production was $116 million in the first quarter. That production was diversified across our portfolios and we are also getting deposit relationships with most of these new clients. We continue to be disciplined and are maintaining our pricing criteria. This resulted in the average rate on new production of 6.31% in the quarter. Moving to slide 6, we'll take a closer look at our deposit trends. Our total deposits increased $95 million from the end of the prior quarter with growth in all types of deposits. The increase was driven by both new deposit relationships and inflows from existing deposit accounts. Notably, non-interest-bearing deposits increased 10%, or $35 million, in the quarter. The deposit growth in the quarter brought our loan-to-deposit ratio down from 96.5 in the prior quarter and 96.4 from a year ago to below 95. Now turning to trust and investment management slide, seven, we had a $43 million increase in our assets under management in the first quarter, primarily attributed to lower market values, which were partially offset by the addition of new accounts. Net new accounts and contributions contributed a net increase of $42 million in the quarter. On a year-over-year basis, our assets under management increased by approximately 1%. As David will cover shortly, our trust and investment management fees have increased 5.3% from the second quarter of 2025, as we have restructured that team for growth. Now I'll turn the call over to David for further discussion of our financial results.

Thank you, Julie. Turning to slide 8, we'll look at our gross revenue. Our gross revenue increased 3.4% from the prior quarter due to increases in both net interest income and non-interest income. We'll look at our trends in net interest income and margin. Our net interest income increased 1.5% from the prior quarter due to an increase in our net interest margin. It increased 10 basis points from the prior quarter to 2.81%. This was due to reduction in our cost of funds, which was primarily due to lower rates as a result of the company reducing deposit short-term rate decreases. Interest income increased 19.7% due to an increase in net interest margin and an increase in average income, primarily due to increases in gain on sale of mortgage loans, risk management, and insurance investment management fees, which increased for the third consecutive quarter. The decrease was due to an Oreo and a decrease in increase in salaries and employee benefits due to payroll tax seasonality as a result of the improved hour efficiency ratio improved. We continue to tightly manage expenses while also making investments in the business that we believe will positively impact our... As I indicated earlier, we saw improved trends in the loan portfolio, decreases in non-accrual loans and NPAs. Partially driven by the sale, we had no loan charges. Seven basis points, a release of provision.

Turning to slide 13, I'll wrap up with some comments about our outlook. Based on our first quarter performance and what we're seeing in our markets, our expectations for the year are unchanged from what we provided. We continue to see relatively healthy economic conditions in our markets. We're seeing good opportunities to add both new clients and banking talent due to the ongoing disruption from M&A activity, particularly in the Colorado banking market. We're also seeing a new market present for Scottsdale, Arizona, where we see good opportunities for growth. The loan deposit pipelines remain strong and should continue to result in solid balance sheet growth in 2026 with loan deposit growth at similar levels to what we had in 2025. In addition to the balance sheet growth, we expect to see more positive trends in our net interest margin, our fee income, and more operating leverage resulting from our disciplined expense control. We had net interest margin expansion of 26 basis points in 2025, and while we expect further expansion in 2026, it may not be at the same level as last year. Disciplined in our expense control, we believe that investing in the business will drive future shareholder value, and ongoing disruption from the M&A activity in our markets creates unique opportunities for us to add banking talent. We will take advantage of those opportunities if and when they materialize, as well as opportunities to add new clients. Based on the trends we're seeing in the portfolio and the feedback we're getting from clients, we don't see anything to indicate that we'll experience any meaningful deterioration in asset quality. The positive trends we're seeing are a number of key areas expected to continue, which we believe should result in steady improvement in our financial performance and further value being created for shareholders in 2026. So with that, we're happy to take your questions. So, Carmen, please open up the call.

Thank you so much. And as a reminder, if you do have a question, press star 11 and wait for your name to be announced. To remove yourself, press star 11 again. One moment for our first question. It comes from the line of Brett Rabatine with Stonex Group. Please proceed.

Hey, good morning, everyone, or good afternoon to some. Wanted to start off, obviously great to see the trends this quarter in a number of categories. How many MLOs have you guys added? And then just obviously a stronger start than usual on mortgage. How much production that you guys have this quarter? or I know it was better than usual for a 1Q.

I think we added one new MLO this quarter, and we added another seven folks in front office, you know, banker-type jobs. The MLO additions are, especially if they're, you know, a good fit for us and producers because they have very low fixed costs and their compensation largely comes from very low cost for production. Do either of you have the data for last year handy?

Last year MLO adds? we'll look up that number Brett and and then this mortgage mortgage production totals yeah mortgage had a good strong first quarter we saw gains on mortgage loans go from eight hundred thousand and quarter four to 1.5 million in quarter one so severely strong production good economic conditions I think for that but also the MLO ads we've been doing over the last several quarters have just given us a level of ability to produce mortgages.

Yeah, and lock volume increased a little under $40 million. We were just under $180 million in secondary lock volume for Q1. And then we added in 2025, we added eight MLOs.

Okay, that's helpful, caller.

Just on that point, I would love to tell you that we were expecting a strong first quarter, but actually our experience is first quarter tends to be pretty quiet. And we had been thinking that with the pent-up demand from slow mortgage markets in our geographic region, that eventually we'd see some pent-up demand come out in play and drive some volume. And I think that's what happened in Q1, is a combination of pent-up demand, of course that we had seasonally warm weather in our markets, unseasonally warm weather in Q1, and then definitely the impact of the new MLOs we've added. So those were really nice results to see.

Yeah, Brett, I'll add one more data point. we did not see a material decrease in lock volume in March when rates, you know, materially increased. So, you know, that's what gives us comfort as far as what was driving a mortgage origination volume, that it really wasn't approved rates because in March that obviously didn't happen from a rates perspective and our volume still is.

Okay, that's helpful. You know, and then And you mentioned Scottsdale, New Market, President. Any other markets that you're keen in on trying to grow stronger organically? And then I saw PNC, you know, it had made quite a few layoffs. I'm sure mostly back office. But just wanted to hear if you guys were being able to capitalize on any disruption in Colorado and just maybe an update on what you're seeing from that perspective.

So let's start with Arizona. You know, in Arizona, we were feeling like we needed a leadership team that others would follow and that could really help us build our teams out there. We have two offices, one in Scotts and one in Phoenix, that have been open for years and they've had good growth and they're profitable, but we have a tiny market share in Arizona and we think we have a platform that would be attractive and unique and differentiate that market, but we didn't really have the leaders to put the teams together to make that happen. And so we recruited one of the top folks out of First Republic slash J.P. Morgan and added him nine months ago, something like that. That sounds about right, Julie?

Yeah, October maybe.

And then we hired one of the top folks out of First Bank slash PNC that started maybe a month or two ago. And those two skill sets, those two executives have a very complementary set of skills, and they work really well together so far. I mean, who knows? But it seems like they work really well together, and so we're excited about what they can accomplish. So we're feeling really positive about these hires we've made for Arizona and where that team's going to go. So in terms of your second part of your question about, you know, kind of the market opportunities in other markets, it's everywhere. I mean, it's amazing to see the quality of talent that we're seeing when we open up a position. And I just think it's like a generational opportunity for us. And we've hired several people already. We've got several more in the works that are going to be real value drivers for us, I think. And we've done it all in a fairly well-contained cost environment. You know, we've been spending between $19 and $20 million a quarter for something like 12 quarters now. And it looked higher in the fourth quarter last year. But remember, we wrote down $1.3 million of an Oreo because we had that last Oreo under contract. And we knew the price was going to be down $1.3 million from our book value. So that actually shows up as an operating expense, even though it's not recurring, obviously. More inflating Q4 of last year than they really were on an operating basis. And then your last question about PNC, I mean, I think that, and we've talked about this before on this call, that there is a really unique kind of emotional connection between Coloradans and First Bank that had, you know, long deep roots here that we could talk about if you want. But I just think it's a real challenge for any acquirer from the outside to come in and navigate that. And certainly the news this week that they were laying off 800 people or whatever it was, was big news. And I had phone calls this week from people, you know, just calling to say that they were sad, like that this was a real tragedy for, you know, our economy here and stuff like that. And so, you know, I think that that is just going to continue to create opportunities for us. And we see that. I mean, I personally, I don't want to say I see it every day, but pretty much every day. It's continue to create opportunities, I think. And PNC, I think, is making a big effort to handle a smooth transition and all that. I mean, no knock on PNC, I think, with the task they have as a realtor.

And with all that said, Scott, you know, you've started the year at a stronger pace than last year on loans. You know, in particular, would it be too aggressive to say you guys could be a double-digit grower this year?

Well, if you look at our loans here, if you look at our loans year-over-year I think we grew 11% and our deposits we grew a love 13% here every year so you know I think our guidance we've been giving is kind of high single digits although you know if you take out kind of the you know quarter over quarter puts and takes I feel like we seem to be around 10% ish which would be double digits I guess into your question you I think the fee income, we've really seen that flat for years, and we've made many changes now into that area in particular. We talked about the mortgage one already, but also in the wealth side, we've got some changes that we feel very positive about. We've talked a little bit about it, but we're seeing some green shoots there that are pretty exciting. And so, yeah, I do think that we'll see continued revenue growth this year with really nice operating leverage you know if you look back again can take out some of the bumps here we did 54 cents in EPS and 23 87 cents and 24 dollar 34 in 2025 and you know now our run rate seems to be pretty clearly over two dollars I think that that bodes Appreciate the caller.

Thank you. One moment for our next question. It comes from the line of Woodley with KBW. Please proceed.

Thanks for taking my questions. I wanted to start on the net interest margin. It's been two consecutive quarters of pretty meaningful expansion. I believe you noted you expect the expansion to moderate, but it still feels like the NIM is biased, tired. So any thoughts on how we should think about the trajectory there?

Well, I've been saying for, I don't know, six quarters, eight quarters, something like that, But I believe that we will ultimately get back to a 315, 320 kind of a NIM because that's historically what we've seen in normal markets with normal yield curves and sort of normal economics, normal competitive environment over my 40 years of running my banks. And so I think we'll still get there. The pace is just hard to predict. And I think, you know, for the finance team in particular, you know, they're reluctant to say, well, not knowing anything about what's going to happen in the future and the Fed and the war and whatever, you know, we're going to see 10 basis points improvement a quarter. I mean, I think David would feel comfortable saying we're not going to see that in 2026. But we have seen, as you said in your question, you know, really good, really good improvements. And I think what's driving that, and David, you know, I encourage you to speak to this point, but, you know, our people are doing a really good job of having pricing discipline. And that shows up on the loan side. You know, we saw loan yields in Q1 down slightly when actual rates were down 50 basis points. And I'll tell you, you know, we're seeing, with all these acquisitions, we're seeing the acquirers wanting to prove that they made a good decision. They're out doing really aggressive loan pricing, and we hear about this stuff, and we're like, well, we're not going to compete with that. And yet our people are still producing nice growth with high-quality credits that, you know, produce, again. And then on the deposit side, again, we saw 50 basis point decline in Q4, and we put all that into our deposit pricing, which a lot of banks here didn't. And we didn't see any runoff. We actually saw a nice deposit growth. So, I don't know, David, did I miss anything big there? No, you covered it. You're guiding the 10 basis points a quarter?

Not quite.

I mean, I guess as a follow-up to that normalized 315 to 320 margin, you know, it's not going to happen this year, but what's a realistic timeline to getting the net interest margin back to those levels?

I just think it's hard to predict, you know, Woody. There's so many variables that go into it, and we just talked about four or five of them, you know, in that last answer. or so, I won't repeat that, but I'm hopeful that we're back with a 1% ROA in 2027. Whether we get there for the full year, whether we get there in January, whether we get there in December, I don't know yet. But I do think that we've come a long way since all that excitement of the rapid run-up in short-term rates, the very yield curve, the failure of the big regional banks, all that stuff. we said we were going to play defense, we did. We said we're going to go back on offense, we have. We've got some really historic opportunities in the markets right now that I think we're doing a great job of taking advantage of. You're going to see that play out. I think that's going to drive more operating leverage, more profitability, and some nice outcomes for our shareholders.

You know, Woody, our ability to materially improve NIMM is there's a very large opportunity for us in DDAs. And just our organization is extremely focused on that. There's a lot of different things that we're working on and hires that we're looking to make or have made in that area. So I think that it's to the point we can't really predict it, but there's a lot of effort going into focusing on that non-interest-bearing deposit and then keeping, as we've mentioned, our discipline on loan pricing, which has been something that we're also quite focused on. So I think that those two points are really kind of an organizational focus of ours.

Yeah, no, I really appreciate y'all walking through the moving pieces there. Maybe just last for me, on the trust business, you know, it's great to hear the commentary on new accounts opened and fees were up quarter over quarter. You've made some changes to that business to emphasize more of a growth on business model. So where do we sort of stand in the trajectory of that business?

We brought in a new head of wealth a year ago now. He started on April 1st of last year from Goldman, and he was in a senior wealth role over there. And we, through him, he's leading it, have done a complete overhaul of our planning function here. of our trust function here of our investment management which those three areas also include our insurance area and our retirement services we've replaced the leadership in all those areas and built stronger teams we've built out some new products and services which we've been test marketing and that's all gone better than we had expected And then in addition to those things, new hire, his name is Brandon Summers, he was particularly had an expertise in selling B2B and in wealth services. And that's not something we've done before and was a big part of why we wanted him and recruited him to join us. And so we've also launched a B2B offering, which is similar to what you see at the big Fortune 500 companies where the company will hire a specialist firm like Goldman Sachs, for example, to provide wealth consulting services to their executives as a benefit to them. obviously we don't have a lot of fortune 500 companies in our market here and we don't really want to compete against that business but for our target clients which are lots of entrepreneurial and some good-sized businesses you know they don't have a product offering like that and so we've created a trademarked offering called work well and we're out selling that and and we have a person dedicated to marketing that and we think that that's going to be really impactful in the future. Of course there are really nice synergies between that and selling corporate banking services and back to Julie's treasury management the DDA's right this is all has really nice synergies to what we're doing anyway and so I guess would be a little summary of what we're doing on the on the whole wealth management side that's, I think, really exciting and starting to show results, as you said, but really just green shoots at this point. We're going to see a lot more impact to that, I think, in the next couple of years.

Well, it's great to hear the momentum there. I appreciate you all taking my questions. Thank you, Woody.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Matthew Clark with Piper Sandler. Please proceed.

Hey, good morning. Thanks for the questions. I wanted to touch on interest-bearing deposit costs and maybe the spot rate at the end of March, if we could have it, and then how you're thinking about, you know, additional relief from here with the Fed on hold.

That sounds like a question for David to be.

Thank you. Matt, the spot rate on deposits was 279 for the end of the quarter. You know, we have a lot of opportunity, funding cost perspective, and even with the Fed on pause, you know, we feel with there and the things accomplishing that we have opportunity to grow that portfolio.

Okay. And along those lines, your non-interest-sparing deposits tend to decline in the second quarter. Should we still expect that to be the case, or is it different this time?

I wouldn't say anything different at the moment. We typically see deposit outflows, as you mentioned, related to tax payments in the second quarter. So I don't know that there's anything that we know today that would make that difference. I think that's what we're thinking about.

Okay, and then the FHLB borrowings that you have, can you just remind us if those are overnight or if there's some term to them, and is there a plan to use excess cash to pay those off?

Yeah, the FHLB borrowing, it was an overnight that was swapped, and that actually that swap matured in early April we you know depending on how our our liquidity evolves going forward we'll see if it if it makes sense to pay that off and keep it at zero or if we need to replace that we'll just have to okay see so it's zero as of in April here is that what you're saying all right say that again it's a zero balance in April as of now okay sounds good and then in terms of the

near-term name you know I know there's a little bit of relief on the deposit side but assuming you lose some non-interest bearing seasonally you got the benefit of the FHLB going away it does seem like maybe the margin is you know flattish in the near term to you know flat to down slightly I haven't have to retest the numbers but that's kind of where I am I think we still have we still have opportunities to continue to see NIM expansion in in the remaining quarters and in 2026 to Scott's point earlier I don't think it's going to be ten basis

points a quarter but I do feel that we will continue to have opportunity okay Okay, great.

And just last minor one, you bought back a little bit of stock. It's not a big amount, but just curious what price you paid.

Yeah, it was $85.

Perfect. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Build the Salon with Titan Capital Management.

Thank you. A couple of questions. First of all, the deposits grew at roughly two times the rate of loan growth in the first quarter. Would you step back and just walk us through the general dynamic behind that, if that is a normal seasonal phenomenon, or if there is something specific to your activities that led to that ratio?

Well, I think now, again, I'm not really sure whether it's 8 or 12 or whatever, but we have put a much more significant focus on deposit growth. And our feeling is to get to be the bank that we want to be at $5 billion or $10 billion, we need to have as strong of a deposit story as we do on the loan and the P-10 side. So it's definitely been a focus for us now for several quarters. Bill, you know, we don't really do loans here that don't come with a primary banking relationship. We literally write that into our loan documents here now. And so it's part of the expectation that we have with any conversation we have with any prospective client. It's part of the conversation we have with existing clients. We report on it internally, you know, what loans we have that don't have deposits associated or have smaller ones. It's a very routine part of the conversation here, just being good bankers and driving relationship-oriented clients. So I think the fact that in one quarter we saw a little bit more deposit growth and loan growth, I wouldn't read too much into that. You know, we saw something like that in third quarter last year, you'll recall, and I think, you know, some of the feedback we got was, you know, you should try and manage that so it's more consistent, and there's no way of doing that. It just kind of happens when it happens. I think the more relevant number for me is the fact that we grew deposits spent more than we grew loans over the last 12 months. I think that's relevant and helpful data point. And if we see some decline in deposits in Q2, which is likely, I wouldn't read anything into that either. That's just part of who our clients are and the fact that they pay taxes in Q2, that money market accounts.

That's helpful, Scott. Let me take it one step further, though. Over time, where would you anticipate that the loan-to-deposit ratio would end up? You said sub-95 now, and if you keep up the trend that's been in place for several quarters, you'll be at sub-85 and then sub-75, and next thing you know, we're sub-50, and I suspect that's not where you're headed. I'm being a bit facetious, of course, but what's your long-term thought?

That is true. That is not where we're headed. You know, what we have found, and again, I've been doing this a long time, Bill, and so I never really know where the next billion dollars of deposits are going to come from, but our clients do have a lot of liquidity, and we find that we're always able to produce deposits when we want them, and, you know, it doesn't mean you don't have to focus on it. doesn't mean you don't have to do the things that Julie was just talking about in terms of focusing on deposit strategies and strengthening our treasury management team, improving our technology, stuff like that. But at the end of the day, we've historically operated First Western and my prior banks with loan to deposit ratios in the 90s. And I think when it gets into the high 90s, we get more uncomfortable. When it's in the low 90s, we think that's fine, but we're not going to pay up for higher-cost deposits, and I think that that all has fueled nice growth for us over the years and continue to do that and provide the operating leverage we need to drive earnings that can support the growth that we want to do.

Now, that's a really nice perspective. Thank you for that. And lastly, with the geopolitical events, specifically the Iran war, what, if any, impact have you seen from from your customers behavior on either the loan or deposit side or the pipeline of activity yeah you know I actually was thinking about that before this call bill and and over time what I have found is when our clients get nervous they kind of stop doing things and they just say you know I can wait and we haven't seen that yet in this case and I'm not sure why that

is I think you know maybe Middle East seems like a long way away from the Rocky Mountain region I'm not sure why we're not seeing it and you'll knock on what it hasn't had any negative impact on us so far but we really haven't seen any any impact and I'm not hearing about it in my conversations with clients or prospects or folks in the field at this point. That could change. I don't know. But right now, I would say our days are much more consumed by all this market disruption that we're seeing from them and activity than it is, you know, kind of that global economic stuff.

Again, that's very helpful. Thanks for taking the question.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Ross Haberman with RLH Investments.

Morning. Morning. I'm sorry, Scott. Scott, I got on a bit late, so if you address these questions, I do apologize. Could you talk about loan growth and what your expectation is for 26 in terms of net loan growth, and what offices do you think it's going to originate, or what are you seeing better demand from? Is it Arizona, Colorado, or elsewhere? Thank you.

Yeah. So, great question. We didn't really talk specifically about that. I did mention that we're seeing loan growth across the platform in terms of geography and industry type, and so I think that we're not seeing weakness one place or another. We're also not stretching anywhere. I would tell you that our owner-occupied CRE number was getting a little higher than we felt comfortable, and we have pulled that down. I don't have that number handy. Is it from 260-something, 360 down to like 325 now? Yeah, in that range, yeah. and so that's a change that we're driving we're actually seeing probably more owner-occupied CRE demand than ever but we're being very selective there you know the guidance we've given for bouncy growth is high single digits but I did say early in the call that you know we're up 11% year-over-year in loans We're up 13% year-over-year in deposits, so I don't think we're ready to jump out and say, you know, we're going to see mid-team growth this year, but it does seem like, you know, 10% would be a reasonable we are today.

Is a lot of that coming from the Arizona branch or Montana?

Beginning of the question? Our loans?

I said it's a good amount of the growth of the loans coming from Arizona and or Montana.

I would say in the backward-looking data, no, neither one. But I would also tell you that we're seeing some nice opportunities in both markets, and I think that you're going to see nice growth out of both those markets in the next 12 to 24 months. We've got really good people there, and they're working hard. We do live the market disruption in Colorado more than elsewhere, but it's everywhere. We're seeing it in Wyoming. We're seeing it in Arizona. We think there are lots of opportunities for us in Montana, too. The numbers are just bigger in Colorado and more immediate for us because we're in Denver, but we're seeing opportunities everywhere. And you know, Ross, very well about our theory about market share. I mean, we just have tiny market share, and I think by just showing up and doing a good job of what we do differently than everybody else, which is we're local, we're trusted, and we're expert, those three things play really well in the market today.

Are you seeing a number of other banks I'm talking to are really beginning to see some pressure on the deposit side, particularly from some of the bigger banks in different markets. Are you seeing pressure to raise deposits rates on the deposit side, and is it coming from the bigger banks in your markets today?

You know, I would take a stab at that question, David, and then maybe I'd be really interested in your answer too because it seems like less to me, but you answered from what you're seeing. My answer, Ross, would be of the conversations I'm having, people are calling, or I'm calling them, and they're saying, I don't want to be with a big national bank, I want to be with a local bank, and they don't even say the word rate. They say, when can I move? And we've actually created here a conversion concierge, the internal people call it, I call it the SWAT team, the switch SWAT team, actually. And when we tell people that we have a switch swap team that will come out and help them transfer their accounts here and simplify the whole conversion process, they love it. And again, I literally don't hear the question, well, what rate are you going to give me? And so, again, I think we have a really extraordinary window of opportunity here, and we're doing everything we can to jump through it. But that would be my answer. David, what are you seeing in terms of the day-to-day stuff?

Yeah, my simple answer would be, is the pricing market for deposits still highly competitive? Putting a bunch of calls from our bankers saying we need to raise deposit rates. I think those are the dynamics that we're seeing in our markets.

And just one final question, if I may. Have you announced any new plans for new branches in any of your markets or if you found something small to buy as a fit in or would you consider buying that today or any growth you really want it to be organic?

Well, we're very focused on organic growth without a doubt. We haven't talked about it because we don't have anything to talk about yet, but as part of the whole market disruption thing, we're seeing really good people that are available that we're trying to bring here, and some of those are, well, most of them so far, all of them, have been in our existing, there are some that are in adjacent footprints that would be very attractive to us, and hopefully we'll have something to talk about later this year. there. That would be a big plus as far as I'm concerned. If we could bring a couple of well-established teams that want our toolbox to be able to go out and sell it, that would be fantastic.

Thanks again for all your help. The best of luck. Have a good weekend. Thank you. Thanks, Ross.

Thank you. And as I see no further questions in the queue, I will conclude the session and turn it back to management for closing remarks.

Well, thank you, and appreciate everybody dialing in on the call today. You know, we talked about some of the noise in Q1 that was built off of the noise in Q2, but clearly you're seeing really nice transient operating leverage that's translating into great EPS results. And again, if you kind of back up and look at that year over year, we've seen a nice multi-year trend. Our NIMS is continuing to improve. Organic growth is continuing across the platform. Our asset quality continues to be very strong and we don't see anything today that would change that and I think that that's a very encouraging referendum on the credit quality that we pursue here. Our efficiency ratio has really trended down nicely from 79% a year ago to 73% and that's not going to stop I don't think. You know our goal here is to get our ROA back over 1% with our capital efficiency is going to drive a nice ROE in the low teens and really I think get First Western back towards a financial performance where we should be. So with that, thanks everybody for dialing in. We really appreciate the support and your interest in First Western. Have a great weekend.

And this concludes our conference. Thank you for participating and you may now disconnect.