Regions Financial Corp (RF) Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Good morning, and welcome to the Regions Financial Corporation's Quarterly Earnings Call. My name is Chris, and I'll be your operator for today's call. I would like to remind everyone that all participant phone lines have been placed on listen only. At the end of the call, there will be a question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your lines in the question queue. I will now turn the call over to Tom Spear to begin.

Thank you, Chris. Welcome to Region's second quarter 2026 earnings call. John and Anil will provide high-level commentary regarding our results. We ask that you review the cautionary statements included in our earnings documents, which are available in the investor relations section of our website. These materials contain information regarding the use of non-GAAP measures and reconciliations to the GAAP results, as well as forward-looking statements about Region's performance.

These statements speak only as of today, and we undertake no obligation to update them i will now turn the call over to john thank you tom and good morning everyone we appreciate you joining our call today earlier this morning we reported earnings of 549 million resulting in earnings per share of 64 cents on an adjusted basis earnings were 583 million dollars or 68 cents per share we delivered adjusted pre-tax pre-provision income of 831 million dollars and generated an adjusted return on tangible common equity of 20 percent overall we're pleased with our performance for the second quarter reflecting discipline execution across the franchise and the benefits of investments we've made to position the company to deliver sound and profitable growth as we look across our footprint we remain encouraged by the overall operating environment economic activity solid and despite ongoing uncertainty businesses are generally well positioned and we continue to see steady levels of investment and job growth across our markets on the consumer side spending trends remain healthy and customers maintain solid account balances and liquidity buffers relative to their spending levels with overall financial conditions remaining stable. This is supporting continued momentum in our core businesses. Loan growth is strengthened, driven by new originations and expansion within existing client relationships as pipelines continue to build. Average deposits grew modestly, including over 1% growth in non-interest-bearing deposits, supported by household and operating account growth. While activity in capital markets and residential mortgage has been and impacted by the higher interest rate environment, we continue to see solid performance across our other free businesses, including another record quarter in wealth management income. Credit performance has continued to improve with lower net charge-offs in the quarter and reductions across business criticized and non-performing loan categories, reflecting further progress resolving previously identified portfolios of interest. Based on these trends, we believe credit has largely normalized and we remain committed to our disciplined approach to credit risk management. Turning to our strategic priorities, we've made meaningful progress this quarter advancing our key initiatives that are central to our long-term strategy. We're proud to once again be recognized by J.D. Power as the number one regional bank in online banking satisfaction, along with a significant improvement in our mobile app ranking to number two. These results reflect the work we've done to enhance the client experience, deliver more intuitive digital capabilities, and make banking easier for our customers. We also reached an important milestone in our core modernization efforts with a successful implementation of our new commercial lending platform. This represents a significant step forward in enhancing our technology infrastructure, improving speed to market, and elevating the experience we deliver to our clients and bankers. We're also making good progress on our core deposit transformation, with testing underway and a pilot expected later this year, keeping us on track for full conversion in 2027. In addition, we're seeing solid results from our strategic investments across each line of business. Within our consumer bank, re-skilled small business bankers have helped generate a 7% increase in year-to-date small business checking account production versus 2024 levels, while small business balances contribute to just over 30% of the company's quarter-over-quarter growth in average non-interest-sparing deposits. in commercial banking over the past 18 months we've added more than 60 bankers helping drive an almost 40 increase in new commercial logos through the first half of 2026. within wealth management we have also seen strong momentum with advisors hired over the past three years growing client assets by almost six billion dollars finally subsequent quarter in we announced the acquisition of the Fraser Wiener Company, a full-service investment banking firm with strong capabilities and municipal securities. We believe this transaction expands our capital markets platform, enhances our municipal finance expertise, and allows us to broaden the solutions we provide to the public sector and institutional clients. Consistent with our strategy, this is a targeted investment that builds on areas where we've demonstrated strength and positions us to continue growing our capital markets business over time we feel good about our performance for the quarter and believe we're well positioned to continue executing our strategic plan and deliver consistent sustainable long-term performance with that i'll turn it over to anil to provide more detail on the quarter thank you john let's start with the balance sheet Average loans increased approximately 2% during the quarter, while ending loans grew 1%.

Growth was driven by broad-based commercial and industrial lending categories, including power and utilities, manufacturing, government and public sector, investor real estate, led by multifamily. This performance was supported by strong production and increased bridge financing for maturing credits. Results reflected both new client acquisition and expanded relationships with existing customers. Importantly, this growth remained very high quality. While utilization rates continued to improve during the quarter, the majority of growth was driven by new loan production and increased commitment. As John noted earlier, we continue to be encouraged by the overall operating environment across our footprint. Lending activity continues at a healthy pace, and loan pipelines remain strong, up roughly 15% from a year ago, and remains diversified across industries, markets, and client segments. consumer loan balances remained relatively stable as new production approximated paydowns primarily in residential mortgage and home improvement financing we continue to expect full-year average loan growth to be up low single digits versus balances increased modestly while ending balances declined approximately one percent reflecting normal seasonal patterns associated with tax refunds and payments continued their strong performance at healthy underlying consumer spending trends. Our non-interest-faring deposit mix remained in the low 30% range, consistent with our target, and reflective of the operational nature of our deposits. We need to experience a shift as deposits from CDs into money market accounts across both consumer and wealth management segments, driven by our intentional product management strategy, deposit franchise, and focus on customer acquisition and retention. As a result, we continue to expect 2026 average deposits to be up low single digits first net interest interest income increased two percent length quarter driven by multiple factors as in prior quarters favorable repricing dynamics and disciplined deposit cost management continued to provide a strong foundation for growth with loan balance expansion further contributing to second quarter momentum the net interest margin of three point six six percent continued to evidence our profitability and deposit funding advantage Second quarter, interest-bearing deposit costs fell three basis points to 1.69%. We anticipate a largely stable deposit cost over the second half of the year, assuming a constant Fed funds rate. As expected, over the entire falling rate cycle, the interest-bearing deposit moves rates, resulting in a neutral interest rate risk position. Levels of unsecured borrowings will continue to provide future funding flexibility, as evidenced this quarter, while helping insulate deposits from potential repricing risk in a higher-rate environment. Net interest income also benefit long-term rates supporting pricing on new-term loans and securities, along with the securities repositioning transaction executed earlier in the quarter. At current rate levels, we would expect balance sheet repricing to support margin expansion. Net interest income is expected to increase approximately 2%, progressing toward the middle of our 2.5% to 4% full-year outlook. And based on our current expectations for loan growth, we expect our net interest margin to exit the year at approximately 3.7%. The interest rate environment is highly uncertain with multiple competing forces influencing current and expected levels. Our balance sheet is positioned well for the environment, indifferent to short-term rate movements with the ability to benefit from elevated long-term rates. Hedging activity in the quarter was largely focused on extending interest rate protection. Now let's turn to fee revenue performance for the quarter. Adjusted non-interest income increased 7% on a linked quarter basis as growth in several core fee categories was partially offset by lower bank-owned life insurance and commercial credit fees. Wealth management income increased 6% and delivered another record quarter, driven by higher production and favorable market conditions. This business continues to be a consistent contributor to the card and ATM fees increased 8%, driven primarily by seasonally higher transaction volumes. market value adjustments on employee benefit assets increased 29 million dollars during the quarter as a reminder these market value adjustments are largely offset within salaries and benefits expense markets income excluding cva increased modestly compared to the prior quarter as improvements in loan syndications m&a advisory fees and real estate capital markets were offset by lower commercial as john mentioned earlier higher long-term interest rates have impacted overall capital markets income. However, we continue to expect quarterly revenue to increase within our $90 to $105 million range, trending towards the lower end of the range in the third quarter and moving higher thereafter. For full year 2026, we continue to expect adjusted non-interest income to grow between 3% and 5% versus 2025. Based on our performance through the first half of the year, we currently expect results to trend toward the lower end of that range. Let's move on to non-interest expense. Adjusted non-interest expense increased 4% compared to the prior quarter, driven primarily by higher salaries and benefits. Salaries and benefits increased 6%, attributable primarily to higher revenue-based incentives, the impact of a full quarter of merit, and expenses offsetting the positive employee benefit asset value. We continue to invest in the franchise to support long-term growth. We remain focused on maintaining a disciplined approach to expansion. In the full year 2026, we continue to expect adjusted non-interest expense to be up between 1.5% and 3.5%. We deliver full year adjusted positive. Annualized net charge-offs as a percentage of average loans declined 12 basis points. The results during the quarter continue to reflect progress on previously identified portfolios of interest that have been reserved for in prior. This is criticized and non-performing loans. The services criticized ratio declining 14 basis points, declining 4 basis points, $34 million during the equity tier one ratio of 10.7% while executing $59 million in share repurchases and paying $226 million in common dividends during the board of directors approved an increase in our quarterly common stock dividend to 30 cents per share representing a 13% increase from the prior quarter and continuing our strong track record of returning capital to share 10 years with 18% compound annual growth rate for our 2026 outstanding performance being the strength of our core earnings per pre provision revenue stress horizon previously communicated by the Federal Reserve our stress capital buffer will remain at the regulatory floor of 2.5 percent overall these results reinforce the resilience of our earnings profile balance sheet and capital position under severely likewise liquidity remains stable and robust with total liquidity sources well above required levels and ample capacity to support future loan growth. Including the impact of AOCI, our CET1 ratio is estimated at approximately 9.5 percent, which remains within our targeted operating range of 9.25 to 9.75 percent. Our capital priorities remain unchanged, and we expect to continue managing capital within this range, providing flexibility to support growth, navigate evolving regulatory requirements, and return capital to shareholders. We're pleased with our performance this quarter, and believe we are well-positioned to continue to deliver strong results. But that will open the line for your questions.

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. Please hold while we compile the Q&A roster. Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of Ken Musden with Autonomous Research. Please proceed with your question.

Good morning, Ken. Good morning. This is Moksha jumping in for Ken. Could you talk about the operating leverage expectations for this year, just given the first half fee trends are tracking towards the lower end of the guide?

Sure. I'd be glad to. So just to remind everyone of our guides, so for non-interest income, we expect to grow that at 2.5% to 4%. Non-interest revenue, 3% to 5%, and we're pointing to the low end of the range. And then for non-interest expense, 1.5% to 3.5%. So if you put all that together, that will generate for you positive operating leverage. When you think about the math in terms of where we are mid-year versus where we expect to perform in the second half of the year, I would look at the year-over-year comparables. There are some kind of relatively unfavorable comparables, if you will, just from pure math standpoint, in the first half of the year. But we're confident as we look in the second half of the year, particularly when it comes to revenue and our expectations for where we expect to grow revenue, that we'll be able to deliver positive operating leverage as we continue to focus on good expense management, as we believe we have for the first half of the year.

Okay, great. Thanks for that. and in terms of loan growth what are you seeing out there just talk us through the dynamics in terms of demand from clients and also just talk through the loan spread commentary or trends that you've been seeing just maybe I'll comment broadly about the environment it's constructive very good we feel like businesses are well positioned and there is broad-based demand across industry sectors and across the geographies we bank.

We're seeing continued growth in pipelines, and, again, that is generally across the business. About 100 basis point increase in line utilization over the quarter, which, again, reflects, I think, ongoing investment. There's good job growth. Consumers feel confident as well. their deposit balances have remained consistent with historic levels spending is up so i'd say generally we feel good about the prospects for continued loan growth and our ability to meet our targets for the year you want to comment on spread sure glad to and just uh you know for the quarter our loan yields uh we're down one basis point that's an improvement over what we saw in the first quarter so if we really break it into two buckets um about half of our loan growth this this quarter was in investment-grade credits.

So as you'd expect, those have tighter spreads affecting the better credit quality of those credits. The other half was in a good middle market lending where we're getting good returns on the spreads we're seeing in that business. I'd say broadly speaking, you know, the market is competitive, but our competition's remaining rational. We're staying disciplined to good returns on what we're putting on our balance sheet. But we did talk a bit about tightening credit spreads last quarter. We saw that this quarter to a lesser degree, and you see that in our loan yields being relatively flat quarter over quarter.

Great. Thanks, guys.

Our next question comes from the line of Ryan Nash with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed with your question.

Hey, Ryan. Hey, good morning, guys. You know, Anil, you noted that fixed rate asset repricing should support the margin over multiple years. I know the bank historically talked about a 360 to 390 NIM over time.

I guess based on the current environment, you know, where do you see the margin going over the medium term and and what are the key drivers of that in this rate environment thank you and I'm a follow-up sure yeah so we exited the quarter with a 366 margin down a basis point when we look out to the third quarter we expect to be flat to slightly up and so the key drivers there is we'll have as you mentioned fixed asset turnover again so just remind everyone we have about three billion dollars we expect to receive 75 to 100 basis points of a pickup in that repricing. We also have a hedge rate increase of about seven basis points. You can see that on slide 16 of our presentations. That'll benefit the margin. Then we have one additional day in the quarter, which will impact the margin in the third quarter. And from there, we expect to continue to grow into the fourth quarter. We'll see another bit of fixed rate turnover in the fourth quarter. And just a reminder, we also have a dividend on our HR assets that will occur in the fourth quarter as well. That'll get us to the 370, approximately 370 that we guided to. The pace of long growth will be a dependent in terms of where we ultimately exit the quarter, but we're confident in getting to that 370 level as we exit the year.

Gotcha. And I guess maybe as a follow-up, Benil, so the buyback slowed a bit this quarter. I know that you were in the lower part of the range. You may have used this quarter to catch up a little bit and you also had the restructuring. But as you look forward, based on John's comments before regarding loan growth, what are your expectations for buyback from here? Can we see it move back to the higher levels where you have been operating at? Thank you.

Yeah, you alluded to it. So we exited last quarter with a common equity tier one inclusive of ASCI of 9.4 percent. That increased about 10 10 basis points that's called 125 million dollars of share repurchases just there so each quarter will generate between 45 to 50 basis points of capital uh dividend will be it was 18 basis points this quarter based upon our new board approved dividend that'll tick up a bit to 20 basis points uh to your point we'll always focus on growing good quality loans we saw nice growth this quarter um and we expect to see that into the future but given where we are at 9.5 percent in terms of the Basel III common equity-to-one ratio. We would expect share buybacks in the third quarter to pick up a bit, given we're kind of at the midpoint of our range.

Got it, thank you.

Our next question comes from the line of John Pancari with Evercore ISI. Please proceed with your question.

Morning, John. Morning, morning. On the, I appreciate the color on the loan spreads, on the deposit pricing side, maybe if you could just give us an update on what you're seeing there. we're hearing quite a bit about, you know, the competitive environment, particularly in the southeast, and particularly, you know, coming from banks expanding more actively in the southeast. So I want to get what you're seeing there on the ground in terms of pricing pressure.

Sure. I'd remind you that this competitive pressure has existed for, you know, 12 to 18 months. So what we're seeing today is much of what we've seen historically. We're very proud of how we've defended our deposit base and our deposit costs. As expected, our interest-bearing deposit costs declined three basis points to 1.69%. We had the benefit of about $5 billion of CD maturities this quarter. In the second quarter, we were able to pick up about 30 basis points on those. Going forward, based upon our performance, we expect deposit costs to stay approximately where they are now. We do have continuing CD maturities, but where we're putting those back on is about an equivalent rate. But this is a place where we're really proud of our overall performance. You know, this is not something that we just accidentally have. This is a phenomenal asset that we have, which is our deposit base. We spend a lot of time making sure that we're making the right investments in terms of having the right products and services for our customers, having great branch locations for them to come into, having great bankers to deliver those products and services. And importantly, we spend a lot of time investing in great data and analytics to really make sure we understand the nature of our deposit base, how we expect them to perform. That gives us confidence both to take risk management strategies around that, but also to be confident in our guidance to you all in terms of how we expect deposit costs to perform over time. And so this is something that we have a great deal of confidence in, and it's something as we look forward, we're confident that we'll be able to deliver the deposit costs that we've guided you all towards because of the investments we've made and how well we understand the nature of our deposit base.

Great. Okay, thanks for that, Neil. And then separately, just on the credit backdrop, I wanted to see if you're seeing any signs of incremental stress. I know in the past few quarters you've been working through some of the portfolios of interest, and you took a few bumps on charge-offs as you worked some things out, but you saw good improvement in your losses this quarter. So any newer development, any update there or incremental work out that you're working on at this point?

Yeah. John, thanks for the question. Obviously, credit has continued to improve, and we would say normalized, as we've seen non-performing loans continue to come down, level criticized loans coming down. The business office portfolio is down 35% year-over-year, trucking down 25% year-over-year, and communications, an area where we've had some challenges down 50% year over year. That's about $1.3 billion in outstandings in those three portfolios of interest that have exited the bank, and that certainly has helped as we think about credit quality, and those portfolios are continuing to improve. We are seeing a little softness in a multifamily in a couple of markets we're following, but nothing to be particularly concerned of. And I'd say otherwise, we feel really good about credit and the positioning of our portfolio and expect it to perform in a normal sort of way as the next few quarters develop.

And just related to that, if I could ask one more, on the reserve front, you released about six basis points on the reserve ratio this quarter. How should we think about the outlook from here?

Yeah, I think, you know, we've been talking about getting back to an equivalent CECL day one, which today is basically it's 162, so pretty much where we're at now. As you look forward, there's a couple of things that we'll keep our eye on. There is still some uncertainty in the market right now, and so you'd expect we are keeping some reserves back just for that. We'll continue to monitor credit performance. We had a great quarter this year. We're expecting that to continue into the future. We talked a lot about the originations that we're putting on our balance sheet, about half of them being investment grade, and so we'll continue to track that. But right now, we think the 163 coverage ratio that we have right now is indicative of where we'd expect to be absent new information over the next several quarters. And we'll continue to monitor both the macroeconomic uncertainties that are still out there and also our overall credit trends as we go through time.

Great. Thanks so much.

Our next question comes from the line of Manan Gosalia with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed with your question.

Good morning.

Hey, good morning. So it looks like you saw some nice consumer deposit growth in the quarter. Corporate deposits were down slightly. Is that just seasonality or are you seeing some element of corporates investing in their own business, spending more of their own cash, which is when I look at the loan side as well, right? like the utilization rate is up quite nicely a little bit of both let's say predominantly seasonality but we are seeing customers use some of their excess cash balances and and similarly to your point we're also seeing customers use their lines of credit a little more than they have been with line utilization up 100 basis points which is positive so it's a trend you expect to continue?

Say it again.

If that's a trend you expect will continue through this year?

Yes, it is.

Got it. Okay. And then if I look at slide six and I look at the range around the NII assumptions, on the lower end, am I reading it right? Like if all of this happens, the if it goes below 4% as the spread size, lower end deposit balances, decline, et cetera, you would still get to that low end of the NII guide?

Yes, you're reading that correctly.

All right, perfect, thank you. Thank you.

Our next question comes from the line of Dave Rochester with Cantor Fitzgerald. Please proceed with your question. Mr. Rochester, your line is live.

Can you hear me, Kat? Great. Just back on loan growth, it looks like even if average loans are flat in 3-2 and 4-2 on a quarter-to-quarter basis, that you land near the middle of that average loan growth guide range for the low single digits. So if we can just talk about maybe your outlook for the back half of the year, with pipelines stronger now, are you thinking that that back half could actually exceed growth in the first half? How are you thinking about that?

We had really good long growth in the first quarter, good growth in the second quarter as well, but really started off strong, as we talked about before. Some of that were draws that we saw late in the quarter. So we'd be cautious to extend too much of that into the second half of the year. I think what we delivered this quarter we feel good about in terms of closer to being a run rate. But I wouldn't just extrapolate out what we've seen the first half as potentially occurring in the second half, given we did see some higher draws in the first quarter that may not occur as we go into the second half of the year.

Okay. And then just given the reduction in the more problematic portfolios that you just talked about earlier, despite the softness that you mentioned in multifamily, as you look ahead beyond some maybe incremental improvement you could see in the back half of this year, are you thinking that maybe that net charge off range could step down to something that's more of a sub-40 basis points level, assuming the economy remains resilient now we're we're continuing to debate and talk about that just based upon the composition of our portfolio which has changed a little over the last uh 12 to 24 months or so today we're still guiding the 40 to 50 basis points and as we begin thinking about

2027 we'll contemplate whether or not that range changes looking forward i think we have to take a look at across all the portfolios and look at where more normalized charge-offs could be. We continue to benefit on the consumer side for, you know, near recoveries on the real estate side. So, you know, being thoughtful in terms of how long does that continue into the future will also impact how we think about our guidance going forward.

Sounds good. Any steps you're taking on the multi-family front?

No, just continuing to watch that. And I'd say there's just a couple of discrete markets where we see absorption rates being a little slower than we might have expected and or rising interest rates potentially impacting the refinanceability of some of those projects so into the permanent market so just just watching that nothing to be particularly concerned about today okay great thanks guys thank you our next question comes from the line of Erica Najarian with UBS please Please receive your question.

Hi. Good morning. Just wanted to double click on sort of the funding strategy from here. You know, if lending growth continues at a pretty solid pace for the rest of the year, Anil, take us through the tradeoff in terms of, you know, how you're thinking about maybe be using some, you know, short-term borrowings, FHLB advances as funding versus, you know, you mentioned that deposit costs, you'd like for it to stay where they are now. So take us through sort of the thought process in terms of, you know, defending your core deposit, you know, cost base versus, you know, looking at other avenues to fund loan growth if we don't see deposit growth materializing the second half of the year.

Sure. So first and foremost, over the long term, it is our strategy to ensure that loans and deposits grow at a similar rate. To your point, at any one given period of time, you could see that loans grow faster than deposits. The key for us is to continue to make sure we're investing in the right products and services and bankers to grow our operating accounts for small business and core consumer checking accounts. We saw nice growth this quarter in that. You saw non-interest-bearing account balances for us grow about $500 million on average, and so we'll continue to make those investments to make sure we have that pace of growth continuing to the future. That's the key to our profitability advantage, and we'll continue to do that. Now, to your point, you'll have periods of time where you may have opportunities to grow loans faster than deposits, so yes, we will utilize FHLB advances to fill that gap in a short-term basis. We'll do what you saw us through this quarter was issued a billion and a half dollars of unsecured debt. Very, very good pricing, Treasuries plus 68. So we'll do that from time to time as well when we have opportunities to fill gaps. That'll be our strategy going forward, but make no mistake, our long-term strategy is still to make sure we're growing deposits commensurate with loans.

Got it. And in terms of just on deposit pricing again, you know, Obviously, you have always had an enviable deposit base. How should we think about pricing and betas if we do get that rate hike? And going back to the earlier question, as you talked about this more intense competitive dynamic in deposits over the past 12 to 18 months, has it been on promo pricing? Has it been on cash incentive to open DDA accounts elsewhere? Maybe talk us through sort of what you have been up against over the past 12 to 18 months.

Yeah, over the past 12 to 18 months, we've consistently seen competitors issue promotional pricing in markets where they're looking to grow. That has been consistent. I'd say what we've seen over the past, call it six months, is that pricing has not dramatically changed as you've seen the outlook for rates change. So I've talked about this before. All banks are trying to manage, thread this needle in terms of growing deposits, but also protecting their deposit costs because they're trying to drive profit unchanged in the market. We continue to benefit from, and historically, our ability to reprice our CD portfolio. Going forward, our ability to manage the mix of our deposit base is a key advantage for us. I just talked about being able to grow non-interest-paring deposits. It's being patient in terms of being able to meet short-term funding needs with alternative funding sources. Having a 76% loan-to-deposit ratio is a huge advantage that we have over our peers. So these are advantages that we can pull upon to not feel the pressure to have to use rate to grow funding as others may have to do.

Got it. I'll follow up offline on the 25 basis points. Thank you.

Yeah, on beta, we expect our guidance and we expect to maintain a mid-30s beta. Should the Fed increase, we still expect that to hold.

Our next question comes from the line of Gerard Cassidy with RBC Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.

Morning, Gerard. Hey, John. Hey, Neil. John, you touched upon the deposit system conversion expected in 2027. A two-part question. Is it the beginning of 2027? do you convert all the deposits onto the new system or the middle end of the year and then the second question is what kind of capacity and when you convert everything over what kind of growth capacity do you have with this new system could you increase deposits 50 percent before you have to do another systems convert or you know add capacity or something like that yeah a great question.

So Gerard, we will begin a pilot, family and friends, so to speak, sometime in September or October with the idea that we would begin to convert some discrete section of customers, likely in the first quarter of 2027. This will not be a big bang type conversion, so we have the ability to migrate customers to the new system over time. It's our expectation that we will do that in 2027 and be complete by mid-year to sometime in the third quarter of 2027. Once it is complete and we'll have a contemporary platform, we think it gives us a lot of capabilities, the ability to bring products to the market much faster, provide a much better customer experience to keep our systems updated and current much more easily because of the API layers that we will depend on and generally because it's a cloud-based platform and then generally we in terms of capacity we think we have tremendous capacity. I can't tell you how much that will be but we think it will give us quite an advantage in terms of our ability to grow on that system with the partners that we have.

Very good. Those fire trucks in the background, your building's not on fire.

No, it's not.

Because I heard you on pause there for a minute.

Okay.

Okay, and then as a follow-up question, you guys have always, and you did it again this quarter, give us good color on these portfolios that, you know, may have weaknesses in them, transportation, for example, or the commercial real estate office, which, of course, now are on the mend. So my question is, when you guys look out into the future, one of the areas that I'm wondering about is the success that the AI industry has had on this country's economy, which has been very powerful and the boom is incredible but we know as in past periods like the dot-com period where we had all those fiber cables built uh eventually it was a bust and i'm not suggesting ai is going to be a bust but how do you guys do the second derivative analysis because i know you're not financing um for the most part the data center you know construction But your customers that might be connected to this ecosystem, how do you keep an eye on that so that two years from now, you know, it's the portfolio that everybody's got to watch out for?

Yeah, I think we're trying to have discussions on a routine basis just in terms of understanding what's in our portfolio, what the connectivity is, and doing some just different kinds of analysis, stressed analysis to say, if this particular sector has some weakness, how does that affect us? What companies, what industries are connected? What interconnectedness is there here that we need to be concerned about? Part of that is, I think, fundamentally just embedded in our concentration risk management analysis and the conversations that we have about that generally. But as we think about portfolios, we think about credit risk, we're having ongoing conversations about the connectedness of exposure, interconnectedness of exposure throughout that sector.

I think we add to that, we bring our discipline of being cautious as to how quickly we would grow anything until we get all those learnings back. And so soundness, profitability, and growth in that order matters, especially when you're thinking about industries like this where there could be change. And so we don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves and growing ahead of that as we gather the say that John was alluding to.

Very good. And then just a real quick one, John. You mentioned about the multifamily market, a couple of bespoke markets that you're keeping an eye on. Is that Charlotte or is it Nashville? In Texas. Okay.

Very good.

Thank you.

Our next question comes from the line of Matt O'Connor with Deutsche Bank. Please proceed with your question.

Hey, Matt.

Good morning, Matt. Was hoping to dig into some of the traditional banking fees. slide seven, you split out the consumer and corporate service charges, both going really nice year to year. And I guess I'm wondering, I think the corporate stuff is the treasury management investments you've made, but maybe comment on how sustainable that is. And then on the consumer side, I think a big chunk is overdraft. So I guess I always wonder, is that like good or bad when overdraft is coming so much?

Yeah, maybe I'll speak to, initially to your question about treasury management in general. And we've improved our penetration rate in terms of the number of customers, percentage of customers to whom we're delivering treasury management products. It's grown from 57 percent to over 66 percent over the last five years or so. It's really been a focus of ours. We've improved our product offering. We've improved our sales capabilities and just generally how we think about making recommendations to customers to meet their specific needs. That has created a lot of momentum in treasury management and i would expect that to continue similarly the wealth business we reached another record in terms of the amount of revenue we're generating and that's based on investments in talent it's based on expansion of our capabilities just generally a good working relationship across our businesses so we're ensuring that we're making appropriate referrals and helping customers meet their needs again i think that business will continue to grow and it's one that we feel really good about from from that standpoint on the consumer side we're growing consumer checking accounts and we're seeing increased consumer activity so i mentioned debit spending credit spending on a transaction basis up eight percent on a dollar trans dollar of transaction or amount of spend up eight percent so we're seeing good activity across the consumer But overdraft fees were up modestly this quarter, I guess, and that would be somewhat seasonal.

And so I think we'll go ahead. Yeah, no, we also look at that in particular on a very granular basis. So we look across different cohorts so we understand the drivers of the increase. Because to your point, it can be a leading indicator of risk if not monitored appropriately. So we look across each cohort to see how it's performing. We also look how it tracks into any potential charge-off risk. We're not seeing that yet. So what we're seeing now is that consumers continue to make themselves available to that service that we provide for them. But as of what we're seeing now, they're curing that, and so we're not seeing much role to charge. But to your point, it's something that we monitor as a potential early sign, but we don't see any issues with that just yet.

Okay, that's helpful. And then within capital markets, how big is this mini deal in terms of revenue impact, or is it just kind of a rounding error? And then just kind of long-term ambitions to, you know, call it both grow capital markets and maybe diversify it a little bit into some of the businesses.

Yeah, initially it will have a modest impact. Longer term, I think we'll have a meaningful impact on our ability to meet customer needs in particular and will be another catalyst to help us grow the capital markets business. It was a very targeted acquisition. we have a really good government and institutional banking business generating deposits and making direct loans. What we didn't have was the capability to offer municipal underwriting and securities products. And so this will allow us to do that and, again, specifically meet some needs that we were otherwise unable to meet since the sale of Morgan Keegan back in 2012. So complements of business, it's really a good one for us. And I think over time we'll make a reasonable contribution to additional earnings.

And then just interesting kind of further expanding this business over time and also kind of diversifying into the different areas that you're underway.

Yeah, I mean, we have a stated objective to continue to grow the percentage of non-interest revenue as a percentage of total. And one of the ways we do that is to invest and expanding our capital markets capabilities and business. If you go back to 2014, it was a $60 to $70 million business, and we should end the year somewhere between $360 and $380, I think, and we hope to be a $400 million business over time. We've said it ought to be an $80 to $100 million kind of business every quarter, And so, you know, we'll continue to make investments to ensure that we grow and diversify our revenue and that we increase the percentage of non-ish revenue as a percentage of total.

Thank you.

Our next question comes from the line of Christopher Sparr with Wells Fargo. Please proceed with your question.

Hi, good morning. I'd just like to follow up on the capital markets questions. Just you bought ClearSight in 2021 and you had a little bit of a bump in revenue, but really revenues really haven't grown much on a core basis over the last four or five years. And we're having record capital markets this year. So what do you think you need to do? If you if your stated goal or you said in the past to be an industry leading middle market investment bank, what do you need to do? And in between then, also, you've also done some lift outs and tactical hire. So is it just a mix? Is it just the amount of execution? Just like what is going to help drive that fee line?

Well, I would, I mean, it has grown, you know, again, since 2014 from 60 to 70 million dollars to levels that we've reached today. We have not increased revenue much over the last two years, and some of that's just been a function of the interest rate environment that we are operating in. And M&A activity is up one quarter. Next quarter, we see our real estate capital markets activity up and M&A down. So I think we've sort of reached a place where it's time to begin to move to the next level. We think the investments we've made in talent will help us do that. I believe that over time, we continue to work with our customers to develop the opportunities that we think exist to meet some of their needs. we'll see more growth in capital markets. But in general, we're very happy with the investments that we've made and the role that capital markets plays in helping us deepen relationships and grow and diversify our revenue.

Okay, great. And my follow-up is on wealth actually has grown really well, at least in prior years. So just most of your disclosures have been mostly on the deposit side. Like, what are the underlying assets under management, net new assets that you're acquiring? Like, what is driving that C-line?

Yes, we've made the point in our maybe earlier comments over the last three years, the wealth bankers that we've added have themselves generated over $6 billion in new assets under management. And we're seeing growth in across the wealth platform, whether it be in our retail brokerage business or in our private banking business, our institutional wealth business. All of those are growing, and that's really a function, I think, of both good activity in the market, but more acquisition of customers and customer assets, which are driving increases in fees.

And can you put that $6 billion into context, like on the base of what?

$60 billion? Yeah.

Okay, great. Thank you.

Our next question comes from the line of Chris McGrady with KBW. Please proceed with your question.

Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Getting back to the buyback question, the importance of the rated agencies and the TCE ratio is getting a little bit more airtime. I guess how does that affect how you're thinking about buybacks, not only near term but also with Basel III or form?

Yeah, it will impact us over the long term. So first we'll wait to see for the final Basel III rule to come into effect. Just to remind everyone, kind of on a fully phased-in Basel III in-game, we expect to be probably around 10.5% based on current capital levels. To your point, we are having discussions with the rating agencies around how they will think about this through their lens. As of right now, we're still holding to our guide of 9.25% to 9.75%. We'll evaluate that once we kind of get better clarity from them. But the opportunity ahead of us is still there. Where we ultimately land is still subject to further conversation, but we still have incredible opportunity to deploy capital back into our business and look forward to doing that once we get the final rule.

Okay, thanks for that. And then secondarily, does the commentary before related to the pilot and the conversion and the timing in the middle of next year, does that at all influence or change prior comments about inorganic focus for the foreseeable future?

No, I think we still would say we're not interested in depository M&A. That is an issue or a topic we continue to visit, but I think you can expect us to stay focused on deposit conversion that we have for right now. It is super important to us. It's a complex project, one that's going very well. We have a lot of optimism about our ability to execute it, and that's where we'll primarily be focused. Just that, just the execution of our business, which I think we're doing really well.

Okay, thanks. And then just last, if I could, on the preferreds, could you just help us with any back half expectations for the preferred dividend?

Yeah, as of right now, you know, it kind of goes hand in hand with common equity tier one. So, you know, when we're managing the higher levels of common equity tier one, then we may ultimately need. We won't feel the need to kind of pre-issue any preferred ahead of then. And so I'd say we're going to wait and see where the rating agency conversation lands. That'll determine kind of the first part of the capital stack. If we feel like we want to add preferred through time, we'll do that. But we don't feel the need to do anything in the near term based on what we're hearing right now.

Okay. So current one, right.

Our final question comes through the line of Vivek Tunaysia with J.P. Morgan. Please proceed with your question.

Morning, Vivek. Morning. Just to follow up on the earlier question on deposit betas, your CD costs, do you have room to bring those down further? You seem to have brought it down. What are the maturities you have there? I'm trying to understand this, your ability to be able to keep betas at mid-30s.

Yeah, we're confident being able to keep betas in the mid-30s. When we look at the upcoming CD maturities, that is declining to about $3 billion a quarter. we think will basically bring on the repriced CDs about at an equal cost. So that's what gives us confidence on our guide that we think the overall deposit pricing will be flattish from here.

So you're able to keep that at current rates, even with all the promo pricing. And is that more in your metropolitan markets, or is it in the rural areas, given the competition from newcomers and also the online competition?

Yeah, but first, I would really kind of more target the discussion around where we're doing any type of promotional. But because we're in all these markets, we don't have to do broad promotional pricing to try to enter the market. We're already there. So going back to my earlier comments on understanding our customers, understanding how they behave, we're able to bring all this information together to be incredibly targeted with any customers that we want to do promotional pricing to. We don't have to do it on a broad scale. So we do it in a very targeted way for particular customers that we feel like we may want and need to do that. But for us, it's not a meaningful headwind in terms of deposit costs because, one, we don't need it from a funding standpoint. Two, we're already in these markets. And so, three, we can be very focused in terms of where we want to deploy that.

And you said you don't need it from funding despite loan growth doing a little bit better.

Yeah, look, our long-term, we're not going to fund loan growth with high-cost promotional deposits. If we have loan growth that exceeds deposit costs in any one given period, we'll look to other funding sources that we have available to us. You know, our debt footprint is roughly half of the peer average. So we'll pull on those things first. We'll continue to invest in growing our non-interest-bearing and low-cost deposits to ultimately catch up. But our business model is not built around using high-cost deposits as a funding source.

Thank you.

Thank you. I would like to turn the call back over to John Turner for closing comments.

Well, thank you, everyone. We appreciate your interest in Regents and your interaction with us today. Have a great weekend.

This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time.