Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Bancorp Inc. 2nd Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all lines are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. If anyone has any difficulties hearing the conference, please press star zero for operator assistance at any time. I would now like to turn the conference call over to Andres Viroslav. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator. Good morning, and thank you for joining us today for the Bancorp Second Quarter 2025 Financial Results Conference Call. On the call to me today are Damian Kozlowski, Chief Executive Officer, and Marty Egan, our Interim Chief Financial Officer. This morning's call is being webcast on our website at www.thebankcorp.com. There will be a replay of the call available via webcast on our website beginning at approximately 12 p.m. Eastern Time today. The dial-in for the replay is 1-888-660-6264. with a passcode of 45285. Before I turn the call over to Damien, I would like to remind everyone that our comments and responses to questions reflects management's view as of today, July 25, 2025. Yesterday, we issued our second quarter earnings release and updated investor presentation. Both are available on our investor relations website. Four looky statements on this call. These statements are subject to the Safe Harbor Provisions of the Private Security Detail Reform Act of 1995 and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the expectations and assumptions we mentioned today. These factors or uncertainties are discussed in our reports and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In addition, we will be referring to certain non-GAAP financial measures during this call. Additional details and reconciliations of GAAP to adjusted non-GAAP financial measures are in the earnings release and the investor presentation. Please note that the Bancorp undertakes no obligation to publicly release the results of any revisions to forward-looking statements which may be made to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to the Bancorp's Chief Executive Officer, Damian Kozlowski. Damian?

Thank you, Andres. Good morning, everyone. The Bancorp earned $1.27 per diluted share in the second quarter on year-over-year revenue growth of 11%, excluding fintech loan credit enhancement income, with expense growth year-over-year of 11%. EPS growth was 21% year-over-year. Our fintech ecosystem continued to be the driver of revenue growth. GDV climbed 18% year-over-year, with total fee and related interest income growth from all fintech activities grew 30%. On July 14th, we announced a five-year expansion of our relationship with Block, in which we added debit and prepaid card issuance and related services for cash app customers. Subject to program implementation timelines, the additional services are expected to begin as early as the first quarter of 26, and we expect this program to enhance growth of GDV and fees into the future. We also announced a substantial increase to our share repurchase program over the next 18 months to $500 million, beginning in the third quarter of 25. This buyback will be funded by quarter earnings growth and the replacement of maturing senior unsecured debt at the Bancor Holding Company of $100 million aggregate outstanding with approximately $200 million of new senior unsecured debt at the Bancor Holding Company. We anticipate that $300 million of shares will be purchased for the remainder of 25. This is an increase of $225 million or 300% over the current buyback of $75 million for the last two quarters of 2025. In 2026, $200 million worth of shares are planned to be purchased, with $50 million of purchases each quarter. Lastly, we are continuing to maintain our guidance of 525 earnings per share for 2025. We also are announcing Project 7, a project in which we are targeting at least a $7 earnings per share run rate by the end of 26. We plan to accomplish this goal through fintech revenue growth, buybacks of shares, and efficiency and productivity gains by reallocating and or reducing resources where appropriate. I now turn the call over to Marty Egan, our interim CFO.

Thank you, Damian. Excluding consumer fintech loan credit enhancement income, non-interest income for the second quarter of 2025 was $40.5 million, which was 32% higher than the second quarter of 2024. Total fintech fees accounted for most of that increase. Prepaid, debit card, ACH, and other payment fees increased 14% to $31.7 million over that period, and consumer credit fintech fees increased $3.8 million to $4 million. In the second quarter, credit enhancement income was $43.2 million, and the provision for consumer fintech loans was also $43.2 million. Overall, loan balances grew 17% year-over-year, while loan balances excluding consumer fintech loans grew 6%. Consumer fintech loans increased 871% year-over-year to $680.5 million and 19% over the length quarter. Average fintech solution deposits for the quarter increased 20% to $7.76 billion from $6.44 billion in the second quarter of 2024. Net interest income was 4% higher than second quarter of 2024. The second quarter net interest margin was 4.44%, compared to 4.07% for the first quarter of 2025. The second quarter of 2025 included a $3.1 million of interest on CRE2, which was repaid in that quarter as a result of the sales underlying collateral. Additionally, fees on the majority of our growing consumer fintech loan balances are recorded as non-interest income, which impacts both net interest income and net interest margin. Not interest expense for the second quarter of 2025 was $57.2 million, which was 11% higher than the second quarter of 2024. The increase included a 10% increase in salaries and benefits. Additional details regarding our loan portfolios are included in related tables in our press release as our earnings contributions of our payment system. And now the turn to call back to Damian.

Thank you, Marty.

Operator, could you please open the lines for questions? yes thank you ladies and gentlemen we will now begin the questioning answer session should you have a question please press the star followed by the one on the touchdown phone should you wish to cancel your request please press the star followed by the two if you are using a speakerphone please lift the handset before pressing any keys once again that is star one should you wish to ask a question and our first question is from Tim Switzer from KBW. Your line is now open.

Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. Congratulations on the new partnership with Block and Cash App. Can you provide some details on if this is an entirely new product for them or if you are a new sponsor for a current product? And then any color. Sorry, go ahead. No, go ahead. I was going to ask any color you can provide on what exactly you'll be doing? Like, is this part of your rapid funds transfer offering, like your other program with Block?

No, so we, no, this is the card issuance. So we already do the rapid funds transfer. There's 15 use cases that were transferred Wells Fargo during last year. And you saw that growth in our other payment and ACH line of our business. This is the entire portfolio of, you know, the card issuance for Block, whether they use us exclusively, or like in many other cases, they use another bank. We'll see. But this is one of the big programs. There are three dominant programs, Chime, PayPal, and Block. And so we now have the RFT business and the card issuance business. This is a, as everyone knows, this is one of the major players in the fintech world, and they have over 50 million customers. So it's very meaningful uh to uh it will be very meaningful in the future to both gdb and fee growth okay so this is for the cash app card correct issuing okay okay now are you supplementing sutton bank who's currently the issuer or replacing them um well the the mandate is to uh replace that volume over time.

Okay. Okay. Great. And then I also wanted to ask about the lower deposits this quarter. Was that kind of an action by you to manage the balance sheet or what was the driver there?

Correct. There's tax receipts during that part of the year. And we actually took some savings deposits off balance sheet. And we also had $500 million of insurance deposits through our corporate payments partners for the California wildfires. So that's running off plus the tax season. It was a very big tax season this year. And then we took some of the excess liquidity also off balance sheet. So that was all balance sheet management driven.

Gotcha. Okay. And then And we saw the criticized loans and non-accruals step up a little bit in the Rebel book. Can you, with the bulk of that portfolio reaching maturity over the next year, can you provide some color on borrowers' ability to make the balloon payment? How many have taken the one-year extension versus paying off the loan entirely? How many need to do it, inject additional equity or find another lender?

Yeah, so this is, it's not like a point in time. We're always working with these borrowers. So we have a lot of visibility as to their business plans and whether they plan to recap or do something else, potentially, if there's a problem, or just simply to repay or extend the loan. So in the case where they're doing their business plan and need a little bit more time, there's kind of a natural extension. And that's gone up over recent times just because of market conditions, which we're fine with, obviously, if you have a performing property and it's cash flowing and it's met all its requirements, extensions are a good thing for us. In the case where and what happens is that you see this way before. While many of these loans were done in this vintage, we have a lot of visibility. So if there's any issues with that, they would have already appeared in the criticized or substandard assets. So it's not like there's this date and then we don't know what's going on and we don't know what's going to happen with the borrower. So we've been working through that over the last last year. So you don't you don't we don't expect a big another spike in substandard assets. We had kind of a spike in the third, fourth quarter of last year, went down a little bit in the fourth quarter. it's been a little bit stable hopefully we'll be able to work through that the next it's taking a little longer than we want we had the aubrey situation where we uh weren't able to close the property but we are hoping over the next two quarters that'll go down meaningfully okay great thank you david thank you and our next question is from joey and chanis from raymond james your line is open good morning good morning david so i i was hoping to kind of continue the credit

discussion there i you know with respect to the aubrey i believe it was undergoing some renovations before the prior contract was terminated are those renovations continuing and are you guys funding those yes so there there are about 20 units available to rent so the occupancy has gone up dramatically over the last eight months from the mid-30s to the mid-60s.

And so there's already 20 units that have been totally reconditioned that are ready to be leased out. There are some additional work to do, but we're in active discussions with potential purchases of the property, and that'll really depend over the next six weeks. If we don't get that traction to dispose of the property, then we'll probably finish the balance of the units. I think about, uh, it's in the 10 to 15% range. We will fund it. Uh, obviously that we have the deposit, hopefully we'll be able to recapture that. And then, uh, the equation would be at that point, if we levered, uh, excuse me, fully, uh, leased up the property, then, uh, we would look not only to get out of the, uh, base loan that we have, uh, but we would also look to get to gain on the property at that point if we were able to lease it up to the 90% region.

I appreciate that. And one more on your expanded partnership with Blocker. Are there going to be any associated expenses leading up to the new card program?

Yes. So our base infrastructure is very leverageable in many of the categories, but there will be incremental hires. So there won't be a lot. We'll have to, and we're getting a lot of efficiencies over time and productivity enhancements through things like machine learning. Hopefully AI will kick in in the next year or two, but there will be additional resources. So there might be a little bit extra in the third and fourth quarters ramping up, but usually as the volume, that's maybe a few, but when the volume starts kicking in then we'll have to assess adding additional resources but then of course we'll be getting large uh uh you know volume and revenue increases so it'll be offset obviously uh so a little bit of build maybe but then when the volume comes in yet we'll have to add additional resources depending on where we are with our productivity gains and then just kind of sticking with the productivity gains, you know, you mentioned in your release, you know, targeting, you know,

4Q26 EPS of at least $1.75, which will be driven by several factors, including, you know, these productivity gains. Can you talk about, you know, where you see the benefits of AI impacting your business? And it sounds like that might be a, you know, latter half of 26 event, if I kind of read the tea leaves right in your prior answer.

Well, there's two things. That's one thing. The first thing, though, is that we really have had two banks kind of operating synergistically, but two banks. One was more of a traditional bank, while we were levering up the bank spread, increases dominated kind of our profitability. But that's switching to our, you know, it's not no longer a payments bank. It's really a middle office fintech and technology platform, that ecosystem that we built for the fintech industry. And so that is rapidly obviously growing very, very quickly, adding new partners and product sets. And so we're becoming much more focused on that fintech bank. So as that happens, we've already said for years that we're going to take some of the traditional businesses off the balance sheet that will be lower on balance sheet for those businesses, and we'll need to reallocate resources as the fintech business increases its use of the balance sheet, right? In many cases, that's just a reallocation. We want to get to a situation in three years, five years, where we add a couple hundred people. We go from 800 to 1,000 people. But when we double the net income, we're not going to go from 800 people to 1,600 people. So some of that is that we're reallocating resources from the traditional to the fintech bank. Now, on the AI front, there's so much happening in this space. One of the key areas where it's likely that we're already using tools. We're using broad tools for people to get more productive, but we're using tools for legal contracts, et cetera, where AI is very well suited. But going into the future, there are things like SARS filing, you know, doing the initial work where there could be big productivity gains. And so we're not going to be the first person to do it, but we're already studying those things. And we really want to lean into it in 26. So we're looking for use cases very aggressively. We don't, of course, these are models, so they have to be tested and they have to be robust. We have to make sure the quality control is there and testing is there. But we think it's going to have an impact going into, especially in part of 26 and 27. They're becoming just better tools. We're finding out, you know, use cases are being tested in the industry, and we think it'll make good gains, which means that obviously as we grow to the first point, we won't have to go from doubling the amount of people into the future when we have sizable gains in gdb which we expect right we've been over trend for a while adding block is going to add another a leg to the gdb growth and we want to make sure that we um can resource that very effectively and productively with the best use of tools in areas like AI.

Very thorough answer. I appreciate you taking my questions this morning.

Thank you. Once again, please press star 1 should you wish to ask a question. And your next question is from Arif Gwangaj from Figness Capital. Your line is now open.

Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking my call. I have a few questions about the Rebel Portfolio. First is, we haven't seen your June 10Q yet, but from March, the next 12 months. And so my first question is, you know, given where interest rates are, these types of properties, would you expect that the majority of that $1.4 billion would be refinanced by third parties, or should we instead expect that you guys will end up having to extend?

Well, once again, if they're on their business, we have two one-year extensions available to borrowers. And if they're on their business, with the vast majority are on their business plan, cash flowing properties, we're more than happy to extend those loans with the, if they want to wait for lower interest rates. Most of the exits of, if they're stabilized properties, can exit through the GSEs. So that's the main refinance or, you know, a five-year fixed. It's really about when you have a maturing, performing loan, that's really about the sponsor's planning. Are they waiting for an interest rate decrease or not, which is obviously on top of mind for everybody. The ones, once again, we're working with these borrowers all the time. So there's not, while there is a lot of kind of a maturity wall, because a lot of these were done a year pretty much into the pandemic when we restarted the business, it's a wall that we understand really well. And we've already identified, so you see the universe of, it's just a handful of loans that are the substandard category who's already been identified if there's a real issue with the business plan. So we're working through it diligently. We don't expect there to be a lot of increases in substandard category. We think we've peaked, and we think that over the next few months, we'll work through that maturity, and we'll also see a decline in substandard loans.

Okay, appreciate that. And since you mentioned the sort of peak in, you know, substandard, you know, I think you made some similar, expecting to see a significant increase in criticized rebel loans. But looking at the disclosure from the press release, it looks like non-accrual loans did pick up sequentially, as did special mention, and substandard went down a little bit. To help us understand kind of, you know, versus six months ago when we were all together on the Q3 call, what's kind of being the prior peak?

Yeah, well, the first thing is the Aubrey. We expected that to be closed at off the books. There was a lot of momentum on that property, and we were holding, obviously, a deposit on that property, so that was a surprise. So that's the first thing. So that would have rolled off, and obviously, substandard ORE would have went down. The non-accrual is actually in a recap process, so we're hoping to get that off the books also next quarter. It took a little bit longer than we thought, and as a matter of prudence, we put it in non-accrual until that recap was done. It's just taking longer than we had expected to reduce the substandards. It hasn't really increased. The classified assets have gone down to touch so we have a little bit of movement in other categories but once again we're working on it it's a handful of loans it's very manageable uh we have a lot of visibility we're working very proactively and when you have these situations sometimes they just take a little bit longer and to resolve so we're working very hard to do that okay no appreciate that color and just uh last couple of questions quickly new appraisal that was done uh 51 million as is and ballpark $59 million as stabilized.

If you could help us reconcile those higher appraised values versus range where you haven't been able to find a buyer at a value even at the outstanding loan amount, meaning really what I'm asking is that market tests versus, you know, funding a spreadsheet, you know, putting a cap rate on NOI, help us reconcile the appraisal versus market test process.

Yeah, well, we had a buyer and they put actually money into the property and put a sizable deposit and couldn't close the transaction, which is unfortunate. But during that time, we we substantially changed a lot of investment went into the property. It went from a thirty five percent occupancy all the way up to the mid 60s and obviously a lot of visibility on the rents that are realized. So what people have done, investors have actually done, and you can actually go on the Aubrey Houston website and see it. The property is business as usual. It's in a very different state than it was eight to 12 months ago. And so the appraisal is done totally on a third-party basis, looking at comps and everything So it went up from 48 to, I think it was 51. So it went up $3 million based on those criteria and obviously a stabilized increase as the if property is improved. So we don't obviously, we're not the appraiser that's done on a third party basis. And so because of those metrics, the rents realize the occupancy, the market conditions, this property is in a good neighborhood. It's obviously in the top, it's current state, it's one of our better properties with good amenities and everything. So that is the appraiser's value. That's not ours.

Okay. And then last question for me, please. You referenced the earnest money deposits dispute with the buyer around who gets that money receivable, expecting to collect it, or is it, if you can help us understand how you.

Yeah. So it would be a, because of the appraisal at KBEN, it would be, if we take that, if we get that deposit, they've objected to it, which is, you know, we don't think, we think we will get that deposit, it, but you can't object to it in these situations. So it will be income. It hasn't been recognized as income yet because it's been disputed, but we expect to get that, and that will be realized in income.

Thank you. And our next question is from Tim Switzer from KBW. Your The line is now open.

Hey, guys. Thanks for letting me back in. I wanted to follow up on the question about the earnest money. How quickly should this earnest money litigation be resolved? And, like, what is the legal process for that? Are you guys pretty confident you'll be retaining all the money currently in escrow?

We hope so. I mean, it was, I think, we think we have a clear, it's very clear. I mean, there was a deposit put down for the purchase of the property. Of course, you get a situation, you're going to get an objection. And so it's really up the court to weigh the evidence. But we believe it's pretty clear cut that the deposit should come to us without a lot of delay. We're hoping to resolve it the next quarter.

Okay, good to hear. And then outside of the rebel book, there's a little bit of an increase in NPAs. It looks like it was largely in the SBL book. Could you provide some color there? We've seen across the industry for small business lending. There's been a little bit of credit migration.

Yeah, it was very little. It was one, you know, one or one big one. And it really wasn't a lot. We aren't seeing a deterioration really in the portfolio. I mean, it's very low. um and and obviously in these cases there's uh many of these cases there's backstops uh obviously through the sba program so we're not worried about that there was a little pickup the main focus really is um we think we're in good shape on the sba and the leasing portfolio we had a little trucking uh like everyone else did issues in the leasing portfolio and that's kind of run off. We're not seeing the same thing anymore. We don't have that much left either in that space. So those portfolios seem to be in very good shape. The main focus has been getting those substandards down in the Rebel portfolio, but also the maturity. What people see as a wall, but we see more as a very, you know, a 12-month process of working with buyers to refinance or extend their loans. So we think we're in good shape in that area at this point.

Okay. And then if I get one more, you guys are bringing on a lot of volume with the new programs with Chime, new partners like Block. How much more capacity do you have for new partners and new programs? There's obviously a lot of demand out there. So just wondering if you guys are still able to continue taking share.

Yeah, well, the share is determined by who you have in your portfolio. Do you have the winners in the fintech space? A lot of this in many of these areas, it's been decided. And so if you see it by looking at commercials during any sporting event, you'll see these commercials. many times our name will appear on the bottom. We have built an ecosystem where we could have five times the volume that we have today. We have a process to take the deposits off the balance sheet or a way of working with our partners where we have clearing accounts. You know, we've had this, we've been building this since 2018, really focused on building this very, you know, redoing the entire tech stack, redoing our infrastructure so that we can accommodate dramatically higher gross dollar volume. Now, to be honest, we never envisioned five years ago that it would be this much opportunity. And with the addition of Block, having the three largest, really the three largest digital wallet, neobanks, which dominate the marketplace with marketing spend and everything, and have other opportunities with those three that go beyond that is really a big driver. But that's across our verticals. Do you have the winners in these fintech spaces? In many cases, we do. And so they have disproportionate opportunity out there because they have the ability to invest in their businesses with marketing spend. And we believe we can support it. We could have easily multitudes of volume, and we've been preparing for this for the better part of at least five years, if not more years. Yeah, makes sense.

Appreciate all the colors.

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I will now hand the call back over to Damian Kozlowski for the closing remarks.

Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. Operator, you can disconnect the call.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, the conference has now ended. Thank you all for joining. You may all be on your line.