We enter 2026 with robust capital levels and a uniquely strong funding and liquidity profile, diverse asset origination capabilities, consistent credit performance, robust capital generation, and a strong risk mitigation framework. These enable the sustainable and steady growth of the company. I'll now turn it over to Luis to review business developments.

Thanks, John. Our performance in the fourth quarter echoed the solid results that we delivered through the year. Our clients continued to navigate well through the macro environment, and client activity remained robust in terms of both loan growth and lending-related fee income. Limited payoff activity also contributed to better-than-expected loan growth in the fourth quarter. Growth was generated across a broad range of asset classes, highlighting the diversity of origination capabilities that is a key strength of our franchise. We saw significant progress on credit remediation, as classified commercial loans were down 7%, and non-performers were down 8%. Net charge-offs were 35 basis points. The trajectory of problem assets should continue to decline, with some quarters decreasing more than others, as was the case in 2025. Following the strong year of deposit growth in which our commercial, consumer, healthcare, financial services, and inter-sync businesses all contributed to our performance, we see continued opportunity to grow across our diverse funding platforms. While still early stages, France plan participants in Affordable Care Act healthcare plans have started opening HSA accounts. We enhanced our existing mobile and web enrollment systems to better serve ACA participants, and we are seeing increased account openings in our direct-to-consumer channel, which should accelerate through the rest of the year. Our expectation for deposit growth from HSA eligibility for bronze and catastrophic plan participants is unchanged. We believe newly HSA-eligible plan participants will drive $1 billion to $2.5 billion in incremental deposit growth at HSA Bank over the next five years, including 50 to 100 million of growth in 2026. The acceleration and growth will be gradual as newly eligible enrollees in the ACA plans first recognize and then adopt policy developments as there is growing appetite in Washington for a number of potential legislative actions that would enable HSA Bank to help a significantly greater portion of Americans manage their health care saving and spending needs. This includes the potential for unpassed provisions and proposed legislation that could direct some ACA subsidies directly into consumer ACA accounts. The outlook for deposit growth of Dimitros also remains very strong. A greater portion of settlement recipients are recognizing the benefits of adding sales capacity and leveraging Webster's scale and technology to further enhance the member experience. Turn it over to Neil.

Thanks Luis and good morning everyone. Assets were up $880 million or 1% in the fourth quarter. During the fourth quarter, we repurchased three. Loan trends in total, loans were up 1.5 billion or two. While we did, we also saw deposit costs were down 11 basis points. While deposit pricing remains competitive, we should see some repricing accelerate in the first quarter driven by seasonal factors. Income statement trends are on slide eight. There were a number of adjustments this quarter. The net effect was a loss of 8 million to pre-tax income and 6 million to after-tax income. Excluding these, adjusted PPNR was down $4.9 million relative to the prior quarter, with slightly better revenue offset by expenses related to current and future growth. Adjusted net income was slightly higher than the prior quarter on a lower provision and tax rate. Adjusted earnings per share additionally benefited from a lower share count. The adjustments to GAAP earnings are highlighted on the following slide. On slide 10 is detail of net interest income. We saw a modest increase in NII as loan growth remained solid through the quarter and we saw more limited payoffs activity than anticipated in the quarter end. Better than expected loan yields also helped support the net interest market number and spot NIM were both three on slide 12 with contributions from investment gains and the 13 reviews non-interest expense trends, investments in expanded opportunity at HSA Bank, and investments in technology. Detailed components of our increased $9 million. The decline was driven by charge-offs of loans previously reserved and improvements in underlying credit sets were down 8% and loans were down 7%. Charge-offs remain above well-capitalized levels and in excess of our publicly stated targets. Our tangible book value per share increased to $37.20 in the prior quarter, with net income partially offset by shareholder capital return. I'll wrap up my comments on slide 17 with our outlook for full year 2026. We're anticipating loan growth of 5% to 7% and deposit growth. The midpoint of the guide has expected revenue of $3 billion for 2026. On a gap basis, we expect net interest income of $2.57 to $2.63 billion, which assumes two 25 basis point Fed funds cuts in June and September. We expect fees to be $390 to $410 million and expenses to be $1.46 to $1.48 billion. While noting that first quarter of 26, six, extremely due to seasonal impacts of payroll taxes, annual merit, and benefit costs. With that, I'll turn back to John for closing remarks.

We continue to drive growth that enhances our financial performance, as we also invest in and grow businesses that advance our strategic advantage in terms of attractive funding characteristics and asset origination capabilities, further building on Webster's substantial franchise value. We're in a unique period for the banking industry, with positive momentum coming from macroeconomic and regulatory tailwinds. While we anticipate we will be a beneficiary of these dynamics, we will also ensure we grow while maintaining the resiliency and adaptability of the company. In terms of Webster's performance, 2025, our 90th year, it was a record year for the bank in terms of milestones and financial achievements, and we're positioned to prosper into the future. The efforts of those in our organization the past several years has created a bank with a differentiated business model that organically and sustainably outgrows and out-earns the banking industry at large. It does so with a focus on risk-appropriate returns and at the same time is investing in the well-being of its communities at large. Thank you to our colleagues and clients for their contributions to our success in the fourth quarter and for the full year and what it means for the future of the organization. Thank you for joining us on the call today. Operator, we'll take questions.

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad to raise your hand and join the queue. And if you would like to withdraw your question, again, press star 1. We also ask that you limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. For any additional questions, please re-queue. And your first question comes from Jared Shaw with Barclays. Please go ahead.

Hey, everybody.

Morning.

On the loan growth side or outlook, can you just give an update on how the partnership with Marathon is influencing that and maybe where things stand there now that we've had a couple quarters?

Sure. We're live and we're operational. I would say we've not yet seen a material impact on a loan growth trajectory in the sponsor business. I think we are having more swings at the plate, just given the bigger implied balance sheet. So we remain optimistic that it was a smart strategic move, Jared. You know, we promised people that this quarter we would give you a little indication of what it meant for financials. It's obviously baked in, and it's not material. We expect a couple of million dollars in positive income resulting from the JV itself, meaning kind of returns, and everything we've quantified is in our loan growth forecast going forward. I think it could be an upside opportunity for us should we be able to get some more wins in the sponsor business, but we're kind of, I would say, relatively conservative in terms of our view of the impact on both loan growth in our financial performance in 26. But live operational, we have originated loans for the JV. And as I said, we've been more competitive in competitive situations with borrowers. We just haven't seen a real change in the dynamic in the sponsor book as of yet.

Okay, thank you. And I guess as a follow-up, just looking at the expense trends and some of the investments you've called out and systems and taking advantage of the bronze opportunity. Is most of that marketing and, you know, sort of client outreach, or is there any system change that you're contemplating to, you know, to bring on more of those individuals?

No, it's mostly marketing, Jared. It's, you know, as we've talked about the opportunity in the past, the large part of what we're doing is that we have to identify who those individuals are, which is very different to how our sales channels have worked historically, because this is not an employer business, but a direct-to-consumer business. And so the vast majority of the – so the investment of the technology is done, and we feel very good about the capabilities of what we have there. But you are going to continue to see us investing in identifying those individuals and then motivating and educating those individuals to become HSA holders. So that's where the larger investment dollars are going to work in the fourth quarter and you'll continue to see in 2026.

Great.

Thank you, Jared. Your next question comes from the line of Mark Fitzgibbon with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

Thanks, guys. Good morning. Hey, Mark.

Let's suppose the Category 4 threshold is lifted meaningfully sometime soon. I know you'll be able to reduce sort of that annual cost number by picket number, $20, $30 million, but I guess I'm curious strategically how that might change your plans for the company.

Yeah, it's a great question, Mark, and I wish we could give more specific numbers. I mean, I think you see in our guide of expenses that we're not anticipating the additional incremental $20 million of expense this year because we're able to either potentially avoid some of those expenses or certainly have more time to spread out those expenses into the future. So it's our anticipation of changes is already impacting our forward look at investment, and we've already pivoted in terms of, you know, not pedal to the metal in terms of getting ready for Category 4 because we think it's highly likely that it'll be significantly modified in the future. So I think that's important, and I think it gives us a lot of flexibility going forward. I think from an overall strategic perspective, it really doesn't change kind of the way we view life in terms of our growth trajectory, our organic path forward. So I would say it doesn't have much of an impact on the way we strategically look at growing the bank. it's really giving us the opportunity to either increase profitability in the short term or reposition dollars that otherwise would have been invested for Category 4 preparedness into revenue-generating investments, which is obviously the goal. So I think that's the way I would characterize our view of Category 4.

Okay, great. And then separately, Neil, I wonder if you could help us think through the NIM trajectory in the early part of 2026.

Yeah, so we ended the quarter in December at a NIM of 335. We expect that exit rate to maintain throughout 2026, and so we should see kind of a 335 for the full year. Now, obviously, there's variability there depending on what happens with the curve and other items, but we think 335 is a good midpoint guide for next year. There will be the normal seasonal factors, You know, we'll tick up a few basis points likely in Q1, and then that will come down a little bit in Q2 and tick back up in Q3. But I would be thinking in that mid-330s range for our go-forward NIM expectations.

Thank you, Mark. Your next question comes from the line of Matthew Brees with Stevens. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning. John, at a recent event, you noted that you and the Webster team can be a bit more aggressive on deposit pricing. Something you could provide just a bit more color there, how much more room do you see to lower deposit costs to absent rate cuts this year? And if you haven't, what was the period and cost of deposits?

Yeah, I'll let Neil give you the numbers as usual, but I think we did. We were a little bit more aggressive in the fourth quarter. There is still significant competition, particularly in our geographic footprint. And so I think we're kind of taking a very kind of thoughtful and deliberate approach. And I'll let Neil kind of talk to you about what transpired in the quarter and how we're looking at pricing going forward.

Yeah, for those of you who listened to our last public comments, we've guided down them for the fourth quarter by a few basis points. We had the mid-December cut. We made more pricing down and rectory down there. As John said.

Great. And then just thinking about loan growth as it relates to reserve, you know, maybe first, what are current spreads on commercial real estate and C&I? And do you expect to grow in some of these lower risk sectors in 2026, resulting in further reductions in the, you know, reserve as a percentage of loans?

Yeah, that's another interesting question. You know, credit spreads have tightened significantly. I was talking with our chief credit risk officer yesterday, and, you know, we've seen 30 to 50 basis points over the last 18 months or so, compression and spreads, particularly in kind of commercial real estate assets, you know, that have gone to kind of stabilize down to 180 basis points to 200 basis points over reference rates. So, you know, I do think you're seeing in our portfolio and what you saw in our provisioning this quarter, Neil mentioned the fact that we resolved some problem assets and that sort of, you know, continues to release. But you're right in that what we've been adding in terms of stabilized commercial real estate, in terms of fund banking, in terms of some of the other asset categories, public sector finance, tend to make the weighted average risk rating of the overall portfolio better. And so I think you'll continue to see that, quite frankly, and we've mentioned it, you know, we'd like to see the sponsor businesses, some of our verticals that have higher risk return profiles and higher yields grow more. So it's not all by choice. It's also by what the market's giving us. But I think if you see continued benign credit environment and you continue to see trend lines in where we're growing assets, I think your supposition is correct, that we would have less risk in the overall portfolio and we could still have room in that reserve as we move forward. Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Casey Hare with Autonomous Research. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. This is Jackson Singleton on for Casey Hare. Jack. Just starting out, I hear your thoughts on marathons, but also wanted to follow up on loan growth. I mean, just given 11% annualized growth in 4Q and really just strong growth in all of 2026, it feels like the guide is still a little conservative. So just wondering if you can maybe provide some thoughts on kind of why the 5% to 7%.

Sure. You know, I do think that there was, and Neil mentioned the fact that there were lower payoffs than we had anticipated in the fourth quarter. And so I think if you normalize that, we feel kind of our growth was a little bit kind of less than the headline number was. I think the other dynamic here is we've talked a lot about making sure we maintain our profitability and our returns as we move forward. And so I think one of the things that Luis and Neil and I and the rest of the team have been doing is spending a lot of time thinking about, you know, sort of really deliberate capital allocations and looking at what businesses are going to continue to grow franchise value in the long term. We may be de-emphasizing some businesses and really looking at kind of core franchise building, full relationships. So I think when you put everything together, as I said earlier, I think we do anticipate continued competition from private credit in the sponsor group, although the moves we're making hopefully will get a little bit more growth out of that business than is in our numbers, so that could help us surprise to the upside, but I think we think we can grow loans 5% to 7% in a very profitable manner, continue to show at or better than market growth over time, and do it profitably, so we think that's the right number for growth. Could we outperform that if the economy continues to kind of hum along and we get a few breaks with respect to M&A activity and then the sponsor book? Yes, but we think this is our best guess of optimal growth and profitability mix.

Got it. Thanks for that. And then just my follow-up is on loan-to-deposit ratio. So the deposit guide, the midpoint of the deposit guide is a little bit lower than the midpoint of the loan guide so just wondering uh maybe is there any kind of stealing for uh for the loan to deposit ratio that you guys wouldn't want to go past and then maybe how should we think about the mix of deposit growth in 2026 yeah i'll start that one we don't have a formal ceiling that we're looking at um you know we are in the low 80 range i personally believe sitting in the CFO seat that kind of in that low to mid 85 percent range is the optimal place to be.

So I would be surprised if we went over 85 percent and we plan to kind of stay more in that 80 to 85 percent range. On the deposit growth side in the mix, the mix should be fairly similar to how we've grown loans this year. We are expecting a little bit more on the HSA side from the Bronze Opportunity that we've talked about, we expect continued strong mid-20% growth from our Amitros business and then similar growth rates across the board in the other categories.

Thanks for taking my questions.

Your next question comes from the line of Chris McGrady with KBW. Please go ahead.

This is Chris O'Connell filling in for Chris. Hey, Chris. Hey, just wanted to start off just quickly on the balance sheet, on the liability side. You know, on the end of period basis, there seemed to be, you know, a bit of movement outsized here and there on the borrowing side. Anything driving that outside of seasonality and kind of the movement with the sub debt in the quarter?

Nothing unusual. I guess I would say the one unusual factor relates to what you mentioned, the sub-debt. So throughout the sub-debt side with long-term debt, just over, I think we're at $1.1 billion, slightly over $1.1 billion. And we now sit at $650 million, back where we wanted to be after we redeemed two outstanding notes. So we also have some seasonality in the quarter where I mentioned my prepared remarks, we had $1.2 billion for Q1. We offset some of that with the broker deposits and FHLB advances. But during Q1, we'll see, as I mentioned, those public funds flow back in and the broker deposits reduce back down. So, no, nothing unusual there, just some transactions.

Okay, great, thank you.

And then, you know, on the fee guide, if I'm, you know, reading the, you know, numbers correct on a year-over-year basis, you know, it's a little bit of a wide range, you know one percent to nearly high single digits um can you just you know maybe frame some of the drivers and uh growth for next year and uh kind of what would put you towards you know the lower or higher end of the upside yeah and we've talked about our uh four major areas in the past we kind

of expect direct investments i'd add one more thing there is the uh seasonality and volatility but where we saw a lot of good performance in the third and fourth quarter in the back half of this year was in loan related fees so we actually did see with the uh has been that's been pointed out in the call with the higher origination activity that we saw in the growth that we saw in cni and in cre we do get a fair amount of uh you know swaps syndications and fx business as well and so what could potentially move it to the higher end of the range is that we continue to see good momentum in those you know kind of we'll call it the larger commercial asset classes uh then we feel very good that you know 26 should be a a good year for loan related fees and that That could potentially move it a little bit higher towards that high end of the range But tough to forecast those because it is very much driven by what overall origination activity is going to be. But it's a good opportunity.

Great.

Your next question comes from the line of David Chivarini with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Hi. Thanks for taking the questions. I wanted to start on HSA. How did the open enrollment season go? Because I know that normally leads to a nice bump in deposits in the first quarter.

Yeah, David, so far so good as how we're characterizing it. So we're slightly ahead of where we were last year. We've opened up, you know, approximately about 15,000 more accounts than what we had at this point in 25. And, you know, total account opening so far about our just side 250,000. So we had, as we mentioned on prior calls, you know, during the course of the year, we've had a fair amount, we made a fair amount of investments on just broad-based client experience, you know, new technology, new investment experience. That led to some nice client wins. Obviously, it's a competitive market, so we had some client losses as well, but net the client wins have outweighed the client losses on the employer side. And so, therefore, we've seen some, you know, some nice momentum on, you know, account openings. And so we think that it sets up pretty well for having good performance, and we should be slightly ahead of where we were in 25 when you'll see for first quarter results. What we haven't seen yet and we're still waiting on is on the direct-to-consumer side. So we had guided to the new ACA opportunity to be a kind of slow-moving target, I guess, that's going to take some time for us to play out. We've seen account openings that are faster in our direct-to-consumer channel through this date last year. So we have seen growth, but we have not yet seen the type of growth that we think we're going to see over the balance of the year. So we should see the direct-to-consumer channel kind of increasing and accelerating. The growth in account openings should accelerate over the course of the year, and we should be able to continue to maintain the good and positive momentum that we have in the employer channel as well. So we feel good about the business and where it is today. Great.

Thanks for that. And then shifting over to capital management, nice uptick in the buyback activity in the fourth quarter. Can you talk about the pace looking forward on the buybacks? And I see your CET1 11.2 with the near-term target 11% and long-term target 10.5. Can you talk about the timing of bringing that CET1 down?

Sure. I think our capital strategies from the top of the house remain the same. We look to invest in organic growth, and we're still looking for tuck-in acquisitions to enhance and supplement our healthcare verticals. If those aren't available to us, we obviously look to return capital to shareholders in the form of dividends or buybacks. I think we think that you could see another year like you saw in 25 with respect to share repurchases as we move forward. As it relates to changing from our short-term to our long-term 10.5 target, I think you see that the industry en masse is kind of getting closer to pivoting, and you've seen some people announce. We go through at the end of the first quarter and into the second quarter our annual stress testing and capital management activities, and I think, you know, we're more likely than we were last year to feel comfortable to start to move that thing down after we go through that exercise. So I think we're a couple quarters away from giving you a little more specificity on moving that down. But we certainly feel more comfortable. The credit coast seems pretty clear, and we've got some good economic momentum. So I think you'll continue to see us buy back shares absent other organic uses of capital. and I think we're getting more confident that we can start to breach that 11% CET1 ratio as we move through the year. Great.

Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Daniel Tameo with Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Maybe we can start on the credit. I know that's not as prescient a topic as it has been, but new year, maybe just kind of reset expectations and give your latest thoughts on the office book and what that could look like, if there are any further sales, et cetera, for the coming year.

Sure. You know, I feel really pretty good overall. I mean, I think we nailed it, and I give credit to our chief credit officer in terms of, you know, calling the inflection point. We've had three good quarters of underlying risk rating, migration trending. As you saw, we've materially reduced criticized, classified, and non-accrual loans. And so the overall credit profile, I think, continues to improve and be certainly well within our comfort levels. With respect to those two portfolios we've talked about over and over again, our office and our health care services, You know, they still represent a large portion of MPLs and classifieds, which, you know, is sticky and frustrating, but also really portends to the fact that the vast majority of the $55 billion loan book is performing really, really well. The way I would characterize office, and this would also go to healthcare services, is that I think we have it pretty much ring-fenced. You know, we're about $720 million left in the office portfolio. There's a good amount that's performing, you know, as agreed. We've risk-rated it appropriately. We've got the appropriate reserves. And so, you know, we don't think it's going to be a big contributor as we move forward. Outsize nonaccruals. We try and resolve some of the sticky nonaccruals we have now. You know, we'll make the right calls in terms of loan sales or charges. But we feel pretty good about the fact that we can operate within that 25 to 35 basis point annualized charge-off rate. Obviously, when you're a commercial bank with big credits, that can sort of bump around a little bit, as you've seen in the last several quarters. But we feel pretty good that we've kind of, you know, have a good handle on everything in there and that we don't see any significant deterioration in that portfolio. And the same goes with the health care portfolio, which is now down to like $400 million. So in aggregate, those two portfolios are roughly a billion dollars. We've identified the problems that are in them. we've adequately reserved, and we're not a big contribution.

Okay, great. Yep, great. That's great, Kyler. Thanks. And then, you know, we've talked a lot about the deposit portfolio today. You know, the non-interest-bearing side, obviously tied to commercial loan growth, but it really has continued to trend down for reasons that, you know, you're growing in other areas. you've had a lot of growth opportunities, understandably, but that has kind of continued to trend down over the last few years, even in quarters. Just curious if you see a bottom from a mixed perspective with non-interest bearing anytime soon. Thanks.

Yeah, I would answer that with two different directions. The first is saying that we are seeing a slowing pace in reductions in non-interest bearing. For the full year, we were down just over $200 million. So we believe that we're very close to an inflection point there. Looking at it a little differently as an organization, we really focus on non-interest bearing, including our health care services, priced at 15 basis points, where we had $450 million in growth this year. So when we have a marginal dollar of marketing where we can put towards a Mitros or towards the HSA versus going out and competing head-to-head for a new consumer client, we tend to go in the direction of our health care services book, which is differentiated, and we have a strong opportunity there. So overall, we kind of look at those combined, and we do think for the pure non-interest-bearing, excluding health, we are close to.

And I want to be clear that we still have relationships and non-interest-bearing accounts. We're investing in treasury management capabilities. We continue to push all of the line folks to make sure that they're, you know, deepening the share of wallet and that we're getting our share of operating business along with the loans we're making. So I agree with Neil's comments, but I don't want that to be misconstrued, that we're not still focused on making sure that we're growing kind of core traditional consumer and commercial deposits. Great.

Thanks for the color.

Your next question comes from the line of David Smith with Truist Securities. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning.

Hey, David.

You had mentioned that deposit competition was elevated in a lot of your geographic footprint right now.

I'm wondering if you just help us frame, you know, within your broader footprint, what areas are seeing more or less competition from a geography standpoint?

Thank you yeah i i would put it across multiple categories um when we look at uh consumer cds we've seen some of the large banks in our market maintain very aggressive pricing there which were priced a little bit below some of those uh competitors at this point in time on the direct bank portfolio there you know between two and three billion but there's some offers still sitting out in the market, well over 4%. The commercial side continues to be competitive, as always, especially in our market, so being a competitive landscape. As we talked about, we have much focus.

Thank you. Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Manan Gosalia with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Hey, good morning, all.

Good morning. You noted earlier on that loan yields were better this quarter than you previously anticipated. Can you talk about what's driving that? You also mentioned the credit spreads of tight end, so it seems like the loan growth is coming in higher-yielding categories. I guess, two-part question, is that right? And if that is, then what is baked into the flattish NIM trajectory that you just spoke about?

Yeah, I'll take the first one, the first question, and then Neil can answer on the Nib. You know, so no, I don't think that we said that loan yields were better than expected in the fourth quarter. It was actually loan payoffs, and so part of the kind of better performance that we saw from a loan growth perspective and just the overall stability that we saw in the portfolio was driven by the fact that loan, you know, expectations regarding loan payoffs with rates and so forth did not turn out to be what we thought it was, so we actually had better performance, and so we were able to retain a larger percentage, particularly of the commercial real estate book, which was great. On loan yields, it's competitive out there, and so we've seen, similar to what we've been talking about a little bit on the deposit side, we've seen a bottoming out in an inflection point where spreads, for the most part, have contracted to where they're going to contract, and part of the spread contraction that we've seen in new originations for us is driven by the fact that we've been focusing on higher quality, just better, more middle-of-the-fairway type of assets that are just by design going to have a tighter credit spread than things that are not middle-of-the-fairway and not as bank-eligible or as bank-friendly from an asset class perspective. So we feel good about where the origination and pipeline activity is for 26. We think that spreads are going to hold in relative to what we've seen for the back half of this year. And if anything, to the extent that there's a better supply-demand imbalance with credit providers into the market relative to loan demand, we think that there could be some potential for credit spread to move slightly up over the course of the year, but that's not factored into our numbers today. And if anything, that would be a positive.

Yeah, and so clearly with market rates coming down, our overall loan yields for the quarter were down about 17 basis points. When we were sitting midway through the quarter and seeing the performance in the beginning of the quarter, we were expecting to see it come down a little bit more. At the end of the quarter, we had a few positive movements and a little bit of change in mix that were all from that middle of the quarter. Clearly, loan yields were down based on the overall market, but it came in a little bit better than expected.

Perfect. And then, just wanted to get your thoughts on the leveraged lending guidance being withdrawn. Does that help loan growth a little bit as you look at the next two or three years? And does that help you do more with clients that you already have a deep relationship with?

Yeah, that's a great question. I think the answer is it does not really change our financial outlook. I think it does give us a little more flexibility in terms of, you know, those kind of prescriptive guidance things. It's interesting. The unintended consequences is you end up maybe doing transactions that are not as optimal and actually not as credit strong, but within a box of a prescriptive leverage covenant. This gives us a little more flexibility to do deals we know are good. You know, in the sponsor book, we've been in the business for 25 years, and we're really good at it. So I would say, you know, during the course of the year, will it allow us to do, you know, three to five more transactions that we otherwise might have not done because of regulatory scrutiny that we know are really, really good transactions? Yes. Does that really move the needle and change our kind of forward look on loan growth or profitability? Probably not. It's factored into what we're giving in guidance. So I would kind of say it's definitely, and I know this question's been asked across, it's definitely not as impactful as people say, but it's another good sign consistent with a more constructive and tailored regulatory environment that gives, you know, good bankers and good bank management teams the ability to serve their customers better.

That's very helpful. Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Bernard von Guzicki with Deutsche Bank. please go ahead.

Hey, guys.

Good morning. Just my first question. Sorry if I missed this, but I think you acquired SecureSave in December, which adds employer-sponsored emergency savings accounts. Can you just talk more on the acquisition, sizing of the deal, any economics or any color you can share on that?

Yeah, the size of the deal, Bernard, we didn't put anything out when we announced it. And so you could assume that it's relatively small and it's already, you know, factored into all of the, you know, quarter end balance sheet numbers and, you know, capital metrics and so forth. So, it's a, you know, SecureSafe is a relatively small company still in, we could characterize it as almost in, you know, still pseudo startup phase. But it does have, it's a market leader in that growing business of ESAs, of emergency savings accounts. It's clearly, or the mission of the business is focused on helping, you know, large employers that have, you know, large workforces, you know, help those, you know, employees through an incremental benefit to being able to save for, you know, eventuality specific rainy day funds and so forth. And so it's largely viewed as a retention tool by employers. It's a big focal point of HR officers for large employers are trying to figure out other ways to help those, you know, places that have large employee workforces to, you know, to kind of put more arms around it and bear hug their employees to stay on and kind of limit turnover. But again, it's a small business. We think that it has a lot of good potential. It's a product that we had started to sell through our HSA bank channel to our employer clients for some time and saw some good receptivity. So we've been very familiar with the product for about the last year, year and a half, and we think that this could be, again, it's going to be well-received into our existing channels, but we're also expanding the universe of potential large employers that we can now target because this is something that we think is going to be well received by by the the large world of you know human resources of large in large corporate but more to come on how well on how that business will continue to evolve and you'll start seeing you know we'll call out uh deposit balances and start highlighting those as as those flow in over the course of this year okay great and just like follow up so what is your appetite on further deals and how actively are you looking at them and you know any any color on like pricing and And is it just harder to find these types of, like, bolt-ons to add to the HSA business?

Yeah, it is. I mean, I think, you know, it's always a good question, and we answer it every year. We're obviously very active in looking to enhance two things, you know, our deposit gathering, low-cost, long-duration deposit gathering capabilities. We've got a first-mover advantage in health care through HSA and Amitros or potentially adding more fee income streams to our business. And so we continue to look at those tuck-ins where we can. We have been very transparent in the past that most banks are also looking at those two categories to grow. And when companies go to auction, the metrics in terms of tangible book value dilution and others get very challenging. So I'd say we're active. You know, if you think about it, since the Sterling MOE, we've done BEND and HSA. We've done InterSync. We've done SecureSave. We've done Amitros. So we have a really good track record, I think, of acquiring businesses that enhance our existing business and let us leverage our core competencies without making it shareholder unfriendly. And so I think that's the key. We'll continue to look at it. We'd love to do that sort of on a serial basis, but again, we're going to be really disciplined in terms of how much we pay and what we are looking to acquire.

Great. Thanks for taking my questions.

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of John Arfstrom with RBC. Please go ahead.

Thanks. Good morning, guys. Good morning, John. Neil, a question for you on expenses. It looks like the fourth quarter run rate, The core run rate puts you at the low end of the 26 guide, which is fine. But what do you think the slope looks like for the year on expenses?

I think you said, what does the slope look like? You were a little hard to hear, but okay, perfect.

The background, I guess, maybe.

As I mentioned in prepared remarks, we'll move up seasonally a little bit in Q1 due to those three factors that I mentioned. Outside of that, I think we continue to invest and are continuing, as we always do, to look for ways.

And then back on growth, I heard your comments on less payoffs maybe caused an aberration in growth. But do you have any reason for the lower payoff activity? And it also looks like the way I see it, originations in commercial and commercial real estate are up pretty nicely.

Is that seasonal or is there something else going on there? uh yeah i think that it's uh it's a little bit of season now so it's a little bit of all the above that you mentioned um the if you go back through the performance of uh 2025 uh first part of the year first and second quarter we did not have as much commercial real estate growth as you saw on the back end so a little bit of that was pipeline buildings over the course of the year uh and you know so we continue to feel good that you know pipelines are building up nicely for 26 as well But you're unlikely to see the same type of growth trajectory that we saw in the fourth quarter on those specific, you know, CRE and CNI asset classes, as you saw in the back half of the year. But then you'll see potentially some seasonality in the back half of 26 as well that could get you to the higher end of the range that we put out there today. So there's, you know, there's a little bit of all the above. Why did the expected payoffs, you know, perform better? It happens at times, you know. So we, again, we think that there's, you know, we go through the portfolio. We have pretty good visibility on how things will perform. Rate moves being a little bit later in the quarter than what we had originally anticipated also drove some of that performance, but rates continue to go down. You should see some accelerated payoffs, particularly in the CRE book, but we'll see what happens over the course of the year, and if rate cuts do come, that will have some sort of impact. So it's a little bit of a conservative guide from that perspective, but the overall theme is pipelines are good we feel good about the origination activity for the year and we think that there's you know there could be good potential opportunities for us to hit the high end of the range your next question comes from the line of anthony ilian with jp morgan please go ahead hi everyone on the loan growth and deposit growth outlook are you anticipating the growth within those ranges spread evenly throughout this year or do you think the growth will be more first half or second half waited?

You know, that's always tough to predict. There is a general seasonality. Last year actually was a little bit different given the pipeline build in Cree. We had a stronger third quarter than you'd normally see. You know, the fourth quarter is usually the strongest quarter for us, but I think for our modeling purposes, thinking about kind of an An even growth trajectory is, you know, you can build it into your models. First quarter is usually a little bit slower, but, again, it has a lot to do with payoffs, which we can't predict. So very difficult to give you kind of the seasonal growth.

Okay. And then on HSA and the $1 to $2.5 billion incremental deposit growth, you could see from the bill over the next five years, is all the necessary infrastructure technology in place to support that growth, or is there any further build-out required? Thank you.

No build-out required from a technology perspective. It's in place, and we feel very good that we've made the investments, that if there's a mad rush of potentially to say clients trying to open up accounts through a direct-to-consumer channel, that we have all the capabilities and scalability to be able to take that on at no incremental cost to where we are today. So we feel very good about that tech investment set.

Great. Thank you.

Thank you.

And that concludes our question-and-answer session. John, I'll turn it to you for closing remarks.

Yeah, I just want to thank everyone for joining us today. I hope you can survive the storm this weekend, no matter where you are, and enjoy the day.

And ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's conference call. Thank you for your participation, and you may now disconnect.