管理層發言
I will now turn the call over to Tom Speir to begin.
Thank you, Chris. Welcome to Regions' 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 Regions' 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. 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 $0.64. On an adjusted basis, earnings were $583 million or $0.68 per share. We delivered adjusted pre-tax, pre-provision income of $831 million and generated an adjusted return on tangible common equity of 20%. Overall, we're pleased with our performance for the second quarter, reflecting disciplined 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 is solid. 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. 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 has 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 impacted by the higher interest rate environment, we continue to see solid performance across our other fee 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 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 1 regional bank in online banking satisfaction, along with a significant improvement in our mobile app ranking to number 2. 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 the 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. 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-bearing 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 $6 billion. Subsequent to quarter end, we announced the acquisition of the Frazer Lanier Company, a full-service investment banking firm with strong capabilities in 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. 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, and retail trade. While off of a smaller base, investor real estate also generated solid growth, 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, with over half consisting of investment-grade credits. While utilization rates continued to improve during the quarter, the majority of growth was driven by new loan production and increased commitments. 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 remain 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 2025. Turning to deposits. Average balances increased modestly while ending balances declined approximately 1%, reflecting normal seasonal patterns associated with tax refunds and payments. Consumer deposits continued their strong performance as checking balances grew despite healthy underlying consumer spending trends. Our non-interest-bearing deposit mix remained in the low 30% range, consistent with our target and reflective of the operational nature of our deposit base. We continue to experience a shift as deposits move from CDs into money market accounts across both consumer and wealth management segments, driven by our intentional product management strategy. Average deposit balances grew while total deposit costs remained controlled, supported by our strong deposit franchise and focus on customer acquisition and retention. We continue to expect 2026 average deposits to be up low single digits versus the prior year. Let's shift to net interest income. Net interest income increased 2% linked 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 3.66% continued to evidence our profitability and deposit funding advantage. During the 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 beta has been 37%. To the extent the Fed moves rates, we would expect a similar mid-30s beta, resulting in a neutral interest rate risk position. Low 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 benefited from fixed rate asset turnover, with elevated 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 over multiple years. Third quarter net interest income is expected to increase approximately 2%, progressing toward the middle of our two and a half to 4% full-year outlook. 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. 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 fee revenue growth. Card and ATM fees increased 8%, driven primarily by seasonally higher transaction volumes. Market value adjustments on employee benefit assets increased $29 million during the quarter. As a reminder, these market value adjustments are largely offset within salaries and benefits expense. Capital 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 swap income. As John mentioned earlier, higher long-term interest rates have impacted overall capital markets income. We continue to expect quarterly revenue to increase within our $90 million-$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 valuation adjustments. As we continue to invest in the franchise to support long-term growth, we remain focused on maintaining a disciplined approach to expense management. For full year 2026, we continue to expect adjusted non-interest expense to be up between 1.5% and 3.5%, and we expect to deliver full-year adjusted positive operating leverage. Regarding asset quality, annualized net charge-offs as a percentage of average loans declined 12 basis points to 42 basis points. Results during the quarter continued to reflect progress on previously identified portfolios of interest that have been reserved for in prior periods. Business services criticized and non-performing loans both declined during the quarter, with the business services criticized ratio declining 14 basis points to 5.01%, and the non-performing loan ratio declining four basis points to 67 basis points. The allowance for credit losses declined $34 million during the quarter. The reduction was driven primarily by continued resolution of previously reserved-for charge-offs, partially offset by reserve builds related to high-quality loan growth. As a result, the allowance for credit losses ratio declined to 1.63%. We continue to expect full-year 2026 net charge-offs to be between 40 and 50 basis points. Let's turn to capital and liquidity. We ended the quarter with an estimated CET1 ratio of 10.7%, while executing $59 million in share repurchases and paying $226 million in common dividends during the quarter. Earlier this week, the board of directors approved an increase in our quarterly common stock dividend to $0.30 per share, representing a 13% increase from the prior quarter and continuing our strong track record of returning capital to shareholders. Over the last 10 years, we've increased our dividend at a 16% compound annual growth rate, ranking within the top quartile among our peer set. In addition, we recently received our 2026 supervisory capital stress test results from the Federal Reserve. Regions delivered outstanding performance, generating the highest level of pre-tax, pre-provision net revenue as a percentage of average assets among our defined regional bank peer group, reflecting the strength of our core earnings profile. Importantly, our pre-provision revenue fully offset projected credit losses over the nine-quarter stress horizon with a coverage ratio of 101.4%, the second highest within that same peer group. As previously communicated by the Federal Reserve, our stress capital buffer will remain at the regulatory floor of 2.5%. Overall, these results reinforce the resilience of our earnings profile, balance sheet, and capital position under severely adverse conditions. 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%, which remains within our targeted operating range of 9.25%-9.75%. 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. With that, we'll 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 *1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press *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 Usdin with Autonomous Research. Please proceed with your question.
Morning, Ken.
分析師問答
Hi. 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. Be glad to. Just to remind everyone of our guides. For net interest income, we expect to grow that at 2.5%-4%, non-interest revenue 3%-5%, and we're pointing to the low end of the range. Then for non-interest expense, 1.5%-3.5%. If you put all that together, that will generate 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 relatively unfavorable comparables, just from a pure math standpoint in the first half of the year. 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. 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, there is broad-based demand across—
Industry sectors across the geographies we bank, we're seeing continued growth in pipelines. Again, that is generally across the business. About 100 basis point increase in line utilization over the quarter, which reflects 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 spreads?
Sure. Glad to. For the quarter, our loan yields were down one basis point. That's an improvement over what we saw in the first quarter. If we really break it into two buckets, about half of our loan growth this quarter was in investment grade credits. As you'd expect, those have tighter spreads reflecting the better credit quality of those credits. The other half was in middle market lending, where we're getting good returns on the spreads we're seeing in that business. Broadly speaking, the market is competitive, but our competition is remaining rational. We're staying disciplined to good returns on what we're putting on our balance sheet. We did talk a bit about tightening credit spreads last quarter. We saw that this quarter to a lesser degree, which is reflected 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.
Ryan.
Hey, good morning, guys. Anil, you noted that fixed rate asset repricing should support the margin over multiple years. I know the bank historically talked about a 360-390 NIM over time. Based on the current environment, where do you see the margin going over the medium term, and what are the key drivers of that in this rate environment? Thank you. I have a follow-up.
Sure. We exited the quarter with a 3.66% margin, down a basis point. When we look out to the third quarter, we expect to be flat to slightly up. Key drivers include fixed asset turnover. We have about $3 billion of fixed rate assets that we expect to reprice and receive a 75-100 basis point pickup in repricing. We also have a hedge rate increase of about seven basis points that will benefit the margin. We have one additional day in the quarter, which will impact margin in the third quarter. From there, we expect to continue to grow into the fourth quarter with another bit of fixed rate turnover. We also have a dividend on our HR assets that will occur in the fourth quarter as well. That will get us to approximately 3.70% that we guided to. The pace of loan growth will be a determinant in terms of where we ultimately exit the year, but we're confident in getting to that 3.70% level as we exit the year.
Got you. I guess, maybe as a follow-up, Anil, 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. 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 had been operating at? Thank you.
Yeah. You alluded to it. We exited last quarter with a common equity Tier 1 inclusive of AOCI of 9.4%. That increased about 10 basis points. That's called $125 million of share repurchases just there. Each quarter, we'll generate between 45 to 50 basis points of capital. Dividend will be 18 basis points this quarter based upon our new board-approved dividend. That'll tick up a bit to 20 basis points. To your point, we'll always focus on growing good quality loans. We saw nice growth this quarter, and we expect to see that into the future. Given where we are at 9.5% in terms of the Basel III common equity Tier 1 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 to the line of John Pancari with Evercore ISI. Please proceed with your question.
Morning, John.
Morning. 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 the competitive environment, particularly in the Southeast and particularly coming from banks expanding more actively in the Southeast. 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 12 to 18 months. 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. This is a place where we're really proud of our overall performance. This is not something that we just accidentally have. This is a phenomenal asset that we have, which is our deposit base. We spent 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. Importantly, we spent 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. We have a great deal of confidence in this, and 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, Anil. Secondly, just on the credit backdrop, 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. You saw good improvement in your losses this quarter. Any newer developments, any incremental workout that you're working on at this point?
Yeah. John, thanks for the question. Credit has continued to improve, and we would say normalize as we've seen non-performing loans continue to come down and criticized loans come down. The business office portfolio is down 35% year-over-year, trucking down 25% year-over-year, and communications is 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. Those portfolios are continuing to improve. We are seeing a little softness in multifamily in a couple of markets we're following, but nothing to be particularly concerned about. Otherwise, we feel really good about credit and the positioning of our portfolio and expect it to perform in a normal way as the next few quarters develop.
Just related to that, if I could ask one more. On the reserve front, you relieved about six basis points on the reserve ratio this quarter. How should we think about the outlook from here?
I think we've been talking about getting back to an equivalent CECL day one, which today is basically 1.62%, so pretty much where we're at now. As you look forward, there are a couple of things that we'll keep our eye on. There is still some uncertainty in the market right now, so as you'd expect, we are keeping some reserves back 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. So we'll continue to track that. Right now, we think the 1.63% coverage ratio that we have right now is indicative of where we'd expect to be absent new information over the next several quarters. We'll continue to monitor both the macroeconomic uncertainties that are still out there and 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.
Morning.
Hey, good morning. 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 either investing in their own business, spending more of their own cash, because when I look at the loan side as well, the utilization rate is up quite nicely.
A little bit of both. I'd say predominantly seasonality, but we are seeing customers use some of their excess cash balances. 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.
It's a trend you expect to continue through this year?
Yes, it is.
Got it. Okay. 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? If the 10-year goes below 4%, asset spreads tighten, 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.
Good morning.
Can you hear me okay? Sorry about that.
Yes. Thank you.
Great. Just back on loan growth, it looks like even if average loans are flat in 3Q and 4Q on a quarter-over-quarter basis, that you'd land near the middle of that average loan growth guide range for the low single digits. If we can just talk about maybe your outlook for the back half of the year, with pipeline 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 loan growth in the first quarter and good growth in the second quarter as well, but we really started off strong. As we talked about before, some of that were draws that we saw late in the quarter. I'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 being closer to a run rate. I wouldn't just extrapolate out what we've seen in 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. 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 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 point level, assuming the economy remains resilient?
No, 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 12-24 months or so. Today, we're still guiding to 40-50 basis points, and as we begin thinking about 2027, we'll contemplate whether or not that range changes looking forward. We have to take a look across all the portfolios and look at what more normalized charge-offs could be. We continue to benefit on the consumer side from near recoveries on the real estate side. Being thoughtful in terms of how long that continues into the future will also impact how we think about our guidance going forward.
Sounds good. Any steps you're taking on the multifamily front?
Just continuing to watch that. There are 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 refinance ability of some of those projects into the permanent market. We're watching that. Nothing to be particularly concerned about today.
Okay, great. Thanks, guys.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from the line of Erika Najarian with UBS. Please proceed with your question.
Hi. Good morning. Just wanted to double-click on sort of the funding strategy from here. If lending growth continues at a pretty solid pace for the rest of the year, Anil, take us through the trade-off in terms of how you're thinking about maybe using some short-term borrowings, FHLB advances as funding versus you mentioned that deposit costs, you'd like for it to stay where they are now. Take us through the thought process in terms of defending your core deposit cost base versus looking at other avenues to fund loan growth if we don't see deposit growth materialize in the second half of the year.
Sure. First and foremost, over the long term, it is our strategy to ensure that loans and deposits grow at a similar rate. At any one period of time, you could see 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. We'll continue to make those investments to make sure we have that pace of growth continue into the future. That's the key to our profitability advantage, and we'll continue to do that. At times where loans grow faster than deposits, we will utilize FHLB advances to fill that gap on a short-term basis. We'll also issue unsecured debt when attractive; this quarter we issued $1.5 billion of unsecured debt at favorable pricing. Those are tools we'll use from time to time to fill gaps. Make no mistake, our long-term strategy remains to grow deposits commensurate with loans.
Got it. In terms of just on deposit pricing, again, obviously you have always had an enviable deposit base. How should we think about pricing and betas if we do get that rate hike? 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 sort of cash incentives to open DDA accounts elsewhere? Maybe talk us through sort of what you have been up against over the past 12 to 18 months.
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. Over the past six months, pricing has not dramatically changed as the outlook for rates has evolved. All banks are trying to manage growing deposits while protecting deposit costs because they're trying to drive profitability. We continue to benefit from our ability to reprice our CD portfolio. Our ability to manage the mix of our deposit base is a key advantage. We can grow non-interest-bearing deposits, be patient in meeting short-term funding needs with alternative funding sources, and maintain a roughly 76% loan-to-deposit ratio, which is a significant advantage relative to peers. These are advantages we can rely on so we don't feel pressure to use rate broadly to grow funding as others may have to do.
Got it. I'll follow up offline on the 25 basis points. Thank you.
On beta, our guidance is we expect to maintain a mid-thirties 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, Anil.
Morning.
John, you touched upon the deposit system conversion expected in 2027. A two-part question. Will conversion begin in early 2027, or later? And second, what kind of capacity will you have with this new system? Could you increase deposits 50% before needing another systems conversion or capacity addition?
Great question. We will begin a pilot, a limited family and friends pilot, sometime in September or October with the idea that we would begin to convert some discrete sections of customers, likely in the first quarter of 2027. This will not be a big bang conversion; we will migrate customers to the new system over time. Our expectation is to do the conversion in 2027 and be complete by mid-year to sometime in the third quarter of 2027. Once complete, the cloud-based, contemporary platform will give us significant capabilities: the ability to bring products to market much faster, provide a better customer experience via API layers, and keep systems updated more easily. In terms of capacity, because it's cloud-based, we expect tremendous capacity to grow on that system with partners we have. It will provide us an advantage in our ability to grow.
Very good. Those fire trucks in the background, your building's not on fire, is it?
No, it's not. We're okay.
I heard you pause there for a minute and I thought maybe.
We're okay.
As a follow-up, you give good color on portfolios with weaknesses. My question: regarding the AI industry and the rapid growth there, how do you do second-derivative analysis to understand any connectivity risk in your portfolio so that if something changes quickly two years from now it's not a surprise?
We have routine discussions to understand our portfolio exposures and connectivity. We perform stress analyses to evaluate how weaknesses in a particular sector could affect us, identify connected companies and industries, and assess interconnectedness of exposure. This is embedded in our concentration risk management analysis and in ongoing conversations about those risks. We evaluate credit risk and have ongoing discussions about connectedness of exposure across sectors.
We add discipline by being cautious about how quickly we grow in any new industry until we get the learnings. Soundness, profitability, and growth in that order matters. For industries that could change rapidly, we don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves in growing before we gather adequate data and learnings.
Very good. Just a quick one: you mentioned multifamily market issues in a couple of bespoke markets. Is that Charlotte or Nashville or where?
In Texas.
Okay. Very good.
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. On slide seven, you split out consumer and corporate service charges, both growing nicely year-over-year. I assume the corporate stuff is the treasury management investments you've made, but comment on how sustainable that is. On the consumer side, a big chunk looks like overdraft. Is it good or bad when overdraft is growing so much?
I'll speak initially about treasury management. We've improved our penetration rate—the percentage of customers using treasury products—from 57% to over 66% over the last five years. That's been a focus: better product offerings, improved sales capabilities, and better recommendations to customers. That has created momentum in treasury management and we expect that to continue. Wealth management is also at record revenue based on talent and capability investments and cross-business collaboration. On the consumer side, we're growing consumer checking accounts, and debit and credit transaction activity was up 8% on a transaction basis. Overdraft fees were up modestly this quarter, somewhat seasonal. We monitor overdraft carefully.
We analyze overdraft on a granular basis across cohorts to understand drivers. It can be an early indicator of risk if not monitored. We look at cohort performance and track any potential roll to charge-off risk. We're not seeing that yet. Consumers are using the service and curing that behavior; we are not seeing material rolls to charge-off. It's something we monitor, but we don't see issues at this time.
That's helpful. Within capital markets, how big is the Frazer Lanier municipal deal in terms of revenue impact—rounding error or something more meaningful? What are the long-term ambitions to grow capital markets and diversify it into other businesses?
Initially, the transaction will have a modest impact. Over time, it will meaningfully enhance our ability to meet customer needs and be another catalyst to grow capital markets. It's a targeted acquisition that complements our government and institutional banking business by adding municipal underwriting and securities capabilities we lacked after divesting Morgan Keegan in 2012. Over time, it should contribute reasonably to earnings.
Interest in further expanding this business and diversifying—are you pursuing that?
We have a stated objective to grow the percentage of non-interest revenue as a share of total. One way is to invest in capital markets capabilities. In 2014, the business was $60-70 million; we should end this year somewhere between $360 million and $380 million and we hope to be a $400 million business over time. We will continue to invest to grow and diversify revenue and increase non-interest revenue as a percentage of total.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
Our next question comes from the line of Christopher Spahr with Wells Fargo. Please proceed with your question.
Morning. Good morning.
I'd like to follow up on capital markets. You bought Clearsight in 2021, which gave a bump in revenue, but revenues haven't grown much on a core basis over the last few years. With capital markets at record levels this year, what do you need to do to become an industry-leading middle market investment bank? Is it mix, execution, more hires?
The business has grown since 2014 from $60-70 million to today's levels. We haven't increased revenue much over the last two years partly because of the interest rate environment. Activity swings across quarters—M&A, real estate capital markets, syndications. We believe it's time to move to the next level. Investments in talent, continued execution, and deeper customer engagement should drive growth. We're pleased with recent investments and expect capital markets to help deepen relationships and diversify revenue further.
My follow-up is on wealth. That business has grown well in prior years. What are the underlying assets under management and net new assets you're acquiring? What is driving that fee line?
Over the last three years, the wealth bankers we've added have generated roughly $6 billion in new client assets. We're seeing growth across retail brokerage, private banking, and institutional wealth. That growth is driven by market activity and acquisition of customer assets, which drives fee increases.
Can you put that $6 billion into context—what's your base AUM?
About $60 billion.
Okay, great. Thank you.
Our next question comes through the line of Chris McGratty with KBW. Please proceed with your question.
Good morning. Thanks. On buybacks: the rating agencies and tangible common equity discussion has gotten more attention. How does that affect your thinking about buybacks both near term and with Basel III reform?
It will impact us over the long term. We'll wait for the final Basel III rule. On a fully phased-in Basel III Endgame, we expect to be around 10.5% based on current capital levels. We're in discussions with rating agencies about how they'll view the changes. For now, we're holding to our CET1 target range of 9.25%-9.75% and will evaluate once we get better clarity. We still have opportunity to deploy capital back into the business and will manage that as final rules and rating agency feedback become clear.
Does the timing of the deposit conversion pilot and the conversion next year change prior comments about inorganic focus for the foreseeable future?
No. We're not interested in depository M&A. We'll stay focused on the deposit conversion and execution of our business. The conversion is important, complex, and going well; that's our primary focus.
Last, on preferreds, any back-half expectations for preferred issuance or dividends?
Right now, decisions on preferreds go hand-in-hand with CET1 management. When we're managing to higher levels of CET1 than needed, we won't feel the need to pre-issue preferred ahead of time. We'll wait to see how rating agency conversations land. If we decide to add preferred through time, we'll do so, but we don't feel the need to do anything in the near term based on current information.
Okay. Current run rate. Thank you.
You're welcome.
Our final question comes through the line of Vivek Juneja with JPMorgan. 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? What are the upcoming maturities and your ability to keep betas in the mid-thirties?
We're confident in maintaining betas in the mid-thirties. Upcoming CD maturities are declining to about $3 billion per quarter. We expect to reprice those CDs at about an equivalent cost, which gives us confidence in our guidance that overall deposit pricing should be relatively flat from here.
You're able to keep that at current rates even with promotional pricing. Is that promotional activity more in metropolitan markets or rural areas given competition from newcomers and online banks?
We target promotional activity. Because we're already in these markets, we don't need broad promotional pricing to enter; we can be targeted for particular customers. That means it's not a meaningful headwind to deposit cost for us. We're able to deploy promotional offers in a focused way for customers we want, and it's not broad-based.
Okay. You said you don't need promotions for funding despite loan growth improving — why?
Our long-term strategy is not to fund loan growth with high-cost promotional deposits. If loans grow faster than deposits in a period, we'll look to other funding sources like FHLB advances and unsecured debt. Our debt footprint is roughly half the peer average, providing flexibility. We'll continue to invest in growing non-interest-bearing and low-cost deposits to catch up over time. Our model is not built on high-cost promotional funding.
Thank you.
Thank you. I would like to turn the call back over to John Turner for closing comments.
Okay. Well, thank you everyone. We appreciate your interest in Regions and your interaction with us today. Have a great weekend.
This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines.