Associated Banc-Corp (NYSE:ASB) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

And then we’ve just spread out the maturity buckets so that we don’t have a large lump anywhere and then as we get short-term deposit growth or long-term deposit growth, we have the option each month whether we want to roll over a piece or just pay it down. And that was very helpful this quarter, obviously.

Andy Harmening: And so, I’ll maybe expand on that even a little bit, Jon. When I — you started with how we’ve attracted customers in CDs and I would even stop that question shorter and say how have we attracted customers. And when I look at — one thing that gives me confidence heading into 2024 is we have made purposeful actions towards product, marketing, digital in our approach to business. What we’re seeing is we are reversing, literally in the process of reversing a multi-year trend on customer growth. And it’s going in the right direction and we’ve reversed that trend in what many would argue is one of the most volatile years we’ve had for regional banks in the past decade. So when we look at that, those customers, when you marry that customer growth with customer deepening tactics, whether that goes into a CD, whether that is managing the back-end tranche of a CD, whether that goes into a money market, whether it goes into non-interest bearing, there’s no doubt that when you have customer growth, you create a tailwind for yourselves.

So in a market that is normalizing to some extent, we’ve put ourselves through the initiatives we’ve had in a pretty good position on the foundational customer growth.

Jon Arfstrom: Okay, good and helpful. And then just last thing, Andy, I travel a lot and I’m trying to look at my calendar, but when do we expect the timing on the big reveal of Phase 2? And is this strategic, quantitative, or both? What can we expect when you give us?

Andy Harmening: I was a little nervous that you’re going to ask me to predict the future of the Packers here in the fourth quarter when you did that lead in. We’re putting that together right now, Jon. It’s not long. I mean, we’re nearing the end of October going into November. We will be in the fourth quarter just as fast as we can put the right accurate presentation together. So it’s been something we’ve been working on for a little bit, but it will be later in the fourth quarter. Exact times shared in the near future.

Jon Arfstrom: Okay. Strategic and quantitative both, is that what we can expect?

Andy Harmening: With regards to the plan, of course it will be strategic. We will give indication of what key metrics are going to happen on the financial side.

Jon Arfstrom: Okay. Good. All right. Thank you.

Andy Harmening: We don’t want to put every number into your model, Jon. It’d put a lot of pressure on us.

Jon Arfstrom: No, I’m waiting. I’m just here waiting. Thank you.

Andy Harmening: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Scott Siefers with Piper Sandler. Please proceed with your question.

Scott Siefers: Afternoon, guys. Thanks for taking the question. I guess I wanted to take another stab on the NII. So it looks like there’s a fairly wide range of possible outcomes for the fourth quarter, anywhere from down just a bit to actually up to several percentage points. I guess just sort of in your view, what would have to happen for NII to have bottomed out at the current level? In other words, there must be some confidence that it may have bottomed out or could even go higher. I mean, what are sort of the puts and takes as you sort of think about that range of outcomes?