Banner Corporation (NASDAQ:BANR) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Rob Butterfield: Yeah. So – so on that – on that piece of it, Jeff, so I mean that business so I would say our normal – let’s call it our normal community banking fee income side of it. That – that will remain steady from – from what you saw this quarter. The other piece of it, of course, is the 1-to-4 family business, which is heavily influenced by the market rate environment and where 10 years at for to see meaningful growth on that we’re gonna have to see some pullback in – in the 10 year on that. But beyond that, we are looking at some strategic initiatives to enhance that. One of them is regarding SBA lending. We’re looking at enhancing our origination capability in that business and then we’re also, the FX foreign exchange income that we have is – is more of a convenience for – for some customers and that’s something we’ve gone after in the past.

So we’re looking at that. And then a longer term play is looking at some wealth management, enhancing our capabilities there as well.

Jeff Rulis: Okay. Thanks. And – and maybe one – one other one. Kind of two part, if you will. Looking at the maybe for Mark, just your perception of competition, both loan and deposit pricing, you’d find that better or worse in – in the northwest versus your southern footprint and the second piece of that is, I know, where do you see more opportunity for talent, dislocation and or may in the northwest versus the southern area. So that’s two part is competition, second part is opportunity. Thanks.

Mark Grescovich: Yeah. Thank – thanks for the question, Jeff. I think from a – from a competitive standpoint look there’s – there’s clearly some financial institutions that are under a bit of stress in terms of what they can do with their balance sheet as – as it relates to growth. So while there are still competitive forces out there in terms of pricing, we’re finding some great opportunities and are able to compete effectively. So we’re seeing a stabilization in terms of pricing as it relates up specifically in the Pacific Northwest and you will see that continue and migrate down into California with some of the regional banks that that we compete against. So we’re seeing some good opportunities and we think that they’re, I don’t – I don’t view this as being a major price competitive market into the course of the next 24 months I think Banner can have a real advantage from that standpoint to take market share.

So that’s, I think from a competitive standpoint, I think we’re – we stood pretty well. A lot of it has to do with just general market conditions, but more importantly, the source of capital that some of the regional banks are gonna be able to deploy. That’s gonna benefit us. In terms of talent, we’ve taken the same approach that we have in the past which is we’re – we’re much more of a rifle shot approach rather than hiring teams of bankers, and we have been extremely successful at hiring some very good talent in all of our markets, from some of the regional and larger institutions and we’re gonna continue to do so, we – we see some great opportunity with some of the market disruption that is adding some real talent to the organization. So thank you for the question.

Jeff Rulis: Yeah. Thanks, Mark.

Operator: Thank you. As there are no additional questions waiting at this time, I’d like to hand the conference call back over to Mark Grescovich for closing remarks.

Mark Grescovich: Thank you, everyone. Thank you for your questions and your interest. As I stated, we are very proud of the Banner team, in our third quarter performance, a very solid third quarter performance. Again, thank you for your interest in joining us on the call today. We look forward to reporting results to you in the future. Have a great day, everyone. Thanks again.

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining today’s call. Have a great day ahead. You may now disconnect your lines.

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