BM Technologies, Inc. (AMEX:BMTX) Q3 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

The other thing that I always like to point out, I just want to highlight is that this is really a feature or a pressure point in the way that the BaaS product has been structured in the higher ed business. That $600 million we have in deposits are almost no cost. We have not had to have any increases in pricing in that core deposit base. We actually — the last rate adjustment we had in that product was an early 2021, and we moved rates down, not up without any sort of negative impact on balances. So, the higher ed space, it’s a very high quality, low cost core deposit base, which we think is very valuable and no pressure there. And all the benefit of rising rates would flow through to us there once we have a variable rate surfacing agreement, and in the balanced product, we would expect to sort of offset the increases in costs with increases in revenue once we have a new bank partner.

Mike Grondhahl: Got it. Got it. And then, hey, just lastly, do you expect deposit balances overall to grow the next couple quarters?

Bob Ramsey: Yeah. So, Mike, I think we’re not going to provide guidance there. A lot of that is going to have to do with what happens with market rate increases. And as Luvleen and said, we really have taken the approach of trying to balance as we look forward, maintaining balances with not chasing rate. We do want to have low cost core deposits and that’s what we do want to grow. And whether we find rates move up rapidly in the market and we decide not to chase that and there could be some runoff, it’s possible. But overall, I think that — in the student business, we are looking to continue to grow that business and we haven’t seen the rate driven pressures on the BaaS space. It’s really going to depend on market conditions.

Mike Grondhahl: Fair enough. Thank you.

Bob Ramsey: Thank you, Mike.

Operator: You’re next question will come on the line of Brian Dobson with Chardan Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Bob Ramsey: Morning, Brian.

Brian Dobson: Hi, good morning. So, could you speak a little bit about your decision process for not changing rates, I’m sorry, not chasing rates in the quarter, and how that would — I guess specifically how that would’ve impacted the P&L, and how your new banking partner relationship might alleviate pressure there moving forward?

Bob Ramsey: Yeah. So, I’ll speak to that. So — and then Luvleen, again, feel free to chime in. But we’ve looked at this product, it was structured originally in a different rate environment with a rate that was, we’ll call it reasonably competitive. And as market interest rates moved, what we found is that there were a lot of other competitors out there that were paying more, in some cases materially more. And we started to see some of our depositors that wore more rate sensitive move balances. Now we believe that that value is created in banking with a low cost core deposit franchise. So, whether we are a bank, whether we have a partner bank, whether we’re brokering those deposits out to banks, that’s where they are going to be most valuable is if we have low cost deposits.