Jude Melville: I would just tail into your question about client sentiment. I’ll ask Philip to weigh in on that. But I would just say numerically that the pipeline felt strong in the fourth quarter, and we obviously grew loans at a faster rate than we did in the second and third and fourth quarter, was the pipeline enhancement was during a time when there was already an expectation began to be built and the rates would drop in the future. So — so we actually — even though there is an expectation and you might say clients might wait for risks to drop, we didn’t actually experience that effect in the fourth quarter. But Philip if you want to…
Philip Jordan : We did [indiscernible] appreciate that. And I would say that the forecast for the next couple of quarters look the same. Obviously, the clients are aware of the environment. We expect an increase in pricing, but our pipeline remains strong. So…
Matthew Olney: And just lastly, on the funding strategy, I just want to appreciate if there’s any kind of shift or, I guess, product change there? It looks like the time deposit balances came down quite a bit during the quarter. And based on Greg’s update, it sounds like you’re maybe leaning more on money markets more recently. Any color behind the product shift there?
Greg Robertson: Yes, I would say probably in third quarter — beginning of the third quarter, and obviously, all in the fourth quarter, we were very focused on that money market special, with a conscious effort to moving some of the renewed balances that were coming up for renewal in our CD book into that money market product. The — we figured the sacrifice in the short hand of the rate would give us flexibility with being able to manage those rates going forward, if and when rates do fall. So that’s not a new strategy this quarter. We actually have been doing that probably for the balance of the second half of the year and seemed to be fairly successful without a lot of run-off in the CD book as well.
Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Graham Dick from Piper Sandler.
Graham Dick: I just wanted to go back to the funding side quickly, and specifically on noninterest-bearing balances. And Greg, so with that NIM guide or outlook then, whatever you want to call it, for next year, what are you assuming in terms of remix out of noninterest-bearing. Like where are you assuming that percentage goes from the current level of about 25%?
Greg Robertson: We’re forecasting that the noninterest-bearing continues to have a little bit of headwind, and we think that, that will be — will settle somewhere around 23% by the end of 2024.
Graham Dick: Okay. All right. That’s helpful. And then I guess just on, I guess, the size of the balance sheet and with loan growth and deposit growth, the push-pull there, do you think that I guess, loan growth is going to continue to just slightly outpace deposit growth from here? Or do you think you can start to reverse, I guess, that cycle and actually reduce the loan-to-deposit ratio a little bit more going forward?
Greg Robertson: We’re actually — we finished the quarter at about 95%. We would like to get that closer to 90%. So in the near-term, we see match funding for the loan growth. Obviously, there’s some opportunities to win to continue to keep that loan growth in the 6% to 8% range and outpace it with deposits to ship the loan-to-deposit ratio downward a little bit, that would be great.
Jude Melville : I will point out that over the course of the year, we decreased the loan-to-deposit ratio even with the macro environment, and liquidity pressure. So we do — although in the fourth quarter, we did grow loans a little slightly faster than deposits. One of the reasons that we did so was because we had made room earlier in our borrowing capacity — with our borrowing capacity. So we definitely want to be thoughtful about how we fund loans. So we’re in a position now where we continue to try to decrease that on the deposit ratio, but we also have the flexibility that we didn’t have a year ago to make sure that we’re using all the tools that are available to us and do the right thing each quarter. But over the course of the year, we certainly would like to continue that trend of closer to 90%.
Graham Dick: And then, Greg, I think you gave a number for expenses to start the year. But I guess as you look out for the full year 2024, where do you think expense growth would shake out relative to maybe a run rate of this 4Q number we saw?
Greg Robertson: I think the starting at that 4Q number and then building on that with a 6% to 8% growth rate annually and just chop that up by quarters, escalating stair stepping up, I think, is probably the fairest way to look at it.
