James Rollins: Yes, I think we’re no dear than anybody else. We’re watching what’s happening in the market, but we like insurance. We’ve always liked the insurance. We continue to grow insurance. In the last quarter, we added another insurance agency that we were able to add into our team. So it’s clearly a big part of what we’re doing every day. But the market is always doing something different and so you pay attention to what’s happening in the market.
Matt Olney: Got it. Okay. All my other questions have been addressed. Thanks, guys.
James Rollins: Hi, thanks, Matt. Appreciate it.
Operator: The next question comes from Jon Arfstrom with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Jon Arfstrom: Hi, good morning, everyone.
James Rollins: Hi, Jon.
Jon Arfstrom: Just a couple of follow-ups. Maybe obvious, but the high single-digit growth rate you’re assuming period end. We use period end as a base. Is that right?
Valerie Toalson: Yes. Those are period end guidance.
James Rollins: Yes. For loans, yes.
Jon Arfstrom: Yes. Okay, good. Valerie, you talked about just some — easing some securities, cash flow from securities to fund loan growth. How do you feel about earning asset growth and balance sheet growth for the year? Help us understand the mix change.
Valerie Toalson: Yes. It’s — again, it just all goes back to deposits, and what we saw the industry see this year. You’re not going to grow much in earning assets deposits. That we’re able to grow deposits so forth and that would allow for some earning asset growth, otherwise, it — that just simply the variable.
James Rollins: Yes, nobody wants to go backwards. And I think when we look at 2022, we’re going to see that the industry as a whole lost deposits. We lost some too. Hopefully that trend is turning and so that’s really the question here, if we can grow deposits, then you’ll see earning assets growth.
Jon Arfstrom: Okay. Yes, the earnings look kind of the opposite of what we wrote 18 months ago, right, on balance sheet movements.
James Rollins: Yes.
Jon Arfstrom: Yes. What would you say, like an average new interest bearing rate that you’re paying right now? And are you seeing that pressure ease at all kind of a second derivative of deposit pricing pressure?
Valerie Toalson: It’s an easy answer. There’s no ease on the competition on deposits at all.
Chris Bagley: Yes. The competition is fierce out there. Most people are competing out the yield curve. You see in the short-term as competition is in the short term CDs base and money market space and that’s I think, why you’re seeing the move out of non-interest bearing accounts. But if you have an average number of both that the CDs were booked, on the specials we’re running in the 4s, and specials on money markets, some exception pricing there in the high 3s.
Valerie Toalson: On an average –
James Rollins: Yes, go ahead, Valerie.
Valerie Toalson: On the average — the average for the quarter, the new interest bearing came on at about 2.57%.
Jon Arfstrom: Okay. And then any difference between — on the pressures between the community bank footprint and that 76% you flagged in the other parts of the business — everywhere. Yes.
Chris Bagley: It is intense everywhere, not from my perspective. Somewhat — in some ways the Canadian bank gives that local competition maybe more fierce than the Metropolitan competition. It just depends.
