Civista Bancshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:CIVB) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Terry McEvoy: Makes complete sense. The bad check loss, is that just a one-off situation? Is that just what you’re seeing across the bank? Which I think is consistent with the industry, and do you think that level continues from here on the expense side?

Dennis Shaffer: We wish it was one. There are no big ones, but it’s just a phenomenon that I think we’re all in the industry trying to figure out. I mean, if we could get everybody to switch over to positive pay, that would be a huge help for us. And our career remains and folks, I tell you what, they’ve been selling the heck out of it. But apparently, they’re starting selling fast enough.

Rich Dutton: Well, we just — we’re trying, we have a big campaign, awareness campaign that we’re doing on social media. We’re doing it through our digital site, our online banking just to make our customers aware of it, fraud is really for them we are working well along with a number of other banks with our banking associations here in Ohio and our regulators. I was at a regulatory meeting three weeks ago and this was a topic of discussion. But we just got to raise the level of awareness for all of our customers, because the fraud piece of it is really picked up throughout our industry.

Terry McEvoy: And maybe one last one. The decision to exit the income tax refund business, as you mentioned, the release might get in the way of a future bank M&A. So it sounds like that was part of the decision on top of the number of complaints. So level maybe Dennis conversations you’re having with potential partners, clearly there’s some interest rate marks and financial obstacles to get over. But what’s your outlook for bank M&A for Civista?

Dennis Shaffer: Well, I think, you know, I think it’s tough right now, just as you mentioned, just, you know, to do any type of M&A, given where stock prices are and, you know, loan marks and marks on security portfolios and things like that. So, you know, it’s just tough to make that math work. We are continuing to have dialogue and we’re meeting with potential partners. So those discussions are ongoing. I just think it makes it, whether you’re a buyer or a seller, the math is really hard to do right now. We have looked at a couple of smaller deals that were announced earlier in the year. We just couldn’t make those, you know, the math work. And, you know, I don’t see that easing up, you know, in the near-term, but we have to continue with the discussions because, you know, the minute you stop, you kind of lose that, you know, a little bit of that relationship, you know, maybe that relationship and stuff.

So I just think you have to continue those discussions and because certain banks are going to be under more pressure than we are. And they’re going to — want to partner up, and we want to make sure we’re top of mind so we’ll continue to have meaningful discussions with people that we view as good part of ours.

Terry McEvoy: Great. Thanks for taking my questions. Have a nice weekend.

Dennis Shaffer: Okay, thanks, Terry.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Tim Switzer with KBW. Please go ahead.

Tim Switzer: Hey good afternoon. I’m on for Mike Perito. Thanks for taking my question.

Dennis Shaffer: Thank you.

Tim Switzer: First off, do you guys have what the purchase accounting impact was to the margin this quarter? I think last quarter is around 8 basis points and had some like prepayments. I’m wondering if that settled down at all.

Rich Dutton: It’s almost identical. We competed at 7 basis points this quarter, Tim.