Discover Financial Services (NYSE:DFS) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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John Greene: Yeah. Thanks, Sanjay. So the decision on the share repurchase was out of prudence. We have done a number of tests internally, stressing a number of factors, so that for example, the CCAR process we go through includes extreme stress. We dusted that off and ran some simulations. And the output of that was that both capital and liquidity, even in an extreme situation, remain well above regulatory requirements. So we feel comfortable about our capital and liquidity. The issue on the share repurchase was again out of prudence given what we have going on in the organization and we wanted to make sure that our actions are consistent with the right message in terms of being conservative and dealing with the first level of priority. In terms of…

Sanjay Sakhrani: Okay.

John Greene: In terms of expense leverage, we continue to look at all of the lines and all of the investments we make in our expense base and the incident management situation we’re dealing with in terms of resources to get that under control. That’s a significant investment. Some resources supplement technology, people and consultants, certainly an investment. On the indirect side, we continue to leverage our procurement organization and ensure that, first, we concentrate on demand management and then, second, on making sure there’s a fair value exchange. So that’s the plan right now and will be the plan through the balance of this year.

Sanjay Sakhrani: Okay. I guess follow-up just for Roger. I know you’ve gotten this question in the past and I’m just thinking about the higher teasers and such. I mean what makes you comfortable growing sort of mid-teens, high teens above the really strong lapping of very strong growth a year ago? I mean, I’m just thinking about just the complexion of the accounts you’re bringing in that makes you very comfortable here because it’s obviously having some implications on the NIM.

Roger Hochschild: Yeah. Good question, Sanjay. You have seen that growth start to slow a bit. And I think it isn’t necessarily that far out of line with what you’re seen from our other, I’d say sophisticated prime focused competitors. It is really strong demand for the product. And as we’ve been clear, we have been tightening, not loosening credit, and are watching the accounts we book very carefully. And so we’re always ready to make adjustments whether it’s in the card product, the personal loan or elsewhere. But again, we feel good and are closely monitoring the performance. Within the credit, we’re making adjustments continuously both on the portfolio side and the new account side. But these are very strong new accounts we’re bringing in. And I think part of it is the differentiated value proposition that Discover offers continues to resonate well with our target customer.

Sanjay Sakhrani: Thanks.

Operator: Thank you. We’ll take our next question from Kevin Barker with Piper Sandler.

Kevin Barker: Great. Thanks for taking my questions. I just wanted to follow-up on the expenses in particular. You said you continue to target efficiency ratio in the high 30s. Could there be a time where you may have to make additional investments, particularly around compliance that would have you go above the high 30s efficiency ratio for a short period of time before returning back to it, just given the near-term impacts of both additional marketing spend on debit account and the compliance issues? Thank you.

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