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

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That will be a multi-year initiative. But again, I think critically important to the future of the company and one that we as a team are very excited about. I would also separate that from the buyback. But again, it will be a journey on the compliance side, but one that we are 100% committed to.

Mihir Bhatia: Okay. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. We’ll take our next question from Erika Najarian with UBS.

Nick Holowko: Hi. This is Nick Holowko on for Erika. Thanks for taking my question. Just one more around the consent order and compliance issues. As you think about the operational complexity of the businesses you operate in and as you go through your view looking into these issues, do you feel like there may be an opportunity to take a closer look at some of the businesses you operate in, whether that might be student loans or anywhere else? Thank you.

Roger Hochschild: Yeah. I’ll talk maybe more broadly about operational complexity and then John can talk about the businesses. I think there’s a great opportunity to simplify, whether it’s — we may have a similar process that is done differently. And again, we have a much more, I would say, homogeneous set of business is than just about any other bank or size. So we think there are significant opportunities to simplify, and again, those won’t just help from a compliance standpoint over time once the investments are made, it will also help on the efficiency side.

John Greene: Yeah. And then regarding our businesses and products, we think about this in line with our capital allocation priorities, our connections to our customer base and what we can manage and manage well. So we didn’t start today. Historically, we’ve looked at all our products, our returns and as we look at those, we’ve made decisions to invest in order to drive growth or achieve compliance excellence. So we’re going to continue to look at that. And if something’s below our return targets, then we’ll fix it and invest or we’ll look at other alternatives. But certainly, the focus today is to take our existing products, make sure they’re good offering that we can deliver those in a compliant way and drive a good return for our shareholders.

Nick Holowko: Got it. Thank you for taking my question.

Operator: Thank you. We’ll take our next question from Bob Napoli with William Blair.

Bob Napoli: Thank you, and good morning. And I — just from a big picture perspective with the competitive environment, the compliance environment, Roger, as you look at your business, what is your confidence that Discover can deliver the types of returns that it has that investors have come used to over the last 10 to 20 years? Is there — are you confident in delivering those returns with the higher compliance bar or the competitive set?

Roger Hochschild: Yeah. I’d start by saying yes, right? This is an investment we need to make. It is the top priority for the company, but one that I think we will be able to do to fix. And again, over time, we’ll see benefits not just in compliance, but in a better customer experience as well as more efficient. If you step way back, I’ve never been more excited about Discover’s business model and how it compares. I think you’re seeing the strength of our deposit franchise at a time when many banks are being tested, we have the scale and resources to compete with anyone. We’re making the investments to be at the leading edge around data and analytics, are winning awards for our customer experience on not only just the card side, but also our deposit products.

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