East West Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:EWBC) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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All we’re going to have to get our lending officers to continue to work on these new prospective clients and get those loans funded to offset the gains — the slowdown in the entertainment side. But all in all, I looked at it is that it’s not going to be any credit quality issue. It’s just all coming back to get outstanding balance on that particular portfolio. I do want to mention, we — if you look at the chart, Page 6, we highlight that there’s 4% of our loans that are in media and entertainment. Again, I want to highlight is a media entertainment. So, we do have also a good decent sized portfolio of digital media, and they are not affected by strikes. These are the ones that building video games and then some of the other things. They’re not part of the Hollywood labor forces.

So it’s very different. So it’s a combination that makes up to 4%. So, it’s not as sizable as what we reflected here on Page 6.

Irene Oh: And I’ll just add, I answered Matthew’s question incorrectly. So the answer as far as the monthly NIM for June was 3.51%.

Operator: Our next question will come from Gary Tenner with DA Davidson. You may now go ahead.

Gary Tenner: Irene, I wanted to kind of revisit your comments about the planned $1.2 billion of brokered runoff back half of the year. I know you don’t give kind of deposit growth guidance. But as we’re thinking about the balance sheet, should we be thinking of that $1.7 billion being replaced by customer deposits and then an additional growth on top of that basically equal plus or minus your loan growth in the back half of the year. Is that kind of the way to think about the rest side of the balance sheet?

Irene Oh: Gary, that is the plan.

Gary Tenner: Okay. And then the second part of that question, I guess, is the $600 million or so that you’ve kind of roll off so far in July and replaced by customer deposits. What’s the incremental or the marginal cost of the new customer deposits that are coming in? Is it — it sounds like it must be pretty close to kind of the June 30 spot rate because it doesn’t sound like that’s moved very much?

Irene Oh: Yes. Well, I think the actually — that’s a great question. The incremental new deposits, new customers, new CI assets that there is a little bit kind of marginal increase that is happening. Some of that has been a little bit of migration that we’ve seen with the higher rate environment to CDs, especially on the consumer side.

Gary Tenner: The mix coming in is more CD oriented?

Irene Oh: Well, the consumer side, and let me clarify. I think the growth dollar-wise is commercial side. But overall, on the consumer side, especially with CDs, that is something that continues to be a pressure on the margin in total, but new customer acquisitions, generally, that has been commercial oriented and lower rates.

Gary Tenner: Okay. And then I guess one more question on the kind of beta and deposit pricing. Historically, you think of there being kind of this long or multi-quarter deposit catch up after the Fed stops raising rates. In the scenario where a hike next week is the last one and that has some impact on the third quarter and given the amount of catch-up we’ve had over the last couple of quarters, that’s been incredibly rapid. Is your sense that fourth quarter, that kind of delta, assuming no additional hikes after next week, moderates pretty significantly to where the lag after the Fed’s last hike is much shorter in nature? Or do you have any sense of how that might play out?

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