Fulton Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:FULT) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Mark McCollom: Yes, sure. Typically, what we see in the third quarter, that’s our high watermark because of our municipal book. And if we look back over the last five years, we’ve typically seen between a $300 million and a $500 million increase in the third quarter. I would expect this year for that to be at the lower end of that range versus the higher end of that range. And then we typically see from then the third quarter to the fourth quarter, most of that money flow out. We typically see the same kind of numbers between $275 million and call it, $350 million of outflows of what we’ve experienced.

Manuel Navas: And look – you’re having success in growing number of accounts. Have you kind of looked at where flows have gone? And you probably – are you seeing just a lot of net increases and you’re really not seeing any one exit, it’s just more people using their funds? Or do you feel confident that you’re deposit flows are staying and not necessarily exiting the bank?

Curtis Myers: Well, I mean, we’re growing net new accounts. I mean, we have flows and accounts that close or really the average balance comes down. So what we’re seeing more is the impact of average balance as customers migrate internally to higher-yielding products. We see some outflows, and we are aggressive in all of our markets to grow new households and bring new deposits into the organization. We have a very low average account balance, it’s small business and consumer, and we’re consistently adding accounts but fighting those headwinds of average balance declines then really aggressive pricing strategies in the market that we won’t follow, we do have some attrition based on that. And that’s why we’re focused on the net growth in accounts because over time, that’s what we really need to be winning.

Manuel Navas: And just a follow-up on loan growth and pricing. Are you seeing – how fast do you see demand come down? And you’re being more selective on pricing and kind of pricing up? Is it – are you seeing uptake – you’re getting the growth you want to see on that commercial side at the pricing you want?

Curtis Myers: Where we’re seeing the biggest impact would be residential mortgage. I mean it’s just much more of a rate-sensitive market. So as you adjust those, that’s where we would see growth moderating the most based on actions we took in the first and second quarter. There’s a long pull-through rate until those actually hit the balance sheet. So that’s where you’ll see the most volatility from first half to second half in loan growth. On commercial loan growth, we think we can continue to generate steady organic originations even at higher yields as we continue to support customers, continue to support all segments within the marketplace if we think we can continue to generate steady reasonable organic growth going forward in commercial.

Manuel Navas: And just a follow-up on your comment that the loan beta is around 46%. Do you see that staying constant with each rate hike or you actually see that creeping up towards like the 50% level as old loans re-price higher?

Mark McCollom: Yes, exactly. We would expect to see that creep up a little bit higher, and that was the point of my earlier comment that by end of the cycle, why we still expect to see that loan beta higher than the deposit beta.

Manuel Navas: I appreciate it. Thank you guys.

Mark McCollom: You bet.

Curtis Myers: You bet.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our next question will come from the line of Matthew Breese from Stephens. Your line is open.

Matthew Breese: Hey. Good morning.

Curtis Myers: Hey, Matt. Good morning.

Matthew Breese: Just curious, on the margin, could you give me some idea for how the margin progressed throughout the quarter? And for the end of June or for the month of June, how does that compare to the full quarter?