KeyCorp (NYSE:KEY) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Clark Khayat: Yes. The other point I would add is just that it’s less for us about new deposit acquisition. We’re always going to acquire deposits from new clients and new relationships. But a lot of what we’re looking at this year is managing clients from product to product, and that just allow us a little bit more flexibility on pricing.

Chris Gorman: Ebrahim, the only thing I would add, I agree with everything that Don and Clark said, the thing that I will share with you though, this is sort of uncharted territory. And while we’re really pleased with the trajectory of our deposit betas, we’re not going to win the deposit beta battle and lose the — win the beta battle and lose the deposit war because it’s very important that we serve our clients and we keep them here at Key.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Steven Alexopoulos from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Steven Alexopoulos: I wanted to start on the loan outlook. If I look at where period end and average loans ended 2022, it appears that you’re not looking for much loan growth in 2023 on a period-end basis. Can you confirm that and maybe give some color on why such a sluggish outlook? I don’t know if you’re tightening the credit box or whatnot?

Don Kimble: Steve, this is Don. And as far as the outlook, the period-end balances sometimes can be a little misleading. So, if you just look — take a look at the fourth quarter average for total loans at $117.5 billion, our midpoint of our guidance range is in the $120 million range, and all of that really is coming from commercial. And so with this change in our economic outlook that also influenced or determine what our allowance was, we’ve also pulled back on some of the loan growth outlook. You also see, Steve, that our consumer loan balances are flat throughout next year. And what our expectation is there is that we’ll continue to have residential mortgage originations that we’ll continue to see some of the home equity balances trade down and relatively flat on other consumer categories. And so, it is very modest incremental growth from here, but we think it’s appropriate given the backdrop of the economic outlook we have.

Steven Alexopoulos: Got it. Okay. Don, that’s helpful. And then, on the reserve build, if the reserve build was a change in the economic assumptions and not idiosyncratic risk, why did a specific reserve not go up materially in some of these consumer categories? I know they’re smaller, but home equity, consumer direct card, I would have thought if you changed unemployment rate, et cetera, we would have seen an increase in those as well.

Don Kimble: One of the biggest things that Chris talked about were the larger moves were this GDP coming down and also the home price index. And so, what you would have seen is the residential real estate backed credits having a larger increase than some of the others. You also factor in the position that our delinquency levels in our criticized and classified levels are still very benign. And I think that’s why you’re not seeing some of those other higher risk categories showing increased reserves because we’re not seeing the migration of those portfolios at this point in time.

Steven Alexopoulos: Got it. Okay. Thanks. If I could squeeze one more in. Just looking at the NII guidance, up 6% to 9%. I know you said mid to high-20% range for deposit beta, but what is the assumption? Is it mid or high that’s underlying this guidance range? And what are you assuming the mix of noninterest-bearing is by the end of €˜23? Thanks.

Clark Khayat: Yes. Steve, it’s Clark. So, it’s — the mid to high question is sort of mid to high, 27-ish, 28 area for the year on the beta and then the noninterest-bearing percentage is 29%, roughly high-20s for the year.

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