Michael O’Grady: Yes, I would just add, Betsy, to your point, it is about trajectories and curves, if you will. We’ve been on a downward trajectory with trust fees as a result of the factors that Jason has gone through. Obviously we’re trying to drive that the other way, primarily through growth. When it comes to NII, we’ve had a strong trajectory up. That’s not likely to carry through into the new year or into 2023, just as a result of the rate cycle. Then looking at the expenses, as Jason went through there, we’re clearly trying to bend down that expense growth curve without a doubt through the productivity office, but also just in every day in how we operate the business.
Betsy Graseck: And that curve bend downwards sounds like it’s a second half–like, we’ll see that more in second half than in first?
Michael O’Grady: Yes, I think that’s right, because as Jason’s saying, some of these things, there’s actions that we already took in the fourth quarter which we had talked about in the previous call, the intent to get going on those, and then more of them that are happening in the first quarter as well, and then carrying through. So you’re right – by the time you see the impact, it’s delayed relative to the actions.
Betsy Graseck: Okay, thank you. Appreciate it.
Operator: Our next question comes from Brennan Hawken from UBS. Please go ahead.
Brennan Hawken: Good morning, I hope you guys are doing well. Hoping to get more specifics here. Productivity office – you know, helpful that we’re seeing that emerge, but what are the objectives, right? What are the metrics that they’re looking to drive? You gave some generally kind of high level comments on how to think about bending the curve and whatnot there in response to Betsy’s question, but really, expenses have been a bit out of control – just being blunt, especially relative to the peer group and especially relative to the revenue trends. Investors are really–I’m getting hit a lot this morning, people looking for some more details, better understanding, and what specific metrics you’re using and how we can make sure to–that you’re hitting your goals when you’re pushing through to make these changes.
Jason Tyler: Yes, I can–first of all, the thing that we look at to litmus test how we’re doing from an expense management perspective is still expense to trust fees, and even pulling out the charges from this quarter, being anywhere near 120, that’s not where the business is going to be in the long run. That’s going to come down. Then you start to think more tactically, how does the productivity look to do that, and just to be–you know, just to say what are the numbers associated with it, historically we have talked about productivity matching inflation. When inflation was at 1% or 2%, we felt like we were doing that really well. With inflation at 8% or 9%, we are not going to get productivity to that level, but we should absolutely have productivity above 2% of our expense base.
Second, every group in this company has productivity goals. We go through it all the time, every year in our planning process, and then next if you start to just think tactically, how is this office going to get at this work, where are the buckets that we’re going to get at, I’ll give you how the group is laid out. First of all, it’s technology – that’s the largest component and the fastest growing expense item we have. That’s $1.4 billion, and so we have to–we’ve got to get at technology costs. We accomplished a lot in 2022 and 2021, but we’ve got to do it efficiently, and that means determining how we’re purchasing, how we’re developing technology, how we’re consuming it, how we’re delivering it. Two is vendor strategy and how we’re thinking about engaging with our partners externally.
