Patrick Barrett: I think we would definitely expect a lag effect. I mean we saw a one-year lag effect for the most part on the way up and can’t imagine that it would be dramatically shorter than that. So I think 2024 is going to be a baked in kind of higher funding cost year from a core deposit perspective. And frankly people are still expecting, I mean, we’re still competing on rate for just about all of our deposits right now.
Christopher Maher: Frank, it’s Chris. I’d add that if you think about kind of supply and demand and deposits for the industry, right, there are a lot of banks who would love to grow their deposit portfolio right now. So although the Fed may make rate cuts and you may see overall rates come down, we expect the competition among banks for deposits to remain brisk. So I think you’re going to see, as Pat said, a fair lag.
Frank Schiraldi: Okay. And then just lastly on that front, sorry if I missed it, but in terms of the guide for the loan growth and deposit growth is pretty broad in the deck. And you guys talked about a little bit on the call. But so am I understanding is the most likely scenario as we sit here like low single-digits to start the year. And then the idea is that, that could pick up through the year, given what the environment looks like? Is that the sort of the guide here?
Joseph Lebel: Yes. Frank, it’s Joe. That’s the most likely scenario. I tend to think that we could see a little outperformance, but conversely we could see a little slow performance. So it’s sort of choppy out there a little bit. There’s a lot of noise, a lot of conversations we’re having. As I mentioned earlier, the pipeline is up, but still got to get to fruition. So I definitely think we’re going to see positive growth. The question is how fast it ramps up to what we consider to be more normalized environments.
Frank Schiraldi: Okay. And then just lastly, Chris, you mentioned the deposit environment, obviously, it’s quite competitive. And just curious, any sort of strategy you can talk about that you’re using to bring in the incremental dollar geographically or size range of a given competitor. Where is the opportunity here to bring in the incremental deposit dollar?
Christopher Maher: I’ll make a few comments and I’ll ask Joe to follow in as well. One of the things we have not talked much about is that while we have reduced operating expenses. We’ve actually kind of apples-to-apples reduce them more than you would think. And we’ve then dedicated some of that save to reinvest in a couple of key platforms in both the hiring of bankers and treasury and all that. So Joe maybe talk a little bit about the bankers you’ve added this year. So we despite having kind of brought the expenses down.
Joseph Lebel: Yes. So, Frank, a little color here. We’ve added eight C&I bankers all throughout 2023 in all the footprint. So a couple in Boston, Philadelphia, New Jersey, New York. And then I — so they’ve been hitting the ground running and bringing some deposits. And I think the other point I’d mention, for us, historically, being core deposit driven, we didn’t offer competitive rates for some of the excess cash that many of our clients have had. And in the last year, we’ve dedicated ourselves going out and getting that cash back. So we’ve deepened relationships with existing clients as well as adding some new operational accounts. So I think it’s been a testament to one of the reasons the deposits have done well, both on the retail and in the commercial bank.
Frank Schiraldi: Okay. Great. I appreciate the color. Thank you.
Joseph Lebel: Thanks, Frank.
Operator: Thank you. Our next question today is from Michael Perito from KBW. Michael, please go ahead. Your line is open.
Michael Perito: Hey, guys. Good morning.
Patrick Barrett: Good morning, Mike.
Michael Perito: Pat, I want to ask a similar question that I asked last quarter, just kind of get the updated thoughts kind of where as we think about why NIM might stabilize, right, it sounds like it’s too early to necessarily call bottom on deposit costs rising. But I think maybe it sounds like with loan growth reengaging more consistently at better incremental spreads to like the 280 consolidated NIM you have today, that starts to become maybe a bigger impact, particularly as it compounds in the back half of ’24, which just long-winded way of asking, can you give us kind of an updated view kind of where the average kind of credit — commercial credits being originated today relative to the $5.40 blended yield in the fourth quarter? And are you still seeing that rise? Or is that also starting to stabilize that incremental kind of new yield on commercial origination.
Patrick Barrett: We’re actually definitely seeing that rise on new money and on renewals. So I think — I’ll caution you that when numbers are small, you shouldn’t extrapolate them. But on the originations we had in the fourth quarter, we were originating at an average rate of about 770. Our pipeline although it’s grown, it’s still a lot smaller than it normally is and was a year, 1.5 years ago. But our pipeline yields are at around 8, so we’re definitely getting the pricing that we’re looking for originations. And then we continue to have the portfolio role. So we’ll have somewhere in the neighborhood of $0.5 billion per quarter of loans that are going to roll. And those are going to reprice into whatever terms they are as they mature and renew. So we definitely have all the pieces in place to see NIM expansion, notwithstanding changes in deposit customer behavior or the need to fund incremental growth in a very competitive environment.
