I think that it might — in our scenario and the way we look at interest rates today, the right and prudent thing to do is to go longer on duration, take advantage of the higher yields. It might not be optimal because life is not perfect, right? But it certainly helps us mitigate a potential recessionary environment in the States and the resulting lower interest rates on the Fed. We are financing that also with short-term federal home advances and repos. And today, the spread is not that significant. But again, based on our forecast and our expectations of second half of next year, interest rates starting to go down, we will have — our cost of borrowings would be declining in that scenario. So that’s kind of the picture and that’s how we looked at this.
and we will continue to manage the balance sheet in that fashion. Because our capital is clearly being deployed, first and foremost, for loan growth and the opportunities that we’re having, so that’s kind of how we’re looking at this. And again, I answered a question earlier on deposits. We’re very much focused also retaining good banking relationships on the deposit side.
Alex Twerdahl : Okay. That’s good. Just expanding on your comments on loan growth and the strong pipeline into the fourth quarter in 2024. I think some of us have been talking about the Metropistas deal that was announced earlier this week, and you guys are listed as a bank that would be potentially participating in some of the financing. Can you talk a bit about your appetite for something like that and sort of how big of a piece you might be willing to take on?
Jose Rafael Fernandez: So the way we look at it is we are part of a 3-bank market pretty much. And we are very much part of the community. So we need to be an important participant in those type of privatization. Certainly, it depends on who, how, where and what, right, in terms of the opportunity. But yes, we are a participant. We’re not a significant participant by no stretch of imagination, but we are certainly a solid participant for our size and our appetite. We think it’s also our way of contributing to the reconstruction and improvement of the infrastructure in Puerto Rico.
Alex Twerdahl : Okay. And then I guess as we think about the loan mix going into next year, this year and last year’s auto has been a very big component of that, do you expect that to continue? Or do you think we’ll see a little bit of a mix shift over the next couple of quarters to more commercial?
Jose Rafael Fernandez: So — yes, yes. So that’s a question you guys ask me every quarter. And every quarter, I say, well, I’m happily surprised that loan auto loan growth continue to remain, right? I think we’re starting to see that plateauing. In terms of the latter parts of the third quarter, we started to see a little bit of a slowdown. I think it’s more from competitive forces than anything else. But we’re monitoring it and we’re probably going to see not a significant drop, but it’s starting to plateau at these levels and trickle down into 2024. That’s kind of the way we look at the auto lending business right now.
Operator: [Operator Instructions] We’ll now hear from Kelly Motta with KBW.
Kelly Motta : So I love all the detail on Slide 4. It seems like this digital first strategy is really nice penetration here. Just wondering, with the success you’re having there, is there opportunities to gain greater efficiencies and with potentially reallocating branch personnel? And how you’re thinking about that relative to some other investments you may be making?
