Popular, Inc. (NASDAQ:BPOP) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Carlos Vazquez: And the last comment for you to get a sense of what we are talking about, — we believe, we think we have to build the best digital banking offering in Puerto Rico already. But what we are seeking is to be able to provide more products and services to our clients through that offering and to allow us to roll out new offerings a lot faster than we can do it now. So we are changing the architecture of what is a market-leading digital offering so that we can be a lot more effective in providing more and new services quicker to our clients than we are today. So the client will never see the change in impact and architecture, but they will see the more efficient and bigger offering once we’ve done that.

Alex Twerdahl: Okay. And then with the 14% ROTCE, obviously, there’s a lot of pieces to that, and it could mean a lot of different things. So can you give us some of the assumptions on capital levels, or like anything else to kind of help us really figure out what it actually means for profitability?

Carlos Vazquez: No. At this point in time, we’ve chosen that one because it’s our encompasses the result of everything, Alex. And you are correct, there’s a lot of pieces that compose that. We are not in a position to talk about the pieces specifically yet. or right now. But again, we think this is the most comprehensive nature of everything that we do. So we’ve chosen to hang our head on that one for the moment. But at this point in time, we haven’t disclosed the components that we will get us there. There’s a lot of things that probably can change and underweight as well.

Alex Twerdahl: Okay. And then just one final one for me before I get back in the queue. You gave us the increase in the government deposits in the first quarter of 120, assuming we get two more hikes, where do those peak out? I mean can you just spell it out for us?

Carlos Vazquez: I’m afraid, where they peak out, you’ll have to ask the Fed. If it’s true that they go down to two more 25 — and that’s it. And then they sit tight, then a quarter after that, you’ll see of 50 basis points more expenses. But it really is market linked, so depend on the Fed. Again, our best guess of the Fed increases will give us 120.Again, roughly, if it’s still more 25, that will end up being about 50 basis points higher in the quarter after that. And once if the rates start moving in the other direction, then we’ll see that we start seeing the benefit of the quarter after that. So I would love to be able to answer your question, but I can’t read the mind of the Fed very well.

Alex Twerdahl: But they do peak out below, I mean, last time they peaked at 125 basis points, but below where the Fed peaked out. Is that a reasonable assumption for this tightening cycle?

Ignacio Alvarez: It is timing. I mean we — ultimately, the question you’re asking is what’s the spread that we make on the deposit. We have never answered that question purposely, and we’re not going to start today. But obviously, we do make a positive spread on these deposits.

Alex Twerdahl: Okay. Thanks for taking my questions.

Operator: Thank you. The next question today comes from the line of Kelly Motta from KBW. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

Kelly Motta: Hi, good morning. Thanks for the question. I — may be asking the government deposits question a little bit differently. I appreciate the color around margin and how you expect that to, I believe, it start to inflect at some point this year. Does that commentary there require a certain amount of roll-off of the government deposits? Or is that irrespective of levels? Just trying to get a sense of how much that may be a driver of that inflecting NIM you speak of?