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

Alex Twerdahl: Okay. But it is the same process that you’ve gone through. There’s nothing changing about how often are the regularity that you would engage the Fed to include in this. And I guess the question that I got from a lot of investors after last quarter is why not go through the process as normal last year and then get approval but just say we are not going to implement it as quickly. Maybe we will wait and not do an ASR. But we have it and the Fed is comfortable with our capital levels and all these things that seem exceedingly healthy from the surface.

Carlos Vazquez: You are describing some of the alternatives that we are considering as we revisit how we want to do this. I always caution everybody, when we speak about this, the Fed does not give conditional approvals to anything. They will only approve things when you request an approval and they will not approve things as long as things work out in the future this way. So again, we try to manage the Fed, the best way we can. I think over the last 4 or 5 years, we’ve been pretty effective in our dealing with the Fed, and we will try to continue that. But some banks manage it differently. Some banks have quarterly capital plans. I discussed with the Fed instead of a yearly capital plan, which has been our practice in the past.

Again, we want to go and revisit all those alternatives, Alex, to be frank with you. So we will be doing that when we reengage. Again, we think what we did in the past has been pretty successful for us as far as dealing with the Fed. We will analyze if there is a path that is even better for us and for our shareholders moving forward.

Alex Twerdahl: Okay. Thank you for taking my follow-ups.

Carlos Vazquez: You’re welcome.

Operator: Thank you. The final question today is a follow-up question from Gerard Cassidy from RBC. Please go ahead. Your line is now open./

Gerard Cassidy: Thank you, Actually, I didn’t pull myself out of the queue. I didn’t understand the instructions. I’m also, thank you Carlos.

Carlos Vazquez: Thank you, Gerard.

Operator: That concludes today’s question-and-answer session. So I’d like to pass the conference over to Ignacio Alvarez for any closing remarks. Please go ahead.

Ignacio Alvarez: Okay. Thank you for joining us today and for your questions. We look forward to updating you on our progress in April. Thank you.

Operator: This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you all for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.