Regions Financial Corporation (NYSE:RF) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Erika Najarian: And a follow-up to that, you mentioned 55% to 60% of that down rate coming from these indexed commercial deposits. One of your peers made a differentiation between indexed and contractual yesterday. And I guess just give us some sense of how much of that is contracted versus index? And but really, it sounds like you are confident that either way, you can control that to the downside, especially as you said, loan growth remained soft this year.

David Turner: Yes. So, when we say index, we are talking about it’s tied to Fed funds is when Fed funds changes through the contract, it changes automatically. There is no – it’s not a contractual number locked in like effectively a CD. It’s the day – just like a loan that’s based on SOFR, I mean, SOFR changes, so there is a loan rate that day. And so that’s what we are talking about when we say index deposits.

Erika Najarian: Okay. Got it. Thank you.

John Turner: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Our final question comes from the line of Matt O’Connor with Deutsche Bank. Please proceed with your question.

John Turner: Good morning Matt.

Matt O’Connor: Good morning. Any updated thoughts on potential regulatory changes to the debit card interchange fees or overdraft fees and thinking about potential all cost to that.

David Turner: Well, so debit interchange going through a discussion to adjust that down. This was written in the original law and they had to revisit the costs associated with debit interchange. To the extent that does get put into place, that will have a negative impact to us. Starting, I think that was going to be kicking in, in June. So, it’s about half a year. And based on our numbers, that’s about a $45 million risk item to us in our NIR. Relative to the overdrafts, we are a long way from knowing where that comes out, if there are any changes, and I think 2025 date that we mentioned, that just hit the wire. I think there is going to be a lot of discussion on that because we are disappointed in that. We think provision of liquidity to our customer base is really, really important.

We do charge a fee for that, but we are paying an item for somebody in charging a fee. And to the extent we return that item to wherever was written or used, that entity is going to charge a fee. And so it doesn’t – it’s not helpful to not be able to provide liquidity to our customer base. And so we are hoping there is going to be further discussion on that point. And I think it would be premature to really talk about the impact of OD until we get further down the road.

Matt O’Connor: Yes. Okay. And then just separately, good to see the elevated check fraud came down as you expected and the outlook kind of implies, but you are confident that you are past this issue. I guess just wanted to reconfirm that. And then also just any meaningful changes that you made to address it and whether they have showed up and expenses were well.

John Turner: I would just say that the countermeasures that we put in place which include talent, technology, process changes, all have been effective. And we believe going forward, the run rate will be $20 million to $25 million a quarter in operating losses, and the expenses associated with those countermeasures are embedded in our run rate and in our projection for expenses for 2024.

David Turner: We got to continue to be vigilant with regards to this, just like we are with cyber. So, we have bad people attacking us as does every financial institution, and we have to continue to stay ahead of it. We feel good about what we put in place, but we are not sitting idle, we are continuing to push and challenge ourselves to get even better than we are today.

Matt O’Connor: Okay. Perfect. That’s helpful. Thank you.

John Turner: Thank you. Okay. Operator, is that the end of the calls?

Operator: Yes. I would now like to turn the floor back over to you for closing comments.

John Turner: Okay. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate everybody’s participation today and interest in our company. Have a good weekend.

Operator: This concludes today’s teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time.

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