Synovus Financial Corp. (NYSE:SNV) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Page 7 of 12

Jared Shaw: Got it. Got it. Okay. And then on credit, as we look at the trends with the expectation for higher net charge-offs going into the end of the year, what’s driving that higher levels of expected loss and as we sort of flip the calendar into 2024. Is that a trend, do you expect that trend to increase and continue going into next year?

Bob Derrick: Yeah. Hey, Jared. This is Bob. Just as Jamie mentioned, I mean, you are going to see a slight drift up in charge-offs and in credit metrics in general, within, and again, we would expect that. The drivers are not anything systemic. It’s just the pressure that our clients continue to feel and some of them with more leverage are certainly feeling it more than others. But that will push charge-offs and non-accrual slightly up. We certainly increased this quarter. That was just a couple of credits that happened to fall in the same quarter. We don’t see it coming from any specific industry or any specific asset class, but we do see just general credit pressure. I don’t like the term normalization, but certainly in the environment we are in, we should expect credit to kind of ease up as it relates to the credit cost in total and that’s what we saw and that’s what we expect to see in the third quarter and fourth quarter.

We have done a lot of deep dives into these portfolios and really feel good about our guide of sort of 30% to 40% in the back half of the year, coming off a very low — pretty low base in the first half, still lands us in that sort of high 20s basis points, 30 basis points or so for the year. As far as 2024 is concerned, we will get more specific on that in January as we talk about our guidance. But I mean, the general feel is, overall, is kind of more of the same at least in the near-term.

Jared Shaw: Okay. All right. Thanks. And when you look at that allowance ratio tied in, going up a couple of basis points this quarter. Still — is that still sort of margin higher or given the expectation — the broader economic expectations today that that’s maybe a stable level?

Jamie Gregory: Yeah. We — as we look forward, clearly, we think we are adequately reserved today. We feel good about the allowance. I would point out that embedded in the allowance this quarter, we do have a 20% weighting to that stagflation scenario, which is pretty onerous. We don’t show 2025 economic data for that forecast, but unemployment rate starts to approach 9% at the end of that forecast, which is pretty high number and so that’s embedded in our allowance this quarter. As we look forward, could we see it continue to increase slightly? I think that, that’s fair. But it could also remain at current levels and it will just be dependent on the economic outlook and the portfolio performance.

Jared Shaw: Great. Thank you.

Operator: Our next question comes from Manan Gosalia with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead, Manan. Your line is now open.

Manan Gosalia: Hi. Good morning. I had more of a bigger picture question on credit just based on your conversations with clients. What impact has — have 5 percentage points and more of high rates had on middle market and small business balance sheets and what do you think their appetite is to absorb these interest costs if rates stay higher for longer through 2024?

Page 7 of 12