What that exactly means? Is it the same in the fourth quarter and the first quarter? Does it bottom out in one or the other? It’s hard to get that specific on it. But we do see over the next two quarters, we see that trough. And then the liability side, assuming, again, the Fed stops with the rate increases, we see the liability side being done and the asset side little by little can start to tick up. And obviously, if the Fed makes some moves in the other direction and we get some steepness in the yield curve, that’s when you’ll see it turn around more rapidly. So it’s kind of difficult to tell where that bottom is, best guess scenario and you hate to say guess, but looking at the best at we have at this point in using certain assumptions.
Could it go down and bottom out over the next two quarters and another 5, 10 basis points, maybe a little bit more, it could. It’s just – it’s very difficult to tell. But we just have to kind of see what the Fed does and what the market does.
Chris O’Connell: Yes. No, I hear you. That’s helpful, though. I appreciate it. I know it’s a difficult thing to discern at this point. And then, well, just quickly, so for that – the tax rate for this year, obviously, we are at the 11.5% to 12% range. Is that where you think it will remain next year? Or should it tick up a bit?
Jay McConie: Yes. I’m kind of working on that forecast now and have to go through that. I mean, preliminary, I would say, probably budget between maybe 13% to 14% because as we kind of come out of this and hopefully yield curve steepens, we can start to look for expanding margins if get a steeping yield curve, but I would keep it around that 13%, 14%.
Chris O’Connell: Okay. Great. And you mentioned in the prepared remarks, you pushed out some of the planned IT upgrades into 2024 that can bring inefficiencies. Can you just provide us with a little bit of color as to what those upgrades are and how you guys plan to bring those on?
Chris Becker: Sure. We’ve been working on a core conversion, which also plans to upgrade our business online banking and our branch teller and platform systems. And along with that, in the back office, our item processing is – would be outsourced, so the combination of all those things, we believe, certainly in the back office with the item processing brings back about some staffing efficiencies. And we just felt that we were – this is a long project – these types of projects go on 18 to 24 months. And as we were getting closer to a target date, we felt working with our – that it would be best to put it off a few months. So we’re still evaluating and we haven’t picked another date yet, but we anticipate that to be done in early 2024.
Chris O’Connell: Great. And then on the credit side, I mean, everything on your individual metrics looks fantastic. Especially relative to the industry, which has seen a couple of issues pop up this quarter. How are you guys seeing your credit on a go-forward basis and things in your market. Is there any cracks anywhere anything that you’re concerned about?
Chris Becker: No, we’re not concerned with our portfolio on the whole is, I think in conversations with customers and in the market, you’re starting to hear some things where maybe things are slowing down for certain businesses. I think people get a little bit about nervous about what’s going on in the economy and also the world in general. But obviously, our numbers are not showing any specific problems like that. Any numbers ticking up. But the – even with us, there’s always a couple of loans on the problem loan list that something could happen, but nothing in a big sense that’s concerning us.
