U.S. Bancorp (NYSE:USB) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Terry Dolan: I think both in the bank and in the nonbank space, I think that people are being fairly rational. Part of the issue is that it’s maybe more so on the demand side of the equation as much as anything. I think corporate America is being relatively cautious out there. They’re still waiting to see where interest rates settle in at. And until they see more certainty with respect to what the interest rate inflationary environment looks like. I think corporate America has been relatively cautious. And therefore, demand is relatively soft. But we’re not seeing, what I would say crazy things either on the bank or on the nonbank side at this particular point in time. In fact, we’re probably seeing — if you end up looking at commercial real estate, probably a pullback across the board.

Gerard Cassidy: Great. And then as my second follow-up question, Andy, it was obviously great news that you guys had yesterday about the release. Is there any read-through? Obviously, you sat down with the regulators to get that release and they seem to be fairly rational in their decision to make that change. There’s been a lot of hope and criticism that the Basel III end game proposals are pretty darn strict. Do you think — is there any read-through where we may actually see some rationality with the regulators and they may compare back some of those requirements? Or is that too far of a stretch?

Andy Cecere: I think the regulators have asked for feedback. The banks will provide feedback, both collectively and individually. I think a lot of the feedback is good feedback because of the consequences to our customers. And I think that’s the area of focus that we’re going to be very pointed on in terms of our feedback. And we want to make sure that from a banking standpoint, we’re able to serve our customers and the rule set will create some friction around that in certain categories, and that’s where we’re going to focus. And my anticipation is that the Fed will listen to our perspectives. And then that’s my hope.

Gerard Cassidy: I think — go ahead. I’m sorry.

Terry Dolan: I was just going to say in — particularly it can be punitive with respect to low moderate income customer base. You see some capital rules related to renewable energy tax credits that don’t make — that seem punitive at this point in time. So, I do think there’s a number of different areas where there’s opportunity for adjustment.

Operator: Next, we’ll go to Vivek Juneja with JPMorgan.

Vivek Juneja: Shifting gears from capital, given that you made a lot of progress to just your normal business. Payments, you’ve talked, Andy, about wanting to grow merchant processing high — mid- to high single digits, really more in the high single digits, and some of the others in the low double digits, like corporate payments. Any color on — any thoughts on how you get back up there because that hasn’t been the case the last couple of quarters, what you need to do or change or what would help you get that?

Andy Cecere: I’m going to ask John to start then I’ll add in.

John Stern: Sure. So in terms of merchant processing, we have been making a number of investments over the years and continue to expect that high single digit in terms of that sort of thing. The numbers are have been have been strong this quarter, but there’s normalization that has been happening. And so in the quarter — the quarter-to-quarter here, the last several quarters, there’s been a lot of the nuances coming out of the COVID and all those sorts of things. So, if you think about airline tickets and hotels and corporate T&E, those have been very strong, but they are normalizing. That said, services and retail have been strong. And so — and the retail print that we saw yesterday was very constructive. So we feel like there’s good underpinnings there in addition to the investments that we make to continue to believe and give confidence in that — in our projections there.

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