Mark Gim: And that reflects the average for the quarter, Damon; obviously, as short-term rates have trended up LIBOR-related commercial loans coming on the balance sheet will be at a higher rate at December than they were in October. And then also from a mortgage production perspective, it’s important to note that the lead time to book a mortgage typically means that the loans that are hitting the balance sheet are 60 days, 45 to 60 days rate locks in terms of prior pricing decisions. Mary, maybe you can give some indication of what our current jumbo rates might be that are going in the portfolio ballpark.
Mary Noons: Yes. So I’d say that what you saw in rates for fourth quarter certainly will be higher in the first quarter of this year because we had implemented across the Board rate increases as funding costs went up and overall mortgage rates went up. Even though we’ve seen a dip in the conforming rates, we have not adjusted our portfolio rates. So those will continue to be attractive for the first quarter.
Damon DelMonte: Got it. Okay. That’s helpful. Thank you. And then, as you guys think about your deposit betas, this past quarter, I think your total sold deposit linked quarter beta was around 31% and cumulatively around 20%. With the big ramp-up expected here in funding costs in the first quarter, what do you see like your overall beta during the cycle kind of playing out?
Ron Ohsberg: Yes. I don’t have a calculated beta number to share with you on this call, Damon. But clearly, there is a lot of market competition out there. We have customers coming in asking for rate exceptions depending on the nature of the relationships, we will grant those to retain the deposits it’s competitive. And I think that — I think betas will go up from here, let’s just say that.
Mark Gim: Damon, this is Mark. I’ll try to give a little — if I can, I’ll try to give a little color on that. Our stance on the retail side has been not to be at the front edge of rate retention but to keep an eye between providing fair rates to customers and maintaining as lower deposit cost of funds as we can, consistent with competitor practices. Probably the highest betas are those for institutional and perhaps municipal or public fund type deposits, one could view those two different ways. As ARPA type funds get released to states, for example, there has been opportunity to bring those in. They are certainly at a higher cost in the short-term, but also bring with them the opportunity to bring in non-interest-bearing relationships, for example.
And so while the betas on those might be high and then flat to inverted yield curve environment in the long-term, we see value in either maintaining those or bringing them on Board. So while we have on the kind of commercial and municipal side, a higher beta on the interest-bearing accounts, we view it as a sound business to try to maintain in the long run rather than letting it walk using equally priced wholesale funding, but then potentially losing the opportunity to renew or grow that relationship.
Ned Handy: Yes. We’ve got relationships with about a third of the cities and towns in the State of Rhode Island. We’d like to have that be more and we’re seeing success on that front. But those are relatively expensive deposits in the short run. On the interest-bearing side, they do tend to come with deposit accounts or DDA accounts, operating accounts. So that’s one of several strategies that we hope will be helpful in the long run. But again, to Mark’s point, in the short run, they might drive betas up.
