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spk00: Good morning and welcome to the Synchrony Financial Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. Please refer to the company's investor relations website for access to their earning materials. Please be advised that today's conference call is being recorded. Currently, all callers have been placed in a listen-only mode. The call will be open for your questions following the conclusion of the management's prepared remarks. If at any time you should need operator assistance, please press star zero. If you wish to ask a question following the prepared remarks, please press star one. I will now turn the call over to Catherine Miller, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.
spk01: Catherine Miller Thank you and good morning, everyone. Welcome to our quarterly earnings conference call. In addition to today's press release, we have provided a presentation that covers the topics we plan to address during our call. The press release, detailed financial schedules, and presentation are available on our website, synchronyfinancial.com. This information can be accessed by going to the investor relations section of the website. Before we get started, I wanted to remind you that our comments today will include forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainty, and actual results can differ materially. We list the factors that might cause actual results to differ materially in our SEC filings, which are available on our website. During the call, we will refer to non-GAAP financial measures in discussing the company's performance. You can find a reconciliation of these measures to GAAP financial measures in our materials for today's call. Finally, Synchrony Financial is not responsible for and does not edit or guarantee the accuracy of our earnings teleconference transcripts provided by third parties. The only authorized webcasts are located on our websites. On the call this morning are Brian Doubles, Synchrony's President and Chief Executive Officer, and Brian Wentzel, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. I will now turn the call over to Brian Doubles.
spk04: Thanks, Catherine, and good morning, everyone. Today, Synchrony reported strong third quarter results, including net earnings of $628 million, or $1.48 per diluted share. a return on average assets of 2.3%, and a return on tangible common equity of 22.9%. These results highlight the strength of Synchrony's differentiated model and the resiliency of our business through economic cycles. Our diversified product suite and advanced digital capabilities enable Synchrony to continue to deliver consistently strong results in an ever-changing environment. We are increasingly at the center of customers' everyday financing needs, and positioned as the partner of choice for retailers, merchants, and providers alike as they seek enhanced value, greater utility, and best-in-class experiences. We opened 5.7 million new accounts in the third quarter and grew average active accounts by 6%. We continue to drive growth with our $47 billion of purchase volume representing a record third quarter and a 5% increase versus the prior year. This momentum is a testament to the power of our diversified portfolio. Health and wellness purchase volume grew 14% compared to last year, reflecting broad-based growth in active accounts led by dental, pet, and cosmetic. The 7% growth in digital purchase volume was driven by higher average active accounts, as several of our newer programs continue to resonate with consumers. In diversified value, purchase volume grew 7%, reflecting growth in out-of-partner spend and strong retailer performance. Lifestyle purchase volume increased 8%, reflecting growth in average transaction values and outdoor luxury. And in home and auto, purchase volume remained flat versus last year, as growth in commercial products, home specialty, and the auto network was generally offset by lower retail traffic in furniture and electronics and the impact of lower gas and lumber prices. Dueling co-branded cards accounted for 42% of total purchase volume in the quarter and increased 13% as several of our newer value propositions continue to drive greater customer engagement. Synchrony's range of products and platforms gives us a unique view into the health of the consumer. Through our monitoring, we see continued trends of behavior normalizing to pre-pandemic levels. Across the portfolio, average transaction values leveled off through the quarter after modestly declining in the second quarter. Meanwhile, average transaction frequency, which had climbed throughout the year, showed some signs of stabilization toward the end of the quarter. Looking at our out-of-partner spend, our customers are becoming more selective in making larger purchases, including home furnishings and electronics, and spending less on travel. Directionally, we see broad trends that are in line with our expectations across the portfolio, with slowing spend growth, normalization of payment rates, and growth in balances, which is driving higher net interest income. While in the external deposit data we track, consumer savings balances remain approximately 8% above the average level in 2020. In summary, these trends show a consumer that continues to benefit from a strong labor market while reverting gradually towards historical spend and payment norms. As we closely monitor the health of the consumer, we also continue to develop and deploy the compelling products and value propositions that attract consumers and partners to synchrony. We announced earlier this month that both the PayPal and Venmo cards can now be provisioned in the Apple Wallet, representing our latest enhancement as we evolve to meet the demands of our increasingly digital-first customers. Synchrony's journey began with in-store financing options, which have long been valued tools for both retailers and consumers to build loyalty and drive value. Over time, we've broadened the utility of these products through our dual and co-brand card strategies, which enable customers to make out-of-partner purchases, accumulate rewards, and extract even greater value. And increasingly, our customers are taking that engagement even further, as digital wallets enable everyday use functionality and extend our leading value propositions well beyond the store. Active wallet users are up over 45% year-to-date, and sales on wallets are up over 70%. This trend is more than a simple technological enhancement. Synchrony's strategy to deliver enhanced utility and best-in-class experiences requires seamlessly integrated, tailored solutions, and our investments in technology allow us to meet this demand. When our customers combine the broad utility of our products and services with our digital wallet functionality, the impact is clear. Our digital wallet users spend nearly twice as much and have over double the transactions on average. More broadly, we see the impact of expanded product utility in our results. Out-of-partner spend continued its outsized growth this quarter, up 12% compared to last year. We continue to develop our solution suite and extend the reach of our products, meeting consumer demand for fast and secure shopping and opening new opportunities for customers to engage with their favorite brands. In health and wellness, we were pleased to announce partnerships with veterinary hospitals at three additional universities. CareCredit is now accepted at 95% of the nation's public veterinary university hospitals, in addition to more than 25,000 provider locations, expanding access to flexible financing tools that enable a lifetime of care for all pets. The power of Synchrony's continually evolving model, supported by our focus on technological innovation, continues to position Synchrony as the partner of choice as we deliver digitally powered experiences and compelling value for our many stakeholders. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Brian.
spk05: Thanks, Brian. And good morning, everyone. Synchrony's third quarter results reflected the strength of our financial model, demonstrated through our consistent growth and strong risk-adjusted returns. The compelling value propositions of our broad product suite continue to resonate with our 70-plus million customers and drove broad-based growth across our sales platforms. Ending loan receivables grew 14% versus last year, benefiting from the combination of approximately 120 basis point decrease in payment rate versus last year and 5% growth in purchase volume. Our third quarter pay rate was 16.3%, still remains approximately 130 basis points higher than our five-year pre-pandemic historical average. Net interest income increased 11% to $4.4 billion, reflecting 21% growth in interest and fees. The increase in interest and fees was due to the combined impact of higher loan receivables and benchmark rates, as well as lower payment rate. Our net interest margin was 15.36%, declined 16 basis points compared to the prior year, as higher funding costs more than offset the benefit of higher yields and favorable asset mix. Specifically, loan receivable yield grew 114 basis points and contributed 95 basis points to net interest margin. higher liquidity portfolio yield contributed an additional 46 basis points to net interest margin. And our mix of interest-earning assets improved net interest margin by approximately 28 basis points, reflecting our strong growth in loan receivables. But these gains were more than offset by higher interest-bearing liability costs, which increased 229 basis points to 4.34% and reduced net interest margin by 185 basis points. RSAs of $979 million in the third quarter were 4.04% of average loan receivables, a $78 million decline from the prior year, reflecting higher net charge-offs, partially offset by higher net interest income. Our RSAs continue to perform as designed. They provide a critical alignment with our partners as we navigate the evolving environment together and support greater stability in our returns. Provision for credit losses increased to $1.5 billion, reflecting higher net charge-offs and a $372 million reserve bill, which largely reflected the growth in loan receivables. Loan expenses grew 8% to $1.2 billion, primarily driven by the growth-related items, as well as technology investments and operational losses. Our efficiency ratio for the third quarter improved by approximately 330 basis points compared to last year to 33.2%. Summarizing our financial results, Synchrony generated net earnings of $628 million, or $1.48 per diluted share, a return on average assets of 2.3%, and a return on tangible common equity of 22.9%. Next, I'll cover our key credit trends on slide 8. Our delinquency performance in the third quarter continued to reflect normalization towards pre-pandemic behavior, with both the 30-plus and 90-plus delinquency rates approaching 2019 levels. Our 30-plus delinquency rate was 4.40% compared to 3.28% last year and approximately seven basis points lower than third quarter of 2019. Our 90-plus delinquency rate was 2.06% versus 1.43% in the prior year and approximately one basis point lower than our third quarter of 2019. Our net charge-off rate was 4.60% versus 3% last year. Synchrony remains approximately 115 basis points below the midpoint of our underwriting target of 5.5% to 6%, where our risk-adjusted returns are more fully optimized. Overall, our credit performance remains within our expectations and has benefited from investments in our advanced underwriting platform, as we expect to continue on a path towards our long-term operating targets. Focusing on our more recent ventures, they continue to perform in line with those from 2019. While we're pleased with how these vintages are developing, we're continuously monitoring our portfolio and have implemented further credit actions, including some tightening of our origination criteria. These proactive refinements are intended to position our business for 2024 and beyond. Moving to reserves, our allowance for credit losses as a percent of loan receivables was 10.40%, up six basis points from 10.34% in the second quarter. The reserve bill of $372 million in the quarter was largely driven by receivables growth. Turn to slide 10. Our stable funding model and strong management of capital and liquidity continue to position synchrony well for any environment. In the third quarter, customers continue to be attracted to our consumer bank offerings as we grew both direct and broker deposits to fund our anticipated receivables growth. Deposits represented 84% of our total funding at quarter end. The remainder of our funding stack is comprised of securitized and unsecured debt at 7% and 9% of our funding respectively. We completed a $1 billion securitized issuance in the quarter and will continue to be active in both markets as conditions allow. Total liquidity, including undrawn credit facilities, was $20.5 billion, up $275 million from last year. At quarter end, liquidity represented 18.2% of total assets, down 192 basis points from last year as we manage our liquidity portfolio and fund strong loan receivables growth. Moving on to our capital ratios. As a reminder, we elected to take the benefit of the CECL transition rules issued by the joint federal banking agencies. Synchrony made its annual transition adjustment of approximately 60 basis points in January and will continue to make annual adjustments of approximately 60 basis points each year until January of 2025. The impact of CECL has already been recognized in our income statement balance sheet. Under the CECL transition rules, we entered the third quarter with a CET1 ratio of 12.4%. 190 basis points lower than last year's level of 14.3%. The Tier 1 capital ratio was 13.2% under the CECL transition rules compared to 15.2% last year. The total capital ratio decreased 120 basis points to 15.3%. And the Tier 1 capital plus reserves ratio on a fully phased-in basis decreased to 22.5% compared to 24.1% last year. During the third quarter, we returned $254 million to our shareholders, consisting of $150 million of shareware purchases and $104 million of common stock dividends. And at the end of the quarter, we had $850 million remaining in our shareware purchase authorization. Synchrony means well-positioned return capital to shareholders as guided by our business performance, market conditions, regulatory restrictions, and subject to our capital plan. We will also continue to seek opportunities to complete the development of our capital structure through the issuance of additional preferred stock as conditions allow. Now, please refer to slide 11 of the presentation for more detail on our outlook for 2023. We expect our ending loan receivables to grow approximately 11% versus last year, reflecting the combined impact of payment rate moderation and slowing purchase buying growth. We expect a full-year net interest margin of approximately 15.15%. The net interest margin in the third quarter benefited from strong growth in interest and fees and receivables, in addition to payment rate moderation and lower deposit betas. In the fourth quarter, we expect net interest margin to be impacted by higher average liquidity to pre-fund seasonal loan receivables growth, impacting the mix of interest-earning assets. Higher deposit betas driven by competition and movement in benchmark rates will and interest and fee growth partially offset by rising reversals. From a credit standpoint, delinquency nearly reached 2019 levels at quarter end and should follow seasonal trends from this point. With the increased visibility into delinquency performance this year, we are tightening our forecasted net charge-off rate to approximately 4.85%. We continue to anticipate our loss rate reaching a fully normalized level between 5.5% and 6% on an annual basis in 2024. And as we noted, we will continue to monitor and position the portfolio for 2024 and beyond. We expect the RSA to trend at the low end of our prior outlook and be approximately 3.95% of average loan receivables for the full year. This improved outlook reflects the impacts of the continued credit normalization, lower net interest margin, and the mix of our loan receivables growth. And as we generate higher than anticipated growth, we are maintaining our expectation for operating expenses at approximately $1.15 billion per quarter. While we continue to make selective investments in our business, we're committed to delivering operating leverage for the full year. As Synchrony continues to leverage our core strengths, our advanced data analytics, our disciplined approach to underwriting and credit management, and our stable funding model, we're confident in our ability to execute on our key strategic priorities and deliver market-leading returns over long-term. I'll now turn the call back over to Brian for his closing thoughts. Thanks, Brian.
spk04: Synchrony continues to demonstrate both the agility and consistency of our differentiated model. We remain focused on optimizing the outcomes for our many stakeholders by closely managing the drivers of our business, which we control, and intently monitoring and preparing for those which we do not. We are prioritizing sustainable growth to deliver appropriate risk-adjusted margins through changing market conditions. We are prudently investing in the future and long-term growth of the business, so we are able to exceed the increasingly digital demands of our consumers. And we are delivering on our financial commitments, even as we ready the business for an evolving environment, to ensure our continued ability to drive long-term value into the future. With that, I'll turn the call back to Katherine to open the Q&A.
spk01: That concludes our prepared remarks. We will now begin the Q&A session. So that we can accommodate as many of you as possible, I'd like to ask the participants to please limit yourself to one primary and one follow-up question. If you have additional questions, the investor relations team will be available after the call. Operator, please start the Q&A session.
spk00: Certainly. At this time, if you wish to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. You may remove yourself from the queue by pressing star 2. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. We'll take our first question from Ryan Nash with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
spk14: Hey, good morning, everyone. Hey, Ryan. Good morning, Ryan. Maybe a two-part question on credit. First, the full-year guide implies a decent acceleration in charger performance in the fourth quarter, so you can maybe just talk a little bit about what's driving that. And then second, maybe just tease out what gives you confidence that we're going to follow seasonal patterns from here, given a handful of moving pieces, inflation, resumption of student loan payments, and then obviously we have the growth mass impacts from 22 and 23. But offsetting that, you guys obviously were one of the more conservative in underwriting, given some of the tightening that you had done. So can you maybe just walk through all of those moving pieces and what you think it means for the trajectory of credit losses? Thank you.
spk05: Sure. I'll try to get to all those questions, Ryan. So the first one is you think about the fourth quarter. I mean, you look at the dollar value, the over $2 billion sitting in the 90-plus delinquency bucket. So I think if you go back and look at how it rolls, you get a pretty good sense of what we see from the fourth quarter. I'd say the delinquency performance has been consistent, really throughout 2023. And really what you have here is a factor of our entry rate into delinquency is still below the pandemic period. So it's lower than 2018, 2019, which makes collections a little bit tougher on the stuff that does roll in. So that's how I think about the fourth quarter. When you start to think about 2024 and really how we get comfortable around you know, credit performance, a handful of things I'd sit back and say. Number one, we didn't accord you in the credit box, right? So we don't open and close it on our partners. So our underwriting was consistent. And to some degree, in the early part of the pandemic, we did not shrink as much. We did not expand as much when everyone was trying to, you know, make up for the lost vintages. So we kind of kept consistent throughout that period, number one. Number two, our PRISM advanced underwriting tools allows us to be less score reliant and use that data from our partners. We think hopefully, you know, we made, you know, very good choices or good choices during the pandemic period. When I then look at some of the data, you know, Ryan, I still look at the vintages that we put on in the pandemic period. They're generally performing in line with, with, you know, the 18, 19 vintages. So we're not seeing deterioration. Even when we look externally, the TransUnion data, we see we're performing better than the vintages of other folks. So, again, I think we feel comfortable with the tools we have in place. I think we're comfortable with performance. That said, Ryan, we did take some actions here in the third quarter. And that was mainly around the fact that we do have a shared consumer. So other people who have maybe made certain underwriting choices, you know, can pull through to us. And so, you know, we want to make sure that our loss rate stays in our targeted range. And we really took actions in order to ensure or try to ensure that we stay within our targeted underwriting loss rate of five and a half to six and optimize our risk-adjusted margins.
spk14: Got it. Maybe as a follow-up, Brian, so the RSA seems to be coming in better than had initially been forecasted, given the guidance for 395 for the year. And we look forward, losses are on a continued normalization and loan growth seems to be slowing. So You know, can you maybe just tease out some of the moving pieces as we head into 24? It feels like, you know, we're kind of back in an environment similar to where we were in, you know, the 2018-2019 timeframe when credit was normalizing and the RSA was coming in, you know, well below that 4% threshold. So can you maybe talk through some of those pieces? Thank you.
spk05: Yeah, thanks again, Ryan. You know, as I think about the RSA, it's really performing as – We designed it to be, right? So when losses were extremely low, it went over, you know, 6% level, and now we're back into an environment today, it's sub-4. And, again, it's driven by a couple of factors. One, the charge-off rate. Charged-off dollars are clearly an impact. Most certainly, the impact of cost of funds and interest-bearing liabilities is flowing through. I think as you think forward, you know, the things that are going to make it move a little bit, it's going to be the mix of the portfolio. Obviously, you look at something like, you know, health and wellness, we don't have as much RSA. It's going a little bit faster. And then, again, you're going to have in some of the other portfolios that have a maybe higher percentage of RSAs, depending upon their growth rates will influence it. But, again, it should track consistently. I always point to Ryan. We've talked about this before. If you looked at RSAs as a percent of purchase value, it is pretty stable through seasonal trends. So, again, we expect it to continue to operate the way it historically has.
spk14: Thanks for taking my question.
spk05: Thanks, Ryan. Thanks, Ryan.
spk00: Thank you. We'll take our next question from Erica Najarian with UBS. Please go ahead.
spk09: Hi, good morning. My first question is on direction of the net interest margin. So it seems like we've fully solidified the notion of higher for longer in 24. How should we think about how your net interest margin should perform in a higher for longer environment? And as we think about funding costs on the other side of the cycle when we eventually get to rate cuts, although the forward curve keeps pushing that out. How sensitive should we think about your funding costs relative to cuts in fed funds?
spk05: Yes, thanks, Erica. So I think as we think about the margin as we move forward here, there's, again, a little bit of tailwind still to go on prime rate. That flows through the book here in the fourth quarter. I think the second thing you're going to continue to see is a benefit on the margin coming from higher revolve. You know, we're still at payment rates that are 130 basis points above the pandemic period. So, again, there should be some push-up there. There should be a little bit of a headwind relative to reversals that go against that. So that's really what I think about the yield side of the equation here. On the interest-bearing liabilities side of the equation, again, there were a lot of assets that were put on or a lot of deposits that were put on this year. They're going to have to reset next year. So we'll see a little bit of tick up next year in the interest-bearing liabilities as those shorter days, you know, CDs hopefully renew. I think when you get to the backside of the cycle, that's really to be seen, right? There's a case that can be made where betas will be a little bit slower coming down for some of the folks that want to try to gather deposits and get the yield side of their investment portfolios up. There are some that are going to want to try to push down the cost of funding based on insensitive. So, I think as we get closer to that, we can probably give you a better perspective of which way that will turn.
spk09: Got it. And my second question is on capital. You know, there's been a lot of discussion for card companies in particular, you know, with regards to, you know, how we should treat unfunded commitments and also the timing differences in terms of, you know, higher ACL ratios in terms of the numerator deductions. So could you give us a little bit of a preview, so to speak, on how the pending new capital rules could impact synchrony and how you're expecting that to impact your approach to capital management?
spk05: Yeah, great, great question, Erica. So when we look at the rules, you know, the first thing I'd say, probably along with others, we're clearly disappointed with the proposed rules around capital, both from the process in which the Fed went through, as well as certain elements that we don't think were clearly thought through fully if you thought about a holistic review of the capital stack, right? You combine that with what I would say is some apparent gold plating. It's very difficult, I think, for the industry as a whole. And I think you're seeing that in banks' feedback. I think you're seeing it through the trade group's feedback. And I think there's some even level of concern with the Fed governors with regard to that. And then finally, when you think about synchrony, before I get into the details, you know, we're clearly disappointed that the tailoring rules effectively have been eliminated by treating us on the same level as a lot of the other banking institutions. With that said, Eric, if we looked at just taking those rules as they are, again, we're not sure that they would stay as they are. The impact to us is probably between a 15% to 20% higher impact to capital. And the range there depends really upon how you treat some of the RSA when you think about the operational risk pieces with the RSA offset, the fraud, and some of the revenue items. When I think about the unfunded commitments, that is a fairly significant add back to the RWA. The good news for us, I think, you know, we have a path where through mitigation strategy, we think this would be very manageable if it was enacted the way it was today. And part of it, when you think about the unfunded commitments, a good bulk of that is with accounts that are deemed inactive. So we can adjust line strategies without impacting current customers in our business. So I'm not sure as we look at it and we talk about it as a company, we believe there is a significant aspect with how we manage the growth side of the business.
spk09: Thank you.
spk05: Thanks, Eric. Have a good day.
spk00: Thank you. We'll take our next question from Sanjay Sakrani with KBW. Please go ahead.
spk07: Thanks. Good morning. I guess my first question, Brian Wenzel, is for you in terms of the reserve rate going forward. You know, we've seen some of the card issuers make adjustments to, you know, kind of what's inside the reserve and what's not. And there's some risks associated with inflation and the fact that behaviorally things are trending a little bit different than they have in the past. Maybe you could just talk about the migration of reserve rate going forward and you feel comfortable in the methodology at this point.
spk05: Yeah, thanks for the question, Sanjay. Obviously, we feel comfortable at the end of the third quarter that we have the right level of losses. As you think about it, the base assumptions that we have in the reserve model really didn't change. I think when you look at the baselines that are out there, there's not a significant shift in the underlying assumptions that are going into the model. As we looked at the quarter, what you did see is a little bit of shift between the quantitative portion of of the model and qualitative portion. But again, through the past history, we think through the scenarios that we run that we've accounted for a potentially worsening macro. We hopefully have captured inflation as part of that model, and then we also have student loans as part of it. So we feel good about where we are as we sit today, and that we can withstand you know, changes in the macro environment. That said, you know, when we look at it, there are six basis points of coverage between second quarter, third quarter, you know, given these models that that isn't significant, I wouldn't read into it that we have a deteriorating picture as we close the quarter.
spk07: Okay, great. And then maybe one for Brian doubles. Brian, can you just talk about You know, so the backdrop for portfolio acquisitions, any renewals, that kind of stuff, and then maybe just the competitive environment in general. Thanks.
spk04: Yeah, sure, Sanjay. So, you know, look, I would say generally it's a pretty constructive, competitive environment, I think. What we're seeing in the market around pricing new opportunities, renewals, is pretty disciplined. And I think any time you enter into a period like we're in right now where there's some uncertainty on the horizon, you tend to see issuers stay a little bit more conservative and a little more disciplined, which is good news for us. In terms of renewals, we just announced BELT this quarter. It's a great renewal for us, kind of normal course, great partner, very engaged customer base. And so, obviously, we're always out there working the renewal pipeline on our portfolio. And then in terms of new opportunities, I would say, on balance, it's probably more uh new program opportunities startup opportunities uh less of the kind of big programs that are out there coming to market and i think that'll hold true probably for the next 12 18 months and then beyond that i think you'll probably see some bigger programs come up and and be in the market perfect thank you very much thanks sandra thank you we'll take our next question from john hecht with jeffries please go ahead
spk02: Morning, guys. Thanks very much for asking my question. How are you? First up, you guys have had a pretty steady flow of new accounts for the last few quarters. I'm wondering, given where you're underwriting and kind of what's going on in the world, what are the characteristics of the new customers and any change from where you were a few years ago? And then what are the sources of the new customers as well?
spk04: Yeah, John, I would say, you know, consistent kind of trends on new accounts, both in terms of absolute magnitude as well as where the accounts are coming from. You know, one of the things that Brian mentioned, as we think about underwriting, you know, we don't expand the credit box in really good times, and we try not to really restrict it in more uncertain times. And that means that we have, you know, more of a steady trend in terms of both new accounts, active accounts, etc., I would tell you that the new programs that we recently launched are performing really well. We're seeing really good growth there. We continue to be encouraged on that front. You're seeing, I would say, really good trends across all of the platforms. As we look at growth, it's not one platform that's really outperforming. You're seeing that a little bit with health and wellness. it's pretty broad-based, and that's encouraging. I think the consumer has been much more resilient than any of us anticipated a year ago. And you're seeing that across the board, whether you look at purchase volume, receivables, new accounts, active accounts, you know if we if we had to pick a metric that's one that's probably a little bit more important than new accounts because keeping that consumer engaged offering them more than one product like that's a big part of our strategy and so we've we've been pleased you know so far all year okay that's very helpful and then uh second question is you know i think i said that you guys do some disclosure that you guys were involved at least evaluating green sky
spk02: Yeah, I'm wondering kind of what's the appetite for acquisition? I would assume the environment's a little bit better now with different opportunities. Maybe if you could just take us through what you're looking at and where you might go from that perspective.
spk04: Yeah, I mean, look, we're always opportunistic when it comes to potential M&A opportunities. You know, at the same time, John, we're extremely disciplined around the financial return of those opportunities, making sure that they're accretive. You know, we weigh that against buying back our stock and other opportunities. And so, look, we're always in the market. We've done some really nice smaller acquisitions over the last couple of years. Pets Best has been an absolute home run for us. Since we acquired that business, the pets and forests is up 5X just between 2019 when we acquired it and now. Allegro has been a great acquisition for us. Again, nice acquisition, relatively small in terms of the capital outlay for that, but we've been able to leverage the scale of health and wellness to grow that. We picked up some new products as part of that. Those are the types of acquisitions that we really like to do. But with that said, we look at larger opportunities, but they've got to make sense. You know, we balance those against other uses for our capital, and they've got to have, you know, a nice return profile for us and a good path to EPS accretion. Great. Thanks very much. Yep.
spk00: Thank you. We'll take our next question from Kevin Barker with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.
spk15: Great. Thank you. any particular shifts in payment rate trends for the near prime to prime consumer? Some of your competitors mentioned that there's a little bit more weakness, primarily due to household net worth or even savings rates within that cohort. Are you seeing any changes in payment rates there?
spk05: Yeah, good morning, Kevin. You know, the first thing, when we think about the consumer, there's a lot of focus that goes into savings rates. And I'd say that the higher-end consumer cohorts do have excess savings that's in there. But the prime, kind of right on the prime level to subprime, they benefited by a 22.6% wage increase since 2019, which has been able to really – you know, bolstered in through this period. When I look at payment rates and compare them year over year, right, you know, where you see probably the biggest shift in the payment rate is in that 660 to 720 bucket. You know, they're all moving from... you know, a little bit more full pay, a statement pay down. But the biggest shift is in that 660 to 720, which isn't necessarily that concerning to us and still, you know, above where they were in the pre-pandemic period. So I'd say a shift. It's not something that we are concerned about or find it to be concerning at this point.
spk15: Okay. And then I know it's very early, but are you seeing any impact on payment rate trends for folks with federal student loans. I know it's, you know, for a few weeks here. I'm just trying to... It is early.
spk05: Yeah. So, what's actually interesting, Kevin, when you look at that cohort, a couple of things. We've done, you know, we've done a lot of analysis on this group of people. We'll continue to do it. I think when you look at the month of September, we saw a significant rise in people making payments in advance of their student loan payments beginning in October. So that's a very good time for us with regard to that. You know, we did a deeper dive and we looked at how they are performing those accounts against, instead of the entire book, really against, you know, I'd say credit cohorts. And to be honest with you, Kevin, you're going to find this interesting. They actually are performing better with people with student loans versus people without student loans. So they clear to be very, very cautious. Again, the fact that people, you know, a significant number of people did pick up payments prior to their due date. So, again, what we expect going forward is that the fourth quarter is going to be a little bit noisy. So with regard to people who may have forgotten, got new servicers, et cetera, then you'll start to get a much better read as you move into the first quarter. What's going to be challenging for issuers is the fact that they're not, you know, we don't expect them to be reported to the bureaus until January 25. So there's things that we're going to watch with regard to changing those balances and see whether or not we can detect, you know, through the work of the bureaus, whether or not they are resuming payments and how much they're paying down. So, you know, we've kind of set that up in advance to monitor the population again. We think we've provided for them in prior periods for ones that may struggle. Thank you, Brian. Thanks, Kevin. Have a good day.
spk00: Thank you. We'll take our next question from Jeff Adelson with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
spk10: Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Just wanted to get an updated view on the late fees from the CFPB here. I know we're almost done with October and haven't heard anything yet. Just wondering, has there been any shift in the dialogue out there or Are you still fully expecting the rule to come out as proposed? And I guess as a part of that question, when the rule comes out, are you going to be taking any sort of proactive, preemptive actions and preparation, or are you more just going to be in the wait-and-see approach and wait to see how it plays out in the courts?
spk04: Yeah, I know. Thanks, Jeff. So look, we're obviously still waiting for the final rule to be issued. So there's plenty of unknowns out there until we see the final rule. We've got to see things like the implementation period, the final amount. We also believe that it will be litigated. So we're going to watch that carefully, and that could impact the timing as well. So I guess what I would say is, look, we're prepared for multiple scenarios in terms of timing. We've been working very closely with our partners for over six months now. We're working on pricing offsets, really with the goal of offsetting the impact here and putting us in a position with our partners where we can underwrite a large cross-section of the customers that we do today. We're obviously goes without saying we're disappointed in the rule. Obviously, we think it has unintended consequences that weren't properly evaluated. Late fees are a very important incentive to pay. Eight dollars just clearly is not an incentive. So without those offsets, it would restrict access to a pretty significant cross-section of consumers. And, you know, no change to what we've said in the past. Our goal is to protect our partners, fully offset the impact, and continue to underwrite and improve the majority of the customers that we do today.
spk10: Got it. Thanks. And just on the credit tightening side, I know you've discussed some more actions there, positioning yourself for 2024. But at the same time, you know, you weren't leading it as hard as your peers. You were sort of ahead of the curve there. Just wondering, you know, what would cause you to lean back in at this point? Is there any sort of signals you're looking for out there or any sort of timing around that to be expecting?
spk05: Just to be clear, to lean back into loosening credit?
spk10: Yeah, like when you might When you might, you know, widen the credit box again.
spk05: Yeah. We have a very good credit team that's consistently evaluating performance of the portfolio by partner, by vertical, by channel. And I think to some degree we want to see how credit develops across the industry. Again, I talked about a shared consumer, so what other issuers are doing or not doing, you know, can have a flow-through effect to us. So, again, we'll watch those things. There's not a telltale sign saying, you know, once this happens, we will go. But our team has a lot of tools. We use a lot of data. You know, we're using much more decision tree and non-score-based measures in order to assess that. And, again, the data elements that we get from partners will tell us how the consumer is performing. So we'll continue to look at that. And, again, you know, Brian said it. I said we don't move the credit box around that often because our partners want consistency and origination. our customers want to have consistent underwriting from us, and that's part of our lower line low and growth strategy.
spk00: Thank you. We'll move next to John Pincari with Evercore ISI. Please go ahead. Good morning.
spk06: Good morning, Jim. Regarding the back to the late seeds, can you maybe just, Give us a little bit of color on how you think about the timing of the offsets that you're negotiating at this time with your partners. You mentioned pricing, and I'm assuming there's other factors. Maybe if you could just talk about once the rule goes in place, what type of timing should we expect in terms of being able to see some of the offsets of that initial impact?
spk04: Yeah, so look, there's still things related to timing that we don't know yet, and primarily that's when the rule goes into effect, the impact of any litigation as well as the implementation period in the final rule. The original rule as written was 60 days. That's just clearly not enough time to get this done, so we think that hopefully it will be longer than that. And those are the discussions that we're having with each of our partners. And that will influence the nature of the pricing actions and the timing in which they go in. So I can't be really more specific than that, but we've got a really good plan in place partner by partner. We've been working on this for over six months now. we feel good about the conversations that we've had and the actions that we're going to take if the final rule goes into effect as written.
spk06: Okay, thank you. And then my second question is kind of a two-parter. First of all, you told me the incremental credit actions that you implemented in the third quarter. Can you maybe just elaborate there around, you know, what exactly you did in the third quarter versus what you've been doing previously. Separately, you mentioned that the RSAs are not as heavy in the health and wellness sector or business line. Can you talk about, you know, how much lower and then other, you know, product areas that may also have a lower RSA? Thanks.
spk05: Yeah, so with regard to the credit actions we took, a lot of it is around originations, but not around necessarily score cutoffs as much as it is different data elements or different criteria that we factor differently in account originations. We also are working on account management type actions, so triggers that come from the bureaus. certain attributes or criterias where we would turn in a form or watch to a credit line decrease or a closed account. So those are the two flavors of it. Again, it's not necessarily a shift and cutoff. It's really focusing on different criteria that are coming into our underwriting and account management engine. With regard to the second part of your question on the RSA, you know, we just highlight, you know, health and wellness. And I think we said it before, you know, there's There's not a lot of RSA sitting in that particular sales platform. So it's that platform that grows at a faster rate and has a little bit of an influence on the overall RSA for the company. Outside of that, we're not going to go into the different sales platforms from there because the rest do have some level in each of the sales platforms.
spk02: Okay. Thanks, Brian. Thanks, John. Have a good day.
spk00: Thank you. We'll take our next question from Mahir Bhatia with Bank of America. Please go ahead.
spk11: Good morning. Thank you for taking my question.
spk13: I wanted to start with just going back to the discussion around credit. You know, your credit guidance for the full year implies, I think, a 4.5% Q, pretty close to the 5.5%.
spk11: You know, it's getting back to your long-term target. Now, I was curious. and how you see that evolving. I know you've talked about keeping the underwriting pretty steady, but you've also tightened. We've seen some pretty fast normalization here in the back half of this year. Do you think it gets above your 5.5% to 6% target for a little bit in 2024 before coming back down, you know, kind of a give back from the strong you had over the last couple of years?
spk05: Yeah, well, good morning, Mahir. You know, the first thing I'd say is And I don't think we've got enough credit for it as a company, but we still haven't reached, and again, I know it's a one, we still not have reached our pre-pandemic delinquency metrics. I think there's only a couple of issuers that are in that category. So I wouldn't, I think we shouldn't undersell that number one. I think number two, when you look at the performance, I'm not sure I would characterize it as accelerating in the fourth quarter. If you go back and look at the growth on a dollar basis in 2017 and 2018 on average versus this, they grew on average 18% to 19% in the 2017-18 period, and we grew in this quarter 18%. and 20 percent on a 30 plus 90 plus basis so um probably in line with seasonality when you look at the the relative percentages you know if you think about bets they were 40 and 20 or 50 and 20 were 56 and a little bit over over 20 so there's not there's not a big deterioration i'd sit there and say characterize it that way you know what as i as we look at the the the performance for net charge-offs next year as a full-year basis. One of the reasons why I think we've tightened a little bit here, again, given the share consumers, we're trying to maintain losses inside that 5.5 to 6 and setting up the portfolio well to perform there because that's where we think the optimized performance risk-adjusted margin is for us as a company. I know others, you know, clearly are thinking now that they're willing to take a higher net charge-off rate and a lower margin. That's not where we want to operate as a company and deploy capital. It's not as effective for us. So we're going to be disciplined around that. So, again, when I look at that, and if you go back to earlier in the call, I talked about some of the vintage performance aspects.
spk13: And there are things that we've seen that gives us some level of comfort that we have a pretty good view of the trajectory.
spk11: Thank you. And then maybe just switching gears completely a little bit, I wanted to ask about the BNPL offering at Lowe's. You know, BNPL obviously not as topical today as maybe 12 or 24 months ago. But I think you've rolled it out this quarter or very recently. It looks like you're the exclusive provider for the BNPL offering there. And it's a white label, basically, of a synchrony pay, which they're calling lowest pay. Now, what I was wondering, if you could just maybe expand on that a little bit, just talk about, you know, What do the economics look like? Is it tied to your card offering in some way? Is this a competitive process? Is this an area you're looking to expand and build out with other retailers? How are you thinking about that product? Thank you.
spk04: Yeah, sure. So maybe just start more broadly. You know, I think this has been an area where we've been investing with our partners. I think the pay later products that we offer, it's a great way really just to engage more customers and
spk06: and offer them a new financing offer that's got really nice utility. We are seeing proof that the product does provide both value to us and to our partners.
spk04: You know, if you look at the results this quarter, year over year, we've grown installment and pay later products 29%. So we're clearly over-indexing in that product. So it's pretty good. I think the multi-product strategy that we've been talking about for well over a year now is starting to pay off, and you're seeing that with what we announced and launched with Lowe's.
spk06: You know, the Lowe's pay is a white-label version of that. And so one of the things that's really important to our strategy is flexibility both in terms of how
spk04: We offer the product inside of our partners, but flexibility to the consumer as well. So we're willing to offer that at a synchrony pay later, and we do that for a number of partners. We're also willing to white label it, which I think is a real competitive advantage for us because a lot of partners or a lot of competitors are not willing to do that. We're seeing really good traction on the launch so far, and we're just really pleased to be able to offer another product inside of our lowest partnership.
spk08: Thank you. Thanks. Thanks, Mayor. Thank you. We'll take our next question from Don Fendetti with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.
spk12: Hi. Talk a little bit more about the health of the consumer in terms of the lower end versus the higher end, and also do you feel more comfortable on one or the other based on what you're seeing going forward?
spk05: Yeah, so I think when you look at the consumer across three different metrics, the spending metrics, the payment metrics, and then obviously the credit metrics. Let me start with credit first. You know, that consumer is the one who is struggling. We see a little bit more of those back to pre-pandemic levels. in delinquency and their performance in delinquency, and then deeper non-prime performing a little bit worse. So from a credit standpoint, They get indelinquency. They don't really have the ability to cure out of it and are using other forms like settlements and debt settlement companies in order to kind of solve some of it. And that to be expected in this environment, they're just not going to have as much access to liquidity. Again, what's keeping that consumer base going is a broad-based wage increase that has helped fuel that. So even though they may have spent the dollars that they got from the pandemic, you know, stimulus packages, they do see larger wage gains. So again, what we're continuing to see is why the transaction values are a little bit lower for them, the frequency is up, and they're continuing to spend it. We think a very a very manageable pace. Again, when we look at our book, and I look at the average balance in our book, you know, if you look at 19 versus now, it's up a cager of 5%, and the open buys up a little bit more. So I think the consumer is being relatively disciplined, and there is more liquidity in the system for them. Clearly, when we look at high-end consumers, the high-end consumer is performing incredibly well. Their payment rates remain above 2019 levels. They are showing strength. You know, we've skewed in high end of prime up probably three percentage points in the super high end, which also has helped the portfolio performance. So again, we feel good. And again, when I look at the entire portfolio, you know, entry into delinquency is still below 2019 levels.
spk12: Thanks, Brian.
spk05: Thank you.
spk00: Thank you. We'll take our next question from Rick Shane with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
spk16: Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question this morning. Most have been asked and answered, but I guess we'll talk a little bit more about the RSA guide and the improvement there. When we look at the Charge-off rate, when we look at NIN, when we look at everything, it looks like everything is kind of within the range of expectations, both from an original perspective at the beginning of the year and from a second-quarter perspective. But for whatever reason, you feel like the RSA charge is going to be down a little bit. Is that really just a function of mix, or what else is contributing to that?
spk05: Yeah, thanks for the question, Rick. It really is mixed between the platforms and between the portfolios in there. Each of these arrangements are different. They're unique by partner. So certain partners are performing better than others. Certain ones have volume-based measures as well. So it really depends on where that volume goes and the performance. performance of the individual portfolio. So that is the main driver.
spk08: Okay, great. Thank you. Thanks, Rick. Thanks, Rick.
spk00: And we will take our next question from Saul Martinez with HSBC. Please go ahead.
spk13: Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Most of my questions have been asked, but maybe I think you could just go back to your comments on reserve levels and reserve adequacy, and then where we go from here. I get that. Your reserves, you seem to be indicating that you feel comfortable with your reserve ratios, and you are, I think, still about 40, 50 basis points, if I'm not mistaken, above your day one CISO allowance levels. But you are expecting NCOs to normalize and move higher. I would expect your losses that will flow through your reasonable supportable period will be moving higher as we move forward. But maybe you can comment on your reserve outlook going forward and what would induce you to maybe build reserves and what would that would need to happen for some additional reserve bills above and beyond what you need for growth?
spk05: Yeah, thanks for the question. So the way I would think about the reserve as we move forward is you should see a rotation as you stabilize in delinquencies in this normalization period that the quantitative model absorbs that trend line. And then as we get more comfortable with the macro backdrops, the effects of inflation, you know, as student loans, if they have an impact flow through the portfolio, you'll see the qualitative piece begin to come down and effectively offset that.
spk13: And then you'll move down ultimately, we think, towards that day one line.
spk05: if the assumptions come in generally as we think about it. If you think about incremental provisioning on a rate basis here, again, most of the times we're talking about things that are growth-driven in the portfolio, but truly rate-driven ones, a couple of factors that we look at is clearly if you have a deterioration in collection performance, that could do it. Mainly that's associated a lot of times with unemployment claims rising, so that could be a second factor. That kind of goes in there.
spk13: But collection performance and unemployment claims are two of probably the bigger ones that we'd see.
spk05: Again, we haven't seen trends in collections that would warrant that today. So we feel good about that. And unemployment claims have still remained historically low. So, again, we think we factored into our reserve at the end of the third quarter qualitative assessment. for a potentially deteriorating macro. We'll just have to see how that plays out. Okay. That's helpful. Thank you. Have a good day.
spk00: And we are allotted time for questions today, so we will take our final question from Aaron Saganovich with Citi. Please go ahead.
spk03: Thanks. I'll be quick. Your share buybacks came down just a touch. Can you talk about your outlook for buybacks in the quarters ahead?
spk05: Yeah. First of all, good morning, Aaron. Glad we were able to get your question in. With regard to the buybacks, we generally do not give or we have not given quarterly guidance with regard to how their purchases flow out for the quarter. At the end of the quarter, we had $850 million remaining under the current share of purchase authorization as we move through the end of the capital year in June of next year. What I probably want to be clear about with regard to that level for a second is what's not really driving the dollar amount. So I just really want to be clear that it's not related to a change in the macro environment for us, number one. Two, it's not related to any potential proposals on late fees. And three, it's not related to Basel III endgame. We have a set of mile markers that we've set out in the capital plan. It's more RWA-based than really how our income kind of comes in versus plan. So those are the factors. And, again, we considered the other factors, but that was not factored into our decision for the third quarter of our purchases.
spk11: Thank you. Have a good day.
spk00: Thank you. And this concludes Synchrony's earning conference call. You may disconnect your line at this time and have a wonderful day.
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