1/29/2026

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Good morning and welcome to the Allure Financial Corporation earnings conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Today's call will reference slides that can be found on Allure's investor relations website. You can also view the presentation slides directly within the webcast platform. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions for analysts and institutional investors. To ask a question during a session, you'll need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear automated messages by the hand that's raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please note this event is being recorded. This call may include forward-looking statements and the company's actual results may differ materially from those indicated in any forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements are listed in the earnings release in the company's SEC filings. I'll now turn the conference over to Alaris Financial Corporation President and CEO, Katie Torrenson. Please go ahead.

speaker
Katie Torrenson
President and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us. I appreciate this opportunity to share reflections on the year and offer some perspective of the strategic position and momentum of our company as we enter into 2026. Joining me today is Alaris CFO Al Villalon, COO Karin Taylor, Chief Banking and Revenue Officer Jim Collins, and Alaris Chief Retirement Services Officer Forrest Wilson. 2025 was a milestone year for Alaris, in which we demonstrated not only strong core financial performance, but significant execution of major strategic initiatives that positioned the company for sustainable organic growth and a return to top-tier profitability and performance. I'm incredibly proud of the team, not just for the financial results, including posting a core ROA of 1.62% this quarter, but for the collaborative efforts to accomplish these initiatives during the year. It is evident through our ability to set goals, hold each other accountable, and exceed expectations that the leadership team and the talent throughout this company is exceptionally strong and deep. One of the most notable accomplishments of 2025 was delivering results well above our committed targets, both financial and non-financial, in our first full year of operating as a combined organization with Home Federal. We delivered an adjusted ROA of 1.35% and an adjusted efficiency ratio of 64.45%. in addition to a net retention rate of deposits close to 95% and critical retention of key talent throughout the organization. These results solidify our integration capabilities of aligning people, systems, resources, and culture quickly and effectively. Our focus in 2025 was to continue to enhance our commercial bank and to sustainably improve returns while focusing on our long-term strategy. In the back half of the year, we executed a purposeful deleveraging plan, actively managing loan paydowns and pruning marginal credits to strengthen our balance sheet and improve our flexibility. As we saw success in these initiatives, we took disciplined action to sell our legacy, low-yielding, available-for-sale securities portfolio. This balance sheet repositioning improved our earnings power going forward, reduces our AOCI volatility, enhances capital generation capacity, and gives us greater flexibility for lending in our markets. The deliberate steps we took positional layers for stronger performance and tangible book value growth in 2026 and beyond, and demonstrates our commitment to creating long-term, sustainable value for our clients, our communities, and our shareholders. On the banking side, we saw a steady build in momentum throughout 2025, especially in the second half of the year. Excluding the purposeful reductions in CRE, the targeted loan sales, and our selected managing of renewals, organic loan growth for the year would have been closer to mid-single digits. Of note, our strategic entry into the mid-market C&I space gained real traction as we moved through the year, and we entered 2026 with strong pipelines. Organic core deposit growth also picked up momentum in the back half of the year, with the focus shifting from retention as the team members worked through the deposit system's conversion. We are seeing some nice large opportunities for mid-market and government not-for-profit treasury management in early 2026, which should enhance our deposit growth through the year. From a margin perspective, strong pricing discipline on both sides of the balance sheet throughout the organization drove the core NIM higher. Non-performing loans picked up higher with the migration of an acquired purchase participation that was previously identified as a problem loan. This is a multifamily property in the Twin Cities with a 15% reserve, and it should resolve relatively quickly. Our largest non-performing exposure continues to be a large multifamily loan in the Twin Cities with a book balance of approximately $32 million. This property now has multiple offers and is currently 74% leased. We are reserved at about 17% and continue to expect resolution by mid-year. Leading credit indicators showed meaningful improvement over the second half of 2025, including a 30% reduction in criticized asset levels. While we had another quarter of net recoveries and a slight reserve release, the allowance for loan losses remained robust at 1.53% of total loans. In addition, capital accretion boosted the TCE ratio to 8.72%, putting the balance sheet in a strong position for organic loan growth. Moving on to our ultimate differentiator, our fee income businesses, where we grew core revenues 7% year over year. Although our most recent acquisitions have been strategic bank additions in key markets like Rochester, Minnesota, and Phoenix, Arizona, we have maintained fee income at over 40% of total revenues, almost three times the average of most financial institutions. Notably, we ended the year with assets in our retirement and wealth divisions at nearly $50 billion, or 10 times the assets in our banking division. Our retirement division delivered strong results, including robust sales, continued better-than-industry client retention, and growth in plans and participants. We ended 2025 with the strongest revenue momentum this division has seen, momentum we believe will continue into 2026 and beyond. Our retirement business remains integral to our overall success, providing over a quarter of the company's funding, and serving as a powerful internal force of wealth management opportunities. In 2025, we continue to expand our national presence through partnerships anchored in our distinguished reputation for outstanding client service. As the 25th largest provider in the country and with a new leadership team in place, we will continue to invest in technology and AI to enhance scalability and improve margins. During the year, we successfully converted our entire wealth business onto a new system, achieving 100% client retention thanks to excellent execution by our support teams and the high-touch service delivered by our wealth advisors. This reinvestment strengthens our foundation and positions us to advance our strategic plan to double the number of advisors across the Alaris franchise, with the aspirational goal of growing our wealth assets at the same pace as our banking assets. Earlier this month, we finalized the first step in building our next-generation team with a selection of our new wealth management leaders. an experienced professional with deep expertise in wealth, trust, and institutional advisory, and a proven ability to recruit talent and drive key strategic initiatives. On a core and reportive basis, we saw strong operating leverage, even as we modernized our systems, implemented new core platforms, and strengthened our digital capabilities, while we produced record levels of sales throughout many of our business lines. We did this all while managing our headcount down over 6% from its peak in October 2024. These upgrades allow us to move faster, create more consistency in client experience, and operate with greater scalability. They also ensure we're building a future-ready organization, one that is ready to embed AI and automation where it improves quality, efficiency, and client insights. CET1 capital levels ended the year at 10.28%, up from 9.91% a year ago, giving us ample flexibility to support growth, sustain our dividend, and selectively pursue opportunities. Our primary focus remains on organic growth and strategic hiring as we continue to see meaningful talent and market share opportunities stemming from recent M&A disruption in the Twin Cities. As the second-largest locally-led financial institution in the market, with $55 billion in banking, wealth, and retirement assets, nearly $300 million in adjusted revenue, and over $600 million in market cap, Alaris is well-positioned to capture this momentum. Over the past several years, we have successfully lifted out high-performing teams and professionals, leveraging our deep expertise in C&I, private banking, and wealth attachment. The strong synergies across these business lines, combined with our expanding physical and brand presence in the Twin Cities, position us to continue attracting top talent, growing C&I relationships, and serving more high net worth clients. As we enter 2026, we do so from a position of strength and are set for continued momentum. We have a unified and clearly defined strategy, a modernized operating environment, a de-risk, future-ready balance sheet, durable, diversified revenue engines across banking, wealth, and retirement, strong capital and liquidity, a deep leadership team built for the next chapter, and a culture centered on accountability to each other, our shareholders, our clients, and our communities. We expect to continue generating positive core operating leverage, expanding tangible book value, and delivering top-tier long-term results. The work we did in 2025, integrating, modernizing, de-risking, and aligning, creates the conditions for stronger and more consistent performance in the years ahead. With that, I will hand it over to Al Bellall.

speaker
Al Villalon
Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, Katie. Before I start, let's recap on a high level of 2025, as you can see on page 8 of our investor deck that is posted on the investor relations part of our website. We just posted record-adjusted earnings and over 21% adjusted return on tangible equity after the biggest acquisition in company history. Also, we continued our strategic balance sheet repositioning to ensure continued success in driving shareholder value creation. For the past several years, the company's risk and return profile has dramatically improved for the better. Change takes time, and change will continue as environment changes. I will now jump to page 11 of our investor deck to go over our financials in more detail. On a reported basis, net interest income increased 4.7% over the prior quarter, while adjusted non-interest income increased 8.3%, which excludes the loss in securities and other one-time items. Net interest income grew due to a decrease in our cost of funds. Fee income grew as revenues grew both in our retirement and wealth segments. Overall, fee income, excluding the loss in security, continued to remain over 40% of revenues and over double the industry average. Let's dive into drivers of managers' income on the next slide. Turning to page 12 in the fourth quarter, managers' income continued to reach new heights at $45.2 million, and our reported managers' margin increased to 3.69%. Total cost of funds decreased 16 basis points to 2.18%. We also had 52 basis points related to purchase accounting accretion and non-recurring items in the quarter. Excluding these 52 basis points, core interest margin was 3.17%, a 12 basis point improvement from the third quarter. We continued to remain disciplined in pricing on both loans and deposits. In the fourth quarter, we saw new loan spreads of 258 basis points over Fed funds, while deposit costs were coming in at 116 basis points below Fed funds. These spreads make up what we call a new business margin of 374 basis points. This is a very strong margin, which we continue to expect to build core net interest income and will replace purchase accounting accretion. Let's turn to page 13 to talk about our earning assets. At the end of the fourth quarter, loans decreased 1.3% over the previous quarter. The decrease in loans was driven by strategic downsizing of the loan portfolio to help improve our overall risk profile. As previously mentioned, we pushed out credit risk from non-core loans and did not renew certain relationships. Overall, our loan mix remains around 50% fixed and 50% floating. On investments, we sold $360 million of available-for-sale securities, which represented over 68% of total AFS securities. The securities sold had an average weighted yield of 1.7% and a weighted average duration of 5.1 years. Proceeds from the securities sale were reinvested into new investment securities with a weighted average yield of 4.7% and a weighted average duration of just over three years. Excluding balance sheet derivatives, we remain slightly liability sensitive. Any 25 basis point cut in Fed funds should help improve our net interest margin around five basis points. Turning to page 14, On a period-ending basis, deposits declined 5% mainly due to the calling in of over $165 million in broker deposits and the running off of another $45 million in other wholesale funding to optimize our cost of funds. Excluding the intentional optimizations, deposits declined approximately only $10 million, or 0.2% from the prior quarter. Despite the overall decline of deposits, our loan-to-deposit ratio was 96.6%. Lastly, since the close-up of the acquisition of home federal, our deposit retention rate remains close to 95%. Turning to page 15, I will now talk about our banking segment, which also includes our mortgage business. I will focus on the fee income components now since net interest income was previously discussed. Mortgage saw only a 4.2% decrease in originations during the quarter. We usually see a bigger seasonal slowdown in mortgage, but we saw reactivity pick up in the fourth quarter. Currently, we are seeing the usual slowdown in originations as January is off to a slower start. Lastly, we saw approximately $1 million in swap fee income this quarter. As a reminder, swap fee income tends to be lumpy from quarter to quarter. On page 16, I'll provide some highlights on our retirement business. Total revenue from the business increased to $17.3 million. 4.6% increase over the prior quarter. Most of the increase was driven by growth in both asset and transaction-based fees. Assets under administration and management increased 2.1%, due to market performance and net positive asset flows into our retirement business during the quarter. Synergistic deposits within our retirement segment grew 5.6% over the prior quarter. HSA deposits grew over the prior quarter to over $203 million. HSA deposits continue to remain a strong source of funding for us since these deposits only carry a cost of 10 basis points. These deposits are a valuable source of funding for the bank, which are not reflected in the margin information in this slide. Going to page 17, you can see highlights for our wealth management business. On a land quarter basis, revenues increased 13.4% to $7.4 million, while end of quarter assets under management increased 0.8%, mainly due to market performance. The revenue increased due to an increase in asset-based fees. Page 18 provides an overview of our non-interest expense. During the quarter, non-interest expense increased 2.7%. The increase was partially driven by an increase related to the opening of a new facility in Fargo, North Dakota. We also saw an increase in technology expenses driven by new core systems such as our wealth and online banking platforms. Professional fees increased related to the balance sheet restructuring that occurred at the end of 2025. Turn to page 19. You can see our credit metrics. During the quarter, we had net recoveries of three basis points. The quarter-over-quarter decreases was primarily driven by $1.9 million recovery in the third quarter of 2025 related to a loan that had previously been charged off. Non-performing assets were 1.27%, an increase of 14 basis points from the prior quarter, driven by a slight increase in non-performing assets and a decrease in overall assets. I'll discuss our capital liquidity on page 20. Our tangible common equity ratio improved to 8.72% versus 8.24% in the prior quarter. We continue to have close to $2.8 billion in liquidity to help support loan growth in any liquidity events. We remain committed to driving tangible book value growth with excess capital being used to support organic loan growth, our dividend payout, and share repurchases. Now, starting on page 21, I'll update you on our guidance for 2026. We expect the following. For 2026, we expect loans to continue to grow at a mid-single-digit growth rate. We expect to grow deposits in the low single digits. As previously mentioned, we have ample liquidity to meet any loan growth in excess of deposit growth. For 2026, we're expecting our net interest margin to be around 3.5% to 3.6%. which will include about 16 basis points or just over $8 million of purchase accounting accretion and no early payoffs. This is close to a 60% reduction of purchase accounting accretion from 2025. You'll continue to see improvement in core and interest margin replacing purchase accounting accretion for 2026. As a reminder, improvement is not linear. With the aforementioned guidance, an interest income is projected to grow low to mid single digits for 2026. We expect our adjusted non-interest income to grow in the mid-single digits driven by continued core growth in our wealth and retirement businesses. No swap income is included in this guidance as it tends to be difficult to estimate and dependent on client demand. Overall, net revenue is poised to grow mid-single digits. Non-interest expenses is expected to grow low single digits, which shows our commitment to driving positive operating leverage. For 2026, we expect our ROA to exceed 1.2% for the year. We do not have any further Fed cuts in our expectations for 2026. And again, for every 25 basis points cut in rates, we expect them to improve about five basis points. While we showed the underlying potential of this better and bigger company in 2025, 2026 is about continued improvement of our core businesses to drive returns higher. So, Get on the bus and buy some of the letters.

speaker
Moderator
Conference Moderator

With that, open up for Q&A.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

The first question comes from Brandon Nozzle of Hokey Group. Your line is now open.

speaker
Brandon Nozzle
Analyst, Hokey Group

Good morning, everybody. Hope you're doing well. Hey, Brandon. Maybe just starting off here on kind of balancing dynamics for 26, you know, with the mid-single-digit loan guide and the deposit guide for low-single, you know, totally get that you had the liquidity to, you know, fund the loan growth that you're seeing coming through. Maybe just speak to your comfort bringing up the loan-to-deposit ratio from current levels, and is there any kind of internal ceiling that you want to manage around from here?

speaker
Al Villalon
Chief Financial Officer

Brendan, I'll take this. This is Al. We try to manage around a 95% loan-to-deposit ratio, but we also acknowledge that we typically see that pick up as we see some outflows from our public funds, especially in the second and third quarter of every year, but we look to usually have around a 95% to 96% loan-to-deposit ratio.

speaker
Brandon Nozzle
Analyst, Hokey Group

Okay. Thanks. Maybe turning to expenses, just kind of curious, you know, what you have underlying that outlook in terms of tech investments or room for team ads across the year kind of baked into that outlook?

speaker
Al Villalon
Chief Financial Officer

So, in terms of team ads, I'll let Jim talk a little about that, but we do have ads incorporated into that guidance. Also, from a tech standpoint, too, we've incorporated our Contracts that have some variable costs going up over the year and also the new platforms we just implemented.

speaker
Jim Collins
Chief Banking and Revenue Officer

Yeah, we have ads for specifically in the wealth areas embedded in the expenses in 26 and a number of ads in commercial banking embedded in the expenses for 26.

speaker
Brandon Nozzle
Analyst, Hokey Group

Okay, fantastic. Thanks for the color and taking my questions.

speaker
Moderator
Conference Moderator

Thanks, Brandon.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of .

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Your line is now open.

speaker
Jeff
Analyst

Thanks. Good morning. Question on the loan growth expectations and even the fourth quarter runoff. You know, I want to get a read on a portion of which was, was credit trimming maybe in the ticket fourth quarter first and, um, any, any idea of kind of the portion of that runoff that was maybe driven by you or credit trimming?

speaker
Jim Collins
Chief Banking and Revenue Officer

I'll take that. This is Jim. Um, a fair amount of it was, uh, was designed, right? We, we, we certainly wanted to run out some of the marginal credits or the credits that were, uh, credit related, uh, But we also wanted to drive out orphan credits or non-full relationship credits and pare down our CRE concentrations and really build up our CNI. So as we look at our portfolio and know that the profitability of CNI is a lot higher than our CRE and changing our mix, we're paring down our CRE. We're building up CNI. We don't want orphan relationships. We want full relationships. and we want to push out any marginal credits that we think might end up in the credit box. And we will continue that philosophy in 26. That's why we're looking at a mid percentage of loan growth in 26.

speaker
Jeff
Analyst

And Jim, if I were to look at kind of year over year, low single digit in 25, mid in 26, and understand the mixed focus there, but would you, fair to say the sort of targeted or designed runoff in 26, that's less of a headwind than you saw in 25? Yes, I would. Okay, great. And somewhat related on the, Katie, I think you touched on the link quarter non-accrual lift. Again, what was that in terms of type and segments?

speaker
Karin Taylor
Chief Operating Officer

Sure, Jeff, this is Karin. I can take that. The increase was related to a multifamily loan that we acquired. It is here in the Twin Cities. We've got a 15% reserve on it. There are already offers on the property, and so we expect that that will resolve certainly in the first half of this year.

speaker
Jeff
Analyst

That's great. And last one for me on the margin, Al, The trajectory of that through the year, it's a 10 basis point range, 350 to 360, and again, does not assume rate cuts. I appreciate the language there, but through the course of the year, is it steady state, 355, or do you see it building throughout the year? Any color on the pace of the margin over the year?

speaker
Al Villalon
Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. Thanks for the question, Jeff. It's going to be gradual, and the way I determine it is just going to be really dependent on how our deposit flows, ebb and flow, especially, you know, as we see those summer months come in and our public funds go out. So, I would expect some gradual improvement in there, but that's why I made the comment it's not really linear.

speaker
Jeff
Analyst

Okay. Okay. I appreciate it. Thank you.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Nathan Race of Piper Sandler. Your line is now open.

speaker
Nathan Race
Analyst, Piper Sandler

Yes. Hi, everyone. Good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. Going back to the margin discussion, Al, I was wondering if you had the dollar amount of accretion in the quarter and maybe what's a good starting point for the core margin X accretion just given the full benefit of the securities portfolio reposition that you'll have in the first quarter?

speaker
Al Villalon
Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. Last year, we had approximately about $20 million of purchase and accounting accretion for 2025. This year, we're looking for about eight. And I would say that that eight is pretty evenly spread out. So I'd say just a little bit over $2 million in the first quarter and kind of scaling down to just right at $2 million in the fourth quarter. And then I think a good exit rate right now is looking at 317 that we had in the fourth quarter and growing it from that.

speaker
Nathan Race
Analyst, Piper Sandler

Okay, great. Really helpful. And then, Katie, your comments around kind of trying to double the wealth management advisors across the franchise going forward. I was wondering if you could just speak to kind of the timeline and kind of where you're at in terms of, you know, that headcount and then kind of where you're looking to add, you know, additional depth to the wealth management team going forward across the franchise.

speaker
Jim Collins
Chief Banking and Revenue Officer

This is Jim. I'll take that one. Uh, we have 26 advisors now in, in all the markets. Uh, we certainly want to add more advisors in our larger markets, the twin cities, Phoenix and Wisconsin. We've already added one this year, which will start here in a couple of weeks. Uh, we've had slated for another six, uh, six or seven the rest of this year spread out throughout the markets. Um, We will take the opportunity to add talent where we find it. So I'm not exactly sure at this point where we're going to find it, but we plan to actively recruit. We are actively recruiting in all markets. So it depends on where we find it, but we are actively recruiting in all markets. We plan to add those throughout the year. But again, it's all dependent on when we find the right talent at the right time.

speaker
Nathan Race
Analyst, Piper Sandler

Okay, perfect. That's helpful. Thanks, Jim. And then we'll just be curious to get an update. You know, you guys still, even with the balance sheet repositioning in the quarter, you know, still have nice excess capital position and, you know, that should continue to build just given the profitability improvement that was alluded to in the guidance. So maybe just curious to get an update from Katie in terms of if you're feeling more optimism these days in terms of the opportunities that are out there to perhaps augment the retirements platform via acquisition.

speaker
Katie Torrenson
President and Chief Executive Officer

Sure. Thanks, Nate. I was on the capital front priorities remain consistent with what they've been over the course of the past several quarters and years. So organic growth, number one, team lift outs, market share opportunities, dividends, buybacks, and obviously on the M&A front in that retirement and HSA space, it continues to be a priority for us. We continue to expand and deepen the conversations that we're in with potential partners. And those that, again, that's agnostic to location in the country will remain selective and disciplined and make sure that they're good matches. But I would say overall, yeah, we continue to build our pipeline of potential partners in that space.

speaker
Nathan Race
Analyst, Piper Sandler

Okay, great. Very helpful. I'm sorry, if I could just sneak one last one in for Al. On the expense of...

speaker
Moderator
Conference Moderator

Go for it, Nate.

speaker
Nathan Race
Analyst, Piper Sandler

Sorry. Yeah, sorry. Go for it, Nate. On the occupancy expenses, I appreciate that that included the cost with the location in Fargo. Does the increase from 3Q to 4Q, does that kind of come out starting the first quarter?

speaker
Al Villalon
Chief Financial Officer

Oh, there is some of that in the fourth quarter, but then we had actually some real – there's going to be a tick up in occupancy because we did have opening of a new facility as well.

speaker
Nathan Race
Analyst, Piper Sandler

Okay. So any thoughts on just a better run rate for that number going forward?

speaker
Al Villalon
Chief Financial Officer

Well, I mean, we're still looking at, you know, again, low single digits for expenses over the year. I mean, we exited the quarter roughly around $51 million. I mean, I would just grow from that.

speaker
Nathan Race
Analyst, Piper Sandler

Okay. Fair enough. I appreciate all the color. Congrats on a great quarter. No problem. Thanks, everyone.

speaker
Moderator
Conference Moderator

Thank you. Appreciate that, Nate.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Damon Demonte of KVW. The line is now open.

speaker
Damon Demonte
Analyst, KVW

Hey, good afternoon, everyone. I hope you're all doing well. First question relates to the loan growth. You know, how much of your view on the growth is being driven just by, you know, continued strong underlying economic trends versus opportunities that are being created through, like, market disruption from M&A?

speaker
Jim Collins
Chief Banking and Revenue Officer

I would say... What I see going into 26, it's probably for us, it's probably mostly market disruption and market share from the talent that we've acquired over the last three years. So if I was to guess, it's probably going to be 70-30, 70 from the talent and the relationships that they know at other banks and market disruption, and 30% of just economic growth. That's my best guess rolling into 26 at this point. But talking to business owners, it feels like 26 is going to be a good year for a lot of businesses.

speaker
Damon Demonte
Analyst, KVW

Great. I appreciate that color. And then with respect to credit and trying to think about provision, Al, any thoughts on kind of how you see the provision playing out over the upcoming quarters?

speaker
Karin Taylor
Chief Operating Officer

Yeah, Damon, this is Karin. I'll take that. You know, I think the provision in 26 is going to be driven by loan growth. and macroeconomic factors. We feel that we're adequately reserved on those non-performing deals. And with improving credit metrics, we think the primary growth in reserve will be home growth.

speaker
Damon Demonte
Analyst, KVW

Great. And I may have missed this earlier, but are you guys anticipating some of those non-performers moving off here in the upcoming quarters to kind of lower some of those ratios? Yes.

speaker
Karin Taylor
Chief Operating Officer

Yeah, we've got several in that bucket where we expect resolution in the first half of the year.

speaker
Damon Demonte
Analyst, KVW

Okay, great. And then just last question on the tax rate. What's a good tax rate we should think about here for 2026?

speaker
Moderator
Conference Moderator

24%, Damon.

speaker
Moderator
Conference Moderator

Perfect. Okay, that's all that I had. Thanks so much.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of David Long of RJ. Your line is now open.

speaker
David Long
Analyst, Raymond James

Good morning, everyone. Hey, David. Hey, on the deposit side, just curious what you're seeing on competition, both from your retail deposits, from the HSA deposits. Does it differ across the different platforms? And is the pricing that you're seeing, do you feel like it's rational?

speaker
Jim Collins
Chief Banking and Revenue Officer

This is Jim. I think it's very competitive. I think in all markets it's competitive. It's competitive on the retail side. It's competitive on the commercial side. I think we have a fairly good strategy in place for 2026, but it will be, again, very competitive across the boards. Is it rational? Generally speaking, yes. I think in pockets you'll find some banks that are being aggressive. You can say that's a little irrational sometimes, but generally speaking, I think I would just put it as very competitive. So 26 will be very competitive for deposits. That's, you know, Al's comment earlier, that will be kind of the part of the NIM that will be affected throughout the year on where that kind of levels out throughout the year. So we're going to work extremely hard on that piece throughout the entire year, but it's going to be very competitive.

speaker
David Long
Analyst, Raymond James

Great. And then just to follow up to that, as you're thinking about the loan growth in the next year, how will the mix look differently with your guide at the end of 26 versus what we're looking at here at the end of 25?

speaker
Jim Collins
Chief Banking and Revenue Officer

As I commented earlier, we're really focused on full CNI relationships. So the portfolio in 26 is really gearing up like we've trended towards the end of 25, is really full CNI relationships. So we're trying to change the mix to more full CNI and less CRE. So the goal at the end of 26 is to change that mix to more CNI, more mid-market CNI. Hopefully that answers your question.

speaker
David Long
Analyst, Raymond James

Yeah, yeah, no, that's definitely helpful. And looking at the deposit side, too, how do you see the concentration on the deposit side changing?

speaker
Al Villalon
Chief Financial Officer

Hey, David, before I answer that question, first I just want to congratulate you and your Indiana Hoosiers on winning a national title. I hope to feel that euphoria someday with Notre Dame. But to answer your deposit question, I mean, we are seeing some erosion on the non-sparing side because the environment is still very competitive. We're still seeing, you know, our non-maturity deposit rates around the 2% to 3% level in terms of, you know, new rates for new accounts coming in. So we're still going to see some shift from non-interest-bearing to interest-bearing.

speaker
David Long
Analyst, Raymond James

Great. Thanks, Al. And unfortunately, I did not take up your advice and purchase the options for tickets using the CFP website, but I was able to attend the game in Atlanta at the Peach Bowl. So it was a ton of fun. Thanks.

speaker
Moderator
Conference Moderator

Congrats.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Thank you. Again, as a reminder to ask a question, you'll need to press star 11 on your telephone.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

And I'm showing no further questions.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

This concludes our question and answer session. I'll now turn the conference back over to Katie Lawrenson for any closing remarks.

speaker
Katie Torrenson
President and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, and thank you, everyone, for your time today. Thank you to all of our team members across this great company. The progress we've made together reflects the team's hard work, the strength of our strategy, and the resilience of our diversified business model. I also want to thank our shareholders, our clients, and our communities for their trust and partnership. We're excited about our outlook as we enter 2026 with confidence, momentum, and a clear vision for the future. Thank you, everyone.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.

Disclaimer

This conference call transcript was computer generated and almost certianly contains errors. This transcript is provided for information purposes only.EarningsCall, LLC makes no representation about the accuracy of the aforementioned transcript, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the information provided by the transcript.

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