Pathward Financial, Inc.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the Metta Financial Group Investor Conference Call for the first fiscal quarter of 2022. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Following the prepared remarks, we will conduct a question and answer session. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference call over to Justin Schimpf, Vice President of Investor Relations and Financial Reporting. Please go ahead.

Thank you. I would like to welcome everyone to the Meta Financial Group conference call and webcast. Our CEO, Brett Farr, President, Anthony Charette, and CFO, Glenn Herrick, will discuss the results of our first fiscal quarter of 2022, after which we will take your questions. Additional information, including the earnings release and investor presentation, may be found on our website at metafinancialgroup.com. As a reminder, our comments may include forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual and anticipated results to differ. The company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement. Please refer to the cautionary language in the earnings release, investor presentation, and in Meta's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our most recent filings for additional information covering factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements. Additionally, today we may be discussing certain non-GAAP financial measures on this conference call. References to non-GAAP measures are only provided to assist you in understanding those results and performance trends. Reconciliations for such non-GAAP measures are included within the appendix of the investor presentation. Now, I would turn the call over to Brett Farr.

Thank you, everyone, for joining META Financial Group's first fiscal quarter 2022 earnings call. We are pleased to have achieved solid results again this quarter. Net income for the quarter was $61.3 million. Earnings per share of $2 was well above the prior year's 84 cents, reflecting the benefits of two substantial non-operating events. First, as I mentioned last quarter, We plan to fully wind down our community bank balances to zero by year end. I am pleased to say that during the quarter, we sold the remainder of the legacy community bank loans in December, wrapping up a significant phase in our multi-year shift towards higher return earning assets. Second, we announced in December an agreement to sell the meta names and trademarks for $60 million, of which we received $50 million in the fiscal first quarter. This agreement aligned well with the brand strategy review that we began during the 2021 fiscal year. We plan to develop a new corporate name and brand that represent the company's significant evolution during the last few years, which has enabled us to better fulfill our vision of financial inclusion for all. We expect to announce a new company name in the coming months and to be wrapped up with all the rebranding activity by the end of the calendar year. Returning to operating results, we made continued progress during the quarter in the three strategic initiatives that drive our business and financial results. First, we increased our base of lower cost stable core deposits with the average deposits growing 9% compared to the first quarter of last year. We were also able to drive our cost of funds lower as we further reduced our overall funding costs to eight basis points. This contributed to a net interest margin that was again over 450 basis points. Next, we continue to optimize our interest earning asset mix by emphasizing higher return assets demonstrated by the $375 million or 15% year over year growth in our commercial finance loans and a successful completion of the sale of our community bank loans. And lastly, We made progress towards improving operating efficiency to expand our core earnings from our operations. We remain focused on driving simplification and optimization of existing business platforms, as well as investing in and improving our technology to help drive efficiencies and operating leverage. Now, let me turn the call over to our president, Anthony Charette, to discuss META's efforts to improve operating efficiencies and provide updates on our lines of business.