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Pathward Financial, Inc.
10/21/2026
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to Pathward Financial's fourth quarter 2026 investor conference call. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Following the prepared remarks, we will conduct a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star 1 again. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference call over to Darby Schoenfeld, Senior Vice President, Chief of Staff and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Operator, and welcome. With me today are PathWord Financial CEO Brett Pharr and CFO Greg Sigrist, who will discuss our operating and financial results for the fourth quarter and full fiscal year of 2026, after which we will take your questions. Additional information, including the earnings release, the investor presentation that accompanies our prepared remarks, and supplemental slides, may be found on our website at pathwordfinancial.com. As a reminder, our comments may include forward-looking statements. Those statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual and anticipated results to differ. These statements speak only as of this date, and the company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement except as may be required by applicable law. Please refer to the cautionary language in the earnings release, investor presentation, and in the company'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 those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. Additionally, today we will be discussing certain non-GAAP financial measures on this conference call. References to non-GAAP measures are only provided to you to assist in understanding the company's results and performance. Additional information regarding these non-GAAP measures as well as reconciliations are included in the earnings release and the appendix of the investor presentation. Finally, all time periods referenced are fiscal quarters and fiscal years, and all comparisons are to the prior year period unless otherwise noted. Now let me turn the call over to Brett Pharr, our CEO.
Thanks, Darby, and good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining our earnings call. We're looking forward to sharing our updates today, but I'd like to start by taking a moment to reflect on an important milestone. This quarter marks five years since my first earnings call as CEO of Pathworks. Looking back, it's remarkable to reflect on everything the Pathwork team has accomplished together. We have navigated the challenges of COVID, rebranded the company as Pathwork, expanded our executive team, and strategically reshaped our balance sheet, all while evolving our business and strengthening our position as a trusted platform that enables our partners to thrive. Through each chapter, one thing has remained constant, and that's the dedication and commitment of our employees. Our success has always been rooted in our people. Every day, talented employees across Pathwork work with customers and businesses to enable financial availability, choice, and opportunity. Their unwavering commitment to true partnership is what has enabled us to adapt, execute, and continue delivering for all of our stakeholders. I'm very proud that we've continued to sustainably grow while staying true to our purpose of powering financial inclusion. That is not a coincidence. Our purpose continues to guide our strategy, and we believe that this diligent focus helps drive long-term value for our shareholders. And while I find tremendous value in times of reflection, I'm even more excited about what lies ahead. We have a strong foundation, a team that embodies our values and is committed to success, as well as a clear strategy to guide us forward. With that, let me spend a few minutes on our strategies. Then I'll provide a quick update on credit before turning the call over to Greg. Fiscal 2026 was another important year of execution for Pathwork. We successfully advanced the strategic priorities we set out to accomplish last year, and this was by no means a small feat. We had some major wins across each area, starting with maintaining an optimized balance sheet. Commercial finance growth combined with reductions in our lower yielding securities portfolio reflects our disciplined approach while remaining cognizant of our balance sheet capacity. We deployed capital where we believed it provided us with optionality or generated strong risk-adjusted returns. We made significant inroads in the small business administration loan market, moving up within the top 20 SBA 7A program lenders in the country. Next, we continue to make investments in technology, risk, and compliance. We believe these continued investments will allow our partners to deliver with confidence as they leverage our expertise, infrastructure, and collaborative support. The world is only moving faster, and we are proud to enable our partners by offering a broad suite of capabilities. Furthermore, we are very proud to have been recognized by a few different organizations throughout the year for our standout workforce and culture. We believe part of our success can be attributed to our Talent Anywhere approach. Through this talent strategy, we have been very successful in expanding our reach beyond local candidates as a remote-enabled employer and strengthening our ability to meet the evolving needs of our business. The last strategic priority is the client experience. We believe our partners see the value in Pathway's platform and our ability to grow alongside them. Last quarter, we announced that we had renewed our relationship with Claire, A company that has empowered workforce management and payroll platforms to offer early access to earned wages to employees at no cost to employers. This quarter, we are pleased to announce that we've renewed our contract with longstanding partner H&R Block, extending our relationship through mid-2030. H&R Block has been a leader in the tax preparation industry for more than 70 years with a deep commitment to their clients, associates, and community. We are excited to continue to support them. We still see significant opportunity in our pipeline with both new and existing partners to build on this momentum by expanding the products and capabilities we deliver. As we look ahead to fiscal 2027, our strategy will remain consistent. We believe the continuity in our strategy reflects the confidence that we have both in the direction of the business and the progress we have made throughout fiscal 2026. Our focus is now on continuing to execute against these areas and building momentum across the organization. Importantly, we believe our diversified mix of partners, products, and capabilities remains a key differentiator of Pathworth. We are not dependent on a single partner, industry, or market, which we believe delivers a resilient business model while providing multiple avenues for growth. Our broad suite of solutions allows us to create opportunities, deepen relationships, and deliver value. As a result, we believe we are well-positioned to capitalize on the opportunities in front of us. We continue to work through the renewable energy projects that we mentioned last quarter and still believe we have line of sight to bringing them to completion. While we made significant progress during the quarter, these things take time. We will continue to provide transparency and connection with these credit items. Additionally, we continue to believe that these events are not indicative of a broader systemic issue within the portfolio. Aside from credit, we are very pleased with the results of the year. Now I'd like to turn it over to Greg, who will take you through the details of our financials and fiscal year 2027 guidance.
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