East West Bancorp, Inc.

Good afternoon and welcome to the East West Bank Corp's fourth quarter and full year 2023 earnings call. All participants will be in listen only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing star then zero on your telephone keypad. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Adrienne Atkinson, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator. Good afternoon, and thank you everyone for joining us to review EastWest Bancorp's fourth quarter and full year 2023 financial results. With me are Dominic Ng, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Christopher Del Moral-Niles, Chief Financial Officer, and Irene Oh, Chief Risk Officer. This call is being recorded and will be available for replay on our Investor Relations website. The slide deck referenced during this call is available on our Investor Relations site. Management may make projections or other forward-looking statements which may differ materially from the actual results due to a number of risks and uncertainties. Management may discuss non-GAAP financial measures. For a more detailed description of the risk factors and the reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP financial measures, please refer to our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the Form 8-K filed today. I will now turn the call over to Dominic.

Thank you, Adrienne. Good afternoon, and thank you, everyone, for joining us for our year-end earnings call. 2023 was another record-breaking year for EastWest. Our highlights include include new record levels for revenue, net interest income, net income, loans, and deposits. Our 2023 results speak to the resilience of our business model, the loyalty of our customers, and the persistence of our bankers. Despite the turbulence in the earlier half of the year, we grew customer deposits by $1 billion in each of the past two quarters. We did this by adding 40,000 new deposit accounts over the past year, both consumer and commercial, and driving a more granular deposit base. Our loan growth was driven by our differentiated residential mortgage product and the strength of our commercial lending relationships. As a quality remains strong and we continue to proactively manage our credit risk. Our 2023 annual net charge-offs to average loans were just nine basis points and of non-performing assets to total asset ratio was just 16 basis point at year end. We continue to deliver industry leading efficiency supported by our simple proven business model and effective branch network. Our efforts drove a 20% adjusted return on average tangible common equity and a 1.7% return on average assets in 2023. Looking forward, we remain focused on driving core deposit growth, and we are pleased by the early progress on continued net new customers and balances as we begin 2024. We have started the new year from a position of strength. Given our earning stability, solid credit performance, and strong capital levels, I am pleased to announce that our board of directors has approved a 15% increase to the quarterly common stock dividend to 55 cents per share. I will now turn the call over to Chris to provide more details on our fourth quarter financial performance. Chris?