FinWise Bancorp

Greetings and welcome to the FinWise Bancorp first quarter 2024 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Juana Arias, Corporate Development Investor Relations. Thank you, sir. You may begin.

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us today for FinWise Bancorp's first quarter 2024 earnings conference call. Earlier today, we filed our earnings relief and posted it to our investor website at investors.finwisebancorp.com. Today's conference call is being recorded and webcast on the company's website, investors.finwisebancorp.com. On today's call, management's prepared remarks and answers to your questions may contain forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from those discussed today. Forward-looking statements represent management's current estimates, expectations, and beliefs, and FinWISE Bancorp assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements in the future. We encourage listeners to review the more detailed discussions related to these forward-looking statements contained in the company's earnings press release and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Hosting the call today are Kent Landvatter, CEO, Jim Noon, President, and Bob Wallman, CFO. With that, I will turn the call over to Kent.

Good afternoon, everyone. Finwise is off to a good start in 2024. with first quarter results that were supported by robust originations of nearly $1.1 billion and encouraging credit quality performance, evidenced by relatively flat net charge-offs and a modest drop in our NPL balances versus prior quarter. We also remained laser-focused on executing our strategic initiatives, and to date, everything is coming together according to plan. We announced new program agreements during the quarter and are in the process of expanding our product offerings with certain of our existing relationships. We have also deepened our executive bench. Importantly, the resiliency of our business model was demonstrated as we accomplished all of this while remaining profitable in a challenging macro backdrop for the past few quarters. Turning to capital, we ended the quarter with a bank leverage ratio significantly above well-capitalized regulatory guidelines, and our tangible book value per common share once again grew, ending the quarter at $12.70. Furthermore, our strong capital position and consistent profitability recently allowed us to initiate a new share repurchase program to buy up to 5% of our outstanding shares, while continuing to At our stock's current price relative to tangible book value, we believe a share buyback is a very creative use of capital that benefits all shareholders. I'm also happy to welcome Bob Waltman to the FinWise team. As you may recall, we recently announced Bob's appointment as our new CFO, and we are very excited to have him. He succeeds Javis Jacobson, who will remain with the company in the role of treasurer. Bob joins FinWise to help us execute on our next phase of growth, including the expansion of our FinTech banking solution products. He has over 35 years of total experience in the banking industry, including most recently at a bank with credit and prepaid card businesses. He also brings nearly 20 years of experience as a chief financial officer in both private and publicly listed bank holding companies. As we look ahead, we remain on track to deliver our goal to further diversify our business model, which will further enhance the company's long-term growth. We are also confident that our compliance-first culture, along with our strict onboarding process for new products and strategic relationships, provides us with a strong competitive edge and increases the moat around our fintech banking offerings. With that, let me turn the call over to Jim Noon, our president.