FinWise Bancorp

Greetings and welcome to the FineWise Bancorp third quarter 2024 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce Juan Arias, head of corporate management and investor relations. Thank you. You may begin.

Good afternoon and thank you for joining us today for FinWise Bancorp's third quarter 2024 earnings conference call. Earlier today, we filed our earnings release 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. Our results during the third quarter of 2024 reflect the resiliency of our existing business, as well as the actions we have taken to enhance the company's long-term growth. Loan originations during the quarter grew to $1.4 billion, a notable step up from the approximately $1.1 billion in average originations of the prior five quarters. Furthermore, we generated solid revenue, particularly strategic program fees, coupled with a deceleration of our expense growth. Moreover, we continue to gain traction with new strategic programs. During the quarter, we announced one new lending program, which brings our total to three so far in 2024, and we are optimistic about our pipeline. These programs with leading fintech companies are a testament to the strength of the FinWISE multi-product platform, which includes lending, deposit, payments, and card products. As more FinTech companies increasingly recognize the benefits of our enhanced product offering, coupled with our strong compliance oversight and risk management, we see the opportunity to expand our market share with new and existing strategic programs, as well as through product cross-selling. The company's tangible book value per common share increased to 1290 from the prior quarter's 1261. As a reminder, our company's profitability over the past year has been partly impacted by planned infrastructure investments to support organic growth and the build-out of key strategic initiatives. Similarly, our return on average equity is also partly suppressed by our high capital levels. We are optimistic that as we have completed most of the incremental investments on strategic initiatives, as we continue to utilize capital effectively, these metrics will gradually improve. Overall, I am pleased with the operational performance of our company and am excited about the outlook. Specifically, our strategic lending business continues to gradually rebound after facing industry-wide pressures in 2023. We are delivering tangible results on our new strategic initiatives ahead of schedule, and we are seeing a deceleration in expense growth. With that, let me turn the call over to Jim Noon, our president.