Financial Institutions, Inc.

Good morning, and welcome to the Financial Institutions, Inc. First Quarter Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please say no to a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please also note today's event is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference call over to Shelley Doran, Vice President of Investor Relations. Ma'am, please go ahead.

Thank you for joining us for today's call. Providing prepared comments will be President and Chief Executive Officer Marty Birmingham and Chief Financial Officer Justin Bigum. They will be joined by Chief Banking and Revenue Officer Bill Kreienberg and Director of Financial Planning and Analysis Mike Grover for the question and answer portion of the call. Today's prepared comments and Q&A will include forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from forward-looking statements due to a variety of risks, uncertainties, and other factors. We refer you to yesterday's earnings release and historical FCC filings available on our website for our safe harbor description and a detailed discussion of the risk factors relating to forward-looking statements. We will also discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures intended to supplement and not substitute for comparable GAAP measures. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to GAAP financial measures were provided in the earnings release which was filed as an exhibit to reform 8 . Please note that this call includes information that is accurate only as of today's date, May 1, 2020. I'll now turn the call over to Marty.

Thank you, Shelly. Good morning, and welcome to our first quarter call. Before we turn to a discussion of results, we want to acknowledge that these are incredibly challenging times for everyone, and our thoughts remain with those most impacted by COVID-19. In early March, we invoked our business continuity plan in response to the unfolding crisis. Our guiding principles through this period of uncertainty have been the safety and health of our associates, serving our customers to the highest standards and doing our part to slow the spread of the virus so that the most vulnerable can get the care they need. To protect the health and safety of our associates, performing many of the company's most critical processes, by mid-March, we created a less dense work environment with resiliency through the use of alternative locations, and the implementation of work from home for as many associates as possible. We also closed most branch lobbies and implemented nonessential business travel and visitor restrictions that reduced or eliminated in-person meetings. On March 20th, New York State enacted PAUSE, its stay-in-place order. On March 27th, the order was expanded and it was mandated that 100% of the workforce must stay home, excluding essential services. While we are exempt from the order, we have taken great steps to protect our workforce and approximately 65% of associates have been working from home or remotely since mid-March. We very quickly transitioned from a business as usual operations to our new standard of working together from multiple locations across our footprint. I am so proud of our organization's collective resiliency and acclimation to so many changes. Despite all the challenges, our associates continue to work every day, ready to serve our customers and improve our communities. Across our organization, they are making a difference. From back office personnel to frontline branch staff, relationship managers and associates at Courier Capital, HNP Capital, and SDN Insurance. I thank each of them for their ongoing dedication and support during this public health and economic crisis of uncharted proportions. It is more critical than ever that individuals and businesses continue to have access to their financial institution and the ability to work with their trusted financial advisors. In many ways, through the past seven weeks, we have brought certainty to customers, friends, and neighbors dealing with so much uncertainty. Customers can access us through branch drive-thrus, via our web and mobile apps, or through our call center. And branch appointments are available as needed. On March 23rd, we rolled out a series of solutions to support customers during this difficult time, and we have worked closely with many small business customers to help them with various SBA programs, the most significant of which is the Payroll Protection Program. In the first round, we helped about 600 businesses obtain more than $200 million in PPP loans, and we are processing applications for round two. Application volume remains consistent with the first wave and funding will be subject to the processing capabilities of the SBA. We entered this crisis in a position of strength based on our diversified business model, strong levels of capital and liquidity, historically strong asset quality metrics and a disciplined risk management and underwriting process. While we do not know how this crisis will end, how long it will last, how much economic damage it will cause or how fast or slow the recovery will be, We are focused on taking good care of our customers and managing our company to successfully navigate this crisis. I'll now turn the call over to Justin for a discussion of the results of the quarter. Justin?