Fifth Third Bancorp

and welcome to the fifth, third, second quarter earnings call. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. I will now hand the conference over to Matt Curoe, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the fifth, third, second quarter 2026 earnings call. This morning, our Chairman, CEO, and President, Tim Spence, and CFO, Bryan Preston, will provide an overview of our second quarter results and outlook. Please review the cautionary statements in our materials, which can be found in our earnings release and presentation. These materials contain information regarding the use of non-GAAP measures and reconciliations to the GAAP results, as well as forward-looking statements about Fifth Third's performance. These statements speak only as of July 17, 2026, and Fifth Third undertakes no obligations to update them. Following prepared remarks by Tim and Bryan, we will open up the call for questions. With that, let me turn it over to Tim.

Morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. At Fifth Third, we believe great banks distinguish themselves not by how they perform in benign environments, but how they navigate uncertain ones. In a strong macro environment like this one, our job is to stay disciplined and to build durable franchise earnings, not simply to enjoy the cyclical boost. As we always say, it's stability, profitability, and growth, in that order. Today we reported earnings per share of 83 cents, or $1.02, excluding certain items outlined on page two of the release. When we announced our merger with Comerica nine months ago, we made three commitments. To produce no tangible book value per share dilution, to become an even more profitable company, and to create an even better platform for long-term growth. While we are still in the middle of integration, and not every metric is yet where it will be, our trajectory and long-term potential are visible in this quarter's results. Tangible book value per share increased 10% year-over-year, 1% sequentially, and 7% since the announcement of the transaction. Our adjusted return on tangible common equity improved to 19%, our adjusted return on assets improved to 1.3%, and our adjusted efficiency ratio improved to 57%, Even with most of the expense synergies still yet to be captured. As importantly, our organic growth strategies continue to deliver on the broader footprint and opportunity set that Fifth Third and Comerica together possess. End of period consumer and small business deposits increased 4% sequentially, driven by strong new customer acquisition. In the Southeast, consumer checking households grew by 7% year over year, approximately four times the rate of underlying market growth. We opened more than one branch per week during the quarter and remain on schedule to open 55 new branches in the southeast for the full year. Encouragingly, Comerica's Texas, Arizona, and California markets grew checking households by 4%, the first net new household growth in several years, and added $2.5 billion in deposits, more than double the $1 billion expectation that we shared in our last earnings call. We also opened our first Fifth Third branded branches in Texas and California during the quarter. Following conversion, we expect Southwest household growth to accelerate further as Comerica's existing branches see the full benefit of Fifth Third's products, digital channels, and analytically driven direct marketing. We will also see the pace of new branch opening accelerate in Texas, having now secured 101 of the 150 additional locations we targeted to build by the end of 2029. Turning to commercial lending, end of period C&I loans grew 2% sequential. Comerica's legacy markets and specialty verticals grew C&I loans with Texas, California, Michigan, environmental services, dealer services, and tech and life sciences all showing growth. Overall, we continue to see demand in sectors and markets benefiting from infrastructure investments as well as in aerospace and defense. Our largest fee businesses hit important milestones during the quarter. With commercial payments and wealth and asset management, each achieving a $1 billion plus annualized fee run rate and capital market fees reaching $600 million annualized pace. New Line continued to drive growth in commercial payments, with fee revenue increasing 35% year over year, and the technology behind it earned 2026 top financial innovation awards from both the American Banker and Global Finance. We also shipped the first direct express cards on our new platform during the quarter with 66,000 new beneficiaries and all participating federal agencies now live. Behind the scenes, our products and technology teams had a strong quarter both in terms of integration and innovation. On the integration front, we executed our second mock conversion in June with good outcomes. We remain on track to execute systems conversion on Labor Day weekend The last step to unlock the $850 million of annualized run rate synergies we committed to deliver in the fourth quarter. On the innovation front, Newline extended its model context protocol server capabilities with skills, standardizing how AI models can use our tools and workflows. And our consumer team shipped the new AI-powered interface within our mobile app, designed to streamline navigation and task completion for our customers. We also launched Fifth Third for Business during the quarter. a banking experience designed to help small businesses manage working capital and get paid faster. This solution includes several differentiated tech enabled elements, including crediting eligible payments such as merchant receivables and government payments up to two days early for free, enabling business customers to accept payments via Zelle and have to pay directly on their smartphones and providing access to working capital through the same award winning digital interface that Powers provides. Internally, Fifth Third College continued to make significant use of AI tools to boost quality and productivity, executing more than 1 million prompts in the month of June alone. In technology, the prompt accepted rate for new code was 45% during the quarter and over 87% of unit testing was automated by AI. While it's early days and we have much yet to learn about how best to harness the power of these tools and looking forward to what we will be able to do after our technical conversion is complete. Before I hand it over to Bryan, I would like to take a moment to thank our team members. The work you do is detailed, demanding, and important, especially now as we serve existing customers and communities, along with executing the largest merger in our history. We are building a Fifth Third that is not just bigger, but better, more differentiated, and more resilient. That's why earlier this morning, Euromoney recognized you as their best U.S. bank in 2026. Congratulations. With that, I'll turn it over to Bryan.