Fifth Third Bancorp

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Fifth Third's third quarter 2026 earnings call. This morning, our Chairman, CEO, and President, Tim Spence,

and CFO Bryan Preston will provide an overview of our third 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 October 19th, 2026, and Fifth Third undertakes no obligation 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.

Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us. It is my custom to start these calls with a comment on great banks and navigating uncertainty. But today, I want to start with something else that distinguishes great banks, their people. This quarter was a defining moment in the history of our company. I am humbled by and exceptionally grateful for the commitment our people showed to our clients, our shareholders, and one another. We announced the acquisition of Comerica one year and 13 days ago, and throughout that time, all our people hustled and collaborated to complete the largest and most complicated conversion in our 168-year history. Following Legal Day 1, you welcomed new callings onto your teams and introduced Fifth Third to new communities. You made the tough decisions necessary to achieve our expense commitments and worked together to identify and pursue revenue opportunities. You invested more than 4 million hours in preparation for conversion, and you gave new meaning to the word labor in Labor Day weekend when you onboarded approximately 600,000 accounts and 293 banking centers while decommissioning 82 others. Since then, you have continued to work tirelessly to welcome new customers to the bank, to get their accounts configured the way they want them, and to ensure customers experience the benefits of banking with our combined company. Your advice is what improves our clients' personal lives and their businesses. Your creativity is what wins awards for innovation. And your commitment to excellence is what produces peer-leading financial results. Thank you for keeping our customers at the center of everything you do. This morning we reported earnings per share of $0.90, or $1.13, excluding certain items outlined on page two of the release. Adjusted PPNR grew 8% over the second quarter. as adjusted revenue grew 2% while adjusted expenses fell 2%. In an increasingly competitive environment, core deposits grew 3% sequentially and loans grew 1%. Net charge-offs remained stable at 31 basis points. Despite the conversion occurring a full 10 weeks into the quarter, we've already exceeded two of the three 2027 profitability targets spelled out in our deal announcements. Our adjusted return on tangible common equity was 20.6%. Our adjusted return on assets was 1.41%. And our adjusted efficiency ratio was 54.6%. Even with the largest acquisition in our company's history and the 10-year treasury increasing 114 basis points in the past year, our tangible book value per share grew 2% year over year, and our TCE ratio was flat. With technical conversion and the work on expense synergies now behind us, our primary task going forward is to leverage the power of our combined company to drive organic growth and market share. The FDIC Summary of Deposits dataset is one mechanism we use to measure progress, and the 2026 release became available in September. Using a cap branch deposit methodology to focus on retail deposits, I am pleased that Fifth Third ranked number one in our retail footprint and number three nationally in year-over-year retail deposit growth. In Texas, we came straight out of the chute in February. Retail deposits in Dallas and Houston grew more than 20% over the prior year, and we gained more than 40 basis points of market share. We now rank number seven and number eight in Dallas and Houston respectively, and that is prior to opening any of our 150 de novo branches in Texas over the next three years. starting with the first one in the third quarter next year. In our Southeast footprint, we again ranked number six in retail market share. Retail deposits continue to grow at a rate more than five times the rate of the Southeast overall, and they have grown at an 11% compound annual rate over the past five years. Our Southeast DeNovo program continued to be a big part of the growth story, but it is not all of it. We rank number two in total new branches built and number two in average deposits per branch after three years. But we are also number two in same branch deposit growth for legacy branches over the same period. Our total cost of Southeast consumer deposits remains 207 basis points below Fed funds. We've already opened 35 additional branches in the Southeast in 2026 and remain on track to open the full 55 that we committed for the full year. One other strategic item I would like to note from the quarter is the formal launch of Fifth Third Innovation Banking, a business focused on startup and growth stage companies, their founders, and the investors who back them. Innovation Banking pairs Comerica's 34-year-old tech and life sciences vertical with Fifth Third's payments, digital, investment banking, and wealth management capabilities. It will be built around hub cities where venture capital flows are concentrated, and the industry verticals where we can bring unique expertise, starting with our recently launched FinTech vertical. We will spend more time dimensioning this business for you in the coming months, but we see it as a $10 billion deposit opportunity by 2030, in addition to other avenues for revenue growth. Now let me close where I usually begin. At Fifth Third, we believe great banks distinguish themselves not by how they perform in benign environments, but by how they navigate on certain ones. While our clients tell us the underlying economy remains strong, this is a fluid operating environment as evidenced by the recent sharp spike in interest rates. When things change, the factors that dictate success change along with them. Discipline and optionality become very important. In this environment, our priorities are to be strongly differentiated in core deposit growth, broadly diversified in loans and other earning assets, with limited exposure to unproven high growth categories and the interest rate sensitive borrowers, balanced across recurring fee businesses and less exposed to market sensitive revenue streams, and to have the profitability to sustain the long term investments in growth and AI without compromising return targets. While we will always have opportunities to get 1% better, I feel great about how Fifth Third is positioned and in our ability to deliver an even better 2027. After all, you can't spell flexibility without F, I, T, and B. With that, I'll hand it over to Bryan to provide more detail on the quarter and on our outlook for the remainder of the year.