First Western Financial, Inc.

the market is expecting at this point that there won't be one, that we can see stabilizing deposit costs for us. Again, I've talked before about the fact that I think our clients are kind of ahead of the typical bank clients because of the fact that they're larger and more sophisticated. And so going into Q4, hopefully we see stabilized deposit costs and improving asset yields so at least we're stable to maybe a little bit of margin compression Q4. Our numbers going into 2014, we're assuming higher for longer, but flat on the short end to where we are today. So if that's the scenario, then I think you see the benefit of the higher asset yields playing out over the course of the year. And I think the interesting thing, this kind of goes back to our IPO too, I think the interesting thing for our business model is if that plays out like that and we can see stable funding costs, higher asset yields, and well-controlled operating expenses, then you see improved earnings, which is what I talked about in my comments.

Yep. And then a similar question on the expense side. I know you guys are expecting 18.5% to 19%. million of expenses to finish the year. Can you hold those expenses flat next year? Do you think you see some modest creep? How do you think about expense growth in 24?

You know, our assumption is, you know, to accomplish the things we want to do long term for shareholders, we need to continue to invest. And we have that built into our 18 1⁄2 to 19 million. So all other things being equal, we believe we can hold expenses in the ballpark of where they are now. Of course, there's a little bit of seasonality with, you know, what is the FICA bump that you get? Yeah, payroll taxes that you get in the first quarter, stuff like that. But generally, you know, our starting point for our planning for next year is let's figure out how to hold expenses flat and show some revenue improvement, which would drive some operating leverage and improved earnings.