The Bancorp, Inc.

2021, the Bancorp, Inc. Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session, and instructions will follow at that time. If anyone should require assistance during the conference, please press star, then zero on your touchtone telephone. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Mr. Andreas Fiersloff.

Thank you, operator. Good morning, and thank you for joining us today for the Bancorp's first quarter 2021 financial results conference call. On the call to me today are Damian Kozlowski, Chief Executive Officer, and Paul Frankel, our Chief Financial Officer. This morning's call is being webcast on our website at www.thebancorp.com. There will be a replay of the call beginning at approximately 12 p.m. Eastern time today. The dial-in for the replay is 855-859-2056 with a confirmation code of 579-2244. Before I turn the call over to Damian, I would like to remind everyone that when used in this conference call, the words believes, anticipates, expects, and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results, performance, or achievements to differ materially from those anticipated or suggested by such statements. For further discussion of these risks and uncertainties, please see the bank course following with the SEC. Listeners are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof. The Bancorp undertakes no obligation to publicly release the results of any revisions to forward-looking statements, which may be made to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. Now I'd like to turn the call over to the Bancorp's Chief Executive Officer, Damian Kozlowski. Damian?

Thank you, Andres. Good morning, everyone. The Bancorp earned $0.44 a share in revenue of $78 million and expenses of $42 million. We continue to have momentum across our business lines, and the combination of opening up the economy and Stimulus and virtualization should give us continued tailwinds in 2021. Excluding gains and losses on commercial loans, revenue climbed 17%, driven by 25% increase in net interest income and prepaid fee growth of 4%. Cost of funds was down 63% year-over-year, illustrating the benefits of our payments funding model. Expenses rose 9% year-over-year. Cost control and efficiency continues to be a focus of management. Net income from continued operations grew 98% versus first quarter 2020. Adjusting for tax-affected negative fair value adjustment in 2000 due to COVID, net income grew 53% year-over-year. In the first quarter, we saw continued business momentum led by gross dollar volume in our cards business, which increased 23%. Prepaid fees grew 4% due to the mix of program growth and the impact of stimulus payments. In our payments business, we saw continued strong growth across most verticals with only COVID-impacted products, such as commuter cards, showing a year-over-year decrease. These verticals should also show year-over-year increases as the economy opens. Balances across our lending businesses continue to grow quarter-over-quarter, with SBA leasing in our institutional product set that includes S-Block, I-Block, and RIA financing, all growing approximately 5% quarter-over-quarter. Pipelines in all areas continue to remain strong and suggest continued year over year and quarter over quarter growth. Our business plan for 2021 is in full implementation. The focus continues to be product and platform expansion with a rigorous focus on building the best payments ecosystem in the financial services industry. Our plan includes a comprehensive and integrated analysis of the market and competitors and the needed investments to build towards the future. and create scalable core competencies that our partners can use to innovate and grow. We also continue to invest heavily in anti-money laundering and compliance to have best-in-class capabilities to meet regulatory guidance and expectations. We are currently on track to meet or exceed our financial targets for 2021. We continue to closely watch the impact of the full reopening of the US economy, Fed policy, government stimulus, interest rates, and the virtualization of consumer spending to understand the likely impacts on the Bancorp. Currently, those impacts are mostly positive for our business model and should drive continued growth in business volumes and profitability into 2022. Lastly, our guidance target for 2021 continues to be $1.70 a share or approximately $100 million in net income. The earnings per share estimates do not include share repurchases that have been previously announced. I now turn the call Over to Paul Frankel, our CFO, to give more color on the first quarter.