The Bancorp, Inc.

Good day and welcome to the Bancorp Incorporated Q1 2024 earnings conference call. At this time all participants are in a listen only mode. Later you will have the opportunity to ask questions during the question and answer session. You may register to ask a question at any time by pressing star 1 on your telephone keypad. Please note today's call will be recorded and I'll be standing by if you should need any assistance. It is now my pleasure to turn the conference over to Andrei Spiroslav. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator. Good morning, and thank you for joining us today for the Bancorp's first quarter 2024 financial results conference call. On the call with me today are Damon 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 available via webcast on our website beginning at approximately 12 p.m. Eastern time today. The dial-in for the replay is 1-800-938-2241 with a confirmation code of Bancorp. 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 Security 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 Bancorp's filings 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 bank earned $1.06 a share with revenue growth of 8%, while expenses were 3% lower than first quarter of 23. ROE was 28%. NIM was 5.15 compared to 5.26 quarter of a quarter, mostly due to an increase in Fed funds sold, and 467 year over year. And the efficiency ratio improved from 42% in the first quarter of 23 to 38% in 24. The FinTech Solutions Group continue to expand relationships and show continued progress. GDV increased 12% year-over-year, and total fees from all FinTech activities increased seven. After adjustment for a client termination fee and the realization of 22 revenue in the first quarter of 23 due to a processing delay, fee growth was 16% year-over-year. We continue to add new partners, expand our product capabilities existing partners some of the highest growth areas of our are our fintech neobank portfolio and corporate payments we are pleased to announce block as a new partner to our fintech solutions ecosystem the addition of this new relationship as well as the continued organic growth of the current portfolio should result in meaningful increases to the ach card and other processing fees line items In a regulatory environment where many of our competitors have come under significant scrutiny, our focus continues to be helping our partners innovate. Their product sets will maintain a rigorous approach to meeting regulatory requirements and improving the robustness of our ecosystem. On the lending side, we had growth across the portfolio of 2% quarter-over-quarter. While our institutional book decreased quarter-over-quarter by 3.6%, the rate of decrease was less than in the past year. It was more than offset by growth in other higher yielding categories, which are mostly fixed. Lastly, with continued strong growth in our FinTech Solutions Group and growth across our lending portfolio, we are reaffirming our guidance of 425 a share without the impact of 50 million per quarter of share buybacks in 24 and the additional second quarter buyback of 50 million. I now turn the call over to Paul Frankel for more color on the first quarter.