VersaBank

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to VersaBank's first quarter fiscal 2026 financial results conference call. This morning, VersaBank issued a news release reporting its financial results for the first quarter ended January 31st, 2026. That news release, along with the bank's financial statements, MDNA, and supplemental financial information are available on the bank's website in the investor relations section, as well as on Cedar Plus and EDGAR. Please note that in addition to the telephone dial-in, VersaBank is webcasting this morning's conference call. The webcast is listen-only. If you are listening to the webcast but wish to ask a question in the Q&A session following Mr. Taylor's presentation, please dial into the conference line, the details of which are included in this morning's news release and on the bank's website. For those participating in today's call by telephone, the accompanying slide presentation is available on the bank's website. Also, today's call will be archived for replay both by telephone and via the internet beginning approximately one hour following the completion of the call. Details on how to access the replays are available in this morning's news release. I would like to remind our listeners that the statements about future events made on this call are forward-looking in nature and are based on certain assumptions and analysis made by VersaBank Management. Actual results could differ materially from our expectations due to various material risks and uncertainties associated with VersaBank's businesses. Please refer to VersaBank's forward-looking statement advisory in today's presentation. I would now like to turn the call over to David Taylor, President of VersaBank.

Please go ahead, Mr. Taylor.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for today's call. With me for the first time is our recently appointed Global Chief Financial Officer, Nico Espina. Nico joined us from Raymond James U.S. Investment Banking Group, where he was a member of the team that has been so supportive of our U.S. capital market activities. He knows our business and our industry well, and is already having a meaningful impact on our organizations. John Asma, who previously served as our CFO, will now head up our Canadian banking operations, where his many years of experience with the bank across multiple executive roles will support the continued expansion and enhanced efficiency of our Canadian banking operations. I'd like to thank John for his excellent contribution as CFO over the past couple of years. Before I begin, I want to remind you, as I did last quarter, that our financial results for the first quarter reflect the continued, although significantly lower, costs associated with our plan to realign our corporate structure to that of a standard U.S. bank framework. Those costs amount to $1.5 million before tax in Q1, which was down significantly from the fourth quarter. Also, a quick note about some updated terminology. As part of the broader reorganization, we have changed the name of our Receivable Purchase Program to Structured Receivable Program. This is a change in label only. The program itself has not changed in any way. Now, onto the quarter. 2-1 was a great start for fiscal 2026, unfolding very much on plan and highlighted by new records for the credit assets and revenue. which were up 23% and 31% year over year respectively. And notably, the credit assets revenue grew 5% and 4% sequentially, clear evidence of a momentum in our business. But most importantly, as per the fundamental tenant of our business model, we are seeing the benefit of operating leverage really kick in. Most of this was driven by the acceleration of our U.S. structured receivable program portfolio. Finally, I will note, as I have in the last several quarters, that we achieved these metrics with significantly higher than typical levels of liquidity at the early point of our expansion in the U.S. Looking a little closer at our structured receivable program, after achieving and, in fact, surpassing our 2025 target for our program in the United States, we completed more than US dollars 200 million in additional fundings in Q1. Notably, the vast majority of the Q1 fundings were through our higher spread core SRP, with only a small contribution coming from our securitized offering. Importantly, for Q1, we saw the efficiency of our US operations surpass those of our Canadian banking operations. our U.S. operations have an advantage of both less expensive deposit funding and a smaller team need to manage and grow the business. With substantially all our cost structure in place, we will see meaningful increases in efficiency as the year progresses, moving into the low 20% range through the year end. We are well on track to achieve our target of adding at least U.S. dollars $1 billion in funding since fiscal 2026. That's more than a threefold increase from 2025. While we can achieve this with our existing SRP partner relationships, we are continuing to cultivate new potential partnerships to drive additional potential upside this year. I'd now like to turn the call over to Nico to review our financial results in detail.