Washington Trust Bancorp, Inc.

Good morning and welcome to the Washington Trust Bancorp ANC's conference call. My name is Grant and I will be your operator today. If participants need assistance during the call at any time, please press star zero. Participants interested in asking a question at the end of the call should press star one to get in the queue. Today's call is being recorded. And now I will turn the call over to Elizabeth B. Eckel, Senior Vice President, Chief Marketing and Corporate Communications Officer. As I call, you may begin.

Thank you and good morning. Welcome to Washington Trust Bancorp Bank's third quarter conference call. Hosting today's call are members of Washington Trust Executive Team. Ned Handy, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Mark Gim, President and Chief Operating Officer. Ron Osberg, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer. And Bill Ray, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Risk Officer. This presentation may contain forward-looking statements, and actual results could differ materially from what is discussed on today's call. Our complete safe harbor statement is contained in the earnings press release, which was issued yesterday, and in other documents we filed with the FTC. These materials and all public filings are available on our investor relations site at ir.washtrust.com. Washington Trust trades on NASDAQ under the symbol WASH. And now I'm pleased to introduce the host of today's call, Washington Trust Chairman and CEO, Ned Handy.

Thank you, Beth. Good morning, and thank you for joining our third quarter call. We appreciate your continued interest in Washington Trust and hope all is well with you as we all continue to navigate the best and safest ways forward. I'll provide an overview of our third quarter highlights, and then Ron Osberg will review our financial performance. After our prepared remarks, Mark Gemm and Bill Ray will join us to answer any questions you may have about the quarter. I'm pleased to report that Washington Trust posted strong third quarter results with net income of $18.8 million, or $1.07 per diluted share. We had a strong quarter. We hit record highs in net interest income, wealth management revenues, assets under management, and total in-market deposits in the quarter. We continue to believe that the Rhode Island market presents us an opportunity to add physical presence in addition to digital advances to leverage our brand and bring our distinctive level of care to more Rhode Islanders conveniently. I'm proud of the team's continued efforts on growth combined with their high degree of care for our customers as they too work their way through this uncertain stage in the pandemic. We continue to feel optimistic about how we and our customers are managing the pandemic and we acknowledge that the need for informed care thoughtful decision-making, and an empathetic approach to finding the optimum work and life balances is still critical to see our way through these trying times. We strive to keep what is safest for everyone and what is best for our customers at the center of our thinking. The economies in which we operate are faring better than in the midst of the pandemic, with students back in school, restaurants open, gyms open, and municipalities ready to embark on the equitable deployment of subsidies to make meaningful long-term improvements in critical areas like housing, infrastructure, education, job place training, and mental health assistance. The realities of labor shortages and logistics challenges and the risk of ongoing inflation weigh on us all. So we're helping where we can, adjusting where we must, and are prepared to adapt to any necessary changes. We were recently named by Newsweek as the best small bank in Rhode Island. we are humbly proud to serve our customers well. Whether we're serving our customers in person or in remote channels, our market reputation for outstanding service quality is very strong, as exemplified by our high net promoter scores, which have exceeded national averages both before and during the pandemic. Whether it is to simply speed the delivering of a mortgage or to make it even easier for small business customers to manage payments, or to ensure that our operating infrastructure is ever more reliable and secure, we recognize that the best solution is often digital. As always, the protection of our customers' data and privacy is a paramount concern. In all of these areas, we partner with our core providers and with fintech companies, and we believe that active engagement with the fintech ecosystem is an important method of understanding both new opportunities as well as competitive challenges. Once again this quarter, we were well served by the diversity of our revenue sources and our commitment to strong credit practices, which have helped to minimize potential costs associated with the pandemic. Total loans declined 0.3% in the quarter. This was largely due to PPP loan forgiveness. New loan formation in commercial was strong at $100 million in the quarter, but was offset by commercial payoffs and paydowns. Third quarter mortgage lending activity remains robust and pipelines are relatively strong. Recent increases in longer term interest rates will likely result in a reduction of mortgage refinancing activity compared to the record levels of late 2020 and early 2021. However, in our markets, supply and demand characteristics suggest that buyer purchase activity and housing value should remain. Our Wealth Management Division's assets under administration stood at a record $7.4 billion at September 30th. Wealth management revenues were $10.5 million, up slightly for the third quarter and at a record level. We're very pleased with our wealth management division's continued strong performance from both a customer and shareholder perspective. Growth through business development and market appreciation helps us enhance this recurring revenue stream, which provides a welcome diversity in the current low interest rate environment. I'll now turn the call over to Ron for a more detailed review of our financial performance.