Washington Trust Bancorp, Inc.

Good morning and welcome to Washington Trust Bancorp Inc's conference call. My name's Lydia and I'll 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 followed by one to get in the queue. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. Now I'll turn the call over to Sharon Walsh, Vice President, Director of Marketing Strategy and Planning. Miss Walsh, please go ahead.

Thank you, Lydia. Good morning and welcome to Washington Trust Bancorp Inc's conference call for the third quarter of 2024. Joining us this morning are members of the Washington Trust Executive Team, Ned Handy, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Mary Nunes, President and Chief Operating Officer, Ron Osberg, Senior Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer, and Bill Ray, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Risk Officer. Please note that today's presentation may contain forward-looking statements and our actual results could differ materially from what is discussed on today's call. Our complete safe harbor statement is contained in our earnings release, which was issued yesterday, as well as other documents that are filed with the SEC. All of these materials and other public filings are available on our investor relations website at ir.washtrust.com. Washington Trust trades on NASDAQ under the symbol WASH. I'm now pleased to introduce today's host, Washington Trust Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Ned Handy.

Ned? Thank you, Sharon. Good morning and thank you for joining our third quarter call. We respect and appreciate your time very much and your interest in Washington Trust. I'll briefly comment on the quarter and then Ron will provide more detail on the financial results. After our prepared remarks, Mary and Bill will join us for the Q&A session. I'm pleased to report that our efforts to build balance sheet strength and to rebuild our earnings capacity while managing credit closely and proactively continues to pay off. Although margin is not yet where we want it, it has stabilized. Our fee businesses are performing well. The current Fed action on rates and the implied improved economic outlook are helping to build our mortgage pipeline and support continued market appreciation in wealth management AUA. We continue to be prudent on the expense front and still are strong customer-focused teams, and modest technology investments have delivered encouraging activity and growth in the quarter. Our customer franchise remains strong, and we believe will remain as such as our team prudently manages through the current Fed pivot. In addition to in-market deposit growth in the quarter, Ron will report improved capital ratios, continued strong credit statistics, and controlled expenses. In September, we opened a full-service branch in the Olneyville neighborhood of Providence and already see it as a catalyst for community strength and potential for a great new customer base. Although we don't currently have additional branch expansion plans, our team continues our dedicated focus on caring for the customers and communities we serve. I'll now turn the call over to Ron for some more detail on the corner, and then we'll be glad to address any questions you have.