Citizens Financial Group, Inc.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Citizens Financial Group Second Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Alan, and I'll be your operator today. Currently, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a brief question-and-answer session. As a reminder, this event is being recorded. Now I'll turn the call over to Kristen Silberberg, Executive Vice President, Investor Relations. Kristen, you may begin.

Thank you, Alan. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. First this morning, our Chairman and CEO, Bruce Van Saan, and CFO, John Woods, will provide an overview of second quarter results, referencing our presentation, which you can find on our Investor Relations website. After the presentation, we'll be happy to take questions. Brendan Coughlin, Head of Consumer Banking, and Don McCree, Head of Commercial Banking, are also here to provide additional colour. Our comments today will include forward-looking statements which are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause our results to differ materially from expectations. These are outlined for your review on page two of the presentation. We also reference non-GAAP financial measures, so it's important to review our GAAP results on page three of the presentation and the reconciliation in the appendix. And with that, I will hand over to Bruce.

Thanks, Kristen. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining our call today. We continue to execute well through the second quarter, driving forward on key initiatives in both consumer and commercial, accelerating our digital transformation, making steady progress on top six, and announcing the acquisition of HSBC's East Coast branches and online bank. The diversity and resilience of our business model was evident, as record revenue in capital markets and wealth partially offset a sizable drop in mortgage. Our credit results continue to be excellent, given further improvement in the economy. The headline numbers for the quarter, with EPS of $1.46 and ROTCE of 17.7%, were flattered by a sizable reserve release. Importantly, we feel PPNR has now bottomed and growth should resume in the second half. We achieved 1% average loan growth in the quarter, a little less than projected, as paydowns on PPP loans and across the back book in commercial offset generally good levels of originations. We did a nice job on expenses, protecting the areas aligned with our growth initiatives while delivering on our expense efficiencies associated with top. Looking out to the second half, we believe we will see a pickup in loan growth, particularly on the consumer side in student, point-of-sale finance, and auto. In commercial, we should start to see gradual growth in line utilization off of low levels, along with a pickup in deal-related financings. Mortgage revenues should rebound modestly given hedge losses in Q2 and generally strong production, while capital markets pipelines remain healthy. We expect a return to positive operating leverage in both Q3 and Q4. Credit should continue to be excellent. We are now calling for further improvement in charge-offs to 20 to 25 basis points in the third quarter and 25 to 35 basis points for the full year. We continue to feel good about our progress and our ability to come out of the pandemic period with increasing differentiation and growth in franchise value versus our peers over time. With that, I'll turn it over to John.