Citizens Financial Group, Inc.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Citizens Financial Group Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Denise, 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 Kristin Silberberg, Head of Investor Relations. Kristin, you may begin.

Thank you, Denise. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. First this morning, our chairman and CEO, Bruce Van Saan, and interim CFO, Chris Emerson, will provide an overview of our third quarter results. Brendan Coughlin, president, and Don McCree, chair of commercial banking, are also here to provide additional color. We will be referencing our third quarter presentation located on our investor relations website. After the presentation, we will be happy to take questions. 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 in the presentation. We also reference non-GAAP financial measures, so it's important to review our GAAP results in the presentation and the reconciliations in the appendix. And with that, I will hand over to Bruce.

Thanks, Kristen. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining our call today. We announced very strong financial results today as our momentum continues. We feel like we are firing on all cylinders. Financial highlights include EPS growth of 13 cents sequential quarter, or 14%. We have strong NII growth of 3.5% sequentially, paced by NIM expansion of five basis points, and net loan growth across consumer, private bank, and commercial, similar to last quarter. Fee growth was 5% versus Q2, paced by a tremendous quarter in capital markets, our second highest ever, as well as continued nice growth in wealth fees. Sequential positive operating leverage was 3%, as expense growth was held to just 1%. We continue to experience favorable credit trends, and we still have a robust balance sheet. Our set one increased 10 basis points to 10.7%. We have an LDR of 78.3 and virtually no wholesale borrowing. We continued the strong execution of our strategic initiatives during the quarter. The private bank had a banner quarter on deposits with spot growth of $3.8 billion to $12.5 billion, which is already ahead of our year-end $12 billion target. Loans and AUM continue to track well. We have now added eight wealth lift-outs to the private wealth platform with more in the pipeline. We continue to build out our private bank team with additional hires in Southern California, and we now have around 500 people in the business, quite the ramp from a startup in 2023. In addition, our efforts across New York City Metro, private capital, and payments are all tracking well. Our efforts around Reimagine the Bank continue to make good progress. We've systematically evaluated all areas of the bank to seek opportunities to improve how we are serving customers and how we are running the bank. We will give the full parameters of this effort on the January earnings call. Overall, we expect benefits to largely offset costs, including one-timers, in 2026. with net benefits beginning to positively impact results in 2027 and becoming quite meaningful thereafter. One of my priorities this year has been to commence the transition of the leadership team I assembled a decade ago to the new, refreshed team that can take us forward for the next decade. Most recently, we announced that Don McCree will be retiring in March 2026, having handed the reins to Ted Swimmer earlier in October. Don has been a great partner and has made a big contribution towards our success. It's been a real pleasure working with him. We've been planning Don's succession for some time, and I have every confidence that Ted is the right leader to take us on the next leg of the journey. When Inouye Banerjee arrives in 10 days as our new CFO, the team will have been largely refreshed with several younger, dynamic, outstanding new leaders. Turning back to the financials, with respect to Q4, we expect to continue to see attractive earnings growth based by positive operating leverage, favorable credit trends, and share repurchase. We remain highly focused on executing our strategic agenda, which should deliver superior organic EPS growth relative to our peers over time, as well as further improvements in returns. We are positioned well to sustain our momentum into 2026. The macro environment remains positive despite continuing uncertainty with respect to fiscal and monetary policies. We will stay focused on execution and the things that we can control as we continue on our journey towards building a top-performing bank. With that, let me turn it over to Chris Emerson, our interim CFO. Chris?