Central Pacific Financial Corp New

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by and welcome to the Central Pacific Financial Corp fourth quarter 2021 conference call. During today's presentation, all parties will be in listen only mode. Following the presentation, the conference will be open for questions. This call is being recorded and will be available for replay shortly after its completion on the company's website at www.cpb.bank. I'd like to turn the call over to Mr. David Morimoto, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Charlie, and thank you all for joining us as we review the financial results of the fourth quarter of 2021 for Central Pacific Financial Corp. With me this morning are Paul Yonamine, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Catherine Null, Executive Vice Chair, Arnold Martinez, President and Chief Operating Officer, and Anna Hu, Executive Vice President and Chief Credit Officer. We have prepared two supplemental side presentations that provide additional details on our earnings release and are available in the investor relations section of our website at cpb.bank. During the course of today's call, management may make forward-looking statements. While we believe these statements are based on reasonable assumptions, they involve risks that may cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. For a complete discussion of the risks related to our forward-looking statements, please refer to slide two of our presentations. And now I'll turn the call over to our chairman and CEO, Paul Yonomide.

Good morning, everyone. As always, we appreciate your interest in Central Pacific Financial Corp. We are beginning the 2022 year with much excitement and optimism. Our financial results for 2021 are among our best ever. In fact, this is the best earnings report since before the great recession. Our recently announced executive leadership promotions went into effect starting January 1st, and our teams are energized and ready to continue our digital transformation. In addition to our earnings release this morning, we announced the launch of our banking as a service strategy, and our team is pleased to share more details today. After an in-depth evaluation of the banking as a service market, we identified an opportunity to enter this fast growing market in a way that leverages our strengths. To maximize our impact as a banking as a service provider, we will focus on partnering with select FinTech companies to create strategic customized programs resulting in new differentiated financial products. There is strong demand for this type of banking as a service offering in the market today. We believe this creates a great opportunity for us to expand our reach beyond Hawaii and will drive future revenue generation to increase the value of the CPF franchise. Last quarter, we announced the launch of our new product, Shaka Checking. It is Hawaii's first and only digital bank account from a local financial institution. Shaka allowed us to test the product development and launch strategies that we will leverage in our future mainland banking as a service programs. The Shaka account demand has far surpassed our initial expectations. We opened over 3,300 Shaka accounts since its launch in early November. It's obvious Shaka is serving a key need with a younger tech-savvy audience in Hawaii. It has a strong value proposition that includes getting your paycheck up to two days early, no ATM fees, and 24 by 7 digital convenience, among other benefits. As part of our banking as a service initiative to drive additional growth beyond Hawaii, we are also pleased to announce that we will be making an equity investment and bank sponsorship of Swell, a new fintech company that we played a major role in developing. Swell is scheduled to launch in mid 2022, and we believe will provide a differentiated product offering that the market needs today. Swell's mission is to provide retail banking services to people via one integrated app that includes a digital checking account with a line of credit. Elevate is another equity investor in Swell and will be providing the systems and servicing for the Swell line of credit. There is a revenue sharing agreement in place between Swell, Elevate and CPF. And Elevate is also providing a credit enhancement structure to us. We are currently evaluating additional banking as a service partnerships to create even more value for CPF and plan to announce further developments later in 2022. Finally, we are announcing the exciting new banking as a service initiative We remain committed to Hawaii and to continuing to build a successful and profitable franchise here. Here to talk about the Hawaii economy and our strong position here is Catherine Ngo, our Executive Vice Chair. Catherine.