Discover Financial Services

good afternoon my name is stephanie and i will be your conference operator today at this time i would like to welcome everyone to the second quarter 2021 discover financial services earnings conference call all lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise after the speaker's remarks there will be a question and answer session if you would like to ask a question at that time please press star 1 on your telephone keypad If you should need operator assistance, please press star zero. Thank you. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Eric Wasserstrom, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Stephanie, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to today's call. I'll begin on slide two of our earnings presentation, which you can find in the financial section of our Investor Relations website, investorrelations.discover.com. Our discussion today contains certain forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially. Please refer to our notices regarding forward-looking statements that appear in our second quarter earnings press release and presentation. Our call today will include remarks from our CEO, Roger Hochschild, and John Green, our Chief Financial Officer. After we conclude our formal comments, there will be time for a question and answer session. During the Q&A session, you will be permitted to ask one question followed by one follow-up question.

After your follow-up question, please return