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spk09: ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 on your telephone. If you require any further assistance, please press star 0. I would now like to hand the conference over to Ryan Thomas, Vice President and Finance, Investor Relations. Thank you. Please go ahead, sir.
spk01: Thank you, operator, and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us today to discuss First Commonwealth Financial Corporation's first quarter financial results. Participating on today's call today will be Mike Price, President and CEO, Jim Reske, Chief Financial Officer, Brian Karup, Chief Credit Officer, and Ginger Bentz, our Bank President and Chief Revenue Officer. As a reminder, a copy of today's earnings release can be accessed by logging on to stbanking.com and selecting the Investor Relations link at the top of the page. We've also included a slide presentation on our Investor Relations website with supplemental financial information that will be referenced during today's call. Before we begin, I need to caution listeners that this call will contain forward-looking statements. Please refer to our forward-looking statements disclaimer on page two of the slide presentation for a description of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those reflected in the forward-looking statement. Today's call will also include non-GAAP financial measures. Non-GAAP financial measures should be viewed in addition to and not as an alternative for our reported results prepared in accordance with GAAP. A reconciliation of these measures can be found in the appendix of today's slide presentation. And with that, I will turn the call over to Mike.
spk07: Hey, thank you, Ryan, and welcome to those on the call today. I'll start with several first quarter headlines for First Commonwealth's financial performance. All in all, a very good quarter. Net income of $39.8 million yielded 41 cents in earnings per share, both quarterly records for our company. ROA was 1.77%. And regardless of credit tailwinds, our core pre-tax, pre-provision ROA was 2%. Net interest income was up $1.9 million to $69.4 million as our borrowers received forgiveness of the 2020-21 PPP loans. This PPP forgiveness helped buoy margin to 3.4%. Our consumer lending categories were all strong, with several delivering record originations. Commercial lending originations had some first quarter momentum, but could not outrun liquidity-induced payoffs, PPP forgiveness, and lower line utilization from our business customers. Geographically, our Ohio markets continue to lead the way in growth. The team did a nice job of further reducing our already low-cost deposit funding to help strengthen the margin as well. We expect excess deposits to start to slowly burn down as spending increases. Non-interest income of $27.4 million comprised 28.2% of revenue and represents the third consecutive quarter of outstanding non-interest income performance. Comparing the current quarter to the first quarter of 2020, our debit card interchange income was up 22%. Our mortgage gain on sale income doubled versus last year's level. Our SBA gain on sale income was up 170%, and our wealth business was up 18.7%. Low first quarter charge-offs of $3.3 million, coupled with an improving economic outlook in our CECL model, led to a negative provision of $4.4 million. The associated reserve release represented 4.5% of our December 31st loan loss reserves, leaving a healthy reserve of $96.8 million, or 1.55% of total loans ex-PPP, as of the quarter end. Our gross level of non-performing assets fell in the first quarter by $3.7 million as well to 0.48% or 58 basis points of total XPPP loans. Expenses of $51.9 million were down $2.7 million over the fourth quarter as our core efficiency ratio fell to 53.2%. In short, we saw improvement in net interest income, non-interest income, credit, expenses, and deposits. Only commercial loan growth lagged our targeted growth rate. We expect commercial loan growth to remain somewhat muted and take a bit longer to pick up given higher levels of liquidity and the overall strength of the permanent market. Pipelines have started to build in both CNI and investment real estate, and we also expect to see strong consumer and small business loan growth in the second half of 2021 as spending has started to pick up. As a result, we believe that we can achieve the upper end of our mid-single-digit loan growth target for the remainder of this year. As an aside, in round two of PPP lending, the team has helped 2,500 small business and mid-sized businesses secure roughly $255 million in funding. If you recall, in round one in 2020, the team made roughly 6,000 loans for $500 million. In the first quarter, we also received over $326 million in stimulus payments for approximately 95,000 households who bank with us, further increasing the bank's excess cash. We continue to see very strong adoption of our new digital platform with first quarter growth rates of 7.5% in active mobile users. In addition, our customers have displayed strong demand for Zelle, our person-to-person payment solution, as new Zelle token enrollments are averaging $2,400 a month. during the quarter our digital account opening is up significantly year over year as well overall we're very pleased with with the response from our markets to our new digital platform and solutions lastly on our corporate governance culture the team and i are grateful for the leadership and counsel of david dolman over the past 15 years as chairman of our board of directors David has created a strong independent board and a strong corporate governance culture that creates appropriate accountability with the management team. It's a privilege also to welcome John Gorney into the position of board chair. John's 37-year banking career at two top 10 U.S. banks includes C-suite leadership roles in technology, digital, and operations, alongside integrating over one dozen banks in a payment processing acquisition. John's background makes him uniquely positioned to lead our company at this time. Now I will turn it over to Jim. Jim? Thanks, Mike.
spk03: Mike has already provided a high-level review of our financial results for the quarter, so I'll spend my time providing some additional detail on our margin and our non-interest expense. The reported net interest margin, or NIM, improved from 3.26% to 3.40%. New PPP Round 2 net originations of $215 million in the first quarter almost perfectly matched the $216 million of net round one PPP loans that were forgiven, leaving PPP balances virtually unchanged at approximately $479 million as of March 31st. But the forgiveness worked to the benefit of the margin as expected. Fortunately, these effects were telegraphed in advance and well anticipated in our forecast and by the market. as we couldn't help but note that consensus estimates of our spread income came within approximately $400,000 of our actual figure of $69.8 million. However, our consensus estimates for net interest income for the remainder of 2021 don't yet seem to reflect the anticipated recognition of fee income from PPP Round 2 loans that we generated in the first quarter, which is, of course, completely understandable. To be clear, As of March 31st, we had $13.1 million in total PPP fee recognition remaining from both rounds, $9.5 million of which is from round two. Of that $13.1 million, we expect to recognize $10.2 million in the remainder of 2021, $8.5 million of which is from round two. These forecasts assume 90% of the balance is from both rounds, are forgiven by the end of the year. On the other hand, our core then excludes the effects of both PPP and excess cash. That improved from 3.29% to 3.36% in the first quarter, mostly due to improvement in the cost of interest-sharing deposits. In one quarter, we took nearly a third of the cost of our interest-bearing demand and savings deposits off from 14 basis points to 10 basis points, and about a quarter off of the cost of time deposits, from 105 basis points to 75 basis points. With the growth of non-interest-bearing deposits this quarter, the total cost of deposits fell from 17 basis points to 11 basis points. And some repricing opportunity remains. All of this gives us the confidence to raise our core NIN forecast for the remainder of this year from our previous guidance of 3.20% plus or minus five basis points to 3.25% plus or minus five basis points. Our forecast incorporates expectations of a steepening yield curve that should help blunt the impact of excess cash and provide some measure of margin stability through this year and next. Core operating expense came in $2.2 million lower than last quarter to $50.9 million. Part of that was due to expected seasonality in some of our line items, like health care expense, where we spend more in the fourth quarter every year. Where non-interest expense was lower than expected this quarter were line items like OREO and collection and repo costs, which together were about half a million dollars less than we expected they would be. Also, our ability to defer expenses associated with PPP Round 2 production, which amounted to $428,000 in the first quarter, along with high vacancy rates in our retail network as we staff up now that we have fully reopened our branch lobbies. Mike already spoke to our strong fee income in the first quarter. I would only add that even with mortgage income slowing down a bit in the second half, we anticipate being able to sustain a pace of $26 to $27 million per quarter. for quarters and non-interest income for the remainder of 2021. Finally, we implemented our $25 million share repurchase program in the first quarter, albeit at a slow pace, with only 28,000 shares repurchased in the quarter at an average price of $13.99. And we announced yesterday a 4.5% increase in the dividend. And with that, I'll turn it over to Brian.
spk05: Thank you, Jim. Management is pleased to report our solid first quarter credit results, underscoring the effectiveness of our underwriting standards, the discipline around our portfolio management practices, and the strength of our credit culture. While we see the light at the end of the pandemic tunnel, the final episodes of the miniseries are still being written. Management continues to be prudent and reasoned as we navigate the economic recovery and the reopening of our local economies. Let's turn to the numbers. Our Q1 commercial delinquencies were quite low at 0.03%, reflecting our hands-on relationship management approach to commercial lending. Our consumer delinquencies were well-behaved at 0.27%. This is due to our strategy of early calling by our borrower's assistance team as well as stimulus checks and early tax refunds. Criticized loans decreased in Q1 by approximately $31 million to $272 million, reinforcing my earlier comment that we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Hospitality continues to represent the largest segment within criticized loans, as well as the largest portion of loans on deferrals. On a case-by-case basis, when granting deferrals, we have negotiated a variety of structural improvements, including increased recourse, debt service reserves, additional collateral, equity contributions, and additional covenants. Let me say that we are hearing from our customers that the trends in occupancy have improved and are expected to continue to improve, reflecting increased vaccinations. Borrowers are seeing increased leisure travel, increased bookings for both weddings and some business travel, including small corporate events. Contribution from food and beverage has increased with the lifting of certain restrictions. We are pleased that End of period, non-performing loans totaled $50.4 million, an improvement of approximately $3.7 million. Our non-performing loans as a percentage of total loans, excluding PPP, fell to 0.80%, down from 0.86% at year-end. Reserve coverage ratio increased to a healthy 192%. Similarly, non-performing assets as a percentage of total assets fell to 0.55% for the quarter, down from 0.62% at year-end. Net charge-offs were at the low end of our internal quarterly range, at approximately $3.3 million. Quarter-to-date net charge-offs annualized were 0.21%, excluding PPP. Now let me provide some color on the provision and our reserves for the quarter. First, let me remind you that we adopted CECL on December 31st, 2020. We utilized certain Moody's Forecasts of key economic indicators, including GDP and unemployment in our internal calculations. The provision for the first quarter of 2021 was a negative $4.4 million due to changes relating to unfunded commitments, lower loan outstandings in certain portfolios, improvement in quantitative input metrics, and improvements in several qualitative factors. Overall, we are well reserved at $96.8 million. Reserves as a percentage of total loans at quarter end were 1.44% and 1.55% excluding PPP. As I mentioned last quarter, management sees the potential for tailwinds towards the back half of 2021. Future releases will be predicated on a number of factors including loan growth, credit metrics, and continued improvement in economic conditions. Now let me turn it back to Mike for Q&A. Hey, thanks, Brian. And operator questions?
spk09: Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star 1 on your telephone. To withdraw your question, press the pound or hash key. Please stand by while we compare the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Steve Moss of B. Reilly Securities. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
spk03: Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Mike. And maybe just start off with loan pricing here, kind of seeing, just kind of curious as to what you're seeing for competition in your markets. I noticed your yields ex-PPP were stable quarter to quarter, but curious about that dynamic going forward here.
spk07: Just looking at our net production, Jim, I think it was pretty flat from quarter to quarter. Maybe a little pressure on mortgage loans, installment loans. Commercial fixed was pretty flat. Is that fair?
spk03: Yeah, that's pretty much it. The commercial loans are coming on in the low threes. That's been pretty consistent. Part of the story for us, Dean, is The replacement yield story is getting better. It hasn't gone away, but in the fourth quarter, we had negative replacement yields of 62 basis points, negative, and this quarter it was only negative 20. And so that's planning itself out kind of like we thought it would and getting us closer to neutrality and then helping stabilize the low portfolio yield. That's why this quarter we saw an increment. The low portfolio yield was relatively unchanged. Actually, it was up one basis point, but that's not statistically significant. It was really not a deposit. I really had improvement. So is that helpful? That is helpful. Exactly what I was looking for. And then just in terms of, you know, sticking with the margin and the balance sheet here, just, you know, you guys added security this quarter. Cash still went up. Just kind of curious on the rates of your purchases this quarter and maybe the potential for additional purchases in the upcoming quarter. Jim? Yeah, sure. So it changed quite a bit over the quarter, actually. At the beginning of the first quarter, we were buying securities at the low ones, a little over 1%. And most of what we buy is plain vanilla MBS. We don't really look at the securities portfolio as a place where we want to take risk, so it's pretty plain vanilla. But those yields were in the low ones. By the end of the first quarter, we actually were able to buy securities because of the steepening of the yield curve. that were at 2%. But the yield curve has flattened out a little bit since then. That was when the 10-year was up a little higher than it is today. It's come back a little bit. And our preference generally is not to extend duration in the securities portfolio. So we've been trying to buy securities in the four- to five-year duration window, but not really going beyond that. So those yields have come down south of 150 in the last week or so. You asked about the security portfolio in general, and with that much cash sitting around, we do expect to buy more securities going forward. We want to make sure that we maintain sufficient liquidity for our customers if they spend that money. Obviously, we anticipate some good loan growth, so we want to make sure we take those funds and deploy them into profitable loan growth, which is, of course, our first choice. But even with all that, we will probably increase the securities portfolio somewhat over the course of the year. Okay, that's helpful. And just one last one for me in terms of expenses here, you know, down nicely, quarter over quarter, just kind of, and I apologize if I missed this, just kind of curious as to how to think about expense for the upcoming quarter, and if there's any, maybe a PPP impact this quarter.
spk07: I don't know that the guidance has changed. This is Mike of 52 to 53. Jim, I don't know if you want to add any color to that.
spk03: Yeah, that seems to be the right guidance. We looked at a consensus forecast and didn't see any reason to update that guidance. We did get the benefit of a few things in the first quarter. I think you were asking about FAS 91 deferrals on PPP and That was the total I was giving earlier, $428,000. That reduced it by $428,000 the first quarter. We had fascinating ones throughout every quarter of production, but that was really associated with PPP round two. And that was purely just for the first quarter of production from PPP round two. Okay, great. Well, nice quarter, and thank you very much for all the color. Thank you.
spk09: The next question comes from Steven John of RBC Capital Market. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
spk07: Hey, good afternoon, guys. Jim, I appreciate the core name now. You know, it's great you guys are getting that to 325. Maybe just a little detail on just the liability side. What do you have maturing on your time deposits, and where are you currently pricing them at?
spk03: Yeah, we have – actually, glad you asked. I have some detail I'm happy to share with you. We have $320 million of CDs maturing in our main three-quarters of this year, and that pool of CDs is currently yielding 60 basis points. So those are maturing. The current offerings we have, the RAC rates are not very different from other banks in our area. CD pricing for time deposits at different terms tends to be fairly middle of the pack. But a new 12-month CD will be close to 10 basis points. Again, not new news there that hasn't moved in a while. That's pretty middle of the pack for our market. And what we are experiencing are rollover rates that are anywhere from one-half to two-thirds of the maturity CD's rollover. So that's 60 basis points of CD, $320 million for the mean of this year. We also have, in addition to that, Steve, another $81 million in money market accounts They had a guaranteed time on them, and those are actually yielding 1.14%, and those are going to reprice their rate of this year as well. So there really is some repricing opportunity. Overall, when your cost of deposits is 11 basis points, that's not a negative carry versus the interest on excess reserves of the Fed, right? So that's getting to parity with the 10 base points we get from the Fed. It's not a drag on earnings anymore. But there's still some opportunity to bring it down even further.
spk07: Right, right. I guess so with the CDs at, you know, you're pricing at 10 basis points, are there actually people rolling it over into a CD at 10 basis points versus just, you know, putting in a savings account?
spk03: Well, you know, Steve, every season, thick or thin, every industry environment, there's always a group of CDs that when they get to maturity, it's on a roll. without any action about the borrower at all. That's impressive for every bank, and that's continuing. So in this environment right now, there's almost no one in our market area offering any kind of deposit specials at all, and the remaining holdout for some of the banks that were still offering higher RAC rates is how we brought those down as well. So if you want a kind deposit as a customer, there's just not many places where you can go.
spk07: Right, right. I guess then, you know, if we look into next year, is it possible that we could see costs of deposits like 5 to 10 basis points?
spk03: Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, we're 11 now, total. And the NIV is still growing, too, right? So that helps the overall mix as well. But, yeah, we're at 11 basis points now. You can see that in the 5 to 10 basis point range for the rest of this year. Right.
spk05: And you're pretty much limited on what you can do on the borrowing side, right?
spk03: That's right. That's right. We have some borrowings that are going to roll off in May. I think there's a $50 million FHLB borrowing that's going to roll off in May. But the way those are priced, it's not worth any prepaid penalties, so we just let it ride and let it roll off. But that will come off here next month, and that will help the name as well.
spk07: Got it. And just one last one just on this margin. If the 10-year stays where it is currently, do you expect your overall core loan yield to increase or just remain stable?
spk03: Probably likely to remain stable. The steepening has helped us. And I think we've been pretty successful in our originations in getting the most spread we can in our commercial originations. and getting floors in for customers as well, those picked up quarter over quarter. So I think we're pretty successful on that. But given the steepening of the yield curve, given what the tenure is right now, we're probably looking at yield stability in the low side.
spk07: Great. That's all I had. And, yes, this is a nice print on the further quarter. Thank you.
spk09: Your next question comes from Rochelle Gonsar of VA Davidson. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
spk06: Hey, good afternoon, guys. Good afternoon. I wanted to follow up, Mike, on your commentary about the organic growth outlook. A lot of good color and detail there. Trying to triangulate the progression of the consumer strength and when that baton gets passed to the commercial. Does your you know, mid-single-digit-ish guy, contemplate commercial growth contributing to the positive momentum, or is the mix going to be more consumer-weighted near fair?
spk07: I believe we could cross the Rubicon kind of late in the second quarter or in the third quarter. We were satisfied with production the last two quarters. It's just the liquidity, the shrinkage in the line usage, and the excess liquidity that created some payoffs kind of outran us a bit. But I expect that commercial side to ramp up somewhat. So I think we could have both of them yoked by the second half of the year and moving in the same direction. In a small business lending, we really set some records in the first quarter with production. SBA hits the income. We have good momentum there. Indirect lending – Good momentum. We just need cars and houses out there. The inventory is shrinking for both. And then consumer lending branch-based. Jane Grabenz, Joe Koulos have just done a great job. I mean, that number is up probably 30% year-over-year, and that's mostly sales-related. Then, of course, mortgage. Most of mortgage gets converted into gain-and-fail income. and is not really hitting the balance sheet right now. So I feel good about the consumer side, and the commercial side has always been the big engine for us, and we expect that to kick in in the next couple quarters.
spk06: Thank you, Mike. Yeah, it's very encouraging on the organic growth outlook. And then just switching gears, last line of questions would be on the fee income side. Also encouraging to hear that $26 million, $27 million number. on a quarterly basis despite mortgage coming down. Could you guys just spend a minute in terms of what you think the drivers going forward will be of that C income strength and perhaps comment on the SBA gain on sale specifically if you could. Thank you.
spk07: Yeah, just a couple comments and then Jim can fill in and perhaps Jane as well. But just we really haven't seen a lot in swap fees yet. That could create some tailwind and hazard. Mortgage is tapering somewhat but remains strong in the second quarter. SBA loans we expect to have a nice quarter and have a good pipeline there. Our brokerage business and trust business just get better every year. Interchange is strong. And so you'll see Mike might see a little paper in mortgage. Jim or Jane, any color there? Any additional color?
spk03: I think you hit the high points, Mike. Those numbers reflect some tapering of the mortgage income that we anticipate, maybe even higher for mortgage income to continue on its current trajectory. But you can expect that just a little bit. And then, Jane, I'll hand it out to you if you have any other color on the thing that Mike was mentioning. Okay.
spk08: It's been a very good quarter for SBA and we expect that to just get better. The SBA pipelines are very strong, so that won't appear on the balance sheet, but you know, 60% or more of our SBA business comes from referrals from small business lenders or corporate bankers. So we're happy either way. So the pipelines are very strong in SBA. And the gain on sale in SBA has been stronger than I've ever seen it, you know, 11%, 12%. So I feel good about the non-interest income.
spk06: Thank you all for taking my question. Thanks, Russell.
spk09: Your next question comes from Frank of Pipe Assembly. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
spk02: Hi, everyone. I just wanted to ask about, sorry if I missed it, but in terms of share repurchases, I know you have a new program, but just wondered your appetite there given the move in the share price.
spk03: Jim? Yeah, no, we're happy to have the program and the authorization put that in place. We had looked at the price levels where we wanted to buy, and we wanted to be more aggressive below $14, and that's why the average price was $13.99 today. with the share price coming up a little bit, we had tapered off those purchases. But we'll revisit that. For us, it's not so much that sometimes people have a calculation of the earned back period. For us, it's a question of generating excess capital and the best use of that excess capital. So those share purchases will continue this year and might even pick up from here.
spk02: OK. Lastly, on the, and I know you guys touched on this in terms of the potential for releases going forward, but in terms of the reserve to loan ratio, just wondering, you know, your thoughts on where that, you know, could trend to as some more uncertainty maybe comes out of the environment. And, you know, is it best to kind of think about where we were early in 2020 before the pandemic, or what's the best way to think about where that could sort of stabilize?
spk05: Brian? Thank you. Thank you for your question. So we continue to be disciplined and prudent in the way we're reserved. We look at our loan growth. We're going to look at our charge-offs, our quantitative and qualitative components of our model, including our high-risk model, our high-risk portfolio, and then we'll potentially bring the reserves down depending on the economic outlook. Let me also note that we had almost $13 million in our high-risk portfolio at year end. We've reduced that to about $6 million this quarter, so we've brought the number down consistent with the improvement in the economy. But we'll continue to look at it, and as the picture gets clearer, we'll continue to dial in to what is an appropriate level of reserves for our company.
spk02: Okay. Do you, I mean, it's always hard to say, but you've got the high-risk portfolio you have. Is that actively being looked at in terms of do you see the potential to maybe move some of that off balance sheet this year? I'm just trying to get a sense if there's any reason to expect anything other than, you know, very normalized loss rate, you know, for 2021.
spk05: We give you the high-risk portfolio in the slide deck. And what is hard for you to tease out of it is that the retail portfolio, we reduce the reserve associated with that, the high-risk portfolio, cut it more than half. And so we're seeing great improvement in the retail side of our portfolio. Senior living, we've got one problem we're dealing with. Energy, restaurants, we watch them closely, but we brought those reserves associated with COVID-related reserves down purposefully because we are seeing improvement in that portfolio.
spk02: Okay. All right.
spk07: Thank you. Thanks, Frank.
spk09: Your next question comes from Matthew Breeze of Stephen's Inc. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
spk04: Hey, good afternoon. Good afternoon. Hey, Mike, just on the loan growth outlook, you know, auto loans has been a strong driver, a strong component of consumer growth recently. We've heard more recently of some chip shortages in the area for, I think, particularly for the new car market. sales just curious if you're seeing any impact there and as you look towards the end of this year if that could impact uh your ability to put new auto loans on the book maybe give us a sense for the mix between new and used Auto hey Jane why don't you handle this one thanks Mike thank you for the question uh we are predominantly a newish used car lender
spk08: But the chip shortages, part shortages generally, are affecting used cars as much as they are new cars. And we've had a very good first quarter, as you've noted. We're going to have a good April, but I think it's going to mute our growth a bit over the next couple of months. I think it will be good, but it could have been great. supply is definitely being outstripped by demand.
spk04: Got it. Okay. Okay. I appreciate that. And then Mike, just acknowledging the size of the balance sheet relative to the $10 billion threshold and Durbin. I know M&A is something that's been brought up before. Just curious how conversations have gone and are they picked up or not? And, you know, do you think M&A and your ability to acquire is something that could happen this year?
spk07: We are very cognizant of the $10 billion. Indeed, we feel like we're prepared, certainly from an enterprise risk perspective. But on the acquisition side, I mean, ideally, you either do something and find a way to stay under it for a year, which pushes it out in 2023, or you do something larger. And there's nothing imminent right now. There's lots of conversations out there, but I doubt that that's significantly different than like-sized peers. But we also feel like with the impact of Durban, it's incumbent upon us to find other sources of fee income to compensate for the loss of Durban and scale other businesses over a period of time. And we feel like You know, we've de novoed our way into a lot of things, and we've been successful in the team on the operations and on the business development side have executed flawlessly, whether it's mortgage, indirect. enhanced consumer lending, SBA. We just have a good team that can build things out. So we'll try to help you both ways. We'll try to do it thoughtfully in terms of staying on this side or going decisively over. And then we're cognizant of the income percentage of revenue is important to us. We've made great strides here the last decade with lots of investment, and we look to continue to grow those non-interest income and fee businesses.
spk04: Got it. Okay. The last one for me, just on the digital banking front, feels like that is a big push for all banks, especially in the back of COVID. Could you just give us a couple of areas where you feel like on the digital banking side, you know, you are different or set apart or, you know, farther ahead on the curve than your peers?
spk07: Yeah, a couple places. And I think we're getting very good at digital account opening as a percentage over overall new deposits. I feel like we've just put in a new treasury management platform so we can play bigger than perhaps some of our community bank peers. Certainly, we're not doing foreign lockboxes and things like that that bigger banks do, but nevertheless, just good utility there. I think our user interface and our customer experience From the mobile to the online to the tablet, it's very contemporary or user-friendly, has personal financial management tools that can help people with budgeting and other things. And this is a fun part of our business to maintain our relevance. And I also think we can finesse the digital with the community bank brand and in a way that the bigger banks always don't have to win. I think you can like local and get a good digital experience. I have the expert on the line, Norm Montgomery, who's our CIO. Norm, do you want to add anything to that?
spk00: I would just add that, you know, last year we set ourselves up well by changing our digital platforms, as Mike indicated, on both the consumer side and business side. So we are, you know, really ready to grow in those areas with the latest solutions.
spk04: Thanks, Tom. Is that helpful? Very helpful. That's all I had, Mike. Thanks for taking my questions. Thank you.
spk09: And there are no further questions at this time. I'll turn the call back over to Mike Price, President and CEO, for closing remarks.
spk07: Thanks again. We appreciate your sincere interest in our company. We look forward to being with a number of you over the next quarter or two. We appreciate the entree to terrific investors. And just thank you for your effort and your diligence in following First Common Wealth.
spk09: And this concludes today's conference call.
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