U.S. Bancorp

Welcome to U.S. Bancorp's second quarter 2021 earnings conference call. Following a review of the results by Andy Cesari, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, and Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and Chief Financial Officer, there will be a formal question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your touchstone phone and press the pound key to withdraw. This call will be recorded and available for replay beginning today at approximately 11 a.m. Central Time through Thursday, July 22nd, 2021 at 1059 p.m. Central Time. I will now turn the conference call over to Jen Thompson, Director of Investor Relations and Economic Analysis for U.S. Bancorp.

Thank you, Ashley, and good morning, everyone. With me today are Andy Cesari, our Chairman, President, and CEO of and Terry Dolan, our Chief Financial Officer. Also joining us on the call are our Chief Risk Officer, Jody Richard, and our Chief Credit Officer, Mark Runkle. During their prepared remarks, Andy and Terry will be referencing a slide presentation. A copy of the slide presentation, as well as our earnings release and supplemental analyst schedules, are available on our website at usbank.com. I'd like to remind you that any forward-looking statements made during today's call are subject to risk and uncertainty. Factors that could materially change our current forward-looking assumptions are described on page two of today's presentation, in our press release, and in our Form 10-K and subsequent reports on file with the SEC. I'll now turn the call over to Andy.

Thanks, Jen. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our call. Following our prepared remarks, Terry, Jody, Mark, and I will take any questions you have. I'll begin on slide three. In the second quarter, we reported earnings per share of $1.28. We released $350 million in loan loss reserves this quarter, supported by our outlook on the economy and continued improvement in credit quality metrics, the pace of which has been better than expected. Net revenue totaled $5.8 billion in the second quarter. As expected, net interest income grew in the second quarter, while our fee businesses benefited from improving consumer and business spending trends. Notably, as of late June, total sales volumes for each of our three payments businesses, credit and debit card, merchant acquiring, and corporate payment systems, were above 2019 levels for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic. Our expenses were relatively stable compared with the first quarter. Turning to capital, our book value per share totaled $31.74 at June 30th, which was 4% higher than March 31st. During the quarter, we returned 79 percent of our earnings to shareholders in the forms of dividends and share buybacks. Following the results of the Federal Reserve stress test in late June, we announced that management will recommend that our board of directors approve a 9.5 percent increase in our common dividend in the third quarter payable in October. Slide four provides key metrics, including a return on tangible common equity of 20.9 percent. Slide five highlights continued strong trends in digital activity. Now let me turn the call over to Terry, who will provide more detail on the quarter.