U.S. Bancorp

Welcome to the U.S. Bancorp second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Following a review of the results, there will be a formal question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star then one on your phone. If you wish to withdraw your question, please press star then one again. This call will be recorded and available for replay beginning today at approximately 10 a.m. Central Time. I will now turn the conference over to Brian Mani, Director of Investor Relations for U.S. Bancorp.

Thank you, Krista, and good morning, everyone. Today, I'm joined by our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Gunjan Kedia, and Vice Chair and Chief Financial Officer, John Stern. In a moment, Gunjan and John will be referencing a slide presentation together with their prepared remarks. A copy of the presentation, our press release, and supplemental analyst schedules can be found on our website at ir.usbank.com. Please note 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 earnings presentation, our press release, and reports on file with the SEC. Following our prepared remarks, Gunjan and John will be happy to take questions that you have. I will now turn the call over to Gunjan.

Thank you, Brian, and welcome to our team. Good morning, everyone. Beginning on slide three, this quarter we delivered earnings per share of $1.35, an increase of approximately 22% year over year. Record net revenue of $7.7 billion highlights the strength of our diversified business mix and improved executions. Results in the quarter reflect strong progress against our three strategic priorities. Revenue growth accelerated to 10.1% year-over-year. Expense discipline remains a hallmark for us, with 400 basis points of positive operating leverage this quarter. Our payments transformation is differentiating us and driving innovative client value propositions, especially for the Gen Z and younger generations. Importantly, we delivered these results while maintaining strong returns credit performance and Capital Levels. John will provide more details on our financial performance in his opening remarks. Turning to slide four, fees rose to 44% of total revenue this quarter, with both scale and quality of our fee mix driving high returns, stable earnings and enduring relationships. Fee growth has steadily accelerated and this is an important priority for us. While fee growth drives higher expenses, productivity initiatives helped improve our efficiency ratio and increased return on average assets. Moving to slide five, the successful completion of the BTIG acquisition marks a significant milestone in our strategic build out of capital markets. In its first month as part of U.S. Bancorp, BTIG generated approximately $98 million of revenue, marking the strongest monthly revenue performance in BTIG's history and outpacing our earlier expectations from the deal. As integration progresses, we expect to capture more long-term strategic benefits of the combination. Our aim is to grow capital markets to more than 10% of total company revenue over time. On slide six, our payments franchise remains an important source of diversification and client engagement across the company. Total payment services revenue increased 5.7% year over year, compared with 4.7% growth in the prior year quarter. While merchant processing growth slowed during the quarter, card issuing continued to perform well and corporate payments saw a strong rebound, driven by core demand and new business installations. We are increasingly managing these products holistically at the client segment level and investing to be competitive as this space evolves. Turning to slide seven. A consumer franchise is a source of strength for the company and an important driver of long-term relationships and lower-cost deposits. Given the increased interest we have seen in this space recently, we are spotlighting this strategy for the consumer franchise. We serve nearly 13 million consumers through a combination of digital and physical distribution. with approximately 18% residing outside of our traditional branch footprint today. In addition, we serve approximately 7 million customers through our card, co-brand, Elan, and partner platforms. Our core products benefit greatly from this expanded scale. 42% of our consumer clients are now multi-service. up approximately two percentage points over the past two years. These relationships are more durable, generate higher return, and strengthen engagement over our franchise. Slide 8 highlights the core strategies of our consumer franchise. We are seeing strong momentum from differentiated offerings like Banks Smartly, which we introduced in 2024. The balances across smartly checking and savings now exceeding $84 billion. We have more recently introduced a similar interconnected product suite for small business called Business Essentials. Our branch expansion is focused on densifying our presence in approximately 10 markets within our footprint that have high rates of household formation. We expect our annual investment in branches to increase from approximately $200 million historically to $300 million annually. Importantly, these strategies are delivering strong results and have now driven a third consecutive quarter of record consumer deposits. Let me now turn the call over to John.