U.S. Bancorp

Welcome to the U.S. Bancorp third 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 call over to Brian Mani, Director of Investor Relations for U.S. Bancorp.

Thank you, Operator, and good morning, everyone. Today, I am 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 any questions that you have. I will now turn the call over to Gunjan.

Thank you, Brian. Good morning, everyone. Beginning on slide three, We delivered another strong quarter highlighted by record net revenue of approximately $8 billion and diluted earnings per share of $1.34, up approximately 10% from a year ago. Results in the quarter reflect strong execution against our three strategic priorities. Net revenue grew 8.7% year-over-year, Discipline productivity drove 240 basis points of positive operating leverage and in payments, our transformation efforts continue to gain traction with total payments revenue growing 6.5% year over year. Turning to slide four, fees continued to grow nicely and contributed 44% of total revenue again this quarter. Our fee complex is diversified and deepens client relationships, generates attractive returns, and contributes to a more balanced earnings profile. While fee growth does come with higher expenses, productivity initiatives, including from our AI programs, help to improve our efficiency ratio and increased return on average assets year over year. On slide five, we spotlight global capital markets and attractive growth opportunity across a range of economic scenarios. We closed the BTIG acquisition in June and it contributed $226 million of fee revenue in the third quarter. Our combined businesses are off to a wonderful start and already working very closely together to broaden how we serve our clients. We expect capital markets to grow from eight to 10% or more of total company revenue over the next three to five years by focusing on three strategies. One, continue to drive robust core organic growth across both franchises in line with their historical performance. Second, deepen wallet share with our clients where we deploy significant balance sheet resources. The addition of BTIG strengthens our ability to serve a broader range of needs and capture greater fee revenue over time. And third, by adding product capabilities across both platforms. We look forward to sharing more on our capital market strategy at a conference later this fall and are committed to providing more disclosures in due course as the business becomes a larger part of our revenue mix. With fees and expenses in a healthy place, this year we have increasingly turned our attention to strengthening net interest income and margin. An important lever of this growth is expanding our consumer and small business franchise, which provides a highly attractive source of funding. Slide six is a busy chart. It captures our footprint and expansion strategies. We are densifying our branch presence and leveraging client centers that have long supported our national businesses. We are supporting this ground game with targeted brand investments, including through our NFL partnership and new brand ambassadors such as Fernando Mendoza, Christian McCaffrey, and most recently, Jessica Alba for our small business segment. Turning to slide seven, we highlight small business banking. We serve more than 2 million small businesses through a scaled, interconnected platform that contributes meaningfully to company revenue and is an invaluable source of stable, well-priced deposits. Over the past several years, we have built a unique foundation of banking, payments, and cash management capabilities. This quarter, we launched several major initiatives to expand our reach with small businesses as we onboarded the Amazon Co-brand Partnership, expanded the Business Essentials suite of products, and established new banking teams in expansion markets. We have a truly differentiated set of products and an enviable client footprint with small business. And this segment will be an important priority going into 2027. Finally, on slide eight, I want to spend a moment on corporate payments and treasury management, which together represent approximately 6% of our company revenues. The corporate payments landscape has the potential to be transformed by the growing convergence of treasury management rails like ACH and Wires, card rails, and new stablecoins and tokenized deposits. These businesses have delivered a strong quarter, benefiting from market share gains as well as tailwinds from fuel price increases in our fleet and freight businesses. Earlier this quarter, we launched our first USBDC stable corn pilot. While these trends are emerging, we are uniquely positioned to succeed in corporate payments, and we are investing to create interoperability across these rails, to deliver both the benefits of new technologies and the safety and soundness of the banking system. Let me now turn it over to John.