Webster Financial Corporation

and are subject to the Safe Harbor rules. Please review the forward-looking disclaimer in Safe Harbor language in today's press release and presentation for more information about risks and uncertainties which may affect us. The presentation accompanying management's remarks can be found on the company's investor relations site at investors.websterbank.com. For the Q&A portion of the call, we ask that each participant ask just one question and one follow-up before returning to the queue. I'll now turn it over to Webster Financial's CEO and Chairman, John Ciullo.

Thanks, Emlyn. Good morning and welcome to Webster Financial Corporation's second quarter 2025 earnings call. We appreciate you joining us this morning. I'm going to start with a recap of our results and the competitive positioning that drives them. Our President and Chief Operating Officer, Luis Maciani, is going to provide an update on exciting developments in our operating segments, and our CFO, Neil Holland, will provide additional detail on financials before my closing remarks and Q&A. Highlights for the second quarter are provided on slide two of our earnings presentation. Our results were solid, with a return on tangible common equity of 18%, ROA of nearly 1.3%, and growth in both loans and deposits of over 1% in quarter. Overall revenue grew 1.6% over the prior quarter. Our financial results put our company on a trajectory to meet the outlook we established in January, despite a less certain macroeconomic picture at points in the first half of the year. We achieved this outcome while maintaining our strong operating position and balance sheet flexibility. Our common equity tier one ratio increased, and our loan-to-deposit ratio remained roughly flat. With our strong capital position and new capital generation, the board authorized an additional $700 million in share repurchases, and we bought back 1.5 million shares in the quarter. Additionally, the inflection point in asset quality that we projected to occur in mid-2025 is materializing. Both criticized commercial loans and non-accruals were down in the quarter. Our net charge-off ratio was 27 basis points within our long-term normalized charge-off range of 25 to 35 bps. We do not see new pockets of credit deterioration developing anywhere across any industry or sector. Similar to our view a quarter ago, we have not yet seen any impact to credit related to various tariff proposals. While remaining vigilant, any potential effects from proposed tariffs We don't have disproportionate exposure to industries we believe could be most impacted, and our borrowers have had additional time to develop strategies to manage costs, their supply chains, and pricing. Our strong operating position and distinctive businesses provide us a lot of flexibility and growth opportunities, an advantage that will serve us well as tailwinds accumulate for the banking industry. We feel we have the most differentiated deposit profile within our peer group, In particular, our healthcare financial services segment, comprised of HSA Bank and Amitros, are a growing source of low-cost, long-duration, and very sticky deposits. The B2B2C model of these businesses enables efficient operation and distribution. Provisions included within the recently passed reconciliation bill should also accelerate growth in HSA deposits. In addition to the healthcare financial services segment, we also have strong deposit franchises in our consumer and commercial banks. We also operate Intersync, previously known as Interlink, and rebranded this quarter. Intersync provides us access to granular deposits and is another differentiating feature for Webster as a source of liquidity. As a predominantly commercial bank, we have a diversity of loan origination channels with distinct risk-reward characteristics. These provide us the opportunity to add assets in the loan categories that provide the most appealing risk-reward characteristics at a given point in time. We anticipate that the asset management partnership with Marathon we announced last year will be effective as of later today, and we believe that it will enhance sponsor loan growth and drive fee revenue in 2026 and beyond. Combination of our funding advantage and diversified loan origination engine allow us to grow at an accelerated rate relative to peers over the long term. Ultimately, with our distinctive business composition, we have a lot of liquidity, we run a highly efficient and profitable bank, and we generate a lot of capital. This provides us with both a solid defensive position and a great deal of optionality on offense, whether that be organic growth, strategically compelling tuck-in acquisitions, or returning capital to shareholders. I will now turn it over to Luis to discuss emerging strategic opportunities for Webster, including at HSA Bank and within the commercial segment, each of which have recently experienced strategically important developments.

Thanks, John. Starting with HSA Bank, we were pleased to see three favorable provisions for HSA accounts incorporated in the reconciliation bill, which was signed into law earlier this month. In our view, these provisions will significantly increase the addressable market for the HSA industry and HSA Bank, mainly driven by BRON's ACA plan participants' newly gained eligibility to fund an HSA account as part of their health care plan. We estimate the potential deposit opportunity for HSA Bank over the next five years ranges from $1 billion to $2.5 billion of additional deposits, starting with incremental growth next year of $50 to $100 million. There is likely to be a somewhat lengthy ramp up period for adoption as newly eligible consumers begin to understand the benefits of an HSA account and how best to use it for their health and financial wellness. We were further encouraged that for the first time, eligibility for HSA accounts has been decoupled from high deductible health plans, and that several provisions that were initially included but didn't make the final spending bill has strong support in both the House and Senate. Additional substantive legislation in 2025 is likely, including the possibility of another reconciliation bill. If all of the provisions that were in the original spending bill passed by this House were to become law, we believe this could double our range of opportunity for incremental deposits. Turning to asset management, we have reached operational realization of the private credit joint venture we had previously announced with Marathon Asset Management. In the second quarter, we moved $242 million of loans into help for sale status, as these loans will be contributed to the joint venture, which we expect will be up and running in the third quarter. The economics of our asset management strategy will be determined by the long-term performance of the joint venture, but we anticipate the benefits will be significant as we strengthen our competitive position in the private credit market. Webster will be able to lead larger bilateral deals, participate in larger syndications, accelerate unbalance sheet loan growth and spread income, and offer clients a broader set of deal structures beyond senior secured positions without changing our existing unbalance sheet credit profile. Webster will retain full banking relationships, including opportunities for cash management, capital markets, and deposit business. The asset management platform will also drive economic value by generating fee income, which we anticipate will be limited for the remainder of 2025, but will begin to ramp in 2026. We are also continuing to invest across all other areas of our bank, both in our lines of business as well as operations, technology, and risk. Business pipelines are building nicely for the second half of 2025 with a well-diversified mix of commercial and consumer loan and deposit opportunities. We have continued to make targeted investments in technology and business development in areas including metros, HSA, Intersync, and the consumer and commercial banking verticals, which should allow us to further strengthen our deposit channels and funding profile. I'll turn it over to Neil for a detailed review of financial reports.