Wells Fargo & Company

Good morning. My name is Regina, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Wells Fargo Third Quarter Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press the pound key. I would now like to turn the call over to John Campbell, Director of Investor Relations. Sir, you may begin the conference.

Thank you, Regina. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our call today where our interim CEO and President, Alan Parker, and our CFO, John Shrewsbury, will discuss third quarter results and answer your questions. This call is being recorded. Before we get started, I would like to remind you that our third quarter earnings release and quarterly supplement are available on our website at wellsfargo.com. I'd also like to caution you that we may make forward-looking statements during today's call that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from expectations are detailed in our SEC filings, including the Form 8K filed today containing our earnings release and quarterly supplement. Information about any non-GAAP financial measures referenced, including a reconciliation of those measures to GAAP measures, can also be found in our SEC filings, in the earnings release, and in the quarterly supplement available on our website. I will now turn the call over to Alan Parker.

Thank you, John. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us for today's discussion of our third quarter results. Our earnings included a number of significant items that John Shrewsbury will discuss. but I'll note at the outset that our underlying business fundamentals were strong. That strength was demonstrated by, among other things, increases in loan and deposit balances, both from the second quarter and from a year ago, our highest branch customer experience scores in over three years, and continued growth in primary consumer checking customers. As you all know, Charlie Sharp will join Wells Fargo next week as our new CEO and president. I've had the opportunity to spend a great deal of time with Charlie, and I'm convinced that he has the right combination of experience, business savvy, and leadership ability to position Wells Fargo for an even more successful future. I look forward to working with Charlie on a seamless transition as he assumes his responsibilities as CEO, and I return to my role as the company's general counsel. It's been an honor for me to serve as our interim CEO and president over the last six months. I'm proud that, during my time in this role, the company continued to move forward and we made progress on our top priorities, which include focusing on our customers and team members, meeting the expectations of our regulators, and continuing our company's important transformation. Let me provide just a few examples of our most recent progress. In the area of leadership, we made important hires during the third quarter in technology, merchant services, and wealth management. In addition, within consumer banking, we named leaders to new roles that will help us better serve our customers. David Kowach, who was most recently the head of Wells Fargo Advisors, assumed a new role as the head of community banking, reporting to Mary Mack. We created this role because we believe that having a single, dedicated leader supporting our team members and customers in our branches will significantly further our ongoing transformation. We also formed, within consumer banking, a new enterprise customer excellence group that will, over time, bring together functions from across the company and give us broader insight into the customer experience. This new group is under the leadership of Andy Rowe, who led consumer segments and consumer strategy for the last two years. And in the area of innovation and technology, we made several important announcements during the third quarter. Wells Fargo's ongoing commitment to exploring and investing in emerging technologies through the Wells Fargo Startup Accelerator Program is was demonstrated by our adding two new companies, one focused on augmented reality and the other focused on climate change risk. The total number of companies in that portfolio is now 25. We also announced plans to pilot next year Wells Fargo Digital Cash, which is designed to enable us to complete internal book transfers of cross-border payments running on our first distributed ledger technology platform. This new technology should drive operational efficiencies by providing longer operating windows and real-time processing. Finally, we announced a data exchange agreement with Plaid, a leading data platform. With this agreement, our customers will have greater control over the bank account information they share with Plaid-supported apps, including the ability to turn on or off data sharing through Wells Fargo's control tower. I want to conclude my comments this morning by thanking the members of our operating committee, our other senior leaders, and all our team members for their efforts, dedication, and perseverance during the last six months. In particular, I want to thank Doug Edwards for his strong and thoughtful leadership as our interim general counsel during this period of transition. We continue to have a lot of work ahead of us, but the unwavering focus of our team members on serving our customers while also working tirelessly to transform Wells Fargo has enabled us to make substantial progress toward our goals over the last six months. Looking forward, I'm confident that the extraordinary strengths of the Wells Fargo franchise, when combined with our new leadership and our collective commitment to work hard to achieve further improvements, will result in a company that is well-positioned to benefit our shareholders and all our other stakeholders. John will now discuss our financial results in more detail.