Byline Bancorp, Inc. (NYSE:BY) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Tom Bell : Yes. It’s roughly about $10 million or so a quarter, Nate, I mean, it’s just — it’s subject to obviously, rates have rallied a little bit. So it’s picking up a little bit, but it’s in that range unless we buy some short-term T-bills or something like that, obviously, that would change.

Nathan Race: Got you. So it sounds like the focus just given maybe a more measured loan growth approach for 2023 is to really kind of step up on the deposit gathering efforts. I know, you guys have always been focused on deposits since the recap back in 2013. But I imagine we can still expect some organic deposit gathering to help on that loan growth trajectory into 2023.

Alberto Paracchini: Correct, Nate. And I would say, that’s always going to be the case, really, irrespective of the rate environment. I think you’ve known us long enough to know that we think that the key just philosophically from a business standpoint, our ability to continue to grow consistently deposits over time is really, really important. So I think that’s still is and will be the case going forward. And then secondly, I would also add into — add to that the, hopefully the closing of the merger with Inland here in the second half, really adding more to our core deposit base.

Nathan Race: Yes, definitely. And if I could just ask one more on kind of the Chicago land deposit pricing environment. we’ve heard from another Chicago bank, that new pricing competition is less this cycle than what we saw last cycle, just in the wake of all the consolidation that we’ve seen. Are you guys seeing that as well, to some degree? Because I believe you made a comment earlier that your deposit beta thus far this cycle is running maybe a little bit below what you anticipated going into it.

Alberto Paracchini: I think the rational, I would have, the way I would probably answer that question, Nate, would be the market is more rational from a pricing standpoint. So I would maybe break up your question in two points. One is the market today, do we find it more rational because of the fact that there’s been consolidation, because of the fact that there’s been less new entrants in the form of the no walls and smaller community banks into the market. I think that’s a fair statement. The second point, which is really the competitive dynamics today, with regards — regarding the deposit pricing in the market putting aside everybody wants to price deposit rationally, but how are the competitive dynamics evolving? I think we’ve always been of the belief that loan to deposit ratios, particularly when the market participants are publicly stating that they want to have their loan growth be funded by core deposits, that’s really important driver to determine kind of the level of competition in the market, just observing some of our competitors and some of the other players in the market, I think you’re seeing loan to deposit ratios entire as they basically shed perhaps some excess liquidity that they were carrying.

And I think, correspondingly with that, I think you’re seeing the competitive pressures now being reflected on everybody’s results. So that’s, I think that’s our two senses on that.

Nathan Race: Okay, that’s great perspective. Appreciate that. And I apologize, one last one, excluding the impact of Inland which I imagined should bring down your loan deposit ratio, remind us kind of what your comfort level is, in terms of the upper bound on that ratio?

Tom Bell : Guidance has been in the high 80s to low 90s. That’s where we’d like to be long run. And again, there’s ebbs and flows. So in our goal is to be closer to 90.