The Bank of Nova Scotia (NYSE:BNS) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Scott Thompson: Yes. So I guess a couple of things. One, Mario, I actually saw you got the earnings pretty close to where we ended up. So I thought that was interesting. Point one. Point two, we will be more explicit with milestones and targets and guidance, but we will wait until we get through the strategy work at the end of the year to do that. I think what we’re saying now, we’re pretty clear that we’re cautious about the next quarter in terms of earnings, but we’re also recognizing we’re at the bottom here in terms of NIM or close to the bottom in terms of NIM compression. So that is good news. I think as we come out of the year, we’ll give you more targets, more clarity, more transparency which once we’ve aligned around the growth objectives, we’ll have a strong balance sheet, we’ll have refreshed priorities, and we’ll give you those types of targets that you’re asking for.

Operator: The next question is from Doug Young from Desjardins Capital Markets.

Doug Young: Just on the corporate loss, Raj, can you unpack a little bit more about what’s going on? And I guess I struggle a little bit because at the divisional level, the results look good. And then I look at other and there’s this big negative in. And so I’m hoping you can unpack that. Maybe if you can talk a little bit about what the outlook is going to be for corporate. And when corporate losses are de minimis, I’m not too fast, but when corporate losses become big, I start to distress my divisional outlook just because I’m not sure how much of this corporate loss should be allocated out to the divisional side. So can you help me just kind of put some parameters and thoughts around this?

Raj Viswanathan: Sure, happy to do that. When there is a level of interest rate volatility like we’re seeing now, the impact of that volatility for our bank shows up in the other segment. So what you’re seeing, the $334 million loss is obviously an outsized outcome, but it’s reflective of the interest rate environment and the velocity of changes that have happened in the interest rate environment. But what it relates to is really is how our transfer pricing methodology works, and it’s purely intended to remove interest rate volatility from the businesses. So to your question, does it relate to a business segment, I’d say simply, the answer is no. Go back to 2019 or even 2020, for example, when we had actually big benefits in the other segment, we didn’t push it to any of the segments because this relates to how we manage the interest rate risk, how we fund ourselves and eventually how the interest rate situation plays out.

So it’s very consistent with how we have done it when it’s been the opposite way in the other segment. So it’s not specific to any business line. But if you want to really attribute I can tell you, like I said before, it does not relate to the international banking business because their treasury operations is within that segment. When you talk about outlook, yes, I think for this year or immediate quarter, the funding cost is going to remain elevated as we know. We have had interest rate increases, hopefully, the last in Canada from what you’ve heard from the governor. So that should have a full quarter impact in the second quarter. The fed rate increases will also have an impact for us. So I think the other segment will look somewhat similar to what you’re seeing this quarter.

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