Wintrust Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:WTFC) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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The disruptions helped us, the outlook is good there. And so without getting the plumbing in place, sort of testing it out and having another source of liquidity was a good thing to do.We have the opportunity to do it in the future. But right now, we don’t have any plans to do another loan sale. But if we were to have outside loan growth going forward, we might be able to pull the trigger and do it quickly. And now that we’ve demonstrated that we can do it again.

Richard Murphy: And Jon, yes, we continue to service those loans, I think was part of your question.

Jon Arfstrom: Yes, yes. Just last one. Mortgage obviously, was a decent quarter for you. Dave, you said slightly elevated production in the third quarter. Is that what you mean? And just give us an idea of what you’re seeing there. $30 million type quarter.

David Alan Dykstra: Yes. I mean we’re just a few weeks into the third quarter, but application volumes have ticked up just slightly. So I would expect it to be up a little bit, but as part of it depends on what happens to the valuations of your MSRs too. But from a production perspective, I would expect it to be up just a little bit. We’ll just have to see how the production flows through, but nothing substantial. I mean if it’s up a couple of million dollars, that might be at the right neighborhood, but we’ll have to just see how it plays through.

Jon Arfstrom: Okay. All right. Fair enough. Thanks a lot, guys. Appreciate it.

Timothy Crane: Yes. Thanks, Jon.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of David Long with Raymond James.

Timothy Crane: Good morning, David.

David Long: Good morning. I was kind of blanked out or I didn’t hear if that was my name or not, but good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. A couple of things. On the funding side, you seem to still have good growth. Obviously, you’ve got a vehicle now where you can reduce or securitize or sell some of those loans. But on the funding side going forward, how are you thinking about incremental FHLB advances versus deposits, whether it’s CDs or brokered CDs, with the most attractive source on the funding side right now, and how do the costs compare right now?

Timothy Crane: Sure, David. I mean, generally, we’d like to grow deposits to match any loan growth, and we think deposits are the core of our franchise. Obviously, the MaxSafe product suite was very helpful to us in the quarter. Clients didn’t have to go elsewhere, even at competitors where they’re reciprocal products, we don’t have to pay the additional fee that might be involved with that. So that worked out very, very well. The MaxSafe product, in general, is in total a little less than 4% in terms of the deposit cost, and we’re putting loans on at 7.5% to 8% at this point. So the spread is good. We continue to add business. Everybody is asking for deposits. It’s a focus. So we’re going to try to grow deposits before we use other liquidity sources.

David Long: Got it. Thanks, Tim. And then for the competitive dynamics for deposits right now, are you seeing more pressure from the larger regional banks? Are you seeing more pressure from the community banks? Where is the competition more intense on the deposit side?

Timothy Crane: Well, all over would be my blanket answer, but certainly, the regional banks, and Rich mentioned that some companies are finding it more difficult to get what I would call transactional type work done. And for folks that just don’t have a relationship with their bank, the relationship can be either uncertain or strained at this point. And we’re very focused on having relationships and taking good care of our clients. And so one, it hasn’t been difficult for us for our existing base; and two, it’s created an opportunity in certain places and see new clients that, frankly, we’re very happy to be doing business with.

David Long: Great. Thanks, Tim. Appreciate it.

Timothy Crane: You bet.

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