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“Huntington Bank has been an amazing place to work. I feel valued as a colleague of Huntington Bank. I believe we are an inclusive organization and when our CEO says Welcome to ALL he truly means it. This is an innovative company always looking for new ways to improve culture and technology for customers and colleagues. I am proud to work for Huntington Bank and look forward to many more years with this organization.”

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Founded in 1866, Huntington Bancshares Incorporated is a regional bank holding company for the Huntington National Bank, providing financial products and services to consumers and businesses including banking, payments, risk management, and wealth management. It is the top originator of SBA 7(a) small-business loans in the country. The company primarily operates in the Midwest, though Huntington National Bank branches are expanding in the South as well.

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Huntington Bancshares (HBAN): Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings

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Huntington Bancshares

huntington bancshares

Greetings, and welcome to the Huntington Bancshares third quarter 2026 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Eric Wasserstrom, Director of Investor Relations.

Thanks, Christine, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us for our third quarter call. Our speakers for our presentation today are Steve Steinour, Chairman and CEO, Brant Standridge, President, and Zach Wasserman, Chief Financial Officer. Unfortunately, Zach has become ill very unexpectedly, although I did speak with him a little while ago and he's sounding quite good. But he will not be participating in the Q&A portion of today's call. So I will be joining in his stead, and also joining us for Q&A will be our Chief Credit Officer, Brendan Lawlor. Earnings documents, which include our forward-looking statements, disclaimer, and non-GAAP information, and copies of the slides we'll be referencing are available on the investor relations section of our website, which is www.ir.huntington.com. As a reminder, this call is being recorded and a replay will be available starting about one hour after the close of the call.

With that, let me now turn it over to Steve.

Thanks, Eric. Good morning, and thank you for joining us. Starting on slide 3, we delivered solid operating performance in the third quarter, reflecting continued execution across our core businesses and the benefits of our investments and recent partnerships. The operating environment is generally constructive, evidenced by strong commercial pipelines and solid consumer spending trends. Our expectation is that conditions for the rest of this year and next remain supportive of healthy levels of customer activity. Although higher interest rates and elevated prices for energy and other inputs could dampen growth in the future years or potentially further exacerbate the K shape of the consumer economy. In the midst of this, our teams continue to acquire and deepen relationships across the bank. While macroeconomic conditions may change, our strategy has not.

We remain disciplined in maximizing our risk-adjusted returns, optimizing the balance sheet, realizing expense efficiencies, and continuing to invest for long-term growth. There are four key messages I'd like to leave you with. First, Huntington is a strategically well-positioned national franchise with substantial scale in markets expected to grow above the national average, a leading national commercial bank, and has a broad set of value-added fee businesses. These capabilities support sustained organic growth and earnings expansion. Second, we are delivering solid operating performance in a fluid environment. Our C&I growth remains very strong, driven by the continued expansion of our national commercial strategy. We've made prudent decisions to protect credit performance and returns by scaling back in certain asset classes where risk-adjusted pricing has compressed to levels we don't consider to be rational.

This has impacted the growth of certain loan portfolios but supported our return on tangible common equity. Third, our partnerships continue to perform very well. Cost synergies have been achieved as planned, revenue synergies are tracking, and the partnerships are expanding our ability to acquire customers and deepen relationships across Texas and the South. Fourth, our aggregate moderate to low risk appetite remains fundamental to how we operate. Our liquidity position remains robust, credit performance remains top tier, and we are allocating capital only where opportunities meet our risk-adjusted return hurdles. Together, these capabilities and our focused execution support revenue and earnings growth, improving returns, tangible book value growth, and substantial long-term shareholder value creation. Slide 4 shows our expectations for the drivers of value creation over this year and next.

We expect 2027 EPS to grow more than 20% from 2025 while steadily increasing ROTCE into the 17%-18% range. We expect tangible book value per share to increase by more than 10% from the 2025 level, reflecting continued earnings generation and disciplined capital management. We've completed approximately $460 million of share repurchases year to date. We continue to expect to return substantial capital to our shareholders over the next several quarters. These outcomes reflect the strength of our core franchise, continued growth in our value-added fee businesses, partner synergies, operating efficiency, and disciplined capital management. Let me now turn the call over to Brant Standridge. As you are all probably aware, Brant was recently elevated to the role of President of Huntington and now has responsibility for all of our revenue-generating segments. Brant?

Thank you, Steve. Let's turn to slide 5. As we've outlined on previous calls, we have developed a differentiated operating model that combines the power of a local relationship-focused geographic banking model with the expertise and scale of a national commercial business. We've now expanded the geographic model across 21 states while continuing to grow our commercial business nationally. The combination of these two models has led to achieving substantial scale with $191 billion in loans and $225 billion in deposits. We are taking a similar approach with geography, having combined Midwest leadership with meaningful and growing scale in Texas and the South. We are now present in 12 of the top 25 fastest growing MSAs in the country, positioning us squarely in some of the nation's most attractive markets.

Our value-added capabilities have broadened across a full range of services, including an expansive payment suite, a comprehensive wealth and private banking platform, and a full service capital markets business. Our commercial bank brings a specialized ecosystem of capabilities serving customers across all 50 states. These capabilities, combined with deep industry expertise across specialized verticals, create a differentiated growth opportunity and help us expand customer relationships across the company. Across all elements of the company, we operate with an aggregate moderate to low risk appetite. This combination of operating scale and risk management discipline is what enables us to sustain strong, balanced growth. The differentiated capabilities that we continue to build across our major business lines support our long-term competitive advantage. Let me share some examples with you. Turning to slide 6, our culture remains a competitive advantage. It is what allows us to attract and retain top talent.

Our people are the drivers of innovation and execution across the bank. We're investing in capabilities that will help shape the future of the bank and allow us to remain an essential partner to our customers. At Money 20/20 earlier this week, we announced the 1866 Studio, our new agentic small business operating system. This adds to our already compelling value proposition for small businesses. In addition, we've built functionalities that meet our customers' critical needs, such as family and team banking and AI-powered savings goal functionality. We are also investing to expand our commercial capabilities. As an example, we have substantially increased our capabilities in asset-backed finance and securitization, putting our ability to distribute assets and support customer needs on par with industry leaders. Our focus on innovation continues to gain external recognition.

We offer a leading digital experience as the top-rated mobile banking app among regional bank peers, and we continue to win awards for our collaboration with some of the nation's leading fintechs, such as our partnership with Octane. Perhaps most significantly, we continue to earn customer recognition for service, satisfaction, and trust, elements that form the core of successful relationships with our customers. Turning to slide 7. How do we achieve the financial objectives that we have outlined and continue to create sustainable growth? To be clear, we have our heads down and we are laser-focused on five growth drivers. First, growing share across our core banking markets while selectively investing in new growth markets. Our differentiated operating model, it works and is driving significant share gains in our legacy markets.

Introducing this model in our new markets from Texas through the Carolinas has created an enhanced platform for growth. From a consumer and small business perspective, our digital deposit acquisition capabilities have already created an opportunity for growth across Texas and the South. Second, we are driving scale and growth through our national commercial banking expansion. Our industry ecosystem approach, our national reach, and our specialized expertise enhance our value proposition to commercial customers in our banking footprint and across the country. We have been, and we will continue to invest in people and capabilities that expand our reach. Third, we will leverage expanded capabilities in payments, wealth, and capital markets to deepen customer relationships. Our integrated approach to sales and servicing, which we call optimal customer relationship, provides an opportunity to increase the depth and importance of our relationship to our customers.

Our geographic expansion and the growth of our national commercial businesses significantly increases the scale of the opportunity set to deploy these capabilities. Fourth, we will maintain balance sheet growth aligned to our aggregate moderate to low risk appetite. This is grounded in our emphasis on primary customer relationships, disciplined pricing, rigorous client selection, and intentional capital allocation. Finally, we will continue to drive efficiency and sustained investment in growth. We are consistently re-engineering our baseline expenses, which helps fund the investments that drive our competitive advantage and sustain our long-term growth. Turning to slide 8. Let me give some examples of how this quarter's results capture these priorities. In our legacy banking markets, we grew loans by 6% and deposits by 3% year-over-year, levels that substantially outpace economic expansion in these regions. This growth reflects the effectiveness of the execution of our differentiated approach.

In our newer geographies, where our business is much smaller, such as the Carolinas, our organic deposit and loan growth was substantial at 50% and 40% year-over-year. Our national commercial businesses also continued to provide substantial growth. As an example, our corporate and specialty banking delivered $11 billion of year-over-year loan growth and $9 billion of year-over-year deposit growth demonstrating the magnitude of the growth opportunity and the advantages of our ecosystem-based approach and deep industry expertise. The investments we've made in our value-added fee services also continue to pay off. Our debt and equity capital markets businesses, which have only just achieved full staffing and scale, grew revenues 35% year-to-date. In Wealth, our focus on household acquisition and the expansion of our private banking and high net worth capabilities has generated a 28% growth in net flows.

In payments, we continue to provide capabilities to our corporate customer base, helping to drive our treasury management revenue growth of 42% year-over-year. We have maintained disciplined balance sheet growth in line with our aggregate moderate to low risk appetite. Our securities portfolio has an average duration of 3.3 years, a decrease of 21% from the prior year, enabling us to protect our capital position in a rising rate environment. Our credit losses remain low, with year-to-date net charge-offs of 27 basis points, and our liquidity coverage remains robust, with an unmodified LCR ratio of 111%. We delivered these outcomes while sustaining flat core operating expenses on a sequential basis, with a similar expectation for flat in Q4. Nonetheless, we continue to invest with our total investment dollars up 25% year-over-year, including meaningful increases in technology and marketing.

In summary, customer acquisition and relationship deepening continue to drive sustainable growth and attractive risk-adjusted returns. Now let me turn it over to Zach to walk you through the financial performance for the period.

Thank you, Brant, and good morning, everyone. Our third quarter results reflect continued execution against the strategic priorities Brant just outlined and the expected financial outlook we provided in September. Let's review the principal drivers in more detail on the following slides. Turning to slide 9. Loan activity was led by commercial categories and overall origination volumes improved as the quarter progressed, consistent with the comments we made in September. As a result, period end loan balances increased 1.1%, while on an average basis, loans were lower by 0.4% from the prior period. Expanding on the trends for a moment, the growth was driven by C&I lending, with strong contributions from corporate and specialty banking, asset finance, and middle market banking. These gains were partially offset by lower balances in commercial real estate, auto loans, and residential mortgages.

We also saw a normal seasonal decline in distribution finance balances. We remained disciplined in our underwriting criteria and pricing, which reduced near-term production but supported growth in relationships that met our risk-adjusted return hurdles. Customer demand appears solid across the broader bank, and we expect sequential growth in the fourth quarter. Turning to slide 10. Average deposits increased approximately $500 million, or 0.2%. On an end-of-period basis, deposit growth approximately equaled loan growth, consistent with our objective of core funding the balance sheet. Growth continued to be driven by customer acquisition and deepening of primary bank relationships. Consumer PBRs increased 4%, business banking PBRs increased 5%, and commercial PBRs increased 7% year-over-year. Our overall cost of deposits was 190 basis points, an increase of 2 basis points from the prior quarter. Importantly, the pace of deposit cost increases moderated significantly compared to the second quarter.

Continued balance sheet optimization efforts helped improve our funding mix and offset impacts from the higher rate environment. We remain focused on full relationship economics, growing core deposits, and managing pricing at the customer and local market level. These actions support profitable growth while maintaining our strong funding profile. Turning to slide 11. Net interest income was approximately $2.1 billion, increasing $18 million, or 0.9%, from the prior quarter, and 37% from the prior year. Net interest margin increased 4 basis points to 3.25%, reflecting higher asset yields, lower average Fed cash, as well as continued optimization of our interest-bearing liabilities. These benefits were partially offset by lower purchase accounting accretion, as we expected, and a modest hedge drag. We continued to optimize funding mix and liquidity across the bank, contributing to improved margin performance and supporting NIM expansion during the quarter, as we had previously guided.

Looking ahead, we expect net interest margin to remain relatively stable into the fourth quarter. Turning to slide 12. Our strong fee revenue performed in line with the expectations we outlined in September and remains an important source of diversified capital-light earnings growth. Value-added fee revenues increased more than 15% year-over-year on a reported basis, inclusive of the Veritex and Cadence partnerships. Sustained investments to build capabilities in our core areas of fee growth are driving substantial underlying momentum in the key drivers of long-term growth. As you can see from the metrics on the right side of the slide. We are seeing increased treasury management penetration, growth in card payment volumes, increased merchant services adoption, expanding wealth relationships, and higher capital markets engagement. At the same time, we are deepening existing relationships and winning larger fee opportunities across the bank.

We remain focused on driving fee growth that outpaces balance sheet growth and increases the mix of fee revenues over time. Moving to expenses on slide 13. Non-interest expense was $1.7 billion, essentially flat on a linked-quarter basis while delivering 120 basis points of positive operating leverage on a trailing four-quarter basis. We completed the Cadence expense synergy actions during the quarter with the full run rate benefit beginning in the fourth quarter. We are also executing our expense reengineering initiatives across the bank, and we expect to reengineer approximately 1.5% of our baseline expenses this year, creating additional capacity to invest in growth while delivering strong operating leverage. Looking ahead, we expect to deliver equal to or greater than 100 basis points of positive operating leverage in 2026 on a full-year basis. Turning to slide 14. Our capital management priorities remain unchanged.

Our top priority remains supporting high return organic growth. Next, we support a strong dividend yield. Finally, we deploy excess capital where it creates the greatest value for shareholders, including our programmatic share repurchase program. Reported CET1 ended the quarter at 10.1%. Adjusted CET1 was 8.9%. Capital generation remains strong and continues to support growth, investment, and shareholder returns. Year to date, we've repurchased approximately $460 million of common stock, including $100 million during the third quarter and $50 million thus far in Q4. Tangible book value per share was $9.47, representing a 10% compound annual growth rate over the past three years and reflecting strong value creation. We continue to expect Basel III implementation to be favorable to our capital position and currently estimate approximately 70 to 80 basis points of additional CET1 through risk-weighted asset relief.

Taken together, these factors provide additional capital flexibility while supporting growth in shareholder returns. Slide 15 summarizes how disciplined management of growth, expenses, capital, and integration execution create shareholder value. Importantly, our underlying earnings power drove 7% tangible book value per share growth in Q3 before shareholder distributions. That performance enabled us to sustain a 4% plus dividend yield and repurchase 6 million shares during the quarter. The business continues to generate very strong returns on capital. Adjusted return on tangible common equity was 16.6% for the quarter and 16.5% on a trailing four-quarter basis. We continue to expect ROTCE to trend to the 17%-18% range in 2027 and to 18% plus over the longer term. Turning to slide 16. Credit performance, including delinquency and criticized classification, was consistent with our expectations.

Net charge-offs were 31 basis points, an increase of 6 basis points from the prior quarter, primarily reflecting one idiosyncratic commercial credit charge-off. We continue to expect full-year net charge-offs to finish near the low end of our 25-35 basis point guidance range. The allowance for credit losses ended the quarter at 1.75%, providing strong coverage relative to projected charge-offs. Criticized assets increased to 4.26% from 4.18% in the prior quarter and have remained relatively stable over the past four quarters as we continue to risk rate and actively manage the acquired portfolios. The non-performing asset ratio increased to 90 basis points from 85 basis points. As we stated last quarter, NPAs are elevated due to increases in government guaranteed loan categories, which have very low loss content.

Our disciplined underwriting standards, portfolio management efforts, and aggregate moderate to low risk appetite continue to position us well to sustain top-tier credit performance over time. Turning to slide 17. This slide provides additional context for Huntington's reserve position. As noted, we maintain robust reserve coverage, and our reserve build has been one of the largest in the peer group over the past year. Taken together, these metrics reinforce our confidence in the strength of the balance sheet, the quality of the portfolio, and the adequacy of our reserve position, supported by a lower pace of loan growth and continued improvement in the portfolio mix, including the reduction of our CRE concentration. Turning to our guidance on slide 18. Given where we are in the year, I will provide some color on what we are expecting for Q4, which modestly influences a few of the line items of the full-year outlook.

Customer activity remains solid. Our value-added fee businesses continue to perform well, and partner cost and revenue synergies are being delivered as expected. Our loan growth remains on track to achieve about a 6% organic growth rate or approximately 36% on a reported basis. As I noted earlier, we expect NIM to be approximately flat in Q4. These two factors support our full-year NII growth expectation of approximately 35%. We remain focused on match funding our asset growth and optimizing our deposit mix. Based on the Q3 results, we now expect full-year deposit growth of about 32.5%. Fee income continues to be a powerful driver for us. We expect to generate fourth quarter fee revenue of approximately $750 million, plus or minus the normal variability around an estimate at this point in the quarter. This level indicates a full year growth rate of approximately 31%.

We are executing our expense reengineering initiatives while investing in high return growth opportunities across the bank. We expect core expenses to be flat in Q4 versus the Q3 level. Credit performance remains consistent with our expectations, with full year net charge-offs anticipated in a lower end of our 25-35 basis point guidance range. Looking ahead, we are tracking to our 2027 EPS guidance of $1.75 to $1.83. Concluding on slide 19. Our operating model represents a flywheel of value creation that enables us to drive strong earnings power and value over time. With that, we will conclude our prepared remarks and move to Q&A.

At this time, we will be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment please while we poll for questions. Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of Erika Najarian with UBS. Please proceed with your question.

Yes. Hi. Thank you for taking my question. Zach, I hope you feel better if you're listening. My first question is, thank you for ripping the proverbial Band-Aid off in terms of earlier resetting the guidance at a September conference. I guess, a two-part question because clearly the stock at $15 relative to the $1.75-$1.83 is less than 10 times. I think what the market is asking, what the question that investors have is in terms of that track 2027, number one, are we done with the cuts? Obviously, there's the economy and there's rates, but are we done with the cuts? Within that question, other than the rate path, what did you not quite get right when you first set the 2027 bogey?

Erika, thanks for the question. Steve, I'll start, and I'll turn it over shortly to Eric. First, we're quite confident in the earnings outlook. Eric will give you a couple of different ways to look at it in a minute. Second, in terms of what we didn't get right, I believe we're in a very, not believe. We're in a very different interest rate environment, very different inflation environment, and we're in a much different competitive environment. You've seen us pull back in a number of areas that we referenced in the second quarter call. I think Brant referenced indirect auto and home mortgage as two. When we came into the year, we talked about wanting to adjust our commercial real estate exposure over a couple of years. That's happening much faster than we would have projected, reflecting a competitive environment that is more significant this year than we've seen.

You're seeing it in deposit pricing and in other ways as well. But those would be the primary factors in terms of needing to make the adjustment we did at a recent conference. Eric, let me turn it to you in terms of layering in now the outlook for next year.

Sure. Thank you, Steve, and hello, Erika. I think just to pick up on the tail end of Steve's comments. Coming into the year, the expectation I think was for rate cuts, and it was looking at that point as to be a very benign kind of competitive environment. What you've seen is now the opposite. You've seen rate hikes and a real intensification around competition in a few ways. Certainly, that's the environment that we're extrapolating into next year. We expect no diminution in the overall competitive environment. That characterizes how we're thinking about our guidance from here. Maybe just to do sort of a mathematical bridge. If I look at the consensus for this year, it looks like it's about $1.54, and for next year, it's $1.76. That's a 22-cent delta. How do we bridge the 22 cents?

I think there's effectively three components to that. The first is we expect to realize about $150 million of incremental cost synergies as we anniversary the run rate benefits that we've achieved in terms of the Cadence synergies late this year. That's about $0.06 of delta. Our share repurchase program is about $0.02. If I take 22 less 8, that gets me to $0.14 of core earnings growth on a basis of $1.54. That's about an 8%-9% growth rate which is eminently achievable for us certainly relative to our history. Maybe one way to pressure test that, Erika, might be to look at the low end of the guidance next year and see if that still hangs together. What are we saying? We're saying 6% loan growth, which we're tracking to currently and expect to continue, and flat NIMs.

Plus a percentage point or two of fee income generation would get you to revs of 7%, 8%, an operating leverage of 300 basis points. If you back out the 150 that I just mentioned and just take the low end of our secular expectation of 100 basis points, you're looking at PPNR growth, we think next year, of 9%-10%. We feel very confident about delivering the 175 to 183 next year.

Erika, thanks for the question. I'm sure it was on the minds of most.

Thank you. Eric, that was a good bridge. A follow-up question maybe for both Steve and Brant. On the CRE side, were there just deals and relationships in your new markets that didn't quite pass the Huntington test in terms of the pressure from this, or was it the rate environment? As we think about the PPNR growth of 9%-10%, did you pressure test that against your conservatism vis-a-vis how you think of growth?

The answer is yes to the second question. There was a fair amount of refinance activity, as you suggested, tied to a rate expectation. So we saw a fair amount of flow, frankly, much more than we expected in the month of July and August into Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Some of it went to debt funds. I would characterize that as loans that would be a low pass or criticized on the CRE side. So the debt funds were offering more flexibility than the perceived posture of us. But most of it went to Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. The new partnerships, the majority of it came out of the existing franchise. Again, a good rate hike anticipation and an opportunity to lock in, particularly the Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae stuff at that time. Now, going forward with rates up, the activity will slow, and that's in our expectation and outlook for 2027.

The area we've been most focused on is the amount of construction commitments, and that significantly reduced during the quarter to about 8% for commercial real estate construction commitments. So over the course of the next couple of years, those commitments will continue, but at a much more modest level, and we'll manage it on that basis. We see this is just a risk management strategy on our part.

Our next question comes from the line of Jon Arfstrom with RBC. Please proceed with your question.

Hey, good morning. Just a follow-up on some of these comments about lending, Steve. You are flagging a more competitive, less rational environment. What changes that in your view? You are lagging the H.8 data a little bit. I am assuming you are not happy with that. What in your mind is the right pace of loan growth for your company, given all the new markets?

Well, Brant had come into this too, giving us new responsibilities. We are long-term in our approach, and we are going to maintain our aggregate moderate to low risk appetite. We have all been talking about a K-shaped economy that is getting more stressed with rising rates and an expectation of further rate rises. Our own view, at least my view, is that rates are going to stay up for a while at higher levels. With that will put pressure on pricing commercial real estate and elsewhere. That will have, over time, a ramping effect. I do not know when that may occur, but having been around this for four and a half decades, I am a little more cautious perhaps than some of my peers at this moment. I do not see a tipping point.

I don't think this is a 2026, 2027 event, but there's just so much volatility in the markets today. I don't recall the amount of challenges that we're seeing globally at any time in my career. Naturally, we're going to be sensitive to that in terms of how much volume we want to add. Additionally, with the competition, we're just seeing areas where we're just not getting risk-adjusted returns and rather have capital and return it to shareholders than put it out at what we think would be very low returns, in some cases not even meeting our minimum expectations. John, I'm not calling for a downturn, but just trying to be cautious as we tighten up here with 17 years of recovery behind us. Brant, what do you want to add to that?

Yeah. John, I would just add a couple of things. One, to reiterate Steve's point. Auto and specifically resi are two places that margins have gotten much tighter. Obviously in the case of resi, demand a little lower because of interest rates. But our pullback really reflects more of capital allocation discipline versus a change in the ultimate business.

Just from a Q3 perspective, I would say loan balances were pretty much as we said and as we expected. But we're also still tracking towards our guide for the full year 2026, which as you know would imply a strong fourth quarter. You see the momentum for that strong fourth quarter in the end of period balances at the end of the quarter. Pipelines remain strong. In fact, in a number of our commercial businesses, the largest pipelines we've seen. We feel confident about our ability to grow into the fourth quarter and also achieve the guidance that we've outlined for growth in 2027. We are assuming that those competitive pressures that we're feeling in those two businesses continue into 2027. Should that change and should that become more attractive, then we have obviously upside opportunity there.

But we're assuming that that will continue for the full year next year.

Right. Okay. I guess the follow-up on that, I think what you're saying is it's just a competitive issue, it's not a credit issue. Steve, you're not seeing anything from a credit point of view that's going to change your appetite. Is that fair?

That's correct, John. We're making a strategic credit capital allocation in terms of commercial real estate, and to adjust here, which we expect to continue to do over time. But the other businesses are doing very well. In terms of both real estate and indirect auto lending, that's just pricing and return, the capital allocation issue Brant referenced. We don't change our underwriting. We haven't changed it in 17 years. You see the quarterly stats on the consumer side. So if it gets back to where the returns are adequate, then we'll open it up.

Our next question comes from the line of Ken Usdin with Autonomous Research. Please proceed with your question.

Hey, thanks. Good morning. Just a follow-up on the bridge to-

I am good, thanks. I am good. Just another follow-up on the Bridge to 2027. Just because there is a gap in belief between the PPNR and the EPS. It is hard to look this far out, but since you did on the walk, what does your outlook for credit look like in that? And maybe even just help us with tax rate and could the buybacks be bigger even than what you have outlined as your expectation? Thanks.

Ken, this is Brendan Lawlor. I will start with the credit outlook and Eric Wasserstrom can chip in at the end here. We continue to feel very confident in both the construct and our execution around the credit portfolio. We have had very stable and strong performance for the last year. Through 9 months this year, we are at 27 basis points of charge-offs in the low end of our guided range, and we feel really good about the overall composition of the portfolio, and we expect that to continue into 2027. Where I sit today, I think credit is a very stable part of the portfolio and feel pretty good about how that sets us up for 2027. Eric, do you have anything?

I think, Ken, you are very politely asking whether reserve release is part of our story for next year. Let us just say unambiguously, that it does not contemplate any reserve release in 2027. I think our expectation is that we will be building reserves as our portfolio grows.

Yep. Okay. Should we just expect similar tax rate to continue? You guys have articulated the buyback, so I assume that that is the path that you would expect to continue on.

Yeah. Tax rate, no anticipated changes to our statutory, for sure. In terms of share repurchases, our expectation is that between this year and next year, to carry out a repurchase program of about $1.8 billion-$1.9 billion. You saw us do the $100 million in the third. We have done 50 so far in the fourth. It is our goal to continue to execute against that plan while also accreting capital higher as based largely on our very attractive return profile, which is nearly a 17% ROTCE.

Our next question comes from the line of John Pancari with Evercore ISI. Please proceed with your question.

I appreciate all the discussion around competition and everything. Maybe if you could talk about what's that interpreted on the personnel side. Maybe if you could update us on the banker retention of the Texas acquisitions and relationship retention and competitive pressures there. Have you been able to retain the bankers that you anticipated now that you've integrated the deals, or has that impacted at all your pricing strategy in those markets?

John, this is Brant. I'll take that question. First of all, I would say as it relates to retention of both customers and bankers, it's within the expectations that we set at the beginning of this. One of the things that we put a tremendous amount of focus on during the process leading up to the announcement was the identification of the leadership and the retention of the leadership. In fact, as we've described, we were able to bring several hundred leaders under the tent before the announcement so that they were sure about what their future looked like, and we were intentional about how to approach retention of those individuals. I would say we've been very successful at retaining the top leadership within the Cadence organization. Then that's translated to achieving our expectations from a banker perspective.

As it relates to customers, anytime you go through this, there are obviously going to be customers that may not fit the new organization. But none of that has been outside of our appetite. We continue to see really significant opportunity in these new markets. In fact, at Barclays, we shared that our expectations for revenue synergies were actually higher than what we had originally committed. In short, John, we're feeling positive about where we are and very, very optimistic about the opportunities that these markets present to the company.

John, we're continuing to invest and build out capabilities in a variety of these markets and in different business lines. Brant, do you want to pick up on that in terms of some of the wealth and commercial capital markets?

Yeah, absolutely. John, you go back to your question about pricing and how do we think about it. One of the biggest revenue synergies is just the optimization of the Cadence deposit portfolio. We continue to be in line with our expectations there. As you saw in our relative performance from a deposit perspective, I think our results this quarter reflect the opportunity that that has presented. As it relates to the revenue synergies, bringing other capabilities of the company into these new markets is still a big opportunity. So whether that is in the payments area, where you saw from our prepared remarks, we continue to have very strong growth and specifically very strong commercial growth, or whether that's in wealth management, where we continue to experience growth, not just in the new franchise, but in the core franchise. That is still an opportunity.

We are adding resources as we speak in those markets. In our capital markets business, the capabilities that we bring to the table for the new Cadence customer base is substantial, and that business overall is doing quite well. First and second quarter were both record quarters. If you look at the year-over-year performance in the capital markets business, it's very strong. As I said, we're very optimistic about our opportunity across really the South and Texas and what this partnership presents for us.

John, we expect to continue to invest, add to the teams, build further our capabilities to deliver locally in Texas and the South as we go forward. We've had some great recruiting throughout the year, particularly on the commercial side and wealth businesses. We'll continue that amongst the various businesses through 2027 and probably beyond.

Okay, great. Thanks for that. I appreciate all the detail. On the funding side, I know in the prepared remarks, noted that the pace of deposit cost increases have moderated significantly recently. Maybe just give a little bit of color on what you're seeing and across what products and maybe help us with an updated deposit cost outlook and maybe how you're thinking about the deposit beta as you look into the next several Fed actions. Thanks.

Yeah. John, I'll start with that, and then Eric can pick up on the beta component. First of all, just from a competitive environment related to funding and deposits, I would say it's relatively stable since September. It's still very competitive, but we believe rational. We look at deposit pricing across more than 50 rate regions, and we continue to optimize the pricing market by market. Where we have seen more pressure is really on CD pricing. We're seeing some aggressive action in CD pricing. If you look at pricing across our different geographies, I'd say overall, the Midwest is still the most competitive market we're in. If you just look at pure cost of a new deposit dollar, but more competitive really in MMA. We're seeing some pressure in Texas and the Southeast from a CD perspective.

We continue to think about pricing at both the market level, a product level, a customer level, and the opportunity I mentioned earlier on continuing to optimize the Cadence portfolio. Our focus has been and will continue to be on generating new primary checking households. The vast majority of our deposit production actually comes from those checking households. Then clearly adding checking households adds to the non-interest-bearing component of our deposit base. We are seeing some excellent success. As we have introduced digital across the Southeast and Texas, we actually see total production of checking households year-over-year up 35% for the company. That is comparing the Huntington history, the Veritex history, and the Cadence history to us. I would also share, and you saw this on page 8 of our deck, what we are seeing with growth in the deposit verticals.

As we built out specialty in the commercial businesses, we are still seeing really strong growth in our commercial deposit verticals, which provide another opportunity. Then lastly, just deposit balance production overall, business and consumer for the company because of the addition of the new geographies up 26% year-over-year. The new geographies, the new capabilities in commercial, the opportunity that we have to optimize in the Cadence footprint combined with that long-term focus on primary households give us confidence really as we go forward from a funding perspective.

John, just to pick up on Brant's comments there. Of course, our overall objective is to core fund the organization, and you saw that this quarter with loan growth of about $2 billion and deposit growth of $2.2 billion. So really achieving the strategic objective of core funding. As it relates specifically to beta, as I indicated, we are not anticipating any form of abatement in the competitive environment. So embedded in our expectation is a beta of around 50%-60%. I guess the question is, how well grounded is that expectation? I would say there are a few things that give us some view that that is a well pressure tested figure. First, of course, it is in fact what we are experiencing in the marketplace currently at this very high level of rational, but high level of competitive intensity.

Secondly, intuitively, you would anticipate that that would be higher than prior up cycles. So when we look back at the last up cycle, which was 2022-2024, our up beta was around 45%. So that does seem to substantiate that 50 to 60 is well-grounded in a different and more competitive environment. Then lastly, of course, I was very interested to understand where we were relative to our peer set. Most of our peers, either in their discussion on their quarter or when I did the arithmetic on their numbers, generally look to be around 40%-60%. I would anticipate that we would be at the higher end of the range, given the specific complexion of our deposit base. The net net of that is that we feel that 60 is a very well-grounded figure.

Our next question comes from the line of Manan Gosalia with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed with your question.

All right. Yeah, I wanted to dig in a little bit more on the resiliency of the C&I loans. As you think about the demand from here and what might happen as rates rise further, where do you expect the demand to come from and where do you expect the growth to come from? Is it more from new geographies and new hires and share gains? Or is there also better demand coming because of AI, even though rates might move higher from here?

Yeah, Manan, this is Brant. I'll take that question. First of all, just from an environment perspective, I would say the environment for commercial customers is still constructive. We see strong engagement from our customers. Their outlook is generally positive heading into 2026 and 2027. We're still seeing customers pursue growth opportunities. We're still seeing customers execute on a number of strategic initiatives. And I would say CapEx spending is still strong. As a result of that, our pipelines are still healthy, well-diversified, and frankly, just given a number of the factors, some of the strongest that we've seen. As I stated earlier in John's question, you see that in the growth in the period balances and the momentum that we're carrying into the fourth quarter. As it relates to your question of where does that come from in the future?

Is it geography or is it new verticals? Where is it? It is really both. That is the beauty of the opportunity that we have in front of us is that we have multiple potential growth levers. That gives us the flexibility to pull back in businesses like auto and resi, where the yields are not as we would like, and still grow the balance sheet at a level that is very acceptable. We still have a lot of opportunity both in our core footprint where we are growing, and you saw, and also in the new geographies with what I would call our core geographic banking model. Then we have the expansion of a national commercial bank that is in its early innings still. We have a number of our specialty verticals that are really beginning to gain traction.

You see that in the growth that we outlined year-over-year, and we expect that to continue. Given the number of broad-based opportunities we have, that is how we feel confident in our ability to continue to grow at the guidance that we provided.

Manan, I will just add we are the third or fourth largest bank equipment finance company. The Build Back Better has accelerated depreciation and other tax attributes that are inducing investment, and we are just very well positioned to pick up on that on the equipment finance side. Our asset finance business is looking very good and strong going into the fourth quarter, as it has historically.

Got it. Very helpful. Maybe just to follow up on the NIM side. You spoke about all the benefits you have on the deposit side. The curve is better, so you should be getting some more backlog repricing as well, and you are getting strong loan growth. I guess you spoke about stable NIM, but is there a higher likelihood of NIM expanding from here given that rates are moving higher and the long end of the curve is up?

Yeah. Thanks, Manan. It's Eric. I would say that we're definitely anchoring our expectations in stable NIM. We are, to your point, modestly asset sensitive. That does benefit us in an environment like the current one where you're seeing steepening. I think as we think ahead, we expect fairly significant benefit from fixed asset repricing. But to the conversation that we just had, I think we're also taking a very conservative posture as it relates to our expectations around deposit costs. Deposit costs we are addressing both through all of the mechanisms that Brant has described, as well as the optimization that we're doing across the Cadence footprint, which of course, is one of the opportunities that we identified at the time of that partnership.

I think really to the extent that there's upside, it's going to be a function of the shape of the curve and the changes in the competitive environment. But those are not our baseline expectation, so we mean anchored to a flat outlook from here at a level that, relative to our history is very robust, 3.25.

Our next question comes from the line of Scott Siefers with TD Cowen. Please proceed with your question.

Thanks for taking the question. Hey. I definitely appreciate you guys addressing all these topics on the competitive environment. I guess I'd say it looks like based on what we see in the third quarter numbers specifically and some of the discussion here this morning, you're kind of having some success resolving those concerns. But one of the most frequent things I hear is there's just sort of some skepticism around the competitive argument, given that others seem to be impacted much less so than you all, with kind of the exception being how much faster you all have grown in the last couple of years.

I guess just at a very top level or philosophically, in light of all you've said and what we can start to see in the numbers, can you sort of level set where Huntington strives to play from here as either leader, middle of the pack, or laggard on pricing, both on loans and deposits?

Scott, I can start with that. What we want to do with our customers is exchange value for value. That's how we would ultimately think about it. We obviously look at the decisions that we make from a deposit perspective and how we optimize funding within the company with the objective of creating the appropriate NIM and funding costs for the company. But we also look at that from the perspective of the value of an overall relationship of the customers that that represents. As it relates to asset pricing, we are very conscious of using the capital appropriately. And where we find that we can't achieve an appropriate return on our capital, we've chosen to take less volume. And that's ultimately what you've seen happen over the course of the last six months, specifically in auto and to a lesser degree in resi mortgage.

We want to create returns and ultimately a return on tangible at the levels that we've described and being disciplined about how we price deposits and funding, and then being disciplined about how we allocate capital on the asset side of the sheet is an important part of that equation.

Huntington Bancshares (HBAN) Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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