Discover Financial Services Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
October 19, 2023

There are 14 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good morning. My name is Chelsea, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the 3rd Quarter 20 23 Discover Financial Services Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. 12.

Operator

After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer session. Thank you. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Eric Wasserstrom, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Chelsea, and welcome to this morning's call. I'll begin on Slide 2 of our earnings presentation, which you can find in the Financial section of our Investor Relations website, investorrelations. Discover.com. Our discussion today contains certain forward looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially. Our call today will include remarks from our Interim CEO, John Owen and John Green, our Chief Financial Officer.

Speaker 1

After we conclude our formal comments, there will be time for a question and answer session. During the Q and A session, you will be permitted to ask one question Q3. Now it's my pleasure to turn the call over to John. Q3.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Eric, and thanks to our listeners for joining today's call. As I shared a few months ago, I had 3 priorities in my role as Interim CEO. 1st has continued delivering a great customer experience at every touch point, which we do by providing our customers award winning service and products. 2nd. At the heart of this is a team of more than 20,000 employees connected by common values and a shared mission to help people achieve a brighter financial future.

Speaker 2

2nd priority is to advance our culture of compliance. We've made significant strides in this area. By now, you've all had the opportunity To review the consent order issued by the FDIC in September, consistent with the terms of this consent order, We have made meaningful investments in improving our corporate governance and enterprise risk management capabilities and expect to drive further enhancements across the organization In the coming quarters, we have also started the process of engaging with our merchant partners on the card misclassification issue, eighteen. We remain in active dialogue with our regulators on this topic. The resolution of this issue is likely to be complex We anticipate it will take several quarters fully resolved.

Speaker 2

Our third priority is to sustain our strong financial performance. In the Q3, revenue was up 17% year over year driven by strong asset growth, while credit losses continued to perform 2nd quarter. In addition, we are off to a strong start with the launch of our cash back debit product. We continue to believe that this product We'll be an important channel to welcome many new customers into our company. To highlight the Discover experience and support our brand and banking products, We're proud to have just introduced a new national advertising campaign featuring celebrity spokesperson, Jennifer Coolidge.

Speaker 2

2. As we continue to advance our priorities, we are focused on preserving, enhancing the elements to make Discover a great place to work. Last month, 2019. Before handing the call off to John Green, I'll briefly comment on the CEO search. The Board is considering several excellent candidates, both internal and external.

Speaker 2

We remain confident that we will identify the next outstanding leader for this organization In the coming months, in summary, we continue to target excellence in all parts of our business, driving sustainable long term financial performance. Eighteen. I'll now hand the call off to John to review our results in more detail.

Speaker 3

Thank you, John, and good morning, everyone. I'll start with our financial summary results on Slide 4. 2. In this quarter, we reported net income of $683,000,000 down from just over $1,000,000,000 in the prior year quarter. Nineteen.

Speaker 3

Provision expense grew by $929,000,000 reflecting an increase in reserves and charge offs, Strong loan growth along with changing macroeconomic and household liquidity conditions drove the increase to our reserve balance. Charge offs increased due to portfolio seasoning and remain in line with expectations. Revenue grew 17%, Deposits grew 23% and expenses increased 6% year over year. Further details are reflected on Slide 5. 2.

Speaker 3

Net interest income was up $479,000,000 year over year or 17%. Our net interest margin ended the quarter at 10.95 percent, down 10 basis points from the prior year and down 11 basis points sequentially. This decrease was driven by higher funding costs, but remains just under 200 basis points above 2019 levels. Sales volume was relatively flat for the quarter. Personal loans were up 25%, driven by strength in originations over the past year and lower payment rates.

Speaker 3

We continue to experience strong consumer demand,

Speaker 2

2nd quarter. While staying disciplined in

Speaker 3

our underwriting, student loans were up 1%. Deposit growth in the quarter was solid with average consumer deposits up 23% year over year and 4% sequentially, our direct to consumer balances grew $4,000,000,000 eighteen. Looking at other revenue on slide 6, non interest income increased $97,000,000 or 16%. This was primarily driven by higher transaction processing revenue from our Pulse business, an increase in loan fee income and strong 2 net discount and interchange revenue. Moving to expenses on Slide 7.

Speaker 3

Total operating expenses were up 86 $1,000,000 or 6% year over year and up 4% from the prior quarter. This increase is driven primarily by investments in our and is reflected across several of our expense line items. Looking at our major expense categories, Sizing expense was driven by software licensing renewals. Professional fees reflect an increase in third party support as we focus on accelerating our compliance 10 and risk management efforts. Moving to credit performance on Slide 8.

Speaker 3

Total net charge offs were 3.52%, 81 basis points higher than the prior year and up 30 basis points from the prior quarter. In card, We continue to see the effects of seasoning of newer accounts, which have higher delinquency rates than older vintages. Losses remain consistent with targeted ranges. These newer vintages support strong long term profitability. Turning to the allowance for credit losses on Slide 9.

Speaker 3

This quarter, we increased our reserves by $601,000,000 A modest deteriorating macroeconomic outlook, increasing delinquencies and higher loan balances. 2. Our macro assumptions reflect a relatively strong labor market, but also consumer headwinds from declining savings rates eighteen and increasing debt burdens. Looking at Slide 10, our common equity Tier 1 for the period was 11.6%. Quarter.

Speaker 3

The sequential decline of 10 basis points was driven largely by our strong organic asset growth. We declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.70 2nd quarter. Concluding on Slide 11 with our outlook, we now expect our loan growth to be in the mid teens as declining payment rates 2nd quarter. There is no change to our NIM expectations to be approximately 11% for the full year. Expected range for net charge offs to be between 3.4% and 3.6% for the year.

Speaker 3

In conclusion, quarter. Our business fundamentals remain strong. We continue to generate solid financial results while building out our compliance and risk management capabilities 10. With that, I'll turn the call back to our operator to open the line for Q and A.

Operator

And we'll take our first question from Sanjay Sakhrani with KBW.

Speaker 4

2nd. Thanks. Good morning. Just wanted to get a little bit more on the reserve build. As we look ahead, John Green, could you just talk about like how we should think about that reserve rate increasing from here because Obviously, you made some adjustments, but you've said the credit numbers are performing pretty consistent with your expectations.

Speaker 4

So Is it a reflection on how you see things unfolding next year? Maybe you can just talk about the relation and how we should think about that reserve coverage on a go forward basis, assuming The unemployment assumptions don't change much.

Speaker 3

Yes. Thanks Sanjay. I appreciate the question. 2. So let me back up and just give a little bit of overview in terms of what happened in the quarter 2.

Speaker 3

And why we increased the reserve rate. So as we Took a look at the portfolio performance and the loan growth, obviously, we had to make a reserve build The other 50% or approximately $300,000,000 reflected our view on the macros. Now, while the unemployment numbers remain relatively in line and strong by historical standards, We are seeing some indications of stress. And if we go back 2, the pandemic and the learnings there. We found that certainly unemployment remains an important factor in terms of reserve, But there's other factors.

Speaker 3

And what we've done over the past year is try to build into those other factors into Our loss models and reserve models, and we've done that. So as we took a look at Household net worth and savings rate both have deteriorated and we're seeing, deterioration More specifically in lower FICO bands. So, we use those macro factors in order to captured loss content that we felt was appropriate from a reserving standpoint. 2. So as we look at reserve levels today and into the future, there's a couple of things that I'll say are just kind of general process items.

Speaker 3

First, it will be dependent on the macro views and whether they remain stable or Deteriorating. 2nd, certainly the portfolio performance will be a very, very important factor. And then 3rd will be the timing and trajectory of loss content. So As losses become closer in terms of our projection period, They're probability adjusted and therefore could increase reserve rate. Now, there's a lot of detail that I just provided.

Speaker 3

So let me give a view of our expectations. So first, The portfolio is performing generally well, although we are seeing mildly increased stress 2 at the lower FICO bands to mid FICO bands. We're also seeing that 2022 vintage performed 20. Slightly worse than 2021, 2023, although highly profitable. So, as we look forward to 24.

Speaker 3

We'll run our process and adjust the reserve As we deem most appropriate. An important piece will also be The charge off trajectory. So what we've said previously is we expect charge offs to peak sometime around the midpoint of the year to the second half of the year, if second half of twenty twenty four. So if we don't see a slowing in delinquency rates between now and Q1. Certainly, that could be an indication that We'll have to take incremental provisions.

Speaker 3

So a lot there, hopefully enough for you to be able to digest And move forward with.

Speaker 4

Yes. Thank you. That's great. And just under the banner of sort of regulatory stuff, Question number 1, it doesn't seem like there's a whole lot to update in terms of other actions. We obviously got the consent order.

Speaker 4

And then I saw in the perspective 2023. You still have a pause for the capital management piece, not any change to that. So could you just give us a sense How to think about that unpausing of the share repurchase. I know John Owen mentioned it might take several quarters to resolve the merchant issue. So Just trying to reconcile those comments.

Speaker 4

Thanks.

Speaker 3

Sure. Yes. I'll take that one too, Sanjay. So Let me first start out by saying our capital allocation priorities aren't changed. So invest in the business and return Excess Capital shareholders.

Speaker 3

That's very clear from our business model, our management team and our Board. The second piece to the answer relates to our 2nd. Continued work on the card tiering issue and other governance issues. So, we're making reasonably good progress on both of those. And what we'll do as part of our 2024 planning process is we'll make a recommendation to the Board regarding our capital actions and specifically, the buyback.

Speaker 3

And then we'll provide an update on our January call associated with our 4th quarter earnings.

Speaker 2

Let Let me just add a little bit to John's answer on kind of where we are from a regulatory standpoint. The FDIC consent order That was made public this month related really to findings from end of 2021 looking back. As we've said before, we've made significant investments in our risk management compliance capabilities over the last 18 months. From a spending standpoint, we've increased our spending from $225,000,000 in 2022 It's about $460,000,000 in 2023. What I would tell you is we've made good progress resolving many of our issues, We still have a significant amount of work to do before we're satisfied before we are.

Speaker 2

On the card misclassification issue, it's not part That FDIC consent order, that's a separate matter. And where we are on that, as we've mentioned before, we did have 2. And outside law firm completed an investigation on the card misclassification issue. That work is substantially complete at this point in time. We've shared that results of that with our Board of Directors and also with our regulators.

Speaker 2

And at this point in time, we're waiting feedback from regulators.

Speaker 1

2. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question will come from Bill Carcache with Wolfe Research. Your line is open.

Speaker 5

Thank you. Good morning. I wanted to follow-up on the reserve rate comments, John Green, you referenced several macro variables impacting the reserve and you also cited higher delinquencies, which Yes, our more idiosyncratic. Some investors are concerned that rising BQs may be A function of more than just seasoning. Maybe could you just help us with what your response would be 2, the concern that some investors have expressed that the outsized reserve build is a sign that Discover may have reached for growth too aggressively during the pandemic and is now Facing the consequences, perhaps what could ultimately end up being greater credit degradation in 2024 and possibly beyond, Particularly since we're still in an environment where the unemployment rate is 3.5%.

Speaker 3

Yes. Thanks, Bill. So let me go back 20. And be real clear about what happened at the second half 21 2022 in terms of originations. So second half of twenty twenty one, we resumed and we went back to twenty.

Speaker 3

Our traditional credit box. In the early part of 2022, we Continued with that traditional Discover credit box. We did do a test in marginal prime and near prime, Which we turned on, we saw the results and we turned off in the 2. 2nd quarter or early Q3 of 2022. So about 6 months of origination, Not dramatic volume by any means, but certainly a test was a good opportunity to learn to see if we could Captures some profitable share.

Speaker 3

What we found was those accounts weren't meeting our return of volatility thresholds. So they were shut down. The rest of the 2022 vintage was within the traditional credit box that 2023 remains there, other we're peeling back. I will say this, the 2022 vintage It was certainly outsized as a result of demand and great execution from our marketing team. The profitability of that still remains very, very strong in the short term, medium term and long term.

Speaker 3

So If we're going to do it all over again, at this point, we'd certainly answer definitively. Yes, we would continue to originate the loans that we put on the books. But the vintage is significantly larger than other vintages. So the natural loss content Of new originations is somewhere between 12 24 months and we expect that to play out. 20.

Speaker 3

And as I said, the delinquencies and charge offs to peak sometime in 2024. So I hope that is helpful in terms of giving a little bit of color in terms of The process we went through, our risk tolerance and what we expect to see from those vintages.

Speaker 5

Yes. That's helpful. Thanks, John. I appreciate that. If I could ask a follow-up of John Owen.

Speaker 5

Could you speak to The possibility of potentially, I guess, your overall interest level and potentially Are you more likely to hold off until the new CEO kind of comes on board, which you mentioned is probably in the next several months?

Speaker 2

Yes, happy to talk about that. As you know, we really can't speculate or talk about rumors or selling parts of the business. What I can tell you is part of our Strategic planning process that we do every year is to evaluate all of our businesses for returns and fit from a strategic standpoint. We do that as an annual process. We are going through that process as we speak.

Speaker 2

But again, that's something we do as part of our annual planning process.

Speaker 5

Thank you for taking my questions. Appreciate it.

Operator

Thank you. 2. Our next question will come from Ryan Nash with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Speaker 6

Hey, good morning guys.

Speaker 3

2. Good morning, Ryan.

Speaker 6

So, John, you reiterated the expense guidance for 2023, which is obviously a positive and I'm sure you're going through the budgeting process right now, but I guess based on what you know today regarding the consent order, the work that John Owen that you referenced, That you're doing, you've made substantial progress plus overall inflation. Any sense for what expense growth is going to look like Into 2024, maybe just talk about some of the moving pieces that you expect to drive the expense base next year?

Speaker 3

Twenty four. Sure. I'm not going to be real specific on 2024. We're still in the process of Building out the budget and we're yet to share our recommendation with the Board. But I can give you General kind of direction of what we're seeing.

Speaker 3

So, the first point I think is important to There is that, we continue to target our efficiency ratio to be below 40%. Now that's over the medium term. Obviously, our execution this year with the revenue growth And even with substantial investments in compliance and in other areas of the business, Shows an efficiency ratio significantly below 40%. But over the midterm, that's something I think investors can expect. The second piece that's important is that despite a significant amount of investment in risk eighteen compliance resources.

Speaker 3

We will continue To be disciplined in our allocation of expense dollars and we're focused on making sure that The expense dollars that we do spend either help us with our compliance and risk management programs overall 2nd quarter or generate positive earnings potential for the firm. So they're the focal point. In terms of some of the things where we continue to look at, we're looking at our facilities footprint. We expect to be able to continue to make some progress on that. Our 3rd party spend, We're scrutinizing significantly with the help of our procurement and vendor management teams.

Speaker 3

And we're going to continue to look at resource levels to make sure They're appropriate for the environment and what we're trying to execute on. So I hope that provides Some context, Ryan, on how we're thinking about the expense base in the aggregate and that'll translate into What we hope is a reasonably good set of expense and efficiency numbers into the future.

Speaker 6

Got it. Thanks for the color. And maybe the follow-up on some of Sanjay and Bill's questions. So if I think about the comments 2 that you and John made regarding the trajectory of the 2022 vintage, 2023 likely hasn't begun to season yet, inflation is weighing on consumers. Nineteen.

Speaker 6

Can you maybe just help us understand more broadly just thinking about how we should see the trajectory of delinquencies, meaning could we actually see The underperformance that we've experienced get worse as we sort of go through this next period of time given that you do have this really big vintage that's coming through. And 20. Any commentary on framing how much of this is seasoning and how much of the delinquency performance is seasoning of the book versus Actual underlying deterioration that you're seeing in the core customer base?

Speaker 3

Yes. A lot to parse there, Ryan. Nineteen. Let me start by kind of walking through what we're seeing in the portfolio. So We are seeing kind of differences in performance on customers that historically have been transactor versus revolver.

Speaker 3

So Our revolver base, we're seeing a more significant decrease in sales activity, which Makes sense, right, as they try to manage their household budget. We're seeing accounts that transacted 2021, 2020 2022 beginning to revolve more. So the revolve rate is back 2 where we were historically. And the 23 vintages early indications 2. It's performing very, very well.

Speaker 3

2022 is performing well, but not as well as 2023. So, my expectation is that delinquencies will slow in the first half of 24. If that doesn't happen, that's an indication that the stress that the consumers are seeing is more significant than what we're observing today. Thanks for the color, John.

Operator

Nineteen. Thank you. Our next question will come from John Hecht with Jefferies. Your line is open.

Speaker 7

Nineteen. Hey, guys. Thanks very much. Actually, most of my questions and in fact, just even the last question was exactly overlapping. So maybe I'll just quickly ask, Number 1 is maybe quick update on kind of the competitive environment, what kind of zero balance kind of transfer activity you're engaging in and other kind of factors that you would tie to competition, as kind of this credit environment maybe migrates a little bit.

Speaker 7

2. And then what are you guys on that front, what are you doing with respect to underwriting to account for some of these changes that you're seeing as well?

Speaker 3

Great. Yes, I'll take that. So the environment continues to be competitive From a card origination standpoint, we are seeing less competition 2nd. In kind of the lower FICO band. So remember, we're prime revolvers, so we're focused on prime customers and The lower tier of origination envelope is frankly less competitive.

Speaker 3

So We're careful as we're looking at that to make sure that Those folks seeking credit are worthy of credit and not going to turn into a subsequent charge off. The upper prime remains very, very competitive. The rewards competition, you can see it by the television ads, has certainly subsided significantly. So The market is always competitive. The competition It varies among various FICO bands and we're going to continue to compete and generate Positive new accounts, but we're also mindful of the credit situation.

Speaker 7

20. Great. Thank you guys very much.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question will come from Jeff Adelson with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.

Speaker 8

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I think last quarter you talked about maybe this getting pushed into 2025. Is there a risk that maybe the peak kind of plateaus at Or around those higher levels or do you think as your 2020 vintage kind of peaks out and starts Moderating in size, the losses and delinquencies should just naturally drift lower?

Speaker 3

Yes. I think It will peak and then upon its peak, I think it will stabilize up there for A few quarters, maybe 2 to 3 quarters and then we expect it to come down. That's all subject to Kind of the macro environment, obviously, but in terms of what we're seeing today, that's the expectation.

Speaker 8

And then just on the sales volumes, I know they were pretty flattish this quarter. Just wondering under the hood what's going on there? Is this representative of To be more of a slower growth in new accounts, is maybe your same store customer still growing 2. At a faster pace year over year and then just maybe thinking through the dynamic of faster network volumes, faster debit volumes, Anything going on there that's driving your debit and network volumes to reaccelerate versus your proprietary card volumes to slow?

Speaker 3

Yes. So let me start with sales. So what we're seeing is a 2nd quarter. So if you go back to the Q4 of 'twenty three, we're at about 10% year over year growth. 1st quarter was 8%, 2.5% in the second quarter And about 1% here in the Q3 and through mid October, about 1%.

Speaker 3

Interestingly enough, the dynamics are changing in terms of categories. So online spend is up around 4% to 5%. Everyday spend is up about 3%. That's largely inflation driven, we believe. And discretionary is flat to down with the exception of entertainment or entertainment related categories, which is up north of 20%, which is Hard for me to understand at this point, but we're trying to dig into details.

Speaker 3

In terms of implications for next year. We're going to assume relatively modest sales growth, Maybe slow in the lower single digits. The transaction revolver components of that, I mentioned that So more pullback on the revolver base. The other piece of your question is debit, yes, debit transactions. We've had great execution from our Pulse business.

Speaker 3

So we've expanded a number of contractual arrangements and also Debit choice routing has actually made a difference in the volume. Our Pulse team is executing well and appears to be capturing some share.

Speaker 8

2. Great. Thanks for taking my questions.

Speaker 3

You're welcome.

Operator

Thank you. 2. Our next question will come from Rick Shane with JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Speaker 9

Hey, look, you've cited a couple of things that are driving The increase in delinquencies, you've talked about seizing them vintage, you've talked about some exposure to lower FICO scores within the cohorts.

Speaker 3

At the

Speaker 9

same time, you guys are starting to apply a lot more machine learning to your portfolio and your process. I'm curious if you are identifying other factors that are contributing to the increase in delinquencies, whether it's Age demographic, geography, what might be Other factors that are contributing to this in the context of strong labor markets. And then the follow-up to that is, With that information, can you then apply different servicing strategies to enhance that performance?

Speaker 3

Yes. You're into the secret sauce of underwriting, Rick, but I'll give you a little bit of overview. So we spent a lot of time trying to revise or To update our models and we looked at No exaggeration, probably 300 different risk identifiers or risk litters. 2nd. And what we did find is savings rates are important, household net worth is important, The amount of credit on us, so on the credit report And Discover's balance sheet as well as the amount of credit off are Continue to be really, really important.

Speaker 3

And then also, there's some work being done on $1,000,000 cash flow underwriting because of some of the off bureau credit that we experienced or the whole market experienced 21 2022. So, we're going to continue to look to refine our models and See what we can do to identify accounts that are going to be highly profitable and originate those. In terms of the second Part of your question around servicing strategies, there's been a lot of work done on Best time to contact and we've got some machine learning models that are focused on that as well as best channel 2 contacts. So is it via phone, email, text or other means? All that work is ongoing and frankly, it will never stop.

Speaker 3

It will be continued refinement of the models so that We can collect effectively and originate profitably.

Speaker 9

Got it. Hey, John, it's very interesting, very helpful. Thank you.

Operator

2. Thank you. Our next question will come from Mihir Bhatia with Bank of America Merrill Lynch. 2. Your line is open.

Speaker 10

Good morning and thank you for taking my questions. To start, I wanted to actually ask about personal loans. 2nd quarter. Can you talk a little bit more about some of the drivers? I think I know you mentioned a little bit of payment rate pullback, What about from a competition standpoint, what's driving that?

Speaker 10

And then just related to that, to the comments you've been making about 2. On the credit card side, I wanted to understand if you're seeing any meaningful deterioration in credit there. Anything on the vintage do the vintage comments apply here? Anything like we should be thinking about there? Are you tightening underwriting currently in that personal loan space too?

Speaker 10

Yes. 20.

Speaker 3

Yes. Thanks, Maher. So our average ticket On a personal loan is significantly larger than many of our competitors. And The predominant share of the volume now is for debt consolidation efforts 2. And important to recognize that as part of our underwriting process, when there's a debt Consolidation customer, somewhere between 70% 80% of the disbursement goes to the creditors to ensure that the overall cost of debt That customer is lowered and therefore their ability to pay is high.

Speaker 3

So that's an important distinction. In terms of Growth, what we've seen is high level of demand, but also a reduction in the payment rate. And that reduction in the payment rate has also been responsible for a Very significant chunk of the growth that we've seen in the quarter. In terms of kind of the performance there, It is what I'll say returning to more historical performance metrics, But again, highly profitable and you can see from the report or from the details in terms of delinquency rates. They remain very, very low relative to historical standards.

Speaker 10

Okay. That's helpful. Thank you. Maybe if I could just turn back a little for a second to the compliance issue question and the timing, etcetera. It sounds like from what you're saying related to the merchant mispricing issue, the outside law firm has completed the investigation.

Speaker 10

You've discussed results with regulators already. So I think a lot of what a lot of people are just trying to understand is what needs to happen for the buybacks to resume. Nineteen. I understand it's difficult to put a specific date out there, but is the overall message it's going to take several quarters for those to resume? Maybe just help us understand what needs to happen here for you to get comfortable.

Speaker 10

And again, like I understand you don't want to put a specific time frame, but Is the right message that it's going to be several quarters more? Thanks.

Speaker 3

Yes. So, no specific timing on the resumption. 2. So what we want to do is have further dialogue with our merchants To ensure we're progressing the remediation and the negotiations, We also continue to have discussions with our regulatory agencies 2nd quarter. And we're looking to progress those.

Speaker 3

And we're also reviewing our capital positions, right? There's a number of pulls on capital this year. Certainly, the phenomenal loan growth that we've seen. We've got Basel Endgame that's on the horizon. We have the CECL phase in twenty.

Speaker 3

Also impacting capital levels. So we're going to take a look at the profitability for 2024, nineteen. Take a look at the progress we're making on the card tiering issue and overall Risk and Governance items and make a recommendation to the Board. So my I'll say my key summary here is that our capital priorities haven't changed. We're focused on Generating positive earnings to be able to invest in the business and return excess capital to shareholders.

Speaker 3

Our margin rates remain robust. Our return on equity this quarter and for the year remains really, really strong. So It's a matter of just making sure we've got the right balance between investing and return of capital.

Speaker 10

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question will come from Bob Napoli with William Blair. Your line is open.

Speaker 11

Thank you. Follow-up on return on equity. One of the questions we get, I mean, obviously, Discover has reported very strong ROE for a very long time. With the changes in regulations and potential capital changes, what are your thoughts on Discover Being able to generate the types of return on equity that we've seen over the last 15 years or so.

Speaker 3

Yes. Certainly, relative to kind of history And then going forward, a couple of important points. So we have operated with capital well above our operating target For the better part of, I don't know, at least as long as I've been here, 4 years now. And we are approaching the 10.5 percent target. I will say that our overall capital position Does remain very, very strong, right?

Speaker 3

So regulatory minimums 4.5%, the SCB 2.5%. So the required capital 7% and we're at 11.6% 2nd year on CET1 for the quarter. So, my expectation is we're going to manage the business to Continue to generate high returns and deliver a high level of return on equity overall and be able to invest in the business and return excess capital to shareholders. As we go out 3 to 5 years, it's a bit challenging to predict the regulatory regime and The expectations for institutions such as ours in terms of overall capital levels, but we're well positioned to generate Positive Capital and Return Capital.

Speaker 11

Thank you. I appreciate that. And then just On the overall, the long term growth of your business, your core customer, the TAM of your business and The ability for Discover to grow, I mean, I think historically, high single digit kind of loan growth And spending growth, what are your thoughts? Is the ability to grow at those types of rates What we should continue to expect and how does the cash back debit product maybe affect that growth?

Speaker 3

Yes. I mean, certainly our expectation is to continue to grow at least in line with

Speaker 12

The historical norms.

Speaker 3

The cash back debit product, we actually think Has a lot of power behind it. So the features of the product itself are super, right? So 1% cash back on debit transactions. We have a Positive kind of business impact from our ability to capture interchange, on those transactions. So that's positive.

Speaker 3

And then it's a whole new customer outlet for us. So executed well, it will bring in A new cohort of customers that we can then underwrite and cross sell to and Further help the customer experience in terms of meeting additional banking needs and Turn that checking product into a credit card relationship or perhaps a personal 20. So we're super excited about it.

Speaker 11

Thank you.

Operator

2. Thank you. Our next question will come from Kevin Barker with Piper Sandler. Your line is open.

Speaker 13

I just wanted to follow-up on some of the spending on tech, in particular, in the info processing line. Could you provide a little more detail on some of the projects that you have in place and whether you expect those to be ongoing or are there additional projects that you anticipate, Particularly around tech investment and other investments that you're making within the franchise. Thank you.

Speaker 11

Yes.

Speaker 3

We're a digital institution. So the first piece is, yes, we're going to continue to Invest in tech and advanced analytics to kind of help the customer experience and then also help us 2. Some of the specific projects That we're working on. So we've got a number of advanced analytics programs around collections And around originations in order to be able to kind of service the customers well and then target the right sort of customers. We also did a bunch of work last year and end of this year in terms of improving the closure rate of leads From a lead into a funded customer, whether it was a Savings or credit customer.

Speaker 3

This year, we're investing heavily in our heavily in our risk and compliance systems. So certainly, there's tech spend going on there. We also have tech spend related to our on prem servers and Moving to a hybrid and cloud environment, that's certainly a significant spend. 2. And then also, given the risk and compliance issues that we've seen historically, We're spending a lot of time taking a look at how our core systems work, the data that goes in and The data that comes out and what we do with the data and looking to kind of reduce the amount of manual touches to that data.

Speaker 3

So all of that is part of the reason or the reasons why we're seeing And information processing and tech spend overall increased this year.

Speaker 2

Two other areas I would call out. Around our fraud detection, we 2020. We continue to invest heavily in our fraud detection. That's ongoing battle every quarter, but we've made significant investments in fraud and continue to The second thing around our digital capabilities as a digital bank, we've got a very easy to use 2nd quarter. Very easy for customers to open up our cash back debit.

Speaker 2

And so we spent a lot of time and effort in

Speaker 13

2. Thank you for all that detail and just follow-up on your investment on enhancing recovery rates. Have you seen any particular shift in the recovery rates you have today or where they're trending relative to past cycles?

Speaker 3

No specific changes to recovery rates. We are seeing more customers Credit Assistance and Negotiate Settlements. There seems to be Cottage Industry developing around that. And that's back in this in I I think it was the month of July, we saw a chunk of charge offs come through as a result of settlements 2nd quarter. But overall recovery rates remain strong.

Speaker 3

The pool of charge offs to be able to capture recoveries from obviously is increasing as the charge offs increase. 2. That's actually part of our how we take a look at overall credit and reserving.

Speaker 10

20. Thank you, John. You're welcome.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question will come from Erika Najarian with UBS. Your line is open.

Speaker 12

Hi, good morning. This is Nick Holoco on for Erica. Thanks for taking our questions. Most of them have been answered, but just wanted to follow-up with one question on loan growth. So obviously, Card growth remains really robust and you raised your guidance to mid teens for the year.

Speaker 12

And I'm just wondering given the comments On the stress in the lower and mid FICO scores and then the delinquency trends and then your comments that The revolve rate has really normalized. I'm wondering if you can help us with which parts of the FICO band in your portfolio are Driving the loan growth and whether you're seeing any outsized contribution from those on the lower end?

Speaker 3

Yes. So No. What we're seeing is kind of loan build driven by 2 factors. So it's Somewhere between 30% 40% of the build is or the loan growth is from 2 new accounts and then the remainder is coming from payment rate normalization. So we're seeing kind of portfolio customers increasing their balances.

Speaker 3

So, and that normalization of payment rate It's pretty consistent on the upper bands to the call it to the The midpoint to the top 2 thirds of the portfolio. The bottom third, the payment rate normalized last year and we're seeing that At pretty close to historical levels, maybe a mild deterioration from that.

Speaker 12

2. Got it. Thank you for taking my question.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question will come from Dominic Gabrielli with Oppenheimer. Your line is open.

Speaker 7

Hey, thanks so much. Something sort of related to that. So if we just think about the year over year Spending growth, roughly 1%. I guess, what was the year over year growth in The number of cards or new accounts. And also what was the and just added to that, what is the benefit that Discover saw to spending in the quarter related to gas on the growth.

Speaker 7

And then I just have a follow-up. Thanks.

Speaker 3

22. Yes. So we grew and we made public comments on this. In 2022, We grew accounts about 20% Overall, this year as we've taken a look at kind of the credit performance, We're on pace to kind of originate about the same number of overall accounts. So the growth In terms of new accounts, we'll be relatively flat, but the new account generation will be pretty consistent year over year.

Speaker 3

That could change if we pair back credit here in the Q4 and into next year. In terms of gas, that was interesting. So gas was up 1% in the quarter. It was also 5% category. So when you adjust for kind of the deflationary impact, The usage there was or at least through our card was up over 10%.

Speaker 7

2. Okay, great. And then obviously you have a lot of student loans. You're one of the major players. We have the moratorium ending.

Speaker 7

I know that that doesn't affect you directly perhaps in your own loans because they're private loans. But what are you seeing in the data that you're watching of how this might be affecting either payment rates or Demand for private loans or refinancings, anything you can provide as far as how this affects The consumer that you're seeing in your data, only in 19 days or whatever, but anything you can provide would be really 12. Thank

Speaker 3

you. Yes. So we're not seeing anything in our data yet whatsoever. We did actually a 2 quarters ago, quantify what we thought the impact could be to our portfolio in terms of charge offs. 2.

Speaker 3

And as it turns out based on the executive order direction in terms of kind of the repayment structure The Biden administration is putting in place and making kind of payments levels associated or tied to income levels. We expect the impact on our portfolio to be de minimis. Now we'll see how it all Plays out legislatively, but we're not expecting a significant impact Certainly this year and we'll evaluate to see what happens and take a look at our data to Make a determination if it is going to have an adverse impact on our charge offs. But

Operator

1st for any additional or closing remarks.

Speaker 1

Well, thank you very much for joining us this morning. If you have any additional questions, please reach out to the IR team

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Earnings Conference Call
Discover Financial Services Q3 2023
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