Bank of America Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
April 18, 2023

There are 13 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Bank of America Earnings Announcement. At this time, I'd like to turn the program over to Lee McIntyre. Please go ahead, sir.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Catherine. Good morning. Welcome. Thank you for joining the call to review our Q1 results. I trust everybody has had chance to review our earnings release documents.

Speaker 1

They are available, including the earnings presentation that we'll be referring to during this call On the Investor Relations section of the bankofamerica.com website. I'm going to turn the call over to CEO, Brian Moynihan and Alistair Borthwick, our CFO to discuss the quarter. But before I do, let me just remind you that we may make forward looking statements And refer to non GAAP financial measures during this call. Our forward looking statements are based on management's current expectations and assumptions And subject to risks and uncertainties, factors that might cause those actual results to materially differ from those expectations Are detailed in our earnings materials and the SEC filings that are available on our website. Information about the non GAAP financial measures, including reconciliations to U.

Speaker 1

S. GAAP, can also be found in our earnings materials Those are available on our website. So with that, we'll turn it over to Brian. Thank you.

Speaker 2

Good morning and thank all of you for joining us. I'm starting on Slide 2 of the materials. Your company produced one of its highest core EPS Earnings numbers in a challenged operating environment in the Q1. Simply put, we navigate that environment well. The preparedness and strength of Bank of America And the trust of our clients reflects a decade long responsible growth model and relationship nature of our franchise.

Speaker 2

During quarter 1, importantly, organic growth engine continued to perform. Let me first Summarize some points and I'll turn it over to Alistair to take you through the details of the quarter. If you go to Slide 2 of the materials, Bank of America delivered strong earnings growing EPS 18% over Q1 'twenty two. Every business segment performed well. We grew clients and accounts organically and at a strong pace.

Speaker 2

We delivered our 7th straight quarter of operating leverage led by a 13% year over year revenue growth. We further strengthened our balance sheet With our CET1 ratio increasing to 11.4%, regulatory capital ended the highest nominal level in our history at $184,000,000,000 We maintained strong liquidity. We ended the quarter with more than $900,000,000,000 in global liquidity sources. We are in good returns for you as our shareholders with a return on tangible common equity of 17% and 107 basis points return on average assets. Tangent book value per share grew 9% year over year.

Speaker 2

We did this as the economy slowed. And remember, our research team continues to predict shallow recession that will occur beginning in the quarter 3 of 2023. The interesting we look at our consumer behavior payments by consumer continues to drive the U. S. We've seen debit and credit card spending at about 6% year over year growth pace, a little slower, but still healthy.

Speaker 2

Remember card spending represents less than a quarter of how consumers pay for things out of their accounts at Bank of America. Overall payments from our customers' accounts across all sources We're up 9% year over year for March as a month. Year to date, they're up about 8% for the quarter. After slowing the back half of 'twenty two a bit, we saw the pace of payments pick back up in quarter 1, especially in the latter parts of the quarter. Consumer's financial positions remains generally healthy.

Speaker 2

They're employed with generally higher wages, continue to have strong account balances And have good access to credit. As you think through all the tightening actions of the Fed, The flow is to alternative yielding assets investments and the disruption of past quarter. Our deposits continue to perform well ending the quarter at 1 point $91,000,000,000,000 If you think about it, that's about the same balance that we had in mid October of 2022. So we've seen these balances stabilize and remain 34% above they were prior to the pandemic. The team has managed well during these periods, so we're remaining focused on the things we can control to drive value through our franchise.

Speaker 2

I thank them for a very strong quarter, Near record earnings with strong returns. Let me turn the call over to Alistair to walk through the details of the quarter.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Brian. And I'll pick up on Slide 3 where we list some of the more detailed highlights of the quarter. And then on Slide 4, we present the summary income statement. I'm going to refer to both of these together. As Brian mentioned for the quarter, we generated $8,200,000,000 of net income And that resulted in $0.94 per diluted share.

Speaker 3

Our revenue grew 13% and that was led by a 25% improvement in net interest Income coupled with strong 9% growth in sales and trading results excluding DVA. Our non interest revenue was strong despite 3 headwinds. First, we had lower service charges as commercial clients paid lower fees For Treasury Services, since they now receive higher earned rates on balances, and obviously that allows us to invest those funds to earn NII. On consumer, we had lower NSF insufficient funds and overdraft fees as a result of our policy changes announced in late 2021. 2nd, we had lower asset management fees and that just reflects the lower equity market levels and fixed income market levels.

Speaker 3

And 3rd, investment banking fees were lower, just reflecting the continuation of sluggish industry activity and reduced fee pools. Now all that said, despite these headwinds, each of the fee categories saw modest improvement from the 4th quarter levels. Asset quality remained strong And provision expense for the quarter was $931,000,000 That consisted of $807,000,000 of net charge offs And $124,000,000 of reserve build. And that reserve build compares to a reserve release in the Q1 2022 Of $362,000,000 Our charge off rate was 32 basis points and still well below the Q4 of 2019 When our pre pandemic rate was 39 basis points and remember 2019 was a multi decade low, so credit Obviously remains quite strong. I want to make one other point on Slide 4, and that is simply to note that pretax pre provision income grew 27% year over year Compared to reported net income growth of 15%.

Speaker 3

So let's turn to the balance sheet that starts on Slide 5. And you can see during the quarter, our balance sheet increased $144,000,000,000 to 3,195,000,000,000 Brian noted our liquidity levels at the end of the period, those rose to more than $900,000,000,000 from December 31. That's $23,000,000,000 higher, and it remains $324,000,000,000 above our pre pandemic level in the Q4 of 'nineteen. Shareholders' equity increased $7,000,000,000 from the 4th quarter as earnings were only partially offset by capital distributed to shareholders, And we saw an improvement in AOCI of $3,000,000,000 due to lower long term interest rates. The AOCI included more than $500,000,000 increase from improved valuations of AFS debt securities and that flows through CET1.

Speaker 3

And the remaining $2,500,000,000 due to changes in cash flow hedges doesn't impact regulatory capital. During the quarter, we paid $1,800,000,000 in common dividends and we bought back $2,200,000,000 in shares. Turning to regulatory capital. Our CET1 level improved to $184,000,000,000 since December of 31, and our CET1 ratio improved 14 basis points to 11.4%. Once again adding to our buffer over our 10.4% current minimum requirement As well as the 10.9% minimum requirement that we'll see on January 1, twenty And we've returned $12,000,000,000 in capital to shareholders.

Speaker 3

CET1 capital improved $4,000,000,000 and that reflects the benefit of earnings And the AOCI improvement, partially offset by the capital we returned to shareholders. Our risk weighted assets increased modestly And that partially offset the benefit to the CET1 ratio of the higher capital we generated. And then our supplemental leverage ratio increased to 6%. That compares to a minimum requirement of 5% and leaves plenty of capacity for balance sheet growth And our TLAC ratio remains comfortably above our requirements. Now let's spend a minute on loan growth, and we'll do that by turning to Slide 6, You can see the average loans grew 7% year over year driven by commercial loans And credit card growth.

Speaker 3

The credit card growth reflects increased marketing. It reflects enhanced offers And higher levels of card account openings. The commercial growth across the past year Reflects the diversity of commercial activity across Global Banking and Global Markets and to some degree Global Wealth. And on a more near term linked quarter basis, loans grew at a much slower pace, partly driven by seasonal credit card pay downs after The Q4 holiday spending and then commercial demand slowed in Q1 and we saw some pay downs by our wealth management clients As they lowered leverage as rates rose. So let's turn to deposits and there's obviously been a lot of additional focus This quarter, so I want to spend extra time here, and I'm going to start with Slide 7 and talk about average deposits.

Speaker 3

Just a few points we need to make Before focusing on a more detailed discussion of the recent trends. Average total deposits for the Q1 were $1,800,000,000,000 That is down 2% linked quarter and down 7% year over year. Our deposits peaked in the Q4 of 2021 And even as the Fed has continued to withdraw money supply, our deposits have held around $1,900,000,000,000 because there's a lot more industry deposits today in a much Bigger economy today compared to pre pandemic. Our average deposits are up 34% compared to our pre pandemic Q4 'nineteen balance and the industry's deposits are up 31 percent to $17,400,000,000,000 So we've obviously fared a little bit better than the industry. We put our pre pandemic deposits for each line of business on the slide, so you can compare our balances then and now.

Speaker 3

I want to highlight consumer checking balances, which remain 53% higher than pre pandemic. And as I think all of us would expect, GWIM combined client deposits are up a lesser 23% as those are the clients that generally move their excess Cash into other off balance sheet products. And in Global Banking, you can see the rotation to interest bearing across time as rates rose. Let's get a little more granular and a little more near term and we'll use Slide 8 for that where you can see the breakout of deposit trends on a weekly ending basis across the last two quarters. You can also see that we plotted the timeline of Fed target and rate hikes on the top left chart Just for comparison through time.

Speaker 3

In the upper left, you can see the trend of our total deposits. We ended Q1 'twenty three at 1 $91,000,000,000,000 that's down 1%. And as Brian mentioned, over the course of the past 6 months, those balances have been relatively stable. In Consumer, looking at the top right chart, we show the difference here in the movement through the quarter between the balances of low To no interest checking accounts and the higher yielding non checking accounts. And across the entire quarter, we saw a modest 4,000,000,000 client in total.

Speaker 3

Checking balances obviously have some variability around paydays in particular, but note the relative Stability of checking deposits because these are the operational accounts with money in motion to pay the bills and everyday living costs for families. I'd also point out that our checking balances were modestly growing even ahead of March 9 upheaval and continued to move higher through the quarter on the back of Lower non checking balances mostly reflect money moved out of deposits and into brokerage accounts where we earn a small fee. Rate paid increased 6 basis points from the 4th quarter to 12 basis points on this $1,000,000,000,000 of total consumer deposits And remains low because of the 52% mix that is checking. Lastly, I just note that the rate movements in this business traded in the small CDs and consumer investment deposits, which together represent about 5% of the deposits. In Wealth Management, as you would expect, it shows the most relative decline.

Speaker 3

And you can see the continued trend of clients moving money from lower yielding sweep accounts Into higher yielding preferred deposits and off balance sheet to other investment alternatives. Now if we went back further, you'd see that roughly $90,000,000,000 has moved out of sweeps in the past year, which leaves $80,000,000,000 in these accounts. So you can see how with the pace and size of rate hikes slowing, we expect the declines in balances to lessen from here. At the bottom right, note the global banking deposit movement where we hold about $500,000,000,000 in customer deposits. These are generally operational deposits of our commercial customers, And they use that to manage their cash flows through the course of the year.

Speaker 3

Those are down $3,000,000,000 from the 4th quarter. And what's interesting to note is that our total deposits in the Segment have been stable at around $500,000,000,000 for the past 6 months, and this business just continues to see rotation into interest bearing. The mix of interest bearing deposits on an ending basis moved from 49% last quarter to 55% in Q1. And obviously, we pay increased rates on those interest bearing deposits. And it's this rotation in Global Banking that's driving the rotational shift Of the total company, and it's pretty typical and to be expected in this environment.

Speaker 3

So in summary, deposits continue to behave as we would expect. Cash transactional balances have shown some recent stabilization. And for investment cash, we've seen deposits move to brokerage And other platforms for direct holdings of money market, mutual funds, treasuries, and we're capturing many of those flows As you see in our numbers, it's just we expect that to slow going forward. So now that we've examined trends for the different lines of business, I want to make some important Points about the characteristics of our deposit franchise using Slide 9, and this will just help reinforce For shareholders who own Bank of America that they're investing in one of the world's great deposit franchises, all of it based off of relationships we have with our customers And the value they place on the award winning capabilities and convenience they have access to. So starting from the top focus first on consumer, can see that more than 80% of deposits have been with us for more than 5 years and more than 2 thirds of our consumer deposits are balances with customers We've had relationships with the bank for more than 10 years.

Speaker 3

Also, more than 3 quarters of these customers are very highly engaged in their activities with us. We're also geographically dispersed across the United States given our presence in 83 of the top 100 markets. Lastly, whether you look at consumers or small business, the value proposition is what's driving the same result. We've got long tenured customers With deep relationships that are highly engaged. Turning to wealth management, you can see a similar story around long tenure And quite active relationships.

Speaker 3

The average relationship of our GWIM clients is around 14 years. And again, these clients are very geographically diverse. They're also very digitally engaged and we continue to see deepening around banking solutions and products of all types. There's lots of options for these clients that extend from their operational checking accounts all the way up through preferred deposit options. Then we also benefit from having great alternatives for them within our investment platform.

Speaker 3

On Global Banking, Note that 80% of our U. S. Deposit balances are held by clients who have had an account with us for at least 10 years. Furthermore, as we measure the number of solutions that clients have with us, we know that 73% of balances are held by clients that have at least Five products on us. And just like the other businesses, they're highly diversified by industry and geography.

Speaker 3

So Those are some of the things that make our quality deposit base stable. So now that we've walked through both loans and deposits, I want to a bit to make some points on balance sheet management and to focus on the liquidity we enjoy by having a surplus of customer deposits that far exceeds The loan demand of our clients today and far exceeded the loan demand of our clients pre pandemic. Having the deposits alone doesn't pay the expenses to support these great customer bases, and it doesn't mean much to our shareholders unless we put them to work Extract the value of those deposits. So that's what we're trying to illustrate and we want to show you how we do that. You can see that on Slide 10, where you note We had significant excess deposits over loans pre pandemic.

Speaker 3

And during the pandemic, that increased That amount increased significantly. Before the pandemic, we had $500,000,000,000 more in deposits than loans, And that peaked in late 2021 at more than $1,100,000,000,000 and it remains high at roughly $900,000,000,000 still today. That's the context as we talk about how we manage excess cash. So let's turn to Slide 11. And here we're going to focus on the banking book because our global markets balance sheet has remained largely market funded.

Speaker 3

And just follow the graph from left to right. At the top of the slide, you note trend of cash and cash equivalents and the two components of the debt securities balances available for sale And held to maturity. And you can see the trend of the overall combined cash and securities balance movement And it closely mirrors the previous slides excess deposit trend as you would expect. In 2020, deposits grew while loans declined And that was pandemic borrowing from our commercial clients stopping and then quickly paying it off. Throughout 2020, as we put deposits to work, we took a number of actions to protect our capital and then included a buildup in hold to maturity, That's our aligning our capital treatment with our intent to hold those securities to maturity.

Speaker 3

We also hedged rate risk The available for sale book using pay fixed, receive variable swaps. So these securities acted like cash And they earned higher yields and guarded against capital volatility. As we enter the middle of 2021, it became more clear that Stimulus payment would likely be the last one, and therefore, we believed deposits would be peaking. As a result, we stopped adding to our hold to maturity securities book. That book peaked in the Q3 of 2021 at $683,000,000,000 $562,000,000,000 were mortgage banks And the rest were treasuries.

Speaker 3

And all that's happened is that notional balances have declined in each of the past 6 quarters, Ending the quarter at $625,000,000,000 and within that the mortgage backed portfolio is down $67,000,000,000 to 4.95. As rates began to rise quickly throughout 2022, the value of our deposits rose. And at the same time, the disclosed market value of the hold to maturity securities has declined, resulting in a negative market valuation on those bonds. That negative market valuation peaked in the 3rd quarter, came down in the 4th quarter and it's come down another $10,000,000,000 in the 1st quarter. In our 10 ks disclosure, we include a chart which shows the maturity distribution of our securities portfolio.

Speaker 3

And I'd remind you this is based On the maturity dates of those originations, I. E, the date of the last contractual payment, when we look at the actual cash flows of those bonds over time, it results In an average weighted life of the hold to maturity securities book of a little more than 8 years. And as you can see since the Q3 of 2021, we've continued to See increases in the overall yield on the balances due to both the maturity and reinvestment of lower yielding securities As well as remix into higher yielding cash. And as you can see, with deposits paying 92 basis points, That compares to our blend of cash and government guaranteed securities, which pays 2.90 basis points. So we continue to benefit NII and yield.

Speaker 3

And finally, one very important last point I want to make, which is on the improved NII of our banking book. Because remember, we manage the entirety of our balance sheet. That includes our deposits and that's where you see the net interest income has improved significantly. NII excluding global markets, which we disclose each quarter, troughed in the Q3 of 2020 at 9,100,000,000 And it's now $5,400,000,000 higher on a quarterly basis at $14,500,000,000 in the Q1 of 'twenty three, And that's the asset test of managing the entire balance sheet. So let's turn now to Slide 12 and focus on net interest income.

Speaker 3

On a GAAP non FTE basis, NII in the Q1 was 14,400,000,000 And the FTE NII number was $14,600,000,000 Focusing on FTE, Net interest income increased $2,900,000,000 from the Q1 of 2022 or 25 percent, While our net interest yield improved 51 basis points to 2.2%. The improvement was driven by rates and that includes reductions in Securities premium amortization. Average Fed fund rates are up 4.40 basis points year over year. Relative to that increase in Fed funds, which has benefited all of our variable rate assets, the rate paid on our total deposits It was 89 basis points and the rate paid today on interest bearing deposits is up 133 basis points. Average loan growth of $64,000,000,000 also aided the year over year NII improvement.

Speaker 3

Turning to a linked quarter discussion. NII of $14,600,000,000 is down $222,000,000 from Q4. And that's primarily driven by the continued impact of lower deposit balances and the mix shift into interest bearing. It's also influenced by lower global markets NII, which remember still gets passed through to clients Via higher non interest income as part of the trading revenue. Excluding the $262,000,000 decline in global markets NII, The banking book NII of $14,500,000,000 that was modestly higher as the benefit of increased short interest rates, Some modest loan growth and some deposit favorability was offset by 2 less days of interest in the quarter.

Speaker 3

Turning to asset sensitivity on a forward basis. The plus 100 basis point parallel shift at March 31 Stands at $3,300,000,000 of expected NII over the next 12 months from our banking book. 96% of that sensitivity is driven by short rates. Summary, the Q1 NII was $14,600,000,000 this quarter on an FTE basis, and that was a little better than our $14,400,000,000 expectation As we began the quarter, since deposits and rate pass throughs were both modestly better. Looking forward, based on everything we know about interest rates and customer behavior, we expect 2nd quarter NII on an FTE basis To be around 2% lower compared to Q1.

Speaker 3

So think about that NII as about $14,300,000,000 FTE plus or minus Driven by expected deposit movements as well as lower global markets NII, which again is offset in the trading revenue. So let me remind you of some of the caveats when it comes to that NII guidance. First, importantly, it assumes that interest rates in the forward curve materialize, And that includes one more hike and then a couple of cuts in 2023. We also expect funding costs for Global Markets client activity to continue to increase based on those higher rates. And as noted, The impact of that is still offset in non interest income, and that obviously assumes our current client positioning and the forward rate expectations.

Speaker 3

We continue to expect modest loan growth. So that's in our NII expectation as well, and it's driven by credit card and to a lesser degree commercial. And then finally, we just expect lower deposits and rotational shifts towards interest bearing really for three reasons. 1st, We expect further Fed balance sheet reductions to continue to reduce deposits for the industry. 2nd, we anticipate lower wealth management deposits in 2nd quarter, that's pretty typical due to the seasonal impact of clients paying income taxes and to a lesser degree now, A continuation of balance movement seeking better yields off balance sheet.

Speaker 3

And third, we just continue to expect some of the rotation Of commercial deposits towards interest bearing. Okay. Let's go to Slide 13. We'll talk about expense. And here what you can see is in the Q1, our expenses were $16,200,000,000 That's up $700,000,000 from the 4th quarter And it's driven by seasonal elevation from payroll taxes mostly at $450,000,000 a little bit from higher FDIC insurance expense, That was another $100,000,000 this quarter and the cost of adding people, call that another $100,000,000 We ended the quarter with a little more than 217,000 people at the company, that was 260 people more than year end.

Speaker 3

During the quarter, we welcomed 3,000 additional people into the company in January. That's due to outstanding offers that we extended in the 4th quarter. That meant that our headcount peaked in January at a little more than 218,000. And at the end of last week, We were down to 216,000. We continue to expect that to move lower over time And we expect by the end of the second quarter, our full time equivalent headcount will be roughly 213,000 excluding our summer interns.

Speaker 3

As we look forward to the next quarter then, we would expect Q2 expense to benefit from the reduction of the seasonal elevation of payroll tax in Q1. And we would also expect to see expense reductions coming from headcount reductions through attrition over time and our operational excellence work. So we expect expense in Q2 to be around $400,000,000 or $500,000,000 lower than Q1. So think of that as around $15,800,000,000 plus or minus in Q2. And then further, we just expect continued sequential expense declines in the 3rd quarter And then again in the Q4, as we benefit from continued headcount discipline and attrition through time.

Speaker 3

I'll turn to asset quality on Slide 14, and I want to start the credit discussion by saying once again, asset quality of our customers remains healthy And net charge offs continue to rise from their near historic lows. Net charge offs of $807,000,000 Increased $118,000,000 from the 4th quarter. That increase was driven by credit card losses as higher late stage delinquencies flowed through the charge offs. For context, the credit card net charge off rate was 2.21% in this first quarter and that compares to 3.03% In the Q4 of 2019 pre pandemic, provision expense was $931,000,000 in Q1 And that included $124,000,000 reserve build. That's obviously less than the $403,000,000 build we took in the 4th quarter And it reflects modest loan growth and an ever so slightly improved macroeconomic outlook that on a weighted basis Continues to include an unemployment rate still north of 5% as we end 2023.

Speaker 3

We included a slide in the appendix this quarter that highlights the mix and credit metrics of our commercial real estate exposure. I just want to remind everyone here, we've been very intentional around our client selection, very intentional around portfolio concentration And deal structure over many years. And as a result, we've seen NPLs and realized losses that remain quite low for this portfolio. We had a total of $66,000,000 of commercial real estate losses in 2022. 70% of that was in office loans and that resulted in an annualized loss rate of 26 basis points.

Speaker 3

In the Q1, to give some perspective, Our office loan losses were $15,000,000 We have roughly $73,000,000,000 in commercial real estate loans outstanding. That's less than 7% of our loan book. It's highly diversified by geography and no part of the country represents more than 22% of the book. It's also very diversified across property type. Within property type, our office portfolio is $19,000,000,000 It's about 2% of our total loans.

Speaker 3

The portfolio is roughly 75% Class A properties. And when we originate, they're typically around 55% loan to value. Even though we've seen some property value declines, these exposures still remain well secured. Dollars 3,600,000,000 is classified as reservable criticized. And even on the most recent refreshes on our toughest loans, we still have 75% LTVs.

Speaker 3

In our office book, dollars 4,000,000,000 is scheduled to mature this year, Another $6,000,000,000 in 20.24 with the remainder spread over the following years. So we continue to feel that the portfolio is well positioned And adequately reserved given the current conditions. On Slide 15 for completeness, we highlight the credit quality metrics for both our consumer And commercial portfolios. And with that, I'm going to turn it back to Brian to talk about the lines of business.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Alistair. And we're going to begin on Slide 16. So I want to bring us back to the things that drive the long term value of this franchise and the value for you, our shareholders. Every business segment grew customers and accounts organically in the quarter and used digital tools and capabilities to drive engagement even deeper And also to drive customer satisfaction to industry leading levels. On Slide 16, we've highlighted some of the important elements of organic growth.

Speaker 2

I won't go through all the line items here, but in consumer we saw we opened 130,000 net new checking accounts, 1 point 3,000,000 credit card accounts and 9% more investment accounts that aided to record quarter 1 consumer investment flows. Consumer also has now has had 17 quarters of positive net new checking accounts. In Global Wealth, we had a record Quarter adding 14,500 net new wealth relationships. In Global Banking, we added clients increase the number of products per relationship. In Global Markets, as we said earlier, Jimmy DeMar and team had one of the highest quarters of sales and trading.

Speaker 2

The other elements of earnings The management team remains focused on throughout this inflation environment as our expense management efforts. But even given those, we continue to make investments in the future. We continue to streak of operating leverage in our account and you can see that on Slide 17 in our company and you can see it on Slide 17. We now have had 7 quarters of operating leverage. The efficiency ratio went to 62% and the nominal dollars of expenses we had today Similar to what we had 8, 9, 10 years ago.

Speaker 2

As we go to Slide 18, let's talk about individual businesses and consumer banking first. For the quarter, consumer banking earned $3,100,000,000 on good organic revenue growth and delivered its 8th consecutive quarter of strong operating leverage, While we continue to invest in the future. Top line revenue grew 21%, expenses rose 11%. These results demonstrate the true value of the $1,000,000,000,000 deposit franchise and the deep relationship we have with the clients in that business. The business continues to have $700,000,000,000 in excess deposits over its loan balances.

Speaker 2

And as we said earlier, it grew Checking accounts, dollars 2,500,000 new checking accounts since the pandemic started. Solid earnings growth of 4% understates the success of this business as prior year included reserve releases, while we built reserves this quarter. On a pre tax pre provision basis, PPNR grew 34% year over year. I'll also note that the revenue growth overcame a decline in service charges As a result of us lowering our NSF OD charges for customers several quarters ago. The expenses in consumers reflect the continued business investments for growth, As you think about this business, remember much of the company's minimum wage hikes during 2022, the ones we made mid year in addition to our March of $25 an hour Impact this business more than any other business.

Speaker 2

However, it has helped drive the attrition in this business in the half compared to last year this quarter. On Slide 19, you can see some of the digital statistics around consumer. We believe that those digital tools our customers have access The key to growing and retaining customer relationships. These tools also help us deliver more efficiently. We now have 45,000,000 users actively engaged in our digital properties.

Speaker 2

They log in 1,000,000,000 times a month. Erica, our artificial intelligence driven personal assistant saw usage rise 35% just in the past year. The number of our customers using Zelle grew 21% in the past year. Remember, these aren't new functionalities just being put in place. These are growing off a high scale And show the Bank of America impact on these products.

Speaker 2

On Zelle, remember back in mid-twenty 21 Zelle transactions crossed the number of checks written for our clients. Now it's 60% higher less than 2 years later. And you can see the growth in digital sales that continues. We remain focused on growing the customer base and delivering the best in class tools and service that make us more efficient and more important to our clients in the consumer business. Dean, Athanasia and team continue to do a good job with respect to those goals.

Speaker 2

On Slide 20, we move to Wealth Management. Good results earning about a little over $900,000,000 after tax for the quarter. These results were down from last year, as Alistair said, As asset management fees fell with a negative market levels in equity and fixed income. Those fees were mitigated by the beneficial impact of revenue from The sizable banking business within this line of business for us. As I noted a moment ago, both Merrill and the private bank saw organic revenue growth And provide solid client flows of $25,000,000,000 in the quarter.

Speaker 2

Our assets under management flows of $15,000,000,000 reflects some of the movement of deposits noted earlier, But we also saw $33,000,000,000 of brokerage flows. Expenses reflect lower revenue related incentives, but also reflect continued investments in the business as we We've added more than 650 Wealth Advisors in the past year alone.

Speaker 4

As we

Speaker 2

move forward, we're excited to have Eric Schimpf Lindsay Hans lead this business. They work closely with Katie Knox to drive our Global Wealth and Investment Management business across the company. As we go to Global Wealth Investment Management Digital on Slide 21, you can see the statistics here. Just as with the concerned business, these clients Become more and more digitally engaged across time. Our advisors have led the way in driving a personal driven advice model supplemented by our digital tools.

Speaker 2

On Slide 21, you can see the client digital adoption rate of 84% with Merrell and the private bank is over 90%. More than 75% of our base digital delivery of their statements, which is a key tool of their service, providing more convenience for them and our advisor. Eric and Zelle interactions continue to grow here also even among these wealthy clients. On Slide 22, you see the global banking results. This business produced very strong results growing revenue 19% year to year to $6,200,000,000 The business earned $2,600,000,000 after tax.

Speaker 2

While Investment Banking remains sluggish, our Global Treasury Services business has been robust leading to strong revenue performance. Loan activity has been good across this business also. As noted earlier, the deposit flows appeared to stabilize in March and we benefited from some customer flows during the flight to safety during the quarter. The company's overall investment banking fees were $1,200,000,000 in quarter 1. While down from quarter 1, 2022, we saw a modest improvement from quarter 4, 2022.

Speaker 2

Provision expense declined year over year as Prior year's reserve builds compared to release in the current period. Credit quality of this business again remains very strong. Expense increased 10% year over year, driven by strategic investments in the business, including relationship management hiring and technology costs. Digital engagement is shown on Slide 23 with our global banking customers. These commercial Continue to grow in importance as treasures and others appreciate the ease of doing business with us through these tools.

Speaker 2

While the volume of transactions, its sheer number isn't the same as consumer, the volume of money moved It's tremendous. Next business we'll go to is a global markets business on Slide 24. Jimmy Demar and the team had another strong quarter results growing year over year earnings to nearly $1,700,000,000 after tax. The continued themes of inflation due to political tensions Central Bank's changing monetary policies around the globe drove volatility in the bond and equity markets, which this team did a good job managing. As a result, it was a quarter we saw strong performance in our credit trading business, particularly in mortgages, immunity trading and macro trading again fared well void By strong client activity and secured financing.

Speaker 2

Investments made in this business over the last few years continue to produce favorable results. Just focus on the sales and trading numbers alone, ex DVA revenue improved 9% year over year to $5,100,000,000 FICC improved 29%, while equities were down 19% compared to quarter 1, 2022. Year over year expense Increased 8%, primarily driven by continued investments as stated in this business. Finally on Slide 5, you can The all other shows a modest loss, which includes the $220,000,000 of losses in securities sold that Alistair mentioned earlier. Last, I would note our 10% effective tax rate this quarter continues to benefit us from a strong business with clients supporting Environmental investments and housing investments have produced tax benefits.

Speaker 2

Excluding those and other discrete tax benefits, our tax rate would have been 26%. So in summary, a strong quarter by our team delivered for you, our shareholders, operating leverage, organic growth, strong credit, capital return and strong ROTC. With that, let's jump to Q

Operator

and A. You can remove yourself from the queue at any time by pressing the pound key. We'll take our first question from Jim Mitchell with Seaport Global. Your line is open.

Speaker 5

Hey, good morning, guys. Maybe just one question on the NII's trajectory. You guys remain asset sensitive in the banking book, But the forward curve is, I think you pointed out, currently expects 3 rate cuts by the end of the year. If that plays out, how do you think about that impact on NII in the back half of the year? What are the puts and takes as we think about NII beyond 2Q?

Speaker 3

So Jim, I think Right now, the expectations for the market in terms of whether or not there'll be another hike in May, that's bouncing around pretty good. Similarly, you got a question of whether or not there's 2 cuts at the back half or 3. So we're operating with the same information you are. We're looking at the forward curve day to day, thinking that through. At the same time, we're looking at our deposit balances.

Speaker 3

They're performing kind of the way we would think. And we're competing for rate paid. So I'd say generally speaking at this point, we feel Pretty good about NII. It's obviously going to be up this year, pretty significantly. And look, we don't provide guidance for a full year for a very simple reason.

Speaker 3

It Just comes down to it's very difficult to predict what the Fed's going to do 6 months 9 months out. But let me put it this way, we can see where Consensus is right around $57,000,000,000 plus or minus. That's the sort of number that would imply us up For the year 7% to 8%. I mean, I think we're pretty comfortable there, but it's just so many moving parts. That's why we don't provide the guidance.

Speaker 5

No, that's all fair. And maybe just pivoting to the trading business, you had another strong quarter and outperformed peers In the fixed income business, is there anything unusually strong there? Or do you believe you guys have made some sustainable market share gains in that business given your recent investments?

Speaker 3

Well, I think the team is doing a really good job. Brian talked about that. A couple of years ago, we made a Decision as a team that it was important for us to invest more in that business and we did that. And we've made Pretty significant investments in equities and in fixed income. And we felt like in particular, we could continue to grow our macro businesses, which we've done.

Speaker 3

And that's what has done a really good job until this quarter. This quarter, we just happened to fire on more cylinders, particularly in Feike, Because this quarter we had a great quarter for our micro products and you kind of expect that because it was a better quarter for them. We had positive returns there. So Mortgages, credit, munis, financing, futures, FX, all of them had a pretty good quarter. And think Jim and the team are just executing at a really high level.

Speaker 3

So they just got to keep at it.

Speaker 5

Fair enough. Thanks for taking my questions.

Operator

We'll take our next question from Erika Najarian with UBS. Your line is open.

Speaker 6

Hi, good morning. Alistair, just a clarification, you gave us the quarterly expected trajectory for expenses. Do you still expect to hit $62,500,000,000 or so of full year expenses in 2023?

Speaker 3

Right now, that's our expectation. I mean, we're 90 days into the quarter into the year rather. Obviously, as we're looking forward, we see We know the headcount is coming down. So that's going to be a tailwind all the way through the course of the year. So we don't have any change Our expectations right now, we're going to see how the year develops.

Speaker 3

We still got a little bit of a headwind in terms of Something like our sales and trading business having a very good revenue year, and we're still investing in the business. So it will be a dogfight, particularly as we get into the back half of the year, we still feel good about where we are with respect to expense.

Speaker 6

Got it. And my second question is for Brian. Brian, you produced a significant amount of revenue this quarter and grew your CET1. At the same time, I think that a lot of investors are Looking down the path of significant macro uncertainty, as we take that into account, how should we think about The buyback activity going forward, especially ahead of the stress test results in June?

Speaker 2

I think you saw this quarter we continue to adopt our basic apply our basic principles, which is We support the growth in our customer base. We pay the dividends at what we think is the rational rate and then we use the rest To basically return to you through share buybacks. We're in the middle of stress test as you just mentioned. We'll have to see the results of that. We also but the good news is we crossed 11.40 this quarter, which basically is an excess has a cushion on top of what we need for the Q1 of next year.

Speaker 2

And so we'll continue to follow our basic principles. So we feel good very good about our capital. And you should expect us to continue to follow the idea to pay the dividend or grow organic, support the organic growth, pay the dividend and buy back shares, but we've got to get through the Your term sort of what goes on in our business every year at this time.

Operator

We'll go next to Ken Usdin with Jefferies. Your line is open.

Speaker 7

Good morning. Hey, I was just wondering on the deposit side, if you can help us understand, there's obviously the ongoing mix shift, which you referred to and gave us a lot of great detail on. I'm just wondering, As you think forward, how much more mix shift are you expecting in terms of DDAs as a percentage of total deposits? And how do you expect that to also look as you think across the businesses with regards to just where customers are moving funds incrementally? Thank you.

Speaker 2

I think Ken, we think this everybody thinks this is a big bulk thing Bank of America, but it's really and then looks at broad categories and interest bearing and non Varying accounts and try to you have to really think about customer bases and what they do with their money. And so there's transactional cash, whether that's for a consumer Run their household day to day, a wealthy consumer run their household day to day, which may have different level expenses. And Then the commercial customers who run their business day to day and then have excess cash from that if they're successful and then how they all Clay, that's Bruce. So I think we think transactional cash and investment cash. You've seen a lot of the investment cash is, so to speak, as Alistair mentioned earlier, We price competitively for that moves around.

Speaker 2

But the good news is we have a massive investment platform. We put that money to work for our customers If they don't need to manage their day to day household. So in our NII estimates are our view of what happens in the future. I think The key for the consumer business is to remember that it's got $700,000,000,000 of excess deposits over its loans. It's generating a lot of excess deposits That grew $300 odd,000,000,000 from pre pandemic.

Speaker 2

It has been stable. The checking balances, if you look at those charts we gave you to show you the near term movement are stable. That generates at a total all in cost of 10 to 15 basis points, a lot of the value in a franchise and meaning including the interest bearing part of that franchise when you think About deposits across time and in like businesses. So you'd expect some of those trends to continue in terms of customers have excess cash putting it to work differently. We expect the deposit rates to move to continue to match the market.

Speaker 2

But the broad value of this deposit Franchise is driven by the money people leave us because it's transactional cash, which is emotion and we don't pay interest on and that is both the consumers, wealthy customers and businesses. So it's hard. Yes, it's a very detailed question of which we spend a lot of time looking at or the team does as you might imagine.

Speaker 7

Okay. And the other question is just then, Alastair, you walked through how you've been changing the composition of the securities portfolio and still benefiting from Those variable rate swaps, I'm just wondering if you can help us understand what happens from here in terms of should you continue to get benefits from those variable rate swaps? And then also just have you done any positioning repositioning underneath the surface? It looks like there were some securities losses. So much room do you have to continue to kind of rework the portfolio and grind more income out of the book even as you shrink it?

Speaker 3

Yes. So Ken, think about I mean, the easiest way to think about those treasuries, they're swapped to floating, so they're essentially cash. Actually, this quarter, we ended up converting some of them into cash just because it's simpler. It's simpler for everyone to understand and It's obviously a pretty good bid for treasuries this quarter. So we just converted them into cash.

Speaker 3

That's what accounted for some of the securities Lost there was a couple of 100,000,000 but I think the way to think about it is as the overall securities portfolio, remember, We got cash, we've got available for sale. You can always think about that as enhanced cash. And then you've got hold to maturity. As that continues to pay down, We're just sweeping it right now into cash. That's something I've talked about in the last couple of quarters.

Speaker 3

And we're putting in cash because number 1, it's a really high yielding asset. Number 2, It gives us a lot of options during a period of volatility. So pretty straightforward at this point.

Speaker 7

Okay, got it. Thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from Mike Mayo with Wells Fargo. Your line is open.

Speaker 8

Hi. Well, I guess the topic of the day, week and the month is to what degree are your assets matched with your liabilities? And I'm Staring at Slide 11, and you've seen the front page of many papers highlighting your unrealized securities losses. You highlight the yield on your securities at 2.6%. You highlighted your held to maturity portfolio at 8 years.

Speaker 8

That would all suggest to some that you're not so well matched. On the other hand, what you don't provide or at least I didn't see it, The change in the value of your deposits or even the duration of your deposits. So the basic question is, can you Describe to what degree your assets are matched with your liabilities and where you think you may have been off or on the mark?

Speaker 3

Yes. So Mike, I'll start. Brian cannot end when he chooses to. But one of the reasons that we spend as much time laying out the deposit franchise is because in a rising rate environment, You'd expect obviously that bond marks are going to turn negative. And at the same time, you and we have been expecting as rates go up, The NII would rise because the deposits are so much more valuable in that environment.

Speaker 3

What we laid out for you for everyone to see is just how broad and stable and diversified is this deposit base. We think it's very long tenured. That's why we're laying out some of these things around just how long the relationships are in consumer and in wealth And in Global Banking. And it's one of the reasons why

Speaker 8

Hey, Alastair, if I can just interrupt this, when you say long tenure, Can you put any numbers around that? I think that's the one biggest most important number. If you could just Some kind of frame that

Speaker 3

I'll open. If you took a look at Slide number 9, we've tried to lay that out for you. So you take a look at in consumer, for example, you're talking about 67% of the clients have been with us for more than 10 years. That's pretty long tenured. I know from my time in the commercial bank, our clients on average were 17 years with us.

Speaker 3

You have long operational deposits In all of these businesses, so that's what we're trying to lay out in front of everyone so you can see that.

Speaker 8

Okay. I'm sorry, I interrupted, but go ahead.

Speaker 3

No, I can't remember where I was.

Speaker 8

You were talking about the unrealized loss of the NII went higher. That's part of the benefits of having And

Speaker 3

I think, look, what I'm trying to convey to you too, Mike, and you know how this works. We've got to balance all of this because we have to think about the entire balance sheet. And there's a lot going on with the entire balance sheet. And so what we're trying to do is invest that excess, which has existed now in 100 of 1,000,000,000 for many, many years. Got to invest in the best way we can.

Speaker 3

The way we do that, we talk about balancing it is we're number 1, trying to make sure we grow capital. We've done that. We're up 100 basis points there in the last year. Number 2, we're trying to grow liquidity. We added $23,000,000,000 this past quarter.

Speaker 3

Number 3, we're trying to grow earnings. We're $8,200,000,000 It's one of our best earnings quarters ever. So We can always be better. You know that we're taking the portfolio and we're just making it smaller. It's run off now 6 quarters in a row.

Speaker 3

We're taking all of that and plowing it in To cash and loans, that's what we've been doing. We'll just continue doing that and the portfolio is going to get smaller And shorter over time. And when you look at the asset sensitivity now relative to rates going up 100 or rates going down 100, We're pretty balanced there too. We're sort of up $3,300,000,000 if rates go up $100,000,000 We're down $3,600,000 if rates go down $100,000,000 So We feel like we're in a pretty balanced place and a lot of flexibility at this point.

Speaker 8

And then just a follow-up. I guess some will take your greatest strength as a weakness that is you don't pay as much on deposits as others. I estimate that you have The lowest cycle to date deposit data. And so what is it that keeps your customers around if you're not going to pay them as much?

Speaker 3

Well, I think if you look at the value proposition that we're talking about, if you go to the consumer business, for example, We've invested so much in client experience, whether it's the financial centers, renovation, whether it's the new the people that we've added in that business Over a long period of time, whether it's the digital, the mobile, preferred rewards, ours is a relationship model and it has been. And if you look then, like just think about this quarter, look at the organic growth in consumer again, that's 130,000 Net new checking 17 quarters in a row based on that relationship value proposition. That's what we're attracting. If you go to the Wealth Management business, this was a record quarter for net new households For Merrill Lynch and a record for the private bank this quarter, that tells you we're offering people something that's valuable. And then we added 35,000 new bank accounts for people in our Wealth Management franchise.

Speaker 3

So that again is A significant indicator that what we're offering has value to people. And if I were to go back to my old business in Business Banking and Commercial Banking, They're adding new logos and new clients over time in a way that we're really happy with right now. So I think the ultimate answer is we are a purpose driven company who put our clients' interests first. That is helping make their financial lives better. And in this period of time, people want stability and that's what we offer.

Speaker 8

All right. Thank you.

Operator

We'll go next to Glenn Schorr with Evercore. Your line is open.

Speaker 9

Hi, thanks. Maybe an easy one first, it wasn't noticeable, but do you feel like there was Flight to quality benefit during the March madness, I would have thought that people would have flocked to the safety of BofA during times like that, But you didn't comment specifically on that. So thanks.

Speaker 3

So we're going to decline, Glenn, to give a specific number. We're pretty confident we saw Noticeable flight to safety. And it comes in 2 parts. Part 1 is during a period like March 10 around that week or 2. And then there's a second part that comes with onboarding clients over a period of time who are trying to move operational accounts here and that takes a while.

Speaker 3

That has a lag. So you can think about we get some of the deposits quite quickly, but relationships take a longer time to build an onboard. So you can see from our numbers, it was improving before the disruption. We've chosen not to put an exact number on it because there are typical ebbs and flows in any given quarter leading up, especially To a payroll end of quarter, but generally speaking, I'd say we were improving anyway. A lot of that is just organic growth, We obviously benefited.

Speaker 3

Okay.

Speaker 9

You noted the one more hike and then Cuts to the back half of the year. That's the forward curve. What's interesting is the Fed doesn't have the same forward curve as the market has. So I'm curious if you could talk to the sensitivity of what if there are no cuts, how much of that helps your forward NII thought process?

Speaker 3

Well, we do use the forward curve because we feel like it's the most kind of dispassionate assessment with the most information out there in the market from the broadest set of people. And Importantly, it's not just us making it up. So we use the forward curve. And I even mentioned during my remarks, Things are bouncing around, around. Is it 1 hike?

Speaker 3

Is it 0? Is it 2 cuts? But the sensitivity that we provide around up 100 is probably the best we can offer at this stage. And then depending on how things develop and they're developing quickly, it'll allow you to adjust the model accordingly.

Speaker 9

The last simple one is, held to maturity, you talked a lot about it. I think the answer is, I know it, but I'll ask it bluntly anyway. So you don't feel like you have to do anything material with your unrealized loss business. I get it. It's in treasuries, it's swap, It's Agency Mortgages.

Speaker 9

We don't have a credit issue. But at this point, given the stability of your deposit base, loan growth, capital growth, do you feel like You can just kind of write it out and grind it down?

Speaker 3

Correct. Right now, that's exactly what we've been doing. We've communicated that pretty clearly and that's what we're continuing to do. Just keeps getting smaller and shorter.

Operator

We'll go next to Steven Chubak with Wolfe Research. Your line is open.

Speaker 10

Hey, good morning. So Alastair, you'd mentioned some of the strong KPIs that you're seeing within GWIM. At the same time, the business did see a pretty material decline in pretax margins, both sequentially and year on year. I wanted to better understand the business might evolve under some of the new leadership and how we should just be thinking about the margin trajectory. Wanted to better understand how you're balancing investment needs with the goal of delivering continued profitability.

Speaker 2

The margin came down largely because you had to sort of incremental hit to Yes. The investment side revenues of markets fell year over year, but we'd expect that margin to move back up to its more traditional 25% to 30 Percent. But you also have to remember, they are a big beneficiary or hit of the elevated payroll taxes and other things in the Q1 because as a percentage of our Compensation in the company, they're not a small amount. So, but we'd expect that to move back in the high 20s. But We have been working on this business to continue to improve the digitization of the services side of it.

Speaker 2

So basically, if you think about it, you get Dollars of the revenue and you take about half past the compensation in the financial advisory grids and the other payouts and then we take the rest of it and convert it About a 30% deposit the other half and converted about 30 percentage points or 60% of that to profit pretax this quarter down a little bit because of payroll. So We feel very good about where we stand on a relative basis, but one of the things the team continues to work on across Eric and Lindsay and Katy is to drive operational excellence to new level in that business because we believe that there's still a lot of costs that can come out Around the simplicity more simple straightforward products, the delivery of those products, the paper based usage and things like that. And then also remember, we are making investments in advisors. We have 4,000 plus trainees in the businesses across the company and we believe that The best advisors one is growing at our with our own company and we continue to do that and that's a drag on the P and L that we're willing to take to make sure we have advisor growth in

Speaker 10

Helpful color, Brian. And just for my follow-up, I was hoping Either you or Alastair could provide just an update on expectations around upcoming regulatory development, specifically Higher scenario planning for Basel IV, any expectations around the FDIC special assessment? There are a lot of Items that have been floated, just given recent events and the SVB fallout, I was hoping to get some perspective just in terms of Regulatory mark to market.

Speaker 2

I mean, I think we don't have anything more than you do in a broad sense. But I think Yes. At the end of the day, I think this industry has extremely strong capital liquidity and capabilities that we just demonstrated Yes, through the pandemic and then through the aftermath of the pandemic and then through inflation and then through a tightening cycle that hasn't happened before. So I feel good about where the industry stands and I think people have to step back and think about it overall. And then frankly, this industry in the United States is so much stronger than Europe.

Speaker 2

It has so much capital Per square inch, so to speak, than Europe does to get to ratios, which on numbers are lowers, but the amount of capital to get there is pretty Unbelievable. So we have twice the capitals of European counterparts of similar size and our ratios are considered to be lower. So Obviously, as they pull this together, they've got to make sure they aren't counting the beans in different ways of the gold plating and other things in United States. So hopefully People start to see the wisdom and making sure they're careful here, and we'll see that play out, but we don't have any special understanding.

Operator

We'll take our next question from Matt O'Connor with Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.

Speaker 4

Good morning. Just a quick clarification on the balance sheet and a separate question. The cash Obviously, it went up a lot and you did allude to that moving some of the securities to cash. But the short term borrowings was also up a lot. And I didn't know if that's just to kind of hold more liquidity in the current environment and we should assume that continues, which I think weighs on NIM, but not the NII dollars Or was that just temporary 1Q and we shouldn't pay too much attention to the period end trends there?

Speaker 3

A little bit of both, Matt. You've got Q1 is just normally a seasonal build for us, so that happens and a little bit of borrow. And you're right, it doesn't impact Because you can invest it in cash straight away and there's no drag there, but it may hurt NOI slightly at the margin by a little bit.

Speaker 4

Okay. Sorry, I think you meant to say it doesn't hurt the NII dollars that much, but it hurts the 10%, right?

Speaker 3

Correct.

Speaker 4

Yes. Okay. And then separately, any kind of trends to call out in spending in March? Some of your peers talked about a slowdown in March and you highlighted kind of for the full quarter, debt and credit card was up 6% year over year, total payments Any kind of intra quarter trends that you want to point to?

Speaker 2

I think we saw The first part of the quarter, Q1 being a little bit softer and then we saw a kick back up in March. So far in April, still early. It's probably a little lower than it was for the month of March, but it's a couple of weeks since we got to be a little careful about that just due to the different ways Vacation fall and things like that. So, but it's over the course of last year, the total spending Year over year increases have slowed down and I think that means it's a precursor to the economy being a little bit slower that we're seeing and then frankly Consumers being more careful in the use of the cash because the cash in our accounts, especially for the lower income cohorts continues Build honestly, from peak last April, it fell down a little bit all across the year and it's built back up in the 1st part of this year. So We'll see that play out.

Speaker 2

There's been a delay in some of the tax returns as you know this year that pushes them from quarter to quarter. But stay tuned. I think it's a little early call, but it is a little softer in the 1st part of April here.

Speaker 4

Okay. Thank you very much.

Operator

We'll go next to Vivek Shnejo with JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Speaker 4

Hi, thanks. Just a couple of questions. I want to just clarify the shift to interest bearing from non interest bearing. I know you said you expect that to continue. Do you expect the pace of that to slow or is it still Is it still running pretty high or even to accelerate?

Speaker 4

Any color on that?

Speaker 3

Yes. I'd expect it to slow over time, in fact, because we're getting pretty close now to Q4 2019 levels anyway, which was the last peak. And also, when you think about the big driver, it tends to be Global Banking. And as rates are rising, clients are doing their rotation. We're getting towards the end of the hikes now we would think.

Speaker 3

So you'd anticipate there'll be a little bit of a lag there. But generally speaking, I'd expect it to slow at some point. And I think we're probably getting close now.

Speaker 4

One more, Alisa. Office CRE, you gave the geographical In your slides for the total CRE portfolio, can you give us some similar thing for the office CRE portfolio?

Speaker 3

I can do, but I'm going to need to follow-up with you afterwards because I don't have it at hand.

Speaker 4

Okay.

Speaker 3

I don't think you're going to find anything there other than sort of typical geographic distribution similar to the way we serve our customers around the United States.

Operator

We'll go next to Gerard Cassidy with RBC. Your line is open.

Speaker 11

Good morning, Brian. Good morning, Alistair.

Speaker 3

Good morning. How are you doing?

Speaker 12

Alistair, can you elaborate a

Speaker 11

little further? You talked about, I think in Slide 12, you show us that 100 basis point Parallel shift impacts net interest income by a positive $3,300,000,000 over the following 12 months. If the rate environment does Shift and maybe we do start to see lower rates by the end of the year. How quickly can you guys move this from being asset sensitive to neutral or liability sensitive on the balance sheet?

Speaker 3

If you were to take that same metric on the downside, it would be probably be down $3,600,000,000 for down $100,000,000 just to give you some idea. And what's happening now is obviously as the interest bearing piece just continues to rise across the company, We've got a hedge now as rates if and when they start to go back down, it won't be a complete hedge, but it will be a little bit of a hedge there. Then you also get something back in terms of global markets NII that will start bleeding back positively. So there are some puts and some takes, but We'll see how that develops over the course of the year.

Speaker 11

Very good. And then as a follow-up question, in the Global Banking slide you guys gave us, Slide 22. You had a negative provision in this quarter and you referenced that It's an improved macroeconomic outlook. Can you give us some color what you're seeing there to give you confidence to have a negative provision? And second, Does this also include the recent Shared National Credit Exam results in this line item as well?

Speaker 3

It would

Speaker 2

always include those results. Those come through continuously. There's not Sure. This change over time. That's a continuous set of things they look at and we always do well in that.

Speaker 2

And when we say macro environment, remember that this Business is credit across the world. So there's places that we finished up on cleaning up that allowed us Lease some reserves on one side and then we had other places that you would have put up reserves. But at the end of the day, the overall credit quality here is very strong and very stable.

Speaker 7

Very good.

Speaker 4

Appreciate it.

Speaker 3

And you asked the question in commercial, correct? Yes.

Speaker 2

Yes.

Speaker 3

Okay. So, I mean, I think there's a couple of things going on. Number 1, we didn't have any real loan growth. Number 2, The asset quality remains terrific. Number 3, the macro environment, when you look at the blue chip consensus was ever so slightly better.

Speaker 3

We felt like we were pretty well provided for already. And then on the commercial side, we had a little bit of exposure runoff in 1 or 2 places where we may have been Reserved quite conservatively. So it was all those things added together.

Speaker 11

Very. Actually, Brian and Alistair, you guys obviously have been through a few cycles. Why is commercial so strong? As you and your peers all have really good commercial credit quality, any suggestions on what you're seeing that makes it so good?

Speaker 3

Well, their profitability remains in a good place. Cash flows remain in a good place. I think Corporate America Learned something from 2,009 and 2,008. And so leverage is in a good place. You add all that up, you got a decent environment overall for the economy and that's where we are with respect to credit quality.

Speaker 3

So I'll have to watch that over time, but as of right now, it's in terrific shape.

Speaker 11

Great. Thank you very much.

Operator

Our next question comes from Betsy Graseck with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.

Speaker 12

Hi, good morning.

Speaker 3

Good morning, Betsy.

Speaker 12

Two questions. 1, just keying off of the loan discussion just now, could you give us a sense as to how you're thinking about Lending standards and any changes, in a post SIVB environment?

Speaker 3

Well, look, we don't really have a Significant change to our risk appetite. We haven't changed our client selection. Those are largely speaking designed to be through the cycle. We will obviously adjust on specific concerns about asset quality performance in a sector or Outlook. But I'd say with respect to our loan growth, where we're seeing it more is, As the Fed raises rates, those rates are changing our customer demand.

Speaker 3

So we just don't see as much demand right now for securities based lending or mortgage, But it's less about credit tightening or standards. It's more about just the Fed doing and having the effect that you would expect.

Speaker 12

Okay. And then 2 other quickies, one on the consumer checking account balances in March. Was that uptick in part a function of seasonality and end of period, end of Pay cycle type of behavior or is there something more going on there?

Speaker 2

Well, I think as always, that's a cohort of pre pandemic compared to where they And they had been sort of bouncing around at level for the last 6 They moved up a little bit. This is the time of year they do move up because of tax returns and other things and year end payments and stuff. But they clearly aren't going They basically are stable from November, December, January. They started increasing February and then it bounced up a little bit. So we'll see what ends up.

Speaker 2

What Clear message is despite people having said these consumers are spending down their money, it would be out of these balances In mid-twenty 22 Q3, they clearly are still sitting with a fair amount of money in account relative to pre pandemic times.

Speaker 12

Okay. And then just lastly, AI, it's been a big topic recently, as I'm sure you know. You've got Erica. Just wondering about Plans to leverage AI, maybe you're going to be leveraging Erika and that maybe it's a different kind of strategy, but thoughts there would be helpful. Thank you.

Speaker 12

Yes. So,

Speaker 2

Erica, obviously the basic concept was built for us a number of years, 4, 5, 6, 7 years ago starting and came into the business. It is a predictive language type of program where you put Yes, the question and it answers it, but we had to do a special language to make sure it would work with our business. It wasn't a general. So We did that. Then that then put us in a condition to start to deploy to our customers because it's captive to our data.

Speaker 2

In other words, it's looking our systems, Finding information given to clients is really a service capability. And so what we've seen is that increase is a clear indicator of how valuable These types of artificial intelligence, natural language processing, predictive technologies can be for Customer service and things like that. We've also taken Erika internally and applied it to help us do work and we've seen it have those benefits. Ultimately, we think this has extreme benefits for our company. We think it has a lot You've seen this written about in the computer coding areas.

Speaker 2

In other words, it could speed up the process of what they used to be called object programming that goes on. We think it has A lot to do in terms of allowing teammates to work much more quickly and efficiently with our systems and get information out and can make Even someone like me, the ability to do analytics that I could I'd have to send to somebody and have them put keyed in the system. So There's a lot of value to this. The key question will be when can you use it without the fear of The reason why a lot of us stopped in our industry and other industries was it wasn't clear how it worked with your data and if they're And the outside world's data and how it would interact and pull stuff out and we have to be careful of that. And then secondly, we have to understand how the decisions are made to be able to Stand up to our customers' demands for us to be fair and frankly follow the laws and rules and regulations on lending.

Speaker 2

I think all that is good strong. It's really an important thing. So we're not a neophyte in this. It's The operating out that we understand the value of it, but we will carefully apply it and we see a great value. I don't think it's You have great value in the next month, but in the overall sense, it will help us continue to manage the headcount down, which we've been doing this quarter.

Speaker 2

And remember, we started this company, Management team started with this company in 2010 with 285,300,000 people working here and we're running the same size company with 200 1,000 people, bigger company doing more stuff. And so all that's been aided by digitization of which is a potential step function change.

Speaker 12

Thanks so much. Appreciate it.

Operator

We'll take our final question at this time. This is a follow-up from Mike Mayo with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Speaker 8

Hi. In terms of your guidance for lower expenses in the Q2 than the Q3 than the Q4, how much of that Is expectations for slower business activity and how much of that is due to expected scale benefits from technology? And I guess the bigger question too is, are you seeing evidence of a banking crisis? Are you seeing evidence of a banking recession? And is that Part of the reason for the expense guide?

Speaker 2

No, it's not Mike, I would say there could be the activity quarter was actually higher in some ways because of volatility in the trading side and things like that. So we aren't We're expecting to get scale and operating leverage across activity taking less dollars to do it in the OpEx and the work we do. We had built up more people largely because of the fear of last year of the turnover rate That is now gone in half in a year. The cars to be hiring a lot to stay ahead of it. And then when it slowed down, we build up people and we're bringing that back down in line.

Speaker 2

But there is no the expenses frankly are just managing the headcount carefully because that's 2 thirds expense base and getting more leverage out of the activities. But there's no We'll have more checking accounts. We'll have more credit card accounts. We'll do more wires on a given day. We'll do more trades on a given day and that can ebb Slow, but overall we're expecting activity continue to rise.

Speaker 2

Now with loan demand, I. E. People want to borrow another $10 versus the $10 they had, That's what we say slows down. So that doesn't but that's not that they don't have a loan is that they borrow different amounts of money.

Speaker 8

All right. So this is really just managing the business, not your reduced investment spend or anything like that?

Speaker 2

And on the investment spend, we're spending We increased this year versus last year $300,000,000 to $400,000,000 in pure initiative spending and that's going through the run rate as we speak and we Wouldn't cut that because we think to the point of Betsy's comment, it gives us a chance to continue to leverage the franchise and Nowhere is that more evidence in our consumer business where the numbers of branches year over year are down a few 100 again. Customers are bigger, more stuff's going through, Customer delight is at all time high. You know, attrition is an all time low and that's what makes that franchise valuable as you well know and that's by Continue to invest in new capabilities at all time.

Speaker 8

And last thing, big picture for you, Brian, just The evidence that a recession is coming and the impact on you guys, where are you right now? Is it red? Is it flashing yellow? Is it green? How has it moved?

Speaker 8

Just what's your what's the temperature?

Speaker 2

Candace and the research team have been consistent to see after the Fed raises rates, these amounts, there would be Yes, a recession, they have a mild recession and that they predicted basically say 0.5% to 1% negative Annualized negative GDP growth Q3, Q4 and Q1 and then back to positive. So I think at the end of the day, we don't see the Activity on the consumer side slowing at a pace that would indicate that, but we see commercial customers are being more careful and things like that. But Everything points to relatively mild recession given the amount of stimulus that was paid The people and the money they have left over, the fact that unemployment still at 3.5% is full employment plus. And then the wage growth is slowing and tipping over. So the signs of inflation are tipping down, but they're still there.

Speaker 2

But that translates into good Yes, relatively good activity. So we see there's a slight recession and Yes, we'll see what happens. But we've built this company across the last decade, even in the stress scenarios that you see somewhere In the slides last quarter, we didn't reduce them because they had the same answer. Our stress scenarios are always less than anybody else's because of how we built the company through To go through recessions without a problem, including the pandemic.

Operator

And at this time, I'd like to turn the program back over Brian Moynihan for any additional or closing remarks.

Speaker 2

Thank you for your time. And I want to thank my teammates for a great Performance again this Q1 of 2023, a strong quarter with 18% year over year EPS growth. The strength, stability and being there for our customers continue to show through, including strong capital at $11,400,000,000 liquidity at $900,000,000 in GLS. But the most important thing and we just touched on it was really 2 things, continued organic growth in our franchise and operating leverage by growing revenue fast and expense. So we feel good about that and look forward to talking to you next quarter.

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Earnings Conference Call
Bank of America Q1 2023
00:00 / 00:00