Synchrony Financial Q3 2023 Earnings Results & Report

Synchrony Financial EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $1.48
• Consensus EPS: $1.43
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.05
• One Year Ago EPS: $1.47
• EPS Beat Rate: 8 of last 8 quarters

Synchrony Financial Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $5.45 billion
• Expected Revenue: $4.29 billion
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$1.15 billion
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Synchrony Financial (NYSE:SYF) (NYSE: SYF) is a consumer financial services company that provides private-label credit cards, co-branded credit cards and promotional financing programs. Its financing products are offered through retailers, manufacturers, healthcare providers and other businesses, helping consumers pay for purchases over time.

The company serves a range of industries, including digital commerce, home improvement, furniture, automotive, healthcare, jewelry, apparel, electronics and specialty retail. Its offerings include revolving credit accounts, installment financing and promotional payment plans, as well as the CareCredit healthcare financing platform. Synchrony also provides consumer deposit products, including savings accounts and certificates of deposit, through Synchrony Bank.

Synchrony primarily serves consumers and business partners in the United States, with certain products available in Puerto Rico. The company was formerly part of GE Capital’s retail finance operations and became an independent publicly traded company in 2014. Synchrony is headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, and is led by President and Chief Executive Officer Brian Doubles.

Synchrony Financial Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Third-quarter results delivered net earnings of $628 million ($1.48 EPS) with return on assets of 2.3% and return on tangible common equity of 22.9%, underscoring model strength and business resiliency.
• Opened 5.7 million new accounts, grew average active accounts 6%, and achieved a record $47 billion in purchase volume (up 5% YoY), led by 14% growth in health & wellness.
• Rolled out PayPal and Venmo cards in Apple Wallet, fueling over 70% YTD growth in wallet sales and driving digital wallet users to spend twice as much with double the transactions.
• Credit metrics are normalizing with 30+ day delinquency at 4.40%, 90+ day at 2.06%, net charge-off rate of 4.60% (below the 5.5–6% target), and a 10.4% allowance reserve ratio supporting asset quality.
• The proposed CFPB rule capping late fees at $8 poses a headwind to fee income, prompting ongoing partner negotiations and pricing adjustments to fully offset the impact.

Presentation

[Moderator]

Good morning, and welcome to the Synchrony Financial third quarter 2023 earnings conference call. Please refer to the company's investor relations website for access to their earnings materials. Please be advised that today's conference call is being recorded. Currently, all callers have been placed in a listen-only mode. The call will be open for your questions following the conclusion of the management's prepared remarks.

[Moderator]

If at any time you should need operator assistance, please press star zero. If you wish to ask a question following the prepared remarks, please press star one. I will now turn the call over to Kathryn Miller, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

[Kathryn Miller, SVP of Investor Relations at Synchrony Financial]

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to our quarterly earnings conference call. In addition to today's press release, we have provided a presentation that covers the topics we plan to address during our call. The press release, detailed financial schedules, and presentation are available on our website, synchronyfinancial.com. This information can be accessed by going to the Investor Relations section of the website.

[Kathryn Miller, SVP of Investor Relations at Synchrony Financial]

Before we get started, I wanted to remind you that our comments today will include forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainty, and actual results could differ materially. We list the factors that might cause actual results to differ materially in our SEC filings, which are available on our website. During the call, we will refer to non-GAAP financial measures in discussing the company's performance. You can find a reconciliation of these measures to GAAP financial measures in our materials for today's call.

[Kathryn Miller, SVP of Investor Relations at Synchrony Financial]

Finally, Synchrony Financial is not responsible for and does not edit or guarantee the accuracy of our earnings teleconference transcripts provided by third parties. The only authorized webcasts are located on our website. On the call this morning are Brian Doubles, Synchrony's President and Chief Executive Officer, and Brian Wenzel, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. I will now turn the call over to Brian Doubles.

[Brian Doubles, President and CEO at Synchrony Financial]

Thanks, Kathryn, and good morning, everyone. Today, Synchrony reported strong third quarter results, including net earnings of $628 million, or $1.48 per diluted share, a return on average assets of 2.3%, and a return on tangible common equity of 22.9%. These results highlight the strength of Synchrony's differentiated model and the resiliency of our business through economic cycles.

[Brian Doubles, President and CEO at Synchrony Financial]

Our diversified product suite and advanced digital capabilities enabled Synchrony to continue to deliver consistently strong results in an ever-changing environment. We are increasingly at the center of customers' everyday financing needs and positioned as the partner of choice for retailers, merchants, and providers alike as they seek enhanced value, greater utility, and best-in-class experiences. We opened 5.7 million new accounts in the third quarter and grew average active accounts by 6%.

[Brian Doubles, President and CEO at Synchrony Financial]

We continue to drive growth with our $47 billion of purchase volume, representing a record third quarter and a 5% increase versus the prior year. This momentum is a testament to the power of our diversified portfolio. Health & Wellness purchase volume grew 14% compared to last year, reflecting broad-based growth in active accounts led by dental, pet, and cosmetic.

[Brian Doubles, President and CEO at Synchrony Financial]

The 7% growth in Digital purchase volume was driven by higher average active accounts, as several of our newer programs continue to resonate with consumers. In Diversified & Value, purchase volume grew 7%, reflecting growth in out-of-partner spend and strong retailer performance. Lifestyle purchase volume increased 8%, reflecting growth in average transaction values in outdoor and luxury.

[Brian Doubles, President and CEO at Synchrony Financial]

In Home & Auto, purchase volume remained flat versus last year, as growth in commercial products, Home Specialty, and the Auto Network was generally offset by lower retail traffic in furniture and electronics and the impact of lower gas and lumber prices. Dual and co-branded cards accounted for 42% of total purchase volume in the quarter and increased 13%, as several of our newer value propositions continue to drive greater customer engagement.

[Brian Doubles, President and CEO at Synchrony Financial]

Synchrony's range of products and platforms gives us a unique view into the health of the consumer. Through our monitoring, we see continued trends of behavior normalizing to pre-pandemic levels. Across the portfolio, average transaction values leveled off through the quarter after modestly declining in the second quarter. Meanwhile, average transaction frequency, which had climbed throughout the year, showed some signs of stabilization toward the end of the quarter.

[Brian Doubles, President and CEO at Synchrony Financial]

Looking at our out-of-partner spend, our customers are becoming more selective in making larger purchases, including home furnishings and electronics, and spending less on travel. Directionally, we see broad trends that are in line with our expectations across the portfolio, with slowing spend growth, normalization of payment rates, and growth in balances, which is driving higher net interest income.

[Brian Doubles, President and CEO at Synchrony Financial]

While in the external deposit data we track, consumer savings balances remain approximately 8% above the average level in 2020. In summary, these trends show a consumer that continues to benefit from a strong labor market while reverting gradually toward historical spend and payment norms. As we closely monitor the health of the consumer, we also continue to develop and deploy the compelling products and value propositions that attract consumers and partners to Synchrony.

[Brian Doubles, President and CEO at Synchrony Financial]

We announced earlier this month that both the PayPal and Venmo cards can now be provisioned in the Apple Wallet, representing our latest enhancement as we evolve to meet the demands of our increasingly digital-first customers. Synchrony's journey began with in-store financing options, which have long been valued tools for both retailers and consumers to build loyalty and drive value.

[Brian Doubles, President and CEO at Synchrony Financial]

Over time, we've broadened the utility of these products through our dual and co-brand card strategies, which enable customers to make out-of-partner purchases, accumulate rewards, and extract even greater value. Increasingly, our customers are taking that engagement even further as digital wallets enable everyday use functionality and extend our leading value propositions well beyond the store.

[Brian Doubles, President and CEO at Synchrony Financial]

Active wallet users are up over 45% year-to-date, and sales on wallets are up over 70%. This trend is more than a simple technological enhancement. Synchrony's strategy to deliver enhanced utility and best-in-class experiences requires seamlessly integrated, tailored solutions, and our investments in technology allow us to meet this demand.

[Brian Doubles, President and CEO at Synchrony Financial]

When our customers combine the broad utility of our products and services with our digital wallet functionality, the impact is clear. Our digital wallet users spend nearly twice as much and have over double the transactions on average. More broadly, we see the impact of expanded product utility in our results. Out-of-partner spend continued its outsized growth this quarter, up 12% compared to last year.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

We continue to develop our solution suite and extend the reach of our products, meeting consumer demand for fast and secure shopping, and opening new opportunities for customers to engage with their favorite brands. In Health & Wellness, we were pleased to announce partnerships with veterinary hospitals at three additional universities.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

CareCredit is now accepted at 95% of the nation's public veterinary university hospitals, in addition to more than 25,000 provider locations, expanding access to flexible financing tools that enable a lifetime of care for all pets.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

The power of Synchrony's continually evolving model, supported by our focus on technological innovation, continues to position Synchrony as the partner of choice as we deliver digitally powered experiences and compelling value for our many stakeholders. With that, I'll turn the call over to Brian.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Thanks, Brian, and good morning, everyone.Synchrony's third quarter results reflected the strength of our financial model, demonstrated through our consistent growth and strong risk-adjusted returns. The compelling value propositions of our broad product suite continued to resonate with our 70+ million customers and drove broad-based growth across our sales platforms.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Ending loan receivables grew 14% versus last year, benefiting from the combination of approximately 120 basis point decrease in payment rate versus last year and 5% growth in purchase volume. Our third quarter payment rate was 16.3%, still remains approximately 130 basis points higher than our five-year pre-pandemic historical average.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Net interest income increased 11% to $4.4 billion, reflecting 21% growth in interest and fees. The increase in interest and fees was due to the combined impact of higher loan receivables and benchmark rates, as well as lower payment rate.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Our net interest margin was 15.36%, declined 16 basis points compared to the prior year, as higher funding costs more than offset the benefit of higher yields and variable asset mix. Specifically, loan receivable yield grew 114 basis points and contributed 95 basis points to net interest margin.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Higher liquidity portfolio yield contributed an additional 46 basis points to net interest margin, and our mix of interest-earning assets improved net interest margin by approximately 28 basis points, reflecting our strong growth in loan receivables. But these gains were more than offset by higher interest-bearing liability costs, which increased 229 basis points to 4.34% and reduced net interest margin by 185 basis points.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

RSAs of $979 million in the third quarter were 4.4% of average loan receivables, a $78 million decline from the prior year, reflecting higher net charge-offs, partially offset by higher net interest income. Our RSAs continue to perform as designed. They provide a critical alignment with our partners as we navigate the evolving environment together and support greater stability in our returns.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Provision for credit losses increased to $1.5 billion, reflecting higher net charge-offs and a $372 million reserve build, which largely reflected the growth in loan receivables. Our expenses grew 8% to $1.2 billion, primarily driven by the growth-related items, as well as technology investments and operational losses.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Our efficiency ratio for the third quarter improved by approximately 330 basis points compared to last year, to 33.2%. Summarizing our financial results, Synchrony generated net earnings of $628 million or $1.48 per diluted share, a return on average assets of 2.3%, and a return on tangible common equity of 22.9%.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Next, I'll cover our key credit trends on slide eight. Our delinquency performance in the third quarter continued to reflect normalization towards pre-pandemic behavior, with both the 30+ and 90+ delinquency rates approaching 2019 levels. Our 30+ delinquency rate was 4.4% compared to 3.28% last year, and approximately 7 basis points lower than third quarter of 2019.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Our 90+ delinquency rate was 2.06% versus 1.43% in the prior year, and approximately 1 basis point lower than our third quarter of 2019. Our net charge-off rate was 4.6% versus 3% last year. Synchrony remains approximately 115 basis points below the midpoint of our underwriting target of 5.5%-6%, where our risk-adjusted returns are more fully optimized.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Overall, our credit performance remains within our expectations and has benefited from investments in our advanced underwriting platform as we expect to continue on a path towards our long-term operating targets. Focusing on our more recent vintages, they continue to perform in line with those from 2019.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

While we're pleased with how these vintages are developing, we're continuously monitoring our portfolio and have implemented further credit actions, including some tightening of our origination criteria. These proactive refinements are intended to position our business for 2024 and beyond. Moving to reserves. Our allowance for credit losses as a percent of loan receivables was 10.40%, up 6 basis points from 10.34% in the second quarter.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

The reserve build of $372 million in the quarter was largely driven by receivables growth. Turn to slide 10. Our stable funding model and strong management of capital and liquidity continue to position Synchrony well for any environment. In the third quarter, customers continued to be attracted to our consumer bank offerings as we grew both direct and broker deposits to fund our anticipated receivables growth.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Deposits represented 84% of our total funding at quarter end. The remainder of our funding stack is comprised of securitized and unsecured debt at 7% and 9% of our funding, respectively. We completed a $1 billion securitized issuance in the quarter, and will continue to be active in both markets as conditions allow. Total liquidity, including undrawn credit facilities, was $20.5 billion, up $275 million from last year.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

At quarter end, liquidity represented 18.2% of total assets, down 192 basis points from last year, as we managed our liquidity portfolio and fund strong loan receivables growth. Moving on to our capital ratios. As a reminder, we elected to take the benefit of the CECL transition rules issued by the joint federal banking agencies.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Synchrony made its annual transition adjustment of approximately 60 basis points in January, and will continue to make annual adjustments of approximately 60 basis points each year until January of 2025. The impact of CECL has already been recognized in our income statement and balance sheet. Under the CECL transition rules, we ended the third quarter with a CET1 ratio of 12.4%, 190 basis points lower than last year's level of 14.3%.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

The Tier 1 capital ratio was 13.2% under the CECL transition rules, compared to 15.2% last year. The total capital ratio decreased 120 basis points to 15.3%. The Tier 1 capital plus reserves ratio on a fully phased-in basis decreased to 22.5%, compared to 24.1% last year.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

During the third quarter, we returned $254 million to our shareholders, consisting of $150 million of share repurchases and $104 million of common stock dividends. At the end of the quarter, we had $850 million remaining in our share repurchase authorization. Synchrony remains well-positioned to return capital to shareholders as guided by our business performance, market conditions, regulatory restrictions, and subject to our capital plan.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

We will also continue to seek opportunities to complete the development of our capital structure through the issuance of additional preferred stock as conditions allow. Now, please refer to slide 11 of the presentation for more detail on our outlook for 2023. We expect our ending loan receivables to grow approximately 11% versus last year, reflecting the combined impact of payment rate moderation and slowing purchase volume growth.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

We expect a full-year net interest margin of approximately 15.15%. The interest margin in the third quarter benefited from strong growth in interest and fees and receivables, in addition to payment rate moderation and lower deposit betas. In the fourth quarter, we expect net interest margin to be impacted by higher average liquidity to pre-fund seasonal loan receivables growth, impacting the mix of interest-earning assets.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Higher deposit betas, driven by competition and movement in benchmark rates, and interest and fee growth, partially offset by rising reversals. From a credit standpoint, delinquency nearly reached 2019 levels at quarter end and should follow seasonal trends from this point. With the increased visibility into delinquency performance this year, we are tightening our forecasted net charge-off rate to approximately 4.85%.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

We continue to anticipate our loss rate reaching a fully normalized level between 5.5% and 6% on an annual basis in 2024. As we noted, we will continue to monitor and position the portfolio for 2024 and beyond. We expect the RSA to trend at the low end of our prior outlook and be approximately 3.95% of average loan receivables for the full year.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

This improved outlook reflects the impacts of the continued credit normalization, lower net interest margin, and the mix of our loan receivables growth. As we generate higher-than-anticipated growth, we are maintaining our expectation for operating expenses at approximately $1.15 billion per quarter. While we continue to make selective investments in our business, we're committed to delivering operating leverage for the full year.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

As Synchrony continues to leverage our core strengths, our advanced data analytics, our disciplined approach to underwriting and credit management, and our stable funding model, we're confident in our ability to execute on our key strategic priorities and deliver market-leading returns over the long term. I'll now turn the call back over to Brian for his closing thoughts.

[Brian Doubles, President and CEO at Synchrony Financial]

Thanks, Brian. Synchrony continues to demonstrate both the agility and consistency of our differentiated model. We remain focused on optimizing the outcomes for our many stakeholders by closely managing the drivers of our business which we control, and intently monitoring and preparing for those which we do not. We are prioritizing sustainable growth to deliver appropriate risk-adjusted margins through changing market conditions.

[Brian Doubles, President and CEO at Synchrony Financial]

We are prudently investing in the future and long-term growth of the business, so we are able to exceed the increasingly digital demands of our consumers and we are delivering on our financial commitments, even as we ready the business for an evolving environment to ensure our continued ability to drive long-term value into the future. With that, I'll turn the call back to Kathryn to open the Q&A.

[Kathryn Miller, SVP of Investor Relations at Synchrony Financial]

That concludes our prepared remarks. We will now begin the Q&A session. So that we can accommodate as many of you as possible, I'd like to ask the participants to please limit yourself to one primary and one follow-up question. If you have additional questions, the investor relations team will be available after the call. Operator, please start the Q&A session.

[Moderator]

Certainly. At this time, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. You may remove yourself from the queue by pressing star two. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. We'll take our first question from Ryan Nash with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

[Ryan Nash, Managing Director of Equity Research at Goldman Sachs]

Good morning, everyone.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Hey, Ryan.

[Brian Doubles, President and CEO at Synchrony Financial]

Good morning, Ryan.

[Ryan Nash, Managing Director of Equity Research at Goldman Sachs]

Maybe a two-part question on credit. First, the full year guide implies a decent acceleration in charge-off performance in the fourth quarter. So you can maybe just talk a little bit about what's driving that. Then second, maybe just tease out, you know, what gives you confidence that we're going to follow seasonal patterns from here, given, you know, a handful of moving pieces: inflation, resumption of student loan payments, and then obviously, we have the growth math impacts from 2022 and 2023.

[Ryan Nash, Managing Director of Equity Research at Goldman Sachs]

You know, but offsetting that, you guys obviously were one of the more conservative in underwriting, given some of the tightening that you had done. So can you maybe just walk through all of those moving pieces and what you think it means for the trajectory of credit losses? Thank you.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Sure. I'll try to get to all those burning questions, Ryan. So the first one is, you think about the fourth quarter, I mean, you look at the dollar value, little over $2 billion sitting in the 90+ delinquency bucket. So I think if you go back and look at how it rolls, you get a pretty good sense of what we see from the fourth quarter. I'd say the delinquency performance has been consistent, really throughout 2023.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Really what you have here is a factor of our entry rate into delinquency is still below the pandemic period. So it's back, you know, it's lower than 2018, 2019, which makes collections a little bit tougher on the stuff that does roll in. So that's how I think about the fourth quarter.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

When you start to think about 2024 and really how we get comfortable around, you know, credit performance, a handful of things I'd sit back and say: number one, we didn't accordion the credit box, right? So we don't open and close in on our partners. So our underwriting was consistent.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

To some degree, in the early part of the pandemic, we did not shrink as much, we did not expand as much when everyone was trying to, you know, make up for the lost vintages. So we kind of kept consistent throughout that period, number one. Number two, our PRISM advanced underwriting tools allows us to be less score reliant and use the data from our partners.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

We think, hopefully, you know, we made, you know, very good choices or good choices during the pandemic period. When I then look at some of the data, you know, Ryan, I still look at the vintages that we put on in the pandemic period. They're generally performing in line with, with, you know, the 18, 19 vintages, so we're not seeing deterioration.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Even when we look externally, the TransUnion data, we see we're performing better than the vintages of other folks. So again, I think we feel comfortable with the tools we have in place. I think we're comfortable with performance. That said, Ryan, we did take some actions here in the, in the third quarter, and that was mainly around the fact that we do have a shared consumer.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

So other people who have maybe made certain underwriting choices, you know, can flow through to us. So, you know, we want to make sure that our loss rate stays in our targeted range, and we really took actions in order to ensure or try to ensure that we stay within our targeted underwriting loss rate of 5.5-6, and optimize our risk-adjusted margin.

[Ryan Nash, Managing Director of Equity Research at Goldman Sachs]

Got it. Maybe as a follow-up, Brian. So, you know, the RSA seems to be coming in, you know, better than had initially been forecasted, you know, given the guidance for 3.95 for the year, and, you know, we look forward, you know, losses are on a continued normalization, and loan growth seems to be slowing.

[Ryan Nash, Managing Director of Equity Research at Goldman Sachs]

So, you know, can you maybe just tease out some of the moving pieces as we head into 2024? It feels like, you know, we're kind of back in an environment similar to where we were in, you know, the 2018, 2019 timeframe, when credit was normalizing and the RSA was coming in, you know, well below that 4% threshold. So can you maybe talk through some of those pieces? Thank you.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Yeah. Thanks again, Ryan. You know, as I think about the RSA, it's really performing as we designed it to be, right? So when losses were extremely low, it went over 6% level, and now we're back into an environment today, it's sub-4%. Again, it's driven by a couple factors.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

One, the charge-off rate. Charge-off dollars are clearly an impact. Most certainly, the impact of cost of funds and interest-bearing liabilities is flowing through. I think as you think forward, you know, the things that are going to make it move a little bit, it's going to be the mix of the portfolio. Obviously, you look at something like Health & Wellness, we don't have as much RSA. It's growing a little bit faster.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Then again, you're going to have in some of the other portfolios that have a maybe higher percentage of RSAs, depending upon their growth rates, will influence it. But again, it should track, you know, consistently. I always point to Ryan, we've talked about this before. If you looked at RSAs as a percent of purchase volume, it is pretty stable through seasonal trends. So again, we expect it to continue to operate the way it historically has.

[Ryan Nash, Managing Director of Equity Research at Goldman Sachs]

Thanks for taking my question.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Thanks, Ryan.

[Moderator]

Thank you. We'll take our next question from Erika Najarian with UBS. Please go ahead.

[Erika Najarian, Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst at UBS]

Hi, good morning.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Good morning, Erika.

[Erika Najarian, Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst at UBS]

My first question is on the direction of the net interest margin. So it seems like we've, you know, fully solidified the notion of higher for longer in 2024. You know, how should we think about, you know, how your net interest margin should perform in a higher for longer environment? As we think about funding costs on the other side of the cycle, when we eventually get to rate cuts, although the forward curve keeps pushing that out, how sensitive should we think about your funding costs relative to cuts in Fed funds?

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Yes, thanks, Erika. So I think as we think about the margin as we move forward here, there's, you know, a little bit of tailwind still to go on prime rate that flows through the books here in the fourth quarter. I think the second thing you're going to continue to see is a benefit on the margin coming from higher revolve.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

You know, we're still paying rates that are 130 basis points above the pandemic period. So again, there should be some pushup there. There should be a little bit of a headwind relative to reversals that go against that. So that's really as I think about the yield side of the equation.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

On the interest-bearing liabilities side of the equation, again, there were a lot of deposits that were put on this year, and they're going to have to reset next year. So we'll see a little bit of tick up next year in the interest-bearing liabilities as those you know shorter days you know CDs hopefully renew.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

I think when you get on the back side of the cycle, that's really to be seen, right? There's a case that can be made where betas will be a little bit slower coming down for some of the folks that want to try to gather deposits and get the yield side of their investment portfolios up.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

There are some that are going to want to try to push down the cost of funding because they're an incentive. So I think as we get closer to that, we can probably give you a better perspective of which way that will turn.

[Erika Najarian, Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst at UBS]

Got it. My second question is on capital. You know, there's been a lot of discussion, for card companies in particular, you know, with regards to, you know, how we should treat unfunded commitments and also the timing differences in terms of, you know, higher ACL ratios, in terms of the numerator deductions. So, could you give us a little bit of a preview, so to speak, on how the pending new capital rules could impact Synchrony, and how you're expecting that to impact your approach to capital management?

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Yeah, great question, Erika. So, when we look at the rules, you know, the first thing I'd say, probably along with others, we're clearly disappointed with the proposed rules around capital, both from the process in which the Fed went through, as well as certain elements that we don't think were clearly thought through fully if you thought about a holistic review of the capital stack, right?

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

You combine that with what I would say, some apparent gold plating, it's very difficult, I think, for the industry as a whole. I think you're seeing that in banks' feedback, I think you're seeing it through the trade groups' feedback, and I think there's, you know, some even level of concern with the Fed governors with regard to that.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Then finally, when you think about Synchrony, before I get into the details, you know, we're clearly disappointed that the tailoring rules effectively have been eliminated by treating us on the same level as a lot of the other banking institutions. You know, with that said, Erika, if we looked at just taking those rules as they are, again, we're not sure that they would stay as they are.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

The impact to us is probably between a 15%-20% higher impact to capital and the range there depends really upon how you treat some of the RSA when you think about the operational risk pieces with the RSA offset, the fraud, and some of the revenue items. You know, when I think about the unfunded commitments, that is a fairly significant add back to the RWA.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

The good news for us, I think, you know, we have a path where through a mitigation strategy, we think it's this would be very manageable if it was enacted the way it was today and part of it, when you think about the unfunded commitments, a good bulk of that is with accounts that are deemed inactive. So we can adjust line strategies without impacting current customers in our business. So I'm not sure as we look at it and we talk about it as a company, we believe there is a significant aspect with how we manage the growth side of the business.

[Erika Najarian, Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst at UBS]

Thank you.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Thanks, Erika. Have a good day.

[Moderator]

Thank you. We'll take our next question from Sanjay Sakhrani with KBW. Please go ahead.

[Sanjay Sakhrani, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at KBW]

Thanks. Good morning. My first question, Brian Wenzel, is for you, in terms of the reserve rate going forward. You know, we've seen some of the card issuers make adjustments to, you know, kind of what's inside the reserve and what's not, and there's some risks associated with inflation and the fact that behaviorally, things are trending a little bit different than they have in the past. Maybe you could just talk about the migration of reserve rate going forward, and you feel comfortable in the methodology at this point.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Yeah, you know, thanks for the question, Sanjay. Obviously, we feel comfortable at the end of the third quarter that we have the right level of losses. You know, as you think about it, the base assumptions that we have in the reserve model really didn't change. I think when you look at the baselines that are out there, there's not a significant shift in the underlying assumptions that are going into the model.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

You know, as we looked at the quarter, what you did see is a little bit of shift between the quantitative portion of the model and the qualitative portion. But again, through the past history, we think through the scenarios that we run, that we've accounted for a potentially worsening macro.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

We hopefully have captured inflation in as part of that model, and then we also have student loans as part of it. So we feel good about where we are as we sit today, and that we can withstand, you know, changes in the macro environment. That said, you know, when we look at it, there are six basis points of coverage between second quarter, third quarter. You know, given these models, that isn't significant, and I wouldn't read into it that we have a deteriorating picture as we close the quarter.

[Sanjay Sakhrani, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at KBW]

Okay, great. Then maybe one for Brian Doubles. Brian, can you just talk about, you know, sort of the backdrop for portfolio acquisitions, any renewals, that kind of stuff, and then, maybe just the competitive environment in general? Thanks.

[Brian Doubles, President and CEO at Synchrony Financial]

Yeah, sure, Sanjay. So you know, look, I would say generally, it's a pretty constructive, competitive environment. I think, you know, what we're seeing in the market around pricing, new opportunities, renewals is pretty disciplined and I think anytime you enter into a period like we're in right now, where there's some uncertainty on the horizon, you tend to see issuers stay a little bit more conservative and a little more disciplined, which is good news for us.

[Brian Doubles, President and CEO at Synchrony Financial]

You know, in terms of renewals, we just announced Belk this quarter. It's a great renewal for us, kind of normal course, a great partner, very engaged customer base. So obviously, we're always out there working the renewal pipeline on our portfolio.

[Brian Doubles, President and CEO at Synchrony Financial]

Then in terms of new opportunities, I would say, you know, on balance, it's probably more new program opportunities, startup opportunities, less of the kind of big programs that are out there coming to market and I think that'll hold true probably for the next 12-18 months. Then beyond that, I think you'll probably see some bigger programs come up and be in the market.

[Sanjay Sakhrani, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at KBW]

Perfect. Thank you very much.

[Brian Doubles, President and CEO at Synchrony Financial]

Thanks, Sanjay.

[Moderator]

Thank you. We'll take our next question from John Hecht with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

[John Hecht, Managing Director at Jefferies]

Morning, guys. Thanks very much-

[Brian Doubles, President and CEO at Synchrony Financial]

Hey, John.

[John Hecht, Managing Director at Jefferies]

For taking my questions and how are you?

[Brian Doubles, President and CEO at Synchrony Financial]

Hey, John.

[John Hecht, Managing Director at Jefferies]

First up, you guys have had pretty steady flow of new accounts the last few quarters. I'm wondering, you know, I mean, given where you're underwriting and kind of what's going on in the world, kind of maybe what are the characteristics of the new customers and any change from where you were a few years ago? Then what are the sources of the new customers as well?

[Brian Doubles, President and CEO at Synchrony Financial]

Yeah, well, John, I would say, you know, consistent, consistent kind of trends on new accounts, both in terms of absolute magnitude as well as where the accounts are coming from. You know, one of the things that Brian mentioned as we think about underwriting, you know, we, we don't expand the credit box in really good times, and we try not to really restrict it in more uncertain times.

[Brian Doubles, President and CEO at Synchrony Financial]

That means that we have, you know, more of a steady trend in terms of both new accounts, active accounts, et cetera. I would tell you that the new programs that we recently launched are performing really well. We're seeing really good growth there, so we continue to be encouraged on that front.

[Brian Doubles, President and CEO at Synchrony Financial]

You're seeing, you know, I would say, really good trends across all of the platforms. You know, as we look at growth, it's not, you know, one platform that's really outperforming. You're seeing that a little bit with Health & Wellness, but it's pretty broad-based, and that's encouraging. You know, I think the consumer has been much more resilient than any of us anticipated a year ago, and you're seeing that across the board, whether you look at purchase volume, receivables, new accounts, you know, active accounts.

[Brian Doubles, President and CEO at Synchrony Financial]

You know, if we had to pick a metric, that's one that's probably a little bit more important than new accounts, because keeping that consumer engaged, offering them more than one product, like, that's a big part of our strategy, and so we've been pleased, you know, so far all year.

[John Hecht, Managing Director at Jefferies]

Great. That's very helpful. Then, second question is, you know, I think I said that you guys did some disclosure that you guys were involved in at least evaluating GreenSky. Yeah, I'm wondering kind of what's the appetite for acquisition? Yeah, I would assume the environment's a little bit better now with different opportunities. So maybe if you could just take us through what you're looking at and where you might go from that perspective.

[Brian Doubles, President and CEO at Synchrony Financial]

Yeah, I mean, look, we're always opportunistic when it comes to potential M&A opportunities. You know, at the same time, John, you know, we're, we're extremely disciplined around the financial return of those opportunities, making sure that they're accretive. You know, we weigh that against buying back our stock and other opportunities. So look, we're always in the market.

[Brian Doubles, President and CEO at Synchrony Financial]

We've done some really nice smaller acquisitions over the last couple of years. Pets Best has been an absolute home run for us. You know, since we acquired that business, I think the pets in force up 5x, you know, just between 2019 when we acquired it and now. Allegro has been a great acquisition for us.

[Brian Doubles, President and CEO at Synchrony Financial]

Again, nice acquisition, relatively small in terms of the capital outlay for that, but, you know, we've been able to leverage the scale of Health & Wellness to grow that. We've picked up some new products, as part of that. So those are the types of acquisitions that we really like to do. But with that said, we look at larger opportunities, but they've got to make sense. You know, we balance those against other uses for our capital, and they've got to have, you know, a nice return profile for us and a good path to EPS accretion.

[John Hecht, Managing Director at Jefferies]

Great. Thanks very much.

[Brian Doubles, President and CEO at Synchrony Financial]

Yep.

[Moderator]

Thank you. We'll take our next question from Kevin Barker with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

[Kevin Barker, Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst at Piper Sandler]

Great. Thank you. Have you seen any particular shifts in payment rate trends for the near prime to prime consumer? If you hear some of your competitors mention that there's a little bit more weakness, primarily due to household net worth or even savings rates within that cohort. Are you seeing any changes in payment rates there?

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Yeah. Good morning, Kevin. You know, when we think about the consumer, there's a lot of focus that goes into savings rates, and I'd say that the higher end consumer cohorts do have excess savings that's in there.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

But the prime, kind of right on the prime level to subprime, they benefited by a 22.6% wage increase since 2019, which has been able to really you know bolster them through this period. When I look at payment rates and compare them year-over-year, right, you know, where you see probably the biggest shift in the payment rate is in that 660-720 bucket.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

You know, they're all moving from you know, a little bit more full pay, a statement pay down. But the biggest shift is in that 660-720, which isn't necessarily that concerning to us, and still, you know, below - above where they were in the pre-pandemic period. So I'd say, shift, it's not something that we are concerned about or find it to be concerning at this point.

[Kevin Barker, Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst at Piper Sandler]

Okay. Then I know it's very early, but are you seeing any impact on payment rate trends for folks with federal student loans? I know it's, you know, first few weeks here, but just-

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

It is early.

[Kevin Barker, Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst at Piper Sandler]

Yeah.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Yeah, so what's actually interesting, Kevin, when you look at that cohort, a couple of things. We've done, you know, we've done a lot of analysis on this group of people. We'll continue to do it. I think when you look at the month of September, we saw a significant rise in people making payments in advance of their student loan payments beginning in October.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

So that's a very good sign for us with regard to that. You know, we did a deeper dive, and we looked at how they are performing those accounts against, and so the entire book really against, you know, I'd say, credit cohorts and to be honest with you, Kevin, you're going to find this interesting. They actually are performing better with people with student loans versus people without student loans.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

They clear to be very, very cautious. Again, the fact that people, you know, a significant number of people did pick up payments prior to the due date. Again, what we expect going forward is that the fourth quarter is going to be a little bit noisy. So, with regard to people who may have forgotten, got new, new servicers, et cetera, and then you'll start to get a much better read as you move into the first quarter. What's going to be challenging for issuers is the fact that they're not-- you know, we don't expect them to be reported to the bureaus until January 25.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

So there are things that we're going to watch with regard to changing those balances and see whether or not we can detect, you know, through the work of the bureaus, whether or not they are resuming payments and how much they're paying down. So, you know, we've kind of set that up in advance to monitor the population. Again, we think we provided for them in prior periods for ones that may struggle.

[Kevin Barker, Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst at Piper Sandler]

Thank you, Brian.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Thanks, Kevin. Have a good day.

[Moderator]

Thank you. We'll take our next question from Jeff Adelson with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

[Jeff Adelson, Executive Director and Equity Research Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Just wanted to get a sense of the-

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Good morning, Jeff.

[Jeff Adelson, Executive Director and Equity Research Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

Just wanted to get an updated, you know, updated view on, on the late fees from the CFPB here. I know we're almost done with October and haven't heard anything yet. Just wondering, has there been any shift in the dialogue out there, or are you still fully expecting the rule to come out as proposed?

[Jeff Adelson, Executive Director and Equity Research Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

I guess as a part of that question, are you-- you know, when the rule comes out, are you going to be taking any sort of proactive, preemptive actions in preparation, or are you more just going to be in the wait-and-see approach and wait to see how it plays out in the courts?

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Yeah, no, thanks, Jeff. So look, we're obviously still waiting for the final rule to be issued, so there's plenty of unknowns out there until we see the final rule. We got to see things like the implementation period, the final amount. We also believe that it will be litigated, so we're going to watch that carefully, and that could impact the timing as well.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

So I guess what I would say is, look, we're prepared for multiple scenarios in terms of timing. We've been working very closely with our partners for over six months now. We're working on pricing offsets, really with the goal of offsetting the impact here and putting us in a position with our partners where we can underwrite a large cross-section of the customers that we do today.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

We're obviously, it goes without saying we're disappointed in the rule. Obviously, we think it has unintended consequences that weren't properly evaluated. Late fees are a very important incentive to pay. $8 just clearly is not an incentive.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

So without those offsets, it would restrict access to a pretty, significant cross-section of consumers and, you know, no change to what we've said in the past. Our goal is to protect our partners, fully offset the impact, and continue to underwrite and approve the majority of the customers that we do today.

[Jeff Adelson, Executive Director and Equity Research Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

Got it. Thanks. Just on the credit tightening side, I know you discussed some more actions there, positioning yourself for 2024, but at the same time, you know, you weren't leaning it as hard as your peers. You were sort of ahead of the curve there. Just wondering, you know, what would cause you to lean back in at this point? Is there any sort of signals you're looking for out there or any sort of timing around that to be expecting?

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Just to be clear, to lean back into loosening credit or, or-

[Jeff Adelson, Executive Director and Equity Research Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

Yeah, like when you might, you know, widen the credit box again.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Yeah, listen, we have a very good credit team that's consistently evaluating performance of the portfolio by partner, by vertical, by channel and I think to some degree, we want to see how credit develops across the industry. Again, I talked about a shared consumer, so what other issuers are doing or not doing, you know, can have a flow-through effect to us.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

So again, we'll watch those things. There's not a telltale sign to say, you know, once this happens, we will go. But our team, you know, has a lot of tools. We use a lot of data. You know, we're using much more decision tree and non-score-based measures in order to assess that. Again, the data elements that we get from partners will tell us how the consumer is performing.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

We'll continue to look at that. Again, you know, Brian said it, I said it, we don't move the credit box around that often because our partners want consistency in origination. Our customers want to have consistent underwriting from us, and that's part of our lower line loan growth strategy.

[Moderator]

Thank you. We'll move next to John Pancari with Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.

[John Pancari, Senior Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at Evercore ISI]

Good morning.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Good morning, John.

[John Pancari, Senior Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at Evercore ISI]

Regarding the back to the late fees, can you maybe just give us a little bit of color on how do you think about the timing of the offsets that you're negotiating at this time, you know, with your partners? You mentioned pricing and, I'm assuming there's other factors. Maybe if you could just talk about the, you know, once the rule goes in place, what type of timing should we expect in terms of being able to see some of the offsets of that initial impact?

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Yeah, so look, I mean, obviously, there's still things related to timing that we don't know yet, and primarily that's when the rule goes into effect, the impact of any litigation as well as the implementation period in the final rule. You know, the original rule as written was 60 days. That's just clearly not enough time to get this done, so we think that, you know, hopefully it'll be longer than that.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Those are the discussions that we're having with each of our partners, and that will influence the nature of the pricing actions and the timing in which they go in. So I can't be really more specific than that, but we've got a really good plan in place, partner by partner. We've been working on this for over six months. We feel good about the conversations that we've had and the actions that we're going to take if the final rule goes into effect as written.

[John Pancari, Senior Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at Evercore ISI]

Okay, thank you. Then my second question is kind of a two-parter. First, on the incremental credit actions that you implemented in the third quarter, can you maybe just elaborate there around, you know, what exactly you did in the third quarter versus what you've been doing previously? Then separately, you mentioned that the RSAs are not as heavy in the Health & Wellness sector, the business line. Can you talk about, you know, how much lower and then other product areas that may also have a lower RSA? Thanks.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Yeah. So with regard to the credit actions we took, a lot of it is around originations, but not around necessarily score cutoffs as much as it is different data elements or different criteria that we factor differently in account originations. We also, you know, are working on account management type actions.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

So, you know, triggers that come from the bureaus of certain attributes or criteria where we would turn it into a formal watch to a credit line decrease or a closed account. So those are probably the two flavors of it. Again, it's not necessarily shifting cutoffs, it's really focusing on different criteria that are coming into our underwriting and account management engine.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

With regard to the second part of your question on the RSAs, you know, we just highlight, you know, Health & Wellness, and I think we said it before, you know, there's not a lot of RSA sitting in that particular sales platform. So we just as that platform grows at a faster rate, it has a little bit of an influence on the overall RSA for the company. Outside of that, we're not going to go into the different sales platforms from there because the rest do have some level in each of the sales platforms.

[John Pancari, Senior Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at Evercore ISI]

Okay, thanks, Brian.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Thanks, John. Have a good day.

[Moderator]

Thank you. We'll take our next question from Mihir Bhatia with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

[Mihir Bhatia, Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America]

Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. I wanted to start with, just going back to the discussion around credit. You know, your credit guidance for the full year implies, I think, a full Q4 pretty close to the 5.5%, you know, getting back to your long-term target. So I was curious on how you see that evolving.

[Mihir Bhatia, Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America]

I know you've talked about keeping underwriting pretty steady, but you've also tightened. We've seen some pretty fast normalization here in the back half of this year. Do you think it gets above your 5.5%-6% target for a little bit in 2024 before coming back down? You know, kind of a giveback from the strong years you had over the last couple of years.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Yeah. Well, good morning, Mihir. You know, the first thing I'd say, and I don't think we've got enough credit for it as a company, but we still haven't reached, and again, I know it's 7 basis points at 1, we still not have reached our pre-pandemic delinquency metrics. I think there's only a couple of issuers that are in that category. So I wouldn't, I think we shouldn't undersell that, number one. I think number two, when you look at the performance, I'm not sure I would characterize it as accelerating in the fourth quarter.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

If you go back and look at the growth on a dollar basis, in 2017 and 2018 on average versus this, you know, they grew, on average 18%-19%, in the 2017-2018 period, and we grew, you know, in this quarter, 18% and 20% on a 30+ and 90+ basis. So, probably in line, I'd say, with seasonality, when you look at the relative percentages, you know, if you think about bps, they were 40% and 20% or 50% and 20%, we're 56% and a little bit over 20%. So there's not a big deterioration I'd say there and characterize it that way.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

You know what? As we look at the performance for net charge-offs next year as a full year basis, one of the reasons why I think we've tightened a little bit here, again, given the share of consumers, we're trying to maintain losses inside that 5.5%-6% and setting up the portfolio well to perform there, because that's where we think the optimized risk-adjusted margin is for us as a company.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

I know others, you know, clearly are thinking now that they're going to they're willing to take a higher net charge-off rate and a lower margin. That's not where we want to operate as a company, and deploy capital is not as effective for us, so we're going to discipline around that.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

So again, when I look at that, and if you go back to earlier in the call, I talked about some of the vintage performance, and other things that we've seen that gives us you know, some level of comfort that we have a pretty good view of the trajectory.

[Mihir Bhatia, Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America]

Got it. Thank you. Then maybe just switching gears completely a little bit. I wanted to ask about the BNPL offering at Lowe's. You know, BNPL obviously not as topical today as maybe 12 or 24 months ago, but I think you've rolled it out this quarter or very recently. It looks like you're the exclusive provider for the BNPL offering there, and it's a white label, basically off of Synchrony Pay, which they're calling Lowe's Pay.

[Mihir Bhatia, Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America]

Now, what I was wondering, if you could just maybe expand on that a little bit. Just talk about, you know, what do the economics look like? Is it tied to your card offering in some way? Is this a competitive process? Is this an area you're looking to expand and build out with other retailers? How are you thinking about that product? Thank you.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Yeah, sure. So maybe to start more broadly, you know, I think this has been an area where we've been investing with our partners. I think the pay later products that we offer, it's a great way, really, just to engage more customers and offer them a new financing offer that's got really nice utility. We are seeing proof that the product does provide both value to us and to our partners.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

You know, if you look at the results this quarter, year-over-year, we've grown installment and pay later products 29%. So we're clearly over-indexing in that product. You know, so we feel pretty good. You know, I think the multiproduct strategy that we've been talking about for well over a year now is starting to pay off, and you're seeing that with what we announced and launched with Lowe's.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

You know, the Lowe's Pay is a white label version of that, and so one of the things that's really important to our strategy is flexibility, both in terms of how we offer the product inside of our partners, but flexibility to the consumer as well. So we're willing to offer that as Synchrony Pay Later, and we do that for a number of partners.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

We're also willing to white label it, which I think is a real competitive advantage for us because a lot of partners or a lot of competitors are not willing to do that. We're seeing really good traction on the launch so far, and we're just really pleased to be able to offer another product inside of our Lowe's partnership.

[Mihir Bhatia, Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America]

Okay, thank you.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Thanks. Thanks, Mihir.

[Moderator]

Thank you. We'll take our next question from Don Fandetti with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

[Don Fandetti, Managing Director at Wells Fargo]

Hi. Talk a little bit more about the health of the consumer in terms of the lower end versus the higher end, and also, do you feel more comfortable on one or the other based on what you're seeing going forward?

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Yeah, so I think when you look at the consumer across three different metrics: the spending metrics, the payment metrics, and then obviously the credit metrics. Let me start with credit first. You know, that consumer is the one who is struggling. We see a little bit more of those back to pre-pandemic levels in delinquency and their performance in delinquency, and then deeper non-prime performing a little bit worse.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

So from a credit standpoint, they get in delinquency, they don't really have the ability to cure out of it and are using other forms like settlements and debt settlement companies in order to kind of solve some of it.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

That to be expected in this environment, they just don't have as much access to liquidity. Again, what's keeping that consumer base going is a broad-based wage increase that has helped fuel that. So even though they may have spent the dollars that they got during the pandemic, you know, stimulus packages, they do see larger wage gains. So again, what we're continuing to see is while the transaction values are a little bit lower for them, the frequency is up, and they're continuing to spend at, we think, a very manageable pace.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Again, when we look at our book, and I look at the average balance in our book, you know, if you look at 2019 versus now, it's up a CAGR of 5%, and the open to buy is up a little bit more. So I think the consumer is being relatively disciplined, and there is more liquidity in the system for them.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Clearly, you know, when we look at the high-end consumer, the high-end consumer is performing incredibly well. Their payment rates remain above 2019 levels. They are showing strength. You know, we've skewed the high end of prime up by three percentage points in the super high end, which also has helped the portfolio performance. So again, we feel good. Again, when I look at the entire portfolio, you know, entry into delinquency is still below 2019 levels.

[Don Fandetti, Managing Director at Wells Fargo]

Thanks, Brian.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Thank you.

[Moderator]

Thank you. We'll take our next question from Rick Shane with J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.

[Rick Shane, Head of Consumer and Specialty Finance Research at JP Morgan]

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question this morning.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Sure.

[Rick Shane, Head of Consumer and Specialty Finance Research at JP Morgan]

Most have been asked and answered, but I just want to talk a little bit more about the RSA guide and the improvement there. When we look at the charge-off rate, when we look at NIM, when we look at everything, it looks like everything is kind of within the range, but of expectations both from an original perspective at the beginning of the year and from a second quarter perspective. But for whatever reason, you feel like the RSA charge is going to be down a little bit. Is that really just a function of mix, or what else is contributing to that?

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Yeah, thanks for the question, Rick. It really is a mix between the platforms and between the portfolios and each of these arrangements are different. They're unique by partner, so certain partners, excuse me, are performing better than others. Certain ones have volume-based measures as well, so it really depends upon where that volume goes and the performance of the individual portfolio. So, that is the main driver.

[Rick Shane, Head of Consumer and Specialty Finance Research at JP Morgan]

Okay, great. Thank you.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Thanks, Rick.

[Brian Doubles, President and CEO at Synchrony Financial]

Thanks, Rick.

[Moderator]

We will take our next question from Saul Martinez with HSBC. Please go ahead.

[Saul Martinez, Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at HSBC]

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Yeah, most of my questions have been asked, but maybe I think we just go back to your comments on reserve levels and reserve adequacy and where we go from here.

[Saul Martinez, Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at HSBC]

You know, I get that your reserves, you seem to be indicating that you feel comfortable with your reserve ratios and you are, I think, still about 40-50 basis points, if I'm not mistaken, above your day one CECL allowance levels. But you are expecting NCOs to normalize and move higher. I would expect your losses that will flow through your reasonable and supportable period will be moving higher as we move forward.

[Saul Martinez, Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at HSBC]

But just maybe you can comment on, you know, your reserve outlook going forward and what would induce you to maybe build reserves or what would need to happen for some additional reserve builds above and beyond what you need for growth?

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Yeah, thanks. Thanks for the question. So the way I would think about the reserve as we move forward is you should see a rotation as you stabilize in delinquencies in this normalization period, that the quantitative model absorbs that trend line. Then as we get more comfortable with the macro backdrops, the effects of inflation, you know, as student loans if they have an impact flow through the portfolio, you'll see the qualitative piece begin to come down and effectively offset that, and then you'll move down.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Ultimately, we think towards that day one level, if the assumptions come in generally as we think about it. If you think about incremental provisioning on a rate basis here, again, most of the time we're talking about things that are growth-driven, in the portfolio, but truly rate-driven ones.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

You know, a couple of factors that we look at is clearly if you have a deterioration in collection performance, that could do it. Mainly that's associated a lot of times with unemployment claims rising. So that could be a second factor, that kind of goes in there. But collection performance and unemployment claims are two of the, probably the bigger ones that we'd see.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Again, we haven't seen trends in collections that would warrant that today, so we feel good about that, and unemployment claims have still remained historically low. So again, we think we factored into our reserve at the end of the third quarter qualitative assessments for a potentially deteriorating macro, and we'll just have to see how that plays out.

[Saul Martinez, Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at HSBC]

Okay. No, that's helpful. Thanks.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Thank you. Have a good day.

[Moderator]

We are allotted time for questions today, so we will take our final question from Arren Cyganovich, with Citi. Please go ahead.

[Arren Cyganovich, Director and Analyst covering Specialty Finance at Citi]

Thanks. I'll be quick. It looked like your share buybacks came down just a touch. You talk about your outlook for buybacks in the quarters ahead?

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Yeah. First of all, good morning, Arren. Glad we were able to get your, your question in. With regard to the buybacks, we generally do not give or we have not given quarterly guidance with regard to how their purchases flow out for the quarter. At the end of the quarter, we had $850 million remaining under the current share repurchase authorization as we move to the end of the capital year, you know, in June of next year.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

What I probably want to be clear about with regard to that level for a second, is what's not really driving the dollar amount. So, you know, I just really want to be clear that it's not related to a change in the macro environment for us, number one.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Two, it's not related to any, any potential proposals on late fees. Then three, it's not related to Basel III Endgame. We have a set of mile markers, that we've set out in the capital plan that's more RWA based than really, how our income kind of comes in versus plan. So those are the factors and again, we consider the other factors, but that was not, you know, not factored into our decision for the third quarter repurchases.

[Arren Cyganovich, Director and Analyst covering Specialty Finance at Citi]

Thanks.

[Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO at Synchrony Financial]

Thank you. Have a good day.

[Moderator]

Thank you. This concludes Synchrony's earnings conference call. You may disconnect your lines at this time and have a wonderful day. Thank you.

Participants

Executives

• Brian Doubles, President and CEO
• Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO
• Kathryn Miller, SVP of Investor Relations

Analysts

• Arren Cyganovich, Director and Analyst covering Specialty Finance at Citi
• Don Fandetti, Managing Director at Wells Fargo
• Erika Najarian, Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst at UBS
• Jeff Adelson, Executive Director and Equity Research Analyst at Morgan Stanley
• John Hecht, Managing Director at Jefferies
• John Pancari, Senior Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at Evercore ISI
• Kevin Barker, Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst at Piper Sandler
• Mihir Bhatia, Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America
• Moderator
• Rick Shane, Head of Consumer and Specialty Finance Research at JP Morgan
• Ryan Nash, Managing Director of Equity Research at Goldman Sachs
• Sanjay Sakhrani, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at KBW
• Saul Martinez, Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at HSBC