U.S. Bancorp Q1 2022 Earnings Report

U.S. Bancorp EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $0.99
• Consensus EPS: $0.93
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.06
• One Year Ago EPS: $1.45

U.S. Bancorp Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $5.60 billion
• Expected Revenue: $5.55 billion
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$46.24 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: +2.30%

U.S. Bancorp Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q1 2022
• Date: 4/14/2022
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, April 14, 2022
• Conference Call Time: 8:20AM ET

U.S. Bancorp (NYSE:USB) (NYSE:USB) is a financial services holding company and the parent organization of U.S. Bank, a full-service commercial bank. The company provides deposit accounts, consumer and business loans, mortgages, credit and debit cards, payment services, and other banking products to individuals, businesses, institutions and government entities.

Through its wealth, corporate and commercial banking operations, U.S. Bancorp also offers investment management, trust and custody services, treasury management, capital markets support, equipment finance and other specialized financial solutions. Its payments business serves merchants and financial institutions through card processing, payment acceptance and related technology.

U.S. Bancorp traces its banking heritage to 1863 and serves customers throughout the United States through a combination of branch locations, ATMs and digital banking platforms. The company is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Gunjan Kedia serves as president and chief executive officer, while Andy Cecere serves as executive chairman.

U.S. Bancorp Q1 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• U.S. Bancorp reported Q1 EPS of $0.99 on total revenue of $5.6 billion, driven by strong loan growth, controlled expenses and a $50 million release of loan loss reserves, while CET1 capital remained healthy at 9.8%.
• Net interest income rose 1.6% linked quarter to $3.2 billion, as NIM expanded 4 bps to 2.44% on a steepening yield curve and lower cash balances, and full‐year NII is now guided to grow 8–11%.
• Noninterest income was stable year over year, with payments revenue up 10.1% on strong merchant processing and corporate payment volumes, partially offset by lower mortgage banking and commercial product fees.
• Credit quality remained strong with nonperforming assets at 0.25% of loans, a net charge-off ratio of 0.21%, and an allowance for credit losses of 1.91% of period-end loans.
• The pending Union Bank acquisition is expected to contribute ~$3.1 billion of pre-tax revenue in 2022 and deliver ~$900 million of cost synergies, while share repurchases remain deferred until CET1 reaches 9.0%.

Presentation

[Operator]

Welcome to U.S. Bancorp's first quarter 2022 earnings conference call. Following a review of the results by Andy Cecere, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, and Terry Dolan, Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer, there will be a formal question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask the question, please press star one on your touchtone phone and press the pound key to withdraw. This call will be recorded and available for replay beginning today at approximately 11 A.M. Central Time through Thursday, April 21, 2022 at 10:59 P.M. Central Time. I will now turn the conference call over to Jennifer Thompson, Head of Corporate Finance and Investor Relations for U.S. Bancorp.

[Jennifer Thompson, Head of Corporate Finance and Investor Relations at U.S. Bancorp]

Thank you, Francine. Good morning, everyone. With me today are Andy Cecere, our Chairman, President, and CEO, and Terry Dolan, our Chief Financial Officer. During their prepared remarks, Andy and Terry will be referencing a slide presentation. A copy of the presentation as well as our earnings release and supplemental analyst schedules are available on our website at usbank.com. I'd like to remind you that any forward-looking statements made during today's call are subject to risk and uncertainty. Factors that could materially change our current forward-looking assumptions are described on page two of today's presentation in our press release and in our Form 10-K and subsequent reports on file with the SEC. I'll now turn the call over to Andy.

[Andy Cecere, Chairman, President, and CEO at U.S. Bancorp]

Thanks, Jen. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our call. Following our prepared remarks, Terry and I will take any questions you have. I'll begin on slide 3. In the first quarter, we reported earnings per share of $0.99 and total revenue of $5.6 billion. The quarter was highlighted by strong loan growth, continued momentum in our payments businesses, well controlled expenses, and strong credit quality. As expected, mortgage banking revenue declined in the first quarter due to slower refinancing activity in the market. However, we saw good momentum in business activity and related revenue growth within other fee businesses, including payments, trust and investment management, and treasury management. This quarter, we released $50 million in loan loss reserves reflecting continued strong credit quality. At March 31, our CET1 capital ratio was 9.8%.

[Andy Cecere, Chairman, President, and CEO at U.S. Bancorp]

Slide four provides key performance metrics. In the first quarter, we delivered a return on assets of 1.09% and a return on tangible common equity of 16.6%. Slide 5 highlights trends in digital engagement. Digital transactions account for over 80% of total transactions, and total digital loan sales account for about two-thirds of total loan sales. We are pleased with the progress we have seen so far, but believe there is further opportunity to increase customer engagement through digital adoption by helping customers, consumers and business customers understand the full scope of capabilities available to assist them in managing their financial lives. We are continually adding and enhancing digital features and functionality and applying a digital plus human approach. A great example of this is our Do It Together co-browse technology.

[Andy Cecere, Chairman, President, and CEO at U.S. Bancorp]

Through this tool, interactions with our customers, a key driver of engagements, have increased in number and have become more efficient as well as effective. Turning to slide 6. We believe our complete payments ecosystem is a competitive advantage for our company. The opportunity to connect our banking customers with our payments products and services and our payments customers with our banking products and services will continue to drive meaningful profit and return differentiation for our company over the next several years. Our small business initiative is just one example of many that we see driving both account growth and deeper relationships. We believe the suite of products we offer to our small business customers will allow us to grow those relationships by 15%-20% and related revenue by 25%-30% over the next few years.

[Andy Cecere, Chairman, President, and CEO at U.S. Bancorp]

We are particularly encouraged by the trends we are seeing in the uptake of our Talech point-of-sale functionality, which allows small business customers to manage their banking and payments needs in a simple, easy-to-use format that we provide in the form of a dashboard. On the right side of the slide, you can see that the number of new Talech customers increased fivefold in 2021 compared with 2020, and that strong growth trajectory has continued in 2022. Year to date, new Talech customers are 1.5 times the full year 2020 level. Now let me turn the call over to Terry, who'll provide more details on the quarter.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Thanks, Andy. If you turn to slide 7, I'll start with a balance sheet review, followed by a discussion of first quarter earnings trends. Average loans increased 3.4% compared with the fourth quarter, driven by 8.0% growth in commercial loans, 2.1% growth in mortgage loans, and 1.0% growth in total other retail loans. Commercial loan growth reflected slowing pay downs, increased business activity, and higher utilization rates across many sectors and most geographies. Client sentiment is stable and commercial lending needs are being driven by inventory building, M&A activity, and CapEx expenditures. In the retail portfolio, we saw good growth in residential mortgage and other retail loans, including auto lending.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Credit card balances declined linked quarter, reflecting typical seasonality and the impact of certain loans being moved to held for sale in the fourth quarter, which impacted average balance growth. Turning to slide eight. Total average deposits increased 1.0% compared with the fourth quarter, despite the typical seasonal reduction in non-interest-bearing deposits. Total average deposits increased 6.5% compared with a year ago. Slide nine shows credit quality trends. Credit quality continues to be strong across our loan portfolio. The ratio of non-performing assets to loans and other real estate was 0.25% at March thirty-first, compared with 0.28% at December thirty-first and 0.41% a year ago.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Our first quarter net charge-off ratio of 0.21% was slightly higher than the fourth quarter level of 0.17%, but lower compared with the first quarter of 2021 level of 0.31%. Our allowance for credit losses as of March 31 totaled $6.1 billion or 1.91% of period-end loans. Slide 10 provides an earnings summary. In the first quarter of 2022, we earned $0.99 per diluted share. These results included a relatively small reserve release of $50 million. Turning to Slide 11, net interest income on a fully taxable-equivalent basis totaled $3.2 billion. The 1.6% linked-quarter increase reflected strengthening margins and strong loan growth in the quarter, particularly commercial loan growth.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Our net interest margin improved 4 basis points to 2.44% due to the changing yield curve, investment portfolio actions, and lower cash balances, partially offset by the impact of loan mix. Slide 12 highlights trends in non-interest income. Compared with a year ago, non-interest income increased 0.6%, reflecting strong payments services revenue, growth in trust and investment management fees, and higher treasury management fees, offset by lower commercial product revenue and lower mortgage banking revenue. The decline in mortgage banking revenue reflected lower refinancing activity in the market and tighter gain on sale margins, given excess capacity in the industry. In the first quarter, total payments revenues increased 10.1% compared to a year earlier, reflecting both continued cyclical post-pandemic recovery as well as strong underlying business trends supported by investments we are making.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Credit and debit card revenue increased 0.6% on a year-over-year basis as the impact of higher credit and debit card volume was offset by lower prepaid card activity. Excluding prepaid card revenue, credit and debit card fee revenue would have increased 9.6% compared with the first quarter of 2021. Both corporate payment products revenue and merchant processing fees increased at a double-digit pace compared with a year ago, with growth driven by both the cyclical recovery of pandemic impacted industries as well as underlying business momentum. Slides 13 and 14 provide additional information on our payment services business. In the middle of slide 13, we provide a table which illustrates the cyclicality that naturally occurs in each of our 3 payments businesses over the course of a typical year.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

On the right side of the slide, you can see that COVID-19 impacted industries continued to recover throughout the first quarter. As of the first quarter of 2022, credit and debit card travel volumes exceeded pre-pandemic levels. In March of 2022, airline volume was flat compared to March of 2019, the first time we have seen recovery in pre-pandemic levels. Although T&E related volumes in our corporate payments business are still below pre-pandemic levels, they continue their upward trajectory. In March, corporate T&E volumes in CPS were back to 75% of the pre-pandemic level. Slide 14 provides linked quarter and year-over-year revenue growth trends for our three payments businesses. Because of the cyclical nature of our payments businesses, we believe year-over-year trends are the best indicator of underlying business performance in a normal environment.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Year-over-year credit card and debit credit and debit card revenue growth rates continued to be negatively impacted by the decline in prepaid card revenue as the benefit of the government stimulus has dissipated. We provide details on prepaid card fee revenue over the past five quarters in the upper right quadrant. While prepaid card revenue is approaching a run rate on a linked quarter basis, it will impact year-over-year credit and debit card fee revenue comparisons through the end of 2022. The bottom half of the slide illustrates the strong year-over-year growth rates in both merchant processing and corporate payments fee revenue over the past several quarters, which have partly reflected the pandemic related recovery.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

While we expect the year-over-year growth rates to moderate from current levels, we continue to believe that both merchant processing and corporate payments fee revenue can grow at a high single digit pace on a year-over-year basis in a post-pandemic environment. Turning to slide 15, non-interest expense decreased 0.9% on a linked quarter basis. The decline was driven by lower professional services expense, marketing and business development expense, and technology and communication expenses, partially offset by increases in employee benefit expense, primarily due to seasonally higher payroll taxes and other non-interest expenses. Linked quarter expense growth includes the impact of the acquisitions completed in the fourth quarter of 2021. Slide 16 highlights our capital position. Our common equity Tier 1 capital ratio at March 31 was 9.8%.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

As a reminder, at the beginning of the third quarter of 2021, we suspended our share buyback program due to the pending acquisition of Union Bank. After closing the acquisition, we expect to operate at a CET1 ratio between our target ratio and 9.0%. We continue to expect that our share repurchase program will be deferred until our CET1 ratio reaches 9.0% following the pending deal close. I will now provide some forward-looking guidance. The following guidance is for a U.S. Bank on a standalone basis and does not include any potential impact from Union Bank. Let me start with full year guidance. We have updated our interest rate expectations to be consistent with market expectations.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Given our revised interest rate assumptions, we now expect total net revenue to increase 5%-6% compared with 2021, reflecting 8%-11% growth in taxable equivalent net interest income and stable fee income, primarily due to lower mortgage banking revenue and deposit service charges offsetting growth in other fee businesses. We expect positive operating leverage of at least 200 basis points in 2022. As it relates to the second quarter specifically, we expect total revenue growth of 5%-7% on a linked quarter basis, benefiting from seasonal strength in many of our fee businesses, continued loan growth, and the second quarter impact of higher rates on net interest income and the recapture of fee waivers.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

In the second quarter, we expect expenses to increase 1%-2% on a linked quarter basis, primarily due to seasonally higher compensation-related costs and business investment spend. Credit quality remains strong. Over the next few quarters, we expect the net charge-off ratio to remain lower than historical levels, but will continue to normalize over time. For the full year 2022, we expect our taxable equivalent tax rate to be approximately 21%-22%. If you turn to slide 17, I'll provide an update on our previously announced pending acquisition of Union Bank. In September 2021, we announced that we had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the core regional banking franchise of MUFG Union Bank.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

We continued to make significant progress in planning for closing the deal in the first half of 2022 while we await regulatory approval. As you know, regulatory approvals are not within the company's control and may impact the timing of the closing of the deal. We expect to close the deal approximately 45 days after being granted U.S. regulatory approval. Conversion is anticipated late in the second half of 2022. We continue to believe this deal is a compelling use of our excess capital from both a strategic and financial perspective. We feel comfortable with our initial financial deal assumptions, including an expectation that it will generate an internal rate of return of about 20%, which is well above our cost of capital.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Assuming a June 30th close date, we expect Union Bank to contribute approximately $310 million to our pre-tax, pre-provision net revenue in 2022 before considering cost synergies. We continue to expect to achieve approximately $900 million of total cost synergies related to the deal, with approximately $85 million-$100 million of cost savings achieved in the second half of 2022. We continue to target total merger and integration costs of $1.2 billion, of which approximately $950 million will be incurred in 2022, with some charges anticipated in the second quarter as we prepare for system integration.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

In addition, there will be a day one loss, loan loss provision required at closing in accordance with the existing CECL accounting rules of approximately $800 million-$900 million. I'll hand it back to Andy for closing remarks.

[Andy Cecere, Chairman, President, and CEO at U.S. Bancorp]

Thanks, Terry. Our strong first quarter results have business us well for the rest of the year, and we are encouraged by the loan growth trends and business activity that we are seeing in the early part of the second quarter. Credit quality remains strong. Nonetheless, we continue to approach credit decisions with a through the cycle lens. We feel good about the secular trends we are seeing across our fee businesses. Our payments revenue continues to recover, and we look to continued cyclical recovery in travel and entertainment as the year progresses. More importantly, over the near and intermediate term, our multi-year investments in this business and the strategic initiatives aimed at leveraging the power of our payments ecosystem will continue to pay off. We are closely managing operating expenses, even as we invest in our digital initiatives, our payments capabilities, and our technology modernization.

[Andy Cecere, Chairman, President, and CEO at U.S. Bancorp]

On that front, I'd like to highlight a few of our recent announcements. We enhanced a service that we call ExtendPay, an offering which allows our existing consumer and business cardholders to a buy now, pay later option, where they can choose a flexible payment plan that suits their needs. We also rolled out a request for payment capability, which allows merchants to send bills directly to customers' bank accounts. Those customers have the option to send payment immediately to the biller via real-time payment rails.

[Andy Cecere, Chairman, President, and CEO at U.S. Bancorp]

In February, we announced a meaningful investment in our cloud strategy, which is aimed at modernizing our technology foundation so as to further improve the security of our data, financial assets, and customer privacy while allowing for the transformation of applications and infrastructure to create leading-edge customer experiences. We will continue to leverage our suite of products, services, and capabilities to enhance the customer experience, which we believe will support meaningful account growth and deeper relationships across our entire franchise over the next several years. In closing, 2022 is off to a good start, and I'd like to thank our employees for all they do to support our strategic goals and continue to serve our customers and communities. We will now open up the call for Q&A.

[Operator]

Thank you. Participants, if you would like to ask the question, you may press star then 1 on your telephone keypad. Again, that's star then 1 on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press the pound key. Your first question comes from the line of Matt O'Connor from Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open.

[Matt O'Connor, Managing Director at Deutsche Bank]

Good morning.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Good morning.

[Matt O'Connor, Managing Director at Deutsche Bank]

I was hoping you guys could provide an update on asset sensitivity of USB standalone and then the impact of UB. I know at one point you had said it was going to make you a little more asset sensitive, but obviously the rate environment's changed. I'm not really sure what's happened to their balance sheet. So some updates there on asset sensitivity, please.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Yeah. Matt, let me kind of take that question. You know, with respect to asset sensitivity, you know, and I'm going to kind of refer back to maybe the disclosures we had in the 10-K. Probably the best one to look at would be kind of an upward, gradual 200 basis point movement. I think that is at least the environment that the market implied would expect at this particular point in time. If you end up applying, you know, that rate sensitivity of about, you know, 5.4% to, you know, the fourth quarter, I think it gives you a pretty good estimate of, you know, what sort of benefit that we see in terms of net interest income kind of going forward.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Maybe kind of qualitatively, you know, I think that, you know, when we see early in the cycle, you know, deposit betas will be relatively low. You know, our portfolio, when you look at loans, it's probably about 50-55% is floating rate and about 45-50% is fixed rate. So that probably gives you some perspective with respect to kind of what we're expecting to see. From a Union Bank point of view, you know, as we've said in the past, it is a little bit more asset sensitive than us. It should help us kind of, I would say 35-40 basis points.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

You know, when you end up looking at their portfolio, and the assets that we'll be acquiring, you know, it's deposit heavy, so we'll have a substantial amount of cash and the opportunity to be able to reinvest that, you know, as rates move up.

[Matt O'Connor, Managing Director at Deutsche Bank]

Separately, you gave the impact of the UB deal on tangible book value. I think it was just a 1% reduction. What's the estimated impact on CET1 capital, both from the actual acquisition and then the upfront marks that you mentioned earlier?

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Yeah. You know, when, as we've said, you know, currently we're at 9.8% in terms of our CET1 ratio. We would expect it'll be in the range of that 8.5%-9%, you know, at the end of the closing. Of course, it'll be dependent upon how much rates move between now and, you know, the actual closing time. You know, I talked a little bit about the day one provision in terms of the credit mark. From an asset mark, you know, I think it'll be a little bit higher than what we had originally anticipated or disclosed at the time of the acquisition, you know, simply because of the rise in rates, but not significantly different.

[Matt O'Connor, Managing Director at Deutsche Bank]

Okay, thanks. Just a suggestion, by the way, lots of good guidance on the call. It'd be great if you could put some of it in a slide. It's just such a busy day and scrambling to jot it all down. Some of your peers do that, and it's really helpful for us on this side. Thank you.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Yeah. We would anticipate we'll start to incorporate more of that as the deal moves forward.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of John Pancari of Evercore ISI. Your line is now open.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Morning, John.

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

Morning. On the card and payment side, just curious if you can just give us a little bit more detail on what you're seeing in terms of consumer spend behavior. Are you seeing any signs of any pullbacks and shifts in the type of spend that could point to some softening there where we're starting to see some shifts towards nondiscretionary from discretionary spend? Curious if you're seeing that in your business, if that is impacting your outlook at all.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Yeah. Let me start and then Andy can kind of add to it. You know, certainly what we are continuing to see, John, you know, through the first quarter is, you know, good, strong both year-over-year growth and comparisons back to 2019 really across the board. I think a couple of the trends that we talked about is that travel, you know, specifically airline, was back to pre-pandemic, and so that's continuing to develop and grow. That's occurred specifically in March. I think you see that, you'll see that continuing as we think about, you know, the second quarter and beyond. You know, we do continue to expect in the CPS business that travel and entertainment is gonna continue to strengthen.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

I think that is a tailwind or an opportunity for us as we move forward. I would expect that, you know, there's probably going to be a shift to some extent from what I would call durable goods that, you know, people were spending their dollars on in the past to more service-oriented sort of activities. But in terms of the overall level of spend, I feel like, you know, that will continue at least for some period of time. Andy, what would you add?

[Andy Cecere, Chairman, President, and CEO at U.S. Bancorp]

I think that's a good summary, Terry. You know, John, it's interesting because consumer spend on the merchant side, if we look at that data versus pre-pandemic levels in the first quarter, still up 9%-15%. Consumer credit card spend still up versus pre-pandemic 35%, and corporate payments still up 10%. The one area Terry mentioned that is not back to recovery yet is corporate T&E, which is about 75% of what is normal or pre-pandemic levels, and we would expect that to continue to get better as we all start to get out on the road more. We're not seeing any negative trends thus far, and it continues to be very strong.

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

Okay, great. Thank you. That's helpful. On the commercial side, I know you cited in your prepared remarks that you are beginning to see CapEx plans as a driver behind the loan growth dynamics on the commercial side. Do you expect that to continue as we look out here? Or do you foresee a potential impact on borrower appetite amid still the inflationary dynamics and supply chain issues in Ukraine?

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Yeah. I think that the capital expenditure is probably driven by a couple of different things. I think that you know, most businesses over the course of the last couple of years have been kind of holding back with respect to capital expenditure. I think that there's a bit of you know, an increase in that spend just related to that. I do think that you know, as companies see more and more inflationary pressure, they're gonna look to business and business automation as ways of kind of offsetting some of the pressure that they see with respect to being able to acquire talent.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

I think that, you know, our expectation, at least in the near term, is that, you know, capital expenditure will continue to be reasonably strong.

[Andy Cecere, Chairman, President, and CEO at U.S. Bancorp]

I think our utilization rates support that, Terry. You know, we have been running in that 19% plus or minus for a number of quarters, and we saw it increase, certainly not to normal levels yet, but in that 22%-23% in the last few months.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Yep.

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

Got it. Okay, thanks. That's very helpful.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Sure.

[Andy Cecere, Chairman, President, and CEO at U.S. Bancorp]

Mm-hmm.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Betsy Graseck of Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Morning, Betsy.

[Andy Cecere, Chairman, President, and CEO at U.S. Bancorp]

Betsy.

[Ryan Kenny, Executive Director of Equity Research at Morgan Stanley]

Hi. This is Ryan Kenny on behalf of Betsy. Good morning.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Hey, Ryan.

[Ryan Kenny, Executive Director of Equity Research at Morgan Stanley]

Wondering if we could dig in a little bit more on deposit betas. I know that you mentioned that earlier, early in the cycle, you're expecting deposit betas to be relatively low. On one hand, you have an industry with a lot of excess liquidity, but then on the other hand, you have consumers that might be a little bit more cognizant of rate hikes coming faster with inflation on the headlines every day. You have rising fintech competition. Putting that all together, I'm wondering how you're thinking about deposit betas, really over the first 100 basis points and then the following rates after that.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Yeah, maybe I think it's helpful to maybe have a little context. You know, when you end up looking at our deposit business or balances, about 50% of it is consumer based and 50% of it is institutional, if you will, which tends to have a little bit of a higher beta. You know, our expectation, especially early in the cycle, is that betas will move relatively slow. Then as we get, you know, further into the development of the cycle, it'll start to accelerate a bit.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

To kind of give you some perspective, you know, we would expect, you know, probably through the full cycle of 2022, that betas on the consumer will be, you know, less than 10% and then maybe slightly higher than that on a terminal basis. On the institutional side, you know, we would expect, you know, through the 2022 cycle, somewhere between 50%-60%, you know, with a terminal level that's maybe a little bit higher than that. Couple of things, you know, to that, you know, as we are looking at it, you know, we believe that, relative to, for example, the last cycle, that our deposit betas will be a little bit less sensitive, for a couple of different reasons.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

One is, you know, the consumer balances are larger by about, you know, 5% relative to the last cycle. Our corporate trust deposit balances are lower, you know, so the mix of the deposit base has changed. We have, you know, moved away from concentrations related to brokerage-related type of deposits, which we had more of in the past. We still have some, but a lower concentration. You know, all of those things are gonna drive lower beta growth than what we saw in the past.

[Ryan Kenny, Executive Director of Equity Research at Morgan Stanley]

Thanks. That's really helpful color. Just as a follow-up, wondering if you could dig into the book value per share decline of 9% linked quarter. How much of that came from AOCI drawdowns on the AFS portfolio? Is there anything you can do to mitigate the AOCI hit going forward if the rate outlook keeps moving higher?

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Yeah. The vast majority, if not all of it, was really tied to, you know, the change in the unrealized gains and losses on the investment portfolio. The driver, when we think about, you know, the future, we started to change a couple of different things. In the fourth quarter, we moved about $43 billion of our investment securities to held to maturity. As we are reinvesting runoff associated with the investment portfolio, we'll continue to move more and more of that into the held to maturity sort of category. Certainly as we close on Union Bank, you know, we have the opportunity after the mark to move a lot of that into held to maturity as well.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

You know, today, about 30% of the overall portfolio is in the held to maturity category. You know, our expectation is over some period of time, we would move that percentage up significantly.

[Ryan Kenny, Executive Director of Equity Research at Morgan Stanley]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Erika Najarian of UBS. Your line is now open.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Hi, Erika.

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

Hi. Good morning. Just putting together the most recent question and also Matt's question. You know, underneath the 8%-11% NII growth, could you give us a little bit more of a breakdown in terms of what you're expecting for, you know, asset growth, given the strength in your loan book today? Terry, I know you also short-term borrowings, but period end by $10 billion. Again, you know, going back to the question I think everybody's trying to ask, remind us how much of your deposit base is Corporate Trust today. And of those deposits, how much are indexed? Do they reprice immediately to the changes in underlying benchmark rates? Or do you have some ability and pricing power, you know, to be able to perhaps delay some of that repricing?

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Yeah. Let me start with the last question and kind of talk a little bit about the deposits, and then, you know, to the extent that I don't cover everything, just remind me. Deposits in the Corporate Trust business or in institutional or the Investment Services Group, which includes Corporate Trust, represent about 15% of their total interest-bearing deposits. Now, in the last rate cycle, that was about 22%. It's down relative to the overall mix. You know, the vast majority of it is not indexed to any particular rate. We do have the ability to manage that.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

You know, a fair amount of the deposits within Corporate Trust are non-interest-bearing as well, which I think is helpful. That percentage is probably a little bit higher than what it was in the past. You know, the competitive pressure will really come as money market funds start to move up. We do have the ability to lag relative to that, but you know, that's where some of that competitive pressure comes from.

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

Follow up on the underlying earning asset assumption that you have?

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Yeah.

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

Underneath the 8. Yeah.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Yeah. You know, when we end up looking at earning assets, you know, our expectation is that the investment portfolio will be relatively flat or stable really through the end of the year, and the vast majority of the growth will come on the loan portfolio side of the equation. As we look into the second quarter, you know, our expectation is that, you know, loan growth will continue to be strong. You know, at this, and as a reminder, it was up on a linked-quarter basis about 3.4%. While it may not be at that level, I think it'll still be up on a linked-quarter basis very nicely.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

You know, we would continue to expect good, solid growth in the C&I portfolio, as well as, you know, credit cards will start to seasonally get stronger, et cetera.

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

Got it. A follow-up question to Matt's question on CET1. When you closed Union Bank, I think I'm estimating your total asset size to be, you know, just shy of $690 billion. How should we think about, you know, capital management as you potentially approach $700 billion asset mark in 2 years, Andy and Terry? I'm just wondering in context of, you know, the TCE hit was obviously more than the CET1 hit because AOCI doesn't run through your CET1. I guess I'm wondering in terms of, like, your, you know, buyback even after you replenish to 9, as we think about crossing the $700 billion, you know, how that might influence your capital management and capital return potentially differently over the next 2 years.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Yeah. You know, Erika, I think your estimates with respect to the, you know, total size are reasonable. You know, our expectation is that, you know, to kind of give you some perspective, you know, when you end up looking at the rules, say that you need to be at an average of over a four-quarter period above $700 million. There's a bit of runway that exists between now and, you know, when we might become a Category II sort of entity. Some of the actions that I talked about with respect to the held to maturity composition of the investment portfolio, I think will help kind of mitigate that.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Certainly will generate a fair amount of earnings between now and, let's say, six or seven quarters out. I think, you know, all those things will kind of help us manage through that time frame. The other thing is that, you know, when we do close on Union Bank, you know, it's deposit heavy in terms of the mix. So there'll be a significant amount of cash, and we would expect to utilize that to help us manage borrowings down and things like that in order to be able to stay below that $700 billion threshold for an extended period of time.

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

Got it. Just to clarify, as you close UB, the intention for the cash is not to, you know, deploy it, but to shrink the pro forma balance sheet to be able to, you know, accommodate more, you know, client growth rather than just raw balance sheet growth from.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Exactly.

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

Got it. Thanks so much.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Thanks, Erika.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Kenneth Usdin of Jefferies. Your line is now open.

[Kenneth Usdin, Managing Director of Equity Research at Jefferies]

Hey, thanks. Good morning, guys. Just a question on fees to start. In your revenue guide, do you fully contemplate the full recovery of fee waivers, which I said you think you've said have been running around $70 million. How much do you have that recovering in 2Q? And I assume that's also fully recovered in the full year guide.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Yeah. To answer the last piece, yes, it would be fully recovered, certainly by the end of the year. You know, just given kind of projections in the marketplace with respect to rates, you know, we'll see a significant amount of that recovered in the second quarter with a residual amount, kind of in the third quarter. Maybe as a reminder, we recover about 65% of it in the first 25 basis point movement, 90% of it in the next 25 basis point movement, and all of it, you know, after the third 25 basis point movement. Most of it in the second quarter, but some amount in the third.

[Andy Cecere, Chairman, President, and CEO at U.S. Bancorp]

About 70% of it comes back in the second quarter, Terry.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Yep.

[Kenneth Usdin, Managing Director of Equity Research at Jefferies]

Got it. Thank you, Terry. Also just on the mortgage business, obviously, the reset that you had given us the expectation for just your outlook from here, given where rates have gone, and you know, the ins and outs of production and servicing. Thanks.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Yeah. You know, obviously the mortgage banking business is you know gonna trend along with at this particular point in time refinancings. You know, the mix of business is probably 70% home sales and 30% refinancing. On a linked quarter basis, the impact of refinancing will be less than what it has been in the past. So it'll come down to kind of home sale activity. You know, we continue to think that that'll be reasonably strong. You know, our investment in kind of the retail channel will be good. I think the things that'll be drivers in the future on a linked quarter basis will really be you know where the gain on sale margins go and how.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

That'll be driven based upon how fast the capacity comes out of the system. At least at this particular point in time, just looking at kind of industry metrics, I think is a good way of kind of thinking about how we'll perform as well.

[Kenneth Usdin, Managing Director of Equity Research at Jefferies]

All right. Thanks very much.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Mike Mayo of Wells Fargo Securities. Your line is now open.

[Mike Mayo, Managing Director and Head of U.S. Large-Cap Bank Research at Wells Fargo Securities]

Hi.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Morning, Mike.

[Mike Mayo, Managing Director and Head of U.S. Large-Cap Bank Research at Wells Fargo Securities]

Just to clarify, you improved 2022 guidance revenues from 3%-4% to 5%-6%, NII from 5% to 8%-11%, and operating leverage from 100 basis points to 200 basis points. I just wanna make sure I have my facts straight there. Is that correct?

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

You got it, Mike.

[Mike Mayo, Managing Director and Head of U.S. Large-Cap Bank Research at Wells Fargo Securities]

Okay. That improved guidance, how much of that is due simply to higher interest rate? You know, how much of that is due to better loan growth, and how much of that is due to payments or some other activities?

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Yeah. I think that, again, we would expect that fee income will be relatively stable on a year-over-year basis. When you end up looking at, you know, what's gonna be the driver, it'll be net interest income. You know, from here on out, I think it's gonna be kind of a balance between loan growth and interest rates. You know, 'cause I. If I had to kind of give you a mix, and I don't necessarily have that with me, but it's probably, you know, 60%-65% rates and, you know, 30%-35%, on the loan portfolio growth side of the equation.

[Mike Mayo, Managing Director and Head of U.S. Large-Cap Bank Research at Wells Fargo Securities]

Okay, your commercial loan growth is kind of fast. I think you said there might have been a one-time element in there, but what sort of commercial loan growth are you expecting? Is this the big pivot, the recovery from the pandemic? Is it inventory builds? Is it CapEx? Is it differences by region? It's just this might wind up being sort of the best commercial loan growth that we see, you know, on a linked quarter basis, percentage-wise, than any big bank. Just a little more color around that would be great.

[Andy Cecere, Chairman, President, and CEO at U.S. Bancorp]

Sure, Mike. I'll start. This is Andy, and Terry will add on. It's across all those categories I mentioned earlier. There is no one-timer in there, so it is core growth. It, one of the factors is our utilization rates, as I mentioned, have been hovering in that 19% or so, and they're up nearly 23%, which is a key component. Which is again, takedowns to fund all those things you talked about, which is CapEx and inventory growth and other activities. It's fairly widespread. It's true within our large corporate as well as our middle market and spread geographically as well. It is a strength across many categories. Terry, what would you add?

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

The other thing I would just say is that, you know, we'll start to see some seasonal benefit associated with the credit card portfolio as we get into the second and third quarter.

[Mike Mayo, Managing Director and Head of U.S. Large-Cap Bank Research at Wells Fargo Securities]

Okay. The other part of that question related to payments. I think payments was a little bit of a disappointment for a little bit of time, and now it's come back a little bit this quarter, 10% year-over-year growth. I guess is payments back or not back? Or how do you. Is it performing to your expectations? Are there still headwinds, or is the recovery from the pandemic, you know, helping that business? Just how do you think about payments relative to your own expectations and the market's expectations?

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Yeah. I mean, we're very excited about the payments business. I think there's a number of dynamics that are taking place. I think there's still cyclical recovery that's gonna continue on for some period of time, and you're gonna see that in the airline and the travel and entertainment and those sorts of areas. I think that is all good. Mike, we've talked a lot about investments that we've been making in our payments businesses. Over the course of the last few years, as an example, within the merchant acquiring, three years ago or so, our tech-led revenue represented about 15% of our overall merchant acquiring revenue.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Today, it represents 30%, and we would expect that to continue to accelerate because of investments that we're making. We talked about the fact that in a normal environment, you know, as the cyclical recovery kind of starts to wane, that we would expect our merchant acquiring and our CPS business to grow at high single digits. You know, that's you know two or three times what we were seeing let's say four years ago when we started our investment. You know, we feel really good about where we're at from a payments perspective at this particular point. Andy, what would you add?

[Andy Cecere, Chairman, President, and CEO at U.S. Bancorp]

I think that's right. Mike, when you asked about the guidance and Terry mentioned that fees are relatively stable, you know, that is, mortgage coming down a fair bit as well as deposit service charges with some of the changes that we made in overdrafts, which is offset positively by some of our payments businesses and the expectations that we now have for the full year, as well as the trust businesses. There's, you know, some value in the diversification of those revenue streams, and it's coming through in payments and trust.

[Mike Mayo, Managing Director and Head of U.S. Large-Cap Bank Research at Wells Fargo Securities]

That was a detailed answer. If I could just push the limit to any numbers around the payments growth, should it be high single digits? Can you keep that 10% growth up, or should it settle back down to a lower range?

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Yeah. You know, again, I think if you end up looking at the components merchant and CPS on an ongoing basis, high single digits%. I think credit card will be, you know, probably at a lower level than that, but it'll be consistent with the way the rest of the industry is growing.

[Andy Cecere, Chairman, President, and CEO at U.S. Bancorp]

Part of that credit card.

[Mike Mayo, Managing Director and Head of U.S. Large-Cap Bank Research at Wells Fargo Securities]

Okay, thank you.

[Andy Cecere, Chairman, President, and CEO at U.S. Bancorp]

Part of that credit card comp, Mike, is the prepaid impacts of prior years is still impacting the comps year over year in 2022.

[Mike Mayo, Managing Director and Head of U.S. Large-Cap Bank Research at Wells Fargo Securities]

Okay, thank you.

[Andy Cecere, Chairman, President, and CEO at U.S. Bancorp]

Sure. Thanks, Mike.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Vivek Juneja of JPMorgan. Your line is now open.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Hi, Vivek.

[Vivek Juneja, Senior Analyst at JPMorgan]

Andy, morning. Terry, just a clarification there. The high single digit on merchant processing and corporate payments, are you referring to that for 2022 or beyond? Because the credit card should be hurt in 2022, but after that, those comps should get easier. What do you think post 2022 for credit cards? Just wanna clarify those.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Again, for merchant and CPS, you know, we think post-2022, high single digits%. We believe that credit card will perform kind of consistent with the rest of the industry. You know, the comps, as you say, you know, this year will be impacted by the prepaid card revenue that is coming down, but then that starts to normalize as you get into 2023.

[Vivek Juneja, Senior Analyst at JPMorgan]

Within this high single digits, are you expecting any more big contract renewals that could impact this? Or has that been factored into your guidance, or you're just not expecting much of that to come up in-

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Yeah, we don't expect-

[Vivek Juneja, Senior Analyst at JPMorgan]

Under the credit card or the merchant?

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Yeah, we don't expect a lot of that. You know, the large contracts that got renegotiated were more on the CPS side of the equation about 2 years ago. You know, that's kind of fully in the run rate at this particular point in time. As you know that those contracts are usually 10, 12 years in length. You know, we don't see anything on the horizon there.

[Vivek Juneja, Senior Analyst at JPMorgan]

Okay. One request, and that is FICO mix of your loan portfolios. I know we've talked about this in the past. Could you look into actually disclosing it? Your peers do, and I think given your high consumer mix of loans, it would be very helpful to have that.

[Andy Cecere, Chairman, President, and CEO at U.S. Bancorp]

All right. Thanks, Vivek. We'll take a look at that. Thanks for the feedback.

[Vivek Juneja, Senior Analyst at JPMorgan]

Thanks.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Gerard Cassidy of RBC. Your line is now open.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Hi, Gerard.

[Andy Cecere, Chairman, President, and CEO at U.S. Bancorp]

Gerard.

[Gerard Cassidy, Managing Director, Head of U.S. Bank Equity Strategy and Large Cap Bank Analyst at RBC Capital Markets]

Hi, Terry. Hi, Andy. Terry, following up your comments on the mortgage banking business. With the rates where they are and possibly going higher, probably depressing refinancing activity for the industry as well as yourselves because of the higher rates. Can you attempt, or can you, look to growing your home equity business, home equity lines, et cetera? You know, this business, of course, for the industry and yourselves has been an industry that or a line of business that has been shrinking over the years. Could that be an alternative to, you know, people refinancing, moving into home equity lines?

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

You know, I think that it certainly won't shrink at the same level it has been shrinking, Gerard, just for the reasons you mentioned because of refinancing people would have money out and that would replace home equity, so to speak. I think you'll see a positive trend there. It certainly is not going to offset the mortgage impacts directly, but I think it will be positive.

[Gerard Cassidy, Managing Director, Head of U.S. Bank Equity Strategy and Large Cap Bank Analyst at RBC Capital Markets]

Is there any plan on your guys' part to maybe be more aggressive in marketing those products, or have you not really thought about that?

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

You know, we're always looking at opportunities to serve the customers in areas they need. Another sort of related is the whole buy now, pay later component that we talked about. I mentioned some examples in my prepared remarks, but if you think about home equity improvements, a new way of financing that is through a buy now, pay later or financing at point of sale. That's something we're also focused on.

[Gerard Cassidy, Managing Director, Head of U.S. Bank Equity Strategy and Large Cap Bank Analyst at RBC Capital Markets]

Got it. Second, obviously, U.S. Bancorp has distinguished itself over the years with having, you know, a very strong focus on credit and delivering, you know, very strong returns to shareholders. The question I have, because credit obviously is not an issue today for most banks, yours included, when do you start to get nervous, or do you get nervous in this interest rate environment? You know, the Fed comes through, and we have 200 basis points of Fed funds at the end of the year, and possibly, you know, a 10-year that's well above 3%. How do you guys kind of think about that when you assess the risks for the business here at U.S. Bancorp?

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Yeah. Fair question, and I think there's a lot more conversation around that in terms of whether or not there will be recessionary sort of pressures, you know, 12-18 months out. You know, I would start by just saying, you know, when we end up looking at the economic outlook right now and kind of what we're seeing, we continue to see a pretty robust environment. That said, Gerard, I think it's a fair question because, you know, decisions we made today and a year ago are what's gonna affect us. You know, we never really changed our underwriting approach.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

We've always been very focused on, as an example, you know, on the consumer side, we focus on prime and super prime customers in our card business, in our auto business, et cetera. You know, I think the mortgage, just the underwriting associated with mortgages, is different today than it was, you know, 10, 15 years ago, which will help. On the C&I side of the equation or the corporate side of the equation, you know, we do very little leverage lending, you know, sort of activities.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

You know, areas that have been kind of structurally impacted like retail, et cetera, retail malls, et cetera, you know, we've kind of made a lot of changes to our portfolio the last several years. I actually think that, you know, we'll perform quite well in the event that we were to see recessionary pressures develop.

[Gerard Cassidy, Managing Director, Head of U.S. Bank Equity Strategy and Large Cap Bank Analyst at RBC Capital Markets]

Terry, just to follow up there. How about from a balance sheet standpoint? You talked about moving more of your available for sale into held to maturity in your bond portfolio. In this rising rate environment, do we start to see greater risks in that part of the business? Not just for U.S. Bancorp, but maybe for the industry as well.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

within, for example, the investment portfolio?

[Gerard Cassidy, Managing Director, Head of U.S. Bank Equity Strategy and Large Cap Bank Analyst at RBC Capital Markets]

Correct. You know, just the marks that people may have to take. I know held to maturity, you don't mark to market. I'm just wondering, you know, because we haven't had to focus on this in, God, years. I'm just wondering if there's something that we need to keep our eyes open for.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Yeah. I mean, I think it's worthwhile just kind of trying to understand the mix of the types of investment securities that people are putting into their particular portfolio. You know, when you get into stress in the economy, et cetera, you know, certain types of investments may not perform as well. In terms of our own portfolio, highly concentrated in Treasury and government-backed mortgage-backed securities. So we don't see a lot of credit risk in our particular portfolio. It is something I think, you know, from an industry standpoint, it's worthwhile watching.

[Gerard Cassidy, Managing Director, Head of U.S. Bank Equity Strategy and Large Cap Bank Analyst at RBC Capital Markets]

Great. Appreciate all the comment. Thank you.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Thanks, Gerard.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Terry McEvoy from Stephens. Your line is now open.

[Terry McEvoy, Managing Director of Institutional Equities and Research at Stephens]

Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. If I go back to September, I think you expected to realize 25% of the cost savings from Union this year, which was about $225 million. Terry, I believe on the call, was it $85 million-$100 million this year? Is that just simply a function of pushing out the conversion to late in 2022?

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Yes. It's all related to the timing.

[Terry McEvoy, Managing Director of Institutional Equities and Research at Stephens]

Okay. Then your thoughts on 2023, the full 100% by the end of the year. Any kind of update on 2023 when a bulk of that savings will occur?

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Yeah. I mean, I think that the bulk of that savings, we certainly start to realize some of it later this year, but the bulk of it does get realized in 2023. Certainly when we get close to the, you know, into the fourth quarter and first quarter of 2024, you know, the vast majority of it will be realized. I think the timing is very consistent with what we talked about, just affected by the timing of the deal.

[Terry McEvoy, Managing Director of Institutional Equities and Research at Stephens]

Understood. Thank you. As a follow-up, the 6% decline in non-interest-bearing deposits, I think that was on an average basis. In the release, it was seasonal kind of factors coming into play. Anything beyond that in terms of the decline, or do you truly think that was just a seasonal component?

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Yeah. With our Corporate Trust business, we always see a ramp up in those types of deposits near the end of the year as deals try to get closed. Almost like clockwork, you know, around the tenth of January and through February, we see a runoff. It's all really seasonal from our standpoint.

[Terry McEvoy, Managing Director of Institutional Equities and Research at Stephens]

Great. Thank you, Terry.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Yep.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Bill Carcache of Wolfe Research. Your line is now open.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Hey, Bill.

[Jennifer Thompson, Head of Corporate Finance and Investor Relations at U.S. Bancorp]

Hey, Bill.

[Bill Carcache, Senior Equity Research Analyst of Financials at Wolfe Research]

Hey, good morning, Terry and Andy. I apologize if this was talked about before, I might have missed it, but I wanted to ask if you could comment on as, you know, we think about the runoff of the Fed balance sheet and, you know, happening faster than when we exited the last reserve cycle, and the risk of non-interest bearing deposits outflowing perhaps a bit faster and, you know, perhaps impacts on deposit betas. Could you comment on that? If you already have, I'll just go back to the transcript.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

Yeah, no. It's a good question. You know, as we kinda go through the modeling and we look at you know, the information and kinda how we think it's gonna end up affecting not only us, but I think the industry. You're gonna see that deposit growth is gonna slow, and our expectation is you know, certainly, that deposit levels overall will grow slowly. That'll be more in line with just the overall growth of the economy. You know, our expectation is that deposits continue to grow but at a lower rate.

[Bill Carcache, Senior Equity Research Analyst of Financials at Wolfe Research]

Understood. Following up on your commentary, I believe, Andy, around new point of sale solutions that you're looking at. There seems to be a little bit of debate among some banks who appear willing to promote the use of Zelle for retail payments versus others that would prefer to wait. Can you remind us where USB stands in that debate and how you think about the risk of a product like Zelle potentially cannibalizing some of your, you know, payments volume?

[Andy Cecere, Chairman, President, and CEO at U.S. Bancorp]

What we're focused on with Zelle is just increasing the utilization of Zelle across our customer base. I think it's a terrific product. It has a lot of use cases. We're looking at different use cases, but overall, what we're trying to do is just increase the utilization.

[Bill Carcache, Senior Equity Research Analyst of Financials at Wolfe Research]

Understood. Finally, if I may, there's been this view just following up on the strength you're seeing in the merchant acquiring side. There's been this view among some fintech investors that Elavon is a legacy player using legacy technology and losing share in merchant acquiring. Nilson published its market share stats for the top U.S. merchant acquirers, and it shows Elavon actually moved up from number 8 in 2020 to number 7 in 2021 based on dollar volume. From where you stand, do you think the investments that you're making in Talech and other digital initiatives can actually help you continue to gain share in the acquiring space, or is it more effectively protecting your position?

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

No, we do think, Bill, that it can allow us to gain share. I think it's a combination of a number of things. Terry talked about the investments we made over the last three or four years, our focus on tech-led initiatives and the selling points differently than it was four or five years ago. Then that combination of bringing banking together with merchant processing into a comprehensive product set. I talked about Talech and the dashboard. I think all those things position us well for future growth, both growth within the customer base that we have, but also expanding and acquiring new customers.

[Bill Carcache, Senior Equity Research Analyst of Financials at Wolfe Research]

Got it. Thank you for taking my questions.

[Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO at U.S. Bancorp]

You bet.

[Operator]

Speakers, we don't have any questions over the phone. Please continue.

[Jennifer Thompson, Head of Corporate Finance and Investor Relations at U.S. Bancorp]

Thank you for listening to our earnings call, and please contact the investor relations department if you have any follow-up questions. That concludes today's call.

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

Participants

Executives

• Jennifer Thompson, Head of Corporate Finance and Investor Relations
• Andy Cecere, Chairman, President, and CEO
• Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and CFO

Analysts

• Matt O'Connor, Managing Director at Deutsche Bank
• John Pancari, Senior Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at Evercore ISI
• Ryan Kenny, Executive Director of Equity Research at Morgan Stanley
• Erika Najarian, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at UBS
• Kenneth Usdin, Managing Director of Equity Research at Jefferies
• Mike Mayo, Managing Director and Head of U.S. Large-Cap Bank Research at Wells Fargo Securities
• Vivek Juneja, Senior Analyst at JPMorgan
• Gerard Cassidy, Managing Director, Head of U.S. Bank Equity Strategy and Large Cap Bank Analyst at RBC Capital Markets
• Terry McEvoy, Managing Director of Institutional Equities and Research at Stephens
• Bill Carcache, Senior Equity Research Analyst of Financials at Wolfe Research