Wells Fargo & Company Q2 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
July 14, 2022

Key Takeaways

  • Net interest income rose 16% YoY and 11% QoQ, prompting management to raise full‐year guidance to approximately 20% growth driven by higher rates and loan balances.
  • Non‐interest income declined due to a $615 million equity securities impairment and weaker venture capital, mortgage banking, investment banking and wealth advisory results.
  • Non‐interest expenses fell 3% YoY as efficiency initiatives offset inflationary pressures, with full‐year expense guidance maintained at $51.5 billion despite elevated operating losses.
  • Broad‐based loan growth accelerated 8% YoY, while credit quality strengthened with net charge‐offs near historic lows (15 bps) and non‐accrual loans at 10-year lows.
  • Dividend raise of 20% to $0.30 per share in Q3 was announced, supported by strong stress‐test results and ample capital buffers.
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Earnings Conference Call
Wells Fargo & Company Q2 2022
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Operator

Welcome, and thank you for joining the Wells Fargo second quarter 2022 earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star one. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star two. Please note that today's call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to your host, John Campbell, Director of Investor Relations. Sir, you may begin the conference.

John Campbell
John Campbell
Director of Investor Relations at Wells Fargo

Good morning. Thank you for joining our call today, where our CEO, Charlie Scharf, and our CFO, Mike Santomassimo, will discuss second quarter results and answer your questions. This call is being recorded. Before we get started, I would like to remind you that our second quarter earnings materials, including the release, financial supplement, and presentation deck, are available on our website at wellsfargo.com. I'd also like to caution you that we may make forward-looking statements during today's call that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from expectations are detailed in our SEC filings, including the Form 8-K filed today containing our earnings materials. Information about any non-GAAP financial measures referenced, including a reconciliation of those measures to GAAP measures, can also be found in our SEC filings and the earnings materials available on our website.

John Campbell
John Campbell
Director of Investor Relations at Wells Fargo

I will now turn the call over to Charlie.

Charlie Scharf
Charlie Scharf
CEO at Wells Fargo

Thanks very much, John. Good morning. I'll make some brief comments about our second quarter results, the operating environment, and update you on our priorities. I'll then turn the call over to Mike to review second quarter results in more detail before we take your questions. Let me start with some second quarter highlights. We earned $3.1 billion in the second quarter. Our results included a $576 million impairment of equity securities, predominantly in our venture capital business due to market conditions. Revenue declined as growth in net interest income driven by rising interest rates and higher loan balances was more than offset by lower non-interest income as market conditions negatively impacted our venture capital, mortgage banking, investment banking, and wealth management advisory businesses.

Charlie Scharf
Charlie Scharf
CEO at Wells Fargo

We continued to execute on our efficiency initiatives, and our expenses declined from a year ago, even with inflationary pressures and higher operating losses. We have broad-based loan growth with both our consumer and commercial portfolios growing from the first quarter and a year ago. Credit performance remained strong. Our allowance reflected an increase due to loan growth. While we're monitoring risks related to continued high inflation, increasing interest rates, and the strong economy, which will impact our customers, consumers and businesses have been resilient so far. When looking at simple averages across our entire portfolio, consumer deposit balances per account increased from first quarter and a year ago and remains above pre-pandemic levels. Overall, our consumer deposit customers' health indicators, including cash flow, payroll, and overdraft trends, are not showing elevated risk concerns.

Charlie Scharf
Charlie Scharf
CEO at Wells Fargo

However, we're closely monitoring activity by segment for signs of potential stress and for certain cohorts of customers. We have seen average balances steadily decline to pre-pandemic levels following the final Federal stimulus payments early last year, and their debit card spend has also been declining. Overall, debit card spending was up 3% compared to a year ago when consumers received stimulus payments, and inflation appears to be impacting certain categories of spending, including a 26% increase in fuel driven by higher prices, while discretionary categories like apparel and home improvement spending were down double digits, driven by fewer transactions. Credit card spend increased 28% from a year ago, above the industry trend driven by the new products we launched last year with double-digit increases across all spend categories. However, spending, while still strong, started to slow in May and June.

Charlie Scharf
Charlie Scharf
CEO at Wells Fargo

Consumer credit card utilization rates remain below pre-pandemic levels. Payment rates remain strong and delinquency rates remain low. Our small business portfolio continues to perform well in the aggregate in both delinquencies and losses. Leading indicators such as payment rates, deposit levels, utilization, and revolving debt trends do not yet indicate signs of stress. Loan demand from our commercial customers remains strong with broad-based balance and commitment growth. Our commercial customers' credit performance remains strong with exceptionally low net charge-offs, and non-accrual loans were at their lowest level in over 10 years. However, we are monitoring early-warning indicators across portfolios, including cash flow activity, credit line utilization rates, and industry fundamentals for inflation impacts. Now let me update you on progress we've made on our strategic priorities. Our work to build an appropriate risk and control infrastructure is ongoing and remains our top priority.

Charlie Scharf
Charlie Scharf
CEO at Wells Fargo

We also continue to invest in our businesses to better serve our customers and to help drive growth. This week, we launched our fourth new credit card offering in the past year, Wells Fargo Autograph. Our latest card reflects our momentum in growing our consumer credit card business, with new accounts up over 60% from a year ago. We're focused on delivering competitive offerings, and our new reward card provides three times points across top spending categories, including restaurants, travel, and gas stations. This is the first of several rewards-based cards we plan to introduce. We continued to improve the digital experience in the second quarter with the relaunch of Intuitive Investor, our automated digital investing platform. We simplified the account opening process and created a faster and better experience for both new and experienced investors.

Charlie Scharf
Charlie Scharf
CEO at Wells Fargo

During the second quarter, we began rolling out Wells Fargo Premier, which provides differentiated products and experiences focused on strengthening and growing our affluent client relationships. We are working towards offering one set of products and services that are tailored to the needs of these customers, regardless of where they sit within our individual businesses. We will be rolling out more enhancements in the coming quarters to provide a more compelling offering for Premier clients. We started to roll out overdraft policy changes late in the first quarter, which included the elimination of fees for non-sufficient funds and overdraft protection transactions.

Charlie Scharf
Charlie Scharf
CEO at Wells Fargo

Additional changes will be rolled out in the second half of this year, including providing customers who overdraw their account with a 25-hour grace period to cure a negative balance before incurring an overdraft fee, giving early access to eligible direct deposits, and providing a new, easy, short-term credit product. We expect these changes will help millions of consumer customers avoid overdraft fees and meet short-term cash needs, and we continue to review other ways we can help consumers manage their finances. We also continue to invest to better serve our commercial customers, and early in the second quarter, Tim O'Hara joined the Corporate & Investment Bank from BlackRock as Head of Banking. Tim's expertise and insights will help us maximize our potential and achieve even greater partnership and strategic dialogue with our corporate and institutional clients.

Charlie Scharf
Charlie Scharf
CEO at Wells Fargo

He complements the strong leadership team in our markets and commercial real estate businesses, who have helped us navigate recent market volatility. We believe we have a significant opportunity to serve our existing commercial customers with corporate and investment banking products in a way that works within our existing risk tolerance. We also believe that for us to be successful as a company, we must consider a broad set of stakeholders in our decisions and actions. Last week, we announced that Otis Rolley will be joining Wells Fargo from The Rockefeller Foundation as the Head of Social Impact, leading community engagement and enterprise philanthropy, including the Wells Fargo Foundation. We continue to move forward in the area of ESG with the announcement of our 2030 reduction targets for greenhouse gas emissions attributable to financing activities in the oil and gas and power sectors.

Charlie Scharf
Charlie Scharf
CEO at Wells Fargo

As homeownership remains out of reach for too many families, we announced an effort to support new home construction, renovation, and repair of more than 450 affordable homes across the U.S. in collaboration with Habitat for Humanity and Rebuilding Together. We also launched our special purpose credit program to help minority homeowners refinance mortgages that Wells Fargo currently services. We continue to support our small business customers through this time of uncertainty, including launching the Small Business Resource Navigator, which connects small business owners to potential financing options and technical assistance through community development financial institutions across the country. We are also helping women entrepreneurs by doubling our support for women-owned businesses through the Connect to More program with complementary mentorship opportunities. We published our inaugural Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion report, which highlights the meaningful, positive results we've made on our DE&I initiatives.

Charlie Scharf
Charlie Scharf
CEO at Wells Fargo

For example, in the U.S., our external hiring of individuals from racially or ethnically diverse populations increased by 27% in 2021 compared to 2020. Approximately one-third of all internally promoted executives last year were racially or ethnically diverse. As I've said in the past, advancing DE&I at Wells Fargo is a long-term commitment, not a project, and we continue to pursue many of the initiatives in the report and look for ways to deepen our impact. Let me just make some summary comments before turning it over to Mike. The Federal Reserve's commitment to an aggressive rate hike cycle as a means to tame high persistent inflation continues to fuel market volatility and is expected to slow the economy, which will impact our consumer and commercial customers. Despite the economic environment, I remain optimistic about our future.

Charlie Scharf
Charlie Scharf
CEO at Wells Fargo

Credit quality remains strong, and we expect net interest income growth to continue given rising interest rates, which should more than offset any further near-term pressure on non-interest income. We remain on target to achieve a sustainable 10% ROTCE, subject to the same assumptions we've discussed in the past, on a run rate basis in the second half of this year, and then we will discuss our path to 15%. This year's Federal Reserve stress test confirmed our strong capital position and our ability to support our customers and communities while also continuing to return excess capital to shareholders through dividends and common stock repurchases. As we previously announced, we expect to increase our third-quarter common stock dividend by 20% to $0.30 per share, subject to approval by the company's board of directors at its regularly scheduled meeting later this month.

Charlie Scharf
Charlie Scharf
CEO at Wells Fargo

I will now turn the call over to Mike.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

Thanks, Charlie, and good morning, everyone. Net income for the quarter was $3.1 billion or $0.74 per common share, which included strong growth in net interest income as we are beginning to see the positive impact of higher interest rates. Our results included a $576 million impairment of equity securities, predominantly in our venture capital business due to the market conditions, which drove a total loss from equity securities of $615 million in the second quarter. Recall that a year ago, when the markets were strong, our results included $2.7 billion of gains on equity securities. While credit quality remain strong, our results included a $235 million increase in the allowance for credit losses due to loan growth.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

This followed six consecutive quarterly decreases in the allowance, including $1.1 billion in the first quarter and $1.6 billion a year ago. We highlight capital on slide three. Our CET1 ratio was 10.3%, down approximately 20 basis points from the first quarter, as declines in AOCI and dividend payments were largely offset by our second quarter earnings. Our CET1 ratio also reflected actions we took to proactively manage our level of capital and risk-weighted assets, as well as reduce our AOCI sensitivity by moving more securities to held-to-maturity and hedging securities in our available-for-sale portfolio. Additionally, we did not buy back any shares in the second quarter, but as Charlie highlighted, the recent stress test results confirmed our capacity to return excess capital to shareholders through dividends and common stock repurchases.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

We will continue to be prudent and consider current market conditions, including interest rate volatility, potential loan and risk-weighted asset growth, as well as any potential economic uncertainty with respect to the amount and timing of share repurchases over the coming quarters. Our 10.3% CET1 ratio remained well above our required regulatory minimum plus buffers. As a reminder, based on the recent federal stress test, our stress capital buffer for October 1, 2022 to September 30, 2023 is expected to be 3.2%, which would increase our regulatory minimum plus buffers by 10 basis points to 9.2%. Turning to credit quality on slide five. Our charge-off ratio remained near historical lows and was only 15 basis points in the second quarter.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

As we've previously discussed, losses are not expected to remain at these low levels, and we are closely monitoring our commercial and consumer customers for signs of stress, and we remain very disciplined in our underwriting. Commercial credit performance remained strong across our commercial businesses, with only 2 basis points of net charge-offs in the second quarter, which included net recoveries in our commercial real estate portfolio. We also had net recoveries in our consumer real estate portfolios, and total consumer net charge-offs declined slightly from the first quarter to 33 basis points of average loans as lower losses in auto and other consumer loans were partially offset by higher credit card losses. Non-performing assets decreased $878 million, or 13% from the first quarter.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

Lower levels of consumer non-accruals were driven by a decline in residential mortgage non-accrual loans due to sustained payment performance of borrowers after exiting COVID-related accommodation programs. Commercial non-accruals continued to decline, and as Charlie highlighted, we're at their lowest levels in over 10 years. Our allowance for credit losses at the end of the second quarter reflected continued strong credit performance with an increase that was due to loan growth. On slide six, we highlight loans and deposits. Average loans grew 8% from a year ago and 3% for the first quarter. Period end loans grew for the fourth consecutive quarter and were up 11% from a year ago, with increases in both our commercial and consumer portfolios. I'll highlight the specific growth drivers when discussing operating segment results.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

Average loan yields increased 19 basis points from a year ago and 27 basis points from the first quarter, reflecting the benefit of higher rates. Average deposits increased $10 billion or 1% from a year ago, with growth in consumer banking and lending offsetting declines across our other operating segments. The decline in average deposits from the first quarter reflected seasonality of tax payments as well as outflows from commercial and wealth clients. Our average deposit cost increased 1 basis point from the first quarter, driven by corporate investment banking. As I previously highlighted, we would expect deposit betas to accelerate as rates continue to rise and customer migration from lower-yielding to higher-yielding deposit products would likely increase as well. Turning to net interest income on slide seven.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

Second quarter net interest income increased $1.4 billion or 16% from a year ago, and $977 million or 11% from the first quarter. The growth from the first quarter was primarily driven by the impact of higher rates, which increased earning asset yields and reduced premium amortization from mortgage-backed securities. We also benefit from higher loan balances and one additional day in the quarter. We started the year expecting full-year net interest income to grow by approximately 8% compared to 2021. Last quarter, we raised our guidance to an increase in the mid-teens. With the market now expecting not only more rate hikes, but also larger ones, we currently expect net interest income in 2022 to increase approximately 20% from 2021.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

As a reminder, net interest income will ultimately be driven by a variety of factors, including the magnitude and timing of Fed rate increases, deposit betas, and loan growth. On slide eight, in non-interest income. This quarter, we included highlighting non-interest income to show that the decline from both the first quarter and a year ago was primarily driven by two cyclical businesses. Mortgage banking, which has slowed in response to higher interest rates, and our affiliated venture capital and private equity businesses, which a year ago generated elevated gains but recognized impairments in the second quarter of this year due to significantly different market conditions. While all other non-interest income included both positive and negative impacts, it was actually up slightly from the first quarter.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

The decline in all other non-interest income from a year ago was primarily driven by the impact of last year's divestitures. Turning to expenses on slide nine. Non-interest expense declined 3% from a year ago as expenses related to divestitures came out of the run rate and we continued to make progress on our efficiency initiatives. Operating losses increased $273 million from a year ago, primarily driven by increased litigation expense, which included a recovery in the second quarter of last year, and higher customer remediation expense predominantly for a variety of historical matters. Customer remediation matters are complex and take a significant amount of time to resolve and quantify the full impact. While we've made progress, we have more to do to resolve the remaining items.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

We're halfway through the year, and while we've had higher operating losses than we expected, revenue-related expenses are trending lower than expected. Our results in the first half of the year also reflected the progress we're making on our efficiency initiatives with lower headcount and reductions in both professional and outside services expense and occupancy expense. We expect to continue to make progress on our efficiency initiatives. Putting all these factors together, we still expect our full-year 2022 expenses to be approximately $51.5 billion, as lower revenue-related expense is expected to offset higher operating losses. As a reminder, we have outstanding litigation, regulatory matters and customer remediations, and the related expenses could be significant and are hard to predict, which could cause us to exceed our $51.5 billion outlook.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

Turning to our operating segments, starting with consumer banking and lending on slide 10. Consumer and small business banking revenue increased 17% from a year ago, driven by the impact of higher interest rates and higher deposit balances. Our deposit pricing has been stable, but we expect deposit betas to increase over time. As Charlie highlighted, deposit-related fees were impacted by the overdraft policy changes we started to roll out late in the first quarter, which included the elimination of fees for non-sufficient funds and overdraft protection transactions. Additional changes will be rolled out in the second half of this year, which will further reduce deposit-related fees.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

Home lending revenue declined 53% from a year ago and 35% from the first quarter, driven by lower mortgage originations and compressed margins given the higher rate environment and continued competitive pricing in response to excess capacity in the industry. After increasing over 150 basis points in the first quarter, mortgage rates increased over 100 basis points in the second quarter. The impact of higher rates also reduced revenue from the re-securitization of loans purchased from securitization pools. The mortgage market is expected to remain challenging in the near term, and it's possible that we have a further decline in mortgage banking revenue in the third quarter. We are making adjustments to reduce expenses in response to lower origination volumes, and we expect these adjustments will continue over the next couple quarters.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

Credit card revenue was up 7%, auto revenue increased 5%, and personal lending was up 7% from a year ago, primarily due to higher loan balances. Turning to some key business drivers on slide 11. Our mortgage originations declined 10% for the first quarter, with growth in correspondent partially offsetting the decline in retail originations. Refinances as a percentage of total originations declined to 28%. Average home lending loan balances grew 2% for the first quarter, driven by the fourth consecutive quarter of growth in our non-conforming portfolio, which more than offset declines in loans purchased from securitization pools or EPBOs. Turning to auto, origination volume declined 35% from a year ago and 26% from the first quarter due to increased pricing competition, credit tightening actions and an ongoing industry supply pressures. Turning to debit card.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

While debit card spend increased 3%, transactions were relatively flat from a year ago as increases in travel and entertainment were offset by declines in apparel and home improvement. Credit card point of sale purchase volume was up 28% from a year ago, with the largest increases in fuel, travel and entertainment. The increase in point of sale volume and the launch of new product helped drive a 19% increase in credit card balances from a year ago. We remain disciplined in our underwriting of new credit card accounts. Turning to commercial banking results on slide 12. Middle Market banking revenue increased 27% from a year ago, driven by higher net interest income from the impact of higher rates and loan balances. Asset-based lending and leasing revenue increased 8% from a year ago, driven by higher loan balances.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

Non-interest expense increased 2% from a year ago, primarily driven by higher operating costs. Efficiency initiatives showed lower personnel expense, with headcount down 9% from a year ago. Average loan balances have grown for four consecutive quarters and were up 13% from a year ago. Utilization rates continued to increase, but they are still not back to historical levels. Clients have increased borrowings to rebuild inventory and to support working capital growth, both of which have been impacted by higher inflation. We also had momentum from adding new clients in Middle Market banking, and similar to prior periods, loan growth was driven by the larger clients. Average deposits declined 2% from a year ago, driven by actions to manage under the asset cap. Deposit pricing has been relatively stable, but we expect deposit betas will continue to increase. Turning to corporate investment banking on slide 13.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

Banking revenue increased 4% from a year ago, primarily driven by stronger treasury management results, given the impact of higher interest rates as well as higher loan balances. Investment banking fees declined, reflecting lower market activity and $107 million write down on unfunded leveraged finance commitments due to the market spread widening. Average loan balances were up 20% from a year ago, with broad-based loan demand driven by a modest increase in utilization rates due to increased working capital needs given inflationary pressures. Commercial real estate revenues grew 5% from a year ago, driven by loan growth and higher interest rates. Average loan balances were up 22% from a year ago, with the disruption in the capital markets increasing demand for bank financing and line utilization.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

Markets revenue increased 11% from a year ago, primarily due to higher foreign exchange and commodities trading revenue as clients position themselves for rising rates, quantitative tightening and growing recessionary concerns as well as higher equities trading. Average deposits in corporate investment banking were down 14% from a year ago, driven by continued actions to manage under the asset cap. There's been more deposit pricing pressure in corporate banking than we've seen in commercial banking. On slide 14, wealth and investment management revenue grew 5% from a year ago as the increase in net interest income due to the impact of higher rates and higher loan balances more than offset the declines in asset-based fees driven by lower market valuations as well as lower retail brokers transaction activity. As a reminder, the majority of WIM advisory assets are priced at the beginning of the quarter.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

Second quarter results reflected market valuations as of April 1st, and third quarter results will reflect the lower market valuations as of July 1st. The S&P 500 and fixed income indices declined again in the second quarter and approximately 2/3s of our advisory assets are in equities. There will be another step down in our asset-based fees next quarter. Average loans increased 5% from a year ago, driven by continued momentum in securities-based lending. Average deposits declined 1% from a year ago and were down 7% from the first quarter as clients reallocated cash into higher-yielding alternatives. Deposit pricing increased modestly. Slide 15 highlights our corporate results.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

Both revenue and expenses declined from a year ago and were impacted by the divestitures of our corporate trust services business and Wells Fargo Asset Management and the sale of our student loan portfolio. These businesses contributed $580 million of revenue in the second quarter of 2021, including the gain on the sale of our student loan portfolio, and they accounted for approximately $375 million of the decline in expenses in the second quarter compared with a year ago, including the goodwill write-down associated with the sale of our student loan portfolio. The decline in revenue in corporate was also due to lower equity gains in our affiliated venture capital and private equity businesses.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

In summary, while our net income in the second quarter declined, driven by lower venture capital and mortgage banking results, our underlying trends reflected our improving earnings capacity, with expenses declining and strong net interest income growth from rising rates and higher loan balances. As we look ahead to the second half of the year, we expect the growth in net interest income to more than offset any further pressure on non-interest income. While we expect credit losses to increase from historically low levels, our consumer and commercial customers are not showing any meaningful signs of stress. As I highlighted earlier, our expense outlook for the year is unchanged at approximately $51.5 billion, subject to the risks to the outlook discussed earlier.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

Finally, our stress test results demonstrated our capacity to return excess capital to shareholders, including the expected 20% increase in our third-quarter common stock dividend subject to board approval. We will now take your questions.

Operator

At this time, we will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please first unmute your phone and then press star one. Please record your name at the prompt. If you would like to withdraw your question, you may press star two to remove yourself from the question queue. Once again, please press star one and record your name if you would like to ask a question at this time. Please stand by for our first question. Our first question today will come from Ken Usdin of Jefferies. Your line is open, sir.

Ken Usdin
Ken Usdin
Managing Director at Jefferies

Thanks. Good morning, guys. I appreciate the continuity of the expense guide and also the potential variability. Mike, I was just wondering if you could expand on that. Obviously, the operating losses are hanging higher, you know, this year than they had been. So just, you know, just wondering how you start to get a sense of what those look like going forward. Then also just, you know, the underlying, as you mentioned, coming in better because of revenue. Just any sense at all, just on how your net saves are looking underneath the surface as well. Thank you.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

Yeah. Hey, thanks, Ken. You know, first I, you know, I'd start with the, you know, efficiency program that we've been talking about now for, you know, the better part of a year and a half. You know, all of that's tracking, you know, as we thought it would. The, you know, the core, you know, driving kind of efficiency through, you know, the core, you know, business lines and operating groups is sort of working the way we thought. When you look at what's happened, you know, this year, as you pointed out, you know, operating losses are higher than what we, you know, assumed, you know, at the beginning of the year.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

You know, those things just can be unpredictable at times, just as we work through the backlog of items. You know, the accounting standard we work with, though, right? If we knew about something now, we would accrue for it, and if we could estimate it, we would accrue for it. You know, we're just flagging, continuing to flag that we still have a pipeline, you know, a pipeline of stuff to work through.

Charlie Scharf
Charlie Scharf
CEO at Wells Fargo

You know, as you highlighted, you know, as we think about this year, you know, that the increases in the operating loss line have been offset by, you know, largely offset by the lower revenue related expense. We still feel good about that, you know, $51.5 billion number that we set out at the beginning of the year. You know, we're gonna continue to work through the pipeline of items and, you know, if something is significant and pops, we will be sure to highlight it as we go forward.

Ken Usdin
Ken Usdin
Managing Director at Jefferies

Yeah. As a follow-up, I know as you guys talk through the recent conference season, it's hard to get a crystal ball with so many moving parts as you think about 2023. But can you just help us try to at least start to think through some of the pushes and takes and, you know, can you continue to push us towards getting costs down, you know, next year? Thanks, guys.

Charlie Scharf
Charlie Scharf
CEO at Wells Fargo

Hey, Ken, this is Charlie. Let me take that. You know, the way we think about it is as we sit and look towards next year, we certainly know we have some increases to contend with, such as the full year impact of, you know, inflationary pressures that we see this year. You know, we've got some increases in FDIC insurance premiums. You know, as we start thinking about next year, and we're really just starting the budget process, you know, our mindset going into it is that we have significant opportunities to become more efficient. You know, we've been, and it's just more of the same in terms of what we've been talking about. This has nothing to do with getting efficiencies out of the risk related work. It assumes that all of that investment continues.

Charlie Scharf
Charlie Scharf
CEO at Wells Fargo

We do go into this process, you know, with the expectation that we want to see net expense reductions. Now, just usual caveats that, you know, excludes, you know, revenue related expenses, which, you know, could go up or some of this, you know, the lumpiness that we've talked about just as we think of. As we think about that core expense base, you know, we do continue to see opportunities, and we'd like you to see it as well.

Operator

Thank you. The next question comes from John McDonald of Autonomous Research. Your line is open.

John McDonald
Senior Research Analyst at Autonomous Research

Hi. Good morning, guys. Wanted to ask about capital. You know, looks like you're entering, you know, next quarter with over 100 basis points buffer to your pro forma regulatory minimums. How should we think about where you'll manage capital to and your potential buyback capacity going forward? You know, given that you paused for SCB, partly because of SCB uncertainty, will you get to some level of buybacks likely, you know, moving forward here? Thank you.

Charlie Scharf
Charlie Scharf
CEO at Wells Fargo

Yeah. Hey, John, it's Charlie. Why don't I start and then Mike can chime in. Yeah, I mean, I think you're right. You know, no question, clarity of SCB for us at this point does really help. You know, as we sit here today and we look at, you know, what's happening in spreads and what's happening, you know, with, you know, the 10-year at, what, is it 2.92% right now. We do want to be a little bit just conservative in terms of how we think about managing the capital base.

Charlie Scharf
Charlie Scharf
CEO at Wells Fargo

Just to be, I think to be clear, as we sit here today, we're very happy with the amount of capital that we have, including as we think about, you know, that 10 basis points increase, you know, that will impact us. We certainly have capacity to buy shares back, at this point. I, you know, as I think Mike alluded to, we just probably want to wait a little bit just to, you know, see what happens in terms of, you know, the volatility and spreads and rates, before we start to do that. We certainly, you know, at a point we'll do it. We'll just see exactly when that is.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

Yeah. Let me just add one or two things, John. You know, I think as Charlie highlighted, you know, we feel good about where we are. I would just point out we are not, you know, our GSIB score is going to stay the same as we go into next year as well. We don't have another uptick as we go into beginning of next year. That's good. You know, at this point, we don't feel like we need to build the capital from where we are to build a bigger buffer. Then we'll just be prudent on buybacks as we go through the next few quarters.

John McDonald
Senior Research Analyst at Autonomous Research

Okay. Mike, may I ask a follow-up on the NII revised outlook. What kind of cadence do you see between the next two quarters? It seems like you'd have a big step up, you know, both this coming quarter and the third quarter and then again in the fourth. Within that NII equation, you know, you still have this funding gap between loan growth being very strong and deposit growth slowing. Is there still plenty of cash to use to fund the loan growth? Thank you.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

Yeah, sure. You know, I think, you know, ultimately the exact progression over the next couple of quarters will be a function of, you know, how the Fed moves on rates. I would think of it as somewhat of a gradual step up quarter to quarter. You won't see some outsized result in one versus the other as we go. You know, you'll continue to see a little bit of a loan growth come through. We think that probably moderates a little bit from what we saw in the first half of the year, but you'll see some loan growth there as well as it steps up.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

You know, as you say, you know, I think the industry has seen deposits come down a little bit. You know, if you look at the latest version of the Fed data, and you can see that in our results as well. Now for us, it's been a little bit of, you know, you can see the period-end balances in each of the segments, and it's been a little bit of reduction in each of them with the lowest percentage reduction being in the consumer space. That's a good thing. As you know, we've, you know, over the last couple of years, you know, we've brought down much of our wholesale funding that we've got out there.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

We've got plenty of capacity to, you know, provide liquidity or get the liquidity we need to continue to support clients.

John McDonald
Senior Research Analyst at Autonomous Research

That loan growth funding is coming from your cash balances and other sources of liquidity that you have?

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

Yes, exactly.

John McDonald
Senior Research Analyst at Autonomous Research

Okay, thanks.

Operator

Thank you. The next question comes from Steven Chubak of Wolfe Research. Your line is open, sir.

Steven Chubak
Steven Chubak
Managing Director at Wolfe Research

Hey, good morning. Wanted to start off with a question just clarifying some of the NII guidance. Mike, because you noted that it's a ratable step up, and it's the guidance implies about a $12 billion run rate at least in the back half, for NII on an FTE basis. Is it reasonable for us to assume or expect that the exit rate for the year is gonna be north of $50 billion? I just wanted to make sure to clarify that.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

Well, Steve, I know you're really good at modeling this stuff, so I'll let you do the modeling. I think, you know, as you pointed out, you know, we're gonna see step-ups, right, as we go through the next, as we did this quarter from last quarter. That'll continue into the third and fourth quarter. It's hard to use one quarter, as you know, to just, you know, run rate for the rest of the year, you know, for the following year. Certainly the exit rate's gonna be a lot higher than even where we are today.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

Then we'll have to just see what the environment's like at that point to know, you know, how to think about, you know, whether that's a clean run rate, you know, to build off of or are there other things that get in the way. As you can see, you know, over the last, you know, three, four, six, you know, five, six weeks, whatever it's been, you know, the amount of volatility that's out there on the long end and what happens with loan growth, you know, does it keep at the same pace? There's a lot of factors I think that go into what 2023 would look like. As you pointed out, you know, our exit rates will be pretty healthy.

Steven Chubak
Steven Chubak
Managing Director at Wolfe Research

Thanks for that, Mike. Just for one follow-up, also on the NII guide. Just wanted to get a better sense as to what's being contemplated in terms of deposit beta. The deposit beta and repricing just came in much better than peers this quarter. You've cited the benefits of the deposit and funding optimization you've executed these past few years. Just wanna get a sense as to how you're thinking about that deposit trajectory, that's underpinning some of the NII guidance.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

Yeah, I mean, you know, I think that's, you know, we're not expecting balances to grow much from where they are. I think, you know, we'll see what happens, you know, as, you know, if we see, you know, continued, you know, run outflows of deposits. You know, as you, as you pointed out, like, our mix of deposits as we came into this environment sets us up pretty well, and you can see that in the results so far, where the consumer deposits are a much bigger percentage of the overall, pie than they were, you know, just a couple of years ago. You know, as you sort of think about beta, so far they've, you know, basically progressed as we thought, in each of the segments.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

We really haven't seen much variation to what we thought at this point in the rate cycle. Now if the Fed does raise rates 75 basis points at the next meeting, you're starting to get into territory that we didn't see at the last rate cycle, rate rising cycle. You know, we're gonna start to see betas increase from there. I think that's you know exactly at what pace and you know where you need to be defensive or not on the wholesale side in the commercial side, you know, we'll see. We're pretty nimble and are able to react to it. So far, you know, everything's progressed as we thought it would.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

We're gonna keep a pretty close eye on it as we go over the next few months. I think this quarter and into the fourth quarter, I think, will give us a lot of interesting data points to know how to think about it over a longer period of time.

Steven Chubak
Steven Chubak
Managing Director at Wolfe Research

Great color. Thanks for taking my questions.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Scott Siefers of Piper Sandler. Your line is open.

Scott Siefers
Scott Siefers
Managing Director at Piper Sandler

Morning, guys. Thank you for taking the question. Just as it relates to revenues overall, so the NII trajectory obviously quite strong and in a sense seems mostly self-evident for now. It was something, Mike, you could discuss, please, the sort of fee trajectory in a bit more detail. I guess we're kind of hovering in a $7 billion or $7.5 billion a quarter range if we exclude some of that noise from the equity marks, the securities gains, et cetera. In your mind, are we sort of at a low and can we grow from that base? I know you touched on mortgage maybe coming down and then we've got wealth, but just sort of puts and takes as you see them, if you could, please.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

Yeah, sure. Thanks, Scott. I'll just bring you through some of the key fee lines just to give you a sense of, you know, some of the dynamics. Right. So on the deposit side, you know, it's been pretty, you know, we saw a step down in the quarter, you know, mainly a result of the changes we made in overdraft fees. We'll see a little bit more step down as we go through the year. Probably more a fourth quarter thing than a third quarter thing, you know, as we implement the, you know, additional changes there. But there's, you know, other than that, there's a lot of stability generally to that line based on, you know, underlying activity.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

You know, we'll see what happens in the market and how that drives the investment advisory, you know, and asset-based fee line. That's, you know, it's gonna be key to see what happens in the equity and the fixed income markets. As more stability enters into the market, that really supports that fee line. That, as you know, that's our single biggest line item as you look at those fees. You know, investment banking, you know, it's really gonna be market driven. Our fees were pretty low, including the small mark that we had in leverage finance. It's hard to see that going too much lower.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

That's really gonna be driven by the activity levels, cards been, you know, we're seeing still good. Although it's slowed maybe a little in May and June, we're still seeing really good activity in the card space and people are out spending, so that's helpful. You know, mortgage banking is, as you highlighted, I think is likely going to come down a little more in the third quarter, but it's off a much smaller base. So you can still have pretty big, you know, decent sized percentage declines there, but it's still really small dollars at this point. We'll see as the market progresses and how that impacts the equity securities side. I think, you know, hopefully we're getting more stability here.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

Some of it will be dependent upon what we see in the markets.

Scott Siefers
Scott Siefers
Managing Director at Piper Sandler

All right. That's perfect. Thank you very much. If I could switch gears just a bit back to sort of CCAR and the SCB. I guess it's possible I had sort of misinterpreted your guys' remarks over the last few quarters, but you know, I sort of felt like you guys were maybe prepping us for possibly somewhat worse outcome in terms of where the SCB would flush out. I mean, in your mind, how did that CCAR and that SCB just 'cause it you know, barely budged, right? You know, how did that all flush out relative to what you guys had kind of been anticipating?

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

Yeah. Yeah. What we said a couple of times was that we thought it was possible that it was going to increase. It did. Now, you know, you have to keep in mind, like, we only have so much visibility into the underlying drivers of what causes it to go up or down in any given year. Now, there's a lot of stuff that's public, but there's also a lot of the modeling techniques that aren't, you know, quite easy to understand. I would say we were pleased with the result.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

You know, we've spent you know as many do probably we spend a lot of time you know on trying to understand the drivers of the risk of the balance sheet and do our best to you know have position ourselves for good outcomes. We were pleased at where it came out.

Scott Siefers
Scott Siefers
Managing Director at Piper Sandler

Okay. All right. Perfect. Thank you guys very much. I appreciate it.

Operator

Thank you. The next question comes from John Pancari of Evercore ISI. Your line is open.

John Pancari
John Pancari
Senior Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at Evercore ISI

Morning.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

Hey, John. Morning.

John Pancari
John Pancari
Senior Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at Evercore ISI

Just on the deposit front, just to go back to that. I just want to confirm. From here, your best estimate now is that overall deposit balances are relatively stable in the back half of the year. Do you think you could see some incremental declines, you know, just as betas are rising?

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

I think you can certainly see a little bit more decline from here, potentially. I think that's not an unreasonable expectation. Exactly, you know, timing and, you know, how that's going to progress, I think is hard to predict with any real degree of accuracy, just given the environment we're in right now. I think it's possible they come down a little bit more from here.

John Pancari
John Pancari
Senior Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at Evercore ISI

Okay. All right. Thanks, Mike. On the credit front, I want to get your thoughts on the likelihood of reserve build. I know you added to the reserve for loan growth this quarter, but in terms of an overall build of the reserve, as you know, from a CECL perspective, as you look at your economic scenarios, you know, what did you see this quarter with your CECL scenarios that didn't warrant a sizable build? I guess longer term, as this plays out and we see the Fed continue with the tightening, you know, what do you view as a potential level that you may have to bring the reserve to? Is it pandemic level? You know, too high? And if you can help us with the magnitude there.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

Well, you know, if you think about the process we go through, which I think is similar to most, you know, in a lot of ways is you're really looking at a number of scenarios that you need to be thoughtful about and include in your modeling. We've now, for a number of quarters in a row, had a significant weighting on the downside scenarios already. Some of those scenarios are pretty severe, right? You've got weightings on, you know, what some might term wild recessions, more severe recessions. You know, you could sort of, you know, you could create a lot of labels for them. It's a number of scenarios that have different severities of downside.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

We feel at this point that we've captured, you know, what we can look at, you know, and see, you know, or anticipate, you know, at this point based on all the factors that we need to evaluate in our current reserve. I, you know, I'll just point out also, you know, as you look at, you know, us in the position we're in, we didn't take down all of the reserves that we put up during COVID. As you sort of look through each of the underlying asset classes, we feel, you know, what we have today is appropriate. You know, it's hard to see in the near term, you know, increasing them to the level that we had back in the pandemic.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

I think that's a hard thing to see at this point. I think we'll have to, you know, make sure as things evolve throughout the next couple quarters, we'll have to incorporate that. Again, we already have a pretty significant weighting on those downside scenarios already. It's a very, as you would imagine, a very robust conversation that we go through each quarter to evaluate how we feel about it. At this point, we feel it's appropriate for what we can see over the life of those loans.

John Pancari
John Pancari
Senior Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at Evercore ISI

Got it. All right. One more related thing on credit quickly. The $107 million write-down in unfunded leveraged finance commitments, you know, that you took. Is there, you know, risk of future marks there? Is that primarily just predicated on market spreads? Separately, can you remind us what's your total leverage-

John Pancari
John Pancari
Senior Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at Evercore ISI

Loan exposure, both in terms of commitments and outright outstandings. Thanks.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

Yeah, we don't. You gotta think of these as unfunded commitments, not funded, right? As you sort of think about them, don't think about them outstandings, think about them as unfunded commitments, number one. You really have to, over time, think about, you know, term loans versus high yield a little bit differently. You know, on the high yield side, it's we don't disclose the we haven't disclosed the actual number, but it's really small, you know, in the scheme of the balance sheet. You know, the term loan side, which generally has a little bit more stability, you know, to it and less volatility to it is, you know, the bigger part.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

You know, all these deals are subject to further spread widening given the environment we're in for sure. You know, we at the end of the quarter you know used our best judgment to market where we thought the deals would clear. We'll see how that goes over the coming months.

John Pancari
John Pancari
Senior Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at Evercore ISI

Okay, great. Thanks, Mike.

Operator

Thank you. The next question comes from Erika Najarian of UBS. Your line is open.

Erika Najarian
Erika Najarian
Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at UBS

Hi. Good morning. I just had one more follow-up question. Mike, I apologize if this is the umpteenth question on NII. Appreciate all your color in terms of what's driving the NII guide of 20%. I'm wondering if you could better quantify the deposit beta that you would expect by year-end on a cumulative basis. Appreciate that you said it would accelerate. Given that some of your peers have given specific guides and, you know, given how much the quality of your deposit base has changed for the better over the past several years, I'm wondering if you could give us a sense of what that beta range that you're assuming by year-end on a cumulative basis that underpins that guide.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

Yeah. Yeah, Erika. I think that's a really hard thing to give a pinpoint number on at this point in the cycle, to be honest with you. You know, if you think about it. It's just there's so many moving pieces right now, I think, between, and particularly as you sort of get to year-end and the pace of rates and, you know, what exactly is the Fed gonna do, and when are they gonna do it? So I think there's a lot that goes into that, you know, trying to get a one number is a hard thing to say with a lot of confidence in my view.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

You know, I think what we can say though is, you know, as you look at, you know, the next couple rate rises, I think you're gonna start to see more acceleration. You know, on the retail, on the consumer side, the core, you know, rates haven't changed much for the big banks at this point yet. You'll start to see that happen over the next couple rate rises. It'll. The betas will still be pretty small. However, that will start to pick up, you know, depending on how fast the Fed goes by year-end.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

I think, you know, on the other side of the spectrum, on the corporate investment bank and those deposits, whether it's in the FI space or the large corporate space, you know, you're seeing those betas, you know, pick up a lot already. Those will continue to accelerate. When you look at cumulative betas, you really have to look at, and you start to compare different banks, you're really gonna have to look at the mix of the deposits. You know, you know, the CIB deposits are just a much smaller piece of the pie for us right now. Those will probably move faster than even, you know, even we've modeled, but it's a small piece of it.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

You know, I think, you know, we'll see how it goes, and we'll give you as much insight as we can. I think trying to predict cumulative betas by year-end is hard.

Erika Najarian
Erika Najarian
Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at UBS

Got it. I understand. Thanks so much.

Operator

Thank you. The next question comes from Ebrahim Poonawala. Your line is open.

Ebrahim Poonawala
Ebrahim Poonawala
Managing Director at Bank of America

Good morning.

Operator

Bank of America.

Ebrahim Poonawala
Ebrahim Poonawala
Managing Director at Bank of America

Good morning. Just following up on that, Mike. Appreciate you don't want to get pinned down on deposit beta. Is it fair for us to assume just given the mix shift in deposits, given how you manage the balance sheet during the pandemic, we should see your deposit beta at least in line or maybe even lower relative to the last rate cycle?

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

Well, I think you know, if you think about each asset, each type of deposit, you know, to date, they're tracking pretty close to what we saw last cycle. You then look at the mix of our deposit base, and that's what's changed, you know, pretty substantially since the last go around. You know, if beta stayed the same as last cycle by product, given our mix has changed, you would see a lower average deposit beta. There's a lot-

Ebrahim Poonawala
Ebrahim Poonawala
Managing Director at Bank of America

But-

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

still gonna play out as we go through the rest of the year by, you know, on each of the underlying products.

Ebrahim Poonawala
Ebrahim Poonawala
Managing Director at Bank of America

That's fair. Just wanted to make sure we weren't missing something because there are peers who probably are expecting a higher beta than last cycle. Just wanted to hear you talk through that. As a follow-up, and I know these are extremely tough in terms of when we think about the market, private market valuations, on your equity investments. Give us a sense of just where the markets are in terms of taking these markdowns. Should we anticipate some more negative marks in a world where there's no big turnaround in equity markets over the next few quarters? Just want to make sure, like, expectations are level set for that line and how that impacts fees and PPNR.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

Yeah. No, sure. You know, again, it really all depends on what happens in the public equity markets, which is, you know, in part driving.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

You know, those declines. If we see some stabilization, that's constructive. If we see much deeper declines, you know, we'll have to evaluate how that impacts these portfolio investments. You know, obviously, if the market starts to rally, that's even more constructive. I think the public equity markets then will be a good guide to how to think about whether or not we have to evaluate whether there's more reductions here or not.

Ebrahim Poonawala
Ebrahim Poonawala
Managing Director at Bank of America

Got it. Looks like they're tracking to a 15% loss fee maybe by the end of the year. That was a statement. I didn't expect you to respond. Thanks for taking the questions.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

No problem. I'm glad you made it rhetorical.

Operator

Thank you. The next question comes from Gerard Cassidy of RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Gerard Cassidy
Gerard Cassidy
Managing Director at RBC Capital Markets

Thank you. Good morning, Charlie. Good morning, Mike. Mike, can you give us some color on you guys had some good success in the quarter in generating gains from your trading activities and your debt securities. Can you just share with us, you know, what drove that and, what your expectations might be in the next quarter or two?

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

Yeah, I mean, you know, on the trading side, it was really, you know, good performance in our macro, fixed income businesses, commodities, FX, a little bit of rates. I think that's what contributed to it. We'll see obviously the continued performance there is subject to what we see happening in the markets. It's not, you know, we're not out there taking any kind of incremental risks than we normally take. It's really helping clients facilitate the flow that they've got there. We'll see how that goes. As you can see, it's a relatively smaller number for us versus maybe some others.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

You know, as you think about the securities portfolio, I wouldn't assume there'll be continued gains there. I think, you know, we did some small remixing of our securities portfolio. Some of it was RWA, some of it was RWA optimization. You know, selling some UMBSs, buying Ginnie Maes that spreads were pretty tight at the time we did it. You save an RWA, you don't give up much yield. There are, you know, a few other minor optimizations we did there.

Gerard Cassidy
Gerard Cassidy
Managing Director at RBC Capital Markets

Very good. As a follow-up question, when it comes to your professional and outside services expenses, can you frame out for us how much of that is tied to, you know, your current, you know, working with the regulators to lift the asset cap and the cease and desist order? You know, when that day eventually arrives, will the professional and outside services numbers really have a kind of meaningful downward move because, you know, you've resolved that issue?

Charlie Scharf
Charlie Scharf
CEO at Wells Fargo

This is Charlie. Let me just take a shot at this first. Listen, I think, you know, we have the work we're doing on all of the risk and infrastructure work which supports the regulatory matters. It's our own headcount, it's professional, it's a bunch of technology work. It really cuts across a whole series of lines. I just don't really think it's the right time for us to start even talking about where those saves could come from. It's just genuinely not on our radar screen in terms of what we're thinking about, where it's gonna go, or anything like that. I'd rather just defer the question at this point.

Gerard Cassidy
Gerard Cassidy
Managing Director at RBC Capital Markets

No problem. Understood. Mike, just coming back to your comment about the mix of deposits, and this is a rhetorical question as well. As we see for the first time in 15 years, consumer deposits in a higher rate environment will make, you know, guys like you guys stand out maybe over some of your peers. Good luck with that. Thank you.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

Thanks, Gerard.

Operator

Thank you. The next question will come from Betsy Graseck of Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.

Betsy Graseck
Betsy Graseck
Managing Director and Global Head of Banks and Diversified Finance Research at Morgan Stanley

Hey, good morning.

Charlie Scharf
Charlie Scharf
CEO at Wells Fargo

Hey, Betsy.

Gerard Cassidy
Gerard Cassidy
Managing Director at RBC Capital Markets

Hi, Betsy.

Betsy Graseck
Betsy Graseck
Managing Director and Global Head of Banks and Diversified Finance Research at Morgan Stanley

Charlie, I think you recently mentioned that you're in the process of strategically thinking about where mortgage fits in, and I guess I wanted to understand what kind of, you know, framework you're assessing mortgage under. What you're thinking about that.

Charlie Scharf
Charlie Scharf
CEO at Wells Fargo

Sure. Yeah. That was, by the way, not meant to be a new comment. That's something that, you know, we've been doing ever since I got here. We brought in new management, including Kristy Fercho, who runs the business. You know, I mean, if you just go back and look at how big we were in the mortgage business, we were a hell of a lot bigger than we are today. You know, we have been all along just reassessing what makes sense for us to do, how big we wanna be, both in the context of what our focus should be in terms of our primary focus should be on serving our own customer base.

Charlie Scharf
Charlie Scharf
CEO at Wells Fargo

To the extent that, you know, we have efficiencies, it makes sense for us to do other business. I guess my point was, you know, we're not interested in being extraordinarily large in the mortgage business just for the sake of being in the mortgage business. We're in the home lending business because we think home lending is an important product for us to talk to our customers about. That'll ultimately dictate the appropriate size of it. You know, when you look at how much we're originating versus the size of our servicing business, the servicing business, you know, over time will become smaller. I think that's, you know, a smart and good thing for us for many reasons.

Charlie Scharf
Charlie Scharf
CEO at Wells Fargo

You know that as I said, we're gonna focus on products that make sense for us in the context of, you know, where we can make money over the cycles, given all the complexities and all the requirements that banks have that not necessarily everyone else has, and make sure we're getting the right returns for it.

Betsy Graseck
Betsy Graseck
Managing Director and Global Head of Banks and Diversified Finance Research at Morgan Stanley

Is this a migration towards originate and retain and, you know, the mortgage servicing line goes away as an income statement item because it becomes non-material? Or is there some middle ground that you're looking to-

Charlie Scharf
Charlie Scharf
CEO at Wells Fargo

I mean, listen, we're still, you know, I would still assume that a substantial amount of our mortgage production would be eligible for sale. You know, whether it's through the agencies or through public market, you know, that's all options that we'd want to continue. You know, we'll still be originating mortgages across the spectrum. You know, some of which we'll keep on balance sheet when it makes sense, and others of which we'll sell, and we will have an MSR. Again, if you just look at how much we originated historically versus, you know, what we're originating today, it'll naturally just come down over time.

Betsy Graseck
Betsy Graseck
Managing Director and Global Head of Banks and Diversified Finance Research at Morgan Stanley

Two other questions. One, I think you recently announced a change in your consumer head. Could you speak through rationale for that and what the, you know, you know, wishlist is for your new head of consumer?

Charlie Scharf
Charlie Scharf
CEO at Wells Fargo

Yeah. Mike Weinbach, who had come in to run our home lending businesses, put a whole series of things in place, including if you look at the leadership across all of our card business, our home lending business, our personal lending business, and our auto business. All those, that's an entirely new management team, plus new heads of I can go through all the other functions as well. You know, Mike put that in place and, you know, we talked about it, and he wanted to do something different. We're lucky enough to have a gentleman named Kleber Santos, who joined us, a year and a half to two years ago. Background was he was at Capital One prior to that, and McKinsey prior to that.

Charlie Scharf
Charlie Scharf
CEO at Wells Fargo

Kleber and I have worked extremely closely together, and just thrilled to have him in that role. I think, I wouldn't expect to see significant changes in the things that we've spoken about. We're focused on continuing the product build-out, on the credit card side. Again, focusing on customers that are broader customers in the franchise. Building our customer service around that and building out our digital capabilities in all the other parts of the business, which is work that we have underway. I don't anticipate any material changes from where we are just but continued trends of the things that we've been talking about.

Betsy Graseck
Betsy Graseck
Managing Director and Global Head of Banks and Diversified Finance Research at Morgan Stanley

All right. Just lastly on wealth. You know, it's an important part of your offering. I'm wondering what you're doing to strategically enhance that offering to your clients, be it either through product or how you're structured, integration with consumer, you know, your IT platform and solutions. Could you just give us a couple of bullet points on what's going on there?

Charlie Scharf
Charlie Scharf
CEO at Wells Fargo

Sure. Let me start. Mike and I are both very involved in these conversations with Barry and his team. It's, you know, I think if you look at our wealth business, it's run entirely different today than it was several years ago. We had separate platforms historically here between our brokerage business. We had two different private banks that operated under two different brands. We had our bank channel, and then completely separately, we had a digital platform, and we had a platform for advisors that wanted to go independent. The digital platforms and the platform for independent advisors had very little investment in it, and those were run. All of those business, they were run as separate businesses with separate product platforms, and separate technology.

Charlie Scharf
Charlie Scharf
CEO at Wells Fargo

What we've done is we now have one set of products and service capabilities that all of those product lines have access to. We've combined the entire field under one leader, and we're investing in our digital capabilities, and we're investing in the capabilities of those that want to go independent. If they want to do that, they can stay here as opposed to elsewhere. We are building out capabilities across all the dimensions, from the investment capabilities to the banking capabilities, our lending capabilities, offering trusts and the other areas of distribution that didn't have access to those in the past.

Charlie Scharf
Charlie Scharf
CEO at Wells Fargo

It's a huge set of changes, which also bring with it a set of changes in the back end, which, you know, we've been moving towards common platforms. It's something we're really excited about, and, you know, we're just at the beginning of seeing the benefits of it. I think it's one of the things that, you know, will make us appear to our financial advisors to be an extremely attractive place to be, whether they want to be an employee and work for Wells Fargo or they want to be independent and access our capabilities.

Betsy Graseck
Betsy Graseck
Managing Director and Global Head of Banks and Diversified Finance Research at Morgan Stanley

Okay. That change to moving to common platforms, what's the timing of that?

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

Yeah. It's not a technology move.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

Platforms in terms of, you know, the overall sort of way we operate the business. There isn't, you know, it isn't dependent upon a big technology conversion, Betsy.

Betsy Graseck
Betsy Graseck
Managing Director and Global Head of Banks and Diversified Finance Research at Morgan Stanley

Okay.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

I would just highlight one last thing. You know, Charlie, in his prepared remarks talked about Wells Fargo Premier. You know, that's step one in really helping provide a more differentiated and holistic, you know, service offering to our affluent clients in the consumer business. The wealth piece is gonna be a big part of that. You know, we already have, you know, 1,500+ advisors in the branch system to do it. We already have a great investments platform. We're, you know, in the early days, but building out a differentiated service offering there as well, which will be a big part of the wealth businesses, you know, going forward.

Betsy Graseck
Betsy Graseck
Managing Director and Global Head of Banks and Diversified Finance Research at Morgan Stanley

Okay. That's in conjunction with consumer business?

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

Correct.

Charlie Scharf
Charlie Scharf
CEO at Wells Fargo

Yeah, I just want to expand even further, Betsy. It's really a combination of the advisors and the products that Barry has to offer in our wealth management business. It is also leveraging the lending products that Kleber is now responsible for, including credit card and including mortgage and potentially auto and some other things there, in an integrated offering with Mary's bank customers who are affluent. So it's an, you know, it's an offering across all of our product sets, directed in a much more segmented way than we've ever done in the past. We're extremely excited about it, and we'll be talking more about capabilities that we're gonna be rolling out throughout the year.

Betsy Graseck
Betsy Graseck
Managing Director and Global Head of Banks and Diversified Finance Research at Morgan Stanley

All right. Thank you.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

Thanks.

Operator

Thank you. The next question comes from Vivek Juneja of JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Vivek Juneja
Vivek Juneja
Analyst at JPMorgan

Thanks for taking my questions. Charlie, just wanted to follow up on your question or your comment about loan growth likely to moderate from the first half. Any color on that? What do you think drives that moderation? Which categories?

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

Hey, Vivek. It's Mike. I'll maybe take a shot at that. You know, look, we've just seen. You know, I just don't think what we've seen in the second quarter will continue to happen at the same pace. We might, we may get surprised, and it'll be a little better than we think. You know, I think at some point, we just feel as you look at, you know, any of the uncertainty that might be there or other factors that are causing, you know, clients to use their lines today, that just may moderate as we go through it. You know, I wouldn't look at it as some big warning of anything to come.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

It's just, you know, we're being a little prudent in terms of the way we think about that growth rate. Maybe we'll be surprised on the upside a little, but it's just what we're seeing right now.

Vivek Juneja
Vivek Juneja
Analyst at JPMorgan

Okay. You're not seeing any signs like sort of late in the quarter or anything already starting to show some slowdown or some conversations with clients that are indicating that. Is that?

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

Not that I would say is, are super significant at this point. You know, you can go category by category and say, "Okay, will spending in the card space continue to increase at the same pace given, you know, some of the uncertainty in the economic environment?" We'll see. Maybe. Commercial real estate, you know, certainly, you know, given what we're seeing in the real estate market there, that appears like it'll slow down a little bit, again, in the second half of the year. Somewhat driven by what we're seeing in the capital markets side of that business as well. You know, with the slowdown in deals happening and rates rising, you know, that just is a natural slowdown there.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

You know, I just think you go, you know, asset class by asset class. It just feels as though, you know, we'll see a little bit of moderation as we go through the rest of the year.

Vivek Juneja
Vivek Juneja
Analyst at JPMorgan

Okay. One minor one, Mike, for you. The hung loan loss number that you gave us, was that a gross mark or is it net of fees?

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

The loan, the leveraged finance one, Vivek?

Vivek Juneja
Vivek Juneja
Analyst at JPMorgan

Yes. Yes.

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

That's after fees.

Vivek Juneja
Vivek Juneja
Analyst at JPMorgan

That's net of fees. Okay. What's the gross margin on that?

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

I don't have the exact number in front of me. It's not, you know, materially different.

Vivek Juneja
Vivek Juneja
Analyst at JPMorgan

Okay. All right. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. We have time for one more question today, and that will come from Matt O'Connor of Deutsche Bank. Your line is open, sir.

Matt O'Connor
Matt O'Connor
Managing Director at Deutsche Bank

Hi. I was wondering if you could remind us the targeted customer within credit card as you lean into that business. You know, do you think about maybe slowing from the expansion plans there just given all the recession talk and fears?

Charlie Scharf
Charlie Scharf
CEO at Wells Fargo

Yeah. This is Charlie, Matt. You know, first of all, our targeted customer are those that we want to have a broader relationship with. What we have said is that as we've rolled out this new product set, when you look at the credit quality of the borrowers and the spenders that we have been giving our new cards to, the credit quality is actually stronger than it had been historically. It still is either on target or stronger than we would have modeled for when we rolled the products out. You know, it's just, you know, we're not competing on credit terms. We're not competing in any way, shape, or form in terms of that. We just want to have a quality offering, and we would expect to be, it to be a high-quality card customer that we can do other things with across our franchise.

Matt O'Connor
Matt O'Connor
Managing Director at Deutsche Bank

Just any disclosure on FICO scores in terms of either the overall portfolio or the customer that you're growing or leaning into?

Mike Santomassimo
Mike Santomassimo
CFO at Wells Fargo

Yeah. I think you can get some of that in the Q, Matt. You gotta go a little deep into the Q, but you can get some of that in the distribution tables in the Q.

Matt O'Connor
Matt O'Connor
Managing Director at Deutsche Bank

Okay. I'll look for it there. Thanks.

Charlie Scharf
Charlie Scharf
CEO at Wells Fargo

All righty, everyone. Thank you very much. We appreciate everything, and we look forward to talking to you all. Take care.

Operator

Thank you all for your participation on today's conference call. At this time, all parties may disconnect.

Analysts
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