Community Financial System Q3 2024 Earnings Results & Report

Community Financial System EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $0.83
• Consensus EPS: $0.88
• Beat/Miss: Missed by -$0.05
• One Year Ago EPS: $0.82
• EPS Beat Rate: 4 of last 8 quarters

Community Financial System Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $188.94 million
• Expected Revenue: $186.35 million
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$2.59 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: +7.70%

Community Financial System (NYSE:CBU) (NYSE: CBU) is a diversified financial services company headquartered in DeWitt, New York. Its principal banking subsidiary, Community Bank, N.A., provides a broad range of financial products and services to individuals, families, farmers, small businesses and commercial customers.

The company’s banking operations include deposit accounts, residential and commercial lending, agricultural financing, consumer loans, cash management and other business banking services. Through additional business lines, Community Financial System also provides wealth management, retirement and employee benefit plan administration, investment services, and insurance solutions.

Community Bank, N.A. serves customers through a branch network and digital banking channels across upstate New York and portions of Pennsylvania, Vermont and Massachusetts. The company traces its history to the 19th century and was formerly known as Community Bank System, Inc. before adopting the Community Financial System name to reflect its broader range of services. Dimitar A. Dimitrov serves as president and chief executive officer.

Community Financial System Q3 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• PPNR of $1.29 per share was consistent with Q2 and rose 11.2% year-over-year, reflecting solid operating performance.
• Provision expense increased as management added reserves amid late-cycle credit normalization and a Fed easing backdrop, signaling cautious credit cost expectations.
• Net interest income hit a new quarterly record of $112.7 million, up 3% sequentially, extending the annual growth streak dating back to 2006.
• Total operating revenues reached $189.1 million, up 7.8% year-over-year and marking the fifth consecutive quarter of revenue gains across all four business lines.
• Noninterest expenses grew 6.6% year-over-year due to higher salaries, incentives and acquisitions, with management guiding to mid-single digit expense growth going forward.

Presentation

[Operator]

Good day, and welcome to the Community Financial System Incorporated Q3 twenty twenty-four earnings conference call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Dimitar Karaivanov, President and Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead.

[Dimitar Karaivanov, President and CEO at Community Financial System]

Thank you, Danielle. Good morning, everybody, and thank you for joining our Q3 earnings call. I would characterize the quarter as one with solid operating performance, as evidenced by our PPNR of $29 per share, which was consistent with the prior quarter and grew 11.2% compared to last year's Q3. Bottom line earnings were impacted by a couple of items, which I wanted to touch on before we get into each business unit. The first item is the increase in our provision expense. We've been observing the general industry trends towards normalization of credit for a few quarters now, and as you may recall, we added some reserves back in the Q1 of this year. Since then, that industry trend has continued. If you look at the industry-wide loan classifications of special mention and substandard balances, they're now close to long-term averages.

[Dimitar Karaivanov, President and CEO at Community Financial System]

We also have the Federal Reserve embarking on an easing cycle, which is typically a late cycle development and comes with expectations for increased unemployment, which is the main driver of credit costs. Our own credit experience continues to be one of low losses and minimal delinquencies, and the quantitative results in our CECL models have remained steady. With that said, we considered it prudent and conservative to add to our reserves at this point in time. The second main item that drove differences to the prior quarter was an increase in the accrual for performance-based incentive compensation expense. We typically refine our estimate in the Q3 with a look towards the full year results as compared to prior year, and that drove most of the delta in that expense line compared to the last quarter. Now turning to underlying business performance. Our banking business had a strong quarter.

[Dimitar Karaivanov, President and CEO at Community Financial System]

Net interest income surpassed the prior peak from the Q4 of twenty twenty-two, and we're now up on a year-to-date basis compared to twenty twenty-three. This positions us well for the Q4, and I expect that we will continue our annual net interest income growth streak, which dates back to 2006. Balance sheet growth was excellent on both sides and pipelines remain in good shape. I will note that loan growth this quarter was a bit higher than trend, driven by a couple of larger closings, which are relationships we've been working on for multiple quarters. Just last week, we celebrated the opening of our first branch from our strategic branch expansion plan, which we announced late last year. Our Hanover Square branch in Syracuse is now open and off to a great start, and we're progressing well on the other 17 locations.

[Dimitar Karaivanov, President and CEO at Community Financial System]

Our benefits administration business did very well as well. Both revenues and profitability expanded and outlook remains bright. BPAS was recognized for the third year in a row as a top five record keeper across multiple categories by the National Association of Plan Advisors. Our insurance services business also reached a new high in revenues. We've been hard at work in reorganizing the business and creating the infrastructure to support the excellent revenue growth in the future. This has impacted profitability year to date, but should position us better for twenty twenty-five and beyond. OneGroup was also recently recognized as the 66th largest broker in the U.S. by the Insurance Journal, an improvement from being ranked number 75 last year. Our wealth management services business also performed well.

[Dimitar Karaivanov, President and CEO at Community Financial System]

Organic growth has been supported by very strong market growth, and we've been using the revenue gains to reinvest back in the business by adding sales capacity and addressing some geographical presence gaps. In aggregate, I would say that I'm particularly encouraged by two things. Number one, our ability to continue to attract both leadership and execution talent with a few key hires this quarter across all businesses. And number two, the momentum with new client acquisition across all businesses. We continue to operate from a position of strength and actively gain market share. Quick comment on M&A. We continue to be an active participant and had a number of opportunities in this past quarter. Ultimately, the risk and reward equation did not work for us due to various reasons, but the opportunity set remains interesting. This covers predominantly our banking and insurance verticals and to a lesser degree, benefits.

[Dimitar Karaivanov, President and CEO at Community Financial System]

We will continue to be active and continue to keep our risk and reward principles in line with our investment thesis. Lastly, I wanted to note the Investor Day we hosted last month at the New York Stock Exchange. Excuse me. I want to thank all of our investors and analysts for their tremendous interest and encourage those of you who weren't able to attend to view the recorded event and presentation on our investor relations website. With that, I will turn it over now to Joe for additional color on the quarter.

[Joe Sutaris, CFO at Community Financial System]

Thank you, Dimitar, and good morning, everyone. The Q3 was a solid one for the company. Earnings per share of $0.83 were up $0.01 over the Q3 of the prior year, but down $0.08 on a linked quarter basis. The year-over-year increase in earnings per share were driven by increases in both net interest income and non-interest revenues, and a decrease in fully diluted shares outstanding, but were largely offset by increases in non-interest expenses, the provision for credit losses and income taxes. The decrease in linked quarter earnings results were driven by increases in the provision for credit losses and non-interest expenses, offset in part by increases in net interest income and non-interest revenues, and a decrease in income taxes.

[Joe Sutaris, CFO at Community Financial System]

Similarly, operating diluted earnings per share were $0.88 in the quarter, or $0.01 higher than the same quarter in the prior year, but $0.07 lower than the linked Q2 reserve results.

[Joe Sutaris, CFO at Community Financial System]

... While operating pre-tax, pre-provision net revenue per share of $1.29 was up 13 cents, or 11.2% over the prior year's Q3, and consistent with linked quarter results. Q3 results were marked by new quarterly records in total operating revenues, net interest income, bank-related non-interest operating revenues, employee benefit services revenues, and insurance services revenues. More specifically, the company recorded total operating revenues of $189.1 million in the Q3. This was up $13.7 million, or 7.8% from one year prior, and up $5.9 million, or 3.2% from the linked Q2, and marked the fifth consecutive quarter of increases in total operating revenues. The company recorded net interest income of $112.7 million in the Q3.

[Joe Sutaris, CFO at Community Financial System]

This represents a $3.4 million, or 3% increase over linked Q2 results, and also marks the second consecutive quarter of net interest income expansion. An improvement in the yield on interest earning assets, supported by loan growth and subsiding pressure on funding costs, helped drive improvement in both net interest income and net interest margin in the quarter. During the quarter, the cost of deposits was 1.23%, which was consistent with the linked second quarter, while the total cost of funds increased seven basis points from 1.37% in the Q2 to 1.44% in the Q3, due to an increase in borrowed funds costs.

[Joe Sutaris, CFO at Community Financial System]

The company's fully tax equivalent net interest margin increased one basis point from 3.04% in the linked Q2 to 3.05% in the Q3. The outlook remains positive for continued net interest income expansion in the Q4 and then on a full year basis. Operating non-interest revenues were up in all four businesses compared to the prior year's Q3, and represented over 40% of total operating revenues. Banking-related operating non-interest revenues were up $3 million, or 17.1% over the same quarter of the prior year, driven by increases in mortgage banking revenues and deposit service and other banking fees, including interest rate swap fee revenues.

[Joe Sutaris, CFO at Community Financial System]

Employee benefit services revenues were up $3.2 million, or 10.7% over the prior year's Q3, reflective of an increase in the total participants under administration and growth in asset-based fees. Insurance services revenues were up $1.5 million, or 12.7%, reflective of both acquired and organic growth, while wealth management services were up $1 million, or 12.1%, reflective of more favorable market conditions over the same period. On a linked quarter basis, operating non-interest revenues are up $2.6 million, or 3.5%, driven by higher revenues in all four businesses. During the Q3, the company recorded $124.2 million in non-interest expenses.

[Joe Sutaris, CFO at Community Financial System]

This represents a $7.7 million, or 6.6% increase from the prior year's Q3, driven primarily by a $7.3 million, or 10.4% increase in salaries and employee benefits expenses due to merit and market-related increases in employee wages, higher incentive plan costs, and acquisitions between the periods. Total non-interest expenses were also up $5.2 million, or 4.4% over the linked Q2 results. On a year-to-date basis, total operating non-interest expenses were up $18.7 million, or 5.6%, consistent with the mid-single-digit growth rate mentioned during prior quarterly earnings calls. Reflective of an increase in loans outstanding and qualitative factor adjustments, the company recorded a $7.7 million provision for credit losses during the Q3 of twenty twenty-five.

[Joe Sutaris, CFO at Community Financial System]

This compares to $2.9 million in the prior year's Q3 and $2.7 million in the linked Q2. The effective tax rate for the Q3 of twenty twenty-four was 23%, up from 21.2% in the Q3 of twenty twenty-three. The lower effective tax rate in the prior year was largely driven by the balance sheet repositioning completed during twenty twenty-three. Ending loans increased $227.8 million, or 2.3%, during the Q3. This marks the thirteenth consecutive quarter of loan growth and is reflective of the company's continued investment in its organic loan growth capabilities. This included growth in both the business lending and consumer lending portfolios. Ending loans are up $801.6 million, or 8.5% from one year prior.

[Joe Sutaris, CFO at Community Financial System]

The company's ending total deposits increased $338.3 million, or 2.6%, during the Q3, driven by seasonal inflows of municipal deposits. Q3 deposit funding costs of 123 basis points were flat compared to the linked Q2 results. Non-interest-bearing and lower rate checking and savings accounts continue to represent almost two-thirds of the company's total deposits. The company's full cycle deposit beta of 24% was one of the best in the banking industry during the Fed's twenty twenty-two to twenty twenty-four rate hiking phase, and reflects the stability of the company's core deposit base. Ending deposits were also up $445.4 million, or 3.4% from one year prior.

[Joe Sutaris, CFO at Community Financial System]

The company's liquidity position remains strong, readily available source of liquidity, including unpledged cash and cash equivalents and investment securities, funding availability at the Federal Reserve Bank's discount window, and unused borrowing capacity at the Federal Home Loan Bank of New York totaled $4.49 billion at the end of the Q3. These sources of immediately available liquidity represent approximately 200% of the company's estimated uninsured deposits, net of collateralized and intercompany deposits. Company's loan to deposit ratio at the end of the Q3 was 76.1%, 76.1%, providing future opportunity to migrate lower yielding investment securities into higher yielding loans. At the end of the Q3, all the companies in the bank's regulatory capital ratio significantly exceeded well-capitalized standards.

[Joe Sutaris, CFO at Community Financial System]

More specifically, the company's Tier 1 leverage ratio is 9.12%, which substantially exceeds the regulatory well-capitalized standard of 5%. At 30th of September, Twenty twenty-four, non-performing loans totaled $62.8 million, or 61 basis points of total loans outstanding. This represents a $12.3 million or 11 basis point increase from the end of the linked Q2, due primarily to the transfer of one loan relationship to non-accrual status. Comparatively, non-performing loans were $36.9 million, or 39 basis points of total loans outstanding one year prior. Loans thirty to eighty-nine days delinquent were also up slightly on a linked quarter basis from $45.1 million or 45 basis points of total loans at the end of the Q2 to $47.2 million or 46 basis points of total loans outstanding at the end of the Q3.

[Joe Sutaris, CFO at Community Financial System]

The company recorded net charge-offs of $2.8 million or eleven basis points of average loans annualized during the Q3. This is up from $1.2 million or five basis points in the same quarter of the prior year. The company's allowance for credit losses was $76.2 million or seventy-four basis points of total loans outstanding at the end of the Q3, up $4.7 million from the end of the Q2 and up $11.2 million from one year prior. Although credit loss reserves increased during the Q3 due to qualitative factors, overall, the company's asset quality remains strong. The allowance for credit losses at the end of the Q3 represented over eight times the company's trailing twelve-month net charge-offs.

[Joe Sutaris, CFO at Community Financial System]

We believe the company's diversified revenue profile, strong liquidity, regulatory capital reserves, stable core deposit base, and historically strong asset quality provide a solid foundation for future opportunities and growth. Looking forward, we are encouraged by the revenue outlook in all four of our businesses and prospects for continued organic growth. We will continue to play offense, lean into growth, and deploy capital in the best manner possible for our shareholders. Thank you. Now, I will turn it back over to Danielle to open the line for questions.

[Operator]

We will now begin the question-and-answer session. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your telephone keypad. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star then two. At this time, we'll pause momentarily to assemble the roster. The first question comes from Matthew Breese of Stephens.Please go ahead.

[Matthew Breese, Managing Director and Research Analyst at Stephens]

Hey, good morning.

[Joe Sutaris, CFO at Community Financial System]

Morning, Matt.

[Dimitar Karaivanov, President and CEO at Community Financial System]

Morning, Matt.

[Matthew Breese, Managing Director and Research Analyst at Stephens]

I was hoping we could just start on the NII and NIM outlook. It sounds like there's, you know, quite a bit of confidence that the trajectory is kind of up and to the right on NII. Perhaps you could just give us some sense or expectations around deposit costs and deposit betas and maybe some of the actions you've taken so far on the back of the Fed cut. And then just remind us, you know, the maturity schedule on loans, how much is expected to reprice over, call it, the next six to twelve months? Thank you.

[Dimitar Karaivanov, President and CEO at Community Financial System]

Sure. Matt, I'll kick it off, and Joe can add some of the more detailed answers there. But I think if you look at just kind of where we are, this is the Q2 of expansion in NII, and really, this was before the Fed cut, essentially, which was very late in the quarter. So we sit back here, and we look at our asset side, and we have a lot of loans that are continuing to move up at a much bit better spread than the back book. So that's going to continue to go up. Even with the cut, we have a lot more loans that are repricing up than down. So that seems reasonably optimistic on that side. Then you look on the deposit side, and we already on the deposit side, we're flat this quarter.

[Dimitar Karaivanov, President and CEO at Community Financial System]

We did make some adjustments throughout the year, and I think we talked a little bit about that in prior calls, but we've already adjusted some rates down during the year, and we certainly adjusted rates down, post the Fed cut as well. We didn't capture all of the cuts in this initial kind of a move. We captured on our most sensitive deposits probably about 50% of the cut. There are some things that are more, I would call them, indexed to the market in the sense of the municipal deposits, where we're matching some rates. So those will move as the market rates move.

[Dimitar Karaivanov, President and CEO at Community Financial System]

But I expect that on the next cut, when any of that comes, we're going to capture potentially a higher beta than what we captured on the first one.

[Joe Sutaris, CFO at Community Financial System]

Yeah, Matt, regarding the loan repricing, you know, I would just probably direct you to the investor deck. Toward the back of the deck, there's kind of a summary of the expectations around loan maturities and, you know, repricing opportunity. Just in kind of, you know, broad general terms, you know, the fixed rate loan portfolio, we would expect about $1.5 billion in cash flows off of that portfolio over the next twelve months. When we sort of published that slide, the weighted average rate on that, on those maturing loans was a little over 5%. We've been booking new loans kind of in the, call it, 7.25% range, if you will, so if we do nothing more than just turn over that fixed book, that's obviously going to be additive to NII.

[Joe Sutaris, CFO at Community Financial System]

I would also mention that, you know, there is about $1.1 billion or so of truly floating rate loans, which are SOFR or prime based. So you know, obviously, they come down a bit, as rates move down. Then there's an adjustable set of loans, which is relatively small, it's a you know price reset with, for example, a loan that might have a ten-year maturity with a five-year reset. So there's a portion of those. So, you know, I think when you kind of blend all of those components on the loan side, you know, it's going to be a net positive to the, to the book yield, as we move throughout the year.

[Matthew Breese, Managing Director and Research Analyst at Stephens]

... Great, I appreciate that. And then, Dimitar, I know you had mentioned that there was a couple of kind of chunkier credits that were closed this quarter. Could you just discuss, you know, the size of those or maybe give us some idea of what you would expect in terms of, you know, the forward outlook on loan growth? I know it's going to be higher than you have been historically, given the entrance or penetration of the denser markets. But maybe just discuss the, you know, what happened this quarter and what the kind of normalized outlook is.

[Dimitar Karaivanov, President and CEO at Community Financial System]

Yeah, I mean, I think this quarter is, you know, $200 million plus of loan growth is not our current trend line. You know, that's high single digits. That's not kind of where we are. As I mentioned, you know, we, our market share has been tremendous in terms of gains and the quality of the people and the customers that we continue to attract is really exciting for us. So we've been hard at work on a number of cases where I would call it more key type opportunities and clients across our markets. And as we just had a couple of those come to fruition, they take a long time. Typically, those are takeaways from other larger institutions, and that kind of boosted that rate.

[Dimitar Karaivanov, President and CEO at Community Financial System]

I expect that we'll be closer run rate, kind of where we were in the past couple of quarters than this particular Q3 going forward. So that's what I would think about in terms of our growth on the balance sheet.

[Matthew Breese, Managing Director and Research Analyst at Stephens]

Okay. And I had two others, if you don't mind. You know, the first one is just given your comments around kind of late cycle and trending towards normalized credit, coupled with, you know, increased loan growth. Is it fair to assume that the reserve continues to increase, you know, moderately from current levels and the provision will kind of increase in kind? I was hoping you could comment on that.

[Dimitar Karaivanov, President and CEO at Community Financial System]

Yeah, I think, Matt, so the CECL model we have is quite sophisticated, as I'm sure everybody's model, right? There is a whole bunch of variables that go into all of that. At the end of the day, I try to think of it as a little bit of a common sense model in my head. We're sitting here at 11 basis points of charge-offs, and our, I guess, year to date, it's actually below 10. But let's say 11 in this past quarter, and our, ACL coverage is 74 basis points. So that's, you know, almost 7 years worth of losses, which seems a little bit high. So then the question really is, what do we think that 11 basis points is through the cycle?

[Dimitar Karaivanov, President and CEO at Community Financial System]

And as we talked about at our Investor Day, our goal is through the cycle, you know, with the ups and the downs, to be below 15. So if I take that 15 and I think about our loan book, which life is somewhere between five and six years, you can kind of do the math of, you know, the coverage, if that's five years and change, what that would mean, kind of on the ACL. So I think from that perspective, I would agree with you that you can probably see a couple of basis points here and there, you know, depending on the quarters as we move forward in terms of ACL.

[Matthew Breese, Managing Director and Research Analyst at Stephens]

Great. And then last one for me. You know, one of the standout moments during Investor Day was your commentary in regards to just general economic activity, you know, beyond the chip manufacturing stuff. I think it was, you know, in the teens or high teens, multiples of what it has been historically. And I was just hoping you could comment a little bit more on that and why that is. You know, what's going on in Upstate New York versus what's been going on historically, that is driving so much more economic activity? That's all I had. Thank you.

[Dimitar Karaivanov, President and CEO at Community Financial System]

Sure. Yeah, I mean, that hasn't changed. I don't think it's gonna change for a while. You have a number of things as we mentioned at the Investor Day. You know, it really is kind of the onshoring of a lot of the manufacturing that was offshored over the past number of decades. The government acts, you know, be it the CHIPS Act or the Inflation Reduction Act, also provided for a whole lot of subsidies that New York turned out to be very well positioned for. So you're looking at what's happening with solar, what's happening with wind investments, what's happening with carbon credits. A lot of that is happening in New York State, and so we're clearly a beneficiary of that.

[Dimitar Karaivanov, President and CEO at Community Financial System]

There is a kind of a move towards, let's say, advanced technology in upstate New York as well, you know, on the back of basically the skilled labor force, you know, from all the colleges and, you know, be it in central New York or in Rochester, you know, kind of the former technology investments there as well. So a lot of that is happening in our markets, and we're seeing that happening on the back of what has been a constrained infrastructure and housing availability as well over years. So there is a lot of infrastructure that's being built to support that growth, and that's kind of creating a lot of opportunities. But our manufacturing clients are doing really well across the board.

[Dimitar Karaivanov, President and CEO at Community Financial System]

You know, the consumer is doing really well, and we just happen to be in a moment in time where we are adding our own capabilities on top of that in terms of market share gains, and you're kind of seeing all of that in the results.

[Matthew Breese, Managing Director and Research Analyst at Stephens]

That's all I had. Thank you.

[Dimitar Karaivanov, President and CEO at Community Financial System]

Welcome.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Steve Moss from Raymond James. Please go ahead.

[Steve Moss, Managing Director at Raymond James]

Good morning, guys.

[Dimitar Karaivanov, President and CEO at Community Financial System]

Good morning, Steve.

[Steve Moss, Managing Director at Raymond James]

I apologize, I hopped onto the call a bit late here, but I did want to just kind of follow up on or touch base on expenses here in particular. Just kind of curious, I heard you, Dimitar, kind of in midway through your comments, talking about you made a number of hires this quarter, and just kind of wondering how you guys are thinking about the expense run right here going forward?

[Joe Sutaris, CFO at Community Financial System]

Yeah, Steve, this is Joe. I would still kind of characterize it as mid-single digits, you know, on a full year basis. You know, obviously, there's a little bit of volatility up and down from quarter-to-quarter, depending on, you know, sort of what happens in the quarter and what accruals we have to put through. But I think, you know, if you look at it kind of on a longer term basis, that mid-single digit growth rate is still, you know, not unreasonable on a year-to-date basis, where I think we're up a little over 5.5%. And I think that's a fair expectation. You know, as Dimitar, you know, has said to me multiple times, you know, we're investing through our P&L, right?

[Joe Sutaris, CFO at Community Financial System]

We're putting the organic growth capabilities in place and, you know, so that that requires some continued investment in the company. And so that, you know, mid-single digit growth rate is probably, I think, a fair expectation. I would say this is that, you know, a lot of the investments that were made in twenty twenty-three and year-to-date twenty twenty-four, you know, we are starting to see, you know, results from those investments. So, you know, I wouldn't expect that the pace, if you will, would, you know, replicate what we did in twenty twenty-three, but so I think twenty twenty-four is more indicative of a longer term expense rate.

[Steve Moss, Managing Director at Raymond James]

Okay, great. Appreciate that. And then just on the credit front, I think you guys in the text said it was, you know, the uptick in NPLs was primarily due to one commercial credit. Was there a specific reserve tied to that credit that was included in the provision this quarter?

[Dimitar Karaivanov, President and CEO at Community Financial System]

No, there wasn't, Steve. And, I mean, so to give you a little bit more color, it's a fully paying, basically, never delinquent credit going back to two thousand and six. It's a long-standing relationship. The borrower probably overexpanded a little bit, and we felt that given the fact that the borrower is going through a restructuring themselves to position them for kind of scaling back some of their investment, it's appropriate that we would put it on non-accrual. But again, the loan is actually fully paying non-delinquent, and we expect that to continue.

[Steve Moss, Managing Director at Raymond James]

Okay, great. Appreciate that color. And then in terms of, you know, fee income here, it was, you know, strong across the board. I trust that those trends are likely to continue for, you know, employee benefits, insurance services, and wealth management. But, you know, deposit service charges were also... and banking fees were also strong here. Just kind of curious if there was anything idiosyncratic there.

[Joe Sutaris, CFO at Community Financial System]

Steve, I wouldn't say anything - nothing really idiosyncratic. We've, you know, we rolled out some new services in the last year or so. You know, we're doing more swap fees in some, call them, for lack of a better term, capital market transactions, where we're participating out some loans and there's some fee income generation from those activities. And so now they're kind of embedded in our infrastructure. So nothing really idiosyncratic per se. I think, you know, this quarter's a, you know, fair representation of what the expectations are going forward. You know, this was an area where we needed to actually find new fees.

[Joe Sutaris, CFO at Community Financial System]

You know, over the last, you know, call it five, six, seven years, if you remember, we kind of experienced a run-up, and then we experienced some reductions in, you know, I'll call them competitive and regulatory pressure around NSF fees and the like. So, you know, that deposit service fee line item is going to be challenged. So, you know, we've had to find other opportunities in the banking space, and I think we've been pretty successful in doing that here. And so I would expect that, you know, that this quarter is a fair representation of expectations going forward.

[Steve Moss, Managing Director at Raymond James]

Okay, great. I appreciate all the color. I'll step back.

[Joe Sutaris, CFO at Community Financial System]

Thanks, Steve.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Manuel Navas, from D.A. Davidson. Please go ahead.

[Sharonjit Cheema, Equity Research Associate at D.A. Davidson]

Hello, this is Sharon Ji on for Manuel. I had one quick question. So loan and deposit growth were pretty solid this quarter, and how is the pipeline mix looking?

[Dimitar Karaivanov, President and CEO at Community Financial System]

Morning. The pipeline is looking pretty good. I would say it's consistent with probably more so the first and the Q2 than the Q3. I think we talked about we had a couple of more significant events in the Q3, so I would think about those rates of growth as more indicative of going forward. As it relates to deposits, we have seasonal inflows because of our municipal deposits. So that kind of ramped up that rate of growth in the Q3. I will say that this was the Q1 in a while, just kind of an aggregate comment on deposits outside of municipals, where we trended actually a little bit better on the individual and commercial deposits than historical medians.

[Dimitar Karaivanov, President and CEO at Community Financial System]

You know, back, going back to the summer of twenty twenty-two, we started observing the kind of drift below median performances as the industry was experiencing the kind of sucking out of liquidity. We've been bouncing around kind of the bottom quartile to median quartile performance in the retail and commercial side in terms of deposit performance over the past eight quarters. This was the Q1 where we kind of broke up a little bit over that. So I'm a little bit more optimistic, probably on average, on the retail and commercial side. But we'll see. You know, it's a sample size of one so far in terms of booking that trend.

[Sharonjit Cheema, Equity Research Associate at D.A. Davidson]

Great. That was all my questions.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Chris O'Connell from KBW. Please go ahead.

[Dimitar Karaivanov, President and CEO at Community Financial System]

Hey, good morning.

[Joe Sutaris, CFO at Community Financial System]

Morning, Chris.

[Chris O'Connell, Director at KBW]

You guys mentioned, you know, earlier, you know, that you moved rates on a, on the most sensitive kind of deposit buckets, you know, as well as, you know, the munis. Any sense of just, you know, the dollar amounts of those two buckets, that you guys have moved rates on?

[Joe Sutaris, CFO at Community Financial System]

Yeah, I'm not sure I can give you a precise amount, Chris. You know, but we do carry, you know, money market balances of about $2.4 billion. There's a fair amount of that. It's not, you know, hasn't been priced up all that significantly, so there's not a lot of opportunity to go down. But, you know, we do have, you know, I'll say probably in the ballpark of $1 billion of opportunity. You know, that is kind of a little more rate-sensitive money that was priced up during the rate hikes, and so, you know, that's. It's probably where most of the adjustments will be made is when and if rates continue to come down.

[Chris O'Connell, Director at KBW]

Is that inclusive of the muni deposits or separate?

[Joe Sutaris, CFO at Community Financial System]

Yes. Yes, correct.

[Chris O'Connell, Director at KBW]

Got it. And do you have what either the spot, you know, total or interest-bearing deposit costs are as of, you know, either today or kind of, you know, the most recent date?

[Joe Sutaris, CFO at Community Financial System]

Yes. So interest-bearing deposit costs for Q3 was about a hundred and seventy basis points.

[Chris O'Connell, Director at KBW]

Do you have what it was either, you know, at the end of the quarter or early in October, kind of after those rate moves?

[Joe Sutaris, CFO at Community Financial System]

It was about the same, interest-bearing deposit costs were just about the same in Q2. You know, there's a little bit of a mix shift, so there's some, you know, I'll call it rate adjustments on, as rates move down, but there was also a mix shift to, you know, more, you know, time deposits and interest-bearing accounts. But the blended rate was about the same in Q2 as it was in Q3.

[Chris O'Connell, Director at KBW]

No, yeah, I'm talking about, like, post Q3 or either at the end or just after Q3, you know, after the moves, just kind of a spot rate, not the average.

[Joe Sutaris, CFO at Community Financial System]

Yeah, I don't know that I have that specifically, Chris, but it's down a bit. Three basis points.

[Chris O'Connell, Director at KBW]

Okay. Got it. And then I think, you know, the... You know, on the rising rate cycle, you know, the interest-bearing beta kind of shook out around, you know, 30% or so. How are you guys thinking about that beta, you know, over the course of, you know, the cutting cycle?

[Dimitar Karaivanov, President and CEO at Community Financial System]

Well, I think we—to be honest with you, we look at the total beta versus the interest bearing, so probably haven't framed the question that way in our heads. But I think our expectation is that it's gonna be a little bit slower initially, and as the industry responds, it's gonna kind of get closer to those levels in the aggregate. I think one of the things that maybe is that there's a couple of things going maybe in different directions. One is, I think everybody in the banking space is looking forward to cutting rates on deposits. On the flip side, everybody is also now all of a sudden trying to grow their assets. And there is not a lot of liquidity that was generated over the past number of quarters.

[Dimitar Karaivanov, President and CEO at Community Financial System]

So I think both of those are gonna go in different directions in terms of determining that beta. But as it relates to us, I think I mentioned we captured roughly half of that, you know, 50% beta on the first move for those rate sensitive buckets, and we're expecting that we may be fortunate to capture a little bit more on some of the other ones. But again, on the aggregate deposit base, because again, we have 70% of our deposits that are in truly very low cost type of accounts, so we have savings accounts paying four and five basis points. So we're not going to be able to move them as much, and we may not touch them for a little bit of time.

[Dimitar Karaivanov, President and CEO at Community Financial System]

I think in the aggregate deposit beta, we're probably gonna get to those 24% that we experienced, but it might take us a little bit longer.

[Chris O'Connell, Director at KBW]

Got it. Just thinking about, you know, the trajectory of the margin, you know, from here, you know, under the assumption of, you know, the forward curve, you know, I appreciate, you know, the NII guide, you know, up in the Q4 and year-over-year. I mean, how are you thinking about the margin into, you know, Q4 and, you know, kind of the trajectory as we get into twenty twenty-five?

[Joe Sutaris, CFO at Community Financial System]

I think, Chris, that the expectations are that, you know, kind of along with, with NII, the margin would continue to drift up into Q4 and into Q5. You know, I think a fair expectation is, you know, three, four, or five basis points a quarter. I think that's not unreasonable, given kind of what we have turning over on the loan book, in particular, and the fact that we've kind of stabilized.

[Joe Sutaris, CFO at Community Financial System]

... you know, the call it the cost of deposits. So, you know, I think it's fair to assume, you know, that drifting up, you know, five, six, seven basis points or four or five basis points a quarter.

[Chris O'Connell, Director at KBW]

Great. Very helpful. And then, you know, can you just give us an update on, you know, the pace and the outlook of the branch plan, in terms of, you know, the rollout and timing? You guys, you know, clipped one this quarter, and then, you know, I believe the intention is for it to be, you know, kind of net neutral on the overall expense base and just kind of where some of the puts and takes are, you know, to help, you know, keep that, from kind of, you know, adding to the overall, expense run rate too much going forward.

[Dimitar Karaivanov, President and CEO at Community Financial System]

Yeah. So, as we look towards twenty twenty-five, we have a whole lot slated for late Q1 and Q2 in terms of openings. We have... We've been, frankly, a little bit slower than we would like to because of a whole bunch of logistical reasons. Plus, we're now running into the kind of colder months of the year in Upstate New York, so opening branches in Buffalo in December may not be the most optimal timing. So we're gonna hold off on a couple of those situations. But again, most of them, I think, are gonna come kind of late Q1, Q2, and then we've got a number of others coming in the Q3 and a little bit less so in the Q4 of next year.

[Dimitar Karaivanov, President and CEO at Community Financial System]

So by the end of next year, our plan is to be almost fully open across the board, hopefully. As we have committed to our shareholders, we're also going to be looking to make that net neutral in terms of both branch counts and expenses. The first part of that is already in our numbers because of some of the retail optimization staffing we did late last year, and we have a whole number of other locations that we're considering in terms of consolidating for twenty twenty-five. So that's how I would think about it. You know, it's gonna be a little bit lumpy.

[Dimitar Karaivanov, President and CEO at Community Financial System]

These things are not perfectly matched in terms of cost and savings across the year, so some things might come a little bit sooner, some things might come a little bit later. But in the aggregate, our plan is to stick to what we promised.

[Chris O'Connell, Director at KBW]

Great. I appreciate the time. Thank you.

[Operator]

This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Dimitar Karaivanov for closing remarks.

[Dimitar Karaivanov, President and CEO at Community Financial System]

Thank you, everybody, for joining us on the Q3 call. We're excited and optimistic about the future here with everything that's going on at our company, and look forward to speaking with you back in January. Thank you.

[Operator]

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.

Participants

Executives

• Dimitar Karaivanov, President and CEO
• Joe Sutaris, CFO

Analysts

• Matthew Breese, Managing Director and Research Analyst at Stephens
• Steve Moss, Managing Director at Raymond James
• Chris O'Connell, Director at KBW
• Sharonjit Cheema, Equity Research Associate at D.A. Davidson