Huntington Bancshares Q2 Earnings Call Highlights

Key Points

• Huntington Bancshares posted a strong Q2 with organic loan and deposit growth, higher revenue, and improving profitability, while management said the company is at an “inflection point” after recent integrations and footprint expansion.
• The bank completed its Cadence systems conversion and is now shifting focus to growth, with management targeting $365 million in Cadence cost synergies by Q4 and citing early revenue opportunities from the combined franchise.
• Fee income and credit quality remain bright spots: value-added fee revenues rose more than 60% year over year, credit performance stayed strong, and Huntington reaffirmed longer-term 2027 targets even as it expects net interest income to come in toward the low end of guidance.

Huntington Bancshares NASDAQ: HBAN executives said the bank delivered a strong second quarter of 2026, citing organic loan and deposit growth, higher revenue, improving profitability and completion of the Cadence systems conversion as key milestones.

Chairman, President and CEO Stephen Steinour called the quarter “exceptional,” saying Huntington is now at an “inflection point” after completing recent integrations and expanding its footprint. He said customer activity remains steady, commercial demand is broad-based and visibility on economic trends has improved since the prior quarter.

“Our core businesses are performing at a high level, our conversions are complete, and we are positioned to capture the benefits of our investments, as well as the recent partnerships and expanded footprint,” Steinour said.

Cadence Conversion Completed as Management Shifts Focus to Growth

Brant Standridge, Huntington’s President of Consumer and Regional Banking, said the bank completed the Cadence systems conversion 235 days after announcement. He said the process included training and transitioning 4,500 colleagues onto Huntington systems, onboarding hundreds of thousands of customers, converting ATM and ITM locations and changing more than 4,000 signs.

Standridge said Huntington grew deposits during the conversion weekend and in the weeks that followed, a result he described as unusual for a bank conversion. He said the company is retaining about 80% of maturing CD balances in the Cadence footprint, reducing higher-cost wholesale funding and brokered deposits, and increasing checking account growth.

Management said Huntington remains on track to achieve $365 million in Cadence cost synergies in the fourth quarter. Chief Financial Officer Zach Wasserman said the combined Veritex and Cadence run-rate expense synergy target remains $435 million by the fourth quarter.

Standridge also highlighted early revenue opportunities from the Cadence combination, including nearly $1 billion of expanding client commitments across energy, commercial real estate and auto floorplan businesses. He said Huntington has completed more than 10 capital markets transactions with customers in the Cadence footprint since closing, generating approximately $12 million of fees.

Loan and Deposit Growth Remain Central to Results

Wasserman said average loans increased $15 billion, or 8.6%, sequentially in the second quarter. Normalizing for the day-count effect of the Cadence balance sheet in the first quarter, average loans increased $2.2 billion, or 1.2%, which he described as strong organic expansion.

Loan growth was led by commercial and industrial categories, including corporate and specialty areas. Wasserman cited activity from the financial institutions group, industrials, diversified businesses, corporate mortgage finance and Native American financial services. Commercial real estate balances declined modestly as planned, while auto production was lower.

Average deposits increased $18.8 billion, or 9.2%, sequentially. On an organic basis adjusted for the Cadence day-count effect, deposits grew $4 billion, or 1.8%, outpacing loan growth. Wasserman said primary banking relationships increased across customer segments, with consumer relationships up 4%, business banking up 5% and commercial up 8% year-over-year.

Deposit costs increased six basis points during the quarter, including about one basis point from the full-quarter impact of Cadence and five basis points from the legacy Huntington franchise.

Revenue Momentum Includes Strong Fee Growth

Net interest income was $2.1 billion, up 8.5% sequentially, supported by what management called strong core-funded asset growth. Huntington’s net interest margin increased 10 basis points year-over-year but declined three basis points sequentially. Wasserman said the second quarter should represent the trough for net interest margin, with expected improvement from fixed-asset repricing, liquidity optimization and Cadence deposit portfolio actions.

Value-added fee revenues rose more than 60% year-over-year. Excluding the impacts of Cadence, the Janney Capital Markets business acquisition and last year’s sale of the corporate trust business, Wasserman said value-added fee revenue increased about 30% organically year-over-year.

In specific fee categories, payments increased 10% year-over-year, wealth management rose 12%, capital markets increased 46% and loan and deposit fees grew 19%.

Wasserman said adjusted pre-provision net revenue increased 12% quarter-over-quarter, while value-added fee revenues increased 15%. He also said Huntington generated 210 basis points of positive operating leverage on a trailing 12-month basis.

Outlook Emphasizes NII Pressure, Fee Upside and 2027 Targets

Management’s full-year outlook drew scrutiny during the question-and-answer portion of the call after UBS analyst Erika Najarian noted that the stock opened down about 5% and asked about the unchanged outlook despite a lower net interest income expectation.

Wasserman said overall revenue remains robust, but the spread outlook has shifted more toward volume-driven growth. He said Huntington expects net interest income to be at the bottom end of its range or perhaps modestly below it, largely because of deposit cost pressure. At the same time, he said fee income is tracking toward the high end of guidance or potentially above it.

Wasserman said the company expects net interest margin to rise modestly into the low 320-basis-point range in the third quarter and into the mid- to high-320s in the fourth quarter. He also said management expects loans and deposits to grow sequentially in the second half of the year.

Executives reiterated longer-term targets for 2027, including earnings per share of $1.90 to $1.93 and return on tangible common equity in the 18% to 19% range. Wasserman said Huntington expects EPS growth of approximately 30% from the 2025 level, supported by organic growth, fee income expansion, revenue synergies and expense discipline.

Credit and Capital Remain Areas of Management Confidence

Wasserman said credit performance remains strong and consistent with expectations. Net charge-offs are trending near the low end of the company’s guided range, and Huntington now expects charge-offs to be in the lower half of its 25- to 35-basis-point range for the year. He said criticized assets declined during the quarter, while nonperforming assets remain elevated because of government-guaranteed loan categories with “virtually no loss content” and downgrades of select commercial credits.

Huntington completed $310 million of its planned $550 million share repurchase program for 2026 year-to-date. Wasserman said the company expects to repurchase an additional $1.1 billion to $1.2 billion in 2027.

Steinour closed the call by saying Huntington has become a “stronger, more diversified super regional bank” through new markets, broader business mix and added capabilities. He said the company remains on track for its 2027 financial targets, with the fourth quarter expected to provide a clearer view of the earnings power of the combined franchise.

About Huntington Bancshares (NASDAQ:HBAN)

Huntington Bancshares Incorporated NASDAQ: HBAN is a bank holding company headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, that provides a broad range of banking and financial services through its principal subsidiary, Huntington National Bank. The company's operations are centered on retail and commercial banking, and it serves individual consumers, small and middle-market businesses, and institutional customers.

Huntington's product offerings include traditional deposit and lending products, consumer and commercial loans, mortgage origination and servicing, auto financing, and business banking solutions.

This instant news alert was generated by narrative science technology and financial data from MarketBeat in order to provide readers with the fastest reporting and unbiased coverage. Please send any questions or comments about this story to contact@marketbeat.com.