Hello, and welcome to the First Financial Bancorp Fourth Quarter 2021 earnings conference call. My name is Alex and I'll be coordinating the call today. If you'd like to ask a question at the end of the presentation, you can press star one on your telephone keypads. If you wish to withdraw your question, you can press star two. I will now hand over to your host, Scott Crawley, Corporate Controller. Over to you, Scott.
Thanks, Alex. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on today's conference call to discuss First Financial Bancorp's fourth quarter and full year 2021 financial results. Participating on today's call will be Archie Brown, President and Chief Executive Officer, Jamie Anderson, Chief Financial Officer, and Bill Harrod, Chief Credit Officer. Both the press release we issued yesterday and the accompanying slide presentation are available on our website at www.bankatfirst.com, under the Investor Relations section. We'll make reference to the slides contained in the accompanying presentation during today's call. Additionally, please refer to the forward-looking statement disclosure contained in the fourth quarter 2021 earnings release, as well as our SEC filings for a full discussion of the company's risk factors.
The information we provide today is accurate as of December 31st, 2021, and we will not be updating any forward-looking statements to reflect facts or circumstances after this call. I'll now turn it over to Archie Brown.
Thank you, Scott. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on today's call. Yesterday afternoon, we announced our fourth quarter financial results, which reflect an outstanding finish to an exceptional year, despite the challenging operating environment and interest rate backdrop. Our quarterly results were highlighted by strong earnings, significant core loan growth, solid fee income, provision recapture, and improved credit trends. We announced and successfully completed the acquisition of Summit Funding Group during the quarter, and we're excited about our future together. The synergies gained by adding Summit's leading nationwide position in the equipment finance sector to our current product offerings will provide significant growth opportunities moving forward. Summit has developed a diversified and nimble lending platform and demonstrated the ability to produce high quality and consistent origination volumes.
We're pleased to have Summit's exceptional asset management expertise and look forward to the growth potential created by combining our two companies. Fourth quarter results remain strong across the board with adjusted earnings per share of $0.58, return on assets of 1.34%, and an efficiency ratio of 60.2%. Fourth quarter earnings were again highlighted by significant provision recapture of $7.7 million, as credit quality trends continued to improve and classified assets decreased by 36.7%. Fee revenue was also strong as record foreign exchange income from our Bannockburn unit more than offset some seasonal drop in mortgage income. Loan origination activity improved to record levels and was approximately 27% higher than the third quarter with our commercial groups leading the way.
Growth in the unfunded line and construction commitments are expected to provide tailwinds to loan growth over the coming year as they draw up. We also completed the sale of approximately $144 million in commercial real estate loans, which both reduces our hotel concentration and our exposure to an industry that continues to be impacted by the pandemic, particularly in metropolitan central business districts. Excluding the impact of PPP, the loan sale and the Summit acquisition, core loan growth was approximately $149 million or 6.3% annualized, which was the strongest quarter of the year. We're very pleased with this organic loan growth, considering we have continued to see record payoffs within our commercial real estate and commercial finance portfolios.
As those payoffs moderate and the Summit portfolio builds, we expect to see further strengthening in loan growth in 2022. We're pleased to have deposit balances grow modestly across all customer segments as our customers continue to maintain substantial liquidity levels. PPP forgiveness continued to wind down in the fourth quarter. Through quarter end, almost all of round one and over 80% of round two loans have been forgiven. We expect the majority of remaining round two payoffs to come over the first half of 2022. Overall, our full year 2021 performance was exceptional as our participation in PPP helped offset the pressure from historically low interest rate environment, while provision recapture contributed to strong earnings and reflected dramatically improved credit trends.
I was pleased to see fee income again was very strong this year, given our strategic focus on that area of our business and expenses remained well managed despite inflationary pressures. Lastly, our balance sheet and capital ratios remain strong, and we are very pleased to deliver superior returns to our shareholders through aggressive share repurchases and a strong dividend yield. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Jamie to discuss the details of our fourth quarter results. After Jamie's discussion, I will wrap up with some additional forward-looking commentary. Jamie.
Thank you, Archie, and good morning, everyone. Slides four, five and six provide a summary of our fourth quarter and full year 2021 financial results. We are very happy with our performance, which included strong earnings, core loan growth, a significant decline in classified assets, provision recapture, and elevated fee income. The highlights of our quarter included closing the acquisition of Summit Funding Group and 6% annualized core loan growth. In addition, fee income surpassed our expectations as Bannockburn had a record income quarter. Wealth management remained strong, and we recorded higher syndication fees during the period. Non-interest expenses were slightly higher than our expectation due to elevated incentive compensation, which was tied to our higher fee income and overall company performance. We were particularly pleased on the credit front, as classified assets declined 37% during the period.
Net charge-offs were elevated due to our decision to sell $134 million of hotel loans in order to address various portfolio concentrations. The decline in classified assets combined with a positive economic outlook resulted in $7.7 million of provision recapture during the period. From a capital standpoint, our ratios are strong and remain in excess of both internal and regulatory targets. Given the Summit acquisition, we paused our share repurchase program and expect to remain on the sidelines in the near term. However, our board recently approved a new plan which authorized 5 million additional shares to be repurchased. Slide seven reconciles our GAAP earnings to adjusted earnings, highlighting items that we believe are important to understanding our quarterly performance. Adjusted net income was $54.1 million or $0.58 per share for the quarter.
These adjusted earnings account for $6 million in tax credit investment write-downs, $3.5 million in legal settlements, $4 million of Summit acquisition costs, and $2 million of other costs not expected to recur, such as severance and branch consolidation expenses. As depicted on slide eight, these adjusted earnings equate to a return on average assets of 1.34%, a return on average tangible common equity of 17.4%, and an efficiency ratio of 60.2%. Turning to slides nine and 10, net interest margin declined nine basis points from the linked quarter to 3.23%. This decline was primarily driven by a decline in PPP forgiveness fees and lower asset yields.
The impact on the net interest margin from these changes was partially offset by an increase in other non-PPP loan fees during the quarter. Asset yields declined modestly during the period due to continued pressure from the low interest rate environment and the growth of the investment securities portfolio. Over the course of 2021, we increased the size of the investment portfolio, which has negatively impacted the margin. Our cost of deposits of 10 basis points was flat when compared to the third quarter. Our near-term outlook on funding costs remains the same. We anticipate cost stability or a very slight decline as we have reached our pricing floor. Slide 11 illustrates our current loan mix and balance changes compared to the linked quarter. Loan balances decreased during the period, primarily due to declines in PPP and the ICRE portfolio.
The decline in PPP was expected as those loans have been forgiven. While the decline in ICRE was impacted by $144 million in loan sales during the quarter. Excluding the impact from these two events, as well as the acquisition of Summit, we were very encouraged by $149 million of growth in the rest of the portfolio. Slide 13 shows our deposit mix, as well as the progression of average deposits from the third quarter. In total, average deposit balances increased $218 million during the quarter, driven primarily by increases in non-interest-bearing deposits and public funds. This was partially offset by a decrease in higher cost brokered CDs. We continue to be mindful of deposit pricing and will make any necessary adjustments based on market conditions and our funding needs.
Slide 14 highlights our non-interest income for the quarter. As I mentioned previously, fourth quarter fee income remained elevated and was driven by record production from Bannockburn and strong wealth management results. In addition, other non-interest income increased 37% during the period, primarily due to a $1.2 million increase in syndication fees. Non-interest expense for the quarter is outlined on Slide 15. Non-interest expenses increased $10.6 million during the period, which included multiple large transactions that we do not expect to recur. These include $6.1 million of tax credit investment write-downs, $4.1 million of costs associated with the Summit acquisition, a $3.5 million legal settlement, and $1.9 million of other costs, such as branch consolidation and severance expenses.
Overall, core expenses were slightly higher than we expected and increased modestly when compared to the linked quarter. This was driven by elevated incentive compensation, which was tied to higher fee income and the company's overall financial performance. Turning now to slide 16. Our ACL model resulted in a total allowance, which includes both funded and unfunded reserves of $145 million, and $7.7 million in total provision recapture during the period. The provision recapture was driven by a 37% decline in classified asset balances and improved economic forecasts. Net charge-offs as a percentage of loans increased to 32 basis points on an annualized basis as the company sold $134 million of hotel loans during the period in an effort to address portfolio concentration. This sale added $9.2 million to our quarterly net charge-off figure.
For further description of the loan sales during the quarter, please see slide 18. Our view on the ACL and provision expense remains unchanged. We believe we acted aggressively when building reserves in response to the pandemic, and have been relatively conservative in releasing those reserves. In the beginning of 2022, we expect further provision recapture and reserve release, but at a more gradual pace than we saw in the back half of 2021. Finally, as shown on slides 20 and 21, capital ratios remain in excess of regulatory minimums and internal targets. All capital ratios remain strong despite declines during the period due to the acquisition of Summit.
As I previously mentioned, we did not repurchase any shares in the fourth quarter and do not expect any additional share repurchases in the near term while we rebuild our capital position following the Summit acquisition. Additionally, we do not anticipate any near-term changes to the common dividend. However, we will continue to evaluate various capital actions as the year progresses. I'll now turn it back over to Archie for some comments on Summit and our outlook going forward. Archie.
Thank you, Jamie. Before we end our prepared remarks, I want to comment on our forward-looking guidance, which can be found on slide 22. Loan demand remains strong, especially in our commercial businesses, and we expect loan balances to grow mid-single digits over the near term, excluding PPP and Summit. Securities balances are projected to come down slightly, while deposit balances are expected to remain relatively stable over the near term with some modest seasonal outflows. The net interest margin will continue to be positively impacted by the remaining PPP forgiveness payoffs, which we expect to conclude in the first half of the year. Without any further substantial liquidity inflows and excluding PPP, we expect the margin to be relatively stable over the next quarter. Our asset-sensitive balance sheet positions us very well to benefit from the expected rise in interest rates.
A significant portion of our loan portfolio is indexed to short-term rates, and although there are many variables at play impacting magnitude and timing, we expect to benefit from rising rates, especially early in the cycle when deposit rate pressures are muted. Regarding credit, we expect further improvement in quality trends and continue to expect additional provision recapture in the near term, though less than we had in the back half of 2021. We expect fee income to be between $38 million-$40 million in the first quarter, excluding the Summit acquisition, as seasonal and rate headwinds put pressure on mortgage banking income, and we will see some decreases in overdraft income due to seasonality and updates to our program. Specific to expenses, we expect to be between $91 million-$93 million, excluding the Summit acquisition, but this could fluctuate with fee income.
Regarding Summit, we expect the acquisition to have a minimal impact on 2022 earnings, with a slightly negative impact near term from the intangible amortization. We expect the acquisition to provide $400 million in annual originations, which should provide a strong lift to loan growth as we progress through the year. Lastly, our capital ratios remain strong, and we will continue to reevaluate capital deployment opportunities over the year. Overall, we continue to be pleased with the strength and performance of our company. 2021 was another successful year for First Financial and reflects the outstanding efforts of our talented associates. As we move into 2022, we are optimistic about our prospects for growth and are well positioned for the rising rate environment.
Our focus remains on executing our core strategies, delivering exceptional service to our business, consumer and wealth management clients, and capitalizing on the momentum achieved in 2021 to deliver superior returns to our shareholders. With that, we'll now open up the call for questions.
Thank you. We will now begin the Q&A session. If you'd like to ask a question, you can press star one on your telephone keypads. If you'd like to withdraw your question, you can press star two. If you're joining us online today, you can click the flag icon. Please ensure you're unmuted locally when asking your question. Our first question for today comes from Scott Siefers from Piper Sandler. Scott, your line is now open.
Thank you. Morning, guys. Thank you for taking the question. Jamie, wanted to start maybe with you regarding the margin. Just make sure I understand, you're saying stable with the implied 3%, which is the basis and the loan fees. Is that the best way to think about it?
Help me out there, Scott. When you say the 3% in the loan fees, what do you?
The 3%, which is basically the basic margin plus loan fees-
Yeah.
the way you-
Yeah, yeah.
Take a-
I got it.
Okay.
Yep. Yeah.
Okay. Perfect.
Obviously, without any rate hikes, our kind of base margin is right around 3.05%, call it.
Okay.
Yeah, without rate hikes, we would, you know, if we don't have any rate hikes, we would look at that to be relatively flat. Yeah.
Okay, perfect. Do you have sort of a rule of thumb for?
Excluding PPP is what, Scott, right?
Yeah. Yes, exactly.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
Do you have sort of a rule of thumb for how much each 25 basis point hike by the Fed would help either the margin in basis points or NII in dollars? Maybe just sort of thoughts on how your deposit betas.
I'll maybe give you two different answers here in terms of like, how it performs as we get the rate hikes in and the number of rate hikes. In the first couple of rate hikes, mainly because we don't see the deposit side moving quite as much, we get a little bit more benefit from the first couple of rate hikes. In basis points, our margin per rate hike in the first two would go up around eight basis points. In that, you know, call it, $11 million, you know, range of benefit to the net interest income in those first two.
You know, after we get past the first two, that comes down a little bit just as, you know, we'll probably start to see some deposit pressure at that point. That 8 basis points comes down in that 5-6 basis points range of benefit. More like, you know, seven to eight, so call it $7.5 million an increase in net interest income. Those numbers are annualized numbers, right, Scott? The dollar amounts.
Yeah.
You know, and then you can kind of go from there, but, and then obviously when the Fed would stop, you know, on the tail end, the deposit side starts to, you know, catch up and we get, you know, it kind of starts to come down just a little bit. You know. On the first four, that's kind of how it would play out.
Perfect. All right. That's terrific. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
Yep.
Thank you, Scott. Our next question comes from Daniel Tamayo from Raymond James. Daniel, your line is now open.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone.
Morning, Daniel.
Maybe just to follow up on Scott's question. Can you just provide what your assumptions are in terms of deposit beta for the asset sensitivity numbers you just provided?
Yeah. You know, like I said, in the first couple of hikes, I mean, we don't really see deposits moving that much at all. In a normal scenario, you know, deposits right now would be, you know, there would be a bucket of them paying negative rate. They're obviously at the floor, so they need to push through that floor in that first couple of hikes. Once you get past that, I mean our overall kind of general overall weighted beta would be in that 20% range. I mean, obviously within categories, it's going to be, you know, skewed towards the money market accounts and public funds, which would have a much higher bet you know, what savings is going to be on the lower side and whatnot. When you kind of look at the deposits in total, you're looking at around a 20%-ish beta.
Okay. Terrific. That's helpful. Thank you. Switching gears here. If you could just provide your kind of what your thought process was on the loan sales and if there's any other loans or buckets of loans that you're considering selling? Thank you.
Sure. Good morning. We took a look at, you know, we constantly monitor the market, you know, and we really see what the activity is. You know, everything kind of set up right for the hotel sale. Really the genesis was looking at the portfolio, what we've seen over the past year and a half, two years. Really take an opportunity to pull the risk down. Mainly, as Archie alluded to in his opening comments, mainly to the business traveler city center type locations dependent upon conventions and business travel and things like. As well as some of our more challenged hotels in our portfolio within our watch and worse bucket.
It really included full service hotels, you know, some limited service hotels, and focused on where we felt that, you know, the short and medium term risk was the highest within our portfolio. We'll continue to monitor the various loan sale markets with different portfolios, but we don't have anything right now in our sights.
Yeah. Daniel, this is Archie. I mean, part of this is we, as you know, we were all monitoring hotels. We had a little bit larger book going into the pandemic. We were monitoring hotels, and most of them are rebounding really nicely. But as Bill was saying, some of those in the central business districts are, maybe they came new online during the pandemic. They were just ramping up slower. With continued concerns about where the pandemic is going, we thought it was prudent to exit some of those that were more problematic in our mind.
Terrific. I appreciate all the color. That's all I had. Thank you.
Thanks, Daniel.
Thank you, Daniel. Our next question comes from Chris McGratty from KBW. Chris, your line is now open.
Hey, good morning.
Hey, Chris.
Jamie, a question on just the efficiency ratio. How do we think about the cadence of it from here, maybe with Summit and then with or without rates?
Yeah. I mean, if I guess without any rate hikes, I mean, you would see that efficiency ratio, you know, moving up a little bit into that, you know, maybe 60%-62% range. I mean, obviously the rate hikes, we're gonna benefit, you know, significantly from the rate hikes, I guess if and when they come. You know, it looks like they're coming here in March. You know, you start to just see the efficiency ratios move back down kind of in that, you know, more in that 57%-58% range.
Yeah. Chris, this is Archie. I mean, it's fair to say, Jamie, we really focus on managing expense growth. If you think 2%-3% expense growth typically, and the fluctuation may occur in the commission area where we have higher fees from time to time. That's what we focus on there. Of course, the goal is to get operating leverage and drive revenue higher. If you think like that about it, that's how we manage the expense side. If we get the rate hikes, then it should be pretty beneficial.
Right.
Okay. In terms of Summit, I think your guide is without fees and expenses. Could you just help us a bit on what might go through each of those lines and also that $400 million that you talked about for originations, like, how do we think about-
Yeah
just balance sheet in that stuff? Yeah, thanks.
Yeah. I mean, Chris, given the fact that, I mean, this just closed at the end of the year, we got, you know, a lot of moving parts. We're still working through the valuation adjustments, the purchase accounting related to that. We brought over from them around $115 million-ish in assets, and that's split up between $42 million in finance leases, which you see will run through the loan and lease line item. Then there's around $75 million of their leases that are operating leases that will run through other assets. On those, obviously on those two buckets, on the operating leases, they get rental income that'll flow through non-interest income and then the, you know, depreciation of the assets running through non-interest expense.
I mean, one of the things why we didn't put a lot of guidance and information in the slides about them. I mean, we are kind of flipping their entire model of how they're operating in terms of the amount. In the past they were an originate and sell the vast majority of their production because of the size of the balance sheet and, you know, their capacity to fund it and hold those types of assets. Going forward, we're changing their model quite a bit. You know, our plan is to hold the vast majority of those.
The mix of that is still a little bit up in the air as we're just trying to optimize, you know, what we should keep and then what we should and the mix between financing and operating leases. But I mean, overall, like we mentioned in the slides, the overall impact to 2022 we still believe is relatively neutral. In the beginning, in terms of EPS, in the beginning, in the first maybe couple of quarters, especially in the first quarter, we think it could be slightly negative just because we, if you think about it, like I said, we're flipping their model where we're gonna retain assets, so we need to ramp up the balance sheet.
As we're doing that, we need to provide for the in terms of provision expense. But we have all of the fixed costs up front as well, and also the intangible amortization. In the beginning, we think it's maybe a slight negative, maybe $0.01-$0.015 negative in the beginning. As we progress throughout the year, the balance sheet builds, you know, that flips towards the back half of the year. Really for the whole year, it's kind of a wash from an EPS standpoint.
Chris, this is Archie. The $400 million that we're talking about, that's really Summit standalone. That's them doing what they've been doing but with a bigger balance sheet and, you know, the ability to do more. We think there's upside. We're not baking in certainly as we bring new product set to our existing commercial clients that we know are using leasing products somewhere. But now, we think we can have a better shot at getting more of those, too. We think there's quite a bit of upside in the $400 million.
Okay. That's helpful. Very helpful. Just getting back to the related expenses so I can back into the revenues. What's kind of a range for a full quarter or a full year of expenses from the team?
They have about $4 million-ish in what we would call kind of like SG&A expenses a quarter at this point. We look at their overall, like first quarter. Like I said, the problem, Chris, is this is gonna move dramatically throughout the year based on what we retain and what we don't retain, and the types of leases. In the first quarter, we're looking at an overall expense base, which includes the depreciation of those assets somewhere in that $9 million-$11 million range in total.
Okay. That's helpful. Perfect. The last one on the buyback. I mean, I understand the capital rebuild. Are we sidelined for maybe six months on the buyback? Or how should we think about the new authorization in terms of beginning to pick away at it?
Yep. Yep, I would say you're close there. It's really minimum a quarter, but probably more like a couple quarters where we would be out.
Got it. Thanks, Jamie.
Yep.
Thank you, Chris. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, you can press star one on your telephone keypad. If you're joining us online today, you can click the flag icon. Our next question comes from Jon Arfstrom from RBC Capital. Jon, your line is now open.
Hey. Thank you. Good morning, guys.
Hey, Jon.
Hey. Just one quick follow-up on Summit. You know, I understand what you're saying. You've got some integration going on, but no real changes to the origination machine that they have, and you know, twelve months from now we could see another $400 million-$500 million of leases on the balance sheet. Is that fair?
Hey, Jon, this is Archie. Absolutely no changes to what they do in terms of the people and the clients and the process. No changes at all. I think Jamie's mainly focusing on the fact that we'll probably hold more because we've got the balance sheet to hold, and they didn't. You know, the $400 million—I mean, it's probably 80+. We hope we can hold 80+% of that or more. Again, we think the $400-
Yep
Is sort of the minimum expectation for what we think they can do this year.
Okay. Any limits in your mind in terms of how large you let this get on your balance sheet?
Well, I mean, yes. I guess there is some point you could say so, but for the next two, three, four years, I think we feel very comfortable that if they're doing 400 and then 10%-12% increase on that year-over-year, we'd be very comfortable with that.
Yep. Okay. You talked about, Archie, some moderation in payoffs helping your loan growth, at least expecting to in 2022. Can you talk a little bit about that and what you're seeing?
Yeah. We just saw, you know, certainly in our commercial real estate group, we saw significant record payoff levels. We saw also that in our finance company and even a little bit in our C&I business. I do think there was some sort of rush, especially in Q4, because that was the highest quarter for payoffs, to get deals done, to get things sold. You know, we think some clients were thinking about potential tax policy in 2022. We just think there was a big rush to get some things done at year-end. We still think in the current environment there's some payoff pressure, but it. We think it's going to abate some from the record levels in the first quarter. That's probably the primary thing I think we see there.
We did also, you know, part of the pressure there was with when a CRE loan pays off, and we had great production in the CRE area, but a lot of it was in the construction side. We don't get the immediate benefit of that hitting the balance sheet, but it should fund up here over the, you know, course of the year or so, and that will give us a little bit of tailwind as well.
Okay. Bill, a question for you, just to follow up on the hotel portfolio or the hotel sale. How much interest is there in the marketplace in loans like that? I know you touched on, you know, maybe looking at a couple of other areas, but how active is that market?
We found that it was very active. You know, the way that we constructed this was a pool. You know, based on our review, that was the best strategy. Really, you know, the market, because we've been testing it all year long last year. The market was very robust in Q4, up from Q3. It is very robust.
I guess one more on fees. I know it's difficult to predict, and you're giving us, you know, some of the near term outlook on fees. How do you want us to think about Bannockburn and mortgage in terms of maybe, you know, longer term view on those?
Yeah. On Bannockburn, Jon, we see continued growth. You know, they had an incredible year if you think about it, but we still think there's $2 million in revenue on top of that that they can do this year. On the mortgage side, you know, certainly the rate increases have had some impact. Also the margins are starting to come down, and you know, the Fed actions around the balance sheet can have an impact on that as well. I think we would tell you that we're probably you know, low mid-20s in terms of fees, origination fees down from 2021 and you know, depending what happens here, that could be slightly worse, but we'd say it's in that range anyway.
Yeah. Okay. All right. Thanks for the help. I appreciate it.
Volumes are still pretty good. I mean, they've come down a little bit seasonally, but we still think they're good. It's more, it may pick up a little bit of a refi volume later in the year and certainly, margins coming in, it's just kind of the downside of that impacting the fees.
Yeah. Yeah. It's an interesting market, right? Because the purchase volume is still there, but obviously-
Yeah.
We understand on gains and refi. Yeah. Okay, thanks. Thanks, guys.
Thank you, Jon. Our next question is a follow-up question from Scott Siefers of Piper Sandler. Scott, your line is now open.
Hey, guys. Thank you. I wanted to follow up on fees just a little. I mean, a lot of people making changes to their overdraft policies, which you alluded to here. Was hoping you could maybe put a finer point on what specific changes you guys are making and sort of any specific revenue impact anticipation you'd have there.
Yeah, Scott, this is Archie. Just to maybe give some context, if you go back and look at 2019 and then look at where we're projecting to be this year, we're probably down 30% from 2019 levels already, you know, the way you're projecting out 2022. You know, up through 2021 compared to 2019. If you look at 2022, Scott, probably three or four things we did and kind of kicked them off the new year. We actually lowered our overdraft fee a little bit, a few bucks. We increased the cushion before you go into an overdraft status in terms of getting charged. We eliminated some fees. We put more caps on fees, daily caps on fees. Just in a lot of areas, you know, tightening it down.
If I said that's an 8%-10% decline, probably in overdraft revenue. Now, we could get some upside offset to that with growing accounts, which we hope to do. You could say it's in that high single-digit range in terms of impact on overdraft income. That's probably what we talk about for 2022. I was a little bit. I don't want to say surprised, I guess, the amount of change, significant change we've seen in some of the larger banks here right out of the gate. You know, we'll continue to monitor if we think our program remains competitive and, you know, could make further changes down the road. You know, this is what we had in place to start the new year.
Got it. Okay, perfect. Then, just wanted to follow up on expenses just to make sure I'm kind of on the same page with what you guys are thinking. Jamie, you know, we've got the $91 million-$93 million in costs anticipated ex Summit. It sounds like at least in the near term, we should expect higher expenses to be closer to, you know, $100 million to maybe a little higher than that with the full run rate of Summit in there on a core basis. But is the way the nuance would change that as you go more toward portfolioing them, that the Summit's expenses would decrease over time? Is that the right way to think about it?
Well, Scott, so the first part is correct. It'll be somewhere in that 100 to low 100, you know, 100 to 102-ish or whatever. Then going forward, though, it's gonna depend on the. The operating leases are gonna hit down there. It's gonna depend on mix at that point. If we
Okay.
If we are doing more of a higher percentage in financing leases, then obviously those hit up in margin and the depreciation expense would come down. Yeah, it's just gonna depend on mix.
Got it. That'll be sort of a, I guess, stay tuned for what happens over a period of time then.
Correct.
Okay, good. Thank you.
Yep.
Thank you, Scott. We have no further questions, so I'll hand back to Archie Brown for any closing remarks.
Thank you, Alex. I want to thank everybody for joining us today and reviewing with us our year. We're very pleased with 2021. Look forward to a great 2022, and we look forward to talking to you next quarter. Have a great day. Bye now.
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