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Earnings Call: Q2 2021

Jul 21, 2021

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Fulton Financial second quarter 2021 results conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session, and instructions will follow at that time. If anyone should require assistance during the conference, please press star then zero on your touch-tone telephone. As a reminder, this conference call may be recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Mr. Matt Jozwiak, Director of Investor Relations.

Matt Jozwiak
Director of Investor Relations, Fulton Financial

Good morning, and thanks for joining us for Fulton Financial's conference call and webcast to discuss our earnings for the second quarter of 2021. Your host for today's conference call is Phil Wenger, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Joining Phil are Curt Myers, President and Chief Operating Officer, and Mark McCollom, Chief Financial Officer. Our comments today will refer to the financial information and related slide presentation included with our earnings announcements, which we released yesterday afternoon.

These documents can be found on our website at fult.com by clicking on Investor Relations and then on News. The slides can also be found on the presentations page under our Investor Relations website. On this call, representatives of Fulton may make forward-looking statements with respect to Fulton's financial condition, results of operations, and business.

These statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to risks, uncertainties, and other factors, and actual results could differ materially. Please refer to the safe harbor statement on forward-looking statements in our earnings release and on slide two of today's presentation for additional information regarding these risks, uncertainties, and other factors. Fulton undertakes no obligation other than as required by law to update or revise any forward-looking statements.

In discussing Fulton's performance, representatives of Fulton may refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to the supplemental financial information included with Fulton's earnings announcement released yesterday in slides 10 and 11 of today's presentation for a reconciliation of those non-GAAP financial measures to the most comparable GAAP measures. Now, I would like to turn the call over to your host, Phil Wenger.

Phil Wenger
Chairman and CEO, Fulton Financial

Well, thanks, Matt. Good morning, everyone. I'll begin today's call by making a few high-level remarks about our performance for the quarter and factors affecting the markets we serve. Curt will discuss our business performance, and Mark will share the details of our financial performance. After that, we'll answer any questions you may have. Fulton's performance continued to be solid in the second quarter of 2021.

Now, following our record-setting earnings per share of $0.43 in the first quarter, our second quarter earnings per share of $0.38 tied our previous record high. We saw growth in certain segments of our business, as Curt and Mark will discuss, and asset quality remains stable. The economy and the markets we serve are showing improvement. Unemployment is in decline, and the communities are reopening.

In fact, as of July 4th, the governments in the five states in which we operate have lifted mask requirements for everyone. As the economy continues to open and business activity moves closer to normal, we are increasingly optimistic about the future.

In recent months, we have seen several mergers and acquisitions in and around our market. Fulton has taken a look at a few of these opportunities, and we remain interested in supporting our growth through M&A. We will continue to evaluate future opportunities to identify those which would be a good fit for our strategy and our community-oriented style of banking. As always, we remain focused on our shareholders and will remain disciplined on pricing.

Through the end of the second quarter, we have not repurchased any shares under the $75 million share repurchase authorization approved by the board in February. We continue to assess share repurchase opportunities. Throughout the past year, I've referenced the challenges brought about by COVID-19. I'm extremely proud of how our entire team adapted to these challenges. Through their efforts, we were able to support our customers through the most challenging of times.

Now, more than a year after the pandemic began, we are pleased to see more people becoming fully vaccinated, our communities reopening, and life starting to return to some sense of normalcy. Given this improvement, we are now looking forward to bringing more of our own team back to on-site work in early September. While some employees will be permanently remote, most will return to some level of on-site or hybrid work.

The ability to connect in- person strengthens relationships and our culture, which quite frankly, sustained us during the pandemic and allowed us to continue to focus on our customers. I'll turn things over to Curt to discuss our financial performance.

Curt Myers
President and COO, Fulton Financial

Thank you, Phil, and good morning. As Phil noted, our second quarter performance produced solid results, and I'd like to share some detail on several key areas. Loan growth for the quarter was approximately $170 million, or about 4% annualized, excluding the impact of PPP loan forgiveness and originations. We benefited from the diversity of our business model as strong loan growth from residential mortgage lending offset declines in our commercial business.

Let me talk about the PPP program. PPP originations for Wave 3 ended up at $750 million, beyond our original expectations, with $60 million originated in the second quarter, and $690 million originated in the first quarter. Our average Wave 3 processing fee was 4.5%, which was also well above what we had originally anticipated. While the PPP program has ended for new originations, we continue to focus on loan forgiveness needs of our small business customers.

In the second quarter, we processed $639 million of PPP forgiveness requests and have remaining Wave 1 and Wave 2 outstanding balances of approximately $360 million. In total, we have $1.1 billion in outstanding PPP loans as of June 30, and $35 million in processing fees yet to be earned. Turning to commercial loans, commercial real estate showed modest growth while other commercial categories declined, resulting in an overall decline in the commercial balances of $127 million on a linked quarter basis when excluding PPP loans.

We continue to experience commercial loan headwinds due to persistent low line utilization and prepayment activity. Our commercial loan pipeline is down linked quarter, but consistent with year-end levels. Recent weeks, we have experienced growth in the pipeline consistent with all of our markets reopening. We remain cautiously optimistic that commercial loan demand will improve as business activity and customer confidence increase.

In consumer lending, our loan balances grew to $284 million or 5.8% linked quarter on an ending balance basis. This growth was driven primarily by residential mortgages. As noted in prior quarters, our asset-sensitive balance sheet provides room to continue growing this segment of high-quality in-market residential mortgage loans. Overall, we anticipate loan origination levels to continue at a rate that is adequate to support the annual net interest income guidance in our outlook.

Turning to deposits, growth for the quarter was modest. However, total deposit balances are up $4.3 billion or 25% since pre-pandemic levels. During the quarter, we continued to actively manage our deposit costs down, and we are encouraged by the work of our team and the loyalty of our customer base. Our total cost of deposits for the quarter was down to 15 basis points. Moving on to fee income.

Wealth management, commercial banking, and consumer banking fee-based businesses all delivered growth in revenue on a linked quarter and year-over-year basis. Our wealth management business continues to perform very well. During the quarter, we purchased a small investment advisory firm which helped support the growth of our wealth business. Our assets under management and administration grew to $13.7 billion at quarter end, up from $13.1 billion last quarter and $11.1 billion at the end of the second quarter of 2020.

These trends drove record quarterly wealth management income for the third quarter in a row. Turning to mortgage banking business, originations were $875 million for the quarter, an increase of 22% from the first quarter. A significant decline in gain-on-sale spreads, combined with continuing to hold an elevated amount of loans on the balance sheet, led to an overall decline in mortgage banking revenue linked quarter.

In addition, the decline in longer-term rates also led to a $2 million increase to our mortgage servicing rights valuation allowance, further reducing overall mortgage banking income. Overall, the mortgage banking business remains strong as we continue to experience solid origination activity and opportunities to either sell our conforming loans in the secondary market or increase our balance sheet with this product.

Purchase activity represents approximately 60% of total originations and has steadily increased in recent quarters. The mortgage pipeline sits at $620 million, remaining more than two times our pre-pandemic levels. Capital markets revenue, which are primarily commercial loan interest rate swap fees, declined in the second quarter. This decline was partially driven by our willingness to provide longer-term balance sheet fixed rates. We expect swap revenue to return to more historical levels as we move forward.

However, this is dependent on customer preferences, commercial loan demand, and interest rate expectations. Moving to credit. Asset quality remains stable. Delinquency remains low. Non-performing loans were flat linked quarter and remain relatively stable since prior to the beginning of the pandemic. Net charge-offs were $6.9 million or 15 basis points for the quarter. This compares to $6.2 million or 13 basis points of net charge-offs in the first quarter.

On slide 13, we have again provided updated loan deferral trends through June 30, 2021. Commercial deferrals further declined to approximately $122 million and stand at 0.9% of the commercial portfolio. Consumer loans on deferral and forbearance also declined and are now at $57 million, or 1.1% of the consumer loan portfolio. In previous calls, we noted selected industries we believe may be at more risk due to COVID-19. Slide 15 provides an updated summary of these selected industries.

Overall, our credit outlook remains cautiously optimistic for the remainder of 2021, and as a result, we have further reduced our 2021 provision for credit loss outlook. Now I'll turn the call over to Mark to discuss our financial results in more detail.

Mark McCollom
CFO, Fulton Financial

Thank you, Curt. Good morning to everyone on the call. Unless I knew it otherwise, the quarterly comparisons I will discuss were the first quarter of 2021. Starting on slide three, earnings per diluted share this quarter were $0.38 on net income available to common shareholders of $62.4 million. This represents a decline of $0.05 per share versus the first quarter of 2021.

Our second quarter performance included a slightly lower net interest income, as well as lower non-interest income, offset by negative provision expense and lower operating expenses, which I'll cover in more detail later in my comments. Moving to slide four, our net interest income was $162 million, a $2 million decline linked quarter, mainly due to less fees earned on PPP loans forgiven during the second quarter as compared to the first quarter.

Forgiveness for the quarter was $639 million. This represents only Waves 1 and 2. Wave 3 is not expected to begin requesting forgiveness until late in the third quarter and into the fourth quarter of 2021. The latest wave of PPP loans also have a larger average fee, 4.5%, due to a smaller average loan size for this wave of funding.

As of June 30th, we have approximately $35 million of PPP loan fees yet to be recognized, $4 million coming from the 2020 originations and $31 million from our first and second quarter originations this year. Turning to the investment portfolio, we selectively redeployed some of our excess cash into mortgage-backed securities and short-term money market instruments. As a result, investments grew $308 million during the second quarter.

As Curt noted, we saw deposits grow by approximately $90 million on an ending balance basis, and our cost of deposits for the quarter was only 15 basis points, a decline of three basis points linked quarter. We would expect our deposit cost to still migrate moderately lower in future quarters, as we have approximately $660 million of CDs maturing over the next two quarters at a cost of approximately 80 basis points, which is significantly higher than current market replacement costs.

Our average loan-to-deposit ratio declined during the quarter from 89.9% in the first quarter to 86.9% in the second quarter. As I discussed last quarter, Fulton completed a balance sheet restructuring, which reduced our interest rate risk and improved several of our performance metrics going forward.

This restructuring was fully reflected in the second quarter and is incorporated into the updated guidance I will provide at the end of my remarks. Our net interest margin for the second quarter was 2.73% versus 2.79% in the first quarter. The six basis point decline linked quarter was largely a result from lower PPP loan fee recognition, as well as additional cash on our balance sheet.

Turning to credit, on slide five, our second quarter provision for credit losses was a - $3.5 million versus a - $5.5 million for the first quarter and a + $20 million a year ago. Compared to the year-ago period, the initial impact of COVID-19 had a significant impact on our allowance for credit losses in the first half of 2020. As the economic outlook continues to improve, the amount required in our allowance for credit losses has declined.

As always, this could change in future periods based on new loan origination volumes, loan mix, net charge-off activity, and economic projections. Slide five also shows our normal quarterly credit metrics. Our allowance for credit losses, excluding PPP loans, has declined 14 basis points since the end of last year and currently stands at 1.46%. Moving to slide six, non-interest income, excluding securities gains, was $52 million. Down $10 million from last quarter and down $1 million from a year ago.

Our fee-based revenues showed modest increases in w ealth management, commercial banking, and consumer banking, but were outweighed by a decline in mortgage banking revenues. Mortgage banking revenues were impacted by a decline in gain-on-sale spreads of 114 basis points linked quarter, down to 1.85% after spending much of the past year at approximately 3%.

We also elected to portfolio about $230 million of saleable mortgages onto our balance sheet thus far this year. This has impacted our short-term mortgage banking revenues but may provide a significant long-term benefit to net interest income versus the purchase of investment securities. Lastly, our MSR asset was $36 million on the balance sheet at June 30th. This balance is net of a $6.5 million mortgage servicing rights valuation allowance.

As Curt noted, during the quarter, we recorded an addition to the valuation allowance of $2.2 million due to a decline in longer-term interest rates. Wealth management revenues were $17.6 million for the quarter, an increase of 1.7% from the first quarter and an increase of 31% from the prior year. Moving to slide seven, non-interest expenses were approximately $141 million in the second quarter, down $18 million linked quarter.

This decline was largely due to $32 million of debt extinguishment costs we recorded in the first quarter related to our balance sheet restructuring. Excluding those items, our remaining expenses declined approximately $5 million, primarily due to lower salaries and benefits expenses compared to the prior quarter.

This was due to lower bonus accruals, the full quarter impact of our cost reductions, and the absence of a one-time COVID bonus paid to frontline personnel in the first quarter of 2021. We also saw seasonal declines in occupancy expense of approximately $1.5 million. Our effective tax rate was 16% for the quarter, consistent with the first quarter. Slide eight gives you more detail on our capital ratios. As of June 30th, 2021, we maintained strong cushions over the regulatory minimums, our bank and parent company liquidity remain very strong. On slide nine, we provide our updated guidance for 2021.

We expect our net interest income to be in the range of $640 million-$660 million. We expect our provision for credit losses to be in the range of $10 million-$20 million. We expect our non-interest income to be in the range of $220 million-$230 million. We expect operating expenses, excluding charges related to the balance sheet restructuring, to be in the range of $560 million-$570 million for the year.

Lastly, we're aware that many of you look at pre-provision net revenue, or PPNR, as a key metric to assess the profitability of core operations. We also know that many of you calculate this metric differently. We've included our version of this metric in the financial tables of our press release. We would also like to point out a couple of additional items to consider as you assess our PPNR results.

First, our PPP fees earned have declined $7.5 million from the first quarter to the second quarter. Also, MSR valuation allowance adjustments resulted in an $8.3 million swing from a $6.1 million decrease in the valuation allowance in the first quarter to a $2.2 million increase to the valuation allowance in the second quarter.

When considering these additional items, we believe our PPNR has shown marked improvement from the first quarter to the second quarter as a result of our first quarter balance sheet restructuring, earning asset growth, and better cost containment. With that, we'll now turn the call over to the operator for questions. Ashley?

Operator

At this time, if you have a question, please press star then number one on your telephone keypad. Your first question comes from Frank Schiraldi with Piper Sandler.

Frank Schiraldi
Analyst, Piper Sandler

Morning.

Mark McCollom
CFO, Fulton Financial

Morning, Frank.

Curt Myers
President and COO, Fulton Financial

Morning, Frank.

Frank Schiraldi
Analyst, Piper Sandler

Just wondered, I realize that there hasn't been any change to NII guide. Just wondering about some of the moving parts there, and I wondered if you could talk a little bit about outlook for loan growth, and within that, commercial loan growth in the back half of the year.

Mark McCollom
CFO, Fulton Financial

Yeah, Frank, for the NII guide, as you've seen so far this year, we've recognized $19.5 million and $11.5 million in PPP fees in the first two quarters of the year. We still have $35 million to go. The timing of that, we have our own estimates as to when that will be recognized, which may differ from yours.

We would anticipate to possibly see a slight decrease in PPP fees in the third quarter and then have that step back up again in the fourth quarter just based on the timing of this third wave of PPP recognition. We've seen results now through the first half of the year. We would expect business results to improve in the back half of the year, and Curt can give you more color on that.

Curt Myers
President and COO, Fulton Financial

Yeah, Frank. We looked at originations, commercial originations in the first two quarters. They were pretty consistent. The second quarter, we saw elevated prepayment activity. I think the growth as we look forward would be based on what prepayment activity is. The pipelines have been building over the last six weeks. As things reopen and business activity increases, we do think pipelines will continue to grow. We think we have more momentum in the second half.

I think the growth will depend, though, on those prepayment factors. Just as an additional information, car dealers. Our floor plan portfolio linked quarter was down $70 million because car dealers can't get cars. Floor plans are not as utilized as they were. Things like that can provide us some momentum in the second half.

Frank Schiraldi
Analyst, Piper Sandler

Okay. Then you mentioned, Phil, you've looked at some of the deals in terms of M&A that have taken place in the market. Is it fair to say that you feel you can more actively pursue deals in the back half of the year, given your confidence level now in the macro environment? I wondered if you could just remind us of what's sort of too small in terms of asset size to pursue in terms of whole bank deals. Thanks.

Phil Wenger
Chairman and CEO, Fulton Financial

Yeah. I think we'll be as active as there are opportunities, Frank, and I think they'll continue in the second half of the year. We'd like to be looking at banks over $1 billion, but it wouldn't be impossible that we could look at something smaller that was really strategically positioned well within our footprint.

Frank Schiraldi
Analyst, Piper Sandler

Great. Okay. Thank you.

Curt Myers
President and COO, Fulton Financial

Yep.

Operator

Your next question comes from Daniel Tamayo with Raymond James.

Daniel Tamayo
Analyst, Raymond James

Good morning, guys.

Curt Myers
President and COO, Fulton Financial

Morning, Dan.

Mark McCollom
CFO, Fulton Financial

Hey, Dan.

Daniel Tamayo
Analyst, Raymond James

Maybe if I could dig into the NII from the NIM side a little bit. What is your assumption for excess cash levels? It sounds like they increased again in the second quarter. What is your assumption for those levels within the guidance for the rest of the year?

Mark McCollom
CFO, Fulton Financial

Dan, our guidance is that they tick up a little bit again during the third quarter because that's when we tend to see our muni business at its high watermark for the year. Then coming back down a little bit in the back half. Candidly, we don't see much decline in the excess cash levels because I think as an industry, we've been wrong as an industry as to deposit levels. Deposit levels continue to stick around longer than we anticipate. While we'd like to run with a lower level of cash than we currently have, I think the expectation is going to remain elevated certainly through the end of the year.

Daniel Tamayo
Analyst, Raymond James

Okay. Thanks for that. Then switching over to fee income. I heard the comment you made about the interest rate swaps within capital markets income going back to normal. What kind of environment do you need for that? Do you need rates to go up from here, or do you think this level of swaps would be kind of the run rate, assuming we don't get an interest in rates? Or even without that, do you think that this was a depressed level in the second quarter?

Curt Myers
President and COO, Fulton Financial

Yeah, Dan, it's Curt. Just a little more color there. The second quarter was a light quarter for us. We were putting more fixed-rate loans on the balance sheet. We are continuing to offer that. It really comes down to a loan origination mix and larger deal mix and types of loans. We do think linked quarter, as we look at the third quarter, will be stronger. Again, just to remind you, we're coming off the high watermark. I think we did $16.8 million in last year, which was our best year ever from that. We do expect it to moderate from there. Again, the second quarter was light.

Daniel Tamayo
Analyst, Raymond James

Great. I appreciate the color. Thanks for answering the questions, guys.

Curt Myers
President and COO, Fulton Financial

You bet.

Operator

Your next question comes from Russell Gunther with D.A. Davidson.

Russell Gunther
Analyst, D.A. Davidson

Hey, good morning, guys.

Curt Myers
President and COO, Fulton Financial

Hey, Russell.

Russell Gunther
Analyst, D.A. Davidson

I just follow up on the expense comments earlier and see if I caught this right. You guys have done a really nice job keeping a lid on that and the recent initiatives. Could you just remind us of those previously announced, are they fully in the run rate now as of the second quarter, or is there more to come?

Mark McCollom
CFO, Fulton Financial

Yeah, they are. They are fully in the run rate. Remember, Russell, when we announced that $25 million, we did say that we were going to invest a portion of that into some of our digital technology initiatives. If you look at our income statement, you can see on the category for data processing and software, you can see the first two quarters of this year. That's been running anywhere from $1 million-$2 million higher per quarter than what our run rate was in the prior year. That's going to be the one offset to those cost savings. Other than that, yes, you should expect them to be fully in the run rate.

Russell Gunther
Analyst, D.A. Davidson

Okay. That's helpful, Mark. I guess as you look out and start thinking about 2022, do you contemplate additional initiatives to continue to keep a tight lid on expenses? Are there opportunities to do something similar going forward?

Mark McCollom
CFO, Fulton Financial

I think there will be constant reinvestment in our franchise, but I don't anticipate there being investment in the franchise that's going to change the trajectory of our expense levels. I would expect at this point that there would be not nominal increases in certain categories, but nothing materially off the run rate that you've seen.

Russell Gunther
Analyst, D.A. Davidson

Okay. That's great. Then just switching gears. Phil, you touched on the buyback a bit in prepared remarks and with the discussion around M&A. How should we think about you guys being active or not with repurchases? Is it more a hope to land a deal and so we shouldn't expect to see you in the market? How are you guys contemplating that?

Phil Wenger
Chairman and CEO, Fulton Financial

I'd say, Russell, it would be driven m ore by the price of our stock. We do think we have enough capital to do a deal and buy back. We want to do both of them at the right price.

Russell Gunther
Analyst, D.A. Davidson

Okay, understood. Phil, thanks for that. Just a reminder as to sort of what that price to tangible book multiple or earn back is for repurchases for you guys.

Mark McCollom
CFO, Fulton Financial

If you look at kind of current levels for us right now, that ends up being a TBV dilution earn back of about 2.2 to two and a half years. If you're kind of in the mid-15s right now, which is fairly attractive relative to certain M&A transactions. It'd be kind of equivalent to buying a bank that's kind of in that more 120-130 tangible book level.

Russell Gunther
Analyst, D.A. Davidson

Yeah. No, absolutely. Okay, guys. Well, thanks for taking my questions. That's it for me.

Phil Wenger
Chairman and CEO, Fulton Financial

Oh, thanks.

Mark McCollom
CFO, Fulton Financial

Thanks.

Operator

Your next question comes from Erik Zwick with Boenning & Scattergood.

Erik Zwick
Analyst, Boenning & Scattergood

Good morning, guys.

Mark McCollom
CFO, Fulton Financial

Hey, good morning, Erik.

Phil Wenger
Chairman and CEO, Fulton Financial

Morning.

Erik Zwick
Analyst, Boenning & Scattergood

First question, I guess for Mark maybe, on your comments about the gain-on-sale margins declining for the residential mortgage. I think you said from kind of that 3% range down to about 185 basis points or so now. Curious, is that largely just market dynamics or has there just been a change with you holding more of those loans on your balance sheet and what you're putting into the secondary market? Curious what's impacted that. I guess second part would just be, do you think those gain-on-sale margins settle out here in this range or is there more downward pressure as we move through the year?

Mark McCollom
CFO, Fulton Financial

I think it's more been, while we have shifted the mix a little bit in terms of our originations, have shifted a little bit from last quarter. They were about 49% purchase, 51% refi. To this quarter, they were 60% purchase, 40% refi. There's been a little bit of a shift in terms of product type. I would say it's more just a demand for product has driven down gain-on-sale margins.

If you look back to where we were sort of first quarter of 2020 and earlier, going back to pre-pandemic, you had a four or five-quarter stretch there where our gain-on-sale spreads were fairly tightly banded between about 135 basis points and 155 basis points. We would expect, our original expectations internally was that it was going to migrate back to that by the end of the year. I think things came down a little bit more quickly than we anticipated in the second quarter. I think where we're going to end up by the end of the year is still going to be in line with our expectations for spreads.

Erik Zwick
Analyst, Boenning & Scattergood

That's great detail. Thank you. The second question from me. Phil, I believe in your prepared remarks, you mentioned that you're bringing more of your workforce back to the office starting in September, but there'll still be a component that works remotely. Curious what that ultimate percentage of employees that will work remotely will be compared to pre-pandemic levels and how that just makes you think about your real estate needs going forward over the mid to long term.

Phil Wenger
Chairman and CEO, Fulton Financial

Pre-pandemic, I'd say we had a few people who worked remotely. As we are moving forward, I'd say 6%-10% of our staff will be fully remote. A big chunk will be hybrid. We will be looking at all our real estate, and I would suspect over time it would decrease.

Erik Zwick
Analyst, Boenning & Scattergood

Great. Thanks for taking my questions today.

Phil Wenger
Chairman and CEO, Fulton Financial

Yep.

Operator

Again, for any questions, please press star, then number one on your telephone keypad. Your next question comes from Matthew Breese with Stephens Inc.

Matthew Breese
Analyst, Stephens Inc.

Good morning.

Phil Wenger
Chairman and CEO, Fulton Financial

Morning.

Mark McCollom
CFO, Fulton Financial

Hey, Matt.

Matthew Breese
Analyst, Stephens Inc.

Hey, I was hoping for a little bit of more detail on the interest rate-sensitive loan portfolio. Last quarter you provided that I think you had $12.6 billion of loans either tied to Prime or LIBOR. How much of that is subject to floors where you wouldn't benefit from higher rates until rate hike two or three? Maybe talk a little bit about the last rate cycle where we really didn't see loan yields inflect until the second or third hike along the way. Any differences this time you expect?

Mark McCollom
CFO, Fulton Financial

Yeah. Matt, we have about $2.5 billion of loans that are currently at their floors. We have total loans with floors is about $4.8 billion. We have no loans that are below their floors. Your question really gets to if there's a rate increase, would we need to see two before a rate impact? The answer is really no on that. We would see sort of the full reset of that with rate increases.

Matthew Breese
Analyst, Stephens Inc.

Okay. We wouldn't see the same delays last time?

Mark McCollom
CFO, Fulton Financial

We would not.

Matthew Breese
Analyst, Stephens Inc.

The other question I had is, residential loans continue to drive or a big portion of the recent loan growth. Balances there are up to 19% of total loans. At what point do we start to see you take your foot off the gas pedal where exposure is enough and where you sell more of the production versus retaining?

Mark McCollom
CFO, Fulton Financial

We continue to be asset sensitive. One of the more asset-sensitive banks that we track in our peer group. We think there's still room to continue putting high quality customer-based mortgages on our balance sheet. We have based on our current origination levels, I think there's capacity to at least through the balance of this year, to continue to do that.

Your trade-off, is that again, right now, year-to-date, we've taken $230 million of production that we haven't sold. We just said in the second quarter, our average gain-on-sale spread was 185 basis points. There's a real short-term impact right there about $3.5 million- $4 million in mortgage banking gains. When you put those loans on your books, you have a year one reserve that you have to put on those residential loans under CECL.

If you assume that those loans are going to stick around on your books for five or seven years, then there's going to be a very material positive impact to your NII, having those mortgages on the books versus, say the alternative right now with that $1.4 billion or $1.5 billion in cash we have and deploying that into MBS. Let's just say, versus those residential mortgages.

Matthew Breese
Analyst, Stephens Inc.

Okay. Could you talk a bit about the securities portfolio outlook for the balance of the year?

Mark McCollom
CFO, Fulton Financial

Yeah. I think I would expect it to stay pretty range-bound from where we ended up in the second quarter. A lot of that depends on obviously, where the 10-year goes, and the last couple of days it's been going the opposite direction. As I said in my prepared comments, we selectively redeployed some of that excess cash into MBS as longer-term rates went up.

We'll continue to be opportunistic to maybe put some of it there. We don't want to extend duration too much in the investment portfolio because our investment portfolio is primarily there as a liquidity tool. Ultimately, we want that excess cash balance to be redeployed into loans as opposed to investment securities.

Matthew Breese
Analyst, Stephens Inc.

Understood. Okay. Last one for me. As I exclude commercial swap fees, the other commercial fee income line items, so merchant card income, cash management, other commercial banking, all really nice quarters, up sequentially. What were the drivers behind those type of fee income improvements?

Curt Myers
President and COO, Fulton Financial

Yeah. I would just point to increased business activity, and underlying transactional activity, as well as effectively managing the earnings credit that would offset any of those fees on the treasury business. We're seeing increased activity in business in all those categories.

Matthew Breese
Analyst, Stephens Inc.

Do you feel like these kinds of levels are sustainable or levels you can grow off of from here?

Curt Myers
President and COO, Fulton Financial

Yeah. We expect them to continue to grow. We'll see what pace they grow, and it'll really be tied to kind of underlying business activity of our customers. We do anticipate them continuing to grow.

Matthew Breese
Analyst, Stephens Inc.

Okay. That's all I had. Thanks for taking my questions.

Mark McCollom
CFO, Fulton Financial

You bet, Matt. Thanks.

Curt Myers
President and COO, Fulton Financial

Thanks, Matt.

Operator

At this time, there are no further questions. I'll hand the call back for closing remarks.

Phil Wenger
Chairman and CEO, Fulton Financial

Well, thanks everyone again for joining us today. We hope you'll be able to be with us when we discuss third quarter results in October.

Operator

That concludes today's conference. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.