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Earnings Call: Q2 2022

Jul 21, 2022

Operator

Welcome to the Metropolitan Commercial Bank second quarter 2022 earnings call. Hosting the call today for Metropolitan Commercial Bank are Mark DeFazio, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Greg Sigrist, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Today's call is being recorded. At this time, all participants have been placed in a listen-only mode, and the floor will be open for your questions following the prepared remarks. If you would like to ask a question at that time, please press star one on your touch-tone phone. If at any point your question has been answered, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing the pound key. We ask that you please pick up your handset to allow optimal sound quality. Lastly, if you should require operator assistance, please press star zero.

During today's presentation, reference will be made to the company's earnings release and investor presentation, copies of which are made available at mcbankny.com. Today's presentation may include forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially. Please refer to the company's notices regarding forward-looking statements and non-GAAP measures that appear in the earnings release. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Mark DeFazio, President and Chief Executive Officer. You may begin.

Mark DeFazio
President and CEO, Metropolitan Commercial Bank

Good morning and welcome to MCB's second quarter earnings call. MCB celebrated its 23rd anniversary in June, and I am pleased to announce at this time record quarterly earnings and return on average tangible common equity of 16.7%. Our business thesis to assist clients in building and sustaining generational wealth has been the foundation of our growth and success. That focus is evident in our long history of strong credit quality, low charge-offs, and the strength of our long-term financial performance. Our liquidity position remains strong. We have a proven track record on efficiently funding balance sheet growth. We have also maintained our pricing discipline, as is evident in our NIM expansion.

It should be noted that along with dealing with a higher rate environment, we are already preparing for when the Fed will reverse its course by reversing its course by lifting out floors on floating-rate loans along with resetting rates on automatic renewals. MCB has a solid track record of not breaching its floors. Loan floors have historically been an instrumental strategy for us in managing NIM when rates declined to near zero. I would like to also remind all investors that MCB's internal policy is to limit the use of crypto-related deposits to 50% of the total available for investment or lending. However, as we've stated many times over the past few years, due to the volatility in this asset class, MCB has maintained 100% of crypto-related deposits in our Federal Reserve account.

We are comfortable with our liquidity position and our proven ability to efficiently source funding to maintain loan growth and our investment strategy. Again, as a branch-light franchise, we have spent 23 years focused on the liability side of the balance sheet to not only fund the growth of the bank, but to protect against economic and industry disruptions. Now for some financial highlights as compared to where we were a year ago. Operating leverage continues to be sustainable, with revenues up 44%. Non-interest expense up 21% and our efficiency ratio dropped to 42.2% from 50.3%. Total loans were $926 million or 27%. Total deposits were up $890 million or 17%, including DDAs, which were up $676 million or 24%.

For our Global Payments Group, revenues were up 36% from the second quarter of 2021. Second quarter 2022 transaction volumes were 29.1 million, up 29% from the second quarter of 2021. While the dollar volume of transactions was up 47% to just over $8 billion. MCB, together with its partners, is well positioned to build out a scalable and profitable digital retail platform within a commercial bank. Choosing the right clients to work with, along with working closely with our regulatory partners, is essential in delivering 21st century efficient financial services, which is available to all consumers. Lastly, I do want to touch briefly on Voyager, as I know this is on many of your minds. It's unfortunate that Voyager found themselves in a situation that required them to file Chapter 11.

I have been very clear for several years now that MCB has pivoted away from actively growing our crypto business, with the caveat that we were well positioned to benefit from volatility without putting the bank at undue risk. The primary service MCB is providing Voyager's exchange platform is an omnibus account in which all Voyager's customers' funds are held. Funds from digital asset trades settle in this account in local USD currency. The funds are segregated from the corporate funds and offer the benefit of Voyager's customers, which is why we also refer to this as an FBO account. As a result of the bankruptcy, the funds are temporarily stayed from being released in the normal course of business. On July fourteenth, Voyager filed a motion in court asking the judge to lift the stay on these funds.

I am hopeful that the judge will agree to the order, thereby allowing the funds to be released upon request to Voyager's customers seeking withdrawal from their funds. MCB held $455 million in Voyager related deposits in the FBO account at June 30th including $356 million of in the FBO account balances. The FBO balance is currently at $272 million. We have a reserve account which holds $24 million and general corporate funds of $70 million. Voyager is optimistic that they will come out of bankruptcy and continue with their growth plan. Notwithstanding the strategy of recovery, Voyager represents less than 3% of GPG's revenue or roughly 0.25% of total MCB revenue, which is clearly de minimis to MCB. I will now turn this call over to Greg.

Greg Sigrist
EVP and CFO, Metropolitan Commercial Bank

Thank you, Mark, and good morning, everyone. The loan growth we've seen in the first half of 2022 has certainly laid the foundation for our earnings expansion, with net income of $23.2 million or $2.07 fully diluted earnings per share and EPS up 22.5% from the first quarter. Let me take you through a few of the key drivers. The commercial banking momentum we saw to start the year certainly carried over into the second quarter with net loan growth of $253.7 million or 6.2%, bringing year-to-date net loan growth to 17.2%. Loan originations were a record $513 million in the quarter, up 5% from a strong first quarter and up 93% from a year ago. Volumes are strong across our verticals.

Credit quality remains strong with no charge-offs to date in 2022 and non-performing loans effectively at zero. The credit provision was driven by the strength of our loan production. Turning to deposits, I would like to give you some color on flows for the quarter. Retail deposits, including those with loan customers, increased $175.6 million on the strength of our client engagement during what has obviously been an interesting rate environment. The growth in this vertical speaks volumes on the strength of our customer base, especially when you consider the muted impact to this point on deposit betas. We saw strong inflows of $64 million related to our GPG debit card programs and $143.8 million from digital currency related customers.

These inflows were partially offset by $51.2 million in outflows related to bankruptcy trustees and specialty deposits, which have generally been expected given the nature of these deposits, as well as $93.1 million in outflows from property managers as some customers diversified their longer term cash reserves into higher yielding treasury products. Our liquidity position remains robust with 19% of total assets in overnight deposits and total on balance sheet liquidity at nearly 34% of total assets. When excluding 50% of crypto related deposits as I discussed, total on balance sheet liquidity remains strong at 26% of total assets. Net interest margin was up 56 basis points in the quarter to 3.27%, due in large part to the deployment of liquidity into loans and securities and to a lesser extent, the benefit of higher rates.

A substantial portion of loans subject to floors have lifted off their respective floors, with $408 million remaining to lift off at June 30. Of those loans, 70% will lift off by the time their reference rates increase 50 basis points, with another 20% lifting off by the time rates are up 100 basis points. The majority of those loans will lift off with next week's expected rate increase. Transaction volumes were up modestly quarter-over-quarter in our global payments business. GPG revenue was down slightly in the quarter, given a higher level of non-transactional revenues recorded in the first quarter. As a reminder, you know, these types of revenues include onboarding fees for new programs, FX revenues, and certain expense reimbursements.

Non-interest expense continues to be well managed as we have focused on driving return on investments made previously, particularly in human capital and technology. Other expense did increase in the quarter, driven almost entirely by CRA qualifying grants and charitable contributions. We were quite pleased to be able to fund a number of initiatives in the quarter. Touching on taxes briefly, we would expect the effective tax rate for the balance of the year to be in the range of 31%-32%, excluding the impact of discrete items recognized in the first quarter. Our capital levels remain very strong, with all capital ratios significantly above well-capitalized levels. Our Tier One leverage ratio was 9.2% at June 30. Overall, we've had a strong first half of the year reflecting the sustained growth and performance across our businesses.

I will now turn the call back to our operator for Q&A. Bear with us as we may be having some technical difficulties.

Operator

The floor is now open for questions. At this time, if you would like to ask a question or comment, please press star one on your telephone keypad. If at any point your question has been answered, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing star two. Again, that is star one if you would like to ask a question. Thank you. Our first question will come from Alex Lau with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Alex Lau
VP, JPMorgan Chase & Co

Hi, good morning.

Greg Sigrist
EVP and CFO, Metropolitan Commercial Bank

Morning, Alex.

Alex Lau
VP, JPMorgan Chase & Co

Starting off with loan growth. Very strong loan growth in the quarter. This already brings you to the 17% range from year-end. This is similar to, like, the prior two years. Do you think you can grow this portfolio even above that 20% or more this year, given the strong growth already?

Mark DeFazio
President and CEO, Metropolitan Commercial Bank

You know, Alex, as we always said, you know, we're very opportunistic. We're very focused more on asset quality and managing our loan yields. To the extent the opportunity presents itself, I would expect we could see historical trends continue to pull forward. We also have a very strong pipeline as well. We're very fortunate, but we are really erring on the side of caution more than anything else at this point. As I said, the pipeline is strong and we feel good about finishing out the year.

Alex Lau
VP, JPMorgan Chase & Co

Thanks, Mark. Are there any notable paydown activities expected to offset some of that loan growth for the year?

Mark DeFazio
President and CEO, Metropolitan Commercial Bank

Sure. We enjoy payoffs and amortization, so we would expect a fair amount of amortization throughout the second half of the year. Of course, we experience a significant amount of amortization and payoffs in the first six months as well.

Alex Lau
VP, JPMorgan Chase & Co

Thanks. Just another one on loan growth. How much of your growth this quarter was from in your New York metro markets, and then how much was, like, outside of the market? Thank you.

Mark DeFazio
President and CEO, Metropolitan Commercial Bank

Alex, I may-

Alex Lau
VP, JPMorgan Chase & Co

Go ahead, Mark.

Mark DeFazio
President and CEO, Metropolitan Commercial Bank

Okay. I'm sorry. Alex, I may have to get back to you on that. I don't have that breakout. I could say one thing. It's not inconsistent with historical trends. You know, we are somewhat of a national lender, but I don't recall any outlier in any particular geographic area. I think we are clearly holding to our geographic historical patterns.

Alex Lau
VP, JPMorgan Chase & Co

Thank you. I'll step back in the queue.

Operator

Thank you. Next on the line we have Christopher O'Connell with KBW. Your line is open.

Christopher O'Connell
Director, KBW

Morning, good morning. How are you?

Greg Sigrist
EVP and CFO, Metropolitan Commercial Bank

Hey, Chris.

Good morning, Chris.

Christopher O'Connell
Director, KBW

Hey. Let me just, you know, walk through the Voyager math and just, you know, get as much color there as possible. I think you said the total balance is $455 million, with $356 of that being the FBO account. Like, under the assumption, you know, that order is allowed, can we assume that the $356 million, you know, would fall, you know, pretty rapidly off the balance sheet in the third quarter, and then that remaining, you know, $70 million or $100 million or so, you know, is at risk of trailing off, you know, in the near future, depending on how things go?

Mark DeFazio
President and CEO, Metropolitan Commercial Bank

Chris, in my remarks, I did pull forward the $356 million was as of June thirtieth, but I did pull forward in my remarks that the current FBO balance is only 272, $272 million, and we have a reserve account which holds $24 million, and general corporate funds are about $70 million. To the extent the stay is lifted and Voyager clients withdraw their funds, you're talking about $272 million potentially leaving the bank over some period of time.

Christopher O'Connell
Director, KBW

Okay. Got it. I'm assuming the plan is for, you know, just to have that directly fall out of the, you know, cash balances, which is, you know, why you guys keep them there in the first place.

Mark DeFazio
President and CEO, Metropolitan Commercial Bank

That's correct. They're all sitting at the Fed, as we said.

Christopher O'Connell
Director, KBW

you know, I hear your comments on, you know, the rest of the factors, you know, with the deposit base, you know, some pluses and minuses there. you know, given the shift in the, you know, crypto environment and, you know, there's been, you know, kind of volatility both ways, how do you feel about the non-Voyager crypto deposits, you know, and how those are trending, you know, going into the second half of 2022, as well as kind of overall GPG deposits? I guess kind of like couching that into, like, how are you guys thinking about overall deposit growth, for the second half of the year?

Mark DeFazio
President and CEO, Metropolitan Commercial Bank

Let's unbundle that. Talking about crypto-related deposits. You know, in speaking with the other clients that we have that hold deposits similar to Voyager on our balance sheet, none of them are in a leveraged position. They are a traditional exchange platform which is fee based and custody platforms, which is also fee based. Their balance sheets are strong, their current liquidity positions are strong. They are crypto long. They believe in this asset class being around for a very long time. They are managing their business like we're all managing our businesses today in such a rate environment and a slowdown in transaction volumes.

They are well positioned to see themselves through this and see where this asset class actually lands, over the next, you know, 12-24 months. I would be unless there's a major disruption in the value or to the industry or to the value of digital assets over the next 24 months. I think there's a fair amount of stickiness to the remaining deposits we have on balance sheet. Now, I caveat that with a major correction in the asset class or a major reduction in values, further than where we came to over the last month. As far as GPG, general GPG, we all have to remember that's a marathon. You know, that's building a digital retail bank within a commercial bank.

Retail -- anybody familiar with retail banking, it's one client at a time. Those clients are very sticky, and they're very scalable. Our partners, our fintech partners are out there with great marketing plans and strategies for client acquisition. We would expect a consistent contribution from GPG month-over-month, quarter-over-quarter. You really have to look at it year-over-year because, you know, they are -- as the economy slows down, consumers will spend less. Therefore you may see, you will see less transaction volumes. You may even see some lower deposit betas there because if unemployment rises. You know, the GPG business is traditional retail banking, so they are not immune to a slowdown in the economy.

They're not immune to a higher unemployment rate. Traditional akin to any bank that has a larger retail operation as well. The only caveat here is we don't lend. We have no consumer lending on the platform. As far as MCB's commercial deposit opportunities, as our balance sheet continues to grow, we're very fortunate to work with high net worth individuals who enjoy working with MCB. We're deepening those relationships as you saw again this quarter. Our teams, our lending teams and our cash management teams are out there every single day working hard to continue to drive another low-cost deposit vertical for us.

We're fairly confident, you know, year-over-year, less quarter-over-quarter, but more year-over-year, that we will continue to be a very efficient branch-like franchise.

Christopher O'Connell
Director, KBW

Okay. Got it. That is helpful. Thank you. On the expense side, you guys mentioned a couple of items on, you know, CRA investments, you know, and charitable contributions this past quarter. How much was that? Is that more one-time in nature? Will that be falling off in the third quarter?

Greg Sigrist
EVP and CFO, Metropolitan Commercial Bank

Just give me a second, Chris, to go to the right page here. It was close to. I think the delta was close to $1 million in the quarter. I think going forward it's gonna come down, you know, probably normalize $600,000 or $700,000 lower than that. You know, again, we had some opportunities this quarter to fund some initiatives there we were very pleased to be able to participate in.

Christopher O'Connell
Director, KBW

Got it. Can you just remind us on, you know, how you think about, you know, the overall outlook on the licensing fee line, you know, from here?

Greg Sigrist
EVP and CFO, Metropolitan Commercial Bank

Yeah. I mean, as you know, there's a component of that that is tied to rates. It's also tied to, you know, some of the deposit volumes that really helps underlie the bankruptcy trustee deposits. I think it's a one where we're gonna have to look at it as we go through time, just given the rate environment. That's what I could say at this point in time.

Christopher O'Connell
Director, KBW

All right. I mean, like, all else equal, is a move similar to the move that we saw this quarter a good bogey for the third quarter given, you know, expected rate moves?

Greg Sigrist
EVP and CFO, Metropolitan Commercial Bank

From what I know right now, yeah. I probably need to sharpen my pencil though, Alex, I'm sorry, Chris, and come back to you on it.

Christopher O'Connell
Director, KBW

Okay. Got it. As far as, you know, GPG fees, you know, outside, you know, that was a very helpful color on you know, the Voyager component of that in the opening comments. How? What's the outlook or how do you see, you know, the non-Voyager-related GPG fees trending in the back half of this year?

Mark DeFazio
President and CEO, Metropolitan Commercial Bank

I think they're pretty consistent. As I said, it does depend a lot on the economy. These are consumers on the other side of these retail products, so if they stop spending or deposit flows come down, you'll see a bit less revenue. But we haven't seen any real headwinds there yet with unemployment still down quite a bit. You know, we're seeing new client acquisition every day with our fintech partners. I think we're in a good place to finish the year very strong based on the strategies our partners have.

Christopher O'Connell
Director, KBW

Okay, great. Lastly, I know this is gonna be a tough one. Any color, any kind of, you know, near-term thoughts given, you know, the Voyager movement expected in the third quarter, and cash coming down with that, but, you know, pretty substantial mix shift, you know, throughout this quarter, as to kind of, you know, what happens to the margin next quarter? I mean, obviously up, but, you know, just any type of help in, you know, clarifying where you guys think that could land.

Greg Sigrist
EVP and CFO, Metropolitan Commercial Bank

Yeah, that's a hard one. There's too many moving parts for me to give you. As you know, we typically wouldn't give forward guidance on margin anyway, right? I think what you can rest assured on is, you know, we're really focused on efficiently funding the balance sheet, you know, and efficient capital usage. You know, I think you're really going to see that come through with continued NII expansion, Chris. I mean, you have to think about what's really driving that expansion, which has been the lending side of the sheet and just the success we've had growing the overall balance sheet.

You know, you even thinking through moving, losing some of the overnight deposits, you know, you saw in the second quarter, we were able to grow through some of the deposit contraction we had in the first quarter, really just by the lending side of the sheet. You're also, again, back to the margin, going to start to see the uptick on, you know, the asset side loans and to a much lesser degree, securities, just given most of those are fixed rate, given that we are so asset sensitive. You know, I think on the other side of the sheet, though, and your next question is probably just the deposit betas. We're going to be. I mean, we're very fortunate. Mark should have commented with the deposit franchise we've got.

I think going forward you have to assume that, you know, market's going to drive the rates and, you know, we're not going to be able to hold deposit betas at zero forever in this up rate environment. As you know, I think we talked about this before, the interest rate sensitivity tables we put in the IR deck do have a 70% beta baked into them. Even at that, what I would call high level, you'd still see the NII expansion, right? Just the overall efficiency of the funding. You know, I'll pause there. Mark, anything else you would add to that?

Mark DeFazio
President and CEO, Metropolitan Commercial Bank

No, I think you covered it well, Greg. Again, we're going to get some benefit as well, you know, coming off of our floors this quarter as well coming up. No, I'm pretty comfortable that we'll have some management to our NIM throughout the rest of the year.

Greg Sigrist
EVP and CFO, Metropolitan Commercial Bank

Yeah. I think what Mark just touched on too, with the floors again, we're already positioning, you know, thinking about what happens in the next rate down environment, you know, Chris, as we go through this. We're not, you know, thinking there's any demonstrable shift we need to do to position the balance sheet for rates up. It's really, you know, again, we feel pretty good with the structural benefit of those floors. We in the back of our minds have that eventuality of rates down in the back of our minds as we kind of roll through the operating environment.

Christopher O'Connell
Director, KBW

Got it. Absolutely. Appreciate all the color. Thank you.

Greg Sigrist
EVP and CFO, Metropolitan Commercial Bank

I'll send it out.

Operator

Thank you. Next, again, we have Alex Lau with JPMorgan for follow-ups. Your line is open.

Alex Lau
VP, JPMorgan Chase & Co

Following up on deposit costs. Interest bearing deposit costs were stable in the quarter. Can you talk about your expectations for when that should start picking up based on what you're seeing from your customers and also competition?

Greg Sigrist
EVP and CFO, Metropolitan Commercial Bank

Yeah, I just touched on that.

Mark DeFazio
President and CEO, Metropolitan Commercial Bank

You know.

Greg Sigrist
EVP and CFO, Metropolitan Commercial Bank

Go ahead, Mark.

Mark DeFazio
President and CEO, Metropolitan Commercial Bank

No, no, go ahead, Greg. I apologize.

Greg Sigrist
EVP and CFO, Metropolitan Commercial Bank

No, it's okay. I think I just touched on that a little bit with Chris, my response there. You know, I think going forward, you clearly see more conversations going on, even with the, you know, the high quality client base we've got around rates. You know, we've been very successful to this point, you know, just being efficient and patient. I think the market's going to drive that going forward. You know, we're not in a mass, you know, affluent marketplace. We don't have a lot of retail, you know, small dollar balance retail accounts. These are more, you know, high net worth, ultra high net worth customers and commercial clients, which I think is going to drive some of the outcome here.

Again, I think you're going to start to see betas lift off of zero. Where it lands, you know, north of that as we kind of go through the next couple of rate increases, it's hard to tell, Alex. Again, I think, you know, I would expect to still see some level of NIM expansion just given that, you know, we are asset sensitive and, you know, over 40% of the loans are effectively going to be, you know, floating rate loans by the time we see a rate move next week. I hope that helps.

Mark DeFazio
President and CEO, Metropolitan Commercial Bank

Yeah. Alex, the other thing to keep in mind, Alex, we don't expect to do anything programmatic. You know, we deal with a rate discussion on a case by case basis. We should not be shocked with any major shift going forward.

Alex Lau
VP, JPMorgan Chase & Co

Thank you. That's helpful. When you think about your deposit beta, do you have the prior cycle to date deposit beta from the last rising rate cycle? Where do you expect to land around this time relative to that?

Greg Sigrist
EVP and CFO, Metropolitan Commercial Bank

You know, Alex, I actually don't have that on my fingertips. It's kind of I think it's hard to, you know, use that as a predictor for this cycle as well, just given the pace and the size of the individual raises. I'm not sure even if I had it on my fingertips, it would be terribly helpful to you. I think Mark's point though is the right one, which is, again, we're not expecting any large programmatic shifts across the verticals. We're going to continue to focus on longer term, you know, efficiency of funding, you know, and NII accretion.

Alex Lau
VP, JPMorgan Chase & Co

Got it. Just following up on the $1.2 billion in deposits from digital asset clients, that was up 13% in the quarter. Can you just explain how balances rose in the current market environment of lower prices, higher transaction volume? Thanks.

Mark DeFazio
President and CEO, Metropolitan Commercial Bank

Just client acquisition. There are still a lot of investors out there that are, as they call themselves, crypto long. You know, putting Voyager aside, who was on a good trajectory if it wasn't for the leverage, you know, the companies that are not leveraged, they're out there with client acquisition. Also there is somewhat of a disruption going on right now in that industry. To the extent that you are in exchange, this is an opportunity for you to capture new client acquisitions. You're going to see some expansion in this business for some time. Where it ends and where it lands as an asset class is a whole nother discussion.

It did not surprise me that there was a little bit of a recovery in this space, because the crypto clients are really out there looking to pick up client acquisition.

Greg Sigrist
EVP and CFO, Metropolitan Commercial Bank

Yeah, I agree with that. I think it's, you know, it's day by day, week by week as well. What we've certainly seen is, over the last couple of months, certainly since the middle of May, underlying investors have come out of a digital asset, whether it's, you know, Bitcoin or a stablecoin and gone into, you know, cash. You know, they've been rotating back in, and typically, you know, buying, you know, another digital asset. What we've not seen is really, you know, people leaving the ecosystem. So to Mark's point, I think it's been a bit more stable than some folks would have expected over this horizon.

Alex Lau
VP, JPMorgan Chase & Co

Thanks. That's very good color. Staying on GPG. Just drilling in on the $5 million in GPG revenue, down $400,000, largely from the crypto GPR business. Is this the one-time revenues you mentioned? And in this line, how does lower prices in crypto impact this fee income stream? Thanks.

Greg Sigrist
EVP and CFO, Metropolitan Commercial Bank

I'll start and Mark can clean me up on the last part of that question. If you go to page 14 of the IR deck, you already pointed out the crypto GPR down a little bit in the quarter. The other one where we saw again some one-time revenues in the first quarter. Sorry, not one time, but just the elevated non-transactional revenues were that top box, which is the GPR card. The other one I'd point out on that page is really the very bottom, which is corporate disbursements. Went from $373 to $517. You know, in the quarter you did see a bit of transaction volume coming down on the crypto GPR cards.

It was actually made up for on volumes across some of the other classes, including the GPR card volumes were up and, you know, notably the corporate disbursements volumes were up as well. I'll pause there and Mark, if you've got any comments on just the pricing side and the stability over time.

Mark DeFazio
President and CEO, Metropolitan Commercial Bank

Yeah. There really isn't any correlation between revenue and the value of a crypto asset. The only correlation is volume. If investors believe the asset class is going to appreciate, they will come out of cash and purchase digital assets, therefore increasing volumes and therefore revenue. You'll see a direct correlation with revenue, but you will also see deposits coming down. In the reverse, if people are exiting the asset class, volumes will go up, transaction volumes go up, therefore a correlation to revenue. Then when they're out of that asset class, cash balances increase if they don't leave, as Greg called it, the ecosystem, permanently.

Alex Lau
VP, JPMorgan Chase & Co

Thank you. There was a smaller piece of GPG income of $ half a million from crypto exchanges. Is that the same regard as your comments about how prices are less relevant and it's more about volume? Thanks.

Mark DeFazio
President and CEO, Metropolitan Commercial Bank

I can't point to that half a million. I don't know where you're pointing to, but our business is all about transactions. Our revenue generators here are all about transactions and fee for retail services.

Greg Sigrist
EVP and CFO, Metropolitan Commercial Bank

Yeah. Quarter-over-quarter, Alex, that crypto exchange OTC went from $133-$135. The bottom box you're looking at again was the corporate disbursement. We'll get that cleaned up on the IR website. We did see that this morning. Just to make the legend a little easier for you.

Alex Lau
VP, JPMorgan Chase & Co

Got it. Thank you.

Greg Sigrist
EVP and CFO, Metropolitan Commercial Bank

You're welcome.

Alex Lau
VP, JPMorgan Chase & Co

On expenses, can you speak to how you're thinking about expense growth for the year, given, you know, strong benefits from higher rates and good growth? What are some of the key investments underway? Maybe how should we think about expense growth for the year?

Greg Sigrist
EVP and CFO, Metropolitan Commercial Bank

Yeah, I mean, as you know, we've talked about consistently, we are a growth company. You know, you did touch on benefits and, you know, the human capital side of the equation. I think you know, we're obviously going to have to make sure we keep pace on the investment with the employees we've got. You know, as a growth company, we are still continuing to, you know, invest in people and bring in people that are going to help us scale and provide stability of revenues as well. Again, I think one of the primary areas of investment on the expense side is going to be in people.

If you look first quarter to second quarter and kind of neutralize for, you know, the lumpy one first quarter expenses, you definitely saw some uptick first to second quarter in that investment. You're gonna see that continue over the balance of the year, maybe accelerate a little bit. As we've talked about technology, the other, you know, big piece we're really focused on. You know, we really haven't done a lot yet in terms of build for where we're headed in that space. I think by the second half of this year, certainly by the fourth quarter, you're gonna see us make some progress there as well.

Again, it's not an outsized spend or any large investment, but it's meaningful for us I think in terms of the operating environment going forward and just the, you know, scalability and sustainability of the businesses. I think more broadly, again, you know, we're not looking at it month-to-month, quarter-to-quarter. You know, we still remain very focused on both, you know, getting a return pretty quickly on our investments in human capital and technology and having that focus on positive operating leverage. But, you know, you're not always gonna see that positive operating leverage, you know, translate into, you know, decreases in the efficiency ratio quarter-to-quarter. You know, you've got to definitely look at that year-over-year.

You've seen the numbers, you've seen the dramatic improvement we made in the efficiency ratio versus the first half of last year, the first half of this year. You know, we're thinking about it more in terms of how do we drive that overall, you know, positive operating leverage and frankly, net income growth. You know, I don't think coming at it the other way, which I know you're going to look at is from the efficiency ratio. I think we're in a range right now. I think over time you're gonna see us continue to work that down. You know, you shouldn't necessarily expect us to do that every quarter, but we're very pleased with the progress we've made over the last year on that.

Alex Lau
VP, JPMorgan Chase & Co

Thank you for that. Thanks for taking my questions.

Greg Sigrist
EVP and CFO, Metropolitan Commercial Bank

You got it, Alex. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Next, we'll go to Christopher O'Connell with KBW for follow-ups. Your line is open.

Christopher O'Connell
Director, KBW

I'm all set. Thank you very much.

Greg Sigrist
EVP and CFO, Metropolitan Commercial Bank

Thank you, Chris.

Christopher O'Connell
Director, KBW

Thank you.

Operator

Once again, that is star one if you would like to ask a question and join the queue. Thank you. This concludes our allotted time for questions. I would now like to turn the call back over to Mark DeFazio for any additional or closing remarks.

Mark DeFazio
President and CEO, Metropolitan Commercial Bank

I would just like to say thank you again for having the confidence in MCB. This is a marathon, and we're very pleased with where we are and what we've accomplished after 23 years, and we're excited about the future as well. Thank you again for taking the time out this morning and look forward to having more face-to-face meetings with our investors in the coming months. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. This does conclude today's conference call and webcast. A webcast archive of this call can be found at www.mcbankny.com. Please disconnect your line at this time and have a wonderful day.

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