Do you want to sit there ?
Hang on.
Yeah, sure. Moving right along. Very pleased to have Truist with us, from the company, Mike Maguire, Chief Financial Officer. We could just put the first ARS question that we've been asking for all the companies. Mike, you know, prepping for this conference, we went through transcripts of kind of other conferences. I'm just going to start with this question. Update on the quarter.
Yeah, update on the quarter is no update. You know, operating environment feels pretty good right now. Still seeing good momentum across our businesses, and our outlook from July is still intact.
I guess that's the... okay, so no change to revenue, fees, expenses.
Yeah, feel pretty good about how the quarter's going and the year as well.
Got it. All right. The second most requested question to ask was, you know, you put out a press release last month about a plan to build 100 new branches, renovating 300 existing branches. Just maybe provide more color. Wasn't that long of a press release on that initiative?
No, it was short and sweet, but I think important. If you think about the branch initiative that we released some information about, I think just the way to interpret that is just another artifact as we think about this transition to offense and focus on growth for the company. We've been talking about our focus on execution, and that's been broad-based, thinking about our funding strategy, which obviously these new branches and the renovated branches will help facilitate, but also some of the hiring we're doing across our corporate banking business, commercial banking, investment banking, wealth, our payments advisors, you name it. I think this is not a new strategy, not something that I think the market would have thought was unexpected, so to speak, but very much in line with our ambition to execute and accelerate our growth and our profitability.
Does anybody think about the financial impact? You mentioned no change in expense guide. Is there any, I assume there's expense impact, but any expense impact beyond what you were thinking? How do we think about the return on the investment or the like?
Yeah, I think it would have been contemplated in our outlook. As we've thought about this year, keeping expense growth to about 1% and our commitment to positive operating leverage this year and beyond, this initiative again would have been contemplated in that outlook. The thing about the DeNovo branching strategy in the broader context of Truist, you think about it, we've got over, or just about, 2,000 units. If you go back in time when we completed the merger, we were closer to 3,000. The first four or five years of the new company have been really focused, at least from a retail distribution perspective, on optimization, consolidation, and the like.
This new phase, where we're once again investing in new DeNovo branches, is in some cases in markets where we simply want to fortify or expand presence, or in other areas where maybe we don't have the right density quotient yet. Places like Austin, Philadelphia, or New Jersey, it's nice to be able to sort of turn the tune into that mode.
Got it. I guess, you know, loan growth was pretty decent the first six months of the year. Maybe just kind of talk to what you're hearing from clients and how's this overall client sentiment?
It's pretty good. I mean, we really, I kind of say late 2024 began to see a little bit of momentum in terms of loan demand and the opportunity that was correlated obviously with our own interest and sort of prosecuting our own growth agenda. We've seen a pretty consistent and pretty positive backdrop around lending. It hasn't been outsized growth, but it's been pretty consistent, and that's been broad-based. We talked about in the second quarter, when we reported earnings, that we saw good growth across our corporate and commercial businesses. We've welcomed a lot of new bankers to the platform in our corporate and commercial business, really driving a lot of new to Truist clients through some of those new teammate acquisitions as well. Of course, our specialty lending and consumer businesses are performing well too.
Historically, in the second and third quarter, they are seasonally pretty productive just based on the businesses we're in there. Sentiment's good. I think there's still some, maybe not the right word, there's still a lot of speculation about whether we're seeing the full impact of tariffs or other policy or the like. By and large, on Main Street, it seems that business owners and consumers have the confidence to make investment decisions and to expand and the like.
I guess the outlook, you've talked about low single digit average loan growth for the year. I'm assuming that still holds. Maybe talk about how to think about that looking out and just kind of big sources of optimism that you're seeing.
Yeah, I feel good about the low single-digit growth outlook for the year. I think to your question, what particular areas maybe? I think relatively broad-based, right? I mean, I think there are certain areas, we're always, as we think about sort of portfolio optimization, we're evaluating the profitability opportunities. You may see us lean in or lean away from certain businesses given competitive dynamics, as an example. You recall back in 2023 when capital was a little bit more scarce, we pulled back a little from some of the prime auto. We're probably a little more cautious there now as well. Mortgage, another area where we've perhaps slowed our appetite a touch. Generally speaking, across all of our businesses, we're prosecuting a growth agenda. I would expect it to be pretty broad-based.
On the consumer side, you're not a big credit card player, but you do have some specialty businesses that others don't. Maybe just talk to your lending strategy and consumer.
Yeah, no, you're right. I mean, our credit card business, relative to our overall size, is relatively small, and by design, we have invested in a number of specialty lending businesses, primarily focused on convenience, you know, as a defensive moat. We've talked about these businesses pretty consistently as strategies that we're quite fond of, and we sort of cover the landscape, at least where we believe there's pretty significant market opportunities. We have our LightStream business, which is the direct-to-consumer, all-digital personal loan product, super prime business, gets a lot of recognition for just the convenience and customer satisfaction. This is very, very quick, easy, same-day funding, 95% auto-pay, truly a financial sort of technology lending offering. We've got our convenience lending businesses that are focused on the point-of-sale. We've got one focused on home improvement and then another on outdoor power equipment and outdoor power sports.
The home improvement business we acquired a few years ago is called Service Finance. That's the one that, through relationships that we have with thousands of contractors, we're at the kitchen table, providing really attractive financing solutions for homeowners that are replacing an air conditioning unit or a roof or a kitchen or you name it. It's simply applying right then and there, getting approved for typically a really nice promotional rate, and having that work be completed. Same thing for a dealership if you're buying outdoor power equipment. It could be a lawn mower or a zero-turn mower. It could be a snowmobile. It could be a small tractor, side-by-side ATV, you name it. We're a leader in all those categories, and we partner with the largest OEMs in the country to provide promotional financing in the dealership.
You pick out the piece of equipment, you're offered promotional financing there at the point-of-sale, and it's done instantly. Clients really love those businesses, and the sort of combination of the relationships and the technology and the service, we believe, is a really nice franchise. Of course, we also have our auto finance businesses, prime and non-prime. I think you were probably maybe most interested in some of the specialized businesses.
Yeah, I guess something you said earlier, a little bit more cautious on the prime auto segment. I guess we've heard others kind of leaning in.
Yeah.
It seems like you're leaning out.
It wasn't a credit comment. It was more around profitability. It's just when it gets a little more crowded and where we see other opportunities to drive, you know, maybe better production margin, we'll just reallocate. Just to be clear, we're not, you know, we're still turned on at our dealers. We're still doing a lot of volume in prime auto. That really is a dial that we can calibrate based on sort of what we see day in and day out. Again, we were a little heavier in production a few months ago than we might be for the next few months.
Got it. And just on deposits, maybe just talk a little bit about the competitive environment, consumer, commercial deposits, what you're seeing in terms of mixed balances, rates.
Yeah. We mentioned in July when we reported that the overall deposit backdrop was competitive, and I still believe that to be true. You know, we have seen nice loan growth through the first half of the year. We do expect that to continue. Deposit growth has lagged a little, and I think there are a couple of dynamics out there that are maybe shaping that. The first is in a moment where loan demand is perhaps a touch ahead of deposit growth, especially in great markets like we serve. I think that does instill perhaps a touch more, all things equal, competition. You do still have QT operating in the background, and so that is a factor as well. Then just the rate environment, right? We still have a funds rate which does seem positioned to ease here sometime soon.
We'll talk about that in a moment, but as it stands today, we're still at a pretty high, historically, funds rate. The degree of rotation around mix you mentioned has been a little bit slower. The ability to think about pricing has probably required a little bit more thought. I think those are all factors. I'll say there's not a more important focus in the company right now for us than good core deposit funding. A lot of our front line understands the mandate around growing earning assets and serving clients and driving capital efficient revenue, et cetera, but we always are sure to incorporate the importance of funding our growth. Those are the marching orders.
Got it. You kind of touched on the interest rate backdrop, but I guess you've talked to NII up 2% in the third quarter, 3% for the year. Maybe just talk to how Truist is positioned from an asset-liability perspective. What's the ideal interest rate environment, and how that plays into your NII thoughts.
We've probably been a little bit of a broken record on this. I think you hear from others too. We do really try to target a relatively neutral position relative to the expected rate path over some period, right? You look today, over the next 12 months, there may be five or six cuts. I don't know what's happening out there. I think some job numbers were revised. Nonetheless, our idea is that if there's five in the outlook, we want to manage the company such that whether it's three or whether it's seven, we feel pretty convicted around at least the rate impact we'll have on our net interest income. We've pretty actively managed that position. That's unchanged since we reported in the second quarter.
Obviously, we're doing a lot of planning around these expected cuts, and to the extent that we get at least two, maybe three cuts this year, we're obviously going to be working really hard to take advantage of that from a pricing perspective, but also taking into consideration the importance of balances and funding growth and thinking about momentum into next year. Yeah, look, rates, I think you've asked like, what's it, I think you asked maybe this was a meeting before I stepped onto the stage, about sort of ideal curve path. Again, very focused on that short end and how that could impact not just rate paid, but also a component of rate paid, just mix and some of the rotation. We're also keeping our eye on that belly of the curve. We've talked a lot about that two, three, four, five-year part of the curve.
That really is where we do the bulk of our lending. Think about all those consumer lending businesses that we just talked about. You look at the two-year today at $3.50, that's going to be where we're repricing. We will still have the benefit of the fixed asset repricing, whether that be the bonds or the fixed rate loans. That's going to be obviously dependent on where the twos, threes, and fives are.
Makes sense. Let me put up the next ARS question while I ask Mike a follow-up. I guess beyond the next couple of quarters, what are some of the key considerations that could affect the trajectory of NII as we begin to model 2026?
Yeah, I mean, I think it's a lot of the same culprits, right? I mean, I think, you know, strong loan supported by core deposit growth is, I think, one of the primary factors. I think the cumulative number of cuts we get between now and next year is going to be really important, not just in terms of sort of a linear function of, you know, beta. The betas will behave differently depending on when and how many cuts we get. The shape of the curve obviously would be an important factor. At the end of the day, you know, the broader economic outlook and how it shapes, you know, some of those balance sheet growth potential items, mixed items is a factor as well. Those are probably the main components.
QT in the backdrop, you know, there's an expectation that that would wind down sometime here in maybe the second half, depending on whether the objectives have been satisfied. I'd say those are the main drivers.
I guess maybe if we could see the results of what the audience thinks is, the audience view is relatively stable NIM as we think through next year. I don't know if you have any perspective.
We talked a little bit in July about this too. We got asked a question about what's a normalized NIM, and we talked about sort of a low 3s percent, three teens type net interest margin, all things equal. I still believe we have an opportunity to expand our net interest margin. You've got tailwinds like just some structural under earning in the securities portfolio, some of the fixed rate loan repricing that we touched on a moment ago, but then there are going to be other factors too. At the end of the day, we're not really a NIM sort of driven shop. We're going to be focused on driving NII dollars, and there might be opportunities. There will be opportunities that are sensible, that are NIM dilutive but NII accretive. In fact, you saw a little bit of that in the second quarter.
We served a couple of clients around some M&A situations where we had larger balances that, all things equal, were they profitable? Yes. Were they significantly dilutive to our NIM? And did they impact and distort our beta? They did, but they were good business choices. We're going to lean into driving NII, and NIM is going to be more of an output. I think we do have an opportunity to continue to expand just based on the totality of the inputs, but expecting them to continue to improve a touch.
All right. Maybe turning to P income, I was hoping we can kind of dive into some of the bigger line items that we look at. You know, investment banking and trading, as a business you invested in over the last several years, maybe, do these investments make you, I guess how are these investments going and just how does that thing play into maybe second half of the year and looking out?
Yeah, it's an important franchise for us. I mean, we have a long, I think successful history in the corporate investment banking and trading space. We have consistently invested in that business. That's been a function of product and trading platforms. It's been the team, the bankers, and we've sort of consistently thought about how do we continue to deliver a fully comprehensive product offering, and to make sure that we're doing it in all the industry sectors that we believe are viable. That build-out is sort of, you know, the journey is never complete. The results in that business have been consistently pretty good for us. We've grown that business historically at a high single digit, low double digit rate. We were disappointed, obviously, by the change in market conditions in the second quarter of this year. We came into the year pretty optimistic.
I think the whole industry was pretty optimistic about the opportunity in investment banking and capital markets. It was disappointing to have that setback in April and May. The good news was that June did really normalize and we're optimistic about the second half of the year. Things are going quite well in that business. If you look at all the various ways that you can measure success there, whether it be influence in particular industries in terms of advising, whether it be market share in different products, or even like syndicate dynamics, like what types of roles are we playing in the number of left lead deals or active roles in capital markets deals really across the board, we continue to creep better and better each year. We're still committed to that.
I feel great about the leadership team there, and the investments that we're going to continue to make.
I guess on the third quarter earnings call, you talked about 5%. I'm sorry, in the second quarter earnings call, you talked about 5% P income growth for the company overall.
Yeah.
In the third quarter, though, driven by investment banking and trading, as we sit here today, is that how you still think about it?
Yeah, banking coming off a pretty easy comp in the second quarter and performing well in the third quarter.
Shifting gears to payments, maybe discuss the opportunity in that business and just kind of the progress we've made with new, kind of, we talked about, new products and initiatives.
Yeah, I'll probably sound like a broken record on this, but we really have consistently been and feel really good about the product portfolio that we've been investing in, in wholesale payments broadly, just sort of maybe say treasury management. I feel great about the product and have also more recently been expanding the sales team and really also just sort of recalibrating the sales culture. I think Kristin Lesher has done a really great job of prioritizing this opportunity for our company. You know, her hiring Kerry Jessani has been a really impactful hire as well. She's deeply expert in payments, works very collaboratively with Chris Ward, who many in the industry know to be a true subject matter expert in wholesale payments as well. We think we have a lot of the ingredients there, right? The opportunity is pretty exciting, and not for all the right reasons, right?
I mean, if you look at the success that we've had historically in penetrating some of these lending relationships with treasury management, it would show you that we've got quite an opportunity. We would expect this business to grow at an outsized clip and will be a really important component, I think, of the progress that we make in terms of its capital efficiency, towards our ROTCE target.
I guess wealth is another area that to us looks like it's a nipping opportunity for Truist. I mean, what are you doing there to grow it and take share? It's obviously a competitive space.
Yeah, very competitive, obviously. This has been a long time business for us as well, and it's been a pretty steady, eddy grower for us. You know, we feel really good about our fleet of advisors. We feel good about our advisor platform. That's important, not just for the clients that they serve in terms of the client experience, but also the advisor experience. We think we have the table set there. The big opportunity for us in wealth, and you'll hear Kristin and Dontá both talk about this because it's a collaboration, is thinking about how we do a better job penetrating this premier, consumer client opportunity that we have. There are so many of our clients who are deeply loyal and do a lot of sort of meat and potato banking with us, but that maybe have AUM off us.
Our ability to improve the trust that we have with those clients and better and more fully serve those clients with a wealth offering is a huge opportunity. That in and of itself would be, if, you know, varying degrees of success could be quite impactful. I think that's the primary focus in terms of growth. Of course, just doing a great job for our existing clients and bringing new clients and advisors to the platform.
If we could put up the next ARS question, maybe shift the gears to expenses. Two years ago at this event, you know, Bill rolled out a new expense initiative. Since expenses have been fairly controlled, I mean, I think for this year you're targeting 1% growth for the year, 1% for the quarter. Maybe talk a bit more just from how you've been able to manage costs at such a low growth rate.
It's a good reminder. I guess this is where I would have gone is I would have said a couple of years ago, we put quite a bit of energy and focus and developed quite a bit of routine and intensity around cost management. I think through the course of that and executing on that program and thinking about continuous improvement and continuous maintenance of our cost profile, we just feel like we have a lot more confidence and control around managing expenses. The way we think about it, sort of year in and year out, is we very systematically work with our leaders, both our businesses and our functions, to identify activities again in every given year that are the least valuable activities, right?
If you start every year and you sort of say, okay, what are the 2% or 3% of my current cost base that frankly are wasted activity or it's redundant or it's no longer as productive or it can be done more efficiently, whatever it might be, we sort of subtract that from the equation. That's what gives us the capacity. Plus, some modest amount of growth that should be correlated to the revenue opportunity that we expect, where we can take those same dollars and reallocate them now to the top of the house and say, what are the most valuable activities that we think we can invest in? Hey, Kristin, hey, Dontá, hey, Steve Hageman, who runs technology and operations for us, what are the activities that are going to drive the most value for shareholders? That swap set, so to speak, is sort of the magic.
We believe that we're going to be able to continue to manage expenses in a disciplined way. That also is being done in a way that creates the right amount of capacity to support the business initiatives that are going to drive the improvements in our results.
Helpful. I guess, you know, when we think about, you know, you're probably starting the 2026 budgeting process. I mean, how should we think about the opportunity to drive or keep this low rate of growth, drive further improvement in the efficiency ratio? Just how are you approaching that dynamic?
Maybe I've just answered that question a little bit. I'll expand. I don't think that we necessarily target an efficiency ratio, so to speak, for next year, but I do think I have a high level of confidence that we're going to be able to continue to manage expenses in a way that's going to be consistent with the commitments we've made around continuing to generate positive operating leverage, hopefully more positive operating leverage over time, right? I think one of the opportunities we have, if you do think about the efficiency ratio, again, I don't spend a lot of my time thinking about the efficiency ratio, but for Truist over the next couple of years, I think one of the primary improvements to the efficiency ratio should be driven by revenue, expanding the revenue base. Hopefully that helps.
On that point, you pointed to 50- 150 basis points of positive operating leverage for 2025. As you look out, maybe you could do better than that. Any particular kind of number in mind?
I think we have a number in mind, and I think the market conditions will dictate what makes sense at any given point. I don't want to be specific about plans for 2026 because, as you said, they are still coming together. We do feel confident in our ability to drive positive operating leverage next year. We do feel like it's going to be important for us to invest in growth in the business as well.
The buy-side consensus seems to be up 1%- 3% or so for next year as you think about your budget.
With that, expenses?
Yeah.
Okay.
I guess asset quality, maybe just talk to what areas of the portfolio you're watching more closely, anything you're pulling back in due to credit.
Oh, gosh, credit? Still quite benign, right? I mean, we really aren't seeing any negative signal out of our portfolio through intra-quarter monitoring. You saw we took our charge-off guide for the year down a touch in the second quarter, down from 60 basis points to a range of 55- 60 basis points. We're not seeing any, even anecdotally, you don't see pressure in our C&I portfolios, for example, based on tariffs or other factors. Actually, it's quite good. I mean, we've talked a lot about, and I'm not sure you're asking for many more details about our commercial real estate office portfolio. We felt like we were off to a very quick and assertive start in managing that portfolio and feel very good about how that's developing as well. A little bit of a watch item, broadly speaking, on maybe the lower tiers of consumer.
We don't have a ton of exposure there. We mentioned our card portfolio is quite small and our specialty lending businesses tend to be super prime. So, 750, 760, 770 FICO type stuff, regional acceptance being the exception to that. In the places where we're making modifications to credit policy, it's small stuff on the consumer side. It's, do we want to finance that age of collateral? Do we want to go up to 240 months in that product or 144? It's nits and nats.
Got it. We'll put up the next ARS question as we shift the discussion to capital. Choices obviously have taken some actions to improve the balance sheet, the capital strength of the company. Maybe just remind us what your kind of top capital priorities are.
We've been consistent on this, especially since last year. First and foremost, growing the franchise, right? We believe we are in a position of relative capital strength and flexibility and are very focused on driving just the balance sheet growth and support of our core clients. The dividend obviously would be our second priority, very important to our investors. Third, I'd say the buyback, we remain committed to an elevated buyback. Lastly, acquisitions.
Got it. I guess on that, you know, Truist opted not to raise its dividend at least so far, coming out of the stress test. Any kind of thoughts around that, and how should we just think about that going forward?
I think we have a, if you look at our dividend payout ratio, it's a touch elevated, relative to where I think we'd like to see it, where you might over a longer period like to see it. I think in our minds, and we've begun to talk a little bit more about this, getting to a point where roughly half, and this could remix of a total payout ratio, might be a dividend and the rest, the buyback, and then of course the residual being reinvested in the business. You could see a scenario where sort of a 30%- 40% dividend payout ratio and sort of an equivalent payout ratio related to buybacks and then the difference being investment in the business could be a nice operating philosophy. If you look at our dividend payout ratio today, we're closer to 50%.
I think we should very quickly with some earnings acceleration grow into that and perhaps have an opportunity to revisit that dividend. In the immediate term, I think it's appropriate at $0.52 a quarter.
You use the phrase elevated share repurchase. Is that $500 million a quarter number the right way to think about it?
That's where it's been. I think what we've said is we're comfortable, you know, at that 100%, and even in some quarters, you know, over a 100% payout ratio, over some period of time. You know, we recognize that we have, you know, a little more flexibility, just given current capital position. Look, we believe that Truist, where it trades, is a very attractive investment.
Got it. The room does like share repurchase, but interestingly, acquisitions don't appear off the table. Maybe just talk about, obviously the company's done both predecessor organizations, large acquisitions over the years, and did a big one to come together. Just your kind of thoughts on bank acquisitions as the environment appears a little bit easier. There are a couple of trillionaire banks out there that could probably use some more competition from some of these regionals getting together. You can also maybe talk to non-banks.
Yeah, I mean, without a doubt, we, like you all, have observed there's obviously much more activity and it seems all of a sudden. It does seem that the overall deal-making backdrop is improved and easier. I don't think short-term that changes our focus. Our focus really is on improving Truist's profitability and accelerating growth. We think we have an outsized organic opportunity and would be a little bit reluctant to distract ourselves in the short term. I think that goes for non-bank deals as well. They can be relatively expensive and can come with a lot of execution risk as well. It's very hard to find sort of A assets in that category that don't present a lot of execution risk. We're mindful of the opportunity. We do believe we've got a scale advantage. It's funny, I think in an earlier conversation, someone sort of phrased a similar question.
They were talking about all the much larger companies. I said that might be true, but in the grand scheme of things, looking up, you see six or seven companies. Looking down, you see thousands. We are still in rare air and do believe we're realizing economies of scale. That's my answer.
That's a good point. Last year at this conference, you know, Bill announced a new medium term, mid-teens ROTCE target. Maybe just talk to the initiatives and strategies in place that should help you get there.
Yeah, we've touched on several of them, right? At the end of the day, driving more capital-efficient revenue through our franchise is the answer. The work that Kristin and Kerry are doing to expand and grow our corporate and commercial banking business with an emphasis on supporting the payments business is going to be a really important factor to drive not just sort of NII growth, but also fee income growth. That's not just payments, by the way. As you can imagine, these corporate banking clients obviously have diverse wallets that span interest rate risk and currency risk and commodities and the likes. Our platform is well situated to be sort of deployed against those opportunities. We're excited about that. We talked about some of the fee businesses that continue to grow and that we continue to invest in. Investment banking will have a role. Wealth will have a role.
Our focus on the consumer side on the premier opportunity, again, just taking existing households and taking either liquidity or assets under management from off us to on us. Deepening is going to be a huge component of that. The focus on deposit. It's not one thing. Fortunately, it's a portfolio of items that we believe from a business initiative perspective are all viable, are all measurable, and should be areas where we believe we have a high level of confidence that we can execute against, will each be sort of bricks that build the house. Of course, as well, there's some capital optimization work that we'll be doing in the background as well, whether it be RWA, density management, and capital management.
Since that time, the regulatory supervisory backdrop feels to be getting easier. Are there any noticeable changes or just how you're thinking about the landscape over the next couple of years?
Just broadly regulatory? Yeah. Yeah, look, I mean, you brought up one point already, which is, you know, there does seem to be a much more open-mindedness around consolidation. That's obviously something that we can all sort of see and taste and feel. I'd say also, broadly speaking, it'll be interesting for us to get a, you know, we do still at some point expect to see a new rule, a Basel III endgame rule. What we hear, which is similar to, I'm sure, what you and others hear, is a different tone than what we would have heard 12, 18 months ago. That's, I think, a positive. I think broadly speaking, we're very satisfied with the relationship we have with our supervisors. It's constructive. It's, I think, an appropriate tone. It helps us strengthen our business every day.
I'd just say overall, that backdrop seems to have evolved in a positive and constructive way.
I guess when we think about our conversation today relative to, you know, the one maybe we had a few years ago, and a lot of work to be done to simplify the company, capital is in a much better position. The market may or may not appreciate that. Just maybe talk to in terms of kind of just how you feel about Truist's positioning in the marketplace and, you know, what you've been done, what needs to get done.
I mean, I think the punchline on us, thanks for the opportunity, is the obstacles are removed, right? There were moments in the recent past when we've talked about an interruption related to the merger, or maybe it was a macro interruption, the banking crisis, or it was a retention issue. Many of the things that we've been asked about over the last three or four years are all gone. There are no reasons why we can't and why we won't or shouldn't deliver great products to deeply loyal clients who want to work with us. The attitude of our firm is significantly better than it's ever been as Truist. When I say attitude, I mean, what is the mindset of the wealth advisor, the commercial banker, the corporate banker, the payments consultant, the technologist, the HR teammate, the overall attitude is optimistic. It's growth-oriented.
We used to joke when we came to your conference a couple of years ago, I remember sort of telling investors who were challenging us and asking us questions about expenses. We said, hey, if you sort of mystery shopped us and snuck into our building and rode in an elevator and got off on a random floor and just grabbed somebody wearing a purple t-shirt, what they're focused on, they would have said expenses, capital management, very defensive. If you did the same thing today, people would, without a doubt, across the board say we're focused on growth. I think that sort of says it all.
That's a perfect way to leave it. Please join me in thanking Mike for his time today.
Thank you.