Earnings Labs

Fifth Third Bancorp (FITB)

Q3 2021 Earnings Call· Tue, Oct 19, 2021

$50.21

-0.25%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Fifth Third Bancorp third quarter 2021 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speakers’ presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question, please press star, one on your telephone keypad. Please be advised that today’s conference is being recorded. If you require further assistance, please press star, zero. I would now like to turn the conference over to your speaker today, Chris Doll, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Chris Doll

Management

Thank you Operator. Good morning and thank you for joining us. Today we’ll be discussing our financial results for the third quarter of 2021. Please review the cautionary statements in our materials, which can be found in our earnings release and presentation. These materials contain reconciliations to non-GAAP measures along with information pertaining to the use of non-GAAP measures, as well as forward-looking statements about Fifth Third’s performance. We undertake no obligation to update any such forward-looking statements after the date of this call. This morning I’m joined by our CEO Greg Carmichael, CFO Jamie Leonard, President Tim Spence, and Chief Credit Officer Richard Stein. Following prepared remarks by Greg and Jamie, we will open the call up for questions. I’ll turn the call over now to Greg for his comments.

Greg Carmichael

Management

Thanks Chris, and thanks to all of you for joining us this morning. Earlier today, we reported third quarter net income of $704 million or $0.97 per share. On a core basis, we earned $0.94 per share. Once again, we delivered strong and steady financial results while fully supporting our customers, communities and employees. During the quarter, we generated adjusted ROTCE of nearly 19%, which represents the fifth straight quarter exceeding 18%. We generated period-end C&I loan growth of 4% compared to the prior quarter, excluding the impact of PPP. Commercial loan production increased 5% from last quarter, representing the strongest quarter since the fourth quarter of 2019. We generated strong consumer household growth of 3% compared to last year with growth in every region in our footprint, reflected in the continued success of our branch and digital initiatives, and as expected, we generated positive operating leverage on a year-over-year basis. Our performance this quarter reflected strong business outcomes across our franchise, resulting in improved and diversified revenues. This was combined with disciplined balance sheet management, expense management, and yet another quarter of benign credit results. We closed the Provide acquisition and the sale of HSA deposits during the quarter to improve long-term growth and profitability. Provide, a leading fintech company serving healthcare practices, will further accelerate profitable relationship growth. The sale of our HSA deposits is part of our multi-year strategy to simplify the organization and prioritize investments in order to generate differentiated outcomes for our customers and shareholders. Despite continued pressure from low interest rates, adjusted PP&R increased 4% compared to the year-ago quarter, highlighting the strong results from our fee-based businesses in retail, mortgage, commercial, and wealth and asset management. Excluding the impact of PPP, average total loans increased 4% compared to last quarter, reflecting strong commercial…

James Leonard

Management

Thank you Greg, and thank all of you for joining us today. We are very pleased with our financial results this quarter, reflecting focused execution throughout the bank. Our quarterly results included solid revenue growth and continued discipline on both expenses and credit. The reported earnings included a $21 million after-tax benefit, or $0.03 per share from the three items noted on Page 2 of the release. Our strong business performance throughout the bank is reflected in our return metrics. We’ve produced an adjusted ROA of 1.32% and an adjusted ROTCE excluding AOCI of 18.7%. Improvements in our loan portfolio credit quality resulted in a $63 million release to our credit reserves and an ACL ratio of 200 basis points compared to 206 last quarter. Combined with our historically low net charge-offs, we had a $42 million net benefit to the provision for credit losses. Moving to the income statement, net interest income of approximately $1.2 billion increased 2% compared to the year-ago quarter, reflecting the benefits of our balance sheet positioning, continuing benefits from PPP income, and income from our Ginnie Mae forbearance loan purchases. Our NII results relative to the second quarter included a $6 million reduction in PPP income, a $4 million decline in prepayment penalties in our investment portfolio, and the impact of lower earning asset yields partially offset by a higher day count and a reduction in long term debt. Our allocation to bullet and locked-out structures is currently 60% of the total investment portfolio, which is expected to continue to provide ongoing NII protection in this low rate environment. On the liability side, we reduced our interest-bearing core deposit costs another basis point this quarter to 4 basis points. With a highly asset sensitive balance sheet and over $30 billion of excess liquidity, we…

Chris Doll

Management

Thanks Jamie. Before we start Q&A, as a courtesy to others, we ask that you limit yourself to one question and one follow-up, and then return to the queue if you have additional questions. We will do our best to answer as many questions as possible in the time we have allotted this morning. Operator, please open the call for questions.

Operator

Operator

[Operator instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Scott Siefers with Piper Sandler.

Scott Siefers

Analyst

Morning guys, thanks for taking the question.

Greg Carmichael

Management

Morning.

Scott Siefers

Analyst

Just wanted to ask a couple questions on loan growth, which looks like it’s coming back nicely. First, I was hoping you could talk about any differences you’re seeing in demand between your larger and smaller customers. Jamie, I think you had mentioned that production, it sounded pretty strong in both corporate and middle markets, any additional color there? Then second, was just wondering if you could speak to the dynamics you’re seeing in terms of book pricing and structure; in other words, changes to the competitive environment.

Greg Carmichael

Management

This is Greg. Let me start off, and then I’ll flip over to Tim and maybe Jamie. First off, we’re very encouraged with what we’re seeing from a production perspective. We’ve got commercial production in third quarter [indiscernible] was strong at $5.4 billion - that was up from $5.1 billion in second quarter and $5.2 billion in third quarter 2019. We expect that production to continue to be stable going into the fourth quarter, so that’s encouraging. We expect average loans up 1% with PPP and 2% up without PPP, so that’s some strength there. We’re also seeing line utilization tick up a little bit more in our core middle market, which is nice to see that for a change. When you think about our geographies and what we’re seeing right now, from a geography perspective, North Carolina, Texas, Cincinnati, Columbus were our top four markets for commercial loan growth in Q3, which is encouraging. If you look at six regions that had all-time highs, which were very encouraging, with Chicago, Grand Rapids, Columbus, Kentucky, North Carolina and Texas, so that felt really good and we’re starting to see once again some good momentum out there. Net new relationships, something we watch very carefully, brought in 419 new commercial relationships year-to-date. Most of that was in core middle market and some of that in large core, so net-net we’re seeing good progress out there, good performance, encouraged by what we’re seeing to date as we go into the fourth quarter and then into 2022.

Timothy Spence

Analyst

Yes, to add a few points to what Greg mentioned, I had the chance to be out in eight of our 14 regions this past quarter. I think you get really excellent color when you have an opportunity to sit with clients and with bankers. They’re all feeling the shortages as it relates to labor and supply chain. We have hotel operators who are now only cleaning rooms when people leave, as an example. I visited an electronics client out west and asked to see their demo room, and there was nothing but holes in the wall. I said, where’s the equipment, and they had sold all the inventory because they are struggling to get the parts in to be able to fill orders, so all those issues are still real. I think the good news is we are seeing M&A as a catalyst, we’re seeing capex now as a catalyst in particular for businesses that are able to substitute equipment and automation for manual processes, and then bluntly, as Greg mentioned, I think we feel pretty confident that a lot of the improvement we’re seeing is just coming from taking share. The relationship count Greg mentioned would be higher than where we were at prior to the pandemic, so we’ll have taken more new relationships on board this year through nine months than we had in all of 2018 or 2019, just as an example. So there’s good general pick-up there. It would be great to continue to see a little bit more activity as it relates to utilization as folks try to build inventories, and otherwise that’s going to be the wildcard for us.

Greg Carmichael

Management

Jamie, let me add one thing. Scott, also if you look at our verticals, which I should have mentioned this, our largest production, the areas we’re seeing the largest strength in right now is technology and media telecom. Our retailers and financial institutions are all doing well, so we’re seeing some good momentum in those spaces.

James Leonard

Management

Then Scott, to answer the second part of your question in terms of the segments, I think Greg and Tim did a nice summary there. What we’re seeing from a line utilization perspective is that the middle market line utilizations are up almost 1%, whereas corporate banking continues to trend down, so quarter-over-quarter that utilization was stable, and if we want to go into the decimals, it was 31.3 at the end of June and 31.1 as we sat here on September 30, but we are starting to see more borrowing demand and pick-up in the middle market space as opposed to the corporate banking. Then in terms of pricing, while NIM came in as expected, in line with our July guide, we do have the headwind in the C&I yield portfolio because it is very competitive out there. I think for the most part, banks are competing on price and non-banks are competing on structure, so for us, the price headwind comes in just a little bit tighter spreads but also some of the reduction in the LIBOR floor, so you lose some of that excess earnings in this environment but you can perhaps recapture the yield benefit as the Fed starts to move on the front end of the curve, hopefully in the next year to 18 months, so as expected but certainly a headwind when it comes to pricing.

Scott Siefers

Analyst

Yes, okay. Good, thank you very much for all the color.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Peter Winter with Wedbush Securities.

Peter Winter

Analyst · Wedbush Securities.

Good morning. You guys have done a phenomenal job on the securities yields with the rate locks on the cash flows and the bullets, but I’m wondering is this type of securities yield sustainable into next year with the rate locks continuing?

James Leonard

Management

I would say, Peter, we’re inoculated from the rate environment but we’re not immune to it, so as you saw in the numbers this quarter and as we look out even next quarter, it is a steady grind down as we reinvest the cash flows, so that hurts the yield a bit, 10, 15 basis points or so. If you look out on the bullets themselves, they’re at a 2.65 yield with cash flows--I think we’re projecting about $7 billion of cash flows in that portfolio over the next five years, so there will be a step down should rates stay where they are today. Reinvestment yields right now, I think are in the 1.70 to 1.80 range, so barring a curve steepener, it will be a slow but definitely downward trend on the portfolio yield. The good news for us is we’re very well positioned and it is pretty insulated from the environment relative to how the peers have positioned their portfolios.

Peter Winter

Analyst · Wedbush Securities.

Okay, thanks. If I could just follow up on expenses, you’ve had the benefit of those expense initiatives this year, which clearly benefited when looking at the fee income growth relative to the expense growth. Can you just talk about some of the expense opportunities going forward as we go into next year, or has a lot of the low-hanging fruit been realized, and if you could also talk about any inflation pressures looking into next year.

James Leonard

Management

Sure, thanks for the question. One update we have on expense savings in our program for 2022 is that we are targeting $125 million in savings for 2022, and that’s a combination of the lean process automation and intelligent operations, the branch closures - we have 42 branches closing in the first quarter of 2022, and then some smaller vendor savings bundled together, so we’ve tightened the range on that bundle of savings from $100 million to $150 million to $125 million, and then obviously we’re not getting into expense guide for 2022 because we’ll continue to evaluate how much of those savings will be reinvested into sales force expansion on commercial, as well as wealth and asset management. But we feel good about the progress we’re making on the LPA program; in fact, if you look in the press release, buried, I think, at the bottom of Page 14 is an FTE count, and we’re down a couple hundred FTE, even with adding about 100 from the Provide acquisition, and that’s starting to show the benefit of that LPA savings. We’ve made progress, we’ve had some success. There’s about $6 million of savings in our fourth quarter forecast tied into that program, but then the $125 million for next year.

Timothy Spence

Analyst · Wedbush Securities.

And the headcount there doesn’t even reflect the benefit from the offshore, right - the automation savings on offshore processes that were completed by JV partners, where we’re, I think, north of 20% at this point of the processes that were offshore now fully automated.

James Leonard

Management

The other part of your question on inflation, in terms of wage inflation and other things, we’ve been able to manage through the environment from an employee and cost structure and still deliver fairly stable expenses this quarter. We continue to see opportunity to do the same while there is the wage inflation and other pressures. We do have those other opportunities ahead of us, and so perhaps some of the $125 million would be absorbed by some inflationary pressure but ultimately a moderate amount of inflation would ultimately be very positive for the bank in terms of PP&R and interest income capabilities.

Peter Winter

Analyst · Wedbush Securities.

That’s great, thanks Jamie.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Gerard Cassidy with RBC.

Gerard Cassidy

Analyst · RBC.

Good morning everyone.

Greg Carmichael

Management

Morning Gerard.

Gerard Cassidy

Analyst · RBC.

Greg, when you look at your CET-1 ratio, you’re targeting to bring it down to 9.5% by June of next year. It looks like, if I recall correctly, your required number is 7% by the Fed. What would it take for you guys to bring it down from 9.5% to something lower, or is it no, the 9.5% is set in stone and you’re just not going to budge off of that?

Greg Carmichael

Management

Well, there’s nothing set in stone, Gerard, but at the end of the day, we think that’s the prudent place to be. It’s multi-faceted as we think about that level. Obviously we believe we could run the bank at a much lower level, but also we watch what the market’s doing, the environment we’re operating in, what our peers are doing. We just think that’s the prudent target point to shoot for at this point.

Gerard Cassidy

Analyst · RBC.

Very good, and then maybe Richard, we could talk about credit quality. Obviously your numbers, similar to some of your peers, are quite strong, particularly in the net charge-off area, and I suspect that this is unusually good and it’s not sustainable, just due to normal seasoning of portfolios. How long do you think you guys could see net charge-offs stay at this extremely low level, and when do you think they start creeping up to a more normal level? I know normal is hard to define, but when do they start to creep up?

Richard Stein

Analyst · RBC.

Yes Gerard, thanks for the question. Clearly we’re pleased with the 8 basis points this quarter, and like you said, we don’t think that’s going to repeat. But given the economic outlook, we do expect charge-offs to be better than our through-the-cycle average, and probably certainly into ’22 and into ’23 for a couple reasons. One, it’s going to be simply the amount of liquidity that’s out there. Two, inflation, collateral values continue to be strong, and when we run our mid-cycle stress tests, we’re seeing 25 to 35 basis points as a charge-off range for the bank through ’22 and ’23. Now, that graph, as I said, it’s a little bit lower than what we think the long term average is. If you recall, we think through-the-cycle average is somewhere between 35 and 45 basis points, but given our approach, given the way we manage the balance sheet, the way we think about client selection and underwriting, we think it’s a grind through ’22 and ’23 back to something that feels a little bit more normal.

Gerard Cassidy

Analyst · RBC.

Great, appreciate it. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Ken Usdin with Jefferies.

Ken Usdin

Analyst · Jefferies.

Hi, thanks. Good morning. Hey Jamie, I was just wondering if you could elaborate a little bit more on the portfolio structure. When you talk about the $7 billion that’s going to run off over the next several years, how high are you on that part of the book, and when you’re reinvesting the cash flows to keep the book flat, are you also buying back some new type of bullet structures or are you just more investing in plain vanilla today?

James Leonard

Management

We’ve been buying a little bit of everything when we’re reinvesting. Portfolio cash flows have been running about $1.5 billion a quarter - you know, second quarter, third quarter, so depending on the day, we’ve added some level 1s, we’ve added some level 2s, but in total the mix hasn’t really changed a whole lot. Then in terms of the bullets, over the next couple years it’s a very small number in terms of total cash flow, maybe a couple hundred million, and then over years 3, 4, 5, then you start to have cash flow portfolioing. But right now, the total book of bullets, as well as the cash flowing securities, we’re in a 2.75 yield, give or take, and then for the fourth quarter, yields should be a little bit better than that with a little bit of seasonal, mutual fund dividends in the N2DC [ph], plus a little bit of prepayment penalties that have occurred thus far in October.

Ken Usdin

Analyst · Jefferies.

Okay, got it. Thank you. Just a follow-up, you guys have been really taking down the long term debt footprint, which is still even outsized the majority of your interest-bearing liability costs. Just wonder, where is the level that you need to keep it at and what’s the trade-offs versus the deposit base, the mix of deposits, and how much more could you potentially reduce that footprint? Thanks.

James Leonard

Management

You know, we’re probably at the low point in terms of the long term debt outstanding. We had a maturity in September, $850 million that we’re perhaps look to replenish in the next quarter or two, but I think we’re at a good spot and we’re well positioned. We’ve been able to utilize the excess liquidity and take advantage of the environment to deliver some savings from a cost standpoint, both from long term debt as well as running off some of the CD book that certainly behaves more like wholesale funding than the core deposit book. I think we’re in a good spot and we’ve probably reached the end of the line on the long term debt, but probably have a little bit more room on the CD book to run it down a little bit more.

Ken Usdin

Analyst · Jefferies.

Okay, got it. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of John Pancari with Evercore.

John Pancari

Analyst · Evercore.

Morning. Greg, you mentioned some key talent hires that should help drive loan production into 2022. Can you provide a little bit of color on the areas where you’re hiring, particularly within the lending areas, and if that hiring is continuing? Thanks.

Greg Carmichael

Management

Absolutely, thanks for your question. Obviously the southeast markets, we’ve been adding to our relationship management bankers in that market with a lot of success there. We’re real pleased with the production we’re seeing in that market, so we’ll continue to add in that market. There’s great opportunities and we run a good franchise down there, and that’s obviously a focal point for our expansion. In addition to that, I would say Texas, the west coast, California, the talent we’ve been able to acquire in those markets, the bankers that we’ve brought on, a significant increase in bankers in those markets over the last two or three years, and we’re seeing great progress from a production perspective, outstanding perspective. Listen those were the strategies, we watch them very carefully. We invest when we see opportunities, and those areas continue to be great opportunities for us. More to come. Let me just throw it over to Tim to see if he has any color he wants to add to that.

Timothy Spence

Analyst · Evercore.

Yes, I think a couple other. I think Greg hit the geographic points. We also are in the process of building out a mortgage warehouse vertical - that’s a good business for us. It’s a business we’ve been in historically but it hasn’t been a point of focus, and we saw an opportunity there with some talent to go out and take some market share, so I think that’s an area. We continue to add to the renewables team and are focused on how we expand what is already, I think, a pretty strong capability there and a good track record, and then we were pleased to be able to land some really important talent into Provide post the Provide acquisition, and have now formally launched the vet vertical there for veterinarians, which I think is going to be a really good source of growth to complement the strength we already had in medical, dental, and that business line.

John Pancari

Analyst · Evercore.

Got it. All right, thank you. Then secondly, if you could just update us where you stand on your core system upgrade. Can you maybe remind us of the timing of the project and the cost that you see tied to it, and then separately, do you see any risk to the cost that you had budgeted for the upgrade, given the wage inflation dynamics? Thanks.

James Leonard

Management

First off, our tech budget, let me take that first, is about $700 million, and that’s been growing about 10% per year for the last five years. When you think about our core platforms, when we talk about the modernization effort, that’s been going on for a couple years. You saw that with our mortgage loan origination system, the resiliency platforms we put in place, the data architecture strategy that we rolled out. Next coming up is obviously FYS core deposits. We’re in the midst right now of turning on Encino, that’s going extremely well and something we’re very pleased with, so this is an ongoing effort. If you asked me, if it was a baseball analogy, we’re probably in mid-innings here, but it’s a long game and we’ll continue to invest prudently. In addition to that, if you think about our tech spend, a lot of that tech spend is focused on being able to take cost out, so lean process automation has been a great focus of our business and an area we’ve made a lot of progress in. We’ll continue to invest for those opportunities, we’ll continue to stay focused on core platform replacement, our partnership with FIS, in fact we’re their largest processing customer. If you think about how we think about that business and the integration, what we’ve done with our core platform, we’ve been able to manage costs very efficiently and effectively through that exercise, so we’re very comfortable with what we think the new operating environment will look like from a cost perspective. But if you think about our tech spend and how we think about our business, it’s really 50% keeping the business running, so to speak, 35% advancing the business, and then 15% protecting the business.

Timothy Spence

Analyst · Evercore.

John, it’s Tim. One small point to add to that, and it came up earlier, there was a question about inflation and wages. Jamie said earlier we were immune but not inoculated on a--I’m sorry, inoculated but not immune on a different point. I think here again, we raised our minimum wage to $18 an hour in 2019 - I think we were the first of the regional banks, certainly of our peer group, to have made that move, and the by-product of that is we are watching, as I’m sure you are, the announcements coming out of many of our peers that they’re raising their minimum wage, but they’re getting to $18 an hour in nearly all cases, which is where Fifth Third is already at, and the by-product of that is a lot of that near term impact is kind of in our run rate.

John Pancari

Analyst · Evercore.

Got it. All right, thanks for taking my questions.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Bill Carcache with Wolfe Research

Bill Carcache

Analyst · Wolfe Research

Thanks, good morning. I’d like to follow up on your net charge-off rate commentary. As you think about the normalization of your NCO rates off these low levels to the 25, 35 basis points in ’22, ’23 that you mentioned, is the level of your reserve rate currently high enough such that the trajectory is also likely to be flat to down, even as NCO rates normalize higher? Any color that you could give on that dynamic would be helpful.

James Leonard

Management

Yes, I think it’s a little tough to take a life of loan expected loss rate of the ACL and compare it to short term forecasts, because the loan maturities certainly are a swing factor in that. Obviously we’re comfortable with our ACL at 200 basis points - it’s 204 basis points excluding PPP, so yes, I’m comfortable that the ACL is adequate to cover the expected losses over the life of the loans. Then when Richard’s talking about those periodic charge-off levels for a point in time and with a fairly shorter duration portfolio throwing off some of those losses in the consumer side - you know, card and auto, I think we’re at a good spot.

Bill Carcache

Analyst · Wolfe Research

Very helpful, thank you. Then following up on the utilization commentary, to the extent that supply chain problems were to extend further into next year, how much do you think that weighs on--you know, just given the make-up of your client base, how much would that weigh on the normalization of utilization rates versus the potential for those utilization rates to continue to improve, even if those supply chain problems were to extend a bit longer?

James Leonard

Management

Yes, I think we’re seeing stable line utilization because of those supply chain constraints, so hopefully the worst case scenario would be stable. As we talked about in our guide, we expect a little bit of an uptick both from a seasonal and year-end positioning with our customers of about half a percent, so we’ve reduced our outlook on utilization because of the supply chain and labor constraints. From a next year perspective, hopefully they get resolved and we’ll start to see inventory builds, and that should provide a little bit of a tailwind to our loan growth expectations.

Bill Carcache

Analyst · Wolfe Research

Got it. Thank you for taking my questions.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Matt O’Connor with Deutsche Bank. Matt O’Connor: Good morning. I was wondering if you could dig a little bit more into some of the loan yield pressure that you were talking about earlier, and if you kind of just hold rates constant, when does that eventually flatten out?

James Leonard

Management

Yes Matt, for our quarter, if you look in the tables and you look at the gross yield decline 2Q to 3Q, it’s really driven by three factors. One, 2Q had elevated prepayment loan fees that get recorded in the NII, so 2Q was high, so that was a portion. You have regular re-pricing front book, back book phenomenon, and I would characterize it as three basis points or so of NIM from that. I expect that should continue into the fourth quarter. Then the other phenomenon on the LIBOR floor is more a consequence of getting through renewal season and some of the other things happening out of the second quarter, so that should dissipate, but that was, call it, a third half of that yield compression you see in the tables in the earnings release. As we look ahead, I would expect a couple BP, 2 to 3 BP headwind from C&I loan yield compression for all of those factors into the fourth quarter, and that’s why we’re guiding the reported NIM down as well for the fourth quarter, similar to what we saw in the third quarter. Matt O’Connor: Then I guess beyond 4Q, is there still a fair amount of re-pricing between the back book and the front book and all that, or are you getting close to--sorry, go ahead?

James Leonard

Management

No, thanks for the question. I think from a front book, back book perspective, the tailwind is the curve steepening we’ve seen in the third quarter, and should that continue we’ll hit that intersection. But until we get a little more lift, you do have the re-pricing effect continuing, where new loans are coming on at lower yields than the runoff and paydowns in the back book. I think on top of that, we have done a nice job managing NII and the balance sheet through this environment, and we certainly have dry powder, whether it’s through the asset sensitivity or the $33 billion of excess cash, that we could choose to deploy to mitigate those effects if need be. But for now, we still think patience is still the way to go, and therefore if there’s a little bit of NIM compression along the way, that’s fine. Our focus is more on the long term and delivering the best performance we can over the next five years. Matt O’Connor: Okay, thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Mike Mayo with Wells Fargo.

Mike Mayo

Analyst · Wells Fargo.

Hi. You mentioned positive operating leverage in 2021 even while you spend 10% more on tech, and that you’re in kind of the fourth or fifth inning of your tech transformation, so I guess the question is do you intend to continue to spend around 10% more on tech each year, and how is that changing, especially as you move off-premise as much as you are? Is there going to be a period where you have to run somewhat parallel systems and then you’ll get the benefit a few years out, and more generally, how do you think about the number of tech partners that you have, and if you can quantify the number, I’ll take that too.

Greg Carmichael

Management

Yes Mike, this is Greg. I think 10% is probably the right number for us. It’s not cast in stone. As you mentioned, operating leverage, positive operating leverage, that’s something we’re very focused on. We delivered it, we’ll deliver it in 2021. As we go into our planning process for 2022, our focus is on positive operating leverage. As I mentioned earlier, some of that tech spend is going right to process efficiencies, where we’re able to take our 200-plus additional people and so forth, branch closures and things that we’re working on right now on the other expense side of the house that supports that positive operating leverage, and we continue to grow fees at a really robust rate, close to 10% CAGR over the last couple years. Net-net, positive operating leverage, something we’re very focused on, believe we can continue to deliver on. In addition to that, the tech spend will roughly run around 10%-plus. If you think about the core platform modernization, we talked about the fourth or fifth inning. I think of it more as a cricket test match - it’s been going on, it’s going to continue to go on for quite some time. We’re going to have to deal with that, but at the end of the day, I think as we put these new platforms in, we’re able to do it in a very systematic way with respect to how we turn these platforms in, so it’s not the big bang approach. We’re able to turn it on by geography, by product line, so we’re very insulated if we’re having to do a big bang impact. With that said, you’d have some dual system platforms that are going to be run simultaneously until we get all markets, all products converted over in the…

Mike Mayo

Analyst · Wells Fargo.

That’s helpful. Just one more follow-up. One simple thought - I mean, there’s a debate of how much banks should keep on premise versus off-premise. Clearly you’re going more in the off-premise direction, and it seems like you’re accelerating that. What was the tipping point, what was the biggest factor to say, you know what, we want to have more of the open architecture be off-premise, even though some other banks are saying we want to keep a lot on-premise?

Greg Carmichael

Management

You know, I think we intend to transition. Basically, we shed 90% on-premise, and you think about that, sort of the next five years as we look at this, that’s going to shift, as you mentioned before, so 90% on-premise is going to shift to roughly 90% off-premise. Seventy percent of that will be hosted in a private cloud. When you think about platforms like FYS and C&F are all going to be private clouds, in the public cloud AWS about 20%, so you think about the shift, 90% will be an off-premise model and roughly 70% private, 20% public.

Mike Mayo

Analyst · Wells Fargo.

All right, thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of David Konrad with KBW.

David Konrad

Analyst · KBW.

Hey, I was hoping you could help us out with if there’s any constraint limitations on the balance sheet, meaning as we look at our earnings models over the next couple years and redeploy a lot of the excess liquidity, just wondering, some of your peers have mentioned maybe 30% of earning assets would be the limit of securities, regardless of rate. Just wondering if you thought about a constraint on the securities book, and then also embedded in the securities book, the CMBS portfolio has kind of crept up - now it’s just under 60% of the available for sale. Didn’t know if there--you know, it’s all agency or predominantly agency, but didn’t know if there’s a concentration limit that you’d have on that portfolio as well. Thank you.

James Leonard

Management

Yes, thanks for the question, David. The short answer is that when we look at the excess liquidity, call it $30 billion, we expect a third of it to go into the securities portfolio, a third of it into loans, a third of it, we think while the deposits in the banking system may not decline, we do expect those deposits to find a more productive home, perhaps money market funds or other investment vehicles. For us, we’re running at 18% or so in the securities book as a percent of total assets, so if we take, call it $10 billion of the excess liquidity and put it into the book, we’re at 23, 24%. That’s where I’d like to operate, is somewhere 23 to 25% of total assets, but it’s not a capacity constraint. It’s more--I think given the environment, that’s a more productive place to be. In terms of the CMBS, I think the heart of your question is what is the non-agency CMBS portion of the portfolio, and that’s $3.8 billion or so, and again for us it’s super senior tranches. We feel very good about the credit enhancement, 30%-plus there, so not a large credit risk position to have, whereas the rest of the CMBS book would be agency guaranteed.

David Konrad

Analyst · KBW.

Great, thank you.

Operator

Operator

At this time, there are no further questions. I would like to turn the floor back to management for any additional or closing remarks.

A - Greg Carmichael

Analyst

Thank you Angie, and thank you all for your interest in Fifth Third. Please contact the Investor Relations department if you have any further questions.

Operator

Operator

Thank you for participating in today’s conference call. You may now disconnect your lines at this time.