Earnings Labs

Wells Fargo & Company (WFC)

Q3 2014 Earnings Call· Tue, Oct 14, 2014

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning. My name is Regina and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Wells Fargo Third Quarter Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers’ remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions). I would now like to turn the call over to Jim Rowe, Director of Investor Relations. Mr. Rowe, you may begin your conference.

Jim Rowe

Management

Thank you, Regina. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our call today where our Chairman and CEO, John Stumpf; and our CFO, John Shrewsberry will discuss third quarter results and answer your questions. Before we get started, I would like to remind you that our third quarter earnings release and quarterly supplement are available on our website at wellsfargo.com. I’d also like to caution you that we may make forward-looking statements during today’s call that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from expectations are detailed in our SEC filings including the Form 8-K filed today containing our earnings release and quarterly supplement. Information about any non-GAAP financial measures referenced, including a reconciliation of those measures to GAAP measures can also be found in our SEC filings in the earnings release and in the quarterly supplement available on our website. I will now turn our call over to our Chairman and CEO, John Stumpf.

John Stumpf

CEO

Thank you, Jim, and good morning to everyone. Thank you for joining us today. Our strong results in the third quarter reflect the benefit of our diversified business model and were driven by our continued focus on meeting our customers’ financial needs in the real economy. Let me highlight our growth during the third quarter compared with a year ago. We generated earnings of $5.7 billion and earnings per share of $1.02, both up 3%. We grew net interest income and non-interest income, resulting in 4% revenue growth; and our efficiency ratio improved to 57.7%. Pretax pre-provision profit increased 7%. We had strong broad-based loan growth with our core loan portfolio up almost $51 billion or 7%. Our credit performance continued to be excellent with the net charge-off ratio declining to only 32 basis points on average loans on an annualized basis. We had a $300 million reserve release this quarter, down from $900 million a year ago. In fact in my 32 plus years with the company, I have not seen credit better. Our deposit franchise continued to generate strong customer and balance growth with total deposits up $89 billion or 9%. We grew primary consumer checking customers by 4.9% and primary small business and business checking customers by 5.6%. This level of business performance has enabled us to maintain strong capital levels even while returning more capital to our shareholders through a higher dividends and share repurchases. We returned a net $3.6 billion to our shareholders in the third quarter, up 29% from a year ago. Before I turn it over to John Shrewsberry, our CFO, I’d like to take a minute or two and share some of my thoughts on the economy and the housing market. While the path to a full economic recovery remains uneven, including…

John Shrewsberry

CFO

Thanks John and good morning everyone. My comments will follow the presentation included in the quarterly supplements starting on page two. John and I will then answer your questions. Wells Fargo had another strong quarter earning $5.7 billion and growing EPS to $1.02. Generating this level of consistent earnings while economic growth has been uneven and interest rates have remained low, demonstrates the benefit of our diversified business model. We grew both revenue and pre-tax, pre-provision profit from second quarter and have grown pretax pre-provision profit for four consecutive quarters. Our results also reflected solid loan and deposit growth that was diversified across our businesses. Our capital levels remained strong even as we returned $3.6 billion to shareholders through common stock dividends and net share repurchases. As John highlighted and as you can see on page three, we had strong year-over-year growth across a number of important business drivers. We grew net interest income amidst the persistent low rate environment with strong earning asset growth; and our ability to grow non-interest income by $542 million or 6% from a year ago even as mortgage originations declined by 40%, demonstrates the benefit of our diversified sources of fee income. Page four highlights our revenue diversification and the balance between spread and fee income. We have over 90 businesses and in any given quarter, some will drive more revenue growth than others. For example, the strength in the markets over the past few years has benefited our market sensitive businesses. Market sensitive revenue was 5% of our total revenue in the third quarter, up from 4% in the second quarter but lower than the 7% contribution in the first quarter. Let me highlight some key drivers of our third quarter results from a balance sheet and income statement perspective, starting on page…

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions). Our first question will come from the line of Erika Najarian with Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead.

Erika Najarian - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead

Yes, good morning.

John Stumpf

CEO

Good morning.

John Shrewsberry

CFO

Good morning.

Erika Najarian - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead

John, my first question is on the net interest income and net interest margin. We hear you loud and clear in terms of the message with regards to the NII trajectory. As we think about the net interest margin going forward given the stability of your loan yield over the past three quarters and your funding cost also stable over the past three quarters. Is really there is the incremental hit on the margin in this rate environment really going to come from deposit flow given that you did issued $16 billion in debt in the quarter for liquidity purposes already?

John Stumpf

CEO

So that’s probably true and it also has a lot to do with what we choose to do with the access deposits or frankly access funding as it sits on our balance sheet. We’re making choices between leaving that liquidity in cash equivalents setting at the Fed or deploying it in the HQLA or loans for that matter if there enough demand for it or other assets with yields. And we’re making those determinations based on how we feel about entry points in the market and what we think it does to our capital sensitivity in the event of a backup subsequently and it’s those types of choices that are going to drive us to increase the all-in yield on the west side of the balance sheet, whether the funding is coming from deposits or from term funding.

Erika Najarian - Bank of America, Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead

Got it. And my second question is given Governor Tarullo’s speech early in the September, there are clearly two ruling issues where the industry that may not be as relevant to Wells. Higher CET 1 buffers relative to your short-term funding base and also the interpretation of NSSR by over rules by Basel. Do you see advantage given where you are on both the business mix and capital spectrum to perhaps take advantage of players that need to have more stringent buffers mainly in terms of continuing to grow market share in wholesale banking?

John Stumpf

CEO

It’s possible. On both of the measures we think we end up at the low-end of the risk-adjusted spectrum in terms of the bad outcomes that occur. And that might give us an opportunity to do a little bit more for our customers if they needed and if the risk-adjusted returns are appropriate. I think that the -- we’re all waiting to see what happens to the returns in those businesses based on the actions taken by people who are constrained by both of those -- who are more constrained by both of those new ratios. What it means for pricing, what it means for our customer behavior et cetera. But we’re happy with the approach that we’ve taken and we’re here to serve the customers that we have. And, but you are right, we’re probably at the more advantaged end of the spectrum with respect to both of those measures.

John Shrewsberry

CFO

Yes. Erika I said, to add to that, nothing that’s happening to-date and nothing that we see in the horizon will allow will get in our way or impede our way to help customers and to serve them. And I think that puts us in a very good position.

Erika Najarian - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead

Great, I’ll step-off. Thank you for taking my questions.

John Stumpf

CEO

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question will come from the line of Ken Usdin with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Ken Usdin - Jefferies

Analyst · Jefferies. Please go ahead

Hi, good morning.

John Stumpf

CEO

Hi.

Ken Usdin - Jefferies

Analyst · Jefferies. Please go ahead

John I appreciate your color on reminding us about that minority interest back out on some of the trading related activities. But just wondering if you can help us understand from those portfolios that still generate a healthy amount of fee income, what’s kind of left in it still there if you think across net gains from trading activities debt securities and net gains from equity investment sort of question that comes up frequently with the investment community?

John Stumpf

CEO

Sure. Well, there are variety of different businesses that contribute to those results. So the big drivers would be our -- the venture activity that we have, the Norwest Venture Partners, it would be the activity of investment banking where we’ve got customer combination trading. It’s the impact of the hedging that we do for our deferred comp program and then there is, at least in this quarter and probably in future quarters some amount of balance sheet management on the debt portfolio. And they all contribute. So it’s a diversified set of investments, different drivers in each case, some of them are more sensitive to where we are in the rate cycles, some of them are more sensitive to where we are in the equity valuation cycle. But they’ve contributed more or less you’ll call it 4%, 5% to 7% or 8% over a number of quarters. And there isn’t one thing that I would hang on, I’d think of them as being core to our business results in different ways, but over the long-term.

John Shrewsberry

CFO

Ken? And John mentioned that within those business decades, actually a lot of decades, 50 years, so this with respect to venture and equity partners, so these are long term businesses for us.

Ken Usdin - Jefferies

Analyst · Jefferies. Please go ahead

Yes. And I think that’s the point which is that you don’t see any growth coming as far as the ability to continue to realize either gains or benefits from those activities and there is some countercyclical pieces within it as well?

John Stumpf

CEO

They are part of what’s a broader set of diversified non-interest income whatever it is. So whether they’re contributing 4% or 7% as it has been in recent history and how they work in sync with all of the other things that are going on in terms of customer facing fee generating activity that is the diversified model. And as I mentioned, some of them are more interest rate sensitive and were in a low rate environment, so there is higher unrealized gains. Some of them are levered to equity markets and exit strategies for portfolio investments. But I would think of them as part of the broader mix of diversified non-interest income sources.

Ken Usdin - Jefferies

Analyst · Jefferies. Please go ahead

Understood. And my next question is just on the expense side, understanding that you’re going to still be living in this some 55%, 59% range, we did see kind of flattish fee side, a little bit NII growth but then a little bit of higher expenses as well. And I’m just wondering as you think about that level of expenses and continue to manage forward in what’s still looking to be a pretty tough rate environment and these ongoing challenges from NIM pressures, any adjustments that you’re thinking about or contemplating as far as just kind of the need to continue to manage that expense base even tighter than you’ve already been and where would opportunities be so?

John Stumpf

CEO

We’re always trying to be as efficient as we can to make sure that we have the resources available to deliver what customers need. And of course as we’ve mentioned, we’re at a time when the focus in the investment, in the risk management area is very high. So we’re working constantly to try and be as efficient as we can and in areas where it won’t impact customers and where it doesn’t hinder us in terms of our risk management activity. Some examples, which we’ve talked about a little bit before are really in other areas, for example the space that we consume, the way we think about our purchasing, the technology that we use et cetera. We can always be a little bit more efficient. And it’s a constant job here to try and make the most of that.

Ken Usdin - Jefferies

Analyst · Jefferies. Please go ahead

But you guys haven’t felt that incremental compliance burden increasing to a level where you feel the need to pull the continuous improvement cord?

John Stumpf

CEO

I think we are pulling the continuous improvement cord and in part, because we’re spending more in compliance and risk management, like we’re spending more in our -- in the customer experience and our customer facing activity. But in order to afford both of those things, we have to be really vigilant around the business as usual expenses; and that’s continuous improvement.

Ken Usdin - Jefferies

Analyst · Jefferies. Please go ahead

Understood, thanks guys.

Operator

Operator

Your next question will come from the line of John McDonald with Sanford Bernstein. Please go ahead.

John McDonald - Sanford Bernstein

Analyst · Sanford Bernstein. Please go ahead

Hi, good morning. John, question on the mortgage revenues; on the servicing side, the growth servicing revenues are down about 200 million, you mentioned the unreimbursed servicing costs. Is that for your one-timers that the pop-up and those, it seems like those were coming down from a while and then they’ve kind of reversed this quarter, that just bounced around or any color you can give on that?

John Stumpf

CEO

It had come down; it bounced back up. Our sense is that trajectory is going to be reduced over the longer ark of the mortgage servicing cycle; it’s going to be hard to forecast it quarter-to-quarter. So I wouldn’t expect it as low as it’s been for the last couple of quarters, this maybe a more average quarter. And over some period of time as the level of non-performing loans, foreclosed assets et cetera begins to abate then you’d expect that to raced itself down, but this is probably a relatively normal level.

John McDonald - Sanford Bernstein

Analyst · Sanford Bernstein. Please go ahead

Okay. And in terms of capital on the advanced approach, you mentioned the RWA kind of ratio to total assets seems like it got a little better on better credit quality and data refinements. Any more color on that? Is that something that also just kind of bounces around quarter-to-quarter or we still have some model improvements you can do from here?

John Stumpf

CEO

There is always more that we can do with improved and more focus on data and modeling. But you could come to a point where just because of the nature of our assets, loans and securities that attract the risk weights that they do that were constrained on the standardized side. So, and we mentioned that they are converging, they are very close together right now in terms of the RWA calculation. But the takeaway is that our capital level did increase a little bit in the quarter under the advanced approach. And in spite of that, we’re still earning north of 13% as an ROA, which we’re very proud of.

John McDonald - Sanford Bernstein

Analyst · Sanford Bernstein. Please go ahead

And that stuff that just rolled off in terms of the better credit-quality like older assets that roll off, is that why it’s getting better?

John Stumpf

CEO

It’s a combination of roll off and hard work around data and modeling and continuous refinement.

John McDonald - Sanford Bernstein

Analyst · Sanford Bernstein. Please go ahead

And with that ratio at 10.46 is this the kind of level that you want to run at on Tier 1 common?

John Stumpf

CEO

Tough to say. As we said in Investor Day, this is probably in excess of the buffer that we might have imagined when we originally vectored in toward our regulatory capital levels. And it’s really a function of CCAR and some of the assumptions that are made in the CCAR process as it is applied. So as we go from CCAR to CCAR and we present our starting capital point, we present our expected capital generation and our capital actions and what they yield in terms of capital levels, we’re trying to manage that as appropriately as we can to got the right amount of return back to shareholders, which we believe that we’ve done at a 66% payout ratio. But it’s an art form because of all of the inputs and the other actors in the process.

John McDonald - Sanford Bernstein

Analyst · Sanford Bernstein. Please go ahead

Okay. And just a quick follow-up to Erika’s question on the liquidity building, it sounds like you’re now above the minimums of your calculations, but you might decide to build some buffer going forward, so we might expect a little bit more on that front from you?

John Stumpf

CEO

So I think we’re in a period where big banks are trying to figure out what the right buffer is as a result of our own internal stress testing and the expectations on G-SIBs in particular. So we’re in the phase. We feel great about where we are right now. Nobody has mentioned [deal lack] yet, but there is some work to do to figure out where we’re going on that front and how that -- what the interplay is between liquidity we’ve already built and what future requirements are going to be. So I think that heavy lifting is probably behind us for the time being. But I wouldn’t say that we’re stopped.

John Shrewsberry

CFO

And John, one of the strengths of the company of course is our continued ability to grow high quality, low cost core deposits, which is critical in all of this.

John McDonald - Sanford Bernstein

Analyst · Sanford Bernstein. Please go ahead

Okay, great. Thanks guys.

John Stumpf

CEO

Thanks John.

Operator

Operator

Your next question will come from the line of Matt O’Connor with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Matt O’Connor - Deutsche Bank: Hey guys.

John Stumpf

CEO

Hey Matt.

John Shrewsberry

CFO

Hey Matt. Matt O’Connor - Deutsche Bank: Just wanted to open some of the rate related questions earlier, this was not a Wells specific issue, but you are the first of kind of the original banks to come out. If the tenure does stay, right now it’s sitting at 2 to 2.2, my screen shows. Is this meaningful as we think about I guess, both the NIM and then could there be some opportunities on refis if we stay down here for a little bit?

John Shrewsberry

CFO

I don’t know if that gets us back in the money refi scenario, but probably still some distance away from that. I think that it is meaningful than it’s more about the expectation that how long rates stay low because that will influence the decision to redeploy cash equivalents into assets with duration. And if you imagine that term rates are going to back up in the foreseeable future, just from a capital preservation perspective, you’re probably less likely to redeploy out of cash and into higher earning assets. And so that’s the calculus and the judgment that we make here relatively regularly and it feels frankly like the market is now discounting the idea that there is any sort of meaningful move up in rates in the 2015 timeframe. So if we’re going to be lower for longer, I think it means a lot for banks like ours and it could mean you have to be that much more vigilant on expenses. I think it means you have to think about how your assets are deployed and how much cash you think you really need to carry. And we’ll be conducting that balance between the risk to capital if rates back up and the risk to earnings if rates stay low or underinvested. Matt O’Connor - Deutsche Bank: Okay. And then I guess a somewhat related theme spread pressure in the commercial lending business. We saw your yields down about 10 bps quarter-to-quarter. And I guess there is two phenomenon that’s going on. One, the new loans that you’re adding at lower spreads just generally speaking for the industry but then maybe some loans that you did a few years ago are coming up for renewal and there is some de-pricing there. Maybe just talk about like which of those two is a bigger driver at this point, how should we think about other dynamics in that book?

John Stumpf

CEO

I don’t know which of those two drove the 10 basis-point drop in this quarter or who was a greater contributor to that drop in this quarter. It is a competitive environment out there. We’re happy to be able to have a full toolkit when we square off with our commercial customers because we’re in a position to earn more of their business and to generate more of a return on the risk capital that’s associated with the loan that we’re going to make. We contrast ourselves with some other firms that we compete with who are getting paid primarily from the loan yield itself enough from the broader relationship. So we like our competitive stance in that range. We have backed away from the table in some situations, not so much on price, but where we see credit or terms getting a little bit frothy, because that’s another lever that people pull in order to compete for these types of assets. Matt O’Connor - Deutsche Bank: Okay. Any signs of stabilization in that spread or just still in (inaudible)?

John Stumpf

CEO

I think at some level, it’s got to be stabilized by the marginal player who is only getting a return from the asset itself, because there are levels below which they can’t go, because they’re not going to generate a sufficient return on capital. And they have no other cards to play in terms of generating relationship returns by providing product or service. And some of the smaller banks who participate in those markets would be examples of that. Matt O’Connor - Deutsche Bank: Okay. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Your next question will come from the line of Joe Morford with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

John Stumpf

CEO

Hello Joe.

Joe Morford - RBC Capital Markets

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead

Thanks. Good morning John and John.

John Shrewsberry

CFO

Hey, Joe.

Joe Morford - RBC Capital Markets

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead

I guess looking at your new C&I slide on page nine, how much of your growth do you think is coming from market share gains as opposed to increased demand? And along those lines, last quarter you talked about seeing increased confidence among business owners. Is that still the case generally?

John Stumpf

CEO

Well, speaking for market share gains, it depends on which column in that slide you’re talking about. We have leading market share and our increasing share in some of those businesses; and some of them, they might include examples of businesses where we’ve chosen to slow down a little bit, if the competition’s got racy. So it’s a combination of things, of both market share growth and of the size of the market increasing. So, Joe, if you look at more than just commercial customers broadly, there has actually been fairly good activity, now there has been volatility lately in the market, but if you look auto sales and we participate in that business of course, August was the biggest sales month, maybe in I don’t know how many years. Consumers, our credit card activities are increasing. We’re doing -- we had growth in our mortgage portfolio. So, it’s very broad-based. And when I’m out calling customers, corporate customers, middle-market customers, there seems to be more -- at least more discussion about activity. And the marketplace is not totally ubiquitous; there is places that are stronger, and energy for example and those places are really doing well; [Agus] having a pretty good year; technology. It depends on what part the requirement is. But core I see and I hear more optimism than I heard a year ago for example.

Joe Morford - RBC Capital Markets

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead

Okay. That’s helpful color. I guess lastly just can you share with us any thoughts on Apple Pay and how readily you see it being adopted and what sort of impact it may have on the broader payments business?

John Stumpf

CEO

Yes, as you know, we are participating in that. And there are I think 7 million to 8 million [terminals] merchants out of the marketplace and only a few hundred thousand have the NFC chip in them and that you need that the near field communication chip. So, this will take, there will be an adoption but we’re pleased and excited on behalf of our customers to participate in that. And it will evolve over time.

Joe Morford - RBC Capital Markets

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead

Okay. Thanks so much.

John Stumpf

CEO

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question will come from the line of Betsy Graseck with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Betsy Graseck - Morgan Stanley

Analyst · Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead

Hi, good morning.

John Stumpf

CEO

Good morning Betsy.

Betsy Graseck - Morgan Stanley

Analyst · Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead

Hey couple of questions. One was on the two that you did mention, there obviously is something that you’re in the review of. I think the expectation is that in the U.S. at least we’ll have to have senior through common 20% to 25% of risk weighted assets. And if you’re on the high-end of that range, can you give us a sense of what you might do to minimize any impact?

John Stumpf

CEO

There is still a lot to know. We’re seeing similar headline numbers, maybe a little bit lower, 19.5 to 23.5. And this is all research that’s been published based on information that’s in the market that hasn’t beneficially sanctioned. So who knows? And over what period of time it has to get phased in is unknown. What counts, what doesn’t count among your existing capital structure is unknown. What -- which entities that you issue out of and whether there are going to be caps on those types of things. So there is a handful of questions that are unknown. Our sense is that we’re going to end up at the lower end of the range. We calculate that we probably have about 18% today that qualifies and for the end up having the issue we’ll probably be issuing a form of senior unsecured mostly Holdco debt. And it will happen over some period of time. And it will end up being an earnings drag because we’ll issue that debt and pay our corporate spread and we’ll take that cash and we’ll reinvest it in some more yielding either HQLA or equivalent. And it will become a new part of the cost structure and capital structure of bank. So, my short answer is there is still a lot to know, but we’ll deal with it when it comes and it doesn’t seem instrumental.

Betsy Graseck - Morgan Stanley

Analyst · Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead

Right. And there is no rush to get it done quickly, right, I mean I think it’s -- you have until 01/01/19?

John Stumpf

CEO

Don’t know yet, but I’ve heard it similarly that it will be a longish raise in period.

Betsy Graseck - Morgan Stanley

Analyst · Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead

Okay. Then two other quick questions, one is on the auto business. You highlighted that you are nation’s largest bank lender of auto and wanted to understand how you’re thinking about that given the risk retention rules that are out there, clearly it’s just a proposal so it’s not fully baked yet but this outline that you have to at sometime in the future hold 5% of any securitizations that you do in auto. Does that matter to you?

John Stumpf

CEO

It doesn’t matter to us in our current business model because we don’t securitize our auto loans; we own 100% of the risk on every one of them. And frankly in the auto loan securitization business for those who do use securitization that’s the general business model which is that people own the bottom of the capital structure and retain their own risk which is different than mortgage, but that’s how auto finance companies generally works. I don’t think that’s going to have a real impact on Wells Fargo.

Betsy Graseck - Morgan Stanley

Analyst · Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead

Right. And obviously from the perspective of the competitive dynamic if there were a committed play?

John Stumpf

CEO

Well, to the extent that it makes harder for other people to compete and that could be there for Wells Fargo.

Betsy Graseck - Morgan Stanley

Analyst · Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead

And then lastly just on mortgage. John you mentioned at the beginning a lot of the headwinds that are sitting in front of us in mortgage, one of the questions we get often is what about the credit box? And is there an opportunity here as home prices improve and as consumer balance sheets improve that there is some losing of standards on the credit box; maybe you could speak to that?

John Stumpf

CEO

Well I would say, I don’t know that’s valued so much. I think the bigger part of the credit box right now to open up would be a better understanding of repurchase risk. And we’re doing a lot of work with folks and the government about that issue. I think that influenced it more than value of homes. Although values are important, but because your credit overlays today are not related to values, they’re related to in many cases repurchase risks.

Betsy Graseck - Morgan Stanley

Analyst · Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead

Right. And apparently the FHFA is working on crystallizing that more clearly for people I assume it’s what you’re talking about?

John Stumpf

CEO

Yes, exactly. There has to be, I think it’s helpful to America to American homeowners, perspective homeowners to the agencies and to originators that there is a understanding of when risk transfers. Now, if the originator does a poor job and doesn’t underwrite properly, surly they should be held accountable. But if a default happens later and due to a technical issue unrelated to the payment ability of the customer that could have been known then risk should transfer. And whenever that period of time is, I think that would be helpful. And there are a number of Americans who want to buy home, can afford to buy home, who simply can get credit.

Betsy Graseck - Morgan Stanley

Analyst · Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead

So do you think you, if you had certain amount of clarity like two plus three years risk transfers assuming we did a good job as an underwriter, would that have a material impact on how you are putting on your credit overlays?

John Stumpf

CEO

Well, it would surely change. It would really the change the way we look at overlays. And I’m not saying it is, could have changes to market, but those every home that gets sold that satisfies a customers need not only fulfills a dream, but a dollar spent on a home multiply through the economy like no other thing that we do, I mean a loan to a small business, we love it, do a lot, but a loan to homeowner is magical in that respect. So every time we can serve another customer, good things happen.

Betsy Graseck - Morgan Stanley

Analyst · Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead

Okay. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Mike Mayo with CLSA. Please go ahead.

Mike Mayo - CLSA

Analyst · Mike Mayo with CLSA. Please go ahead

Hi, can you hear me?

John Stumpf

CEO

Yes, hi Mike. Good morning.

Mike Mayo - CLSA

Analyst · Mike Mayo with CLSA. Please go ahead

Hey, John, do you still dream about checking account? And the reason I asked -- or do you dream about them as much, because with the ten year where it is, I mean do you still go all gung ho, get as much deposits as you can get to the long-term value or do you somehow need to balance that with the need for shorter term profitability?

John Stumpf

CEO

In fact Mike I’m going to bed earlier these days, so I can even dream longer about them. I still just love checking, and here is why. But it’s a good question, it’s a serious question. First of all, when an account comes like we grew net primary checking accounts 4.9% on the consumer side and 5.6% on the business side, they don’t come alone, they come with a relationship. And the increases you are seeing and debit card activity and credit card, we almost have 40% of our customers now carry our credit card that was 22% in 2009, and they do other things with us. And secondly, you know how expensive it is to bill liquidity for the LCR and other things; deposits are hugely important in that. So, now the love affair has not ended and we won’t be in this environment forever. But if we can serve customers for a long time that feels like even we’d love that.

Mike Mayo - CLSA

Analyst · Mike Mayo with CLSA. Please go ahead

Well you mentioned that you are trying to mitigate the impact somewhat with expenses and you are actually increasing your number of branches but I guess you are reducing the square feet. Can you give us some sense of what sort of square foot reduction you are looking for in your bank branches say over 5 or even 10 years?

John Stumpf

CEO

I’ll give you -- let me give you kind of a high level and then I’ll try to answer your question specifically. When we -- if you go back five, six years, we had about 116 million or 117 million square feet and that was not only for our stores but for all of our people; today that’s in the 93 million, 94 million square foot range. We still think we have quite ways to go. We have 6,200 banking stores and we have another couple of thousand other advisor and mortgage stores but let’s just talk about the banking stores for a second. We try to refresh 500, 600 of those every year plus we are -- we’re at pretty steady state right now. We’re in that 6,200; we will replace two with the new one and relocate it. When we do refresh them, we will reduce in many case square footage or increase the density in the stores. I think you and I’ve actually had discussions about which is now a three stores in the Washington area where these are, I wouldn’t say stores of the future in terms of replace all of our 6,200 stores but they fit into the model where they are 1,000 to 1,200 square feet; during the day time it’s a full functioning store, night time the walls folding, it’s ATM best field 7X24; and so all of that matters in the mix. And the reason we are doing that is that we have found stores are still critically important to the overall distribution community and convenience we provide customers. So we will continue to march in this way; it doesn’t mean we’re going to replace every store, sometimes we are even adding space because it’s kind of a hub and spoke. So, it’s really a collage of store designs and activities that all fit into this. But you’re right with the idea of reducing overhead, reducing space we’re providing the convenience customers want.

Mike Mayo - CLSA

Analyst · Mike Mayo with CLSA. Please go ahead

So over the last five years you reduced square feet by about one-fifth, over the next five years how much do you think you can reduce it by?

John Shrewsberry

CFO

I don’t know that we have absolute goal, but it will continue to go down. There are lots of opportunities and that’s going to be critical.

Mike Mayo - CLSA

Analyst · Mike Mayo with CLSA. Please go ahead

And just one separate question, you had a comment in the American Bank I think it was and you alluded to it today that it’s tougher for some individuals to get mortgage loans from Wells Fargo because of the risk of repurchase. And so is this simply, would you describe it as an unintended consequence of some of the regulatory actions over the past few years?

John Shrewsberry

CFO

I would say it’s unintended consequence of activity, I don’t know but so much on the regulation side, but it sure is. It can give us a cause to pause and other originators, we’re not unique in this. What you have repurchase request that go back 8 and 10 years and in many cases are things unrelated to the credit quality or the credit payment ability of the borrower at the time of the borrowing. We’ve put open ways on. Now we start to reduce a little of those if we start to understand more about repurchase, but it’s just, it is an unintended consequence. I don’t if it’s so much regulation as it is the activities of the GSEs.

Mike Mayo - CLSA

Analyst · Mike Mayo with CLSA. Please go ahead

So is this a permanent dampening for the mortgage market?

John Shrewsberry

CFO

No, I actually think that we’re going to -- I’m hopeful we’re going to figure this out. We’re working with actually too many groups who are saying to us, this isn’t working for us. And we’re working with other originators, we’re working with the Mortgage Bankers’ Association, we’re working with the head of the FHFA, we’re working with the GSEs, we’re working with government agencies the Fed and others because we need to figure this out.

Mike Mayo - CLSA

Analyst · Mike Mayo with CLSA. Please go ahead

Alright. Thanks a lot.

John Shrewsberry

CFO

Thank you, Mike.

Operator

Operator

Your next question will come from the line of Bill Carcache with Nomura Securities. Please go ahead.

Bill Carcache - Nomura Securities

Analyst · Nomura Securities. Please go ahead

Thanks. Good morning. You guys mentioned in response to an earlier question that we’re not going to be in this environment forever. Following up on that thought, I was hoping you could share your deposit growth outlook just from a high level with QE now coming to an end. Would you expect to see a slowdown and overall industry deposit growth and the corresponding excess liquidity building? And if so, does that mean that some of the excess liquidity driven NIM compression that we’ve been seeing should abate?

John Shrewsberry

CFO

Let me take a shot at that. Clearly money supply and what’s happening there has influence. But I can tell you our household growth; I think John mentioned in his numbers, August is the strongest we’ve seen in years. And because of where our store distribution and the geography of it, we happen to be in higher growth states. We happen to get a disproportionate growth of millennials and in emerging communities. So I can’t tell you what’s going to happen at the top of the house with M1 or M2 I’d would like that, but I’m confident about the way we run our retail franchise and the work we’re doing at wealth brokerage retirement. And frankly on the corporate side in winning new customers and growing not only existing accounts, but growing new accounts. And frankly that’s one of the reason stores are important. Our strongest growth is in areas where we have the best distribution of a store network not that it’s the only part of the distribution, but it’s a critical part for acquisition.

John Stumpf

CEO

One thing that I would add to that is that our deposits are disproportionately core deposits, operational deposits, relationship types of deposits and less so institutional deposits from people who are probably more inclined to immediately shipped out as Fed does whatever they’re going to do to drain reserves in the system and to tighten monitory policy if that ever happen. And as a result, we feel like we’ve got a stickier deposit base. And all things being equal, if we were, it was a question of loosing deposits versus retaining them, we obviously have the ability to price our deposits to compete with whatever the alternative investment opportunity or savings opportunity is for our customers because we’re sitting here with a full service capability and lots of levers in the relationships that we have. So unlike some firms that probably have a higher percentage of institutional deposits that are seeking the last basis point of yield, I don’t think, I think we compare favorably in terms of deposits stickiness.

Bill Carcache - Nomura Securities

Analyst · Nomura Securities. Please go ahead

Thank you. That’s very helpful. I had a second question on the rate environment, assuming that we do start to see the Fed funds rate increase next year. How are you thinking about the potential for an environment where the Feds taking retire at the short end of the curve, but demand for treasuries remain strong at the long end since then we end up with the flatter curve. How are you guys positioned to perform in that kind of environment?

John Stumpf

CEO

That would actually be not that outcome at all because we would have less capital pressure on loan rates backing up on our bond portfolio and we’d be benefiting as loans and other LIBOR linked assets re-price on at the short-end. So, at least with respect to those two drivers of accounting outcomes, those would be favorable.

Bill Carcache - Nomura Securities

Analyst · Nomura Securities. Please go ahead

Excellent. Thank you.

John Stumpf

CEO

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question will come from the line of Scott Siefers with Sandler O’Neill. Please go ahead. Scott Siefers - Sandler O’Neill: Good morning, guys.

John Stumpf

CEO

Hey, Scott. Scott Siefers - Sandler O’Neill: I was just hoping you could spend just a moment or two talking about the operating losses, just given the trajectory, they were up kind of substantially in the second quarter and then up another bit again; I mean I can imagine given some of the conversations we’ve had on regulatory issues, so what might be driving that. But can you spend a second maybe discussing when or how or even why those might crest and then hopefully begin to ebb back down?

John Stumpf

CEO

Well, we’ve mentioned that this month’s elevated -- this quarter’s elevated level reflects primarily litigation accruals and as a result, there is not much more specific color we can offer except to point you to our crystal clear disclosure in our Qs and K that describe everything that’s probable and estimable and then sum. And it’s like anything else; it’s hard to know whether you’re cresting or not until you’re on the other side of it. So we feel this is a somewhat higher level than it’s been recently and we think it’s well disclosed. Scott Siefers - Sandler O’Neill: Okay. All right, sounds good. Thank you.

John Stumpf

CEO

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Marty Mosby with Vining Sparks. Please go ahead.

Marty Mosby - Vining Sparks

Analyst · Marty Mosby with Vining Sparks. Please go ahead

Thank you. I wanted to talk about two different lines of questioning more long-term in nature. One is that as you’re pulling your short-term assets higher by about $25 billion each quarter and you mentioned that in the terms of liquidity but is also adding about 2% to your asset sensitivity every quarter. So it just seems like you’re looking at the level of opportunities that you have in deciding to forego the yields of today and a hope for better yields tomorrow increasing asset sensitivity. So John, I just want to get your feel for how you’re kind of managing that decision you mentioned several times.

John Stumpf

CEO

Well, it’s a complex decision; it involves our asset and liability and a lot of discussion among management from time to time. And the items that you just mentioned tend to be a little bit backward looking because you don’t know what a quarter’s loan growth is until it’s happened. Floating rate loan growth contributes to asset sensitivity. The governing factors probably what our capital sensitivity is to a back up in rates if we deploy into duration instruments and out of cash equivalents. And getting that right is important, so that we don’t find ourselves with higher rates that we’ve all always been waiting for and a higher level of economic activity which would probably mean more non-interest income generation and more loan growth, a lot of exciting activity and at the same time be damaging our capital to the point that we couldn’t take full advantage of it. And so that is one of those marginal drivers that probably caused us to be a little bit more in cash, a little bit more asset sensitive than -- versus being more fully invested today.

Marty Mosby - Vining Sparks

Analyst · Marty Mosby with Vining Sparks. Please go ahead

But at least looking back, funding sources of long term debt and sticky deposits growth with growth in short term liquid assets naturally I guess I just want to make sure we’re both agreeing that that makes you more asset sensitive each quarter.

John Shrewsberry

CFO

That makes us more asset-sensitive. That’s right.

Marty Mosby - Vining Sparks

Analyst · Marty Mosby with Vining Sparks. Please go ahead

And then just real quickly, other line of thinking was John, how have you increased the growth in households and businesses? I mean moving that number up a 4 percentage point on the consumer side and 2, 4 percentage points on the business side long-term is a big driver. How do you see the source of those and is that sustainable at these higher levels?

John Stumpf

CEO

Well, it’s hard to know whether it’s sustainable because again that’s forward-looking. The reason that it’s happening is a result of the quality of our people, the quality of our products, the execution of our business model and just consistent application of the value proposition that we’re bringing. And it’s paying dividends like we thought that it would, hope that it would. If work goes in the future as a function of variety of inputs that are hard to know, but we like our competitive standing and so to the extent that we’re growing faster than our large and regional bank competition, we’re not surprised by and that’s what we expect.

Marty Mosby - Vining Sparks

Analyst · Marty Mosby with Vining Sparks. Please go ahead

And would you see that in the traditional markets or more in you’ve got the Wachovia markets and the franchise not pulled together. So you’re really getting traction and being able to attract new customers now you got all that processed?

John Shrewsberry

CFO

I think they are all traditional markets now.

John Stumpf

CEO

Yes, exactly. We don’t think…

Marty Mosby - Vining Sparks

Analyst · Marty Mosby with Vining Sparks. Please go ahead

Understand, I don’t know if incrementally you’re getting some new households in those newer let’s say market?

John Stumpf

CEO

We’re getting it in all of our markets.

Marty Mosby - Vining Sparks

Analyst · Marty Mosby with Vining Sparks. Please go ahead

Alright, thanks.

John Shrewsberry

CFO

They’re all good to us.

Marty Mosby - Vining Sparks

Analyst · Marty Mosby with Vining Sparks. Please go ahead

I appreciate it. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Nancy Bush with NAB Research, LLC. Please go ahead.

Nancy Bush - NAB Research, LLC

Analyst · Nancy Bush with NAB Research, LLC. Please go ahead

Good morning, guys. How are you?

John Stumpf

CEO

Hi Nancy.

John Shrewsberry

CFO

Good morning.

Nancy Bush - NAB Research, LLC

Analyst · Nancy Bush with NAB Research, LLC. Please go ahead

This is sort of an overarching question John and John that goes to a lot of the stuff we’re hearing not only on your call, but on the JP Morgan Chase call about these sort of continuing calls for increased capital all these other new requirements that are being put on the industry to which there is seemingly no end. And there is -- I’m sure you’ve read this in the press as well, this beginning characterization of the banking industry as the new electric utility. Are the regulators trying to enforce so much conformity on the industry that they are going to do away with the dynamism and the willingness of the banking industry? John could you just give us, either John, just give us some perspective on that and where you think that indeed is happening?

John Stumpf

CEO

Well, there is no question that they can stay. The regulatory, the global regulatory community keeps apparently keeps adding on to both capital and liquidity requirements that are going to have the combined effect of changing business models, increasing operating costs or financing costs and then applying that to an increased denominator of equity in the ROE calculation. To an industry that broadly speaking other than Wells Fargo and perhaps some regional banks has not been over achieving in returns over the last couple of years. So, if you roll the tape forward, I assume that that gets mathematically worse before it gets betters unless a higher rate environment, a higher growth environment a real optimization on the part of the most impact banks in terms of changing their business model allows them to perform at a higher level. So, I think it is, it’s a consequence of what you’re describing, it is happening and we can’t talk or anybody else is going to deal with it. But we’ve, as I mentioned earlier, we’re proud to have to continue to generate a top of the peer group type of returns in spite of the amount of capital that we’re carrying and the ample liquidity that we’re carrying too.

John Shrewsberry

CFO

Nancy it’s an interesting question and there is no question that there has been increases, some of them are settled and different issues be combining constraints and different ways. Of our business, 97% of our revenues come from the U.S. We love our international business, but we’re dominant -- our dominant part of our business is here that makes it a bit easier for us and the challenge and I think the opportunity for leadership is to make sure that we do both we meet or exceed the requirements on the capital liquidity and those side and also we continue to invest in things that attract team members to us, attract customers to us, be dynamic in the marketplace differentiating. And we’re so embedded in the real economy that the things we’re doing continue to allow us to grow that business. So, we can never predict the future, but that’s a challenge for us as leaders to do both.

Nancy Bush - NAB Research, LLC

Analyst · Nancy Bush with NAB Research, LLC. Please go ahead

John, do you see yourself, John Stumpf, do you see yourself as having to change your plans for growth either businesses that you would like to be in? Do you see that you might have to divest any of your present businesses? Should this sort of regulatory minds that continue and intensify?

John Stumpf

CEO

At this point in time the answer is no, because again virtually everything we do here starts with a customer. And we look at relationship value and pricing and different businesses have different returns and so forth. And we’re always thinking about adjusting like few -- last quarter we sold smaller insurance offices, doesn’t mean we don’t like interest business, we just -- but there is always things that are going on. But there is nothing in anything I see today that would say I can’t be in this business or we can’t be in that business; it relates to customers.

Nancy Bush - NAB Research, LLC

Analyst · Nancy Bush with NAB Research, LLC. Please go ahead

Okay, all right. Thank you.

John Stumpf

CEO

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our final question will come from the line of Kevin Barker with Compass Point. Please go ahead.

Kevin Barker - Compass Point

Analyst · Compass Point. Please go ahead

Good morning.

John Stumpf

CEO

Good morning.

Kevin Barker - Compass Point

Analyst · Compass Point. Please go ahead

I noticed that you had quite a bit of increasing construction loans quarter-over-quarter and they’re basically staying flat for several years. Is there something in particular that’s causing the development and expansion of construction loans or is that something that you’re looking at like an initiative going forward?

John Stumpf

CEO

We’re the largest commercial real estate lender in the country. And as I’ve said in some place recently, you fly around; go in any city looks like a crane convention going on. I mean there is a lot of commercial activity going on and we serve that community and that sector of the economy. There is also housing is better than it has been in the past. So I think it reflects more the natural activity happening in the marketplace as opposed to us changing our strategy somehow.

Kevin Barker - Compass Point

Analyst · Compass Point. Please go ahead

Alright. And then in regards to student loan business, are you still planning on selling the thought portfolio by year end or can you talk about the overall investor appetite for these loans? And then separately on the private side, I know this is a peak lending quarter for student loans but could you provide any color around the demand trend from students given the overall level of student out there?

John Stumpf

CEO

Well, with respect to the first part of your question, we still do intend to sell those loans, can’t really comment on the specific to sales moving forward, progressing as expected. And what I can tell you is like any other fixed income asset category in this highly liquid environment there is plenty of interest. But in terms of whether it happens in the fourth quarter or later, I don’t want to be too specific. We remain very committed to private student lending and of course our student lending team now will be even more focused on our private business once we’ve sold the self loans. And with respect to whether demand after accounting for seasonality as you mentioned has changed or not changed. We are in a point in time when a very high number of people are already student borrowers and but it’s still one of the three or four most important things that are customers do, they buy a home, they buy a car, they finance their education and they save for retirement and we expect that to continue.

Kevin Barker - Compass Point

Analyst · Compass Point. Please go ahead

Okay. Thank you for taking my questions.

John Stumpf

CEO

Okay. I think we’re done with the call now. I want to first of all thank all of you for jointing us and thank our 265,000 team members across our company for an outstanding quarter. If you look at the drivers of long-term growth, loans, deposits, the capital, the liquidity we have, the household growth, it sure makes us optimistic about the future. We operate within our ROA, ROE and efficiency ratio targets that we had provided a couple of years ago. And we’re really proud that we return more capital to you our owners. So we’re well positioned for the future and we’ll see you in 90 days. Thank you very much everyone.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today’s conference. Thank you all for participating and you may now disconnect.