Good afternoon, and welcome to our third quarter earnings call. I'm Andy Harmening, and I'm joined by our Chief Financial Officer, Derek Meyer, and our Chief Credit Officer, Pat Ahern.

I'll start with some highlights for the quarter. From there, Derek will cover income statement and capital trends, and Pat will provide an update on credit quality.

Across the bank, we remain squarely focused on attracting and deepening relationships as a means to drive sustainable organic growth, remix our balance sheet, enhance profitability, and improve our return profile. Through the third quarter, we've maintained our momentum.

We're improving our profitability by growing and remixing our loan portfolio. We overcame elevated payoffs in Q3 and grew relationship commercial loan balances while continuing to work down low-yielding, non-relationship resi mortgage loans.

Recent pipeline trends give us confidence in sustainable growth trajectory. We're growing our customer base and funding loan growth primarily with core deposits.

We've grown our customer household base for seven consecutive quarters, and in Q3, we posted nearly $700 million in core customer deposit growth, a 2% increase versus the prior quarter. This growth helped us reduce wholesale funding during the quarter.

Our ability to fund our growth with customer deposits is driving expansion of both net interest income and margin. In Q3, our net interest income increased by $7 million, while our net interest margin expanded by three basis points to 3.2%, our second-best quarter in over a decade.

Our focus on relationship deepening is also contributing to emerging non-interest income growth. In Q3, we posted total non-interest income of $87 million, an 8% increase versus the prior quarter, with broad-based improvement across several fee categories.

Combined with disciplined expense management and stable credit trends, our third quarter results are further illustration of a model that's repeatable and sustainable. As a result of our improved profitability profile, we can now support growth and contemplate other uses of capital simultaneously.

With that in mind, we're pleased to return capital to our shareholders with $100 million in share repurchases during the quarter, the first major share buyback we've executed since I joined the bank in 2021. We expect to execute on the remainder of our existing repurchase authorization here in the fourth quarter.

With that said, organic growth remains our primary focus. Earlier this month, we reached an important milestone by completing the systems and branch conversion of American National Corporation, with nearly 150,000 loan and deposit accounts, 33 branches, 70 AT and 70 ATMs converted over the course of a three-day weekend.

Reaching this milestone took months of planning, collaboration, and care from colleagues across our bank. From preparing systems and processes to helping customers and teams navigate change, their focus and dedication made this milestone possible.

I'd like to congratulate the project team and thank our colleagues transitioning from American National Bank, who have taken the change in stride. This partnership gives us a powerful lever to attract and deepen relationships in markets like Omaha, the Twin Cities, and beyond.

I'm excited for what we will continue to accomplish together as one Associated Bank team. As we've discussed previously, our leadership team is currently finalizing plans for the next wave of strategic initiatives to sustain our growth momentum into 2027 and beyond, with areas of focus including growing our customer base, competing in major metro markets, outperforming in deposit gathering, driving relationship commercial growth, remixing the balance sheet, expanding margins, and improving our return profile.

We look forward to sharing additional details in the coming months. In summary, Associated Bank is on an upward trajectory with a proven plan to drive sustainable growth over time.

As always, our growth will be balanced with a conservative approach to expenses, credit, and risk management that serves as the foundation of our company. With that, let's walk through our third quarter financial highlights beginning on slide four.

We reported GAAP EPS of 76 cents in Q3, or 81 cents after adjusting for non-recurring acquisition costs recognized during the quarter. Total loans of $36.5 billion grew by $53 million versus the prior quarter.

We were faced with elevated payoffs in our commercial business during the quarter, but pipelines remain strong, and we remain confident in both our full-year loan growth outlook and the sustainability of our growth strategy more broadly. Core customer deposits grew by 2% during the quarter, driven by a combination of organic growth initiatives and seasonal inflows.

This growth in customer deposits helped us reduce our wholesale funding levels in Q3. Shifting to the income statement, Q3 net interest income increased $7 million, or 2%, versus the prior quarter, while our net interest margin expanded by three basis points to 3.2%.

Non-interest income also increased by $7 million versus the prior quarter, led by growth in capital markets, asset gains, service charges, and deposit account fees, and other fee-based income. Total non-interest expense of $260 million decreased by $12 million versus the prior quarter.

Our Q3 expenses included $13 million in one-time expenses tied to the American National acquisition, which was down from $24 million recognized in Q2. Credit trends remained solid, with $14 million of provision, a two basis point decrease in our ACLL ratio, a decrease in criticized loans, and 19 basis points of annualized net charge-offs recognized during the quarter.

Finally, we executed on $100 million in share repurchases during the quarter, and finished with an adjusted ROTCE ratio north of 15%. On slide five, we reiterate the core elements of our organic growth strategy and why we expect to sustain our momentum into 2027 and beyond.

First, we put in more than five years of work to build an organic growth engine that focuses on attracting and deepening relationships as a means to grow and remix both sides of our balance sheet. We bolstered leadership across all areas of the organization to set ourselves up for growth.

We've modernized our digital banking experience, enhanced our product set, improved our marketing acquisition capabilities, and developed a successful mass affluent program, all of which are key to growth, particularly in major metro markets. As a result, we've turned a shrinking customer base into a net growth story, with seven consecutive quarters of net growth in customer households.

As we grow these primary relationships, it's also translating into deposit growth, fee growth, and other business. In commercial, we've increased RMs by nearly 50% in key metrics, sharpened our relationship focus across the team, expanded our offering with new verticals and deposit gathering capabilities, and launched new C&I offices in Kansas City and Dallas with very promising initial results.

In addition to loan growth, we're collaborating to drive deposit growth, TM, capital markets, HSA, and other business in a steady, increasing manner. As we've discussed previously, the renewed focus on relationships and collaboration across the bank presents natural connections into private wealth.

To facilitate this connectivity at the local level and across the footprint, we've added several talented executives to our private wealth leadership team, upgraded our product suite, and are currently working through additional enhancements to the digital experience for wealth clients. Shifting to the middle of the page, the American National partnership has been as advertised, serving as a natural complement to our organic growth story.

Going forward, we see a significant opportunity to pair American National's strong legacy in Omaha and the Twin Cities with Associated's proven model to attract and deepen relationships in metro markets. This gives us another lever to drive organic growth into 2027.

Finally, in order to sustain our growth momentum into the future, our leadership team is currently mapping out what we want the next three years to look like for Associated. While we're still finalizing our plans, you can expect a continuation of the sustainable organic growth that is becoming a defining characteristic of our company: a focus on growing our customer base, competing in major metro markets, outperforming in deposit gathering and commercial loan growth, remixing the balance sheet, expanding margins, and improving our return profile.

We look forward to sharing more details in the near future. On slide six, we highlight our quarterly loan trends through Q3.

Average quarterly loans grew by 1% as we continue to remix the balance sheet by driving growth in commercial categories and working down our lower-yielding, non-customer resi mortgage balances. We had previously mentioned that the torrid pace of C&I growth in the first half of the year was expected to slow somewhat in the back half.

In Q3, our underlying C&I production was solid, but balance flows were impacted by an elevated level of payoffs and paydowns. We remain confident in the overall trajectory of our C&I business due to the strong trends we continue to see in our commercial pipelines, which are up nearly 40% versus the same period a year ago.

CRE was a similar story, where the team drove high-quality relationship loan production that outpaced elevated payoffs during the quarter. We continue to expect elevated payoffs in CRE in the near term, but our team is among the best in the country at growing high-quality relationship business with proven players across our markets.

For the combined company, we continue to expect period-end loan growth of 18% to 20% in 2026 and C&I loan growth of 20% to 22% as compared to Associated's stand-alone results for the year ended December 31, 2025. On slide seven, core customer deposits grew by 2% versus the prior quarter, driven by a combination of seasonal inflows and our efforts to drive sustainable relationship deposit growth across the bank.

During the quarter, we saw growth across most key markets, led by nearly $400 million of growth in the interest-bearing demand category. This growth in customer deposits helped drive a reduction in our wholesale funding levels during the quarter.

We continue to expect 2026 period-end total deposit growth of 17% to 19% and period-end core customer deposit growth of 19% to 21% as compared to Associated's stand-alone results for the year ended December 31, 2025. With that, I'll pass it to Derek to discuss our income statement and capital trends.

Thanks, Andy. I'll start with yield trends on slide eight.

During Q3, overall asset yields improved by two basis points, with slight increases in commercial and business loans, investments, and resi mortgage loans, partially offset by slight decreases in CRE and auto. On the other side of the balance sheet, total interest-bearing deposit costs have remained largely flat throughout 2026, and we finished the third quarter at 2.46%.

More broadly, total interest-bearing liability costs increased by one basis point to 2.67%. On slide nine, third quarter net interest income increased by $7 million from prior quarter to $377 million.

After posting a 14 basis point increase in our net interest margin in Q2, an increase largely driven by the addition of American National to our balance sheet and the resulting purchase accounting accretion, our margin expanded by an additional three basis points in Q3 to finish at 3.20%. This Q3 increase came despite a reduced accretion benefit during the quarter, a reflection of our efforts to grow and remix our balance sheet simultaneously.

We continue to expect total 2026 net interest income to grow by 19% to 21% as compared to Associated's stand-alone results for the year ended December 31, 2025. Given recent volatility in the rate environment, slide 10 provides a reminder of the steps we've taken to put ourselves in a more neutral interest rate position.

We're keeping our funding obligations short to maintain repricing flexibility. We're protecting our variable-rate loan portfolio by maintaining receive-fixed swap balances of approximately $2.45 billion, and we're maintaining a $4 billion fixed-rate auto book with low prepayment risk.

An up 100 ramp scenario now represents a 1.8% impact to our NIM as of Q3, while a down 100 scenario now represents a 1.1% impact. We expect to maintain this relatively neutral position going forward.

Moving to slide 11, total investment security balances finished at $10 billion in Q3, down slightly from the prior quarter. Our securities plus cash to total assets ratio finished at 22.6% as of Q3, down slightly relative to the prior quarter, but squarely in line with our target range of between 22% and 24% for the year.

We expect to stick within that target range going forward. Next, I'll walk through non-interest income trends on slide 12.

Total non-interest income of $87 million was up 8% from prior quarter and up 7% from the same period a year ago. The increase was broad-based, but was led by capital markets and asset gains.

We also saw growth in service charges and deposit account fees and card-based fees, while wealth management fees remained stable versus the prior quarter. Year-to-date through September, we've seen encouraging trends to start emerging in wealth management, capital markets, and several other fee income categories that are influenced by our efforts to attract and deepen relationships across the bank.

Additionally, as we've discussed previously, American National has not historically focused on wealth management and capital markets, we see additional opportunities in those areas as we get into 2027. In 2026, we now expect total non-interest income growth of 12% to 14% as compared to Associated's stand-alone results for the year ended December 31, 2025.

Moving to slide 13, total non-interest expense of $260 million decreased by $12 million versus the prior quarter as we saw increases in technology, occupancy, and FDIC assessment costs more than offset by decreases in personnel, legal and professional, and other expense categories. During the quarter, we recognized $13 million of non-recurring costs in connection with the American National acquisition, a decrease from the $24 million recognized in Q2.

Year-to-date, we've recognized $39 million in acquisition-related expenses, and we now expect the total amount of acquisition-related expenses to land at approximately $48.5 million, a reduction from the $52.5 million forecast we shared in July. We expect all remaining acquisition-related expenses to be recognized by the year-end of 2026.

As we move forward, we will continue to invest in the growth of our franchise, but we're anchored on delivering positive operating leverage. Based on our latest forecast, we now expect non-interest expense to grow by 19% to 20% in 2026 as compared to Associated's stand-alone results for the year ended December 31, 2025.

This figure includes non-recurring costs incurred as part of the American National acquisition. Shifting to slide 14, we're pleased to execute $100 million of share repurchases at a weighted average share price of $30.88 in the third quarter.

Our CET1 ratio finished at 10.38%. This figure was down nine basis points from the prior quarter, but up five basis points relative to Q3 Q3 of 2025.

Our TCE ratio was down 24 basis points from the prior quarter and down 15 basis points from the same period a year ago, landing at 8.03%. Our tangible book value per share finished at $21.67, 48 cents lower than the prior quarter, but up 31 cents relative to Q3 of 2025.

Going forward, we expect to maintain our CET1 target range of between 10% and 10.75%. I'll now hand it over to our Chief Credit Officer, Pat Ahern, to provide an update on credit.

Thanks, Derek. I'll start with an allowance update on slide 15.

Our CECL forward-looking assumptions utilized the Moody's August 2026 baseline forecast. Forecast remains consistent with a resilient economy, maintaining a more optimistic GDP outlook despite increasing concerns of energy market disruptions, elevated levels of inflation for longer, and a restrictive monetary policy.

In Q3, our ACLL decreased by $4 million to $491 million, with the decrease driven by an equal mix of loan growth and normal credit movements. Our ACL ratio as a percent of total loans decreased to 1.34%, down two basis points from the prior quarter and flat versus Q3 of 2025.

On slide 16, key credit quality metrics have remained solid through the third quarter. Total delinquencies increased relative to the prior quarter, and the increase was driven not by credit quality issues, but by the temporary impact of a systems conversion of our auto portfolio, requiring a segment of customers to re-enroll in ACH payments.

The vast majority of these customers had never been late on their payments, and we are actively working with them to complete the reconnection process. This process is moving quickly, with the expectation of normalized delinquency levels in the near term.

Nonaccrual balances increased by $183 million in Q3, up $33 million versus Q2. The vast majority of the increase was driven by the reclass of a $30 million C&I credit following the recent SNC exam.

We remain comfortable with the underlying asset quality and full resolution of that specific credit, and our nonaccrual trends were essentially flat otherwise. Despite the increase in nonaccruals, total criticized loans still decreased by 7%, or $121 million, versus the prior quarter.

Q3 net charge-offs of $18 million were down 24%, or $6 million, versus the prior quarter, and we posted a net charge-off ratio of just 19 basis points for the quarter. Finally, we booked $14 million of provision in Q3, down $5 million from the prior quarter and down $2 million from Q3 of 2025.

In summary, we continue to feel comfortable with the credit performance of both our core portfolio and the credits inherited from American National. With that said, our teams remain vigilant in reviewing our portfolios and staying in regular contact with customers to stay ahead of any emerging risks.

We also remain diligent in monitoring credit stressors in the macroeconomy to ensure current underwriting reflects the impact of ongoing inflation pressures, shifting labor markets, tariffs, and other economic concerns. In addition, we continue to maintain specific attention to the effects of elevated interest rates on the portfolio, including ongoing interest rate sensitivity analysis bank-wide.

We expect any future provision adjustments will reflect changes to risk grades, economic conditions, loan volumes, and other indications of credit quality. With that, I will now pass it back to Andy for closing remarks.

Thanks, Pat. On slide 17, we've provided an update to our outlook following a Q3 marked by continued organic momentum, deposit growth, margin expansion, enhanced profitability, and an improving return profile.

We are well-positioned to finish this year strong, and look forward to providing additional color on our expectations for 2027 and beyond on our fourth quarter earnings call in January. With that, let's open it up for questions.

Great, thanks. Good afternoon, everyone.

Wanted to start on slide five, the strategic plan. Just some of the initiatives obviously look like they're going to put some pressure on the expenses next year.

It's too early for 2027, but just broad strokes, is positive operating leverage still the goal for next year, even with all these investments on the come?

Casey. Always a good question.

I would say a couple things to that. We're going to come up with a really creative name for this third plan.

It's going to be called Phase 3. In Phase 1 and Phase 2, we got the same question on expenses, and I think probably the best indicator of future results is what you've done.

I look at Phase 2, that's wrapping up in 2026, and we had a ROTCE target of mid-teens, we've achieved that. We had a margin expectation of 3% plus, we achieved that.

We had an efficiency ratio target of 55% to 60%, we're operating at an adjusted efficiency ratio of 51%. Net charge-offs target of less than 35 basis points, we're well under that.

Having positive operating leverage. You can probably expect some of the similar categories, and the way that we approach any new initiative, even the fancy name Phase 3, is we'll go into our expense base, and we'll make difficult decisions on where to cut in order to reinvest to drive our profitability profile.

The answer is that we will expand on what we know, which increases the certainty of execution. One of those key points will be looking at expenses, driving those down to reinvest in areas that we've proven in the past we can get results.

Great. Then just switching to capital, it sounds like you're going to exhaust the remaining $100 million in the fourth quarter here.

Just looking ahead, yeah, I know you guys are within your CET1 range, but do you guys manage to the TCE ratio? Just wondering, with that at 8% and more rate hikes coming, is there a level there that you want to hold to as you contemplate buybacks into '27?

The short answer to that is no. We're managing to our CET1 at 10% to 10.75%, and the reason that we're comfortable with that range is because we have a conservative risk profile, and we have an ACLL that's at the peer medium with a risk profile that's lower than that.

We put ourselves in a pretty good position there, and so that's how we've operated, that's how we expect to operate. I don't know if you have any further comments, Derek, on TCE or not.

No, I think you said it well. We're trying to get our ROTCE to where it should be, and the binding constraint for us as we do that is looking to CET1.

We've been reinvesting our securities portfolio pretty short so that any AOCI risk is relatively low anyways, even though that's not included in our CET1.

Gotcha. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Andy.

Good afternoon, Derek.

Hey, Daniel.

Maybe just starting on the credit side. Criticized loans were down, which is nice to see.

NPLs were up a bit. Curious if you see any of that increase on the NPLs flowing through on near-term charge-offs, and maybe just kind of a reminder if everything still seems the same or any update on the credit outlook.

No, we don't see any near-term things flowing through the charge-offs. The increase this quarter, something we were already kind of in discussions with clients, we feel good about that resolution.

Then as far as the outlook overall, feel pretty confident in how we're looking at right now in the continued trajectory of the metrics.

Great. Thanks for that.

Then maybe, Andy, for you, on the new markets, any color on kind of early trends from a balance sheet growth perspective in terms of what they're putting up, and just curious how the kind of the pricing out there from a loan and deposit perspective compares to the rest of your portfolio, your footprint.

You're asking probably one of the most impatient CEOs in America what trends he sees, which is pretty funny, because I've been asking that question eight days in to the systems conversion. In the way-too-early trend category, what I would say is I'm really, really pleased with what we've done on the consumer side of the bank.

A quick answer is, we're almost fully activated on our debit card portfolio to what their activation level was pre-conversion, and that happened in a week. What that means is then you have the people that want to get in digital banking logging in already.

The most interesting stat that I've seen is more of a precursor into 2027. My question is on account opening, what happened immediately.

You're going through a conversion, you're getting a lot of questions, we're issuing debit cards, you have people coming in in the first seven days, and lo and behold, the number of checking accounts we opened in the first seven days versus a period from June to August was up 121%. I can't take that number and forecast 2027, but in the category of welcome surprise, we have a consumer bank that just has products and services that are significant, layering it on top of a team that was ready for it with a conversion that quickly got people up and running and activated on digital and on their debit cards.

The very, very early answer to that is, we were excited about Omaha, there is reason to be excited. We will invest in Omaha, we will invest from a charitable standpoint, we will invest from a marketing standpoint, we will invest from a people standpoint.

We'll let the dust settle here over the next 30 days as you should for any conversion, but the very early indication to me is it's what we had hoped it would be for us.

Thanks. Also, the Dallas and Kansas City markets, I know it's really early in Dallas, but curious if there's anything you could tell us there.

We're booking loans in Dallas, and that's a good sign. That means that the people that we brought over are consistent with what our strategy has been, which is we bring seasoned bankers.

We're not training them how to be bankers. They're very good, they're opting for us, and they have followings on the customer and community side.

If you don't have to introduce somebody to the community, you can immediately get down to business, and that's what they've done there. Kansas City, they've exceeded every projection we've put out for them.

We hired there, and you say it's early, it's not even early in Kansas City anymore. We're almost two years into that is, frankly, one of the strongest teams that we have, and I would say one of the strongest teams in that market.

I couldn't be more pleased with what they do and how they do it. Those two early indicators to us tell us that we can move into major metropolitan markets.

We have a blueprint for it, and it's really key on hiring people. Those people are going to want to know that we have capabilities that allow them to go to market.

When we come out with our strategic plan in the first quarter, you can count on seeing increase in infrastructure on treasury management so that we can compete with regional and national players. We also just are completing this coming weekend our transition to a new commercial platform as well, which allows us to plug additional capabilities into it.

Feeling pretty good on the two markets, and really feeling good about our leadership team in commercial across the company, including in the Omaha market with our new market president, Jason Hansen.

Great. Thank you for that color, Andy.

It's good talking to you, Daniel.

Hi, good afternoon, everybody. Maybe first question, is the 18% to 20% loan growth range largely a function of uncertainty around the timing and magnitude of loan payoffs?

Then maybe while you're thinking about loans, could you just expand on kind of commercial loan pipelines and overall business sentiment among your customers?

I'm not sure that I'd call an uncertainty on payoffs. What I would say is just starting with the big picture on loans, we're in a very good place, regardless of some Q3 company sales that led to payoffs.

We'd be at the top of the original ASB guide, we're very likely to meet the full bank guide, and we're growing in areas that are allowing the remix and an increased profitability profile. The commercial pipeline, we pressure test this, and we look at this from a dollar amount, in overall commitment amount, we look at from a funded debt standpoint.

When I say it's around this, I try to be conservative, and it's a little hard to believe, but the pipeline's up 36% to 40%. It could even be higher if we look at funded opportunity.

What we're finding is a customer base and a community base that is seeing good business results, and they're starting to convert on that. When we look at CRE, that's a really interesting one.

We're up 50% in production this year year-to-date, roughly. We're up roughly 50% in payoffs, which so is the industry, and thank goodness we are.

That means deals are flowing through. When you increase that production, half of that is construction lending, our unfunded construction commitments are up as well.

When you net all that out, it means we have a pretty good view into the next 12 months that we're going to grow. We believe that we'll grow responsibly in the low to mid-single digits in CRE.

Good pipeline in commercial, good unfunded construction balances with an increase in production to quality borrowers. When I look at that, Terry, that's, does it happen in November, early December, January 2nd?

I don't know, but I will say that we feel pretty strongly we can achieve in the range that we have, and we have a durable, sustainable period coming after that.

Then just as a follow-up, just curious, average non-interest-bearing deposits look to be about $500 million kind of above the period end. I'm just curious, is that timing related?

Am I reading too much into it, because it did catch my eye?

This is Derek. I would say all of our non-maturity deposits are growing nicely.

Both this quarter and looking in the next quarter, that's where you see most of the growth, including in non-interest-bearing. That's been a strong story for us, the second half of the year, both from a production standpoint and a tailwind standpoint, and it supports our outlook on NIM also.

Okay. Thanks for taking my questions.

Thanks, Terry.

Sure. ): If I could start on the expense guide, I'm just kind of backing into kind of what that implies for the fourth quarter here.

It seems like that suggests a fairly large step-up in expenses from 3Q to 4Q. I guess, one, am I reading that correctly, 5%, 6% or so?

I guess what's driving that?

We had an OREO recovery in third quarter that may have affected what you're looking at, but overall, we're within our guide, and we'd expect to be. ): Got it.

Okay. Thank you for that.

Maybe just on the NIM, the good core expansion here in the third quarter, just maybe your expectations for that going forward, given the strong trends on the deposit side and the loan side as well. I think our story is staying the same, which started before the acquisition.

Then we took a nice step up with the acquisition, and we expect to continue after the acquisition, which is a basis point or two a quarter of organic expansion. We expect to do that in spite of run-off of the accretion.

We believe that that's a reflection of our business model working, and the sustainability of it overall. That's how we're thinking about it, and we think planning that way and relying on organic growth to drive our outlook so that we can invest in a responsible way and drive operating leverage is the winning formula for us.

Brandon, just some color behind that, it is the same idea that we've had for a few years now, but we continue to get sustained performance behind it. If you look behind that, what I would say gives me some comfort that we can continue on is seven consecutive quarters of growing our customer base.

I looked at TM sales this week. Year-to-date, our treasury management sales are up 37% from the same period the prior year.

We don't get rich on TM sales. However, that's a good indication we're talking about liquidity management, and that's where I'm starting to see a real movement in our commercial team and what they're doing.

We have one of the largest HSA businesses in the country. We have fed that business, and we've had either high single-digits or double-digit growth in deposits in that pretty regularly for the last five years.

As we look to continue to invest in what we're doing in those categories, we have very good stable momentum going into the year-end, and likely additional initiatives that will kind of feed to that. I know that's a long way around town when you talk about NIM, but for us, funding and deposit funding is something that is significant.

They are not new strategies, and they're proving to be repeatable. ): Got it.

Okay. I appreciate all the color there.

Thank you. Thanks, Brandon.

Hey, good afternoon. Thanks.

I guess sticking with the deposit conversation, maybe looking at time deposits, you had some good pricing declines there given the rate environment. How are you thinking about pricing time deposits, and can you give us an update on what's coming due and sort of the roll-on, roll-off impact of that?

The way we're thinking about it is this quarter and next quarter, we don't see that as a key driver of deposit growth. While our back book is a little bit below the marginal rates you see now, I think we're under four and the promotional rates that are out there are all over four, that rollover is not going to drive a lot of our NIM going forward.

Most of our growth in fourth quarter again is non-maturity deposits, and interest-bearing demand deposits are what is the biggest chunk of that. That's going to outpace any roll pricing impact on the CD book for the rest of this year, and then we'll give a fresh view next year.

As we look at that dynamic of growth with good growth coming from non-maturity deposits, how are you thinking about the cumulative beta through the cycle, then? If the structure of funding is improved, should we expect that betas could be better this time around?

Right now, we're about 55%. I still think that could still kind of roll around between 52% and 57%, but as either watching the competitive environment or the interest rate environment like we saw today versus a couple weeks ago, I don't want to get too anchored on an outlook with the macro environment changing so much.

What I do have a lot of confidence in is that we can offset that pricing with our asset pricing and still get improving overall margin.

Thanks. If I could just sneak one more in on capital markets, should we expect that growth in that line is a little more stable and steady now given some of the success you're saying you're having with treasury management and other areas?

How should we think about capital markets going forward?

Jared, you know that's a yes-and-no question, right? You can have a lumpy quarter, but when we look year to year, I would expect to continue to see progress on that.

You can get a nice deal in there that gives it a pop, but as we've added commercial bankers, as we continue to believe we can, as we've expanded into the Omaha market where they don't have it, it's certainly my expectation that year over year over year will continue to get better, improve in capital markets. I would be very careful to predict quarter by quarter in that category.

Jared, we think about it as we should have higher highs and higher lows out of that category.

Okay. Thanks.

I could have saved time by just saying that, Jared.

Hi, guys. Good afternoon.

Thanks for taking the questions. Just going back to the deposit discussion, to get to the guide for the full year, that implies a decent ramp in the fourth quarter.

Just curious kind of apart from the momentum you guys described in terms of new client acquisition, household growth, and so forth, is there any other seasonality we should be thinking about into the fourth quarter to help on the deposit growth front? To that end, how much more do you expect kind of wholesale funding to come down after some good success on that front over the last couple quarters?

I think the end of the fourth quarter is really where you see a lot of our seasonality kick in, which also gives us relief on the wholesale funding. That comes through again in the non-maturity deposits, both on the wealth side and the commercial side.

Nathan, in the early quarters, we often show a year-over-year growth in deposits, we don't get confused. We don't just benefit from seasonality.

From same period prior year, we've been squarely in the 5% to 6% growth range on deposits. From the near-term to your question and understanding the impact on NIM from funding sources, yes, we do expect to grow.

Yes, that could lead to decreases in wholesale funding. Seasonality to me is not the full story.

The full story is, if you look at one period of the prior year, have you gone up, and are you ahead of the market on your funding? The answer pretty consistently for us has been yes.

That's helpful. One more for me.

Just curious what you're seeing in terms of kind of the weighted average rate on new loan pricing today, and if you have kind of the spot rate on loan yields at the end of September.

Getting a spot rate on the end of September, I think, is the road to nowhere. I think about the idea of what can happen with your deposits, what can happen with a particular loan, we don't really guide to that.

What I will tell you is that the asset yields that we're putting on, commercial C&I is a little higher than CRE, and we grow it a little bit faster. I'm going to tell you the things that we're doing is leading to that lift, but I'd be very careful modeling something on a one-day point margin into the fourth quarter as a directional thing.

We try to stay away from that.

Understandable. Just trying to get a sense for how much momentum loan yields have, just given all the hires and with rates going up over the course of kind of early part of 3Q, just in advance of the rate hike, but I appreciate the perspective, though, Andy.

That's fair. One thing I'd say, though, Nathan, is, too, that we Not sure what happened there, but we have a pretty big variable-rate book on the commercial side, going into the quarter based on the effective date of change, and we're slightly asset-sensitive.

We'll see a little bit of benefit going into October from that.

Great. I appreciate all the color.

Thanks, guys.

Thank you.

Hey, how's it going? This is Andrew Leischner on for Chris McGratty.

Just going back to fee income, just in the quarter and the guidance update, I think it was an $85 million core number. Is that a good run rate to use as we go into 2027, and then from there, factor in the additional opportunities you spoke about given the wealth and American National synergies, or were there certain items that were outsized or seasonally higher in the quarter?

Thanks.

No, we're not going to give guidance yet for next year until we go through and do, I guess, our Phase 3 strategic plan, but you do start to see, we had a really good second half of the year last year, and now we put up a really good third quarter this year. You are starting to see a higher-level run rate.

It is still lumpy. You have nice performance in debit card and customer service charges and wealth, but it really is what's the rolling four-quarter view that we can start to expect out of capital markets, and we have not settled in on that yet, other than we're very interested in it, like everyone else is, because it's really been a highlight for us, and there's opportunity as a result of the ANB acquisition and all the RM hires.

I'm more comfortable, Andrew, now with the direction we have than I've been in five years. The reason I am is that when you start to grow your customer base, we went from a negative 1% to 2% to 0%.

Celebrated that and got absolutely no tailwind. Then we went up to 1%, but was for part of a year and got very little tailwind.

Now we've been playing around in the 1.5% range for a while, and that is giving us a tailwind on fees, whether that is debit card fees, whether that's new customers that are bringing more money, whether that's people that are getting a card. On the consumer side of it, it's the first time I've felt a tailwind in our company, and we'll have that heading into 2027.

As Derek said, we don't have the forecast for '27 yet, but we have nice momentum in areas that would lead you to believe that your fee income has an opportunity to go up. As you increase that number on the customer side, that goes through mass affluent.

That mass affluent will start to go into your private wealth business. When you expand your commercial base, that starts to go into your private wealth business.

We're seeing some increases. We highlight there some of those numbers.

We'll certainly come up with a forecast for 2027. The plan is to do that in January.

The fundamentals of our business right now are as strong as they've been in a decade.

Great. Thank you for all that color.

Then going back to buybacks, just given you're in the midpoint of your CET1 range, is the $100 million a quarter a good pace for 2027, or should we expect a little moderation? Thanks.

I'd put that into a category we haven't forecasted that one just yet. We saw an opportunity right now, and pretty comfortable in that 10% to 10.75% area, because I just reminding you, you can see some pages on this, the quality of our super prime business, which should matter, and the allowance that we have today.

What I would say is, it's an option open to us that we haven't had before, and it's one that will be in our decision matrix for capital spend in 2027.

Understood. Thank you for the questions.

All right. Thank you.

Thanks. Good afternoon.

Andy, can you talk about that commercial pipeline comment again? I think I heard something like 35% to 40% up.

You hedged a little bit on that, but is that right, and is that up materially? If so, when or how does that pull through?

My only hedge on that is I didn't want to give you a bigger number. The number's 36% to 40% in commitments, and it's higher than that when we look at funded portion of that.

When you start to get into those numbers, you say, "Hey, what's the real pull-through?" I think the takeaway for me in that is when I see a pipeline going up like that from a year-over-year standpoint, it does lead to me to believe that the production is going to be there.

It has been my whole career, and I will say Phil Trier and the commercial team are very diligent in tracking their pipeline through the different levels. The answer is, it's not a hedge, it is a 36% to 40% increase, and with that, we expect pretty solid production in the fourth quarter, and we expect C&I growth in the fourth quarter.

Okay. Good on that.

Then most of the questions have been handled, but I'm not asking for Phase 3 yet, but what are you pushing your people on right now? What's bothering you?

Then is there anything left undone from Phase 2 that will carry over? Thanks.

We've worked pretty darn hard to get to a 15% ROTCE. We've worked really hard to get to a 1.5% plus percent customer growth, and the message now is, after you go through a conversion, after you go through a couple platform changes, "Hey, catch your breath, but catch it fast."

What I want to make sure of, and I really don't have to do much convincing on this, is we want to be 2%, 2.5%, 3% household growth. That doesn't happen by wishing for it.

We have plans, and we're just determining what the right timing of that is going to be. I think the continued growth in major metropolitan markets, where do you go, and how do you get launched there, and do you use the plan that you've had in the past?

Right now, I think it's the things that aren't fancy, it's discipline. Our team has it, and I like it.

It's making sure that you aren't complacent, because there is a clear next step for us. We've worked hard to get to where we are, but there's another step for us from a business standpoint and a performance standpoint.

Then it's make sure we give enough attention to Omaha. It's a really good market, and these people are going through a conversion, and that's hard.

However, we will put our money where our mouth is in that market. We believe in that team.

I think those are some of the things on my mind right now heading into the end of the year and into 2027.

All right. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

I want to thank everyone for the interest. I will just highlight the fact, I'm pleased that we continue to expand NIM, I'm pleased that we've controlled expenses, grown revenue, maintained credit quality, improved our ROTCE.

I'm quite optimistic on the not just fourth quarter, but going into the next year based on the pipeline growth that I've seen. Thank you for the continued interest.

I will say, Go Brewers! This is the eve of the World Series and the first time in Milwaukee in 44 years.

Thank you, all.