James Noone
Analyst · Raymond James
Thanks, Kent. Before discussing our results, I want to say that I'm honored to step into the role of CEO of FinWise and grateful for the trust the Board and Kent have placed in me. This was a thoughtfully planned transition, and I've been fortunate to work closely with Kent for many years. With a strong team, clear strategy and disciplined operating model, I will remain focused on executing our strategic plan and building long-term value for our stakeholders. So I want to start by addressing our earnings shortfall this quarter. It was primarily driven by an increase in charge-offs in our SBA portfolio, concentrated in a narrow set of legacy credits. While we are confident in our overall portfolio, we expect these charge-offs to remain elevated over the next few quarters as those credits continue to be actively managed. I'll walk through more details of that segment during the credit section. I also want to provide my perspective on the business. FinWise has multiple growth engines, and they're at different stages of maturity. We manage 16 lending programs today. Our credit enhanced portfolio scaled from virtually 0 to over $100 million in under a year, and cards and payments are just beginning to contribute. This quarter, originations were strong at $1.7 billion, and core expenses held flat, enabling us to grow tangible book value per share to $14.34 at the end of Q1. But from a broader perspective, our partner pipeline continues to strengthen, the platform is scaling and the long-term trajectory of this business is exciting. Turning to quarterly trends. First quarter loan originations totaled $1.7 billion, up 38% year-over-year. Performance reflected contributions from both established maturing partners and newer launches. Our strategic partners platform continues to scale effectively. This enables us to pursue larger and increasingly impactful opportunities and offers the flexibility to absorb partner and product changes over time. As with any growing platform, quarterly volumes will vary with partner mix and seasonality, but the underlying trajectory is clear. As a reminder, 2025 was a very strong year, during which we announced 7 new strategic partners across lending, cards and payment programs, including our first major credit card program. Our partner pipeline is growing materially, both with new partners and new products from existing partners. We are increasingly sourcing more mature loan origination opportunities, and we are gaining traction with new card and payment programs. To support this effort, we recently added 2 seasoned professionals to our business development team, both of whom bring deep industry relationships and are well positioned to manage the opportunities that are coming in. Credit enhanced balances at quarter end stood at $109 million, an increase of $1 million during the quarter. We recognize this was below our guided pace of $8 million to $10 million per month, and I want to address that directly. The slower sequential growth this quarter was driven by the pace at which newer partners ramped originations. This is not a change in demand for the product or in our partners' commitment to the program. We continue to expect organic growth of $8 million to $10 million per month on average for the full year, with the growth now skewed toward the middle and back half of 2026, as Bob will detail in his outlook. The long-term economics and growth potential of this product remains central to our plans. Turning to our BIN and payments business. We continue to build traction. Earlier this month, we announced a new program with Vera, an early-stage fintech led by an experienced management team. The introduction to Vera originated through Zeta, a card processing partner of the bank, and we are encouraged by the opportunity to further develop our relationship with both companies over the long term. As fintech partners increasingly value broad product capabilities, we are expanding relationships through both new programs and incremental cross-selling. The growth in interchange income this quarter to $703,000 from $310,000 last quarter reflects the early contributions from our credit card portfolio and reinforces the cross-sell thesis as this came in conjunction with a credit-enhanced balance sheet partner. On the AI front, we have established a dedicated AI and innovation team to centralize and accelerate use cases already in demand across the bank. Initial deployments are focused on developer productivity, automation and increasingly operational workflows. We will continue to provide updates on our progress throughout the year. Turning to credit quality. Quarterly net charge-offs were $9.4 million in Q1 compared to $6.7 million in the prior quarter. Net charge-offs included $4.8 million from strategic program loans with credit enhancement, $2.3 million from strategic program loans without credit enhancement and $2.2 million from our core portfolio, primarily SBA 7(a) loans retained balances. I'll now provide a bit more detail on each net charge-off category. Starting with SBA net charge-offs, these were concentrated in a small subset of legacy credits, primarily within the e-commerce vertical and certain origination years. This largely reflects a backdrop of still elevated interest rates continuing to impact certain origination years and to a lesser extent, certain industry and loan attributes that we have implemented material policy tightening and restrictions on. Importantly, as I noted earlier, these charge-offs are likely to remain elevated over the next few quarters. We remain confident in the overall portfolio, and we'll continue to update you on this. With respect to charge-offs from strategic program loans with credit enhancement, the sequential increase in charge-offs primarily reflects the normal seasoning of a rapidly scaling portfolio and FinWise is fully reimbursed for any losses. Each fintech partner with credit enhancement is required to maintain a cash reserve deposit at FinWise, which is used to recover these charge-offs. As a reminder, the credit enhanced portfolio grew materially from virtually 0 12 months ago to over $100 million today. It is reasonable to expect charge-offs to rise as the portfolio matures and grows. Before a fintech partner is approved for the credit enhanced program, we thoroughly analyze their high water loss experience and stress it by 50% and 100% to confirm the cash flows from the loans are sufficient to absorb losses even under those stress scenarios. Lastly, net charge-off activity in strategic program loans without credit enhancement reflects normal repayment behavior for the balances we are managing. Net charge-offs for this portfolio were $2.3 million in Q1 versus $2.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2025. Provision for credit losses was $10.6 million for the first quarter compared to $17.7 million for the prior quarter. This decrease reflects elevated provisioning in the prior quarter related to the ramp-up of credit-enhanced loan programs with credit enhanced balance growth moderating in the first quarter. Of the $10.6 million in provision this quarter, $5.9 million was from credit enhancement loans, with the remainder reflecting the previously described net charge-offs within our core and strategic program portfolios. As a reminder, the provision for credit losses on the credit enhanced loan portfolio differs from the core portfolio as it's fully offset by the recognition of future recoveries recorded as credit enhancement income in noninterest income. The estimated future recoveries are reported as a credit enhancement asset on the balance sheet. From a reserving standpoint, we continue to take a conservative approach. Our allowances for classified loans reflect the projected net realizable value of collateral and are reviewed at least quarterly. During Q1, NPL balances increased by $6.1 million sequentially, bringing our total NPL balance to $49.8 million at the end of the quarter. Of that total, $26.7 million or 53% is guaranteed by the federal government and $23.2 million is unguaranteed. Quarterly SBA 7(a) loan originations increased sequentially, driven by the normalization of business activity following the typical Q4 slowdown and the reopening of the government after the November shutdown. During Q1, we continued selling the guaranteed portion of our SBA loans, though at a slower pace than the elevated level in Q4. We expect to continue selling guaranteed portions as long as market conditions remain favorable. Our SBA guaranteed balances, strategic program loans held for sale and our credit enhanced balances, all of which carry lower credit risk, collectively accounted for 47% of the total portfolio at the end of Q1. So just looking ahead, the platform is scaling, the pipeline is strengthening and the trajectory of this business has not changed. Charge-offs were elevated this quarter. We identified the segment, have updated our policies and we'll continue actively managing it. We have the capital, the partners, the team and the infrastructure to support continued growth, and that is exactly what we intend to do. I will now turn the call over to our CFO, Bob Wahlman, to provide more detail on our financial results.