Alex Ko
Analyst · KBW. Please go ahead
Thank you, Kevin. Moving on to Slide 10. As Kevin mentioned earlier, we adopted the new CECL accounting standard as of January 1, 2020. As of December 31, 2019, our allowance for loan losses was $94 million. Upon the adoption of the CECL, we recognized a day one adjustment to our allowance for credit losses or ACL of $26.2 million. During the quarter, we updated our macroeconomic variables based on Moody’s Baseline Version 2 scenario published on March 27, 2020. The updated scenarios combined with loan portfolio changes and net charge-offs resulted in an additional net ACL of $24.6 million to a total ACL of $145 million as of March 31, 2020. In terms of the assumptions included in the Baseline Version 2 scenario, we have summarized them in the upper right corner of Slide 10 and they include, among others, a sudden sharp economic downturn due to the pandemic causing, among other indicators, a turmoil in the equity markets and a global oil price wall. Unemployment is forecasted to increase sharply in the second quarter to an average 8.7%. Overall, an economic recovery under the Baseline Version 2 scenario is expected to take longer than originally anticipated. As you can see in the bottom right chart of Slide 10 that we have meaningfully increased our allowance for credit losses as a result of CECL implementations and to account for the current economic environment. Our ACL increased from 77 basis point of loss receivables at December 31, 2019 to 115 basis points as of March 31, 2020. If we move to Slide 11, we have provided some additional details as to the allocation of our allowance for credit losses, as well as the coverage ratios by product category. The coverage ratio for our commercial real estate portfolio increased from 62 basis points to 109 basis points as of March 31, 2020 and for our C&I portfolio, the coverage ratio increased from 121 basis points to 140 basis points. Moving on to Slide 12, let me review our asset quality trend in the first quarter. We recognized good stability in portfolio and total criticized and classified loans were essentially unchanged from the end of prior quarter. Our non-performing loans increased by $20 million quarter-over-quarter. This increase was largely driven by the reclassification of $14.7 million of purchased credit deteriorated loans or PCD loans due to the implementation of CECL. The implementation of CECL also impacted our charge-offs and impaired loan balances. During the quarter, we charged off $4.7 million of specific reserve held against the PCD loans that were reclassified. Together with the recoveries of $2.5 million, we incurred net charge off of $3.4 million and $22.2 million of the quarter-over-quarter increase in impaired loans as of March 31, 2020 was due to the addition of PCD loans, formerly PCI loans, which were excluded from impaired loans prior to the adoption of the CECL. In terms of criticized loans, however, we saw a de minimis amount of migration and overall, our total balance of criticized loans remained stable and near historical lows for Bank of Hope. Nevertheless, we recognize that the impact of COVID-19 is not fully reflected in our March 31, 2020 asset quality metrics. So more than ever, we are actively staying on top of the rapidly changing economic environment. We are encouraged, however, with all of the support being provided by our government in terms of financial relief for small businesses and allowing banks greater flexibility in the accounting for longer-term modifications and forbearances. Moving on to Slide 13, I would like to discuss our net interest margin. In the first quarter, our net interest margin on a reported basis increased 15 basis points from 3.16% to 3.31%. Excluding accounting adjustment, our core net interest margin increased 8 basis points to 3.03% for the first quarter of 2020 from 2.95% in the fourth quarter of 2019. The increase in our core net interest margin was primarily driven by a 15 basis point decrease in deposit costs fueled principally by the overall reduction in the interest rate environment, combined with an improvement in our overall deposit mix. Due to the unusually high level of uncertainties driven by COVID-19 pandemic, it is difficult to provide margin guidance with any reasonable level of assurance. I will however provide directional commentary on some of the more meaningful factors that are likely to affect our net interest margin. First, a full quarter’s impact from the recent 150 basis point reduction in Fed Funds rate will pressure margin in the second quarter. Second, most of our variable-rate loans held or have repriced by April 2020 and this will lead to a decline in loan yield for the second quarter of 2020. But keep in mind that we have a significant portion of fixed rate loans in our portfolio that are not impacted by the recent rate reductions. And, third, the net interest margin compression from the decline in loan yield will be partially offset by further decreases in deposit costs as interest-bearing deposits and CDs continue to reprice through much lower interest rates. Moving on to Slide 14, non-interest income was stable with the prior quarter with no significant fluctuations. So let’s move on to Slide 15. We continue to have success in containing our non-interest expense. Compensation expense was higher this quarter largely due to payroll taxes and the higher seasonal expenses. And this quarter’s FDIC assessment expense normalized to what we would expect as a quarterly run rate. Partially offsetting this increase, we had a significant reduction in professional fees as well as advertising and marketing expenses. With so much uncertain economic conditions, one aspect of our operations that we can actively control is our non-interest expense. We plan to remain vigilant in tightening our expense structure and seeking additional cost savings measures as a means to improve core profitability. For the second quarter of 2020, we expect to see a decrease in non-interest expenses from the current levels. Moving on to Slide 16, also, as Kevin mentioned, we continue to see positive trends in the mix of our deposits with all of our deposit growth occurring in our Money Market and NOW accounts. Our Money Market and NOW accounts at March 31, 2020 increased 22% over year-end 2019 and increased to 38% of total deposits from 32% at December 31, 2019. Our total cost of deposits decreased 15 basis points from the preceding quarter. And as you can see in the bottom left corner chart, our monthly deposit costs continued its downward trend throughout the quarter, particularly in the month of March, reflecting the 100 basis point reduction in the Fed Funds rate during that month. In particular, our total cost of deposits decreased significantly in the month of March, declining 24 basis points to 1.18%. We expect this trend to continue into second quarter of 2020 as MMDA cost continue to decline and time deposit renew at significantly lower rates. We expect our total cost of deposits for the second quarter to fall below 1% compared with 1.34% in the first quarter of 2020. In terms of our CD maturities, we have included a schedule in the lower-right corner of Slide 16. For all of these CDs, we would certainly expect the offering rate and our renewal time would be significantly lower than the maturing rates. Moving on to Slide 17, now, I’d like to discuss our capital and liquidity positions. We enter the COVID-19 pandemic from a position of strength. As of March 31, 2020, we had a significant cushion of excess capital above the minimum amount required to be considered as well capitalized. We had a minimum 4.61% in cushion or $615 million in excess capital before any of our capital ratios, which is the well capitalized threshold. The bank recently ran a capital stress testing analysis using an adjusted CCAR severely adverse stress scenario. The CCAR scenario is an adverse case scenario in which it takes much longer time for the economy to recover than the Baseline Version 2 scenario we use in our CECL allowance calculation. At the time of stress testing, it was considered a worst-case scenario. Even in this stress scenario, the bank had sufficient capital to observe estimated losses and still had a buffer of excess capital of 1% over the regulatory minimum well capitalized requirements. Our overall liquidity position remains strong as of March 31, 2020. Our primary source of funds continue to be our deposits and since the declaration of COVID-19 pandemic, I am pleased to report that we have not experienced any meaningful run off of customer deposits. In terms of secondary liquidity sources, as of March 31, 2020, we have $3.2 billion in available borrowing capacity with FHLB Bank. In addition, we had over $1 billion in additional borrowing capacity with FRB discount window and unsecured line with other banks. Other sources of funds available to the bank include broker deposits and investment repo lines. We also plan to participate in the Fed’s PPP liquidity facility to fund most of the PPP loans that we originate. This source of funding will provide us with an additional source of low cost funding while putting less pressure on our secondary funding sources. We are monitoring our liquidity positions on a daily basis and at this point of time, we have not witnessed any meaningful change in our liquidity position. With that, let me turn the call back to Kevin.