Hello and welcome to the Provident Financial Services Inc, fourth quarter 2008 earnings conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. There will be an opportunity for you to ask questions at the end of today’s presentation. (Operator Instructions) Now I would like to turn the conference over to Paul Pantozzi. Mr. Pantozzi.

Thank you and good morning everyone. Welcome to our fourth quarter 2008 earnings call. I’ll begin with our standard caution as to any forward-looking statements that may be made in the course of our discussion. The full disclaimer can be found in the text of our earnings release and you can obtain a copy of that, as well as all our other releases and SEC filings by accessing our website, www.providentnj.com or by calling our Investor Relations area 201-915-5344. For today’s presentation, I’m joined by our Chief Financial Officer, Linda Niro and by Chris Martin, our President and Chief Operating Officer. I want to begin with an overview of our operating results, after which I’ll ask Linda to take us through the financial results in more detail. I’ll then return with some concluding remarks before we open the call for questions. As outlined in our news release earlier today our earnings per share of $0.13 for the fourth quarter and $0.74 for the full year 2008 exceeded the result we posted the same period in 2007. However, the difficult economic environment did have a negative impact on our core operating results. The fourth quarter was characterized by strong loan growth, particularly in the commercial mortgage and commercial and industrial categories. We continue to see loan demand and we are making loans that meet our conservative credit quality standards and contribute to growth and net interest income. Approximately $2 million of the addition to the provision for loan losses was attributable to the growth in commercial loans outstanding. Especially in these troubled economic times two key elements that define the financial strength of banks such as ours, our asset quality in capital adequacy and I want to address these upfront. As to asset quality, the economic downturn that we are all…

Thank you, Paul. During the quarter, total loans increased to $148.6 million or 3.4%. The largest increase in the portfolio was in commercial loans, which increased $81.5 million during the fourth quarter. Commercial mortgage in multifamily loans increased $60.1 million; construction loans increased $4.3 million; residential mortgage loans increased $5.5 million and consumer loans decreased $2.4 million sequentially. Commercial loans as a percentage of total loans were 46.5% at December 31, compared to 44.7% of the portfolio at September 30, 2008. For the year ended December 31, 2008 total loans increased $230.5 million or 5.4%. Within the commercial loan category commercial mortgage loans increased to $169.1 million or just about 20%; commercial loans increased $41.1 million or 5.8% and the multifamily loan portfolio increased $28 million or 41.4%. Construction loans decreased $75.8 million to 24.5%. In addition residential mortgages increased $87.4 million year-over-year and consumer loans decreased $19.9 million. The ongoing deterioration in the economy, the residual effects of sub-prime lending and declines in real state values, continue to have an adverse impact on asset quality and the pace of sale for new construction projects in the fourth quarter. Despite these adverse trends there was significant lending demand and increases in the commercial sector of the portfolio contributed to the increase in the quarterly provision for loan losses, in addition to an increase in non-performing loans and credit downgrades. The quarterly provision increased to $8.5 million for the quarter ended December 31, 2008, compared to $3.8 million in the third quarter. Growth in the portfolio resulted in a $2 million increase in the required reserve and credit downgrades resulted in a $1.4 million increase. Net charge-offs during the fourth quarter were $4.1 million, compared to net charge-offs of 1.6 million in the third quarter. Total non-performing asset consisting of non-performing…

Thank you, Linda. As everyone is aware, we are in the midst of a period of economic uncertainty that is unprecedented with modern times. However, because of our adherence to the fundamentals of our business namely core deposit gathering, conservative loan underwriting, strong customer relationships, expense controls, balance sheet management, we believe that can continue to grow profitability and compete successfully throughout this period. In a few weeks we’ll begin marking of our170th anniversary as a financial institution, dedicate to serving the needs of our customers and communities. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank our excellent management team and employees who have made this milestone possible. With that, I’d like to turn it back to the operator for any questions you might have.

(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from Rick Weiss - Janney.

I was just wondering, if you could talk a little bit about the increases that you’re seeing in the commercial loan demand? First, is that coming from C&I lending or commercial real estate. Also, have you done anything in terms of changing your pricing I suppose or any kind of underwriting standards?

This is Christ, Rick. We’ve seen it from all sides. The commercial real estate is definitely slow, but the commercial has done very well. We’re seeing a lot more opportunity that other banks have not been focused on that and we’re getting a chance to meet some very solid customers going forward. Pricing wise, I think again the competition is really not as heavy. We’re able to get a little bit better pricing than we have in the past, certainly adjusting for the risks in the market. So that helps certainly in the margin going forward.

Okay and do you expect continued deteriorations in the area, especially as WallStreet layoffs seem to be occurring almost daily?

Well again, if you’re looking at the one to four or are you talking about the reciprocal to the commercial?

Well probably however it affects you the most?

Well again, we didn’t really lend to a lot of the WallStreet people on a one-to-four basis. Certainly businesses they would utilize in the way of restaurants or strip centers or big box stores will certainly be feeling the effects and I think that’s going throughout the economy. For the most part as we talked about, it was more of three of the larger loans that have been on our radar for while, we’re just trying to get them back into a performing status, beside from that not dramatic.

Okay and when it comes to the reserves, I think Paul said that $2 million or so, the addition to reserves was due to loan growth. Is there more of a see change now with the auditors or SEC that they’re saying that “hey, we better reserve because things are getting worse” or they’re lightening up in terms of unallocated reserves?

No. Rick, I strictly related to again loan growth depending on the type of credits on the commercial sectors; it goes on our books to sign the rich rating and there’s a reserve factor associated with that rate out of the gate. So, we just wanted to give some color around why that $8.5 million provision was recorded and again, $2 million of it was strictly due to new loans coming on the book.

Okay. So, I guess going forward into ’09, if the demand holds up then we would expect to see kind of commensurate increases in the reserve?

You would, especially if it was in the commercial sector of the portfolio.

One final question; I guess in terms to a fees in the non-interest income drop this quarter, I’m just wondering if you can give some color behind that.

Again, that’s fees associated with equity fund holdings that we have and essentially there’s decline in the value of those equity funds quarter-to-quarter.

Okay. The basic fees such as like overdraft, is that holding up okay?

Again, they were down just a nominal amount and some of that is due, so we [Inaudible], people are not bouncing as many check. The number of days in the months could have a factor; so there is a lot of different thing that influence that. That is just down a minor amount.

Your next question comes from Damon DelMonte - KBW.

With regards to the land improvement loans, the $21 million, what is your additional exposure in that area?

We have reserved them fully to their current market value. Damon DelMonte – KBW: Okay, but how much in the way of land improvement loans you still have in your bucket?

I don’t have that number Damon off hand; it’s not a huge amount. Damon DelMonte – KBW: Okay and then with regards to the margin going forward, I know obviously the part of the decrease this quarter had to do with the decrease in the non-performing loans, but how are you viewing the margin going forward given the timing of the last cut by the Fed?

Yes. Now, we would say it’s maybe flat to down slightly. That due in part, the yielding on earnings assets is coming down a little bit faster than our ongoing ability to reduce funding costs, the amount of loans that we have tied to prime or LIBOR. The average rate drops significantly in the quarter. So, with that Fed expected to leave rates there at all, we see some time before we can institute more acceptable floors on these loans as they mature during the year. Damon DelMonte – KBW: Okay and then, just two quick things on expenses and the tax rate going forward just for modeling purposes. The results we saw this quarter, are those decent baselines to go after?

They could be about $33.5 million, somewhat of run rate going forward. Tax rate, we are projecting 27% effective tax rate for the year.

Your final question comes from Mark Fitzgibbon - Sandler O’Neill. Alex Twerdahl - Sandler O’Neill: Good morning. Actually this is Alex Twerdahl. Just following up with Damon’s question, the $33.5 million run rate for expenses, does that include increased FDIC premiums?

Yes, it does. It’s approximately $5 million. Alex Twerdahl - Sandler O’Neill: Okay. So where else in expenses are you going to sort of trim that out of?

We look everywhere to term expenses. Absence the increase in FDIC expenses we would project flat for the year, that’s really the one category we’re seeing an increase. Alex Twerdahl - Sandler O’Neill: And then could you update us on any changes in your deposit gathering strategies. Are you seeing rates are to come down little bit or is there anything changed there?

It’s still fairly competitive. Deposits are what everybody seems to be after, but our strategy continues to be competitively priced in the marketplace and certainly with an emphasis on business deposits and business gathering.

One of the things there Alex is that’s why we are focusing in on the commercial ends of the businesses, because it does bring in a good non-interest bearing core base and then allow us to manage the growth of that portfolio by self funding in the percentage.

(Operator Instructions) At this time it appears we have no further questions.

Okay. If there are no further questions, we thank you for participating on this call. We look forward to hearing from you in the next quarter. Thank you.

Thank you. That does conclude today’s conference. You may now disconnect.