Welcome and thank you for joining the Wells Fargo Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]. I would now like to turn the call over to John Campbell, Director of Investor Relations. Sir, you may begin the conference.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our call today where our CEO, Charlie Scharf; and our CFO, Mike Santomassimo, will discuss third quarter results and answer your questions. This call is being recorded. Before we get started, I would like to remind you that our third quarter earnings materials, including the release, financial supplement and presentation deck, 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 materials. Information about any non-GAAP financials referenced, including a reconciliation of those measures to GAAP measures, can also be found in our SEC filings and the earnings materials available on our website. I will now turn the call over to Charlie.

Thanks very much, John. I'll make some brief comments about our third quarter results and update you on our priorities. I'll then turn the call over to Mike to review third quarter results in more detail before we take your questions. Let me start with some third quarter highlights. Our results reflected the progress we're making to improve our financial performance. Revenue, pretax provision profit, net income, diluted earnings per common share and ROTCE were all higher than a year ago. Our revenue reflected strong net interest income growth as well as higher noninterest income as we benefited from higher rates and the investments we're making in our businesses. Our expenses declined from a year ago due to lower operating losses. As expected, net charge-offs have continued to increase from historical low levels, and we increased our allowance for credit losses primarily driven by our office portfolio as well as growth in our credit card portfolio. Average commercial and consumer loans were both down from the second quarter as higher rates and a slowing economy have weakened loan demand, and we've continued to take some credit tightening actions. Average deposits also declined from the second quarter and a year ago driven by consumer spending as well as customers migrating to higher-yielding alternatives. Consumer spending remains strong with third quarter year-over-year growth rates for both credit and debit card spending increasing from the second quarter. Now let me update you on the progress we're making on our strategic priorities, starting with risk and control work, which remains our top priority. As time goes on, we continue to make the progress necessary to complete our work. I've said that we have detailed project plans which track interim deliverables, not just the date the work is to be finalized and turned over to…

Thank you, Charlie, and good morning, everyone. Net income for the third quarter was $5.8 billion or $1.48 per diluted common share, both up from the second quarter and a year ago. Our third quarter results included $349 million or $0.09 per share of discrete tax benefits related to the resolution of prior period tax matters. Turning to capital and liquidity on Slide 3. Our CET1 ratio increased to 11% in the third quarter, 2.1 percentage points above our new regulatory minimum plus buffers effective on October 1. This was up from 10.7% in the second quarter as higher earnings, the approximately 14 basis point benefit from the sale of certain private equity investments and lower risk-weighted assets were only partially offset by share repurchases and dividends. During the third quarter, we repurchased $1.5 billion in common stock. Our strong capital levels position us well for the anticipated increases related to the Basel III Endgame proposal released in the third quarter. Based on where we ended the quarter, we estimate that our CET1 ratio would be 50 basis points above the fully phased-in required minimum if the proposed rules were implemented as written after factoring the growth in RWAs and the resulting decline in our stress capital buffer as well as the impact of the new G-SIB buffer calculation changes. Importantly, this is an early estimate, subject to change and is before any actions we may take to mitigate the impact of the new rules. Looking forward, we expect to continue to have capacity to increase our CET1 ratio, while we plan to continue to repurchase shares as we wait for the capital rules to be finalized. Turning to credit quality on Slide 5. As we expected, net loan charge-offs continue to increase, up 4 basis points from the second…

[Operator Instructions]. And we will take our first question from John McDonald of Autonomous Research.

I wanted to ask about the expenses, Mike. Obviously, improving efficiency has been a big goal of yours. You made progress even while investing in regulatory. What are the additional opportunities to improve efficiency from here as you head into 2024? I know you're probably not ready to give guidance for '24 yet, but are you going into the budget planning with a mindset that they should be roughly flattish? Any comments you can give on that would be helpful.

Yes. Sure. Thanks, John. First off, let's just make sure we keep it all in context, right? We set out a program almost 3 years ago now to cut roughly $10 billion. And I think that's all still on track. We've brought head count down 40,000 from -- or closer to 50,000 from the peak back in . So sort of very good progress to date. And I think as Charlie and I have both said over the last couple of quarters, we still have more to do to make it more efficient. And I would say there are very few parts of the company that we would say are optimized at this point. Now some have more opportunity than others, some require investment in terms of automation and technology, some don't. But I do think that we go into the budget process and even just how we operate every quarter with a very disciplined approach to every single area of the company saying, what are we going to do to continue to drive more efficiency there while we make investments as well. And we highlighted some of those that we've been making on in the prepared remarks. But I think it's the same mindset we've been bringing to it now for the last few years, and I think we're going to continue to do that. Where that ultimately ends up, we'll share for next year. We'll share with you in January, like we always do.

Okay. Fair enough. And then on the net interest income outlook for the fourth quarter, are you building in assumptions -- you mentioned deposit outflows and mix shift assumptions? Are they assuming that things accelerate from here or similar to what you've seen this quarter? It seems like a pretty big sequential decline. Just kind of wondering what some of the assumptions are there.

Yes. No, look, I think as you can -- as we've talked about over the last -- it feels like forever, but certainly last 4, 5, 6 quarters now, there's still a lot of uncertainty out there in terms of how the path of both the deposits and pricing will shape up. Whether it's all the quantitative tightening, all of the -- any competitive reactions we may see from others. And so I think we continue to think that we're going to see these trends appear at some point. Now we've been pleasantly surprised this -- to date this year that hasn't progressed as fast as we thought it would, but at some point, it will. And so hopefully, we'll find ourselves in a position where it doesn't move as maybe fast as we've modeled in terms of pricing. But we still -- all those trends are going to happen and are happening as you look at shifts between noninterest-bearing and interest-bearing, you're seeing deposit costs continue to increase. And on the consumer side, you see people spending their money. And so exactly at what pace those things are all going to keep going as we certainly modeled it, but we try to give you a base case forecast that we can hit under a bunch of different scenarios, and this is the same.

The next question will come from Steven Chubak of Wolfe Research.

So wanted to start, Charlie, because you had made some comments about capital targets and those potentially evolving. The inflation RWA from Basel III Endgame that you guided to does bring your CET1 minimum to 8.5%. You alluded subtly, mind you, to the possibility of managing to a lower target. Since 150 bps management cushion does feel excessive, what are some of the factors that would compel you to maintain a larger cushion than peers and maybe continue to run at or above 10%?

Well, let me just -- I'll start and then I'll hand it over to Mike. We were not trying to -- or I was not trying to give any direction about where we thought the appropriate buffer would be. We're just trying to be very factual about where we are. And once everything is finalized, we'll determine what the right buffers are and we'll communicate those. So please don't try and read any more into what I said other than just that.

Yes. And I think, Steve, I know your estimate might be 150 basis points. But I think what we've talked about over time is that at least at this point, we've been saying our buffer is probably closer to 100% -- 100 basis points over wherever the right minimum might be. And that may evolve, as Charlie said. I think as you look at Basel III, the increase in RWA is driven by the things that are probably pretty obvious, whether it's operational risk plus the -- some of the other factors. But operational risk is certainly going to be one of the bigger pieces of it. And so I really do think that we have to see how the final rule shakes out next year. We're hopeful that there'll be some changes to areas that we think just makes sense from aligning sort of the capital requirements to the risk while also maybe moderating some of the operational risk increases as well. And so we're going to engage as we go there. But one of the factors that we've talked about now for a while in terms of how big our buffer should be is that we needed the rules to be finalized and so could that lead you to having a slightly smaller buffer than what we would have had in the past? Potentially. But I think we have to get there and get these finalized, and then we'll also take actions once we have good clarity on what's going to change or not change as we go over the next year. So I mean, we're probably 9 months to 12 months away from getting a final rule, and so we still have a little bit of time for this to play out.

And for a follow-up, just on the trading business. It continues to surprise positively versus expectations. You cited some of the investments that you've made, the benefits of volatility. But with revenues running multiples above what we've seen in prior years and that $1 billion-plus bogey being reached for 3 consecutive quarters, I was hoping you could just speak to whether we should be underwriting $1 billion-plus as a new normal or if there were any cyclical benefits or anomalous benefits that maybe we shouldn't be underwriting go forward. Just trying to think about what the normalized level of trading revenue should be given some of the investments you've made scaling of that business.

Yes, I'll take that. Look, I think we've -- as you said, we've just been methodically investing in the capabilities with a focus on supporting our core clients more than -- more -- with more capabilities versus like trying to expand the scope of what we do in a way that just doesn't fit who we are. And so I think that's what you've seen us try to do there in those businesses. So businesses like FX and rates and just -- it's sort of methodically sort of adding people in a couple of slots or improving technology. And we've certainly been the benefit of some volatility in the market this year. So as you know, that could change pretty quickly one way or the other. But I think as we look at some of these businesses, what we're focused on is just adding more clients, more flows, more incrementally each month and each quarter. And so whether it ends up being $1 billion plus or minus a quarter -- per quarter, I think we'll see as we go, but we're pretty pleased with what we've seen so far. And there isn't a big onetime event that happened in the quarter that drove the results. And so that's good to see as well. And you're also not seeing big growth in market risk RWA as we do this as well. And so that's part of what we've been trying to do as well is kind of sweat the balance sheet more and make sure that we're getting paid for the exposure and the risk we've got there. And so we're happy to see that, it's starting to come together. And we're under no illusions, though, that 3 quarters is like success, right? We've got to do this over a long period of time and continue to add capabilities and clients.

The next question will come from Scott Siefers of Piper Sandler.

Was hoping maybe, Mike, you could spend another moment sort of discussing RWA mitigation in light of the Fed capital proposals. I guess, specifically, I was hoping for maybe a little more color. I know you touched on it in some of the earlier remarks, but the sale of the $2 billion in private equity. And then maybe if you could also discuss the new agreement with Centerbridge for direct lending, just sort of how all these factor into your thinking here.

Sure. When you look at mitigation -- I'll just give you some examples of the types of things we're thinking about. So when you look at securities finance transactions, you have haircut -- collateral haircut floors that get implemented. And I don't want to get too technical on it because -- but there's some technical requirements there that just don't seem to make sense to us. And so -- but if they do get implemented as written, we'll adapt and we'll change the way we -- what collateral we require from clients to do trades or we'll reprice them. And so there'll be a number of things that we can do like on transactions like that, but it gets very, very technical for each of the underlying deals. There will be -- I know others have talked about this, too. We'll have to decide how much tax equity investing we do in renewables. If the risk weights hold there, it's just -- the math just doesn't make sense from a return perspective. And so we'll probably have to do less -- we'll probably do less of those. And so there's a number of things like that as you go through each of the underlying portfolios just don't make sense. And we're going to -- we'll make the adjustments as we need to. Now we're also in a position where we've got plenty of flexibility as we talked about in the prepared remarks, right? Our capital levels today are there with a buffer already. And so we have the flexibility to handle it however we think makes sense to -- for each of the underlying businesses. And what we want to make sure we do is like we're building real businesses and client relationships over a long period of time. So…

Okay. Perfect. And then maybe as a follow-up, might want to revisit -- or I was hoping to revisit the NII discussion for a bit. I certainly appreciate all the comments on continuing mix shift and deposit pricing pressure. But I guess, as we get to this level at the end of the year, is the thought that there would still be on balance downward pressure on NII beyond that? Or is -- as you see it, is there enough kind of asset repricing opportunity that would ultimately allow things to settle out maybe sooner as opposed to later?

Yes. I mean we'll see. I think we do need to wait until we get towards the end of the year and into January for us to give you a real view on 2024. I mean, I think what the last number of quarters have -- just show over and over and over that there's a lot still to play out here. And to get too far ahead of ourselves on it for next year, I think, would be a mistake at this point. So -- but look, the same -- it's the same drivers we've been talking about for a while, right? It's like what's going to happen with deposits, the mix, the pricing. And then to a lesser degree, right now, it's loan growth, but it still matters over a long period of time as well.

The next question comes from Matt O'Connor of Deutsche Bank. Matthew O’Connor: Can you just elaborate on the comment of tightening the credit box a bit? And then, I guess, specifically in credit card, thoughts there? I know you've been leaning into it and have had real good growth. And I think it's still only about 5% of your loan book, but wondering your thoughts of, is this really the right time to be leaning into credit card maybe as we're kind of later cycle.

Yes. I'll start with credit card and come back to the broader point. So we started on a journey to transform that -- the card business back in the fourth quarter of '19, so right after really Charlie started. And what we've done since then is really refreshed -- almost completely refreshed the product line. We still have a little bit more to do there. And so part of what you're seeing come through in the results is actually putting out good products that people want to buy. And you're seeing really -- we have really good new account growth in the quarter, probably our best quarter in quite some time. And so it starts with just having a good product and good service behind it, and that's the key driver, I think, of what you're seeing here. On the credit side on the new originations, the new accounts we're adding are really good relative to the back book. And when you look at both -- and even when you dig a little bit deeper there, there's -- the majority of them are still Wells Fargo Bank customers, but we're seeing more and more traction with non-Wells Fargo customers, so first-time customers. And when you look at those first time to Wells customers, those -- the credit profile is really good. And so we feel comfortable with like the risks that's being added there. And we're going to continue to look for pockets of risk. And if we see them, we'll tighten it down. But in terms of what we're seeing in originations, we feel good about what we're seeing so far. Just more broadly on credit, we've said now for probably the last 4 or 5 quarters, we've been kind of incrementally tightening the credit box on the consumer side for a while. Whether it's really across the board in home lending, auto, card, personal loans, really every single one of them had some credit tightening. And it's been a bit incremental over the last 4 or 5 quarters. And so I would still sort of think of that as like taking that last 1% or 2% or 3% of origination out that doesn't make sense in what could be a more difficult economic environment. It's not wholesale shifts in sort of the approach or the underlying box that we're operating in. It's really sort of modest and incremental. And then on the...

Just on -- and just to be clear, I mean it's -- and it's the very basic stuff. It's just upping the lower FICO boundaries, it's layered risks. And so it's just as you continue to make these changes, you just -- we're just continuing to do the same types of things without just wholesale exits or anything like that. It's just kind of a smart tightening.

Yes. And then outside the consumer space -- outside of consumer, really the only place that we've meaningfully tightened credit over the last couple of years or a few years is commercial real estate. And other than that, I think there's probably some minor tinkering, but we haven't really changed the appetite much outside of commercial real estate. Matthew O’Connor: Okay. That's helpful. And then just a clarification on the severance costs. Can you give us what the absolute amount was this quarter? I think you gave us the change versus a year ago and linked quarter. But what was the absolute level this quarter?

Yes, there wasn't a lot a year ago, so it's not far off of the total. So a small difference, but it's -- there wasn't a lot. Matthew O’Connor: Okay. So about $200 million?

Yes. And again, that will sort of evolve as we go. I mentioned that in my script as we look at next year and the attrition rates that we're seeing.

The next question will come from John Pancari of Evercore ISI.

On the commercial real estate front, I know you cited the increase in the office loan loss reserve from -- in the CIB from 8.8% to 10.8%. Could you just comment there in terms of what were some of the anecdotal drivers for the loan loss reserve increase? Do you think you could have incremental increases here? And maybe cite some of the office revaluations you've seen as you have seen with the underlying collateral change hands or reappraisals, if you can give us some color there as well.

Yes, sure. When you -- the hard part of office right now is that there aren't a lot of trades happening yet, right? There's a few in certain cities, and they're all a little bit different in their complexion. So you still have somewhat limited information in price discovery in a lot of places. And so we're doing -- we do a lot of our own work to try to evaluate each of the underlying properties and what they could be worth in a bunch of different scenarios. And then it's feeling like the appraisal market is starting to kind of catch up, where they're -- we're seeing appraisals that are more realistic and more updated. So that's certainly bringing in different data points as we look at it. And as we looked at the quarter, we sort of look at all those data points and the underlying loans and try to do our best to come up what we think the different range of loss could look like here, and that's what's embedded in the results. Hopefully, we end up being conservative. But nonetheless, it's possible that this plays out this way. And so we haven't really seen any losses of significant yet -- significance yet, but we will. And it just takes some time for it to play out for each of these underlying situations, probably longer than any of us would hope to -- you'd hope that you could bring some of this stuff to resolution maybe faster than it really takes in real life. But it's really looking at all the data points, the limited sales, the new appraisals that are coming through and then our own analysis for each of the underlying properties.

Got it. All right. And then separately, also within commercial real estate, we're getting more and more questions around multifamily exposures and just how well they really are holding up given some supply issues in certain markets. Can you just comment there? Are you seeing any noteworthy stress or any changes to underlying reserve for that book?

Yes. Not a lot. I mean you certainly see certain markets that might appear to have some oversupply in condos in certain places. But it feels like that will work itself out over a period of time. We're not seeing real systematic stress in the portfolio at this point.

Got it. If I can ask just one last one. On the head count cuts, you mentioned you look at every business pretty much. Are any head count cuts occurring yet in the risk area or anything? Or any changes with the contracts with consultants in the risk overhaul area at all?

Yes. No. Look, the only thing I'd say on the risk and reg work is that we're going to spend whatever we need to spend and put the resources we need against it to get it done. And we're going to continue to do that towards...

Just to be clear, like we're not cutting head count related to that. In fact, it's probably the opposite when you look over the past bunch of quarters. The only thing which goes up and down is depending on where we are with work with outside consultants, that number will go up or down in a given quarter. But we've also said, if we can use outside resources to help get the work done sooner, we're going to. So as we think about -- just as we think about our efficiencies, that is just not in scope at this point or for the foreseeable future.

The next question comes from Erika Najarian of UBS.

My first question is on the revenue side. As a follow-up to Chubak's line of questioning, I think not only the trading numbers come better this year but also investment banking. And so I hear you loud and clear about the cyclicality of the trading business. But I guess, help us get a sense of if the industry wallet, for example, return to 2019 levels, do you think that you're going to have generally a higher share of revenues in capital markets versus 2019? And sort of the sub-question to that is, as we think about the investments you have already made, what are the other businesses that could potentially surprise us to the upside, where it's not quite optimized yet in terms of its revenue production? And obviously, everybody is thinking about -- you mentioned card, and also everybody is also thinking about wealth management and investment advisory revenues.

Yes. Well, let me take a shot at that. I think -- listen, I think the answer is, to your question on share, without getting overly specific, yes. We think when you look at where we stand on our growth in our Corporate Investment Banking share, whether it's on the trading side or whether it's on the fee-related side, our shares have grown. And certainly, on the -- within the fee-based side of the business, we do hope they continue to grow. That's driven by the investments that we're making, and investments meaning people in terms of growing our capabilities. And we've got clear goals and targets by person that we bring on in terms of what we expect, and we're going to be tracking to that. And just a reminder, certainly, when we brought some of the people on, they bring some -- a lot of clients with them, some new transactions in the short term. And we've been beneficiaries of that over the last couple of quarters just as we brought some people on. But these are relationship-based businesses, and transactions don't occur every single quarter. So we would expect our share to continue to grow. And I just -- as a reminder, without taking any additional risk overall because we're taking the risk today relative to the exposures that we have. When we look at where we can see growth coming overall across the entire company, we just go business by business. Absolutely, in our consumer small business -- small and business banking segment because -- we've basically been treading water there as we stabilized that business going back to the issues that we had there, which was an incredibly difficult thing to do, and we did. And we've not been our -- we've not been on…

Got it. And I think that excitement is clear, Charlie. And my second question is, given all of that and taking a step back, I totally think it's too early, I agree with you, to give anything on '24 expenses. But more broadly discussing, do you feel like the company is in a little bit of an inflection point? Because on one hand, Mike was saying that very few parts of the bank are optimized. On the other, I think you guys mentioned that the head count is not going the other way, and perhaps it's really some of the outside consulting fees that could go up and down. But I'm wondering if you get asked about expenses in a framework of flat, but then all of this momentum on the revenue side seems to be on the comp. And I'm wondering how you think about as you budget for the company and as you think about just getting to that 15% ROTCE. Let's just put Basel III Endgame aside in terms of the denominator, how do you balance some of the shareholders and the analysts that are asking you about expenses in the context of flat versus the revenue momentum that obviously would need expenses to keep sustaining versus that revenue momentum that you seem to be so excited about?

Let me start. And Mike, you either come in at the end or just make your comments along the way as well. So I think, first of all, we think about it as 2 separate exercises that we go through. And we're -- and it's very timely because we're in the middle of going through the exercise for next year as most other companies are, which is this company is not efficient, like period, end of story. And I've described this, even with all of the reductions that we've made, it's not surprising because as you peel the onion back, other things present themselves. And so you go in order of things that are more obvious and things like that. But when we sit around as a management team, we feel great about the progress. And there's no clearer way to see that than in the head count numbers, which ultimately drive the expense of the company. And if I -- if we stood here and told you we were going to drive the head count down that much in this period of time, I'm not sure you'd have believed us. And so when we say we're going to do something, we really do mean it. And so when we sit around as a team, there are many more efficiencies to get, and we're diligently working through those. And then separately from that, it's when we talk about making investments in the place, are we getting the payoff for it. And so whether it's the marketing in the card business, where we're spending more money on marketing than we had in the past, and we feel great about, as Mike pointed out, not just the volumes that we're getting but the underlying quality relative to how we had modeled that.…

The next question will come from Ebrahim Poonawala of Bank of America.

Just Mike, for you, a follow-up on credit on the C&I side, nonaccrual charge-offs staying relatively flat, I guess, as we look through. Just talk to us in terms of when you look at that C&I book, is the impact of the Fed rate hikes felt by your customers? And how are you seeing that evolve? Is your expectation right now -- you talked about the economy being resilient. Are you seeing any soft spots on the C&I book where you're seeing bankruptcies rise within a vertical or a certain segment?

Yes. No. Look, I think, first, you're seeing it come through in utilization of revolvers, right, which are pretty much in check. They aren't moving much and down in some cases. So people are building less inventory given where rates are. They may be making decisions on like how fast they want to invest in their businesses. And so you're seeing that come through in loan growth, which is sensible for -- from their perspective. I think when you look across the portfolio, there are certainly pockets where you may be seeing margin compression still or different idiosyncratic issues. But across the portfolio, the credit quality is still good.

Got it. And do you think your customers have felt the hit from higher rates already? Or is that on the comp?

Well, I think they certainly felt it so far, right? I mean most of them have variable rate loan that they service, right? And obviously, the longer rates stay high, they'll maybe feel it more. But certainly, I think they've been impacted.

Got it. And just one separate quick question on the outlook for buybacks. Clearly, big reset lower. When you -- like your excess capital, you probably have visibility on the worst case on Basel Endgame. It's very rare that banks have excess capital when the stocks are actually near lower. You're creating a tangible book. How do you think about outside of CCAR and SCB in terms of near-term pace of buybacks over the next few quarters relative to what we did this quarter?

Yes. I mean we're not going to get into like trying to give you a view on pacing. We're going to go -- we have a process we go through every quarter to look at all of what's happening. First, it's like how are we going to support clients, what's demand we're seeing, what kind of risks are out there. In the fourth quarter, we have the FDIC special assessment potentially coming. And so there's a whole -- each quarter, there's going to be a whole range of things that we're going to go through, and then we'll decide on pacing.

[Operator Instructions]. Our next question comes from Gerard Cassidy of RBC.

Mike, can you share with us -- you and your peers as well as investors, we've all been surprised with how this deposit trend of moving money into higher-yielding deposits is going slower than expected. Is there any categories within your deposit base, whether it's just your regular consumer deposits or high net worth deposits or the nonoperational commercial deposits that are moving more slowly? And I know you said you expect it to happen, but is there something that says that it could pick up real quickly in the next 6 months? Or is it just a gradual increase?

Yes. Gerard, I think you really have to pick it apart by the different businesses. I think in the wealth business, it moved quite quickly, right, in terms of seeing deposits decline from where they were and that is now moderated. So it's good to see that, that shifting has sort of slowed down quite substantially in the quarter relative to the last couple of quarters. On the consumer side, the majority of the deposits that we've got sit in accounts with less than $250,000. And so to some degree, these are -- to a large degree, these are operational accounts for folks. And so there's some portion of those funds that are never going to move into other places because people need it in the accounts to live and operate every day. And so I think what's -- so I think we'll see, right? And I think we're all in a bit of uncharted territory at this point with rates being where they are and the pace at which they got there, quantitative tightening happening. And so I think we need to be prepared for it to change. Exactly at what pace and over what period of time, we'll see. But we certainly haven't seen deposit pricing move the way we modeled it a year ago, for sure.

Very good. And then as a follow-up, since you and Charlie have come on board, Wells has really done a very good job in returning that excess capital. I understand everything that's going on today, and you guys described it in your comments. Can you share with us, is there a buffer -- whenever the final numbers come out, are you guys planning to keep a 100 basis point buffer above that? Or any color there?

Yes. We haven't decided exactly what it'll -- what the buffer will look like after Basel III is implemented. But so far, what we've said a number of times is that 100 basis points is about where we've been targeting. Obviously, we've been running above that for a while. But we'll -- as we get a better view of where these rules are going to shake out, we'll probably talk about that more. But I would think that 100 basis points, at least for now is sort of the bottom end of the range.

And that was our final question for today. I will now turn it over to your speakers for closing remarks.

All righty. Everyone, thank you very much. We look forward to talking to you again next quarter. Take care now.

Thank you for your participation on today's conference call. At this time, all parties may disconnect.