With a combined revenue of $21 trillion and $2.1 trillion in profits, the 2026 Fortune 500 is the definitive list of America's largest companies.

Fortune 500

AI is a major force shaping this year’s list—but it’s far from the only story.

World's Most Admired Companies

Almost $20 trillion in revenue—and a record-breaking $1.87 trillion in profits. Introducing the 2025 Fortune 500, the definitive list of the biggest companies in America.

The 300 companies on this year’s list brought in over $12.6 trillion in revenue for the latest 12 months, with the median revenue figure at $22 billion.

America's Most Innovative Companies

Leaders in all industries rely more than ever on Big Tech—and appreciate the giants that deliver, at scale, without drama.

The Fortune 500, in its 70th year in 2024, ranks the biggest U.S. companies by revenue.

The 26th edition of the list shows how much esteem Big Tech giants command among other business leaders.

The 300 companies on this list are transforming industries from the inside out.

The Fortune 500, in its 69th year in 2023, ranks the biggest U.S. companies by revenue.

This year’s Fortune 500 marks the 68th running of the list.

This year’s Fortune 500 marks the 67th running of the list.

F500-2021-358-Fifth Third Bancorp

The Cincinnati-based bank has origins dating back to 1858 as the Bank of the Ohio Valley, and today operates more than 1,100 branches in 11 states across the Midwest and Southeastern U.S. Fifth Third slid 33 spots in the rankings in 2020, as the pandemic curbed loan and deposit growth and low interest rates hamstrung its interest income. But its shares rose more than 50% in the first five months of 2021, as its business lines benefited from a broader post-COVID economic recovery.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 66th running of the list.

F500-2020-325-Fifth-Third-Bancorp

This Cincinnati financial services company continues its rise on the <em>Fortune</em> 500 thanks to a string of acquisitions. It divides its business into four segments: commercial banking, branch banking, consumer lending, and wealth management.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 65th running of the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 64th running of the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 63rd running of the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 62nd running of the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 61st running of the list. Wal-Mart claims the top spot again. See who made the list.

Wal-Mart stayed on top as its sales crept closer to half-a-trillion dollars. Apple moved into the top five. And UnitedHealth Group continued its steady climb. 

Sector

Culture rank

Process rank

Product rank

Years on list

Previous rank

Industry

Current All-Star Rank

Previous All-Star Rank

Industry Rank

Previous Industry Rank

Overall Score

Innovation

People Management

Use of Corporate Assets

Social Responsibility

Quality of Management

Financial Soundness

Long-Term Investment Value

Quality of Products/Services

Global Competitiveness

Key Financials (last Fiscal Year)

Revenues ($M)

Profits ($M)

Assets ($M)

Total Stockholder Equity ($M)

Profit Ratios

Profit as % of Revenues

Profits as % of Assets

Profits as % of Stockholder Equity

Earnings Per Share (last Fiscal Year)

Earnings Per Share ($)

EPS % Change (from prior fiscal year)

EPS % Change (5 year annual rate)

EPS % Change (10 year annual rate)

Total Return

Total Return to Investors (last year)

Total Return to Investors (5 year, annualized)

Total Return to Investors (10 year, annualized)

Fifth Third Bancorp, through its holding Fifth Third Bank, offers banking and financial services for consumers and small businesses, including residential mortgages, brokerage services, insurance, and wealth management. It operates over 1,000 banking locations in the Midwest and Southeastern regions of the U.S.

Q2 2026

Q1 2026

Q4 2025

Q3 2025

Q2 2025

Q1 2025

Q4 2024

Fifth Third Bancorp (FITB): Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings

legacy

Fifth Third Bancorp

fifth third bancorp

Hello, and thank you for standing by. My name is Tiffany, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Fifth Third Second Quarter twenty twenty five Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer session.

I would now like to turn the call over to Matt Currow, Senior Director of Investor Relations. Mr. Currow, please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Fifth Third's second quarter twenty twenty five earnings call. This morning, our Chairman, CEO and President, Tim Spence and CFO, Brian Preston, will provide an overview of our second quarter results and outlook. Our Chief Credit Officer, Greg Schreck, has also joined for the Q and A portion of the call. Please review the cautionary statements in our materials, which can be found in our earnings release and presentation.

These materials contain information regarding the use of non GAAP measures and reconciliations to the GAAP results as well as forward looking statements about Fifth Third's performance. These statements speak only as of 07/17/2025, and Fifth Third undertakes no obligation to update them. Following prepared remarks by Tim and Brian, we will open up the call for questions. With that, let me turn it over to Tim.

Thanks, Matt, and good morning, everyone. At Fifth Third, we believe great banks distinguish themselves not by how they perform in benign environments, but rather by how they navigate uncertain ones. In a period of tariff negotiations, cross currents and interest rates and significant regulatory change, Fifth Third continues to deliver excellent profitability, strong credit trends and accelerating revenue growth. This morning, we reported earnings per share of zero eight eight dollars or $0.90 excluding certain items outlined on Page two of the release, exceeding consensus estimates.

Adjusted revenues grew by 6% year over year, led by 7% growth in NII. Adjusted PPNR increased 10%. We delivered two fifty basis points of positive operating leverage, our third consecutive quarter of positive operating leverage. Our key profitability metrics continue to be very strong and among the best of all peers who have reported thus far. Our adjusted return on assets was 1.2%.

Our adjusted return on tangible common equity was 18 percent and our efficiency ratio was 55.5%. Our credit metrics were strong and improved as we said they would. At 45 basis points, net charge offs were at the bottom of our guidance range and improved over the prior year. NPAs declined 11% sequentially led by an 18% decline in commercial NPAs. Early stage delinquencies declined again and are near historical lows.

As a result of our strong financial performance and the positioning of our balance sheet, tangible book value per share increased by 18% over the prior year and by five percent sequentially. The strategic investments we have made over the past several years drove our results in the quarter. In a quarter where uneven C and I loan demand and a soft housing market made loan growth tepid for the industry, our diversified loan origination platforms produced average loan growth of 5% over the prior year. We grew loans in C and I, CRE, leasing, mortgage, home equity, auto and both our provide and dividend fintech platforms. Investments we have made should continue to support strong loan growth in future quarters.

Commercial relationship manager headcount increased by 11% year over year and Provide had record production in the first half of the year. In our Home Equity business, we were number two market share in our footprint and first half production growth was third best in the country. Both Provide and Home Equity are examples of the benefits we have achieved from digitally enabled lending channels combined with One Bank collaboration. Our investments in the Southeast also continue to produce strong results across business lines. Our consumer bank grew net new households by 6% over the prior year in the Southeast.

The granular deposit growth those households provide has provided flexibility to continue to manage deposit costs even as the Fed paused on rate cuts. In the second quarter, our average cost of consumer and small business deposits in the Southeast was 191 basis points, a two fifty basis points plus spread to Fed funds. We have added 10 branches year to date in the Southeast and will open another 40 before year end, bringing us to nearly 400 branches across all our Southeast markets. In Commercial Banking, our Southeast regions have contributed more than of total middle market loan growth over the past year, with North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama producing the strongest results. New middle market relationship production has also accelerated across the Southeast, where our teams have added 50% more new quality relationships year to date than they did over the same period last year.

In Wealth Management, our Southeast markets grew assets under management by 16% year over year to nearly $16,000,000,000 in total AUM. Advisor headcount is up about 15% in the same markets, which should support future growth. We also continue to see benefits from our investments in innovative tech enabled products. In consumer, J. D.

Power recently recognized the Fifth Third mobile app as number one in user satisfaction among regional banks, and we also launched an initiative to provide free wills to every Fifth Third customer through an exclusive partnership with Fintech Trust and Will. We will begin to embed AI enabled functionality into our mobile app in the second half of this year, which should further improve the user experience and reduce volumes in higher cost service channels. In commercial payments, our investments in our new line embedded payments platform led to 30% revenue growth compared to last year and an increase of more than $1,000,000,000 in commercial deposits connected to NewLine services. We continue to win more business from existing clients and to see transaction migration from legacy ACH to modern instant payments rails. During the quarter, Rippling selected NewLine to be their payments infrastructure provider, joining our existing roster of blue chip fintech customers.

In my annual letter to shareholders this year, I reminded readers that the global economy is a complex adaptive system and that complex systems react to change in unexpected ways. These days, we are witnessing a lot of change in a short window of time. While we continue to be hopeful about the prospects for the second half of the year, we are also positioned to perform well in a broad range of environments. Our business mix is naturally resilient, our balance sheet is defensively positioned, and we have the flexibility to react quickly as conditions change. Brian will provide more detail on our outlook, but I want to emphasize that we do not need a change in the interest rate environment or a material change in market activity to continue to produce strong profitability and organic growth. We are raising our full year guidance on NII given the strong first half performance. We remain very confident in achieving record NII in 2025 even if there are zero rate cuts for the remainder of the year. We will deliver 150 to 200 basis points of full year positive operating leverage even if the capital markets do not recover given the strong first half performance and the expense levers we have at our disposal. We will resume share repurchases in the third quarter.

Our capital priorities continue to be funding organic growth, paying a strong dividend and share repurchases in that order. Our operating priorities will also remain unchanged, stability, profitability and growth in that order. Before I hand it over to Brian, I want to say thank you to our employees for your dedication to your clients. Your commitment to getting 1% better every day is why Fifth Third was recently recognized by USA TODAY as a top workplace and by Forbes as best employers for new grads, and I love being part of your team. With that, Brian will provide more detail on the quarter and our outlook for the second half of the year.

Thanks, Tim, and thank you to everyone joining us today. Our second quarter results again reflected the strength and momentum of our company. On an adjusted basis, revenue increased 6% year over year and 5% on a sequential basis. Our stable and growing NII remains a strong contributor to our performance. We continue to realize the benefits of our diversified balance sheet and business mix through sustained loan growth, fixed rate asset repricing and the flexibility to execute proactive liability management.

Our revenue performance, combined with our ongoing expense discipline, resulted in a 10% increase in pre provision net revenue and two fifty basis points of positive operating leverage on an adjusted basis compared to the second quarter of last year. Tangible book value per share, inclusive of the impact of AOCI, grew 18% from the prior year and five percent versus the first quarter. Our investment portfolio philosophy to focus on bullet and locked out securities in order to have certainty of cash flows continues to pay off. The unrealized loss in our AFS portfolio improved 6% sequentially despite the ten year treasury rate being a few basis points higher than the prior quarter end. The ASCI burn down will continue to benefit tangible book value per share growth as these positions pull to par.

Now diving further into the income statement. Net interest income grew 7% from the prior year and 4% sequentially. Net interest margin expanded nine basis points sequentially. Broad based loan growth, continued repricing benefits and deposit cost improvements all contributed to this performance. NII was also favorably impacted by the payoff of a nonperforming loan, which contributed $14,000,000 to NII and three basis points to NIM in the quarter.

Excluding that payoff impact, NII still grew by 6% from the prior year and 3% sequentially, which is at the high end of our guided range. This interest realization is an example of our proactive credit management working with our clients to achieve loss minimization through the workout process. As Tim highlighted, our diversified lending platforms continue to support strong balance sheet performance. Average portfolio loans grew 1% sequentially, while period end loans were stable despite a decrease in commercial utilization. Consumer loans were up 3% on a period end basis and 2% on an average basis from the prior quarter.

On a period end basis, we saw growth in every major consumer lending category, led by continued strength in our secured lending products such as auto and home equity lending. Commercial loans increased 1% on an average basis and declined 1% on a period end basis. As I highlighted in early June, line utilization peaked around April month end at 37.5%. Post April, we have seen a gradual decrease to 36.5% as of June 30. Approximately 40% of the decrease in line utilization was driven by growth in commitments.

In addition to the utilization trends, period end loans were impacted by a $400,000,000 sequential decrease in commercial construction balances as projects were refinanced into the permanent market. Economic uncertainty impacted client confidence and resulted in the lowest quarter of commercial loan production over the last year. There were some bright spots with continued strong production in Chicago, the Carolinas, Georgia and Alabama. While utilization has impacted balances, commitments continue to grow. Middle market pipelines have also rebounded during the quarter as our third quarter pipeline is up almost 50% from the prior quarter.

Shifting to deposits. Average core deposits were stable sequentially as an increase in demand deposits was largely offset by a decrease in interest checking. Our strong liquidity profile continues to provide us with the flexibility to actively manage our overall funding costs while executing tactics to grow granular insured deposits. As a result of these efforts, interest bearing deposit costs were down three basis points sequentially and 65 basis points over the last year, while we have continued to grow consumer and small business deposits, which are up 1% versus the prior year. Compared to the first quarter, demand deposit balances were up 3% on an average and end of period basis.

This strong core deposit performance has allowed us to pay down over $4,000,000,000 of higher cost non relationship brokered time deposits over the last two years. We will continue to prioritize high quality, low cost retail deposits, particularly in the Southeast with our de novo investments. The most recent vintages of de novos are significantly outperforming expectations. Branches built between 2022 and 2024 are averaging over $25,000,000 in deposit balances within the first twelve months after opening, significantly outpacing our original expectations. We remain on pace to open 50 branches this year, with 10 opened in the first half.

We have now secured approximately 80% of the locations for the additional 200 Southeast branches that we announced in November. Our deposit success, along with investment portfolio positioning, has allowed us to maintain strong balance sheet liquidity while growing loans and managing deposit costs. We ended the quarter with full Category one LCR compliance at 120%, and our loan to core deposit ratio was 76%, up 1% from the prior quarter. Moving on to fees. Reported non interest income was up 8% year over year.

These results were impacted by security gains and the impact of certain items detailed on Page four of the release. Excluding the impacts of the security gains and the other items, adjusted noninterest income for the quarter increased 3% compared to the same quarter last year, led by growth in wealth fees, which grew 4% over the prior year due to AUM growth of $8,000,000,000 and consumer banking fees, which were up 6%. Commercial payments fees decreased $2,000,000 due to lower commercial card spend activity and higher earnings credits from increased demand deposit balances, offsetting the increase in gross fee equivalent. Our Embedded Payments business, New Line, continued its strong growth with fees up 30%. Deposits attached to NewLine services increased to $3,700,000,000 up $1,100,000,000 compared to a year ago period.

Capital markets fees were down 3% from the prior year, primarily due to the continued slowdown in M and A advisory revenue. Bond underwriting and loan syndication activity was strong during June, and client appetite for transactional activity during stable market periods remains robust. The security gains of $16,000,000 were from the mark to market impact of our nonqualified preferred compensation plan, which is offset in compensation expense. Moving to expenses. Adjusted noninterest expense was up 4% compared to the year ago quarter and decreased 4% sequentially. The sequential comparison is impacted by seasonal items in the first quarter associated with the timing of compensation awards and payroll taxes. The previously mentioned deferred compensation mark to market increased expenses by $16,000,000 for the quarter. Excluding the impact of the deferred comp mark to market in the quarter and in prior periods, expenses were down 5% sequentially and increased 3% compared to the prior year. The year over year increase in expense is due to continued investments in technology, branches and sales personnel, partially being offset by the ongoing savings generated by our value stream efficiency programs. Shifting to credit.

The net charge off ratio was 45 basis points at the lower end of our expectations for the quarter and down one basis point sequentially. Commercial charge offs were 38 basis points, up three basis points sequentially. Consumer charge offs were 56 basis points, down seven basis points, primarily due to seasonal improvement in credit performance in auto and credit card. R and DAs declined 11% sequentially, as expected, led by an 18% decrease in commercial nonperformers. The NPA ratio decreased nine basis points sequentially to 72 basis points.

Broad based credit trends remained stable across industries and geographies despite the market and economic volatility. Our provision expense for the quarter included a $34,000,000 build in our allowance for credit losses. This build was primarily attributable to the deterioration in the Moody's macroeconomic scenarios, which now project a 05% increase in their baseline unemployment rate projection, which is up to 4.7% by 2027. The scenario driven increases were partially offset by improvement in the overall risk profile of the portfolio as indicated by the reduction in NPAs. This increase in reserve build was slightly less than we expected in early June as utilization trends and commercial construction paydowns impacted period end loan balances.

The reserve build increased our ACL coverage ratio by two basis points to 2.09%. We made no changes to our scenario weightings during the quarter. Moving to capital. We ended the quarter with a CET1 ratio of 10.6%, an increase of 13 basis points and consistent with our near term target of 10.5. Our pro form a CET1 ratio, including the AOCI impact of securities, is 8.6%, up 60 basis points year over year.

We anticipate continued improvement in the unrealized losses in our securities portfolio, given that approximately 63% of the fixed rate securities in our AFS portfolio are in bullet or locked out structures, which provides a high degree of certainty to our principal cash flow expectation. Moving to our current outlook. With the continued momentum from the second quarter, we remain confident in our ability to achieve record NII and full year positive operating leverage approaching 2%. We now expect full year NII to increase to 5.5% to 6.5%, up from our earlier guide. This outlook uses the forward curve at the July, which assumed 25 basis point rate cuts in September, October and December.

Due to the resiliency of our balance sheet, we expect to achieve record NII and our updated full year guide with no further loan growth and no rate cuts. Full year average total loans are expected to be up 5% compared to 2024, with the increase primarily driven by C and I and auto lending production. Our cash position, securities portfolio and commercial line utilization should remain relatively stable throughout the remainder of 2025. Full year adjusted noninterest income is expected to be up 1% to 2% as the muted capital market trends are offset by continued growth in other fee categories. We now expect full year adjusted noninterest expense to be up 2% to 2.5% compared to 2024.

We will continue to execute our growth plans with Southeast branch builds and sales force additions in middle market, commercial payments and wealth. In total, our guide implies full year adjusted revenue to be up 4% to 4.5% and PPNR to grow around 7%. Moving to credit. We are tightening the range for full year net charge offs to 43 to 47 basis points. The timing of charge offs for individual credits may impact a particular quarter, but the midpoint of our full year expectations remains consistent with our beginning of the year guide.

Moving to our outlook for the third quarter. We expect NII to be up one percent from the second quarter due to the benefits from fixed rate asset repricing and day count. We expect average total loan balances to be stable to up 1% due to strengthening C and I pipelines and continued broad based momentum in consumer loans. Excluding the impact of the security gains, we expect adjusted non interest income to be up 1% to 4%. Third quarter adjusted non interest expense is expected to be up 1% compared to the second quarter as we continue to invest.

We expect third quarter charge offs to again be in the 45 to 49 basis point range. Turning to capital. We will continue to target our CET1 ratio at 10.5%. Based on our current projections for balance sheet growth, we expect to repurchase 400 to $500,000,000 of stock during the remainder of 2025. We continue to prioritize organic loan growth over share repurchases in order to deliver the best long term returns for our shareholders.

In summary, we expect to maintain our momentum in the second half of the year and achieve record NII, positive operating leverage and strong returns in an uncertain environment, all while continuing to invest for the long term. With that, let me turn it over to Matt to open up the call for Q and A.

Thanks, Brian. Before we start Q and A, given the time we have this morning, we ask that you limit yourself to one question and one follow-up and then return to the queue if you have additional questions. Operator, please open the call for Q and A.

Your first question comes from Ebrahim Poonawala with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

I guess maybe, Tim, just thinking about capital allocation. So I heard, Brian talk about the buyback appetite for the back half of the year. But just talk to us around how you're thinking about deployment of capital. Clearly, saw one of your competitors announce a bank deal earlier this week. Like any sense of like strategically, even if we think about a bank M and A picking up, are there characteristics, be it size, be it markets of a bank that we should be thinking about as shareholders of what Fifth Third could buy? I mean, any perspective would be helpful. Thank you.

Yeah. Great question. Know, I think from my point of view, the capital priorities of the bank are always gonna be organic growth first because, a, organic growth is completely within our control. And, b, the thing that makes you a good acquirer is the ability to run your core business effectively. So the the priority here is always gonna be to run the company to gain share on an organic basis and to make sure that there's adequate capital available to that in addition to ensuring that we provide that stable and over time growing dividend and that we're able to support the, you know, the capital return to investors in periods where we have excess capital through share repurchases.

I wasn't surprised to see the announcement earlier this week. I think I said for a while that there was going to be more consolidation. Like, the I think the banking sector in The US is the least consolidated industry. And our banking sector is the least consolidated banking sector in the world. So there is going to continue to be more of that.

What I know to be true though is that M and A is a means to achieve a strategic outcome. It shouldn't be a strategy under itself. There is an industrial logic to scale that I think holds in all sectors, but it's not just any kind of scale. Like, you know, if you imagine us as being in military conflict where we had to fight an enemy that was 10 times our size, you would never march out into an open field, single file, and try to face a larger army. You would pick your spots.

You would try to use the terrain to your advantage. You'd get dense, and you'd obviate the scale advantages that the competitor has. And if you think about the structure of the banking system in The U. S, I think that is the way to think about, how you win. We're going to be way more successful building three fifty branches in a single region in The U.

S. Than we would be if we built three or four branches in the 100 largest cities in The U. S. So the focus for us is always going to be on density. It's going to be on the ability to drive organic growth by spreading the cost of customer acquisition across multiple product lines.

So the relationship value that you get from the ability to deliver a broad range of products and services to customers is really important to us. And it's always going to be focused on ensuring that you have a sort of continuity in, people say culture, but really in the mode of how you operate your business because there just are a lot of things out there that operate very differently than we do. So I think appetite's the same. We wouldn't have much conviction if one deal announcement changed our outlook on all on how to deploy capital. But the focus is going to be on delivering our strategy in the mode that is most effective for shareholders.

That's good color. Thank you. I guess maybe just a separate question. As we think about, I mean, obviously, your charge off range narrowed. But as we think about the impact of the tax bill on the solar residential solar panel industry, just give us how you are handicapping any potential risk tied to your exposure and the business strategy from here going forward at dividend? Thank you.

Yeah. Ebrahim, it's Brian. Thanks for the question. Yeah. I guess, first, to just recap what's happened.

The tax bill eliminated the tax credits on the residential solar lending business, starting in January. Now so what does that mean for us? First, this has no impact on our existing solar portfolio. Our customers have already earned their tax credits, so no impact on them. From a credit perspective, we believe that the dividend net charge offs have peaked in the second quarter.

And as you can see from our NPA and delinquency trends in the first half of the year, the risk profile of the Solar portfolio continues to improve. All the enhancements we've done to this business that we've made to our platform from the installer management program, installer biller coverage, joint borrower, collections enhancements, it's all helped to drive this credit improvement. We expect net solar charge offs to decrease 15% to 20% in the third quarter from the second quarter level and decrease again in 2026 by another 15% to 20%. Next, the tax bill will impact future originations as the tax credit associated with the residential solar leasing product was extended to the end of twenty twenty seven. This will create an uneven playing field in the solar finance industry for about two years.

We expect the leased panel volume to increase while solar loans will decrease significantly. As a result, we think that our 2026 solar originations are probably down 70% to 80% from 2025 levels. While we were hopeful to have a level playing field in 2026 where both products were treated equally, we'll at least see that occur in 2028. Now how are we responding? We've been innovating to create a home equity product that we expect to launch in the 2026 on the dividend platform.

While this product will not have a tax credit, it will allow borrowers to own their solar panels and generate tax deductible interest, which should matter to some homeowners. The home equity product will also improve Fifth Third's collateral position from a UCC to a second lien. This product should also be appealing for other home improvement projects. So while we believe the solar originations will be down in 2026, with the new home equity product combined with other enhancements we've made in our dividend home improvement lending platform, we expect continued growth of our dividend loans in the low single digits next year.

Yeah. Just to put a point on one of the things Brian said strategically, Ebrahim, the the interest we had in home improvement as a category predates the acquisition of dividend by several years. It's I since it's always been a home equity bank, But we also did the partnership with GreenSky back in 2015 or '16. I don't remember when it was. And I think what we learned as we've spent time in home improvement is that the place that banks can play uniquely is in relative to fincos and nonbank lenders is in the larger, more complex home improvement programs, things that are require multiple draws or that involve involve a prime in a series of subs.

And that what the fintechs can do in those markets is to finance the windows or the doors, but they can't finance the whole kitchen. Right? That's a full renovation. And, so what we like about dividend in addition to believing in the importance of distributed power generation and storage, which by the way, we still believe is an important part of the way that we're gonna solve the energy demand that we have in The US. The fact that solar is one of the most complex, home improvement installations between the need for their reinforcement of the roofing, the installation of the panels, the high voltage electrical, and then working with the power companies to get permission to operate.

So it's gonna provide a really nice, exoskeleton. That's always been the dream to be able to deliver, home equity to a broader range of projects. And in fact, today, even prior to the sort of expected reduction in solar volumes that Brian mentioned, like, 30% of new originations, are home improvement nonsolar related. So there is a good core business. What is gonna happen is the origination volumes are gonna fall.

So I think our our view is the dividends probably are gonna grow in line with the balance sheet as opposed to growing a faster rate on a go forward basis, meaning, call it low to mid single digits as a point of focus for us. But as Brian said, the credit trends are incredibly encouraging, and I think they underline the comments that we've been making about focusing on the best quality installers and on super prime credit. So we're just not seeing the deterioration that that, you know, folks who were full spectrum lenders, have had to struggle with.

Your next question comes from Scott Siefers with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

Good morning guys. Thanks for taking the question. Brian, I wanted to ask on the margin improvement, even if we adjust for the benefit of the NPA that you discussed in your prepared remarks, much better than you had articulated might be the case earlier this year. So I think we can see on slide five kind of what's happening between quarters. But I guess just in your view, what's coming in better than you might have anticipated earlier this year?

And what are we thinking about the pace of improvement opportunity going ahead or looking ahead? And then I guess the follow-up, I was hoping you might be able in your response to sort of address what you see as competitive dynamics on both the loan and deposit sides, rational, irrational, etcetera.

Yeah. Thanks, Scott. Great question. You know, would tell you the big thing that I think was, the outperformance item outside of the NPA payoff was the DDA performance we've seen. You know, we were expecting to be able to transition back in the growth mode on DDA now that the interest rate environment has been stable for a period of time.

But we saw a really strong performance this quarter. That certainly was a big driver of our success. We continue to feel really good about our ability to have gotten cost out of our deposit book while continuing to improve the composition. I think that's probably an underappreciated thing about what we've been able to do over the last year, just how much we've been able to strengthen the deposit base, especially with growth in the consumer small business sector. From a NIM perspective, continue to feel like we did earlier this year, which is two to three basis points of NIM improvement each quarter driven by fixed rate asset repricing continuing as well as loan growth.

It's really just gonna be kind of the core blocking and tackling and improvement of the business over time. So nothing, nothing dramatic there. And like you said, if we adjust for the three bps from the interest recovery, we'd be more in line with the three o, like, the three zero nine NIM. And that three bps a quarter puts us right where we expected to be at the end of the year in that kind of mid teens range. So three fifteen ish feels right still still very achievable.

So feel very good about the trajectory from here. From a competitive landscape perspective, you know, our industry is always very competitive. I don't think I would actually really call out much that we're seeing on either the loan or the deposit side at this point. Spreads look in line, with what we've been seeing over the last six to twelve months across almost every asset class on the lending side. And deposit competition has been very, very rational.

And we've seen great success in continuing to be able to, find growth in the right pockets and improving the deposit base.

Perfect. All right. Good. Thank you very much, Brian.

Your next question comes from Ryan Nash with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Hey. Long time listener, first time caller.

Is this sports radio talk? I wish. Tim, you know, maybe outside of the movement in utilization, you know, we're obviously seeing signs of loan growth improving. You talked about, you know, investments to support loan growth, you know, lenders up 11%, outlook sounds upbeat. So maybe just talk more specifically about your expectations for loan growth.

And as you're out talking to corporates, you feel they've gotten confident enough to start making big investment decisions and borrowing more? Thank you. And I have a follow-up.

Yes. Yes. Great question. So let me take it by category. I think on the consumer side of the equation, the thing that gives us confidence is the diversity of the loan origination platforms we've got, right?

We have long been believers that while residential mortgage is a really important product for us to offer to consumers, It wasn't a great balance sheet asset. And the byproduct of that is between what we're able to do in home improvement, what will be continued expansion in home equity, which has been an important driver of our growth. And the fact that the risk adjusted spreads in the auto business are great right now, we just feel very confident in our ability to continue to generate what will be broad based market plus a point or two sort of growth out of the consumer side of the business. And that provides a lot of ballast for us as you look at the uncertainty that exists in the corporate. Mean, positives when you talk to customers on the commercial side of the equation at the moment are one, there is a sort of general belief that as we continue to navigate uncertainty around trade and the tariff levels, that there's a value to them and running with a little bit of extra inventory and that supports utilization.

We're not seeing the big buys that we saw in the first quarter that drove up utilization for us, but we do hear from clients that they, at the moment, are preferring to run long balance with a little bit more inventory than they otherwise would have carried just to compensate for any short term disruptions in supply chains. Second, the bonus depreciation, the accelerated depreciation schedule on capital equipment, it is in some pockets in our customer base generating real interest and replacing equipment. It felt last year in the second half of the year in particular like The U. S. Was underinvested a little bit in capital equipment purchases.

We heard from clients who had rental businesses, like yellow metal rental businesses and otherwise, that there had been a big boom in rental demand as people tried to buy time to ensure that they got the benefit of the taxes. So I think that is a positive catalyst. The element that just hasn't come through, and that's reflected in middle market M and A activity everywhere is the M and A driven demand. And at some point, there should be a little bit of a capitulation where either the sellers accept that with higher interest rates being maybe a more permanent phenomenon that they need to accede to, you know, buyer pricing expectations or where you have buyers who have been patient who conclude that this is the time to go. But that's really the third leg of the stool between the capital purchases, the inventories and then eventually some M and A.

Got it. And given your comments from before, talked about identifying 80% of the locations in the Southeast, 150 to 200 basis points of operating leverage. Guess given the success that you're seeing in your business plus the success in the Southeast, does it make sense to accelerate your efforts here from an organic perspective? And just how are you thinking about the pacing of your growth initiatives from here?

Yeah. I think somewhere Jamie Leonard is grinning like a Cheshire cat right now because we have been running like, what the years that I was the head of the consumer bank many years ago, the best we were ever able to do was to open 25 or 30 branches in any individual year. And they're running at a pace of 50 to 60 a year, at this stage. So we have doubled the effort there. The other thing that we've invested in, we haven't spent a lot of time talking about, is a big boost in the sophistication of our direct marketing capabilities, which then support that there's a way that we bootstrap the, de novos and, you know, get a lot of early growth in terms of households and deposit balances.

So we are accelerating the investments in those markets to the extent that we find a way to build 65 a year. I would love it. It's just what we have been unwilling to do is to compromise on the quality of the locations. And there then is nothing that we can do as it relates to the pacing on getting through local zoning jurisdictions, and otherwise. So, if, you know, if we have the ability to get 60 done a year, we're gonna get 60 done a year for certain.

Your next question comes from the line of Gerald Cassidy. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. This is Thomas Letty standing in for Gerard. Given all the recent headlines, can you just give us your thoughts on stablecoins and how broader adoption could impact both your payments business and deposit levels?

Yep. Yep. Happy happy to do that. I'm I I happen to be pretty excited about the prospects for stable coins, but maybe not in the same places that are getting a lot of the headlines these days. We we have a little bit of an advantage here in that we've banked a couple of the largest infrastructure providers to the crypto and, in particular, the stable coin sector for a few years now.

And we've been able to watch use cases that have evolved on those platforms and get a sense for it. And we also have a kind of an interesting asset that a lot of the other banks don't have, in the NewLine platform, which is really well architected to be able to support, both sort of payments and the, intraday liquidity activity that's required to make stablecoins work as both stores of value and payment rails. Our interest are one, where there are companies that have the compliance infrastructure and the operational robustness to bank them. And there are things that we will do there, whether it relates to reserve accounts or payment rails and otherwise. But then secondarily, as a user of stablecoins, I think in particular in some of the cross border payments and then cross platform settlement applications that are out there.

Banks like us who are US domestic banks have been outsourcing that sort of cross border payment activity to correspondent banks. So that's a greenfield and anything that we can do, even if it's disruptive in terms of the margins, is a net positive for us. So I'm I'm I'm quite excited about that as a potential use case for our clients. I think the thing that's gotten a lot of the attention that I just don't believe in is the risk that stablecoins pose or don't pose to point of sale payments and to domestic payments in general. And I think the reason that the media has been wrong on this one is that there's been such a focus on the cost of the credit card acceptance.

When cash checks, ACH and debit are all already price competitive and all already basically universally, you know, accepted. So the the reason that people accept credit cards is because consumers wanna use credit cards. And the reason consumers wanna use credit cards is because they either need the liquidity that the credit line provides or because they want the rewards. And the stable coin rails today don't offer either of those features. And if they get added, they're gonna have to increase the cost of acceptance, in order to offset the cost of providing the liquidity or the cash back rewards or otherwise.

So stablecoins in markets with unstable central banks are not a broad based banking system. You know, absolutely an interesting application internationally. Stable going stable coins for cross border payment, or for collateral on different exchanges. Interesting use case. Domestic payments, I think there's probably more smoke than fire on that one right now.

Okay. Thank you. That's helpful color. And then just lastly, it appears expected regulatory relief for the industry will potentially have a pretty big impact on at least the money center banks evidenced by the recent stress test results and their resulting stress capital buffers. Can you just share your thoughts on the potential benefits specifically for Fifth Third from the expected regulatory relief, you know, we might see over the next year or so?

Yeah. Absolutely. I think if you asked the can spend from 2023 or 2024, If I would regret not voluntarily submitting to an additional stress test, I would have thought that you were crazy. But I at the at the moment, I wish that all banks had undergone the stress test this last time around because it probably would have helped you all to understand the benefits that will accrete to regional banks in addition to the big money center guys. The stress testing relief is going to be beneficial for everybody.

The opacity, of that process and the models that were used are just not helpful. And we're believers that transparency is a good thing. And I think you saw the potential upside that regional banks will get in the form of capital relief from more rational scenarios and better tuned models and otherwise. And I expect us to see a benefit from that. We obviously will benefit, from the the a step away from gold plating on Basel three from, you know, sort of a more risk based view of the liquidity rules that were originally proposed.

And I have been quite encouraged by governor Bowman's speeches as it relates to the evolutions of the supervisory approach across the bank regulators. And then lastly, you already mentioned it earlier, but that was an encouraging sign that one of our peers announced M and A transaction and expected a six month approval and close. Like that's evidence of a well oiled regulatory review process. All that said, I just want everybody to remember that there's another side to this, which is not just the banks that are seeing regulatory relief. There are a lot of nonbank competitors who also have a lot of influence in Washington, some of whom as a category gave 10 times in this last election cycle, what all banks in total gave and and who as a result, you know, are influential in policy making circles.

And they wanna do a lot of the things that either banks have traditionally done or to have access to things that, you know, banks, have traditionally only had access to without being banks. So there's a lot of work that we are continuing to try to do on Washington, just to make sure that there's a balanced view on what a level playing field looks like. I would I would love to see more, de novo charters approved because that would mean that the competitors that, we have to face in the, in the field every day are playing by the same set of rules that we are. But there is going to be a balance. There's going to be relief for us and increased competition.

Okay, great. Thank you for the color and thank you for taking my questions.

Your next question comes from Erika Nagarian with UBS. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Morning. Brad, I had a few questions just balance sheet mix from here, and I'm looking at sort of the period end data. The period end data looked a little bit soft for commercial and very strong for consumer. Given, Tim, and your comments about commercial clients and activity levels for the second half of the year, should we expect that mix of growth to change?

Or is there a dynamic where you can continue to see strong consumer growth in the back half of the year in addition to a pickup in C and I growth?

No. I would expect I would actually expect to see a pretty balanced growth in the second half of the year, Erica. Certainly, utilization trends, which we had a very strong fourth quarter and first quarter, and it was one of the things that I think we've talked about previously, which was, hey, there is a risk that you could see a little bit of a pullback. We do think that we continue to hear that inventory builds was a significant theme for the utilization pickup, and that has certainly reversed some. But we still feel good about growth from here.

It's part of the reason why we actually increased our full year average balance loan guide because of the strength that we're seeing. I mentioned in prepared remarks that pipelines and commercial were up 50. They're actually pipelines are now in line with where pipelines were a year ago, and that led to a pretty strong end of the year last year. So even though that little bit of a pullback in utilization as well as the couple of pay downs that we saw in commercial construction, we still feel pretty positive that we're going be able to see some nice commercial growth in the second half to supplement what we think is going to be continued broad based growth from a consumer perspective.

And to that end, if the consumer is still, solid and you're seeing that acceleration based on the pipeline, I'm wondering about your deposit strategy or funding strategy in the second half of the year. I mean, clearly, demand deposit momentum is strong. Total deposits were down a smidge or flat. I guess, like, as we think about the second half of the year, how are you balancing optimizing your mix, versus gathering more deposits for funding? Or do you have enough cash?

I think you had $13,000,000,000 at period end that could help fund that incremental loan growth. And sorry for the compound question. What are the advantages for deposit costs in the second half of the year?

Yes. We're at this point, we're we feel very good about our balance sheet positioning, and we are going to be focused on continuing to be core deposit funded. We've done what we've needed to do from a rate cut perspective. We do think that while our forecast based off of forward rates assumes three cuts, We are somewhat in a higher for longer camp right now, and we are definitely more focused on balanced growth and probably cost stabilization, if not maybe a basis point or two higher as we grow from a funding cost perspective. But it's always dependent on overall what the balance sheet needs.

Fifth Third Bancorp (FITB) Q2 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Company Participants