Discover Financial Services (DFS) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

For the period ending June 30, 2023

July 20, 2023 8:00 a.m. ET

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Good morning. My name is Todd, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Second Quarter 2023 Discover Financial Services Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there'll be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Thank you.

I will now turn the call over to Mr. Eric Wasserstrom, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Eric Wasserstrom

Thanks, Todd. And good morning, everyone. Welcome to this morning's call. I'll begin on Slide 2 of our earnings presentation, which you can find in financial section of our Investor Relations website investorrelations.discover.com. Our discussion today contains certain forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially. Please refer to our notices regarding forward-looking statements that appear in our second quarter earnings release and presentation.

On our call today, we'll include remarks from our CEO, Roger Hochschild and, John Green, our Chief Financial Officer. After we conclude our formal comments, there will be time for a Q&A session. During the Q&A session, we ask that you pose one question followed by one follow-up question. After your follow-up question, please return to the queue.

Now, it's my pleasure to turn the call over to Roger.

Roger Hochschild

Thank you, Eric, and thanks to our listeners for joining today's call. I'll begin by reviewing some of our highlights for the quarter and then discuss the regulatory matter that we've disclosed in our press release. John will then take you through the details of our second quarter results and our updated perspectives on 2023.

Last night, we reported second quarter net income of $901 million or $3.54 per share. The quarter was characterized by strong asset and deposit growth, while credit is performing right in line with our expectations. Importantly, we advanced several operational priorities this quarter. One key milestone occurred in May when we relaunched our cash back debit product. We're excited by the positive early results we're seeing so far. In the first few weeks, we opened over 30,000 new accounts and plan to begin national marketing in support of this product in the fall. The relaunch advances our goal of becoming the leading direct bank and over time we expect cash back debit will be a significant entry point into the Discover franchise.