Citizens Financial Group, Inc. (NYSE:CFG) Q3 2023 Earnings Conference Call October 18, 2023 9:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Kristin Silberberg - EVP, IR

Bruce Van Saun - Chairman and CEO

John Woods - CFO

Don McCree - Head, Commercial Banking

Brendan Coughlin - Head, Consumer Banking

Conference Call Participants

Erika Najarian - UBS

Scott Siefers - Piper Sandler

Peter Winter - D.A. Davidson

Kenneth Usdin - Jefferies

Manan Gosalia - Morgan Stanley

Matthew O'Connor - Deutsche Bank

Vivek Juneja - JPMorgan

Operator

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Citizens Financial Group Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Greg, and I'll be your operator today. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this event is being recorded.

Now I'll turn the call over to Kristin Silberberg, Executive Vice President, Investor Relations. Kristin, you may begin.

Kristin Silberberg

Thank you, Greg. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. First, this morning, our Chairman and CEO, Bruce Van Saun; and CFO, John Woods, will provide an overview of our third quarter results. Brendan Coughlin, Head of Consumer Banking; and Don McCree, Head of Commercial Banking, are also here to provide additional color.

We will be referencing our third quarter earnings presentation located on our Investor Relations website. After the presentation, we will be happy to take questions. Our comments today will include forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause our results to differ materially from expectations. These are outlined for your review on Page 2 of the presentation. We also reference non-GAAP financial measures, so it's important to review our GAAP results on Page 3 of the presentation and the reconciliations in the appendix.

And with that, I will hand over to Bruce.

Bruce Van Saun

Thanks, Kristin, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining our call today. We continue to execute well through a challenging environment. Our focus has been on playing strong defense and maintaining a strong balance sheet. During the quarter, we grew our CET1 ratio to 10.4% near the top of peers, while still buying in $250 million in stock with Non-Core loan runoff of $1.4 billion and deposit growth of $500 million in the quarter, we lowered our spot loan-to-deposit ratio to 84% at quarter end. We focused on building up our liquidity even further, given geopolitical uncertainty and the regulatory direction of travel, adding almost $4 billion to cash and securities.