East West Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:EWBC) Q4 2023 Earnings Conference Call January 23, 2024 5:00 PM ET

Company Participants

Adrienne Atkinson - Director of Investor Relations

Dominic Ng - Chairman and Chief Executive Office

Christopher Del Moral-Niles - Chief Financial Officer

Irene Oh - Chief Risk Officer

Conference Call Participants

Ebrahim H. Poonawala - Bank of America

Ben Gerlinger - Citi

Dave Rochester - Compass Point

Gary Tenner - D.A. Davidson

Casey Haire - Jefferies

Manan Gosalia - Morgan Stanley

Matthew Clark - Piper Sandler

Andrew Terrell - Stephens

Brandon King - Truist Securities

Brody Preston - UBS

Timur Braziler - Wells Fargo

Operator

Good afternoon, and welcome to the East West Bancorp's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2023 Earnings Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this event is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the conference over to Adrienne Atkinson, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Adrienne Atkinson

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, and thank you, everyone, for joining us to review East West Bancorp's fourth quarter and full year 2023 financial results.

With me are Dominic Ng, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Christopher Del Moral-Niles, Chief Financial Officer; and Irene Oh, Chief Risk Officer.

This call is being recorded and will be available for replay on our Investor Relations website. The slide deck referenced during this call is available on our Investor Relations site.

Management may make projections or other forward-looking statements, which may differ materially from the actual results due to a number of risks and uncertainties. Management may discuss non-GAAP financial measures. For a more detailed description of the risk factors and the reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP financial measures, please refer to our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the Form 8-K filed today.

I will now turn the call over to Dominic.

Dominic Ng

Thank you, Adrienne. Good afternoon, and thank you everyone for joining us for our year-end earnings call.

2023 was another record breaking year for East West. Our highlights include new record levels for revenue, net interest income, net income, loans and deposits. Our 2023 results speak to the resilience of our business model, the loyalty of our customers, and the persistence of our bankers.

Despite the turbulence in the early half of the year, we grew customer deposits by $1 billion in each of the past two quarters. We did this by adding 40,000 new deposit accounts over the past year, both consumer and commercial, and driving a more granular deposit base. Our loan growth was driven by our differentiated residential mortgage product and the strength of our commercial lending relationships.