Washington Trust Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:WASH) Q2 2024 Earnings Conference Call July 23, 2024 8:30 AM ET

Company Participants

Elizabeth Eckel - EVP, Chief Marketing & Corporate Communications Officer
Ned Handy - Chairman & CEO
Ron Ohsberg - Senior EVP, CFO & Treasurer
Mary Noons - President & COO
Bill Wray - Senior EVP & CRO

Conference Call Participants

Mark Fitzgibbon - Piper Sandler
Damon DelMonte - KBW
Laurie Hunsicker - Seaport Research

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to Washington Trust Bancorp, Inc.'s Conference Call. My name is Lydia and I will be your operator today. [Operator Instructions]. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded.

I'd now like to turn the call over to Elizabeth Eckel, Executive Vice President, Chief Marketing and Corporate Communications Officer. Please go ahead.

Elizabeth Eckel

Thank you, Lydia. Good morning, and welcome to Washington Trust Bancorp, Inc.'s conference call for the second quarter of 2024.

Joining us this morning are members of Washington Trust executive team, Ned Handy, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Mary Noons, President and Chief Operating Officer; Ron Ohsberg, Senior Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer; and Bill Wray, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Risk Officer.

Please note that today's presentation may contain forward-looking statements and our actual results could differ materially from what is discussed on today's call. Our complete Safe Harbor statement is contained in our earnings release, which was issued yesterday, as well as other documents that are filed with the SEC. All of these materials and other public filings are available on our Investor Relations website at ir.washtrust.com. Washington Trust trades on NASDAQ under the symbol WASH.

I'm now pleased to introduce today's host, Washington Trust Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Ned Handy. Ned?

Ned Handy

Thank you, Beth. Good morning and thank you for joining our second quarter conference call. We appreciate your time and interest in Washington Trust.

I'll provide brief comments and then Ron Ohsberg will offer more detail regarding our second quarter performance. After our prepared remarks, Mary Noons and Bill Wray will join us for the Q&A session.

We continue to prioritize building balance sheet strength, managing credit, controlling expenses, and positioning to be opportunistic for earnings growth as the economy and interest rates allow. Capital ratios improved somewhat in the quarter as we deemphasized asset growth and stabilized earnings in the quarter. Credit remains strong and expenses are down quarter-over-quarter. We've introduced new deposit growth oriented tools to enhance our customers experience in online account opening, bank switching and to reward our customers for referrals. We look forward to opening a new branch in the Olneyville section of Providence next month. Other than this branch, we have no other planned branch expansion at this time.