SLM Corporation (NASDAQ:SLM) Q3 2024 Earnings Conference Call October 23, 2024 5:30 PM ET

Company Participants

Melissa Bronaugh - VP & Head, Investor Relations
Jon Witter - CEO & Director
Pete Graham - EVP & CFO

Conference Call Participants

Terry Ma - Barclays
Sanjay Sakhrani - KBW
Mark DeVries - Deutsche Bank
Nate Richam - Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Rick Shane - JPMorgan
Jeff Adelson - Morgan Stanley
Jon Arfstrom - RBC Capital Markets
John Hecht - Jefferies

Operator

Welcome to the Sallie Mae Third Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the call over to Melissa Bronaugh, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Melissa Bronaugh

Thank you, Madison. Good evening, and welcome to Sallie Mae's Third Quarter 2024 Earnings Call. It is my pleasure to be here today with Jon Witter, our CEO; and Pete Graham, our CFO. After the prepared remarks, we will open the call for questions.

Before we begin, keep in mind our discussion will contain predictions, expectations and forward-looking statements. Actual results in the future may be materially different from those discussed here due to a variety of factors. Listeners should refer to the discussion of those factors in the company's Form 10-Q and other filings with the SEC. For Sallie Mae, these factors include, among others, results of operations, financial conditions and/or cash flows as well as any potential impacts of various external factors on our business. We undertake no obligation to update or revise any predictions, expectations or forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that occur after today, Wednesday, October 23, 2024.

Thank you. And now I'll turn the call over to Jon.

Jon Witter

Thank you, Melissa and Madison. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining us today to discuss Sallie Mae's third quarter results. I hope you'll take away 3 key messages today. First, we had a very successful peak season. Second, we remain encouraged by the sustained improvements we are seeing in our credit performance. And third, we believe we are well positioned to deliver strong results for the year by continuing to drive our business and serve our customers.

Let me begin with a discussion of peak season results. Last quarter, we hypothesized that the FAFSA form delays would elongate peak season but not have a material impact on demand. While this shift in peak season timing has played out as we expected, we outperformed even our own estimates with originations growth of 13% in the quarter compared to the year ago period. Private education loan originations for the third quarter of '24 were $2.8 billion and our new unfunded commitments in the quarter were $3.9 billion. In total, our committed volume increased almost $1 billion or 17% and when compared to the prior year quarter. This wraps up a very successful 2024 peak season, and year-to-date, through the end of September, we have seen 9% growth in total originations.