MVB Financial Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

MVB Financial (NASDAQ:MVBF) reported third-quarter financial results on Thursday. The transcript from the company’s third-quarter earnings call has been provided below.

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Summary

MVB Financial reported net income of $438,000, or $0.03 per diluted share, influenced by an elevated provision for credit losses primarily due to a specific land loan issue.

Net interest income increased by 18% year-over-year, and the core net interest margin expanded by 15 basis points to 4%, driven by loan growth and fintech payment deposits, which rose 28% sequentially.

Management highlighted strategic initiatives including margin optimization, fintech deposit growth, and AI-driven expense management, aiming to sustain low-cost deposits and enhance operational efficiency.

Total loans grew by $44 million, marking a 7.2% annualized increase, while fintech payment-related deposits now account for 25% of total deposits.

Noninterest expenses declined to below $30 million, reflecting a 10% year-over-year decrease, supported by cost-containment initiatives and the integration of digital workers (digis).

Criticized loans declined by 45% since early 2025, and the allowance for credit losses nearly doubled, indicating strengthened credit risk management despite the isolated loan issue.

The company is optimistic about future growth in its fintech payments business, aiming to further increase fee income and fintech deposit share.

Management’s 2027 priorities include optimizing margins, capturing prime fintech clients, and leveraging AI for cost stability, while maintaining a strong capital position.

Full Transcript

OPERATOR

At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to Amy Baker, VP, Corporate Communications and Marketing. Thank you, Amy. You may begin.

Amy Baker (VP, Corporate Communications and Marketing)

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, and thank you all for joining us today for MVB’s third quarter 2026 earnings conference call. The company issued its earnings press release earlier this afternoon, and it is available on the company’s website at ir.mvbbanking.com. In addition, the company has included a slide presentation that you can refer to during the call, which is also available on the website. Participating on today’s call are MVB’s President and CEO Larry F. Mazza, CFO Mike Summes, and Chief Credit Officer Tony Eastman. Larry will provide an overview of our third quarter performance and business developments, and Mike will discuss the quarter’s financial results in more detail. We will then open the call for your questions.

Before we begin, I would like to remind you that this conference call contains forward-looking statements regarding the future performance and financial condition of MVB Financial, which involve risks and uncertainties. Various factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. These factors are discussed in the company’s SEC filings, which are available on our website. The company disclaims any obligation to update forward-looking statements made during the call.

Additionally, management may refer to non-GAAP financial measures, which are intended to supplement but not substitute for the most directly comparable GAAP measures. The earnings release available on our website contains the financial and other quantitative information discussed today along with the applicable non-GAAP reconciliations. With that, I’d like to turn the call over to MVB’s President and CEO, Larry Mazza.

Larry F. Mazza (President and Chief Executive Officer)

Thank you, Amy. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us. During the third quarter, we made significant progress on several important initiatives that are strengthening our underlying business and positioning MVB for continued improved financial performance. We continue to grow net interest income, expand our core net interest margin, diversify our funding base, and build momentum across our fintech payments business. At the same time, we maintained expense discipline and addressed specific credit exposure.

Our reported earnings of $0.03 per diluted share do not fully reflect the strength of our underlying business or the operating progress we’re making, largely because of the elevated provision for credit losses this quarter. I’ll discuss credit in a few minutes, but first I’d like to walk through the progress we’ve made across our strategic initiatives, which gives us confidence in the direction of the business. For those who may be joining one of the earnings calls for the first time, MVB combines a traditional banking franchise with a growing fintech banking platform serving clients across payments, banking-as-a-service, and gaming.

The combination provides us with multiple sources of funding and revenue and creates opportunities to improve the efficiency and profitability of our overall franchise. Two of the most important developments this quarter were the continued progress in growing net interest income along with expanding our core net interest margin and the momentum in our fintech payments business. Net interest income increased approximately 18% through the first nine months of this year compared to the same period last year. In the third quarter, our core net interest margin expanded another 15 basis points sequentially to 4. Several factors contributed to that improvement, including continued loan growth and our effort to optimize the funding side of the balance sheet.

I want to spend a little time on one particular important contributor, the growth of our fintech payments deposit relationships. Fintech payment deposits increased 28% sequentially to 766 million, now representing nearly one quarter of our total deposits and up nearly 55% from a year ago. These relationships matter more than the deposits themselves because they give us greater flexibility in managing our overall funding base. As we grow these deposits, we can reduce our reliance on more expensive sources of funding, improve our overall funding mix, and further diversify our deposit base.

During the third quarter, that progress contributed to a 6 basis point sequential decline in our total cost of funds to 2.07%. We view that as a particularly encouraging result given the interest rate environment, and it illustrates how growth in our fintech payment business translates into tangible improvements in the profitability of our core banking operations. We are also encouraged by the continued execution of our fintech partner pipeline. We’ve now onboarded nine new fintech partners through the first nine months of 2026 compared to five during all 2025, and the overall pipeline remains robust.

Turning briefly to our lending, we grew total loans by approximately 44 million, or 7.2% annualized during the quarter, marking our sixth consecutive quarter of loan growth. We’re pleased with the consistency of the growth, with opportunities across our lending business. Now I’d like to spend a few minutes on credit. We took decisive action during the quarter to proactively address specific credit exposure, which contributed meaningfully to the elevated provision for credit losses of approximately $9.9 million. That provision had a significant impact on our reported earnings. It’s important, however, to understand both the nature of the exposures involved and the broader trends across our loan portfolio. Nearly 75% of the increase in nonperforming loans during the quarter was attributed to one acquisition and development land loan involving circumstances specific to the borrower and the property.

That same credit accounted for almost half of our quarterly provision. We are investigating potential misrepresentations and lack of transparency in the due diligence and appraisal process associated with this loan. Subsequent to this development, we have taken an additional broader review of our existing loan portfolio, and we believe this was an isolated case. Also, we have implemented additional steps to further enhance future underwriting standards.

We believe the loan is adequately reserved based on our assessment as of September 30 and continue to work for full resolution. Outside this specific isolated loan, the overall portfolio continues to perform in line with our expectations, and we have not seen broader credit deterioration. We also continue to work through our legacy SBA portfolio, which we began winding down in 2020. The outstanding balance of the SBA portfolio was less than 23 million as of September 30, which includes approximately 3 million in government-guaranteed balances. Approximately 53% of the SBA portfolio is classified and has been individually analyzed for collateral impairments, representing 75% of the unguaranteed exposure. While the entire portfolio continues to receive enhanced monitoring and oversight, these are identifiable exposures and we are actively managing.

I also want to put the current credit metrics in a broader perspective. Since early 2025, criticized loans have now declined approximately 45% from roughly 135 million to 74 million. Over the same period, our allowance for credit losses increased from 19 million to 36 million. Classified loans have also declined materially over that period. We believe these developments reflect meaningful progress in strengthening our overall credit risk profile.

Turning back to the growth in our fintech business, beyond the benefits we’re seeing from payment-related deposit growth, our payment business continues to generate encouraging fee income growth. Payment card and service charge income has increased approximately 22% through the first nine months of the year and was up nearly 40% compared to the third quarter 2025. The sequential decline during the quarter primarily reflected normal seasonality within our gaming-related business.

We remain encouraged by the long-term growth in payments activity and the growing fintech relationships and pipeline. Another important area of focus has been expense management. Noninterest expense declined below 30 million during the third quarter, down approximately 2% sequentially and approximately 10% from a year ago. We invested significantly over the past several years in our technology, people, compliance, and risk management infrastructure. We’re also increasingly using AI and automation to improve efficiency across the organization.

With more than 100 digital assistants, which we fondly call digis, either developed or in progress, these initiatives are helping us streamline workflows and create opportunities to operate more efficiently as the business grows. Additionally, we deepened our relationship with Anthropic and now have 14 trained and certified Claude engineers on our team. As I step back and look at the quarter, there are three things I’d emphasize. First, the underlying banking business continues to improve. We’re growing net interest income, expanding core margin, and strengthening our funding base. Second, our fintech payment strategy is generating tangible results. We’re onboarding new partners, growing payments-related deposits, and building a large base of fee-generating activity. And third, while the provision weighed on the reported earnings this quarter, we’ve made meaningful progress in addressing identified credit exposure early and strengthening our reserves.

As I mentioned earlier, the primary driver of the elevated provision this quarter was a single isolated loan, and it’s not representative of our broader portfolio. The overall loan book continues to perform in line with our expectations. With that, I’ll turn the call over to Mike Summes to walk through the quarter’s financial results in more detail.

Michael (Chief Financial Officer)

Thank you, Larry, and good afternoon, everyone. I’ll provide some additional detail on the third quarter financial performance, including net interest income and margin, balance sheet trends, noninterest income and expenses, credit quality, and capital. Starting with earnings, we reported net income of approximately $438,000, or $0.03 per diluted share, compared with $12.3 million, or $0.93 per diluted share, in the second quarter. The sequential decline primarily reflected a higher provision for credit losses and the absence of a significant investment gain recognized in the prior quarter. As Larry discussed, we continue to see encouraging trends in the underlying net interest income, core margin, and fintech payments business.

Net interest income on a fully tax-equivalent basis increased to $32.7 million compared with $32.4 million in the second quarter. Despite the prior quarter including approximately $2.3 million of nonrecurring interest income associated with a loan payoff, our reported FTE net interest margin was 4.02% compared with 4.16% in the prior quarter. Excluding nonrecurring interest income in the prior quarter, core net interest margin expanded 15 basis points sequentially from 3.87% to 4.02%, reflecting continued loan growth, lower funding costs, and ongoing balance sheet optimization.

Turning to the balance sheet, total loans increased approximately $44 million, or 7.2% annualized, during the quarter to $2.52 billion. We are continuing to build out our specialty lending business, which offers opportunities to originate higher-yielding loans. The specialty lending pipeline is strong heading into the fourth quarter. As our portfolio mix gradually shifts towards these specialty lending opportunities, we believe we can continue to grow net interest income and improve the profitability and capital efficiency of our lending operations.

Total deposits were approximately $3.09 billion at September 30, down $24 million, or less than 1%, from the prior quarter, reflecting a seasonal decline in noninterest-bearing deposits partially offset by growth in interest-bearing deposits. Importantly, fintech payment deposits increased 28% to $766 million, representing approximately 25% of total deposits compared with approximately 19% at June 30. While point-in-time noninterest-bearing deposits declined in the quarter, the average balance of noninterest-bearing deposits over the third quarter increased by approximately $71 million versus the prior quarter.

This growth allowed us to reduce reliance on higher-cost deposit products, including balances we allowed to run off or move off the balance sheet. Together with our broader funding initiatives, these developments contributed to a 6 basis point reduction in our overall funding cost from 2.13% to 2.07%. We ended the quarter with a loan-to-deposit ratio of 81.6%, maintaining a solid on-balance-sheet liquidity position. Turning to noninterest income, we reported $7.8 million compared to $18.8 million in the second quarter, which included a $10 million pre-tax gain on an existing fintech investment. Excluding that gain, noninterest income declined approximately 10.5% sequentially, reflecting normal seasonality in payment-related fee income and lower contributions from our mortgage investment, which remains sensitive to interest rates and broader market conditions.

Payment card and service charge income totaled $5.2 million, down approximately 13% from the prior quarter, primarily reflecting normal seasonality in our gaming business. However, that revenue increased nearly 40% year over year and approximately 22% through the first nine months of 2026. On the expense side, noninterest expenses declined to $29.8 million compared to $30.4 million in the second quarter and $33.3 million a year ago, reflecting continued expense discipline and the benefit of the previously implemented cost-containment initiatives.

Now turning to credit, the provision for credit losses totaled $9.9 million compared to $4.7 million in the prior quarter. The increase was driven primarily by reserves established against a limited number of identified credits. The provision included a $4.6 million specific reserve on one acquisition and development credit and a $3.2 million specific reserve on a small number of credits within our legacy SBA and associated C&I portfolio. Loan growth and adjustments to our allowance model also contributed to the elevated loan loss provision.

Nonperforming loans increased to $46.8 million at September 30 compared to $29.2 million at June 30. Of the approximately $17.6 million increase, $13.1 million was attributable to the single land loan that Larry referenced, rather than a broad migration of loans into nonperforming. Looking at broader credit trends, criticized loans declined to approximately $74 million, or 3% of total loans, compared to $77 million, or 3.1%, at June 30. Since March 2025, criticized loans have declined approximately 45% from $135 million, or 6.6% of loans.

Classified loans increased modestly during the quarter to approximately $50 million, or 2% of loans, from $47 million, or 1.9%, but remain approximately 25% below their March 2025 level. At the same time, we’ve significantly strengthened our allowance for credit losses, which increased to $36.2 million, or 1.44% of total loans, compared to $28.2 million, or 1.14%, at June 30. Our allowance has nearly doubled since March 2025. While criticized loans have declined meaningfully, we believe these trends reflect progress in strengthening our overall credit risk profile.

Net charge-offs were $2.5 million during the third quarter, representing 41 basis points annualized of average loans, compared to $1.4 million, or 23 basis points annualized, during the second quarter. Finally, turning to capital, our tangible common equity ratio was 9.3% at September 30 compared to 9.7% at June 30. Tangible book value per share was $25.26, compared to $26.52 at the end of the prior quarter, with the decline primarily attributable to an increase in unrealized losses in our securities portfolio reflected through other accumulated comprehensive loss. We remain focused on maintaining a strong capital position while supporting the continued development of our banking and fintech businesses.

With that, operator, we’re ready to open the line for questions.

OPERATOR

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question-and-answer session. If you’d like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we poll for questions.

Our first question is from Joe Yochenos with Raymond James. Please proceed with your question.

Joe Yochenos (Analyst at Raymond James)

Good afternoon, guys. Well, thank you for taking my questions. So I guess to start off, in your prepared remarks, you referenced a few times how your allowance has increased while criticized assets have declined over the past couple years and quarters. I guess, assuming the broader credit environment remains stable, how should we think about a normalized provision expense from here? Michael?

Michael (Chief Financial Officer)

Yeah, hey, Joe, thanks for the question. Yeah, I think if you look at the components of the provision this quarter, you can see a significant portion of it was specific reserves, really on two buckets. One was the land loan that we discussed in the prepared remarks, which was $4.6 million of specific reserves. And then as we discussed in the prepared remarks, we’ve seen some migration of the legacy SBA book into nonperforming, which was about $3.2%, or $3.2 million, of specific reserves.

So if you strip that out, you can sort of get to what a normalized provision level is, absent specific reserves, and go from there. And, you know, to the extent there are credits that move into nonperforming, we’ll address those. But I think that’s a good place to start as you think about a normalized provision level.

Joe Yochenos (Analyst at Raymond James)

Okay, that’s helpful. And then, you know, I went through the updated presentation. It shows your risk and compliance staff declined to 81 from 116 last quarter, so well below your prior target of 90 by year-end. You know, I guess I’m kind of wondering, like, how much left is there to cut on the risk and compliance front with, you know, you being down so much this quarter? I guess when did those cuts occur in the quarter? Should there be any wraparound benefit and cost saves to the fourth quarter, and just kind of how long can you keep noninterest expenses below $30 million, kind of given wage inflation?

Larry F. Mazza (President and Chief Executive Officer)

Joe, that’s a deep question and an important question for us. Our team has really embraced AI. You saw my earlier comments are. Can you hear me okay?

Joe Yochenos (Analyst at Raymond James)

I can hear you just fine.

Larry F. Mazza (President and Chief Executive Officer)

Okay, great. So you saw earlier in my comments the relationship with Anthropic. We now have 14 certified Anthropic Claude engineers. They’ve been working hard. We now have, as you also heard me say, we now have 100 digis. And digis is what we would call our digital workers; some would call bots. We now have 100 either working for us, you know, working in the field or in the development of that. Our engineers, our FORTUNE engineers, have come so far where now the AI is starting to program the digi.

So they’re coming along really, really nicely. So our focus in Julie O’Connor’s area, who has risk and compliance, has done a fantastic job of implementing AI in that area. And I do believe there—obviously expense cuts are finite, right? And revenue growth is infinite. We believe there is a floor there on the risk and compliance side. You may have five to seven more in reduction there, but that’s about it. Because we have, as you also saw, we’ve onboarded nine new programs, nine new clients, and we continue to focus probably with another somewhere between eight to eleven new clients here in the fourth quarter that we’ll onboard.

So we still need to—even though we have the technology and AI monitoring—we still need the human in the loop. So as far as expense reduction, we feel comfortable on the level we are. We hope to keep around that $9.5–$10 million level into the rest of this year. And only a small increase, maybe around $10 million. $9 million a month versus $10 million a month, $9.5 million versus $10 million going into 2027. So as far as there’s very few banks that I think that have cut expenses 10% year over year while they’re growing. You saw excellent growth in the loan portfolio.

You saw excellent growth on deposits in fintech. You know, you’re looking now at a fintech partnership in our payments side, nearly a billion dollars. It’s almost $800 million right now and continues to grow. You saw that our NIM was up 15 basis points, our cost of funds were down 6 basis points. So the trend is definitely our friend on the revenue side. And on the expense side, we continue to hold and believe that just holding steady and flat is a big win in this inflationary market.

Joe Yochenos (Analyst at Raymond James)

And, you know, in this inflationary market, you just kind of touched on it. One of the other big pauses this quarter was the NIM expansion to 15 basis points. You know, if, given kind of the shape of the curve here, you know, is that plus 4%—is that defendable kind of at current levels, you know, as you start to gain more of these noninterest-bearing deposits to replace higher funding costs? Or do you think there’s kind of more room to move higher from here?

Larry F. Mazza (President and Chief Executive Officer)

Hey Joe, I do believe there’s room to move higher. We now have a project inside the bank called margin optimization. We really want to optimize our margin, you know, some of our lending programs on the legal lending side with John Madea, with some of our fintech lending, all those are the same level of risk but higher yields on our asset side. So we feel comfortable with that. You saw where our payment deposits are up 28%. And that will help us stay away from any funding with higher-cost CDs, which will really position us well as far as our cost of funds, at least staying steady while we believe our asset side can grow in yield.

Joe Yochenos (Analyst at Raymond James)

Okay, perfect. I appreciate that, and thank you for taking my questions.

Larry F. Mazza (President and Chief Executive Officer)

Thank you, Joe.

OPERATOR

Our next question is from Will Jones with KBW. Please proceed with your question.

Will Jones (Analyst at KBW)

Yeah. Hey, guys. Good afternoon.

Larry F. Mazza (President and Chief Executive Officer)

Hey, Will. Welcome to the team. First call. Glad to hear from you.

Will Jones (Analyst at KBW)

I know, I know. I’m excited to be here. Thanks for having me. Hey, guys, maybe just to close the loop on the MPA from this quarter, was that a criticized loan last quarter? How did you guys kind of go about identifying it? And, you know, as you kind of see the playing field as is right now, is there any kind of defined path to resolution there, or is it still too early to tell?

Larry F. Mazza (President and Chief Executive Officer)

Michael? I’ll let you take that. We also have Tony Eastman on the call as well, our chief credit officer. We wanted to have him today here just for any clarifications or to dig deeper into questions like this, but we’ll let Michael kick it off, and if Tony needs to add, that’d be wonderful. But, Michael.

Michael (Chief Financial Officer)

Yeah. Hey, thanks for the question, Will. So, yes, that loan was identified as a criticized loan in the quarter, and then as it approached maturity this quarter, we had an updated appraisal ordered on the property. And that appraisal came in significantly lower than the appraised value at the time of the origination. And a lot of that delta in the appraised value was related to entitlements that were associated with the property at the time of underwriting.

So we’re continuing to gather facts around the situation. We’ve engaged a forensic appraisal firm to assist in our review, and we’re evaluating all available options and remedies as we continue to gather and assess the facts. We did record a $4.6 million specific reserve on it, which wrote the loan down to current appraised value, less selling costs. So we’re comfortable with where we’ve marked the loan, and we’ll continue to work through options as it relates to resolving the credit as we go forward.

Will Jones (Analyst at KBW)

Yeah, okay. I appreciate that color, and you guys gave great color in your prepared remarks as well. So thanks for all that. I wanted to go to, in the slides, you guys kind of call out 45% fintech deposits now, 55% core bank. You know, that number has increased in favor of fintech. Larry, big-picture question for you. When you fast forward a year, two years down the road, what is the right mix of deposits for MVB Financial? Do you continue to see that migration in favor of fintech as you grow that platform and that part of the franchise?

Or where could we ultimately see the fintech—or how do you ultimately frame the deposit opportunity on the fintech side?

Larry F. Mazza (President and Chief Executive Officer)

Okay, well, I can jump in. I’m sorry, I got it now. I got it. Michael, sorry. So when you look at the core bank, Will, the core bank is limited as far as its market. And what I mean by that is we have great markets in Northern Virginia—Reston, Fairfax, et cetera. Monica Tressler there is our chief deposit officer and does a fantastic job with her team of growing deposits in that market. That’s the thing, though. It is limited to Northern Virginia and West Virginia, which we value and honor—those legacy markets.

The thing of it is, in our fintech, with Jeremy Kuiper who leads that, he has a national footprint. We have clients in 40 different states. We have a pipeline of 50 fintechs coming on. It’s been one of the best markets that we have been in as far as growth. We see that continuing to grow. We will—you know, I said we’re kissing close to a billion of those deposits. I believe, you know, in the near future we will be over a billion dollars in fintech deposits and have a very robust 2027 in fintech deposits.

Our core markets will do well, but, you know, you’re competing in two states versus 40 states and a very robust pipeline, and it’s been good and I think it will continue to grow very positively over the next several years.

Will Jones (Analyst at KBW)

Yeah, that’s great.

Larry F. Mazza (President and Chief Executive Officer)

Low-cost deposits, which are great low-cost deposits.

Will Jones (Analyst at KBW)

That’s a great segue into my next follow-up here. Mike, if you could help us out, as we familiarize ourselves with kind of the competitive dynamics on the fintech deposit side, what is the, you know, in a Fed hike scenario, what is the beta on, you know, the cohort of fintech deposits as opposed to the core bank? We obviously saw deposit cost reduction this quarter. Maybe just help frame, you know, what you ultimately see interest-bearing deposit costs do, you know, over a Fed hike cycle.

Michael (Chief Financial Officer)

Yeah, so a couple pieces on that, Will. You know, it really depends on the nature of the relationship in terms of how we price those deposits. But from a broad, sort of a broad-brush standpoint, typically there’s some level of deposits that are not interest-bearing. If they’re reserve deposits for some sort of money movement, those are typically non-interest-bearing. For the more sizable deposit opportunities, you know, it tends to get into an interest-bearing situation.

Oftentimes we’ll index those into the effective fed funds rate at some percentage. So on that interest-bearing portion of those fintech deposits there’s a 100% beta as it relates to fed funds. But if it’s at a 50% effective fed funds, you essentially have a 50% beta on that relationship. So as you think about the overall fintech pool, including non-interest-bearing, it tends to be, I would say, a lower-beta deposit base, which I think you are seeing in the numbers with cost of funds flat to even down this quarter. Some of that’s attributable to the CD runoff and the work we’ve done in that portfolio—running off higher-cost CDs and remixing out of CDs. But overall that hopefully gives you a general framework for how those fintech deposits interact with rate movements.

Will Jones (Analyst at KBW)

Yeah, no, that’s great, that’s very helpful. I appreciate that. Mike and Larry, last question for me. Big picture: as we kind of start to think about 2027, what that year looks like, what are really your kind of top three priorities, if you had to name them, for what you would like to see MVB accomplish as we start to think about next year?

Larry F. Mazza (President and Chief Executive Officer)

I love that question, Will, because we are already focused on 2027. We’re really looking forward in a positive way based on the, you know, the encouragement we have, really, with this quarter. I don’t want you to miss the doughnut for the hole. I mean the loan is disappointing, don’t get me wrong. But that is an aberration and a very unique circumstance, which, you know, this too shall pass. But when we look at 2027, the top three priorities: The first one is what I’ll call margin optimization. I mentioned that earlier with Joe, and margin optimization is our ability to make higher-yielding, equivalent-risk loans in the legal lending market and in the fintech sponsorship lending markets. We believe that we will swap out loans that are yielding anywhere between 6.5% to 7% with higher yields of closer to 8.5% to 9%. That’s our first and most important project.

We weight these projects—when I’m saying weight, it’s W-E-I-G-H-T—weight them in order of importance and how we focus our resources. The second one is what we call Prime Capture. That’s our second project name, and Prime Capture are these fintechs that we are onboarding. I mentioned earlier that we have nearly 50 fintech clients in the pipeline. There’s no way—well, that’s two years’ worth of fintechs based on our current onboarding, which will be nearly 20 this year versus 5 last year. We really improved, and I’m really happy with the team’s progress on onboarding. We really have done a good job with that.

But now we are weighting the onboarding prospects to—when I’m saying Prime Capture, for example, what I mentioned last quarter to Joe about our portfolios, like wine, you know, it has to mature. Well, as we look at the wine, we’re accelerating this through what we call lift and shift. Lift-and-shift fintech clients are clients that are already in development, clients that already have a strong fintech client base where the revenue, as soon as they’re onboarded, shifts immediately to us versus a startup program that takes months and months and months to mature and recognize that revenue.

So that’s a high priority for us in 2027—this Prime Capture, capturing these prime clients that are in our pipeline, putting them to the front of the list so that we can lift and shift their revenue to us much quicker than some of these ones that are coming on. If you remember from a previous quarter call, we said we really only recognize about 25% of the revenue because it takes time to mature. With these lift and shifts, we recognize nearly 100% of the revenue once they’re on board.

So we’re excited about that as 2027 nears and how we are onboarding clients. The third one is what we mentioned earlier: we now have 14 certified cloud engineers, and that will continue to grow. Our team continues to educate and grow. We have a wonderful partnership with Anthropic; we believe we’ll be a case study for them in the near future of how to use AI in banking. And with that, now with these hundred digis, what we want to do—when we talked about this 10% reduction in costs year-over-year in a growing inflationary market—we want to at least maintain these cost levels and not grow them.

And we do that with our onboarding of our digis, continuing to improve our processes. So those are our big three: two revenue drivers, including loans and our fintech, which will also drive lower-cost deposits— that fintech onboarding. It’s not only driving fee income, but it’s driving lower-cost deposits—and holding our expenses steady to maybe even downward. Those are our big three.

Will Jones (Analyst at KBW)

Yeah, that’s great. I appreciate that thoughtful response and I look forward to seeing you guys executing that as we move into next year. So thanks for the questions.

Larry F. Mazza (President and Chief Executive Officer)

Thank you, Will.

OPERATOR

Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Our next question is from Janet Lee with TD Cowen. Please proceed with your question.

Janet Lee (Analyst at TD Cowen)

Good afternoon. Hi. Hello. If I recall correctly, in the last rising rate cycle you guys went more defense and your balance sheet shrank a little bit as you were playing defense. If we get more rate hikes, is it any different in terms of your strategy? And how should we think about your loan and deposit growth in 2027?

Larry F. Mazza (President and Chief Executive Officer)

Hey Michael, you want to take that one?

Michael (Chief Financial Officer)

Yeah. Hey Janet, thanks for the question. Yeah, I think it’s a little different this go-around, and I would say from a growth standpoint we’re still seeing good opportunities in the pipeline for loan growth. Particularly excited about the specialty lending pipeline heading into Q4. And as Larry mentioned on the margin optimization effort, I think a lot of that work can be done in terms of remixing our loan portfolio into higher-yielding loans. Just this quarter the core yield on loans was up about 20 basis points versus Q2.

So while the average balance of loans wasn’t up significantly over the quarter, we still saw nice growth in the interest income related to that enhanced yield in the loan portfolio. And then on the deposit side we’re still seeing really strong opportunities for deposit growth. I think we’ve had about 300 million in new fintech-related deposits come on over the course of this year, and I don’t really see that opportunity changing materially in a higher-rate environment. So I think we’re set up well as it relates to the balance sheet for continued growth, but also continued mixing of both the loan and earning asset side as well as the funding side.

Janet Lee (Analyst at TD Cowen)

Thanks for all the color on the AD&C portfolio. The 13 million, so you took close to 5 million of specific reserves. How should we think about the loss content here realistically, and should we expect net charge-offs to remain sort of in the third-quarter levels before trailing back to the 20 basis point range that you’ve typically experienced? How should we think about the path or the timing around getting back to the normalized levels?

Michael (Chief Financial Officer)

Yeah, I’ll take that one, Janet. So I would say from a charge-off standpoint, you know there could be a similar level in Q4 as to what you saw in Q3 as we continue to work through some of the loans that have migrated into non-performer. As it relates to the larger AD&C loan that we’ve discussed on the call, feel good about where we’ve reserved that loan based on the current appraised value and factoring in associated costs with resolving that or selling that property.

You know, it’s hard to predict the exact timing of resolution on that particular credit. And as we mentioned, we’re still collecting facts around the situation, but we’re actively working through it and hopeful to remediate it and resolve it expeditiously.

Janet Lee (Analyst at TD Cowen)

Okay, got it. And on the fee income side, you’ve obviously been adding a lot of fintech partners, and payment card and services income have been growing at a very strong pace. But that’s been, I guess, somewhat masked by lower or declining equity method investment income. I believe it’s somewhat tied to the mortgage performance, that it can only go so much lower. How should we think about the overall fee income for MVB Financial from here, because it’s been kind of range-bound in the 7 to 8 million range per quarter?

How should we think about that inflection point?

Michael (Chief Financial Officer)

Yeah, so as you mentioned, the payment card and service charge income line item has been growing nicely, and that’s a line item we’re really, really focused on continuing to grow. And hopeful with all the new partners that we’ve been onboarding, as they continue to mature on the platform, we can continue to support those growth rates. You’re correct that the equity method investment is largely related to activity in the mortgage space. So I think, you know, the rate environment is certainly elevated, and that’s having a direct impact on activity in the mortgage industry.

You know, a lot of that increase in the rate environment happened late in the quarter. So, you know, I expect there could be continued slow activity in mortgage as rates remain elevated. So, you know, we’re really focused on continuing to grow the payment card and the service charge income, and the equity method income will be largely, largely tied to the overall mortgage market.

Janet Lee (Analyst at TD Cowen)

Got it. Thanks for all the color.

Michael (Chief Financial Officer)

Thanks, Janet.

OPERATOR

We have reached the end of the question and answer session. I would like to turn the floor back over to Larry Mazza for closing comments.

Larry F. Mazza (President and Chief Executive Officer)

Thank you, Max. Thanks to everyone for joining us today. We’re encouraged by the progress we’re making in strengthening our core banking operations. We’ve expanded our payment deposits; they’re up 28%. Our payment and card service charges are up 40%. Our NIM’s up 15 basis points to over 4%. Our cost of funds are down 6 basis points to 2.07%. Our expenses are down 10.5% year over year, and our loan loss reserve we feel is adequate. We remain focused on building on that momentum and delivering stronger financial performance.

We appreciate your continued interest and support in MVB and look forward to speaking to you next quarter. Have a wonderful evening.

OPERATOR

This concludes today’s teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.

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