Morning. My name is Colin, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I'd like to welcome everyone to CWB's Q3 financial results conference call and webcast. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there'll be a question-and-answer session. If you'd like to ask a question during this time, simply press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you'd like to withdraw your question, please press star followed by two. Thank you. Mr. Patrick Gallagher, you may begin your conference. Good morning, and welcome to our Q3 2021 financial results conference call. My name is Patrick Gallagher, and I'm the Vice President leading our strategy and investor relations team. I would like to remind listeners and webcast participants that statements about future events made in this call are forward-looking in nature and based on certain assumptions and analysis made by management. Actual results could differ materially from expectations due to various risks and uncertainties associated with CWB's business. Please refer to our forward-looking statement advisory on slide number two. The agenda for today's call is on the 3rd slide. Presenting to you today are Chris Fowler, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Matt Rudd, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Following their presentations, we'll open the lines for the question and answer session. I'll now turn the call over to Chris, who will begin his discussion on slide four. Thank you, Patrick, and good morning. The strong results we reported today reflect the momentum our teams have created in recent years as we continue to deliver on our winning strategy, uniquely focused on meeting the full service needs of business owners in Canada. Clients choose CWB for our proactive personalized service and the specialized advice, tools, and financial solutions we provide. We're very encouraged by the results our strategic investments are delivering. We will continue to enhance our capabilities and product offerings to accelerate our growth and further diversify our business. We delivered very strong results again this quarter. Compared to the same quarter last year, our pre-tax, pre-provision income increased 15%. Adjusted earnings per share was up 36%, and ROE increased 300 basis points. I'm very pleased with this level of performance as it reflects the significant improvements we've made to diversify our funding sources, our portfolio composition, as well as improving our revenue mix through our growing wealth management business we provide to business owners and their families. Driven by the strategic focus on growth-enabling activities, our revenue has increased 16% from the strong momentum our teams have generated. This quarter, our client-centric teams produced sequential growth of full service clients relationships with 4% growth in lower cost branch raise deposits and 3% growth of specifically targeted lending. The quarterly results are of the strongest growth levels in our history. The highest growth this quarter was recorded in the commercial mortgage and general commercial portfolios, driven by both supporting existing clients and onboarding new full-service clients. Our geographic diversification is producing a strong pipeline with 10% year-to-date loan growth in Ontario. We expect our strong growth momentum to continue as we enhance our full-service client experience through investments in our in-person and digital channels. Our digital client offering is advancing well, and we're on track to release our enhanced digital banking platform for personal and small business clients, including a limited initial rollout of our Virtual COO solution later this year. The Virtual COO is a differentiated solution for our small business owner clients that once fully deployed will assist in driving strong client growth in this segment. Once fully operational, we expect our enhanced and targeted digital capabilities will enable us to continue to grow and diversify our business across Canada by winning new clients both within and outside our banking center footprint, while further broadening our access to stable, lower-cost funding. There's no question our people are core to our success. Our strong growth is supported by our positive and inclusive culture. We remain a clear destination for top talent as our employee experience creates value. Our unwavering commitment to advance our people-first culture was recognized again during the quarter by Great Place to Work as one of the best workplaces in Alberta, and we're also very pleased to be recognized nationally as one of the best workplaces for mental wellness in 2021. As Matt will discuss in a moment, we supported our robust loan growth this quarter with active usage of our at-the-market equity distribution program. This program allows us to support strong loan growth while dynamically managing our capital in light of the current economic volatility and providing attractive, sustainable returns to our investors. We also continue to use our AIRB tools to assess and manage credit risk. As we noted last quarter, we're working on components of our tools and processes that we have determined can be improved. Work on these enhancements will make our tools more efficient for our teams to use, increase precision in the measurement of credit risk, and incorporate the changes required to adopt OSFI's capital adequacy guidelines for the Basel III revisions in Canada. We remain confident our work will obtain approval for us to transition to the AIRB approach. We will provide further updates on our progress once we finalize the timeframe to resubmit our application while considering all relevant stakeholders. I'll now turn the call over to Matt, who will provide greater detail on our Q3 performance and improved outlook as we close FY 2021. Thanks, Chris, and good morning, everyone. If we turn to slide five, compared to last year, branch raised deposits grew 17% and now represent 57% of our total funding. Our focus to expand full service relationships with existing and new clients supported a 31% increase in low-cost demand and notice deposits compared to last year. We also continue to build on the strength of our capital markets program with a CAD 500 million floating rate note issuance during the quarter at an attractive spread. Our efforts to grow and diversify our funding sources drove a reduction in the outstanding balance of broker deposits again this quarter, and they now represent only 20% of our total funding, compared to 26% at this time last year. Looking at slide six, our total loans were up 9% in the past year, with positive momentum across our national footprint. The 13% growth in our strategically targeted general commercial portfolio reflected our focus to increase full service client relationships. We also delivered 21% growth in commercial mortgages, and that reflects strong new lending volumes in B.C., Alberta, and Ontario, with high-quality borrowers that remain within our risk appetite. Total loans in Ontario grew 10% compared to last year and now represent 23% of our total loans. On a sequential basis, we delivered 4% growth in commercial mortgages, with the majority of that growth generated from strong existing CWB clients, including providing the commercial mortgage on completed real estate project lending. Our general commercial growth of 3% this quarter was well-balanced across numerous industries with strong credit profiles. Personal loan and mortgages grew 3% this quarter and represents a strong improvement in the performance of this portfolio compared to the previous several quarters. As slide seven shows, we delivered another very strong quarter of profitability. Common shareholders' net income increased 39%, pre-tax, pre-provision income increased 15% compared to last year, and t hat reflects the benefit of 9% annual loan growth and an 11 basis point increase in net interest margin, despite the continued low interest rate environment. Adjusted and diluted EPS each increased by CAD 0.26 from the same quarter last year. Higher net interest income contributed CAD 0.25 and reflects strong loan growth and higher net interest margin. We had a CAD 0.13 contribution from a lower total provision for credit losses, primarily driven by a net performing loan recovery of CAD 7 million, compared to a charge of CAD 8 million last year. Higher non-interest income, excluding the wealth acquisition, contributed CAD 0.03 and primarily reflects higher credit-related fees driven by strong annual loan growth. CAD 0.01 was contributed by the wealth acquisition, which we owned for only two months in the same quarter last year. Excluding the wealth acquisition, higher non-interest expenses reduced EPS by CAD 0.13, which reflected our continued investments in our people and technology infrastructure to support our strategic execution and costs associated with operating and enhancing our AIRB tools and processes. This quarter also included a partial coupon payment on our Series 2 Limited Recourse Capital Notes that were issued in this March, which reduced EPS by CAD 0.02. Our sequential performance, shown on slide eight, reflects 7% growth in revenue and a decline in the provision for credit losses that more than offset a 4% sequential increase in non-interest expenses. Common shareholders' net income increased 20%, and pre-tax, pre-provision income increased 9% compared to last quarter. Diluted EPS increased CAD 0.16, primarily due to higher net interest income that contributed CAD 0.11 and a lower PCL that added CAD 0.05. Higher non-interest income contributed CAD 0.03, and lower LRCN coupon payments added an additional CAD 0.02. Higher NIEs had a CAD 0.05 negative impact, and that was due to increased performance-based compensation costs, annual salary increments, continued investment in our technology infrastructure to support our strategic execution, and costs associated with enhancing our AIRB tools and processes. As shown on slide nine, our revenue has continued to build each quarter over the last year, despite no change in the prime interest rates over that same period. Revenue has been driven with very strong NIM performance due to very careful management of our funding cost, supported by very strong growth of branch-raised deposits and continued progress in enhancing the diversity of our funding channels. On a sequential basis, our net interest income increased as the benefit of therr additional interest earning days and 3% sequential loan growth more than offset the impact of a 2-basis point decline in net interest margin. Our net interest margin in the prior quarter did include a one-time 2-basis point benefit associated with adjusting certain balance sheet management activities in response to a shift in our funding mix, so i f we excluded this one-time item, our NIM was essentially flat compared to the previous quarter. On slide 10, we highlight our delivery of another quarter of strong credit performance, with low write-offs and low provisions for credit losses, and a decline in impaired loans reflective of our conservative credit risk management. Our Q3 provision for credit losses on total loans of 11 basis points was down 9 basis points from last quarter. Our performing loan provision for credit losses was a recovery of 9 basis points compared to a 7-basis point recovery last quarter. Compared to the same quarter last year, the total provision for credit losses was 22 basis points lower, largely driven by a 20-basis point decrease in the performing loan provision for credit losses, and that reflected continued improvements in the near-term economic forecast, lower loan default rates, and a continued migration of loans from stage two back to stage one. We continued to maintain an appropriate level of performing loan allowance for credit losses based on the current volatile economic conditions. Our allowance for credit losses on performing loans totaled CAD 113 million. That was a decrease of CAD 7 million compared to the previous quarter. The forecast used in our estimation of the performing loan allowance this quarter was more optimistic than last quarter, and loan default rates continue to trend lower. Ongoing shifts in macroeconomic factors, changes in the level of portfolio defaults, or changes in the risk ratings of our loans will continue to impact the performing loan allowance in future quarters. At 20 basis points, our provision for credit losses on impaired loans was 7 basis points lower than last quarter, and 2 basis points lower than the same quarter last year. Gross impaired loans were 86 basis points as a percentage of total loans, down from 95 basis points last quarter and last year. New formations of gross impaired loans were down around 30% compared to last year and last quarter, with resolutions of previously impaired loans up 40% compared to last year and up 34% compared to last year. Our realized write-offs remain low, which has been consistent with our historical experience, even through periods of elevated levels of gross impaired loan formations. Our solid credit performance reflects our prudent underwriting, the secured nature of our lending portfolio, and our disciplined management of impaired loans through to resolution while limiting realized loan losses. Based on our current outlook for the Canadian economy, as described further in our MD&A, we expect our Q4 provision for credit losses to increase to within a mid 20 basis point range as a percentage of average loans. Calculated using the standardized approach, both our Tier 1 and total capital ratios increased from the prior year due to our two Limited Recourse Capital Note issuances, partially offset by the redemption of our Series 7 Preferred Shares on July 31st. Our common equity Tier 1 ratio was consistent with last year at 8.8%, and 10 basis points higher than last quarter as the combined benefit of retained earnings growth and approximately CAD 30 million of common shares issued under our ATM program more than offset the impact of strong risk-weighted asset growth. Our ATM program is an effective tool to dynamically manage our capital ratios. We expect to continue to use common shares issued under our ATM to support strong loan growth. We will balance our use of the ATM to support ongoing returns for our investors while ensuring that our capital levels appropriately reflect the potential for near-term volatility in the economic reopening currently underway and the spread of more infectious variants of COVID-19. Yesterday, our board declared a common share dividend of CAD 0.29 per share, consistent with the dividends declared last year and last quarter. Looking ahead on slide 12, we've delivered a very strong earnings growth on a year-to-date basis that sets us up really well for strong full-year performance. We continue to expect annual percentage loan growth in the high single digits in fiscal 2021, where prudent. While we expect that the origination of new branch-raised deposits will remain strong, we believe that this growth may be offset by declines due to increased business and consumer spending through the economic recovery currently underway. Assuming continued stability in our funding costs, we expect our Q4 net interest margin to be roughly consistent with the current quarter. On an annual basis, we expect an efficiency ratio of approximately 49%. Non-interest expenses are expected to increase in the Q4 due to the continued planned investments in our strategic priorities, which includes ongoing development of our digital client offering, incremental expenditures associated with our AIRB parallel run, and typical seasonal increases in certain expenses. Our outlook on profitability has improved from the expectations we provided last quarter based on our strong Q3 performance. We now expect to deliver full year 2021 growth of adjusted EPS that exceeds 20%. With that, Colin, let's go ahead and open the lines for Q&A. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll now begin the question and answer session. Should you have a question, please press star 1 on your touchtone phone. You'll hear a three-tone prompt acknowledging your request, and your questions will be polled in the order they're received. Should you wish to decline from the polling process, please press star followed by two. If you're using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. One moment for your first question. Okay, your first question comes from Doug Young from Desjardins. Doug, please go ahead. Hi. Good morning. Just several questions here. First, Matt, on the 31% increase in new branch raised demand and notice deposits, can you quantify how much of that came from new clients versus existing clients? As well, you mentioned in the release that you did some proactive deposit pricing changes. Hoping you can just elaborate a little bit on that. Yeah. Sure, Doug. On the first one, it's been a pretty consistent theme pretty much all through COVID-19 that the majority of our deposit increases have come from either new client relationships to CWB or the conversion of a lending-only relationship to full service, and with that comes deposits. That's been a long-term strategic focus in building capabilities to drive that outcome, and we're seeing really good momentum. What that's allowed us to do with that robust volume coming in, and we think a large chunk of that is very sticky, we've been able to critically analyze the pricing of certain deposit products and really taken our foot off the gas from a competitive perspective on them. That's allowed us to put a bit of NIM in our back pocket, actually. The other big benefit it's given us, that strong branch raised deposit growth, is reliance on wholesale funding channels has been significantly reduced. So where we have tapped into, say, the broker market on occasion, or in looking at capital market issuances, we've been very selective. When we've tapped into those sources, we do it when we see pricing that looks compelling, but w e're not in a position where we feel like it's a requirement. It's just given us a lot of levers to pull to really reduce our funding costs as low as we possibly can. That's been a big driver year-over-year. If you look at our NIM Q3 last year to Q3 this year, we've improved it by 11 basis points. That's a very different trend than what we've seen in the market from others. Just our focus on that branch raise deposit growth is paying dividends, and that's what put the tools in our toolkit that's allowed us to generate that growth in NIM, despite really no help from market interest rates, so v ery pleased with the progress there. If I wanted to quantify how much is coming from new clients, would that be fair to say 60%-70%? Now on the NIM expansion is the other place I did want to go to, so t hanks for that lead in. Again, as you mentioned, very different message and quantitatively very different from what we're seeing from the big six. Is this all as a result of deposits growth and the branch raise deposit growth, or i s there other items that have factored into that? Yeah, so on the first question, we've been kind of bouncing between as low as 50%, as high as 70%, depending on the quarter, in terms of contribution from new-to-bank clients or conversion from lending only to full service. On the second one, yes. It has been entirely funding cost. We have not had really any help on asset yields. Asset mix year-over-year has actually been a bit of a headwind. You'd note that our overall levels of liquidity have actually increased year-over-year, so o n a more normalized basis, there's likely some incremental NIM that might have come if we lowered our levels of liquidity. We're carrying a prudent amount right now and appropriate for the conditions, but i t just highlights just how much torque we've had with really focusing on funding cost. To say it's been an organizational focus would probably be an understatement. We study our deposit pricing. We study our access to funding channels very carefully on a very frequent basis and in a very strategic way, so g ood to see that focus has been paying off. Just second on non-interest expense ratio, 49% for fiscal 2021. You've signaled that there's strategic spend coming in Q4, and I get all that. My math suggests, in Q4, we'd be looking at a NIX ratio in the 53% range, which is much higher than what we've seen in the past. Do I have that messaging and number about right? Your math is pretty good. Pretty close. If you look at last Q4, it was a similar result as well. Q4, just based on the seasonality of certain expenses, typically is a bit of a tick up in the next ratio. What we're seeing this quarter, and if you did your backwards math, you'd likely see sequential NIE growth kind of in that just hitting in the double digits. If I were to break that down into three pieces, about a third of that is just the normal seasonal increases we typically see in things like marketing and things like training. About a third of that comes from the costs we're incurring to enhance our AIRB tools and processes, as we've discussed, and then a third of that is just strategic execution, predominantly our big push on digital. You would have seen in the release, we're pushing really hard to get two tools launched later this year. That's our VCOO and our small and mid-size commercial digital offerings, so i t's just a big push on those that drives the NIX up a bit higher in Q4, but a couple of those big things are heavily strategic-focused items that we think will drive us pretty strong growth in the future, so w orth making the big push to continue moving those along. Just lastly from me, and thank you for that. Lastly, on the PCL, you're signaling mid 20 basis point range for Q4 versus 11 basis points this quarter. Essentially, is the message that we shouldn't expect any release in performing loan PCLs, and impaired PCLs probably stay roughly where they were this quarter, maybe a little bit higher. Is that really what the messaging is? Yeah, that would be our base case, and that has been our base case. When we look at the macroeconomic forecast that underpins our performing loan allowance, when we're thinking about no releases from this quarter to next, it's stability in that forecast and stability in default rates. What we've been continually surprised by, I suppose, each quarter is that the macroeconomy continues to improve and default rates continue to tick down, so i f we saw that continue to occur in Q4, then there is some allowance that could be released on the performing loan side, although not our base case, but I suppose we've been continued to be surprised to the upside all year. We'll see how that plays out. Makes sense. Thank you very much. Thanks, Doug. Your next question comes from Paul Holden from CIBC. Paul, please go ahead. Thank you. Good morning. I also have a few questions. I guess the one I want to start with in continuing with this growth in NIE, I imagine when you take on these types of projects, you run some kind of financial analysis and have certain hurdle rates in mind. I think what would be helpful for us is kind of understand maybe what those types of hurdle rates are, how we should think about future return on the investments we're seeing flow through into the P&L today. Yeah, you're absolutely right. When we're taking on these projects, and some of these are capital intensive, some of these hit us directly in non-interest expenses right away, which is what we're seeing on a couple of the projects, but w e consider it as a use of capital rate up against using that capital for loan growth, acquisitions, et cetera. Yes, it has to make sense on a return on capital basis compared to the other ways we could deploy and use that capital. You would not see us incurring these investments if we did not believe that the returns were there in the long term. In terms of when we see them, digital is a big one. There's a few different components working together there that we believe are essential to continue the strong momentum we've had on branch-raised deposit growth. You've seen what the investments we've made in the past have done for us in terms of just the momentum it's driven for branch-raised deposit growth, and then how that shakes out into how we can manage the NIM and drive some really profitable and accretive outcomes without any help really from the market, so t hat's a trend we expect to continue and keep producing as a result of these investments we're making, just as one example. Roughly what would your return on capital hurdle be? Somewhere around 12%? We don't publish it, but I would suggest your gut would not be too far off. I think I understand how you're getting there, and it wouldn't be completely out of line. Okay. That's helpful. Thank you. Then just continuing with the investments in digital, the federal government put something out roughly one month ago on open banking. Just wondering how your digital offering fits with an open banking type world. Is it designed or at least partly designed to be able to take advantage of that data portability? Yeah. Paul, it's Chris. Absolutely. Our investment in our technology platform is really geared to give us the ability to take advantage of what opportunities open banking provides, and are focused to ensure that we have digital access to our banking programs and the ability for us to really manage data in a very secure way. As we think about the opportunities that open banking will provide, given our footprint and our view of really expanding geographically, we see the opportunity of open banking as very positive for us, and t o make sure that we can turn it into that opportunity, we have invested very specifically in our technology platform to allow us to really take those steps. Okay. Good. One final question, and it relates to NIM. Appreciate the guidance specific for next quarter, but as we think further out and the trends you're seeing in commercial loan growth and the trends you're seeing in branch-based deposit growth, why shouldn't we expect NIM expansion over the next several quarters, and i s there anything particular to Q4 that's kind of holding back that potential NIM expansion in the near term? Yeah. I'll cover the potential headwinds and tailwinds, and then I think that'll help explain Q4 and then maybe some upside that might be there. Yeah, you've hit on a predominant tailwind. Growth in commercial lending and our growth in particular, that's something that is accretive to our NIM. The second factor that could be accretive to our NIM as we see how things settle here as we get through a couple maybe further choppy economic periods, is our overall level of liquidity. Part of that is just structural balance sheet composition. Part of that is just being prudent, and so w orking that down is something that could give us a bit of a tailwind from a NIM perspective. Headwind on NIM, we think of it as a temporary factor. It's this idea that there is some element of the deposit growth we've had that, being honest, we think is just simply excess liquidity being held by our clients that will eventually be put back to work as the economy continues to recover, reopen, and t hat's one where if we're seeing likely our lowest cost of funding, our notice and demand deposits are the ones we think roll off first. If we need to replace them in the near term with a more expensive deposit source, broker deposits or other wholesale opportunities, that's something that could put a little bit of temporary pressure on NIM, but o nce you get through that temporary impact and temporary churn in funding mix, the ongoing momentum we'll have in branch raised deposit growth, which we think accelerates and continues when the smoke clears from all this, is something that has NIM look to normalize. The other thing we've thought about too is if you see conditions that have excess deposits being consumed in the economy, that's probably a factor that also results in incremental loan growth. Maybe there's a timing factor there where deposits run first and then the growth comes later on the loan side of things. Maybe that's ultimately a positive in the long run as well. From a long run perspective, I agree with your thesis that to me, when I look at the factors, there's a lot more tailwind than headwind. If you get through just maybe a temporary period here of a little bit of volatility, and that's what we're thinking about in Q4. It's one where strong new growth of deposits from the branch raise side of things, so we expect to be there. How much of that gets soaked up with runoff if our existing deposits could be a factor that has our NIM looking flattish? If we don't see that runoff come, then you could see some bit of upside there for over-delivering against our current base case. Thank you. That answer was very helpful. That's all for me. Your next question comes from Marcel McLean from TD Securities. Marcel, please go ahead. Okay. Thanks for taking my question. I kind of want to go back to PCLs here. Thinking about it maybe beyond just the guidance you provided for next quarter, and specifically on the impaired side, how do you guys see things sort of playing out, thinking about things like Delta variants and the tapering off of government assistance? Do you see the impaired sort of just trending towards a normalized level, or should we expect maybe to run above historical averages for some period of time? How do you see things playing out, maybe over the course of the next 12 months? I know it's hard with the amount of uncertainty, but what are your thoughts on that? Thanks, Marcel. I think the amount of uncertainty is the key part of what you just said. I think as we think about where we sit, we've come through quite an interesting, to say the least, 18 months, and our expectation on how the loan portfolio would perform, as all banks took increased provisions, and here we sit here today, and we've really come through with all the stimulus that is being, I think, stabilizing in the economy. We expect to see it just pull off, and then a s we think about our clients, what impact does that have? So I think we've had a long period of time for clients to adjust, kind of really determine what their revenue profile looks like, how they've matched their expenses to their revenue. As we think about that, typically when we come out of downturns, we do see kind of the ones that have hung on that just don't make it, so w e want to be conservative as we think about that gross impaired potential, and a s we kind of work through our portfolio and see the different areas that might be impacted, we're conservatively thinking of maintaining that PCLs in that mid 20 basis point level. Okay. Thanks for that. I just had one sort of quick one going back to the branch-raised deposit growth. I think I recall you saying last quarter that there was virtually no runoff in that number, and we could expect branch-raised deposit growth, the pace of it to slow over time. It doesn't look like that has really appeared yet this quarter. Just wondering if there was any runoff included in this quarter's number, and sort of the timing? I guess it likely will coincide with loan growth, but just your thoughts on how branch-raised deposit evolve from here? Yeah. We did start to see a little bit of runoff in certain products, but certainly not as high as what we might have expected. We did start to see it occur on a limited basis towards the end of the quarter, but n ot what I would call a material impact at this point. Not something that, for instance, would have changed our deposit growth in the quarter by, say, 1%. It was a factor much smaller than that, but obviously something we're keeping an eye on, you can see in our Q4 outlook, we are expecting that trend to accelerate a bit, but a lso, I don't think this is something that will materially impact us from a NIM perspective. Okay. Thank you. That's it for me. Thank you. Your next question comes from Meny Grauman from Scotiabank. Please go ahead. Hi, good morning. Curious to follow up more broadly on how the business has changed pre-pandemic to post-pandemic. I know you talked about the funding structure and the fact that the margin is definitely sort of on a different track before the pandemic. Now in terms of credit and other key drivers, are there any key areas where you'd say, "Yeah, the business is definitely post-pandemic, we're not going back to pre-pandemic run rates." You've changed that through this period here. Are there any other notable items you'd highlight there? I'll start, Manny, and Matt can step in. Where we sit today is, yes, the pandemic absolutely changed client behavior, and we are seeing, obviously, there's higher deposit levels across the economy, and all banks have seen that, but o ur access to those deposits has fundamentally changed. The execution of our strategic direction really to focus on that full service opportunity with the clients and supported that with an increase in product delivery, an increase in the different capabilities we're able to provide our client base, and our next move to digital that improves that whole process even further. So for us, yeah, we've had a meaningful change in how we engage with our clients, and we see that as, again, a real tailwind for growth, and a s we think of diversification, that opportunity for us to really push that geographic diversification, but also revenue as well. Yes, we see post-pandemic as realizing on the opportunities that we've invested in our strategic direction. Unless you want to add. No, I totally agree. We're exiting the pandemic with a lot more tools in the toolkit to drive growth, and exiting the pandemic with the sort of funding profile and funding strength that will allow us to fund that growth on a very efficient and accretive basis, so v ery happy about how we're positioned, and then o f course, we have what we believe will be a more constructive macroeconomic backdrop for growth as well, so w e're quite excited looking forward, Meny. In terms of just the PCL ratio specifically, so obviously there's still uncertainty, but if we just think wherever that time is post-pandemic, it's behind us, do PCL ratios kind of go back to where they were? Because the business mix is changing, is there a sense that maybe you'd have a higher PCL ratio in a normal time going forward? Yeah. We don't anticipate our PCL ratio changing. We've had this 18- 23 basis points. We haven't changed our underwriting. We're focused on the same core client. We're very disciplined in our underwriting loan management. We think we're just continuing to improve that client experience, and with the improved tools that we are building through the AIRB process, that enhances your sort of credit insight on your book, so n o, we don't see any change at all in that outlook. No, that's been the key theme of our growth, Meny, is we've achieved the growth not by stretching risk appetite. If anything, through the pandemic, we might have tightened in a few areas, so t hat would mean the composition of the book exiting the pandemic is one that just kind of pound for pound, like for like, overall probably a higher credit quality and one that might not cause us to deviate from the historical range and hopefully put us somewhere to the slightly lower end when the smoke clears. That's helpful. Just a question on the ATM in terms of how quickly that can be deployed, and how far ahead are you looking? Meaning, should we be surprised if you raise money under the ATM this quarter or the next quarter? Obviously, it's based on your forecast, but what kind of time range are you looking for here on this current raise? Yeah. Meny, the ATM, it's a great tool. It's dynamic capital management. It allows us to have the right capital for the moment. It's something realistically we're looking at quarter to quarter, how much capital we believe we need to support the growth, how much capital we just want to have in our back pocket based on other factors out there that might present potential downside risk as well, strength of pipelines, but i t is something we can adjust and calibrate very quickly. It's not quite the sort of dynamic capital management you'd expect to have as an AIRB bank, but it's one that it's a bit of an audition here to demonstrate that we do have the focus, capabilities, forecasting strength to be able to appropriately dynamically manage our capital through cycles, so p retty pleased with the results so far and how we're using it. Just one follow-up. Can I think of it as you're kind of steering the CET1, like expect it to be kind of in the 8.8% range for the foreseeable future until we get to AIRB, I guess? Like, you're kind of actively managing toward the kind of numbers that we're seeing this past quarter? Would that be the right way to think about it? It'll depend on the quarter and what's in front of us. I think a lot will depend on how Delta variant plays out. Our base case is that we don't expect any significant losses or any big disruption coming from that, but i t's an area of uncertainty. You know, it's one where we'll look at where we sit next quarter with what's in front of us and potential downside, and make a call on capital, so y ou could see us flex it up, you could see us feather it down if we get to a point where we think we're through that uncertainty. The amount of growth we're generating right now, that even if we thought we had a little bit extra in our genes, so as it turns out, we soak it up pretty quickly with growth. This really is dynamic in the quarter management of capital, and one we can reposition pretty quickly based on the circumstances in front of us. Thanks a lot. Thanks, Meny. Your next question comes from Cihan Tuncay from Stifel. Please go ahead. Hi guys, good morning. Chris, maybe just if you can elaborate a little bit more on the digital product rollout you've got planned for the end of this year and through next year. If you could give us a little bit more detail on what that product shelf could look like on both the personal and commercial banking opportunities, and h ow should we think about the incremental benefit? Is it just the potential incremental reduction in funding costs that you could get from digitally sourced deposits, or a re there other projects you're working on that could enhance non-interest income or any revenue opportunities attached to that as well, please? Sure. I'll start on this. The initial rollout that we will have in Q4 will deliver the small business and personal online banking and convert those to digital. So that gives us that access to just a better way for clients to navigate within our online banking program, so t hat's a big win. The commercial banking platform will come in Q1, Q2 of fiscal 2022, and that will then provide that commercial banking digital platform that allow, again, our clients there to navigate with more ease and single sign-on in terms of managing their daily affairs, and then t hat also adds into how we can manage payments, and so t here are lots of opportunities from that perspective. The other deliverable in this quarter coming up, and a full go live as we get into 2022, is the Virtual COO that's targeted at a small business client. The goal there is to provide essentially as a cash management program as well with artificial intelligence to assist in them looking at how they manage their cash, so l ooking at receivables, payables, payroll, and giving them that sort of cues on how they can look at their accounts and provide that extra insight into the cash flows of the company. So the opportunity we see is one for clearly for increasing our low-cost deposits as we look to really support that small business client, which are typically net depositors. It also looks to increase our footprint as with the digital delivery, we are less dependent on physical branch interactions with clients. We can do much more online. Then ultimately that more client-base, again, we're focused on that full service, it does translate into more non-interest income as we look at service fees and transaction fees and our ability to just generate more business with that client, so d igital is a meaningful impact on how we think about our ability to grow, support our clients, and really focus on that geographic diversification as well. Thanks for that, Chris. Maybe just a follow-up from your answer. How do you think about now going forward? I mean you've always had new branch openings as you perform quite well for deposit growth and full service banking opportunities, but h ow do you look forward in terms how do you balance digital growth versus opening new branches, or has that changed at all? Just maybe an update on the branch rollout as well, please. Yeah. Well, branches still remain very important for us. We're scheduling a branch opening in Markham in mid-2022, so looking forward to that. We see that GTA opportunity for us to have our more sort of feet on the ground that also adds in the marketing side. The sort of transactional side of branches, I think we'll see less of that, but really be focused on the advice and those client meetings that allow us to really provide that special service that we historically have delivered to clients with strong expertise in loan structuring and providing that appropriate financial solutions to clients. So yeah, we expect to also add branches along with digital so we can really capture that sort of broader geographic footprint, but be very targeted where we think we've got from a physical presence we have good opportunities, and a gain, that's the GTA opportunity in front of us. Thanks for that. Just another update. Sorry, one follow-up, and I apologize if I missed this, but for your Q4 guidance, what do you factor in in terms of ATM usage for that guidance? Yeah. On that one, it would not be surprising to see us continue to issue a bit on the ATM in Q4 as well. I think if you're looking at hitting our EPS growth of in excess of 20%, we have factored some incremental usage of our ATM to drive to that outcome. Not a material amount, not something that would cause our EPS to change by more than CAD 0.01 or CAD 0.02, but we are expecting a bit of continued usage. Thanks, Matt. Then just one last question from me, guys. As we look forward to the removal of shareholder capital distribution restrictions for OSFI, how do you balance or has there been any change in your thinking of how you look at the dividend as you balance the use of the ATM, your growth opportunities? How should we think about the dividend going forward if and when those restrictions are lifted? Dividend we've always managed within a target for payout ratio prior to the pandemic, and y ou can see by our results we were typically in the mid-30s in terms of a payout ratio percentage. Consequently, if you took our earnings projection this year and maybe if you normalized PCL to something that was more representative of a midpoint of a historical range. You'd see that our payout ratio is probably landing pretty similar right now to where we were pre-pandemic. If we were following that same trajectory, it would suggest that we don't need to see a big boost to the dividend to continue to deliver that same level of payout ratio. It was always a bit of a balance of what we thought was an appropriate direct return to shareholders, while also acknowledging that internal retention of capital, we could do some pretty accretive things with it. In fact, to shareholder returns, in the long run, retaining capital and deploying it with loan growth and some of the strategic initiatives we're working on actually drives a more favorable outcome. So it's one where you'll continue to see us have that balance as a standardized bank and certainly as an AIRB bank in the future. It's how we think about capital allocation as well. Preference is to growth organically, and acquisitions that help drive our strategic progress and are accretive, and then w hen we get through those two, anything we have left over for a return to shareholders, our preference would be buybacks and then maybe dividends thereafter b ecause those last two, when we model them out, are less accretive to shareholder returns. Thanks very much. That's it from me. Thank you. Your next question comes from Sohrab Movahedi from BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Okay, thank you. Just a couple of just clarifying, I think hopefully quick ones here for you, Matt. If I think back over the last three or four quarters in our conversations, it was going to be a bit of a transitional year, I guess, with the addition of the wealth management acquisition, the investments that you've articulated around digital. The expenses were going to be a little bit, I suppose, uneven from quarter to quarter. You've kind of talked a little bit about what next quarter may look like. Is it fair to assume that the guidance around expenses for next quarter benefit from maybe some pulling forward of some of the rollout expenses associated with the future versions that Chris was talking about in Q1, Q2, or d o you think some of what may be implied in next quarter's earnings or expense line, sorry, may continue to trickle into next year? We haven't finalized our budget for next year, but just in terms of broad themes on things that would drive or benefit NIE growth this year compared to next year. Investments we'll continue to make in enhancing our AIRB tools. That's something that is impacting our expense growth in Q4, likely something that we see continuing into some period into next year as well. We're working on how long, and when we provide our full-year guidance, that'll be a factor we'll discuss. The push on digital, it's a big push this quarter to launch the limited rollout of the VCOO. How clients respond to that initial rollout and what enhancements or tweaks we decide to make to it as a result. They could be minor, there could be some incremental build we put onto it as we think about the full rollout of that tool. That will be a bit of a wait and see. In terms of the development progress on digital, yeah, it's a big push this coming quarter. It's one that should moderate over time, but p erhaps in the H1 of next year, we might see that trend continuing. But year-over-year, and if we're thinking about 2021 versus 2020 NIE growth and 2022 versus 2021 NIE growth, despite not having a finalized budget, all indications point to a bit of a moderating of that trend, but with some factors that may be on a temporary basis, don't have it moderate perhaps as much as we'd like. Okay. That's helpful. Just looking at the other income line, the fee income line. Security gains, just looking at your SOPAC, I think over the last seven quarters have kind of been anywhere from CAD 0-CAD 5 million benefit. Can you tell us how much unrealized gains you still have kind of sitting around? Using the gains on securities, it's not something we're necessarily using to drive earnings. It's more of an outcome of balance sheet management activities. Our expectation going forward, and when we thought about Q4 guidance, certainly, that was pinned to an expectation that we wouldn't have any significant realized gains. When we're thinking about movements in the balance sheet quarter to quarter, we didn't see anything there that we thought would give rise to us realizing any big gains in the quarter so I wouldn't expect gains on securities to be a continued driver of earnings, and certainly not an intentional driver of earnings. More of an outcome of the activity in the quarter so I wouldn't bank on it for next quarter. Okay. That's very helpful. Thank you. One last question. Until you've eventually, hopefully, successfully transitioned over to the AIRB, you are still under the standardized. When you think about this quarter's loan growth, the mix of this quarter's loan growth, you talked about the success in commercial real estate year-over-year. You talked about general commercial. Do you think where you are having success now, and you expect to continue to generate growth in the coming quarters, is there any reason to believe the capital intensity of the business, not because of the growth, but because of the risk-weighted associated with that growth, is going to increase here? In other words, if I think of your RWAs to assets as a proxy, are we on a bit of an upward trend here? Commercial lending, as a standardized bank, that is our biggest consumer of RWA density, so a s long as that growth continues, fair to say that it would cause our RWA density to increase. We're seeing good momentum on personal lending, though, and t his quarter, pretty good momentum on the insured residential lending, which from a RWA consumption pace is favorable. It's 0%, so i t's one that as long as that residential mortgage growth continues, as a proportion basis this quarter, it kind of held right in there, so t hat continues. It's one where you'd probably see stability in RWA density or certainly no material movements, and t hat's what we'd expect, at least into the Q4, perhaps on a longer-term trend. If we saw commercial lending accelerate at a pace beyond residential mortgages, then yeah, that's the factor that would increase density as a standardized bank. Okay. When you think about some of the guidance you've shared around, for example, loan loss provisioning next year and so on and so forth, I assume implicit in that is some assumption around the proportionality of that commercial versus, let's say, the insured mortgages that you made reference to, so I assume your working assumption is that proportionality is not going to necessarily change. Correct. Yeah, it would be relatively consistent would be our view at this point. Very helpful. Thank you very much. Your next question comes from Gabriel Dechaine from National Bank. Please go ahead. Yeah, a quick one here. AIRB transition, is there any change in the timing of your submission? I don't think so, but you got some new language on this CAR 2023 revision that you have to integrate. Well, we continue to work, Gabriel. We've got lots of program. We've got lots of people that are on it. We're going to give an update as we move along. We're seeing lots of opportunities, and we're going to incorporate the final Basel III amendments that will come into play. We're focused on AIRB. It's a tremendous long-term positive for the bank as we think about particularly our business model with a commercial banking focus. It's a long-term investment that will pay off, and we're going to ensure that we deliver it appropriately. Okay. The other one, as far as the ATM issuance, is it appropriate to measure what you issued this quarter relative to, say, excess loan growth this quarter, if that was something above 8% annually or whatever? Did you issue more than what was necessitated by loan growth this quarter, as in it's not exactly lining up ATM to what you did that quarter, it's what's coming in the next quarter as well? Yeah. You would've seen we built our CET1 ratio from last quarter to this one. That's a factor of current growth, t hat's a factor of strength of pipeline, and t hat's a factor of making an assessment of potential downside risk and external factors. A bit of choppiness with the reopening, a bit of Delta variant concern kind of rising quarter-over-quarter, so t hose are all factors we'll consider each quarter in deciding how much to raise. Not a completely direct linkage to current loan growth, but that would be the primary factor. Yeah. If I'm making a few simple assumptions and trying to calculate some accretion, it may be neutral or maybe slightly accretive compared to the issuance this quarter, but t hat might be understating given that there's more to come. Is that kind of the right way to look at it? It depends on your math on accretion. The assumptions you're using, but if you were, for instance, using the ATM to fund loan growth and you were maintaining your CET1 ratio, you weren't looking to build it, you were just looking to perfectly offset loan growth, then you might get a level of accretion in using the ATM in that manner in sort of the mid to high single digits as a percentage of EPS growth. Using the ATM in the manner this quarter, for instance, of funding the capital needed for the loan growth and putting maybe 10 basis points of CET1 in the back pocket, it's something that would, say, reduce that level of accretion by perhaps a a percent or two, so s till obviously happy with how we're using it. Yeah. The fact we can still be accretive and put a little capital in our jeans for what could be a choppy next two quarters, we're pretty happy with that outcome. Yeah, I guess that's my point. I don't want to understate the accretion considering there's other factors, like you did accrete CET1 in doing this issuance. Anyway, let's go offline for this discussion. Have a good weekend. Thanks, Gabe. Your next question comes from Nigel D'Souza. Please go ahead. Thank you. Good morning. I had a follow-up for you on your stage two loan migration in the quarter, and b ased on my math, I have your percentage of loans for stage two relative to the whole portfolio going from about 12% last quarter to about 7% this quarter. First, is my math right there, and o n that migration, was that entirely driven by changes to your forward-looking indicators, or were there any portfolio-specific or borrower-specific factors that drove that migration? Yeah. Thanks, Nigel. Your math is right. We did see that level of decline. A little bit of the decline from borrower-specific behavior. Our watch list loans decreased by about CAD 100 million quarter-over-quarter, so t hat was a small proportion. The larger proportion was model-driven. It's kind of the inverse of the conversation we had when our stage two loan proportion was really running up, and running up at a faster rate than what you would have seen in the market, and w hat we pointed to was the short duration of our loan book causing some of that volatility, and w e talked about at that point, would we see the opposite happen when things start improving? Would the short duration of your book be a benefit? The answer to that question is yes, and that's what you're seeing this quarter. The assessment of stage two is based on credit risk compared at origination to today, so i t's always a relative comparison, and i f you think about how quickly our loan book churns, we've originated a fair amount since COVID started, so i f you're comparing credit conditions today to what they would've been at origination, it's certainly been an improvement and certainly not a worsening. So what's happening with stage two is exactly what we expected. Okay. Just a really quick clarification there. On the remaining stage two balances, do you see that further migration and movement lower driven by, again, borrower-specific factors or more apples to apples just to understand what's going to drive the remaining mix of your stage two? Yeah, I mean, it could be both. Barring no improvement in either underlying default rates or macroeconomic conditions, then it would be borrower-specific that would drive that down, but t here is still some ability for our models to continue pushing that down if we continue to see improvements in those two key factors, the macro factors and default rates. Okay. That's really helpful. Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'll turn it back to Chris for closing remarks. Great. Thank you, Colin. Our year-to-date performance has been very strong. Our commitment to our teams and clients over the last 18 months is resonating with business owners in Canada, and we're winning many new desirable full-service relationships. The proactive client-centric experience delivered by our teams is accelerating our growth to capture increased market share across our Western and Central Canadian target markets. Looking forward, we see robust opportunities, and our continued focus to invest in our capabilities and product offerings will further accelerate our momentum. We're firm in our commitment to advance our strategic direction to deliver long-term profitable growth and provide attractive, sustainable returns to investors. We're also mindful of how we achieve these goals. We're currently undertaking a process to fit sustainability into our strategic direction and our risk management activities. We're also working to deliver an authentic approach that's best from a client, people, and investor perspective. We posted our latest corporate social responsibility report to our website this morning, and are excited to share our progress as we support Canada's goals of transitioning to a lower carbon economy and a more sustainable future for all our stakeholders. In closing, I'm proud of our team's commitment to achieving our goal to be the best full-service bank for business owners in Canada, and I'd like to say thank you for their efforts to advance our strategic objectives, transform our capabilities, and deliver another quarter of strong financial results. To our investors, we appreciate your commitment to CWB as we undertake this transformational journey and deliver strong returns along the way. We look forward to reporting Q4 and annual financial results on December the 3rd. With that, we wish you all a great day. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your conference call for today. We thank you for participating and ask that you please disconnect your lines.