So welcome, everyone, and, we're here, kicking off our first annual TD Cowen Financials Conference, and we're very, very pleased to have with us Synchrony Financial. Synchrony, largest private label issuer, branching out into co-brand, as well. I think, you know, what Synchrony has done, is, you know, is also kind of to build its own networks within, its card business. We're very pleased to have with us, Brian Wenzel, EVP and CFO, and, you know, with this, welcome, Brian, and to just ask you if there's anything, that you'd like to kind of kick off in terms of any updates or anything, you know, that you'd like to open up the, you know, the commentary with. Well, great. First of all, Moshe, thank you for inviting us, inviting Synchrony, and congratulations on your inaugural conference. Hopefully, it's a success. So yeah, let me start by giving a little bit of frame for the quarter, which we generally think is constructive. But let me just kind of step down how to think about it. When I first think about the PNL, I think about volume for a second. And volume for us, I think when you look year-over-year, we're competing against a very strong year. I think you're gonna see trends similar to the Q1, essentially be flat year-over-year. But from a receivables standpoint, again, you know, the receivables have held into our expectations really on lower payment rate. So we feel good about the receivables. The volume, again, kind of trailing the same trends that you saw, and then we'll probably get into a little bit later, around some of the softness and some of the bigger discretionary purchases in Home and Auto, Lifestyle, et cetera. When you step into net interest margin, net interest margin is largely consistent with the Q1, probably down about 10 or 15 basis points, mainly on liquidity and excess liquidity we had, which, well, I look at in this interest rate environment, is not necessarily the worst thing. It funds growth for the back half of the year. We are actually getting a pretty good rate of return from the Fed, so it's, you know, kind of neutral or positive, so it's not necessarily the worst thing. You know, I know I know things, you know, around credit are very sensitive, and people are focusing on that. I think people, when people looked at our April 8-K, they wonder about the trajectory. You know, our view is that, as I sit here today, is that is the peak of net charge-offs. So you should see when we publish our May net charge-off data, that the charge-off rate should be down, delinquency should be down, as well. So, you know, we're pleased with that, which sets up to the first half being higher than the second half, which we consistently have talked about. You know, the provision overall, so think about the reserve change. Reserve coverage will be essentially similar to the Q1, that you kind of go through. And then lastly, I think expense is up slightly from the Q1, mainly because this is the bulk of when we've done a lot of our CITs related to late fees. I'm sure you're gonna ask me about late fees. So while we're not really getting any benefit from the CITs, that's more Q3, Q4 for the benefit of our pricing, our PPC actions, our product pricing and policy actions, that's the Q3, Q4. The bulk of the CIT costs will be here in the Q2 and in the expense for the quarter. I look at that and say largely constructive relative to our expectations. Well, great. That's a really great update. And not to disappoint you, we are gonna talk about late fees. You were early in kind of putting those changes into place. I think a number of your competitors are also, you know, doing similar things, but I think you've actually probably taken more real pricing actions. And can you talk a little bit about... You know, you alluded to some of those expenses kind of being there in Q2. Talk a little bit about, you know, what you've done, how that's gone with your partners and, you know, and the impact on, you know, Synchrony for the balance of 2024, assuming the late fee rule goes into effect, and then maybe we can talk about what happens if it doesn't. Sure. So, so first, Moshe, you know, the way we approached it is we wanted to get to ROA neutrality, right? And we wanted to do that on a basis where we preserved as many sales as we can with our, with our partners. That was the goal. And I think, you know, you know, going to one of your questions in the middle of that, how is it going with the partners? That led to very productive conversations because we had aligned interests right through our RSAs, but we also had aligned interests on how to solve the goal. So when you think about getting that ROA neutrality and trying to do that with, you know, relative speed, there's a combination of items that come through, some of which come through over a longer period of time, which were APR increases, which we put in across a lot of the portfolios. There were some that have more immediate impacts when you think about a paper statement fee, which we said either you can elect to go into e-bill and avoid the fee, right? Which saves us dollars on OPEX, or we can charge you a fee. We have certain promotional financing fees that we're putting into the marketplace. They were already there before. And then there's some policy things around how we assess interest, you know, waivers, things like that. If late fees go lower, we'll, we won't waive as many of them. So there's a combination of actions, and that combination was designed to try to get to a mitigation faster than some of our other peers. We're substantially complete with a lot of the CITs here in the Q2, so we should be done. There's always a trail, so if you open an account with us in November, you're gonna get a CIT in the back half of this year. So there will be a trail that goes on for a period of time. Not as material, but clearly, there will be a trail that goes in. So what you'll see, based upon that timing, is the financial benefit begins to hit in the Q3, mainly. There's a little bit in the second, but not, not something people should be looking at saying, "I expect something when I, when I, when I look at mid-July at our earnings." And then say, "Okay, I see some of the third, it builds in the fourth." Right? Now, we gave back on 5 March, we gave some guidance that said, "Okay, if that rule comes out in October, here's where you have it. There, there's an impact in the Q4 at late fee. Then as you move in over three quarters, it gets to what I'd say is a normalized run rate, because your reversals take a little bit longer. So if you think about that sliding a little bit, if it comes sooner than October, obviously, you know, the impact's gonna be, you know, more negative than we anticipated, more RSA would have to absorb that. If it shifts later in the year, it's the other way. You're gonna have the RSA go up because you have these benefits that now will be shared with partners. So that timing and how litigation plays out here over the coming months, you know, will dictate it a little bit. Right. And certainly, certainly, your shareholders will benefit from, you know, from the existence of the RSA, although your retailer partners and, and you are trying to get this to neutral, you know, kind of back to where it was, without taking advantage, if you will, of the RSA. I think the litigation or, or I should say, the implementation of the rule right now is stayed, you know, you know, and I guess we would hope, perhaps even expect that that stay is extended through the litigation. I assume that you, you know, have a similar view. I don't know if you have anything to add to that, at this point. Yeah. You know, Moshe, it's probably really difficult for us to say with any certainty what the outcomes are. You're 100% right. It is stayed right now. There was a motion to move the jurisdiction, right? There's a motion to oppose that. So now I believe that the defendants have the, have an obligation to file a briefing tomorrow. So we'll figure out whether or not that stays. That, that will hold in place until at least 18 June, and then they'll rule on it. From there, whether it's, whether it's in Texas or it's in, in the District of Columbia, you know, the defendants can choose to ask for the waiver or, or the temporary restraining order or injunction to be lifted. Obviously, I think the, the chamber would oppose that view. And again, when the initial, you know, kind of rulings came out of district court, they said, "Hey, listen, the other arguments here, besides the constitutionality, which is now being taken off toward, are very compelling." And so that, you know, gives us hope that potentially the injunction gets put in, on, into a more permanent status until with the full litigation bears through. But again, there's a lot of different scenarios here, Moshe, to be honest with you. I think we are prepared for implementation. I think we have to be, as a company, for it to happen as soon as possible. So that's how we're proceeding as an organization. Gotcha. Okay, we'll move on to more maybe traditional, traditional topics. Can you talk a little bit about, you know, and you alluded to this a little bit in terms of your quarter outlook, but, but you know, how you're thinking about account growth. I think one of the things that distinguished Synchrony during the pandemic from some of the other, you know, publicly traded peers, is you didn't have as much account growth and, and didn't have as much negative seasoning impact, perhaps, as some of your peers. Where are you in that right now, in terms of, you know, where you sit in, from an underwriting standpoint, and, you know, how do you think about, you know, where you are with your partners at? You know, first, Moshe, we talk about it all the time. We are consistently looking at the portfolio for you in Synchrony-type event. So if I see a partner or channel product not performing, we're gonna take correct actions in there in order to make sure we get the right risk-adjusted return. You know, we, we've taken actions in 2023 and 2024 around problem areas that we see. Number one last year was around score migration. So if you were a 680 FICO, for argument's sake, or VantageScore, and you moved 50 basis points into non-prime, we think you had a greater risk. So we took actions on those accounts. That could be anywhere from stopping proactive things and line expansion, to actually closing accounts. When you look at this year, we looked at two other areas, one around debt consolidation, so people who are taking out these types of loans. Then the second was non-payer of student loans. Even though they're not being reported as delinquent, we can see the balance not changing. We looked at those as ability to pay and say, "That could hurt us in the future." So we've taken broader actions on those groups. So there's some impact to credit sales and account originations when you have those things. Generally speaking, we don't record any credit back, so we don't pull way in, we don't expand way out to drive growth. So what you're seeing is the effects on, in retail, of lower traffic, whether it's online traffic, store traffic. We are seeing lower traffic of people who are consuming less goods, a little bit more services, right now, but we do see services trailing down. So that's impacting buying here, a little bit of trade down effect. And the consumer who, you know, we talked a bit, you know, a lot about it being resilient, being healthy, the consumer is managing at this point. It hasn't really shifted, but it's managing. So I think we look at the growth where we're getting growth, we're happy about the risk-adjusted returns, and we're gonna continue to operate in a cautious manager, manner as we move forward. One of the things that's been, I think, an issue for investors about the private label card business is, I think they've generally believed that the power sat with the retailer or the partner, as opposed to the financial institution. And I'm kind of reminded, you know, not the least of which, you know, given that one of your large former partners, you know, is now has left their short-term partner, I guess, shall we say? And doesn't seem to find, you know, hasn't been able to find anyone to kind of assume that partnership, and all of this whole issues around the late fees, it does feel like some of that power is returning. I guess, would you agree with that statement? Talk a little bit about the competitive dynamics at play in the, you know, in the private label market right now. You know, I would say, Moshe, you know, most certainly over the last number of years, there has been a shift in the dynamic, right? The conversations we have with partners around what are your Digital capabilities? How do you make it seamless to customers? How do you do things in my app? That is really important. So I think where you get, I'd say power, but you get to see the table in that partnership, is your ability to integrate seamlessly in all their channels, whether it's products, whether it's capabilities, et cetera. That's what's driving, to be honest with you, the play with competitive landscape. You then combine that, you know, we always control credit, but one of the things we say to our partners is, "Listen, if you provide data that we can adjust and help make credit decisions, that's beneficial to you." Because I can then bring 140 million trade lines I have, combine it with that data, and make better underwriting decisions. Those are the types of things. No one can meet the power and scale of how we bring that data sources and data sources directly from the partner and the merchant at the time of play into the underwriting process. So I think when we look at that, that's where people focus initially. Always, you know, economics come into play at some point, but that's not really where they're going first. The other thing, and the final thing I'll say on this is, you know, that ability to create marketplaces and create activity where you can bring customers and take customers and provide incremental value associated with their card, that drives a lot for the partner. So that's where we're focused on in order to deliver value, driving new customers, for delivering value, competitive value propositions, dynamic value propositions, and having a multi-product approach. Got it. You know, during the pandemic, you launched a number of large new partnerships and also developed a number of kind of, you know, networks. Could you talk a little bit about, you know, some of those, the Walgreens, Verizon, and Venmo partnerships and, you know, anything that you can kinda share with us in terms of the growth of those, and then we can talk a little about some of those new verticals as well. Yeah. So let me start with the three new partners we launched during the pandemic, which, to be honest with you, I know, I know there's a lot of always talk about, can you, can you be innovative during a pandemic or working from home? We launched three terrific programs in that window. As we said back then, they had potential to be large programs with us. As I sit here today, one's a top ten program already, one's just outside the top ten, and you know, we expect that they will hit that. So, what it is, is that's where we deliver products to a partner that were really designed at their most level customers, and that product was integral into our partner base. That's where we succeed, where we have the right to win, where we have the right capabilities, and we can deliver it. So, we're excited about those relationships. You know, one of the big strategic focuses for us, Moshe, is around Health and Wellness. That's our branded network card around Health and Wellness. We're leaning in pretty heavily because the returns are very attractive, the product is very desirable, has a high net promoter score, so that's a place where we're leaning in. Other places you've seen us, and I'm sure we may hit on at some point, is in the home, right? You know, you think about what we did with Ally Lending and leaning into Home Specialty. But that home and auto, really around auto, and you think about, you know, the cost of autos today, more people are keeping their car. They're elongating, holding cars, which means you're gonna have more tires, more mufflers, more accessories, things like that. So creating a card that goes across all types of auto spend has been terrific for us. You'll see more around that in the home, that we're doing. So those networks, we look at places and say, "Okay, do we have a right to win? Is it a fragmented marketplace, and do we have the right products and capabilities to meet our partners' needs?" So we will reach out more to the masses than we have with regard to some, you know, I'd say large partners only. Got it. Thanks, thanks for that. You know, you talked a little bit about credit again in your outlook for, you know, for the quarter, but, and, you know, said that you would expect things kind of to be lower in the second half. Maybe we can kind of drill down on that a little, a little more. You know, what is it that gives you the confidence, I guess, that that's going to be the way that it, you know, that it proceeds, and, and, and talk a little bit perhaps about the cadence in the coming, you know, months and quarters? Yeah. So you know, Moshe, the first thing is you look at your delinquency trends, and we continue to see favorable entering into delinquency, and we've seen very stable performance through most of the delinquency buckets, other than two due. So if you have two payments due. That gives us a little bit of confidence to say the flow is slow. It's slower than 2019 flowing in, and it's essentially steady. So that's point one, right? Point two is we've taken a number of actions last year and the beginning part of this year. Last year's actions begin this season. You will see the effects of those really starting in you know, latter part of the Q2 into the back half of the year. You'll begin to see some early effects of some of the actions we've taken earlier this year into the portfolio. So it's a combination of delinquency performance, number one, and then number two, the actions that we've taken in order to try to maintain, you know, the loss target, or a loss range of 5.5 to 6. That's what we underwrite to. Doesn't mean every period will be in there, but that's what we underwrite to, and we will work hard in order to try to deliver that, you know, for all our periods. And, you know, certainly, you know, I think if we had had this conversation a couple of years ago, I, you know, I wouldn't have thought that in this current unemployment environment, that losses would be where they are for the industry. You know, I think inflation has had a bigger impact, certainly than we thought, you know, beforehand. How do you think about the impact of that as we go forward? I mean, things seem to be moderating. I mean, but any thoughts that you would add to that, you know, as it relates to Synchrony? Yeah, you know, historically, this industry, Moshe, and you and I have been around long enough, it generally has correlated pretty well to unemployment claims, right? And unemployment claims dictate... You also saw a correlation over the last number of years, you know, as you know, by decades, gasoline prices to delinquency, they correlate pretty highly. I think what you're seeing now in the labor market is structurally different, right? With the number of baby boomers that have come out of the workforce, the number of people who are trying to enter the workforce, you look at women that have exited the workforce. So I think some of that dynamic around unemployment, you know, may not be necessarily the leading indicator in every single period, particularly here in the short run. You are seeing, though, right, pressure for people who are in that, that kind of middle buckets, not necessarily all the low credits. B ut the kind of middle-income buckets that are sitting around saying, "Yes, I'm getting wage gains, but I'm just treading water relative to inflation. I think there's probably a pretty good consensus around this last mile of getting from a three-ish to a two-ish is gonna be. It's gonna be tougher to get done. So that's gonna put pressure. I think the longer it goes on, you're gonna see probably some middle-market businesses that struggle. But people are gonna keep employees. You know, they struggled after the pandemic to get employees. They have enough work. There's probably not enough workers today, going back to the structural, you know, dynamics of unemployment. So I do think over the course of probably the next 18 months, this inflation story, relative to real wage gains and hourly gains, will play through. Great. And you mentioned that in the Q2, you expected the reserve to be fairly stable as a percentage of the portfolio. As you get into the second half, and you end up with the lower losses that you're expecting, you know, can you tell us, like, how to expect that reserve rate to, you know, to evolve over time? Yeah, you know, we've been, you know, outspoken to say, "Listen, you should expect it to go down from here." Let's talk long term for a second, Moshe. You know, there's not a belief that we have that says it doesn't get back to an adjusted day one, adjusted being with TDRs. Getting back to a day one, absent a little bit of portfolio mix, so trending back there. I think if you think of a rate that, you know, next year is flat, then you're flat to potentially slightly down. So that's how we think about the trajectory. And again, when you think about losses in the back half of the year being better than the front half, that trajectory should flow through, is how you think about 2025. Gotcha. Gotcha. And, you know, as we think about the RSA, you know, obviously, most of the profitability measures, or at least, you know, net interest income, you know, credit losses and, some of your expenses kind of factor in there. But how should we think about that, you know, kind of over the course of the next few quarters? And maybe just to give us a sense as to how much of the late fee burden, if it were to change, would be shared via the RSA with your partners. Yeah, you know, I, I think what you're gonna see this quarter, obviously, is they're bearing a little bit more of the loss. They're still bearing a higher interest bearing liability cost because we—while we've seen rates come down on deposits, they haven't come down materially. So there's probably, even a little mix shift where it could be up 5 basis points or so. But essentially, it's a flat environment. So you'd expect the RSA from traditional measures to be down. You know, I'd say probably think about a Q1, you know, plus a little bit. Then you think about the back half of the year. Now, what happens is, as losses come down, the RSA will naturally lift, right? Right. You're starting to see some of the late fee mitigants flow through, which will also help, or also, in theory, increase the RSA, absent the rule going into effect. And we've kind of talked about when the rule could go in effect. Now, we haven't broken out. You know, at this point, given so much uncertainty around timing, Moshe, and the variables, until we have a date certain relative to when we think the actual implementation date of the rule goes into place, we're not really going to break out the RSA offset, but obviously, it will bear some of the burden. But the longer we can stay on, the longer we stay in a period where we're building the mitigants, the better off we'll be. Brian, one of the questions that did come in was about your comments in the Q2 on NIM. And you mentioned, you know, slightly lower NIM in Q2, you know, I think you said 10 or 15 basis points on liquidity factors. Does that also lower dollars of net interest income, or is that just kind of a numerator, denominator kind of impact? And, you know, kind of anything, you know, when you think about how that, you know, will, you know, play out over, you know, in the future, will you be... You know, will that, you know, persist, or will that, you know, turn around in the second half? ... you know, it should turn around, right? We expect to see, you know, our ALR%, which we expected to be a larger portion of our total earning assets, is generally gonna be flat with the Q1. So it's more that composition that's driving it than anything else. Okay. You did mention, Ally Lending and the home vertical. I guess maybe two questions related to that. One is, you know, can you give us any sort of update as to how that's, you know, kind of helped in the home vertical? And any other areas, for expansion or acquisition that you'd be looking at, at this stage. Yeah, yeah. So first of all, we are very happy with the associates and the partners that we got through the Ally Lending acquisition. It's a great acquisition for us. It sets us up as the only issuer that can do installment lending or do a revolving lending with a promotional financing inside it. And offering that at the same time to the consumer and to the contractor, saying, "What better meets your needs?" That's part of our multi-product strategy. That's why we're, you know, we believe we're ahead of the peer set; it gives us a competitive advantage in that. Some of the things that we looked at from a synergy perspective, we believe are taking hold here in the back half of the year, the plans and the execution around that, so we feel really good about it. What's great about that business is, you know, we have a real domain expertise. We're now at ServiceTitan and other places where we have the ability to, and the right to win. We have the products to win, and they have the capabilities now of a full suite of products to win. So we're excited about that. So if there are opportunities in the Home Specialty space, again, we are very disciplined when it comes to portfolio acquisitions and new relationships on pricing. So if it's at the right price, potentially something in the Home Specialty space. You know, we're always looking in the home health and wellness space as well, because that's just a really attractive marketplace. And is there different, call it specialties or verticals we don't play in today? You know, think about behavioral, you think about potentially, you know, in vitro fertilization, things like that. You know, is there places for us to play? Maybe. So really it's gonna go back to other things that we're probably gonna do more bolt-on than something larger. Even though Ally was $2 billion, it wasn't a very large acquisition. So I think they're gonna be small bolt-ons and in these segments where we have that right to win. Gotcha. And then, maybe let's just talk a little bit about, you know, your capital position. You know, where does it sit relative to where you want it to be, and how do you think about, you know, capital return in that, in that equation? Yeah, you know, listen, Moshe, we, you know, we've been on a journey since, you know, 2016. We came out over-capitalized from our parent. That was intentional to get through the Fed, to stand up the processes that the Fed and the regulators wanted. And from 2018, you know, the high water mark, we began to march down. We got down to 14, and people said we wouldn't go any lower. We're now down to 12. You know, we have a target of 11, you know, and we're gonna continue to do that. What's important for people to understand is, you have to bring all your, all your stakeholders in. If I just said, "Okay, I'm going to 11 tomorrow," I think the regulators and everyone else in this environment, heightened sense of what we just went through with... They're gonna be a little bit more reluctant on that. So for us, we are on a long-term view from where we're at, 18, to where we want to get to, and that's consistent. And I think our capital allocation strategy, you know, first around RWAs that we have today, second around the dividend, and then it gets into share purchases or inorganic. And when I think about that first bucket of RWA, we really want to play in places where we're gonna have, you know, a better rate to win, a better return profile. So you think about Health and Wellness, you think about the Home Specialty. We want to over-index into assets like that that can hopefully bolster the overall ROA of this business. Yeah, certainly a very different conversation when you've got strong asset growth than at periods of time when you hadn't. I got a follow-up question just about your commentary on spending volumes. Recognizing that, you know, spending volumes is not as big a profit driver for Synchrony, but can you just... I guess the questioner, first of all, just asked if you would kind of restate it, 'cause I think they were, you know, in terms of the goods versus services commentary, and what you're actually seeing. So maybe if you could just do that in the time we have left. So first, you start top of the house, we'll probably see flat volume year-over-year. Again, we had record Q2 volume. I know it sounds cliché to say I'm competing against a record year, but we're competing against a record year. Credit played a little bit into that, you know, so I wanna discount that. But when you look underneath, right, what we saw in the Q1, and that's continuing into the Q2, is in the Home and Auto, you'll see purchase volume down. Absent Home Specialty, which is up in the teens. You saw Lifestyle down, right? There's less spending in music, in jewelry, in luxury, but yet we're still seeing good spending in outdoors. So there you begin to see some of the pieces that are less, you know, favorable right now for the consumer. They're not gonna spend on big-ticket things unless they have to. What you're also gonna see is continued strength in health and wellness, as people continue to need dental work and veterinary and those types of things. So that will be a leader. And I think digital, if I go back to traffic, in the digital, you know, there is traffic down. So a little bit of softness relative to the Q1, you know, in the digital platform. So I think when you look at it, it's not something that is dramatic, it's not something that's happened overnight. It's a continuation of the trends that we saw coming out of the Q1. Got it. Well, with that, unfortunately, we're out of time. I've still got other questions here, but, Brian, I wanted to thank you,