Citizens Financial profit beats estimates on strong capital markets
Adds CEO's quotes on economy, rates paragraph 10-15
By Niket Nishant and Saeed Azhar
July 17 (Reuters) -U.S. lender CitizensFinancial CFG.N beat expectations for second-quarter profit on Wednesday, lifted by strong capital markets.
A resilient U.S. economy has encouraged corporate executives to raise capital via bond sales, boosting the fees at banks including JPMorgan JPM.N and Bank of America BAC.N, whichunderwrite such deals.
Citizens' capitalmarkets fees surged 63%, driven by bond underwriting and loan syndication, it said. The upbeat results echo the latestquarterly reports of larger rivals.
Higher deposit costs and weaker loan demand, however, led to an 11% drop in Citizens' net interest income (NII) — the difference between what the bankearns on loans and pays out on deposits — to $1.41 billion.
Elevated interest rates have sparked fierce competition for deposits between banks, which are responding by bumping up their payouts to deter customers from fleeing to rivals.
Some customers are also deferring purchases to avoid taking on debt at a time when borrowing costs are at their highest since the global financial crisis.
Analysts were expecting Citizens' NII to reach a trough in the second quarter, according to LSEG data.
But NII in the third quarter could dip 1%-2% from second-quarterlevels before it rebounds in the last three months of the year, Citizens said.
The cost of certain swap positions Citizens had taken to hedge against potentially lower rates will weigh on NII in the third quarter, and loan growth will not be strong enough to offset those swap positions, CEO Bruce Van Saun told Reuters.
Citizens expects the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates in September and December.
"You can see inflation coming down, and you can see the economy starting to slow. The labor market appears to be slowing. Hope for Goldilocks' soft landing appears to be happening," Van Saun said.
A Goldilocks scenario means moderate economic growth, low inflation and full employment
He said the bank could repurchase $250 million to $300 million in stock in the third quarter.
Overall, Citizens' profit slipped 18% to $392 million, or 78 cents per share, for the three months ended June 30. Excluding one-time costs, the bank earned 82 cents a share, higher than the LSEG estimates of 79 cents.
Citizens' stock has risen about 24% so far this year, while rivals PNC Financial PNC.N and Huntington Bancshares HBAN.O gained 16% and 14%, respectively, during the period.
Reporting by Niket Nishant in Bengaluru and Saeed Azar; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar, Lananh Nguyen and Rod Nickel
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