Citizens Financial says interest-bearing deposit costs ‘may have peaked’ in Q1

Speaking at the Morgan Stanley U.S. Financials, Payments and CRE Conference, executives from Citizens Financial stated: “We’ve had eight quarters in a row at Citizens of interest-bearing deposit costs rising. We think that may have peaked in the first quarter in terms of interest-bearing deposit costs. I mean, I suspect that in the second quarter you’ll see deposit costs be flat to down, which is a real, you know, turning point. And frankly, you know, and we’re — and is an underpinning of our net interest margin tailwinds that we’re being able to deliver on. And so when you think about the full year for NII, you know, maybe, as I said, maybe a little lighter on loans. But — but net interest margin, if I extend that out to the end, we did say that we would exit the year at around 285. Just based upon all of these things I’ve been talking about and the trends we’re seeing right now, we think that that probably comes on a little better than that in terms of the exit NIM.”