Bank of Montreal at RBC Capital Markets Global Financial Institutions Conference Transcript

The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.

Question: Darko Mihelic - RBC Capital Markets - Analyst : And yeah, so I've been starting and kicking off all of these sessions in the same way, so I'm not going to break from the pattern for my last session. So Tayfun, I'd love to get your initial take here on tariffs and maybe just how are you thinking of this and what are the processes and thought processes that you're going through with respect to tariffs and give us an idea of your initial reaction here. And I'll leave it very wide open and let you just sort of take (multiple speakers).

Question: Darko Mihelic - RBC Capital Markets - Analyst : Okay, that's a great fulsome answer. I wanted to sort of follow up in a couple of spots if I may. I think the one thing that set you apart last year was that you had elevated provisions for credit losses and impaired, and you gave us a sort of a pathway for to see these sort of decline in 2025. Is that at risk now that we have this tariff environment, or is that really just a contained view of what's currently on the watch list and what you can sort of see and feel and touch? Or should we sort of step back and say, well, maybe that pathway towards a lower, I don't want to say normalized loss rate, but we know what your guidance is. But maybe that pathway is now at risk. How would you react to that question?

Question: Darko Mihelic - RBC Capital Markets - Analyst : And so you gave us a data point early in this discussion that your initial view is that 20% of the GDP of Canada is at risk. Can we -- how can we translate that to your balance sheet? What are your exposures, what do you see as relatively sensitive for you to these tariffs and how should we think about that?

Question: Darko Mihelic - RBC Capital Markets - Analyst : It's like any credit cycle. I can recall when the price of oil fell and suddenly, I was learning about upstream, midstream, and all that kind of stuff. So I'm sure we're -- and that's what we're looking forward to. It's what we look forward to that. And a shameless plug for RBC we do publish the statistics that he's talking about in our chart book every quarter, and we have to update it now for the quarter that just went by. So I'm not like Gerard. I'm not capable of telling you what page it's on. But we do publish it.

Question: Darko Mihelic - RBC Capital Markets - Analyst : So maybe then, just sort of veering away from credit, and let's just talk about your expectations now for growth on both sides of the border.

Question: Darko Mihelic - RBC Capital Markets - Analyst : And maybe just sticking to the US, because one of the things with your bank is that you sort of you've committed to an improvement in the ROE and you've committed to it within a medium time frame. And, this quarter, you decided to give us a bit of a -- as you sort of zoomed in a little bit on the US. And you gave us a few pockets of places that where you're hoping for some improvement. And two of them caught my eye, really. One was operating performance, and the other one was capital. And so maybe you can just touch on both of those because I want to zoom in a little bit on what you mean by operating and what you mean by capital efficiency.

Question: Darko Mihelic - RBC Capital Markets - Analyst : So there's a period of analysis and decision making and then implementation. Is it still on the sort of the same time frame?

Question: Darko Mihelic - RBC Capital Markets - Analyst : And getting back to the cost of funds and the changes that are -- if you want to do on the deposit side, is there any indication that this is sort of somewhat driven by Legacy Harris or Bank of West, or is this --because when I think of when you had married, I thought for a moment there would have been more consumer deposits in Bank of West. I may be wrong.

Question: Darko Mihelic - RBC Capital Markets - Analyst : And sales force, if you size the increase in the sales force in California for anybody --

Question: Darko Mihelic - RBC Capital Markets - Analyst : I apologize. Did I forget to ask if there's any questions from the audiences. Is there? Because we're running out of time. So okay, maybe just the last question then while I've got like a little bit of time here. REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. MARCH 05, 2025 / 7:00PM, BMO.TO - Bank of Montreal at RBC Capital Markets Global Financial Institutions Conference You had announced a buyback --

Question: Darko Mihelic - RBC Capital Markets - Analyst : And last week when you reported earnings, talked about actually buying back an aggressive amount of stock. Has that changed now?

Question: Darko Mihelic - RBC Capital Markets - Analyst : Okay, well, with that, we've come to the end of our sessions with Tayfun. Thank you very much.