Zions Bancorporation (NASDAQ:ZION) Q3 2019 Earnings Conference Call - Final Transcript

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Zions Bancorporation's Third Quarter 2019 Earnings Results Webcast. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]

I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker, Director of Investor Relations, James Abbott. Sir, please go ahead.

Thank you and good evening. We welcome you to this conference call to discuss our 2019 third quarter earnings. For our agenda today, Harris Simmons, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, will provide a brief overview of key strategic and financial performance, after which Paul Burdiss, our Chief Financial Officer, will provide additional detail on Zions' financial condition, wrapping up with our financial outlook. Additional executives with us in the room today include Scott McLean, President and Chief Operating Officer; and Ed Schreiber, Chief Risk Officer.

Referencing slide 2, I would like to remind you that during this call we will be making forward-looking statements, although actual results may differ materially. We encourage you to review the disclaimer in the press release or the slide deck dealing with this information, which applies equally to statements made in this column.

A copy of the full earnings release as well as a supplemental slide deck are available at zionsbancorporation.com and we'll be referring to these items during this call. The earnings release, related slide presentation and the earnings call contains several references to non-GAAP measures, including pre-provision net revenue and the efficiency ratio, which are common industry terms used by investors and financial services analysts. The use of such non-GAAP measures are believed by management to be of substantial interest to the consumers of these financial disclosures and are used prominently throughout the disclosures. A full reconciliation of the difference between such measures and GAAP financials is provided within the published documents, and participants are encouraged to carefully review this reconciliation.

We intend to limit the length of this call to one hour. During the Q&A section of the call, we ask you to limit your questions to one primary and one related follow-up question to enable other participants to ask questions.

I'll now turn time over to Harris Simmons.

Thank you very much, James, and we welcome all of you to our call today to discuss the third quarter results. Slide 3 is a summary of several key highlights. The results for the quarter were favorable in most areas compared to the year ago results. Loan growth was generally in line with our expectations for the quarter. Our outlook for our moderate loan growth remains unchanged even though loan growth has been somewhat stronger in recent quarters.

Deposit growth in the third quarter on a linked quarter basis was broad-based and stronger than we anticipated. Topic that received the most attention as we met with many of you during the quarter was the net interest margin and the cost of deposits. Although the cost of deposits for the full