“And then you've got the continuation of deposit and loan growth coming throughout the year, and it's about a build as you go. And so the results will look better as you get towards the latter part of the year.”

In context

“first question will come from Scott Siefers of Piper Sandler. Robert Siefers: Mike, I was hoping you could just expand a little on your thoughts on NII, particularly ex markets. It looks like 2026 should be basically flat with the fourth quarter annualized level despite the outlook for a pretty good loan growth. It sounds like from what you said, that's mostly going to be a function of the rate outlook, but would just love to hear your expanded thoughts on sort of the puts and takes. Michael Santomassimo: Yes. Sure, Scott. Thanks for the question. You do need to adjust for day count. So it's -- I mean it's a little bit up from when you annualize the fourth quarter. But as you said, you really got 3 things going on. You've got rates coming down, which will be a headwind for NII x-markets. And then you've got the continuation of deposit and loan growth coming throughout the year, and it's about a build as you go. And so the results will look better as you get towards the latter part of the year. And at this point, the rate curve is -- our assumptions are pretty similar to what's in the forward curve at the moment. It's really 2 rate cuts with maybe another one right at the end of the year, which doesn't have much of an impact. And then you've got the loan growth that we've been seeing across the book. I would point out like some of the loan growth in places like cards will be coming in at either intro APRs or 0 rate as we continue to grow the book. But when you look at the rest of the portfolio, we're seeing good growth, and that should continue as we look through the year. So it's really just those 3 things. When it comes to like deposits and pricing, we're not seeing anything different than what we expected to see as we come into the year on the commercial side. The betas are w”