Citigroup Inc. (C) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, and welcome to Citi's Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. Today's call will be hosted by Jenn Landis, Head of Citi Investor Relations. [Operator Instructions] Also as a reminder, this conference is being recorded today. If you have any objections, please disconnect at this time. Ms. Landis, you may begin.

Thank you, operator. Good morning, and thank you all for joining our second quarter 2026 earnings call. I'm joined today by our Chair and Chief Executive Officer; Jane Fraser and our Chief Financial Officer, Gonzalo Luchetti. I'd like to remind you that today's presentation, which is available for download on our website, citigroup.com, may contain forward-looking statements which are based on management's current expectations and are subject to uncertainty and changes in circumstances. Actual results may differ materially from these statements due to a variety of factors, including those described in our earnings materials as well as in our SEC filings. And with that, I'll turn it over to Jane.

Thank you, Jenn, and good morning to everyone. Our momentum continued and the second quarter capped a very good first half of the year. This morning, we reported net income of $5.8 billion for the second quarter with an EPS of $3.15 and an RoTCE of 13%. This was Citi's best quarterly revenue in a decade, which we delivered with over 9% positive operating leverage. Once again, we saw double-digit revenue growth for the firm and in 4 of our 5 businesses. We improved our RoTCE for the firm by 430 basis points and had significant improvement in the returns of every single business. The combination of our investments, disciplined execution and focus on clients is delivering improved returns and more durable results. Let me take you through our 5 businesses. Services delivered its highest ever quarterly revenue and a return of over 30%. Clients continue to lean on our global network more and more. We saw a 13% increase in cross-border transactions and a 19% increase in deposits. Our assets under custody and administration were up over 20% as we onboarded funds and deepened existing relationships. This is the power of our network. And it's a franchise that is very hard to replicate. Markets revenues were up 17% and crossed $7 billion again, as sentiment stay positive throughout the quarter. Equities was up over 40%, with prime balances up nearly 60%. Underneath fixed 7% growth, FX and spread products continued to shine and yet another example of our global network doing exactly what it is built to do for clients. This offset rates lower performance. Banking revenues climbed 34%, led by a sharp increase in financing activity amidst an overall strong wallet. Investment Banking was up 44% as we gained share in equity capital markets. We played a role in the majority of the top equity and debt issuances in the quarter, including lead roles on the high-profile IPOs, such as SpaceX and Cerebras. As we enter the second half, the pipeline looks healthy, and we are continuing to invest in talent to fill the gaps in our coverage to gain share, including in M&A. Wealth revenues increased for the ninth straight quarter, up 13% with growth across all 3 businesses, while returns improved to over 14%. Client investment assets were up 14% and net new investment assets have reached $30 billion so far this year. Almost 2/3s of that NNIA growth came from deepening relationships with our existing clients and referrals from the retail bank to Citigold were up 23%. So you are now starting to see the tangible benefits of integrating our retail branches into wealth. In U.S. consumer cards, investments in our products and partners, which shows up in both revenues and expenses impacted our operating leverage this quarter. But it's these investments, such as our acquisition of the AA Barclays portfolio in April that will drive future growth in our general purpose portfolio. Furthermore, our resilient customer base kept fueling underlying drivers. Loan growth higher spend and better credit performance than expected. This resulted in the RoTCE increasing to 22%. During the quarter, we completed the sale of our consumer business in Poland. We also closed on the sale of an additional 22.6% equity stake of Banamex and we remain on track to close on an additional 1.4% this summer, which will bring the total amount to 49%. Simplifying Citi through these international consumer divestitures along with higher PPNR and lower stress losses contributed directly to our strongest showing in the Fed stress test last month, and we plan to increase our dividend by 12%. We launched $30 billion common stock repurchase commitment by buying back $4 billion during the quarter. Our CET1 ratio stood at 12.8% and remains about 120 basis points above our current regulatory minimum. We continued to make progress in our transformation with a large body of work passing internal audit validation. As much of the transformation work winds down, we are not only taking down expenses, but we're applying what we learned about large-scale implementation to integrate AI into our businesses and functions wherever it makes sense. Nearly 9 of 10 of our people are using our AI tools. That's not only driving productivity and client experience but also growth, helping us bring products to market significantly faster as we're doing with payment Express in services and with our Citi Wealth Advisor Insights platform. On the macro front, the conflict in the Middle East has weighed a bit on global growth, whilst giving inflation a second wind. In the U.S., growth is roughly where it was a year ago and the labor market remains stable. But it's a nuanced story because that growth is not lifting all boats. The extraordinary investment in AI and its supporting cost of semiconductors, data centers and related infrastructure is providing a tailwind in the U.S. and parts of Asia, while a more vulnerable Europe, faces yet another competitive headwind. Above all these dynamics, we see real resiliency in our corporate clients who bring strong balance sheets and a proven adeptness of managing the complex environment. You've heard me say many times that Citi's success won't follow a straight line that the rigor and consistency with which we have executed the strategy we first laid out for you in 2022 and reinforce at our Investor Day in May, has put Citi back in the game. And our people deserve enormous credit for getting us to this position. We have elevated Citi into a new growth mode. Our returns are improving, and the conversation around this firm has changed. We continue to do the things we said we would do such as investing in the businesses, whilst we take down our transformation and stranded costs. Despite the usual seasonality in the second half of the year, we feel very good about our ability to hit our 2026 return target. And then to reach the targets we shared with you in May. And to be clear, if conditions stay constructive, we intend to take advantage of that. We'll lean in with additional investments and other actions to create value for our shareholders over the medium term. A stronger environment isn't just upside to report. It's an opportunity we will put to work. And finally, as you are all aware, this is Jenn Landis' final earnings call before she becomes our Chief Financial Officer for markets. Jenn came to Citi almost 5 years ago, just after I became CEO. Over that time, she has reestablished trust and credibility with the investor community and rebuilt our Investor Relations team, which is now recognized as one of the best on the Street. You can see her fingerprints on our disclosures, our financial communications and events such as our recent Investor Day. She has worked tirelessly to make sure you understand where we are going and how we will get there. So Jenn, thank you very much indeed. Before I turn it over to Gonzalo, I would like to thank FIFA for scheduling Argentina's semifinal match in Atlanta for tomorrow and not for today. I shudder to think what Joyce Gonzalo would have made in that situation. Gonzalo, over to you, and then we will be delighted, as always, to take your questions.

Thank you, Jane, and good morning, everyone. First, I can neither confirm nor deny what decision I would have made in that situation. And second, I would like to echo James sentiment regarding Jenn's final earnings call as Head of Investor Relations. Jenn has been a great partner to me to Jane and to the broader leadership team. Since taking over Investor Relations in 2021, she has built strong relationships across the investor and analyst community and help ensure that Citi strategy is communicated with clarity, credibility and consistency. And we look forward to seeing her continue to make an impact in her new role. On behalf of the entire management team, thank you, Jenn, for your leadership, your counsel and your many contributions. I'm also very pleased to have Marco Pillage stepping into the role of Head of Strategy, M&A and Investor Relations. Margo comes to this role after 5 years as Jane's Chief of Staff and brings deep knowledge of our strategy, priorities and organization after more than 2 decades at the firm. I look forward to working with Margo in her new role, and I know she will do a tremendous job. Now getting to the quarter, I'll start with a firm-wide financial results, focusing on year-on-year comparisons, unless I indicate otherwise, then review the performance of our businesses in greater detail. On Slide 4, we show financial results for the full firm, which demonstrate the progress we've made and the momentum of our strategy. This quarter, we reported net income of $5.8 billion, EPS of $3.15 and an RoTCE of 13% on $24.8 billion of revenues, generating positive operating leverage. Total revenues were up 14% with growth driven by each of our businesses and legacy franchises, including the impact of FX translation, partially offset by a decline in corporate other. Net interest income, excluding markets, which you can see on the bottom left side of the slide, was up 6%, driven by growth across all businesses and legacy franchises, partially offset by a decline in corporate other. Noninterest revenues, excluding markets, were up 39%, driven by growth in all other, banking, services and wealth, partially offset by a decline in U.S. consumer cards. Excluding all other as well as markets, noninterest revenues were up 18%, and total market revenues were up 17%. Expenses of $14.2 billion were up 5% with an efficiency ratio of below 58%, which I'll provide details on shortly. And cost of credit was $2.5 billion, primarily consisting of net credit losses in U.S. consumer cards as well as a firm-wide net ACL build of $118 million. Looking at the firm on a year-to-date basis, we generated positive operating leverage with total revenues up 14%, driven by growth across all businesses and legacy franchises, including the impact of FX translation, partially offset by a decline in corporate other and expenses, which have also been impacted by FX translation, up 6% as we reported an RoTCE of 13.1%. On Slide 5, we show the expense and efficiency trend over the past 5 quarters. As I just mentioned, expenses increased 5%, primarily driven by our continued investments in the front office as well as higher volume and revenue-related expenses. This increase is reflected in compensation and transactional and product servicing costs. And we also saw an impact from FX translation across our expense base. The benefits of our past investments and productivity efforts have allowed us to gain efficiencies across our expense base and reduce our headcount to 219,000 with over $800 million of severance incurred year-to-date. We continue to invest in areas such as technology, including AI, and we would expect an increase in productivity saves over time. And it is worth noting that this expense increase was against 14% revenue growth, resulting in an improvement in our operating efficiency of over 500 basis points. On Slide 6, we show U.S. cards and corporate credit metrics. As I mentioned, the firm's cost of credit was $2.5 billion, primarily consisting of net credit losses in U.S. consumer cards as well as a firm-wide net ACL build. Our reserves incorporate an 8-quarter weighted average unemployment rate of 5.3%, which includes a downside scenario average unemployment rate of nearly 7%. At the end of the quarter, we had over $22 billion in total reserves with a reserve to funded loans ratio of 2.5%. We continue to maintain a high credit quality card portfolio with approximately 86% of balances extended to consumers with FICO scores of 660 or higher and a reserve to funding loan ratio in our U.S. cards portfolio of 7.6%. Looking at the right-hand side of the slide, you can see that our corporate exposure is 79% investment grade and in the quarter, corporate non-accruing loans as well as corporate net credit losses remain low. We are confident in the high-quality nature of our portfolios, which reflect our robust risk appetite framework rigorous client selection and our focus on using the balance sheet in the context of the overall client relationship. Turning to capital and the balance sheet on Slide 7, where I will speak to sequential variances. Our total assets of $2.9 trillion increased 4%, driven by growth in trading-related assets. Net end-of-period loans increased 4%, primarily driven by growth in markets and U.S. cards. Our $1.5 trillion deposit base remains well diversified and increased 3% driven by growth in services as we continue to deepen with clients with a focus on high-quality operating deposits. We maintained a 114% average LCR and over $1 trillion of available liquidity resources. In the second quarter, we continued to deploy capital to support client-driven growth while at the same time, prioritizing the return of capital to common shareholders, as evidenced by the $4 billion in buybacks. We ended the quarter at 12.8% CET1 ratio under the binding standardized approach, approximately 120 basis points above the 11.6% regulatory capital requirement as we continue to target a CET1 ratio around 12.6% under the existing rules and requirements. While our LCV remains at 3.6% as we announced in June, we were pleased to see the continued improvement in our DFAST results and the corresponding implied SUV of 3.3%, which marks a reduction for the third consecutive year, demonstrating the execution of our strategy and improved business performance, which has resulted in growth in PPNR and greater resilience in stress. And as a reminder, we plan to increase our quarterly common stock dividend by 12% beginning in the third quarter, subject to quarterly board approval. Turning to the businesses on Slide 8. We show the results for services in the second quarter. Revenues were up 18%, driven by growth across both TTS and Securities Services, reflecting the benefits of our continued investments in the business. NII increased 18%, primarily driven by higher average deposit balances. NIR increased 16% as we continue to see strong activity and engagement with both corporate and commercial clients and across key high-growth segments, including e-commerce and fintech, driving momentum across underlying drivers with cross-border transaction value up 13% and assets under custody and administration up 22%, which includes the impact of market valuations as well as new assets onboarded. Expenses increased 5%, driven by higher volume-related expenses as well as higher performance and other compensation expenses. Average loans increased 10%, primarily driven by export agency finance and working capital loans. Average deposits increased 19% with growth across both North America and international, largely driven by an increase in operating deposits as we continue to deepen relationships with existing clients and onboard new clients. Services generated positive operating leverage and delivered net income of $2.6 billion with an RoTCE of 30.9% in the quarter and 29% year-to-date. Turning to markets on Slide 9. Revenues were up 17%, driven by growth across both equities and fixed income with strong momentum across client segments, including corporates, asset managers, hedge funds and banks. Fixed income revenues were up 7%, driven by growth in spread products and other fixed income as well as rates and currencies. Spread Products and other fixed income was up 25%, driven by growth across both financing and credit trading and spread products as well as growth in commodities and rates and currencies was up 1%, with growth in currencies on higher volumes, reflecting strong client engagement, primarily offset by lower revenues in rates. Equities revenues were up 45% driven by continued momentum in derivatives and Prime Services as we grew prime balances by nearly 60%, with growth across both new and existing clients as well as higher market valuations. Expenses increased 8%, driven by higher performance-related compensation and volume-related expenses. Average loans increased 29%, primarily driven by financing activity in spread products. Markets generated positive operating leverage and delivered net income of $2.4 billion with an RoTCE of 17% in the quarter and 17.8% year-to-date. Turning to banking on Slide 10. Revenues were up 34%, driven by growth in investment banking, partially offset by a decline in corporate lending, excluding mark-to-market on loan hedges. Investment banking revenues increased 44%, reflecting a strong wallet driven by growth in DCM and ECM, partially offset by a decline in M&A. DCM was up 65%, resulting in our second best quarter ever with growth across leveraged finance and investment grade. ECM was up 92% amid very strong market conditions with growth across all products led by strength in IPOs and follow-ons where we participated in 8 of the top 10 ECM deals of the quarter. And while M&A was down 4%, we maintained a healthy pipeline and continue to have meaningful strategic dialogue with our clients. Corporate lending revenues, excluding mark-to-market on loan hedges, declined 4%. Expenses increased 7%, driven by higher performance-related compensation and investments as well as higher volume-related expenses. Cost of credit was $242 million, consisting of net credit losses of $138 million and a net ACL build of $104 million. Net credit losses were driven by loan sales, which we had previously reserved for. And the net ACL build was driven by exposure growth largely offset by reserve releases covering losses on the loan sales. Average loans increased 5% as growth in loans associated with investment banking activity more than offset the decline in corporate lending balances. Banking generated positive operating leverage and delivered net income of $350 million with an RoTCE of 18% in the quarter and 16.9% year-to-date. Turning to Wealth on Slide 11. Revenues were up 13%, driven by growth across all businesses with 17% growth in Citigold and the retail bank, 5% in the private bank and 3% in wealth and work. NII, which you can see on the bottom left side of the slide, increased 18%, driven by higher deposit spreads and average balances, partially offset by lower mortgage spreads. NIR was up 4% and as we continue to see growth in investment fee revenues, which were up 20%, primarily offset by the absence of the approximate $80 million gain on sale of our alternatives fund platform, which occurred in the second quarter last year and the loss of fee revenue from the sale of the trust business in 2025. Net new investment asset flows were $15.7 billion in the quarter, contributing to over $56 billion in the last 12 months, representing 9% organic growth. Overall, client investment assets were up 14%, which also includes the impact of market valuations and was partially offset by the sale of trust business assets. Expenses increased 3% driven by higher technology costs and higher performance-related compensation. Average loans were up 5% as we continue to grow securities-based lending and deploy balance sheet to support clients and drive client investment asset growth. Average deposits were up 4%, primarily driven by growth in the private bank. Wealth had a pretax margin of 23%, generated positive operating leverage and delivered net income of $583 million with an RoTCE of 14.4% in the quarter and 12.6% year-to-date. Turning to U.S. consumer cards on Slide 12. As Jane mentioned, this quarter, we completed the acquisition of the additional American Airlines co-branded card portfolio, and our results reflect the impact of the over $6 billion in loans for more than 2 million accounts onboarding in April. In the quarter, revenues were up 1%, driven by growth in NII, primarily offset by a decline in NIR. NII was up 5%, driven by higher interest-earning balances. NIR was down 47%, driven by higher accruals for partner payments and new account acquisition costs, reflecting increased investments, partially offset by higher annual fees and net interchange. Including the additional American Airlines portfolio acquisition and momentum across underlying drivers, we saw general purpose cards acquisitions up 135%, spend volume up 12% and average loans up 8% partially offset by declines in private label cards. Expenses increased 10%, driven by higher severance, customer engagement costs legal expenses and increased marketing as we invest to drive future acquisitions and continued customer engagement. Cost of credit was $1.6 billion, consisting of $1.9 billion of net credit losses and a net ACL release of $232 million, driven by improved portfolio quality, including seasonal changes, largely offset by higher volume and changes in macroeconomic variables. U.S. consumer cards delivered net income of $852 million with an RoTCE of 22% in the quarter and 20.6% year-to-date. While we expect RoTCE to remain around our through-the-cycle target for the business, in some of the next few quarters, we do expect expense growth to outpace revenue growth as we invest in the business to drive engagement and acquisitions with some of those investments reflected as contra revenue and others as expenses. Turning to Slide 13. We show results for all other on a managed basis, which includes corporate other and legacy franchises and excludes divestiture-related items. Revenues were up 1%, driven by growth in legacy franchises, offset by a decline in corporate other. Growth in legacy franchisees was driven by Mexico Consumer, which includes momentum in underlying business drivers and the impact of Mexican peso appreciation, partially offset by the impact of continued reduction from our exit and wind-down markets. The decline in corporate other was driven by lower NII, which included actions taken, such as those to reduce Citi's asset sensitivity due to a lower interest rate environment, largely offset by higher NIR, reflecting episodic activity. Expenses were down 3%, driven by a decline in legacy franchises as lower expenses related to exits and wind downs were primarily offset by the impact of Mexican peso appreciation as well as a decline in corporate other, which included lower transformation expenses and severance charges. As a reminder, we will continue to look for opportunities to drive structural efficiencies, including severance to improve productivity and actions to improve our funding profile. Cost of credit was $438 million, primarily consisting of net credit losses of $366 million driven by loans in Mexico. And we've reduced the total DTAs deducted from CET1 capital held in corporate other by over $500 million year-to-date. To close, we've included our full year 2026 outlook on Slide 14. We've made significant progress in terms of improving returns on the back of our investments, generating a year-to-date RoTCE of 13.1%. Having said that, we continue to target an RoTCE of 10% to 11% for the full year, supported by NII ex-markets growth of approximately 5% to 6% and continued NIR ex-markets growth driven by momentum in services, banking and wealth, partially offset by USCC. We expect the USCC NIR to remain in line with the second quarter's absolute level in the third and fourth quarters of this year. In Markets, we historically have seen revenues decline approximately 20% between the first and second half of the year. And given the strong performance year-to-date, the magnitude of that decline could be greater this year. And as we've said before, we expect our full year efficiency ratio to be around 60% as we ramp up investments across the businesses in the second half and incur additional severance as we target future efficiencies. As it relates to credit, we continue to expect a total U.S. credit card NCL rate between 4% and 4.5%, while the ACL will continue to be a function of the macroeconomic environment and business volumes. And we remain well positioned to return capital to shareholders under our $30 billion share repurchase program. As we take a step back, the results in the second quarter and first half of this year represents significant progress towards our goal of improved firm-wide and business performance. We remain steadfast and focused on executing our transformation and confident in delivering our RoTCE target of 10% to 11% this year with a clear path to delivering higher sustainable returns going forward as we laid out at Investor Day. With that, Jenn and I would be glad to take your questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question will come from Glenn Schorr with Evercore ISI.

Thank you. So I'm a huge fan of investing back in the business during great times, and I heard your message loud and clear, and we see your guidance. But people are trying to parse through the not-oping of the of the RTC target this year, how much -- I don't know if you can quantify in numbers, that's what I'm asking, is how much of it is conservatism and not knowing what's ahead in the second half versus investments you've already made versus investments you're going to make in the second half? I'm just trying to get through the parsing of it.

Glenn. Well, I have to say, with a good first half under our belt, we've shifted our focus from the '26 waypoint to the near-term and medium-term targets and the investments behind them. As you say, we've operated in a good environment so far this year. I think the whole industry has benefited from revenue growth and benign credit. What I think I'm most proud of is that we've generated real alpha, its outperformance that we created is not just a rising tide. And you've seen us pay back with consistent expense and capital discipline whilst investing. Now as you say, how strong the second half turns out largely depends on the macro and the market backdrop. And that's true for everybody. we are deliberately investing for long-term growth and for improved returns. And a couple of weeks or a few weeks ago, we laid these out in the investment plan in detail at Investor Day. And you see we just have a lot of opportunities here. And we're funding these investments whilst holding our efficiency ratio for the year around 60%. And there's real discipline be underneath that number. So to be clear, if conditions stay constructive, we intend to take full advantage of that. We will lean in bringing forward investments and other actions that will create value for our shareholders over the medium term. And as I said in my opening, a stronger environment isn't just upside to report, it's an opportunity that we're going to put to work. So I'm very comfortable with our 10% to 11% number.

Is the cost -- I'm good at math, 13 for half and 10% to 11% would mean significantly lower in the second half. I'm just trying to get at is -- is that conservatism based on, like you said, 20% seasonality and more this year because the first half was so good. So should we -- I just want to get our collective mindset in the right spot? Is the second half possibly a single digit to 10% return with no additional investment?

Thank you, Glenn. I'll take this one. Even though I may disappoint you not giving you the precise math on every month in the forthcoming couple of quarters. But I think it's a fair question. And just to emphasize a couple of things that I think Jane just mentioned, number one, and you alluded to them, too. Number one is there's a pocket of uncertainty that we want to make sure that we navigate and we're able to land, and we've spoken about this in the past, even for our near term and medium-term targets, and we want to be able to deliver under a variety of environments. Secondly, the seasonality that you just mentioned and I alluded to in my remarks, especially as it relates to markets, not only, right, because other businesses also have pockets of seasonality, but markets is the more pronounced one. And the third one is what Jane just spoke about, which is making sure that we have the flexibility to take advantage of those opportunities if the markets are constructive. And that could come in a couple of flavors. It could come -- we've spoken about the investment themes at Investor Day a couple of months ago across each of the 5 businesses. So we will consider leaning into those and accelerating more of those. We will also look at -- you will remember that I spoke about sources of structural efficiency to fund our growth over the next couple of years, we may look at accelerating some of the structural efficiency actions and in that case, take more severance in the second half. As you can see, so far to date, we're already at $800 million for for half of the year. We're already basically at the level that we were a year ago. So if we see opportunities, we may do a bit more than we originally envisioned. And then the third piece, as Jane was mentioning actions as well, is we will also look not only at structural efficiency opportunities, but it could also be structural funding opportunities. If we see any opportunities to take actions to improve our funding profile over the long run, we will do those. You saw us do a little bit of that in the second quarter where we tendered for $1.2 billion of debt. And so we'll look at those opportunities to Jane's point, not to maximize the waypoint, but to actually look at the durability of the returns going forward.

Your next question will come from Mike Mayo with Wells Fargo.

I think, Gonzalo, you're going to be the Messi of CFOs, I think we need to understand a little bit more about your prior answer. And I think what you're saying is you'll use kind of the excess earnings above what you had expected to front load or accelerate structural changes that will improve your future funding efficiency and growth. But the problem is, again, 13% return in the first half of the year, that would imply 9% the second half of the year, efficiency, 57% in the first half of the year. To get to 60%, that would imply maybe 63%. So I think I think what the stock market saying right now, I think what we're hearing is that you're guiding for a much worse second half of the year than the first half, and that may or may not be your intention. So if you could simply clarify what you really are saying about the expenses and what areas would you like to kind of accelerate spending on when it comes to revenue growth?

Mike, let me just jump in here. What we're saying is we're focused on the near-term and the medium-term targets, not on the way point. I think that I can't imagine this investor that doesn't want us to make sure that we are taking full advantage of the market conditions, particularly if they're good in the second half to be able to make the investments and take actions that will drive growth for the next number of years. And that's where -- and that's the message that The Street should be taking from this, but Gonzalo, over to you.

I think that's 100% in sync with what we're saying, right? We're not saying, Mike, that we're expecting a worse second half, there is seasonality to it, right? If you look at the historicals, you will be able to see it. And that plays through not only on the revenues that I highlighted in my remarks as it relates to markets, you'll see that playing through generally in returns and operating efficiency over a reasonable period of time in the past. But what we're looking forward to is to Jane's point, making sure that we put the opportunity to work where we see a chance in order to really solidify that path to near-term and medium-term returns, which is the ultimate goal, right? It's really driving the durability and the improvement that we want to know that we want to drive in order to close the gap with our peers. As we said, we intend to do.

Yes. We're playing the long game.

And a separate question related to your remediation efforts. Last quarter, you said you were 90% plus done and do you expect it to be 100% on sometime in the near term, I think you said that at Investor Day, are you at 93%, 99%. When do you think you get to 100% and you turn it over to the regulators to make their decision?

I'm not going to get -- I'm not going to get into the game of whether we're at 95%, 96%, 97%. We are largely now operating at the Citi target state. The important piece I mentioned in my opening remarks, is a large amount of our work on the consent order, successfully passed through audit validation this past quarter. and therefore, can get handed over to our regulators. And as you know, we've still got remaining work that relates to enhancing data governance, particularly for regulatory reporting, and we continue to make steady progress on it. In terms of the timing of the removal of the consent orders, that is fully at the discretion of our regulators, both in terms of reviewing the work that we've done, as we hand it over and then going through their closure process and that takes time. But I do reemphasize for our investors. Whenever we complete each body of work, we begin taking down the remediation expenses, and you can see that in our expense line. It's creating the capacity to further invest in the businesses. That's the additional $5 billion of investments that we talked about in May, and we don't need to wait for the orders to close to do this, that is happening already.

Your next question will come from Ken Usdin with Autonomous Research.

I have a question on the NII side, on the ex-markets basis. Strong start also here in the first half of the year where you're already above the 5% to 6% in the first half and deposit growth continues the pace, obviously, as you discussed, especially in services. I want to understand also do you have any conservatism in terms of that outlook in terms of why you may not be able to do better than that 5% to 6% on the core NII ex-markets given the trends that we're already seeing so far?

Thank you very much, Ken, for the question. I think we can see in -- through NII ex markets, I think, is a good window into: number one, our strategy working; number two, I think the operating rigor and yes, we continue to be constructive on our progress forward, and we're comfortable with the guidance that we provided would be the short answer. But just to unpack that for a bit, so just to recap the guidance for everyone, the guidance on NII ex-markets for the year is 5% to 6% revenue growth, that's anchored by mid-single-digit growth in the underlying drivers. In the second quarter, our NII ex-market growth was 6%. So it's within the range of the guidance that we provided for the second quarter. And that's in line with seeing deposits growing at about 12% on average. As you mentioned, services really good momentum and 19%, wealth, 4%, most of it coming from the private bank and loans growing in that mid-single-digit range at around 6% for the quarter year-on-year supported by services, cards and wealth. And so when we step back and we look at the picture of NII ex-markets, we're comfortable with our guidance. I think [indiscernible] alluded to this in our Investor Day as it relates to not expecting that deposit growth that we've seen on 19% will not normalize over a period of time. And so we expect that normalization to play through, but we're pleased with the trajectory that we're seeing. Of course, Services had a very strong quarter. We reached $1 trillion in deposits for the first time ever. The good news about that, I think, is that those deposits are coming from operating deposits. We're not chasing low-value deposits. The team has been very disciplined on pricing, and that's what you see in the NII pop up there.

Okay. And then just one follow-up. You mentioned on potentially some additional severance in the second half. Can you remind us just the severance you took your quarter-to-date in the first half? And then what -- maybe you can help us with the type of magnitude of severance that you might book in the second, so we can kind of understand also some of that future like you said, to get future efficiencies, right? Is it -- help us understand like how bulky that might be in terms of being run rate?

Yes. No, thank you. Well, we may not provide exact guidance on what we expect from the second half of severance. Let me recap a little bit what we had said and the position that we're in now. So the first quarter was about $500 million. The second quarter just now is another $300 million for an $800 million year-to-date. You're kind of seeing the acceleration of those actions play through in the head count you see there on Slide 5. And then to recap last year, it was about $800 million also. When we gave guidance for the year, we expect it to be at around that same level or slightly below from a prior year. Obviously, sitting here now and to the point that Jane and I were making, we will still be open-minded about the second half if we see opportunities. If I anchor it back to what we said a couple of months ago at Investor Day, remember, what I said about structural efficiencies to help fund those investments that we want to make over the near term are anchor on 3 legs, right? Leg number 1 is stranded cost, and you're seeing those already come down from the $1.3 billion a year ago. to about a run rate of $800 million if you look at our second quarter numbers for $200 million that you can annualize. We talked about transformation costs, and Jane just mentioned that as we reach completion of the programs. We're taking action on the portion of the transformation cost that is temporary. That sits in corporate other. I had mentioned that at our Investor Day. You remember, the peak was $3.3 billion of that total expense. About half of those siting corporate other which are the ones that are temporary in nature, not the ones that are structural in nature, and we're starting to see those come down. And then the third leg of that structural efficiency push is the productivity opportunities that we see from technology and AI automation. And I spoke about how we have more than 100-plus processes that we're mapping end-to-end, where we see opportunities for further automation. We look at this every week and and our COO; and Jim Ryan, our our Head of Technology, and we're very purposely trying to make progress on that. So as we see opportunities and if we see opportunities, this is what I was referring to. I'm trying to connect with us here in the second half to accelerate some of those productivity opportunities. We may take more severance in the second half, but we're not providing a specific number now.

And on North Star with all of this is pulling forward higher sustainable returns.

Your next question will come from Ebrahim Poonawala with Bank of America.

I guess, Gonzalo, just to follow up, I think -- on this, I think, I mean the stock is down 5%. I think to Mike's question earlier about the back half being worse than the first half. I understand that's not what the message was. The message was if the revenue environment is stronger, you're going to take advantage of that by investing. But maybe as we look through in terms of the momentum you had in the first half, yet there's some seasonality as we look into the -- into the third quarter and later in the year. But is there an obvious reason? Like are you -- is the point here that if the revenue backdrop is strong, we could still maybe replicate the strength more or less that we've seen in the first half? Or are you expect -- should we be expecting a step shift due to 2 reasons: one, seasonality; and second, the pull forward in the investments that you've talked about multiple times this call.

Ebrahim, thanks very much. Maybe let me start by not reiterating, but emphasizing a couple of points. The first one is we are pleased to see, and we are not expecting to stop, just to be clear, the commercial intensity that we're driving our execution rigor and focus the already good results we're seeing from past investments. That's -- we're not planning on that to stop. And of course, if the environment is constructive, we expect to see continued momentum, right? I spoke for a minute just now about NII. We have good momentum in our services business, where we're seeing good engagement and higher win rates with new mandates deepening relationships with existing clients and some of the investments that we made in our platform paying off. We had a very good quarter in markets, as you can see. We're making investments in talent, in technology. The market is constructive. It's good to see the business model working in a diversified way so that not every cylinder needs to be firing right completely in order to have very good results as we just did. Banking, some of the investors we're making, the momentum, the intensity, that business driving in the business playing through. You're seeing the improvement on wealth, right, in terms of the returns being driven there, both in NII and NIA, growing at 9%. Our deposits growing, our NII growing. Many of those things have an element of sustainability in them as well. And cards, I mentioned a little bit of the dynamics because we are trying to invest in the business. you can look at the drivers, right, even for the last few quarters, not just the ones this quarter to have the element of Barclays and American Airlines portfolio coming in, and they're healthy because we're investing in the business, and we know that's a high return in business. All those things, we expect to continue to play through in the second half. And the only thing we're saying is that we want to make sure that we are accounting for uncertainty. We're accounting for seasonality and we have the flexibility to position the firm even better for the future to come.

Got it. And maybe just, Gonzalo, I think you talked about the USCC in the back half around revenue versus expenses. If you don't mind, double-clicking on that in terms of the trend we should expect in the back half? And just over a more longer period of time, what you expect on the revenue versus expense trajectories there?

Yes. No, thank you for the question. So I think when you look at cards, there's a couple of things that stand out to me and you can see them in the second quarter, so you're going to actually anchor them on the numbers we have seen. The first thing is we spoke about how the through-the-cycle return target for our cars business is low 20s. So the first principle for us is the returns discipline, right? And you can see that we are -- while we're investing, and I'll talk about that more in a second, we are keeping that high focus on returns and the rigor and this is true across our proprietary book, but also every single one of our partner relationships. And you've seen us, as Pam mentioned in our Investor Day, relationships that don't pass our return target. So that discipline to me is super important. Even in a quarter where we can -- you can see our investment level, you still can see a 22% return there high for our firm. The second piece is we spoke about our strategy. And our strategy has 2 components, 2 big elements that we spoke about. One of them was the shift towards general purpose credit cards. That's been driven by the customer behavior. You see it in the drivers. If you look at the bottom right side of the [indiscernible] page, which is Page 12, you can see the bifurcation of the drivers, and that -- those are the customers telling us how their behavior is driving the business. And you can see that already in our numbers, right? At the end of last year, 82% of our book was a purpose cards. This quarter, we are at 84%. So over time, you're going to continue to see us increase that purely because one is going to grow faster than the other. And the second leg is we said we're going to make investments, right? And now you're seeing that play through this quarter. And as I mentioned in my earlier remarks, you can expect that over the next few quarters, there's going to be a few quarters where the expense growth will be greater than the revenue. than the revenue growth. And you should know that we are comfortable with that because, number one, we're keeping the return focus very sharp. And number two, we know that these investments pay off. So this is a deliberate choice to invest in a high return in business while keeping that return focus in the forefront. And then last piece I'll mention on investments, some of what you're seeing -- remember, as a reminder, the investments in the car business, they play both in terms of expenses, but they also have a contra revenue component because a lot of the acquisition activity place as a contract revenue, right? And so -- what you're seeing us do is you're seeing us invest in acquisitions. You're seeing us invest in our product capabilities into our client experience, into the loyalty and engagement, which is something that is key so that we can be top of wallet as well as in our partnerships as we did with the Barclays portfolio as well. And so those key pieces are critical. You are seeing as co-brand airport lounges with American Airlines into the U.S., you can already see in a few airports. So you're seeing us lean forward in a business that is high return.

Your next question will come from John McDonald with Truist.

Gonzalo, could you remind us in terms of the capital target, you mentioned 12.6 for now at Investor Day, you noted 13.1 by 2028 to accommodate higher G-SIB. But broader, what could lead that to be better along the way between potential rule changes, structural improvement for Citi and maybe your own lowering of your own discretionary buffer. Can you just give us some thoughts on the capital path, please?

Thanks very much, John, for the question. So yes, just to recap where we are in this quarter, we're at 12.8% CET1, that's 120 basis points above our regulatory requirement of 11.6%, as you mentioned. And then maybe playing -- and thank you also for reminding everyone about the 13.1 because of course, we embedded as far as capital assumptions for our return targets in the near and medium term, equates to the reality and the regulatory regime that we are operating under today, right? We don't -- we didn't bake in any assumptions about what would look like potentially. So I think you hit on a couple of those areas already, but let me piece them out a little bit. So of course, we're waiting for the finalization of the rules as it relates to Basel III to G-SIB and in particular, the SUV. As I mentioned in the past, Basel III and G-SIB provide us in our early analysis with a moderate net positive position and that emanates from -- on the positive side, the G-SIB coefficient playing through as well as some of the RWA weights in retail and corporate, and that is partially mitigated by the operating risk and the market risk factors that I think a lot of people are familiar with at this point. And so that could be one element that plays through. The second piece is the stress capital buffer. And the stars capital buffer, there's a couple of vectors there, right? One of them is, of course, the final rules, and we think there should be opportunities for us to benefit from that when they become final, but importantly, and more within our control and hopefully, the DFAS results even if they don't take hold really for this year, and we will see on the back of the new rules in October '27, the real changes, hopefully, as a signal you can take away, and that's how we saw it, the 30 basis point improvement, the third year in a row of improvement of that SUV that came for us down from the 4.3% to the 3.6% that we're under right now and the [indiscernible] results that just came out, take it down to another 30 basis points to 3.3%. That tells you that how the strategy is working, right? And we talked about this at Investor Day. Strategy working in terms of we have exited the international consumer franchises, number one. Number two, our PPNR position, continue to sequentially improve year after year. And so our loss absorption capacity improves. So even in the absence of any model enhancements that come out from the rules, you can see our strategy at work already also being a tailwind, and we hope that, that -- those 2 factors will pay through an important role. And then to your last point on the buffer, I think, of course, we will wait until all 3 sets of rules are solidified to evaluate our position for now. We're comfortable we are, and we're managing to around that target of 100 basis points that we mentioned before.

Okay. And then maybe a follow-up on that is on the DTA utilization. Could you give some more color on what drove the nice step down in DTA this quarter. And just a reminder of the path that you're hoping to see over the next 2 years for that to come down from, I think, ending this year at $13 billion going down to $7 billion.

Yes. Thanks very much for the question. And we know that DTA is an area where we have to demonstrate the performance because the last couple of years, we have not consumed as much. But hopefully, you're starting to see a couple of dots there on the page. So just to recap briefly, our starting position at the end of last year was $13.9 billion of the disallowed portion of the DTA. Our position right now is $13.4 billion. So year-to-date, we have consumed about $500 million of that. As a reminder, there's carryback support that builds up in Q1 and then starts to wear off during the year. So you have an element of that playing through. And then our U.S. profitability that we disclosed last year was about $4 billion. This year, we expect to make good progress in that. And you heard from all my colleagues, the business heads talk about it at Investor Day. And you're seeing it play through in the second quarter, right? When you look at the deposit growth in services, the 19%, a good portion of that growth came from North America. When you're seeing the strong quarters in markets and banking, a good portion of activity in both of those businesses comes from the U.S. The improvement in returns from wealth, right? Wealth coming from 7.7% to 10.8% to now 14.4 RoTCE. A good portion of that activity comes from the improvements in the affluent business in the retail bank and across the franchise that is North America centric. And then finally, of course, the returns in cards, which are also improving year-on-year. So all of those areas and the focus and I've spoken about before, how Jane has made sure that we are all held accountable in our scorecards for this. will, hopefully, over time, demonstrate to you through the numbers, how that comes through. As I always say internally, and I repeat it externally, you need 2 dots to draw a line. So we're pleased to see the first dot here in the second quarter and we look forward to continuing to demonstrate progress in this space. And sorry, a final reminder, I guided earlier in the year that the full year target was $800 million of burn down of DTA. And so we've done $500 million of the $800 million year-to-date.

Your next question will come from Manan Gosalia with Morgan Stanley.

So for the elevated investment spend in the back half of the year, can you help us with any specifics there in terms of these specifically investments you were planning to make in 2027 that you now have the opportunity to do in the back half of the year? And I guess, how quickly do you expect to see the returns of this higher investment spend. Does that give you the ability to get to the medium-term targets maybe sooner than before?

So at Investor Day, we laid out the specific investments that we're making in quite a lot of detail. So we'll be looking at what are the opportunities to pull some of those forward. as we talked about, and it would be pretty well across the board. There's nothing specifically. I also do want to emphasize. These are -- we are not looking at anything inorganic. I think I've been very clear about that at Investor Day and in the last couple of earnings calls, when we're talking investments, these are purely organic. But Manan, just to assume we're looking at a number of the different investments we talked about, where we can pull them forward and as Gonzalo alluded, if there's any severance and other pieces as we accelerate productivity gains, we'll do so too.

Got it. And maybe if we can talk about pipelines in investment banking, a clearly very strong performance here. I think you noted that M&A pipelines are strong. But if you could talk about in general, how you're seeing revenue opportunities across that business as we look out into the next year or so.

Look, the level of activity is very strong. The pipeline is very healthy. And we're also in a financial market as we looking for reasons to buy. I think the central CEO question right now across sectors is do we invest for growth now? Or are we preserving optionality. And AI is dominating a lot of the conversations. So tech, data center, energy, defense CapEx is accelerating. Companies are accessing the public equity and bond markets alongside bank debt in size, SK Hynix. For example, last week is another testament to that an offering by the way that we led. And wherever there's a bottleneck in that whole energy power compute mentor memory ecosystem. We're seeing a lot of activity. So we have to see -- we'll probably have the summer lull as everyone takes a bit of a break. We'll have midterms coming up, and the wildcard really is geopolitics. But we're certainly entering the second half with a good pipeline.

Your next question will come from Jim Mitchell with Seaport Global.

Maybe just a follow-up on capital. As you noted, the stress test, you saw about 30 bps of improvements based on similar rules for last year. Seems like model enhancements are likely to lower the volatility in the SCB going forward and likely improve it and profitability is getting better have more certainty on the other regulations. Is there a time when you start to question a 100 basis point buffer, I guess, is my question? And can you run a thinner buffer and use that excess capital while your stock is still in the low tangible book multiple still kind of in the low 1%, 1.5% range?

Yes. Let me reemphasize what Gonzalo said earlier. We're not looking at changing the buffer right now. There's quite a lot of uncertainty in certainly the geopolitical and other environment. So we're not looking at changing it, but we are looking forward to the continued strengthening of our PPNR continued lower stress losses and also getting the models to be an accurate reflection of our business. We think they overstate risk in a number of areas, treatment of our DTA is a sizable example, double counting of operational market risk is also another area that has a sizable impact. So the biggest upside is going to come from what we hope we will see, which is the new models coming out that are an accurate reflection of the actual risk, and that will have the biggest impact on SCB, but until they are issued, we won't know. And obviously, we hope G-SIB will be addressed better than it has been in the initial proposal.

Okay. Fair enough. Just in cards and consumer, delinquency is down despite sort of years, I guess, that many have had around rising inflation and the impact on the consumer. So what are you seeing in consumer credit and consumer behavior? And does it look like these favorable trends are continuing?

Yes. Thank you. So I think a couple of thoughts there. First, we're seeing a stable spread environment. The U.S. consumer is showing up as -- and I know I sound like a broken record from a few quarters, but the U.S. consumer has been resilient, right? And you can see that the spend. Even if you take out our spend the part of the Barclays American Airlines book this quarter, you still see 6% to 7%, 7% and ex the gas inflation in the quarter. You're hearing around 6%. That's very healthy as it relates to the spend and in line or on the higher end versus the last few quarters. Then when you look at the delinquencies and the net credit losses, you can see that across the portfolios, right, both delinquency and credit losses are down year-on-year. So across kind of the 4 key metrics. And when we look at our leading indicators of collections and the usual pockets that you look at when you're trying to seek for stress, you're really seeing an environment that is stable. As Jane mentioned in her remarks, credit has been in line or better than our expectations. That's also why when we guided the range for this year, the 4% to 4.5%. We anchored it on. If you actually -- I know we used to look at the business with a slightly different lens. But if you do the math, this is a lower range than the one we've had in the past, and that's a reflection of we're seeing the environment. And as you know, because of the write-off rules, which are 180 and 120, depending on the [indiscernible] alone, we have a pretty decent sense as to what the rest of the year paints, and we see that a bit of stability. Again, subject to the watch outs, right? And you mentioned some of them, right? They watch out on inflation and what happens with that, which I know we had a better read just now. What's the relationship between that inflation and the wages, right, the savings rate impact on that for clients and ultimately, the unemployment, which has been relatively in equilibrium for the last few weeks. And so we're constantly looking at that. But so far, it's a constructive environment.

Your next question will come from Erika Najarian with UBS.

Just one follow-up. It was actually a part of Manan's question. We're hearing you loud and clear in terms of the second half investment spend. I guess the question I wanted to reask is Jane, you're not focused on the way point, your focus in the near term, which is 11% to 13% RoTCE in '27, '28 and 14% to 15% medium term, sort of pulling forward the investment agenda, will that enable you to not just hit those RoTCE those return targets but potentially be sort of in the better half of that range. And additionally, does the consent order getting lifted free up additional expenses that you can reinvest back into the franchise?