Citizens Financial Group Inc. (CFG) Q3 2020 Earnings Call Transcript

Citizens Financial Group Inc  (NYSE: CFG) Q3 2020 earnings call dated Oct. 16, 2020

Corporate Participants:

Kristin Silberberg — Executive Vice President – Investor Relations

Bruce Van Saun — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

John F. Woods — Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer

Brendan Coughlin — Head of Consumer Banking

Donald H. McCree — Vice Chairman and Head of Commercial Banking

Analysts:

Peter Winter — Wedbush Securities — Analyst

Erika Najarian — Bank of America Merrill Lynch — Analyst

Scott Siefers — Piper Sandler — Analyst

John Pancari — Evercore ISI — Analyst

Ken Usdin — Jefferies — Analyst

Ken Zerbe — Morgan Stanley — Analyst

Vivek Juneja — J.P. Morgan — Analyst

Saul Martinez — UBS — Analyst

Dave Rochester — Compass Point — Analyst

Presentation:

Operator

Good morning everyone, and welcome to the Citizens Financial Group Third Quarter 2020 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Greg, and I’ll be your operator today. [Operator Instructions] Now, I will turn the call over to Kristin Silberberg, Executive Vice President, Investor Relations. Kristin, you may now begin.

Kristin Silberberg — Executive Vice President – Investor Relations

Thank you, Greg. Good morning everyone, and thank you for joining us. First, this morning, our Chairman and CEO, Bruce Van Saun; and CFO, John Woods will provide an overview of third quarter results referencing our presentation, which you can find on our Investor Relations website. After the presentation, we’ll be happy to take questions. Brendan Coughlin, Head of Consumer Banking; and Don McCree, Head of Commercial Banking are also here to provide additional color.

Our comments today will include forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause our results to differ materially from expectations. These are outlined for your review on Page 2 of the presentation. We also reference non-GAAP financial measures. So it’s important to review our GAAP results on Page 3 of the presentation, and the reconciliation in the appendix.

With that, I will hand over to Bruce.

Bruce Van Saun — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Kristin. Good debut for you. Good to have you on the team.

Kristin Silberberg — Executive Vice President – Investor Relations

Thank you.

Bruce Van Saun — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Okay. Good morning everyone, and thanks for joining our call. We feel really positive about how Citizens continues to rise to the occasion and meet the unprecedented challenges of 2020. We’re taking great care of customers, colleagues and communities, while posting strong results that demonstrate the diversification and resilience of our business model. We are delivering record levels of pre-provision profit, and we’re managing risks in our balance sheet well in the near term, while also preserving and making the strategic investments to position us for growth and success in the long term.

Financial performance in Q3 featured record revenue, fee income and mortgage results. The low rate and flat yield curve environment puts pressure on NIM, but our well positioned mortgage business has performed exceptionally well, capturing the refi opportunity, gaining market share and providing a natural offset to low rates. We included a page on this business in our investor deck. In short, we believe the mortgage business has room to run given a positive market environment, plus our own strong positioning and capabilities. In addition to mortgage, we saw a solid quarter in capital markets revenue given strong advisory and underwriting performance and a nice rebound in wealth fees. Consumer fees also continue to move higher off of the COVID and related lockdown lows, which should continue as the economy further reopens and consumer behavior normalizes. These factors drove non-interest income growth of 11% sequential quarter and 33% year-on-year. Combined with a modest decline in NII and broadly stable expenses, we delivered underlying positive operating leverage of 2.6% sequential quarter and 9% year-on-year.

Our pre-provision net revenue grew by 22% year-on-year, and it’s up 14% on a year-to-date basis. Now, this capital generation ranks near the top of peers and has allowed us to grow loans to support customers, build a prudent level of credit reserves given the uncertainty of the environment, maintain an attractive dividend payout, while delivering a 9.8% CET1 ratio, which is within our targeted range of 9.75% to 10%. This capital and reserve strength gives us tremendous financial flexibility going forward from a strategic and an operational perspective. Our view on the economy continues to be cautiously optimistic. Our consumer credit book is tracking favorable to expectations given past stimulus economic reopening and forbearance.

On the commercial side, we are seeing some selective credit stress and industry segments that are most impacted by COVID-19 and the lockdowns. We took sizable charge-offs on two credits during the quarter as loss recognition can be a little lumpy. That said, we feel we are near peak charge-offs in commercial, assuming the macro environment stays on the current trajectory. Our work on TOP and BSO continues to make solid progress. We are adding material work streams to TOP6 largely centered on digitization, and we will provide a full expense guide on our year-end call.

On BSO, we completed a student loan sale as we developed and originated to distributed model and we executed an attractive sub debt exchange that delivered both financial and regulatory capital benefits. It’s been quite a remarkable year, and we feel we’ve handled the challenge as well, and we’re poised for success as the economy recovers.

With that, let me turn it over to John for a thorough review of our financials. John?

John F. Woods — Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, Bruce, and good morning everyone. Let’s start with a brief overview of our headlines for the quarter starting on Page 5. This was an outstanding quarter for Citizens despite the ongoing challenges in the operating environment. We have generated record revenue in PPNR in the last few quarters with an excellent balance sheet position at September 30. For the third quarter, we reported underlying net income of $338 million, EPS of $0.73, and record revenue of $1.8 billion. Our underlying ROTCE was 9%. PPNR increased 6% linked quarter to another record level and was up 22% year-over-year. We posted record fee income for the quarter faced by record mortgage fees and strong results in capital markets and wealth. Also, we delivered positive operating leverage of 2.6% linked quarter and 9% year-over-year as we continued our strong expense discipline.

Net interest income was down 2% linked quarter, due to a 3% decline in loans given line draw paydowns and a 5 basis point reduction in NIM due to rates and elevated cash. This was mitigated by excellent results in interest-bearing deposit costs, which fell 13 basis points linked quarter to 35 basis points. I should note that on a normalized basis, which adjusts for PPP loans, commercial line repayments and the education loan sale completed in the quarter, average loans were up slightly linked quarter.

We increased our allowance for credit losses to $2.7 billion, which translates to a prudent ACL coverage ratio of 2.29%, excluding PPP loans, up from 2.09% last quarter. Note that the reserve build during the quarter of $209 million impacted EPS by $0.40 and ROTCE by 5 percentage points. We believe charge-offs should be stable in Q4 and barring a deterioration in economic outlook, we should start to see reserve releases beginning in the fourth quarter. Even with a significant reserve build, we demonstrated excellent balance sheet strength, ending the quarter with a CET1 ratio of 9.8%, up 20 basis points linked quarter and back within our pre-COVID operating level of approximately 9.75% to 10%.

Our liquidity ratios also improved as we ended the quarter with an LDR of 87%, and we remain in compliance with the LCR. Our tangible book value per share is $32.24 at quarter-end, up 2% compared with a year ago. On Page 6, I’ll cover net interest income. Net interest income was down 2% linked quarter given the impact of lower rates and a 3% decrease in loans as line draws were repaid, partly offset by lower interest-bearing deposit costs and improved deposit mix. Despite the challenging rate environment, net interest margin held up well, down 5 basis points this quarter. Rates drove a 7 basis point decrease through lower asset yields. And higher cash balances were a 2 basis point impact. These were partially offset by lower interest-bearing deposit costs and outsized growth in DDA.

Moving to Page 7. We delivered record results again this quarter in fees, reflecting our ongoing efforts to invest in and diversify our revenue streams. Underlying non-interest income was up 11% linked quarter and 33% year-over-year as our fee income ratio improved to 37%.

Mortgage banking delivered record results again this quarter on continued strength in originations, more than offsetting the modest decline in margins compared to last quarter’s all-time high. The mortgage business continues to provide an excellent natural hedge as intended against low rate pressure on NII. The wealth business rebounded nicely in the quarter, with revenues rebounding to record levels. This was driven by a strong increase in transaction volume and a solid increase in AUM. Service charges and card fees continue to trend back to pre-COVID levels. Key consumer drivers were increases in credit card purchase volume and debit card transaction volume, each of which is nearing pre-COVID activity levels. Capital market fees were down linked quarter, driven primarily by a recovery in treating values in the prior quarter. Excluding this, capital market fees were up 11%, driven by accelerating activity in loan syndications and M&A advisory.

Turning to Page 8. Let’s take a closer look at the mortgage business. The strong performance of the mortgage business again this quarter has really boosted our overall performance, providing diversification in this low rate environment. The business continues to demonstrate the benefits of the scale and diversity of our origination channels, off the back of our 2018 acquisition of Franklin American. We have made significant investments in the business over the last few years, upgrading our customer-facing technology with our focus on innovating the customer experience. Over 60% of retail applications are now completed through our digital app. The strength of our multi-channel distribution capabilities has enabled us to meet the extraordinary increase in demand in the market with 2020 the largest year from mortgage originations in US history. We expect volumes to remain elevated through 2021 at today’s rates, and we expect to make market share gains even as rates rise as we transition to a more purchase-driven market given our strength and execution consistency and leveraging our scale and channel diversification across our retail, correspondent and wholesale channels.

Turning to Page 9 on expenses. Underlying non-interest expense was down slightly linked quarter, reflecting continued strong expense discipline that generated robust positive operating leverage in the quarter. This continued expense discipline has contributed to the year-over-year and linked-quarter improvement in the efficiency ratio now at 53%. Salaries and employee benefits were relatively stable linked quarter and up 3% year-over-year, due to expenses connected with strong mortgage banking production volumes.

Next, on Page 10, average core loans were down 3% linked quarter and up slightly after normalizing for the impact of PPP loans, commercial line repayments and loan sales. We saw growth in consumer lending in both mortgage and student.

Moving to Page 11. Average deposits were broadly stable linked quarter and up 14% year-over-year as consumers and small businesses benefited from government stimulus and clients built liquidity. We were especially pleased with our progress on deposit costs, which declined 29% or 10 basis points to 25 basis points during the quarter. Interest-bearing deposit costs were down 13 basis points to 35 basis points. We executed our deposit playbook to manage down deposit costs across all channels, while improving our overall funding mix. We brought interest-bearing deposit costs down significantly by leveraging data and analytics to personalized offers and optimized pricing for our affluent and mass affluent customers. We continue to see a shift towards lower cost categories with average DDA growth of 8% on a linked quarter basis and 40% year-over-year. This continues the peer-leading momentum we have demonstrated in growing low-cost deposits over the last three years.

Turning to Page 12 to discuss our CECL methodology and reserves. We have summarized the key aspects of our macroeconomic scenario, which is a foundational element of the CECL reserve estimate. This scenario has improved slightly on that used in Q2. Nonetheless, we used management overlays in qualitative factors to build reserves focusing on expected performance trends in specific commercial sector portfolios most impacted by COVID-related not lockdowns, namely retail and hospitality-related CRE and casual dining, as well as in selected retail products. We feel we are well reserved at this point for extended pandemic and lockdown impacts on these sectors. Notwithstanding the sizable reserve build, our CET1 ratio improved 20 basis points to 9.8% given our robust PPNR growth and lower RWA.

On Page 13, we provide detail on our customer forbearance programs. In commercial, loans with payment deferrals declined 1.4% of our commercial loan book, down from 5.2% at June 30, and this is further decreased 1.2% as of October 13. For retail, loans in forbearance have declined to 3.8% compared to 6% at June 30 and have further declined to 3.4% as of October 13. This would be approximately 2%, if we reported forbearance ending immediately after the last deferred payment. The performance for customers that have exceeded forbearance is trending well with approximately 95% in current status. Also for customers that have not taken any forbearance, the delinquency status is trending favorably. Deferrals in business banking were 8.1% and are expected to decrease to approximately 1% by the end of October, with about 40% of our customers having received PPP funds and reopenings alleviating some of the stress.

Turning to Page 14 on credit. Non-accrual loans increased 29% linked quarter given $254 million increase in commercial, which was driven by two credits to mall REITs impacted by COVID-related lockdowns, as well as a $33 million increase in retail. Note that our total mall REIT exposure is approximately $400 million with two credits now on NPA status and the other performing okay. Net charge-offs were 70 basis points this quarter, driven by two large credits in commercial, one to a mall REIT and one in metals and mining. The increase in commercial was partially offset by an improvement in retail, reflecting the impact of forbearance and the improving economic backdrop in Q3. We took a prudent $209 million reserve build this quarter, which increased our coverage ratio from 2.09% in 2Q to 2.29% in 3Q, excluding PPP loans. Despite the somewhat lumpy increase in NPAs and charge-offs during the quarter, we are seeing broad signs of progress in commercial credit quality as the economy recovers.

In the appendix on Page 23, we provide you with an update on our view of the commercial portfolio. In the commercial portfolio as businesses had reopened and liquidity has improved from capital raising and federal stimulus, we have seen sectors begin to stabilize. These include accommodation and food services credits, including quickservice food concepts that have performed well during the pandemic; the Retail Trade sector getting our portfolio of lower risk gas stations in the central services; the less price-sensitive credits in the Energy & Related sector; and finally the Arts, Entertainment and Recreation sector as sports teams and stadiums that have further benefited from professional sports resuming. Given these positive trends, the areas we consider to be of elevated concern have dropped from 10% in 2Q to approximately 5% of total loans. The remaining areas of concern have been particularly hit by COVID-related closures, namely across retail-related CRE and hospitality, casual dining, retail trade, educational services and price-sensitive energy.

On Page 15, as I mentioned earlier, we feel well positioned to manage through the current environment with strong capital and liquidity positions. Our CET1 ratio have improved to 9.8%, up 20 basis points linked quarter given our strong PPNR generation and reduction in risk-weighted assets. We are now back in our target range of 9.75% to 10%. PPNR, as a percentage of average assets, was 3.9% year-to-date on a nine-quarter DFAST calculation basis and has increased steadily over the last five years, reflecting the benefits of investments and increasingly diversified revenue base. Strong deposit growth outpaced loan growth, which improved our liquidity metrics and drove the spot LDR down to 87%. During third quarter 2020, the company completed a subordinated debt exchange that will benefit total capital going forward by increasing the percentage of qualifying Tier 2 debt.

Turning to Page 16, I will update you on TOP6. We continue to execute on the transformational and traditional TOP program, and they clearly have been instrumental in our ability to deliver positive operating leverage and drive ROTCE improvement. The initiatives we launched are expected to achieve the original 2020 pre-tax run rate target of $225 million, and we are still on track to hit the $300 million to $325 million by year-end 2021.

We are also adding significant work streams to TOP6 largely focused on accelerating our digital capabilities to create increased efficiencies and frictionless customer experiences. These should deliver at least $100 million run rate by the end of 2021, and we are working to increase this. So, we are also working through the cost impact of how much we will invest or reinvest in strategic initiatives to drive future growth. We will be updating our expense outlook, including the benefit of the expanded initiatives to upscale these programs as part of our 4Q earnings call in January.

On Pages 17 and 18, I want to highlight some exciting things that are happening across the company. As we continue to strategically invest through the crisis to position us well for the medium term, we are focused not only on digitization, but also initiatives that position the franchise well for the long term. On the consumer side, we are focused on national expansion with Citizens Access integrating some of our lending businesses to further develop our national value proposition. In merchant finance, we are continuing to add new merchants to our point-of-sale platform, launching five important new merchant finance partners with more in the pipeline. And we are piloting a new customer-led point-of-sale value proposition. In commercial, we continue to expand our capital and global markets capabilities, including completing our first lead-left high-yield fixed income issuance, and we are also seeing increased client adoption of our digital treasury solutions.

Now, let’s move to Page 19 for high-level commentary on the outlook for the fourth quarter. We expect NII to be broadly stable with no expectation of PPP forgiveness benefit until next year. NIM is expected to be down low-to-mid single-digits. Loans should be stable; securities up modestly. Fee income is expected to be down mid-teens of the record third quarter level, reflecting lower mortgage banking fees. While we expect to see mortgage results come down from 3Q record levels, we do see a significant feeing opportunity that should continue into 4Q and well into 2021 at attractive margins, albeit lower than recent historic highs.

Non-interest expense is expected to be up modestly, reflecting seasonal factors. And we’re on track for full-year operating leverage of around 4%. We expect relatively stable net charge-offs in the range of 60 basis points to 80 basis points of average loans. We also expect a reserve release in Q4 given reserve builds taken year-to-date. And we should see a decline in NPAs.

On Slide 20, to sum up, we continue to navigate successfully through the COVID-19 crisis. The resilience of the franchise is again on display with record PPNR, record fee income and positive operating leverage. We remain well positioned to continue to strategically invest and deliver on key initiatives. Our ability to execute well drives our strong profitability, capital and liquidity positions.

With that, I’ll hand it over to Bruce.

Bruce Van Saun — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Okay. Thank you, John. Operator, let’s open it up for the Q&A.

Questions and Answers:

 

Bruce Van Saun — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Okay. [Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Peter Winter from Wedbush Securities. Please go ahead.

Peter Winter — Wedbush Securities — Analyst

Good morning. Thanks. I was just curious — what gives you the confidence that non-performing assets are going to decline. And at this point in the cycle, there still seems a lot of uncertainty that you’d be willing to release reserves next quarter.

Bruce Van Saun — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Why don’t I start, John, and then, you could pick in. So if you look at what drove up the NPAs this quarter, it really was isolated to just two exposures we had to mall REITs, which frankly has been really stellar performing companies best-in-class, which we had long relationships with, but obviously the COVID and lockdowns and change behavior because of some stress there. And so, we’ve recognized that. We do a pretty careful job of forecasting the migration through criticized assets and what could go NPA.

And so, we think beyond that, we don’t really — as I think John said in his prepared remarks, we’re seeing some broad signs of optimism and some improvement in the overall commercial book. So we really don’t think we’re going to be taking a lot new and then, we’ll have some charge-offs — some degree of charge-offs, which will reduce the NPA. So you put that all together and I think we’re feeling pretty confident on the commercial side. And then, if you look at consumer as well, we’ve had really, really healthy trends even surprising to the point of being surprising, but very solid in terms of delinquency, so feel really good there as well.

John F. Woods — Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer

So I just add, we’re just higher level, and we have pretty good line of sight when you think about over the next 60 to 90 days about what’s going to migrate on the commercial side. I mean, we’ve got paydowns and charge-offs that are coming through. And things are, as we mentioned in our overall areas of market concern, we were at 10% last quarter. That number has fallen to 5%. We delineated where the puts and takes are with respect to that in our slide deck. And so, we’ve done a bottoms-up cash burn analysis, which John can comment on. So we feel reasonably comfortable with that guide on the non-accrual space.

Peter Winter — Wedbush Securities — Analyst

I mean, just on the reserve levels with releasing reserves, just I feel like there is still enough uncertainty in the economy, [Indecipherable] decision to release property release reserves next quarter?

John F. Woods — Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, I mean, I’ll go ahead and take that one. I mean, I think this comes back to a methodology of CECL in the first place. I mean, we’ve been — over time, there has been significant uncertainty with respect to the scenario. And we saw how that trajectory played out over the first and second quarter where we built in both quarters. This quarter, the scenario actually got a little better. And I think at least from what we can see, the level of uncertainty has started to shape into something that we feel comfortable with our outlook. I think the difference this quarter in terms of our build is we’ve been spending a lot of time with individual sector reviews, and that really was those management overlays and the qualitative factors and what drove our build this quarter.

After we’ve gotten through all of that — when we, if the scenario barring a deterioration in the environment, we feel like after analyzing what we expect the loss content to be in these categories that the reserving requirements have been satisfied and so, therefore, the loss content has been provided for. And therefore on a go-forward basis, the way CECL works is that you would charge-off against that reserves that you’ve already built, and the provisions will be driven by new origination and go-forward activity. So from our standpoint, that would — that would mean reserve releases with provisions less than charge-offs.

Peter Winter — Wedbush Securities — Analyst

Okay. Thanks for taking my question.

Bruce Van Saun — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Sure.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Erika Najarian from Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Erika Najarian — Bank of America Merrill Lynch — Analyst

Hi, good morning.

Bruce Van Saun — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Good morning.

John F. Woods — Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer

Good morning.

Erika Najarian — Bank of America Merrill Lynch — Analyst

As we take a step back, obviously, unfortunately, given the timing of where we are in the year, I’m sure you’ll get a lot of questions on ’21 and I know you’ll defer us to January for details, but as we take a step back and we think about all the work that you’ve done either through the TOP programs and building your fee income-generating capabilities and weigh that against obviously, the interest rate challenges and the swap income roll-off, as we think about normalized return sort of post the spike in credit that we all expect for ’21, as you think about normalized ROTCE for Citizens sort of in a post-COVID recovery world with no help with rates, do you think that you have enough in the tail with top or fee generation to achieve, it’s like a 10% or low-double digit ROTCE on the other side.

Bruce Van Saun — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. I’ll start, then again, John, you can add your perspective. But yeah, I think that’s certainly the case, Erika. So if you look at what we delivered just this quarter was 9% with a huge reserve build, which the build basically cost us 5% of ROTCE. So you can do the math on that, but we will, I think going forward, have lower credit costs. We will have some NIM headwinds, but again, we consider hedges as part of the strategy in managing a low rate environment, but our mortgage business was also part of that strategy as well. And so, there seems to be a great fixation on hedging, and some folks have put hedges on. I think we’ve done a nice job there, but some folks may have some longer duration or more hedges, but they don’t have the size mortgage business that we have.

And so, I think if you look at our PPNR generation through this year, we’re really top of the class in terms of how we’ve been performing. So we expected to be linked to run in the mortgage business through next year. 60% of the households in the country would benefit, I’d say, by more than 50 basis points in terms of the math if they refinance their mortgage. So there’s going to be continued demand on the refi side. As the market goes back to a purchase market, we also are very well positioned to be part of — we have the most diversified origination channels of any bank-owned mortgage company with exposure to retail to correspondent and wholesale. We’ve worked really hard to digitize that business and gain market share and be able to handle volumes efficiently, so feel really good about that.

So I’d say we’re kind of on the doorstep of crashing through double-digit ROTCE. I think we can get there and certainly sustain it. But it’s going to take all the levers of the fee investments that we’ve made doing more TOP and continuing to focus on driving efficiencies, looking for volume in terms of loan growth. And we see — we think there’s going to be some opportunities. We think we uniquely have some niches on the consumer side that some of our peers don’t have. And I think also in commercial, we’ve been able to achieve nice growth through the build-out of some of our regional geographies. So we know what we have to do. We know what the objective is, and we’re going to keep driving towards that original medium-term targets. I think you probably need a little help from rates to get all the way there, but certainly double-digit seems like a bar we can hurdle. John?

John F. Woods — Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. I think, right, not too much to add other than — I think it’s — I think that we have been a self-help story in the past. And I think we absolutely remain so going forward. In the NII space, our BSO actions and with interest-bearing deposit costs at around 35 basis points, there’s a lot of opportunity there for us. We are completely different bank than we — this ZIRP versus last. And so, you can expect that our interest-bearing deposit costs are going to find new lows for the bank compared to where we were at the end of the last ZIRP.

On fees, like night — it’s night and day with respect to our diversification, a combination of the organic investments that we’ve made, and the inorganic acquisitions that we’ve made have been extremely powerful in the fee generation space as you’re seeing in mortgage. But we shouldn’t forget about wealth, which is hovering around record levels on its own, but sometimes gets overshadowed by the eye-popping numbers in mortgage, but the diversification there is great, and the capital markets business has never been more diversified. And then finally expenses, we’ve had a history of our TOP6 programs that will continue, that will be a hallmark of what we do. And we have a lot more opportunity there as well. So those are the final points I think.

Bruce Van Saun — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Okay. Thanks.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Scott Siefers from Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

Scott Siefers — Piper Sandler — Analyst

Good morning, guys. Thank you for taking the question.

Bruce Van Saun — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Good morning.

Scott Siefers — Piper Sandler — Analyst

I just wanted to ask on credit broadly. What is your sense for when loss content will really begin to materialize. I think it kind of feels like it keeps getting pushed back, and the consensus now seems to be sort of mid to even late 2021. So just curious to hear your thoughts. And then, just at a very top level, what kind of cycle do you really think you’re sort of setting yourselves up for? It seems like with current info, most of the economy will sort of slog through. And it’s just these isolated areas that will see the real pain. So is this something where we could really resolve most of the credit cycle next year or do we see this sort of bleeding on for a couple of years from here?

Bruce Van Saun — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Sure. So what I’d say on that is you have to look at commercial and you have to look at consumer. Consumer has been extremely well behaved. And we’ve had folks on forbearance. So people rolling off forbearance have actually been current. And we haven’t seen any uptick in charge-offs, but I think the residual folks who are on forbearance, there will be some charge-off content there, and I think that probably doesn’t peak until sometime in the middle of next year. So whether that’s Q2 or Q3, we’ll see.

I think on the commercial side, we’ve got hit with two one-offs this quarter. And there is — the pig is going through the python. I don’t think there is significant jumps on the commercial side. I think we’re probably nearing the peak charge-offs, but they’ll stay elevated for a while before they move back down I think in the second half of the year. So I’d say, our outlook is that most of this should resolve over the course of next year setting us up for, I think, more normalized charge-off rates as we head towards 2022.

Any comment — Brendan, you want to comment on the consumer side at all?

Brendan Coughlin — Head of Consumer Banking

Yeah. Let me just add a little specificity. So John quoted a few numbers in forbearance. We’re increasingly confident that, that portfolio is of high quality, particularly with some portfolios that we are of high interest that hadn’t gone through cycle before our student portfolio is holding up incredibly well so far. And the merchant finance portfolio is equally holding up incredibly well and in fact, that portfolio has almost no customers in forbearance at all. And delinquency is still flat for pre-COVID. So, we’re feeling really, really strong about consumer. As John mentioned, the customers that are firmly still in forbearance has moved from a peak of ever forbearance at 8% to now 2%. And our delinquency rates have been flat to down at the same time. So we’re seeing a lot of gearing out of the forbearance portfolio with very minimal impact distressed consumer behavior so far. So we’re out of the woods, but surprising. And the green shoots that we’re seeing are quite positive.

Bruce Van Saun — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Don, maybe you want to talk about…

Donald H. McCree — Vice Chairman and Head of Commercial Banking

I’d echo that. And I do think it’s kind of elevated for next year, but we’re kind of peaking out where we are right now. I think remember I’ll just emphasize what Bruce said, our view is based on a client-by-client liquidity analysis where we project out current rates of cash generation versus current rates of cash burn. And we’re seeing really positive trends. We’ve taken 25% of the companies that were in the high-risk category out of that category based on our last analysis. We’re also seeing record level of customer deposits, so they have heavy levels of liquidity sitting with us. And we’re seeing — on a customer-by-customer basis, we’re seeing the bigger customers as everybody now is going to the public markets and grabbing any amount of liquidity that we get in the high yield in the equity markets. And their smaller customers, while they’re having a little bit of a more difficult time, they’re managing their businesses in a really conservative way for cash. So they kind of cut expense levels, and they’re positioning their businesses to survive an extended slowdown, if there is an extended slowdown. So we feel good about what customers are doing on an individual basis.

Bruce Van Saun — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Great.

Scott Siefers — Piper Sandler — Analyst

That’s perfect color. Thank you very much. And I guess, I can sneak one in here. Just Bruce, you noted the kind of emerging emphasis on things like hedging programs, would you guys have benefited from — I’ve noticed the same thing. I guess maybe Don, as you sort of think about things into next year, when and how do we see some of those hedges that you guys put in place roll off. And so, what is the sense? Should we just sort of recast our focus on to the key drivers such as mortgage and wealth that you alluded to earlier or how do we kind of replace those benefits as they do roll off?

John F. Woods — Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. I mean, basically, the hedges that are in place roll off throughout 2021. By the end of 2021, most of that benefit is starting to wane, but what I do is take a step back on NIM overall, the levers that we’re pulling and have very large opportunity to get after is what I mentioned earlier with respect to interest-bearing deposit costs sitting at 35 basis points. We expect those to decline significantly in 2021. That’s on the sort of funding side of things. We also are focusing on the asset side. So we have broader BSO efforts, rotating our capital and allocating it into better risk return categories and profiles.

And then, you heard from Bruce earlier, the mortgage business has room to run. There are trillions of dollars of mortgages that are — that have a refinance incentive, and I think that — I would say that we have — that business is rate sensitive and has been part of our hedging story and has done incredibly well. And a lot of the NIM headwinds, frankly, I guess I could say most of the headwinds, all of that in 2020 and probably on a cumulative basis through 2021, most of those rate headwinds will be offset by expected mortgage fee — elevated mortgage fee revenues. So — and then, of course, you heard — when you have rates falling, that’s a big impact, and we’ll have to look at all the levers across the self-help that we feel like is alive and well here, and that would include expenses in TOP6 as part of that.

Bruce Van Saun — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

The last thing I would say, Scott. And I know — I hope it’s not a strategy, but if you consider that we could see real progress on the health front and you could get — these treatments are progressing nicely, vaccines are progressing, you could see another stimulus bill. It seems like the folks in Washington are getting closer on that. You could actually see a fairly decent rebound next year, which could result and steepen enough in the curve. We had a lot of benefits and also opportunities to lay on some more hedges. So anyway, we’re keeping our eye on that, but…

Scott Siefers — Piper Sandler — Analyst

Really [Technical Issues].

Bruce Van Saun — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. When you run your scenarios, you have to consider that as a possible scenario.

Scott Siefers — Piper Sandler — Analyst

Yeah. That’s perfect.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of John Pancari from Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.

John Pancari — Evercore ISI — Analyst

Good morning.

John F. Woods — Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer

Good morning.

John Pancari — Evercore ISI — Analyst

Also on the credit front, I know you mentioned the — that you’re closely tracking loss migration and that has influenced your commentary around non-performing asset levels likely to decline. Can you just give us — do you have what your total criticized assets trends were for the third quarter, and how that may break down in terms of the special mention versus classified?

Bruce Van Saun — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. We published that in the Q. I would say directionally it’s up and it’s mostly special mention. So stay tuned for the details on that.

John Pancari — Evercore ISI — Analyst

Okay. All right. Thanks, Bruce. And then, also on the credit side, the — I wonder if you could just give us a little bit of update on what you’re seeing in your commercial real estate portfolio. Are you beginning to see stress there? I know you mentioned the mall REITs, but just curious about other properties how that portfolio is projecting. It looks like you added a fair amount of the reserve this quarter there.

John F. Woods — Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. I think it’s really what we mentioned. It’s retail and hospitality where we’re focused. If you click through the different asset classes, office looks like it’s holding up pretty well with rents being paid. Well, multi-family, it looks like it’s holding up pretty well. We’ve got our eye on trends there.

Bruce Van Saun — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

We don’t have the big exposure to some of the cities. So frankly, they get tips like New York and San Francisco fortunately.

John F. Woods — Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer

And then, you get into the Industrial and healthcare, and those are also holding up quite well, so the place where focus is on the retail and hospitality. On the hospitality side, we’ve got an exposure to business travel, which is obviously slowed, but we’ve got very diversified sponsors, and we’ve got some support provided by those sponsors in terms of flag change, which have overlaid guarantees on some of that. So, it’s really around the other areas of retail, and we feel like we’re in pretty good shape with the reserves we put up at this point.

Bruce Van Saun — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. I think what we tried to do here was really look at, if we’re in an extended period of either lockdowns or consumer behavioral shifts that goes well into 2021 and that puts more stress on these narrow sectors. Let’s make sure we’ve taken credit off the table and put up a sizable reserve there.

John F. Woods — Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer

And then, the other thing I mentioned is we are working with all of the sponsors. We really bank the best sponsors out there, and they’re working with us and they’re restructuring the properties that are having temporary dislocation. So — and we’ve given some forbearance, but they’re also putting some money into pay interest and keep the properties operate.

John Pancari — Evercore ISI — Analyst

Okay. Thank you. That’s helpful. If I could just ask one more on the efficiency, that $100 million just to confirm, we do not yet know how much will fall to the bottom line of that $100 million?

Bruce Van Saun — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. That’s good, John. So we conveyed — we communicated appropriately. So we are going to — we’re working on that launching a number of work streams, some of those are in Brendan’s area, in consumer, the big digitization push. And so far, the tally is up to at least $100 million. So that’s good news. And we’re going to keep trying to drive that higher. We also have a couple of pages in there in some of our strategic initiatives. And so, one of our objectives here is to really keep investing for our future, so that we come out of this challenging period and even better position with a stronger franchise that’s positioned to grow and to continue to do well. And so, we’re working through the pacing of some of those investments and which ones to prioritize. So we’re kind of reluctant at this point to give you a full update on expense guidance until we complete that work, but I’m sure we knew there was going to be a clamoring for what if you got so far. So we put the number out there. Stay tuned to January. We will give you all of that in the context of our full-year guidance that we do every January earnings call.

John Pancari — Evercore ISI — Analyst

Got it. All right. Thanks, Bruce.

Bruce Van Saun — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Sure.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Ken Usdin from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Ken Usdin — Jefferies — Analyst

Oh, thanks. Good morning guys.

Bruce Van Saun — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Hi, there.

Ken Usdin — Jefferies — Analyst

Hey, if I could just follow up on the last question a little bit. So TOP6, you’re on track and you still have another $75 million to $100 million by year-end. And then, the new $100 million on top of that, not looking for expense guidance, but just can you help us understand of that $175 million to $200 million that you — at minimum, you expect to get next year, the approximate mix of like what comes through expenses of that and what comes through revenues of that because you’re talking about like these new revenue opportunities as you just alluded to Bruce? Thanks.

Bruce Van Saun — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah.

John F. Woods — Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, I’ll go ahead and take that. I mean, I think the majority of this is an expense-driven program. There are some revenue opportunities that are there in the traditional TOP program as we have done historically, but for example, the transformation piece of this is 100% expenses for the most part, and I would say that that’s really the main driver of the program, but we also do use the program to fund revenue opportunities as well and to drive upside on that front. I would hasten to add though that when you start doing the numbers, you’re looking at a run rate target of around $225 million by the end of this year. That rises to as high as $325 million. There is $100 million there. And then, we also mentioned the additional $100 million at least that Bruce mentioned as well. So we wanted to make sure that we weren’t losing track of those different hundreds.

Ken Usdin — Jefferies — Analyst

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Okay, very good. And then, second question just John on the PPP in general, many banks have thought through that forgiveness might start in the fourth quarter. It seems like you guys are conservative in terms of not at least putting it in your core — your NII guide, but can you just help us understand and I know it’s more of a timing question, but just what you expect and how do you expect this to all go with regardless — with regards to forgiveness timing and also just how much was PPP in 3Q NII as well? Thanks guys. Appreciate it.

John F. Woods — Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, sure. I’ll start off and maybe Brendan will comment on it, but in terms of process, I mean, the forgiveness process can take up to five months. There is many steps that have to be made. Maybe, Brendan, can talk about the invitation approach that we’re taking in the fourth quarter, but I think that our view is, given the complexity there that it would be appropriate to — in the outlook to not include any acceleration with respect to forgiveness benefit. That said, we do — as you know, the way the accounting works is that we are incorporating the expected fees on a level year basis over the life of the 24 months of these loans.

And so, every quarter that goes by, we are recognizing P&L that is attributable to the PPP program. In the third quarter, the yield on the program is nearing somewhere between — nearing 3% in terms of a yield and from a pretax standpoint, if you — maybe in the $25 million range for the third quarter. So that gives you a sense, and all of that. When I call pretax, all of that — that’s really after the expenses. It’s a tiny bit higher on the NII line. So — and that number will be — with no forgiveness, we’ll see that again in a similar number in the fourth quarter given the way that the accounting works and if forgiveness really is really a 1H 2021 event as we are forecasting.

Bruce Van Saun — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

And I would say one thing on that. It’s Bruce. And then, I’ll let Brendan go, but Ken, initially, we take it out over roughly a quarter. And I think we had $140 million, $150 million roughly to amortize on a straight-line basis, but we thought that forgiveness would occur much sooner. We had thought some of that would trickle into Q3 and Q4, but now, it looks like that will largely be at first half ’21 event, but the spike is going to be lower since the longer this goes towards the end of the period, then you won’t get the same spike as if you had a massive acceleration into say Q3. That would have really altered the timing in a material way. But at this point, since we are steadily recognizing and then, there’s less time remaining to accelerate the spike. It shouldn’t be as dramatic just to make that mathematical point.

Brendan Coughlin — Head of Consumer Banking

On the timing, the one thing I would just add is, keep in mind, the customer doesn’t need to incur interest charges until October of next year. And so, there is no huge pressure point for our customers to apply for forgiveness right in the second. And so, with…

John F. Woods — Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer

They don’t have to pay.

Brendan Coughlin — Head of Consumer Banking

They don’t have to pay. So with the various bills going through Congress that would possibly be quite positive to these customers, there is a bit of a waiting game and that’s what we’re hearing from most customers is that they’d rather wait and see what flexibility has afforded to them before they jump in and start the forgiveness process. So we’re getting a handful trickle then. And then to John’s point, once the customer provides all their documentation, the SBA still has a three-month window to stamp it and say, yes, they’re able to be forgiven. And that’s the recognition of that. That’s on the SBA stance. So there is a bit of a tail on this. We expect that at Bruce pointed and John pointed out to be [Speech Overlap].

Bruce Van Saun — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

And there are few things. Some small business owners are being cautious here and just holding on to that cash to see what the forgiveness turns out that the Board [Phonetic] might have to pay it back. It’s one of the reasons we saw the elevated cash balances. So they’ve slipped into their own pocket to keep the lights going in the business. And so, we will — I think there is just a bit of caution in general as you said.

Ken Usdin — Jefferies — Analyst

Understood. Hey, one just quick clarification John, that $25 million pretax, was that the fee part of it, or is that also with the NII adjusted from the loan yield?

John F. Woods — Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, it’s — that’s the fee part of it and the NII. So it’s all in. And that’s consumer and commercial.

Ken Usdin — Jefferies — Analyst

Okay. So that’s the all-in what you had from PPP. Thanks.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Ken Zerbe from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Ken Zerbe — Morgan Stanley — Analyst

Thanks. So just in terms of credit, it sounds like the management overlays drove most of the reserve build this quarter. What is your CECL model, if we look at CECL by itself, actually tell you to do with reserves?

Bruce Van Saun — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

I think it’s hard to parse it, Ken, actually because to us the CECL model is not just the macro forecast. It’s a process that involves many, many, many variables, and management judgment is one of those variables. So I think it’s just hard to parse that.

Ken Zerbe — Morgan Stanley — Analyst

Got it. Okay. Then maybe just on the same topic, I guess why apply that management overlays this quarter? I’m sure you had some in the earlier in the year, but it seems like maybe, this quarter had more of the qualitative adjustment rather than [Speech Overlap].

Bruce Van Saun — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

I think we’ve had — overlays and qualitative factors are part of the process every quarter. I think the reason to call these out was you had a slight divergence. It looked like the macro forecast was a little better, the backdrop was a little better, but what we’re seeing is that consumer behavior and the effect of lockdowns is going to be more prolonged than I think we saw when we were assessing it in the first quarter and second quarter. We think it could be well into 2021 before we get back to life as we knew it into a normal lifestyle, which means these retail and hospitality, entertainment, travel, all of that genre could still be in a difficult situation for longer. So you wouldn’t necessarily pick that up from your macro forecast. I mean, that’s a kind of unique aspect of certain businesses are disproportionately impacted from the new normal about how we’re living our lives. And so, that’s why we’re calling it out.

Ken Zerbe — Morgan Stanley — Analyst

All right. Great. Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Vivek Juneja from J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.

Vivek Juneja — J.P. Morgan — Analyst

Hi, couple of — I’m going to just follow up on some of the themes that have been coming up. The release in reserves, Bruce and John that you are expecting in the fourth quarter, which loan categories do you think that you’re expecting to see that at this point? Where is that visibility coming from?

John F. Woods — Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer

I mean, I will go and take that. That is kind of like the way CECL works as you know. I mean, we provide for all of the loans that we — that are outstanding at September 30 for the loss content that we see after considering our macroeconomic scenario and then, our qualitative factors that we reviewed by loan category. And if we’re right and it’s very hard to say that you can be. There’s so much uncertainty that a lot of that build, as you know, in the third quarter came through the commercial portfolios.

And as we’ve mentioned earlier, CRE, retail and hospitality and we also mentioned casual dining, the sectors where we built reserves. So once that’s done, then theoretically at least, you’re just going to charge off against those reserves going forward assuming you were right about what the loss content is and what the scenario will be. The rest of your provisioning then would only be focused on your front book activity and growth. So where we’re going to grow going forward, let’s say, for example, in the residential mortgage and student and merchant spaces, we would provide additional reserves for those loans as they come on as well as the C&I loans that we’re going to see as you get to the end of the fourth quarter. So it really is — you have to sort of look at it in those two buckets as waste [Speech Overlap].

Bruce Van Saun — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

And just make an assumption that the environment won’t deteriorate at a meaningful way, so that you wouldn’t need to add to any further reserves around the back book. Now, there could be some of that, but we don’t see it a sufficient amount of it to result in a reserve build and a need to a reserve build.

Vivek Juneja — J.P. Morgan — Analyst

Okay. And what are you thinking about the student loan book because that forbearance rate has stayed pretty high. It hasn’t come down. It’s higher than even resi mortgages. Could you comment on why that’s the case as they just not come up for, how long is the forbearance period? Have they just not come up yet, or have they gone — what percentage have gone in for extension of the deferral?

Bruce Van Saun — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

So we’re actually starting to see it gear down a little bit in the recent weeks. It was lagging a little bit principally because the majority of our student loan book and student loan refi and a lot of those customers also have government loans, which had significant forbearance periods that were automatically granted. And so, customers were triggered by the government events. And they called all the private lenders and banks and raise your hand for forbearance and they’re sort of no reason for them to delink those two. So, we’ve been aggressively working with our customers to make sure we try to understand where they’re at. And if they have the capacity to pay, but if they are still on the fence, we’ve been allowing them a little bit of leeway to win on their feet, but every underlying dynamic we see in that portfolio is quite positive, recall for super-prime portfolio, the credit is $780 million-plus [Phonetic] in that portfolio and particularly in the refi portfolio, they’ll make six-figure income. That’s the sector that’s been the least impacted by unemployment. And so, we feel quite strong, but this is — there is no significant underlying dynamic that’s different student than any other portfolio in consumer.

Vivek Juneja — J.P. Morgan — Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Saul Martinez from UBS. Please go ahead.

Saul Martinez — UBS — Analyst

Hey, good morning guys.

Bruce Van Saun — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Hi.

Saul Martinez — UBS — Analyst

Sorry. So good morning. Couple of questions. First, John, you mentioned that you — the hedges should mostly roll off and the headwinds from the hedges rolling off should be pretty — for the most part, fully realized by the end of ’21 and certainly ’22 and I think we’ve estimated that the headwinds probably in the $250 million annualized from the hedges rolling off, can you — is that — I mean, can you just give us a sense of the magnitude of the incremental headwinds, if your number is more or less right? How should we see that those incremental headwinds sort of materializing in ’21 and ’22?

John F. Woods — Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. It would be a fraction of that — without really getting into the numbers, it’s not nearly that big. It’s not — it’s nowhere near that from what we can see, how we track through 2020. I mean, you got to think about where — what the terms are and which we publish and you can see what the terms are on those swaps I believe. But it’s much, much lower than that. And I would say to just bring it back bigger picture to ensure those are running off, but mortgage business has been part of our hedging strategy all along. The majority of the NIM headwinds on a cumulative basis are being offset in 2020 and ’21 by the mortgage business.

And we also have a very significant lever with respect to interest-bearing deposit costs this time around in the reserve given all of the investments we’ve made in the analytics and product capabilities and orientation of our bank across consumer and commercial with respect to the relationship-driven deposit gathering that we have embarked upon, which takes years to do, but that started many years ago. So we’re starting to see that bear fruit. Those are things I think about when you’re trying to consider the puts and takes for next year.

Saul Martinez — UBS — Analyst

Yeah. They’ll get that. Maybe, we can go over the mechanics offline, but there does seem to be sense from the investment community that the headwinds are we’re talking about on a standard basis, not factoring in some of the offsets are in the hundreds of millions of dollars, but just to be clear, you’re saying that, that estimate just on a standard basis, nothing else, just the hedges rolling off, that stuff, that number is way too high. Is that right?

John F. Woods — Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer

That’s correct. That’s correct. And we can take you through the math on that offline with some publicly available information, and we’ll just make sure that you’re seeing at the way we see it.

Saul Martinez — UBS — Analyst

Okay. Just one other question on NII, what are you assuming for forgiveness in — ultimately, throughout the course of the first half of next year? What percentage of loans?

John F. Woods — Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer

So the full percentage — so where — there is a 15% tail that we think will be forgiven on the backend. And so, the other 85% will come through mostly in 1H. So there are some that will come through for the third quarter or so.

Saul Martinez — UBS — Analyst

Got it. Okay. Thanks a lot.

Bruce Van Saun — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Okay. Is that it?

Operator

No, one more.

Bruce Van Saun — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

One more question. Yeah, we’ll take one more question.

Operator

That question comes from the line of Dave Rochester from Compass Point. Please go ahead.

Dave Rochester — Compass Point — Analyst

Hey, good morning guys.

Bruce Van Saun — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Hi.

Dave Rochester — Compass Point — Analyst

Hi, just on the NIM guidance, so just curious how much deposit growth you’re assuming that feeds into that, if any or if you’re looking for more of that continued favorable mix shift that you’ve been having there favoring the lower cost of deposit.

John F. Woods — Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, it’s primarily a mix shift story. I mean, we’ve got — we’ve gotten search deposits, like many other banks. We think some of that may stick around for quite a while in — through well into 2021. So there’s that benefit we’ve paid down. Everything you can pay down and we’re sitting around with some excess cash. And so, excess cash is a drag on NIM, call it, about a 2 basis point drag or so in — on a quarter-over-quarter basis in the fourth quarter, but it’s getting up to near, call it, 8 basis points to 10 basis points on an absolute basis in the fourth quarter all that excess cash. We’ll see — we want to see that pay down over time, but as it relates to deposits, really we’re seeing great mix shift into DDA. We’ve had, I think, three years running now, peer-leading DDA growth and that’s part of the next story. And it’s just accelerating that trend that already was happening with us. That’s nice to see on the deposit side.

Dave Rochester — Compass Point — Analyst

Yeah. When you mentioned the cash that’s sitting there, I mean, are there any lumpy maturities on the borrowing side that maybe you can take advantage of use, some of that cash to pay those down, anything over the next year that we can look forward that it wasn’t?

John F. Woods — Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. I mean, not a lot. So our flow of funds are down to zero and then, our senior debt, we have very, very modest and maturities coming in early 2021.

Bruce Van Saun — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

We just called one issue, and we did sub-debt exchange. So we’re working that as much as we can, but not a huge amount of opportunity there.

Dave Rochester — Compass Point — Analyst

Yeah. All right. And then, if you guys have any color on new loan yields and the securities purchase yields that you guys are seeing today. I’m just trying to get a sense for where we could ultimately be going on the average earning asset yield, if we continue to see this flat curve over the next couple of years.

John F. Woods — Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. And so, for securities, I’ll take and maybe, Don or Brendan want to talk about spreads, but I mean — on the loan side, but it’s not a great story on the security side. There is a 45 basis point, just call it, negative front foot back book in terms of run-off, which comes off at around, call it, 190 basis points and you’ve got reinvestment coming on at around 140 basis points or 145 basis points on the front book for securities. So that’s the story there. I think in commercial, we’re seeing strong sort of — spreads are up, but rates are down, so that’s good. In the consumer side of things, we’re seeing some interesting positive trends there in auto, which has been quite good and really strong spreads there and maybe I’ll just let Don and Brendan add anything else.

Brendan Coughlin — Head of Consumer Banking

Yeah, I think auto has been very strong. Student loan refi has also been very strong. We’re seeing a significant increase in margin across basically all the products.

Bruce Van Saun — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

So you may want also talk merchant. We just — they had a nice string of wins.

Brendan Coughlin — Head of Consumer Banking

Yeah.

Bruce Van Saun — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

And Apple just launched their — is launching their new product.

Brendan Coughlin — Head of Consumer Banking

Our merchant business kind of has the profile of a credit card business. Apple, we’re gearing in, so that new product release for them right now with the 5G phone, so we’re enthusiastic about that. Microsoft All Access has geared upwards of this big launch right now seasonally. And we just launched — as John pointed out earlier, five new merchant partners really centered in home improvement, electronics and fitness, similar to our Peloton relationship with the firm. So we’re really bullish about the growth there. We’re actually getting some really decent momentum that should really help offset some of the yield headwind from some of the other portfolios by bringing in something of that high yield.

Donald H. McCree — Vice Chairman and Head of Commercial Banking

On commercial, we are generally getting anywhere from 10 basis points to 30 basis points better spreads on undue originations, and we’re also putting LIBOR floors and a lot of transactions, which are helping the overall yield. And that seems to be holding.

Bruce Van Saun — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Okay. All right. Thanks for the question.

Brendan Coughlin — Head of Consumer Banking

We appreciate it.

Bruce Van Saun — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Okay. I think that’s it for the queue. Thanks again for dialing in today everyone. We appreciate your interest and support. Have a great day, and everybody stay well.

Operator

[Operator Closing Remarks]