CATY
#Hi, <UNK>.
Yes, <UNK>.
<UNK> <UNK>.
We have about $300 million of wholesale deposits that we expect to run off in the first quarter.
And if, in terms of our deposit costs, based on the surveys that we see as well as our own deposits, we have not raised rates at all since the Fed increased prime.
And given, for us, relatively our loan-to-deposit ratios, we would ---+ we tend to want to wait longer before raising deposits because we do have access to wholesale funding that would help us meet loan growth.
So I don't see any pressure for us to increase deposit rates for the next couple months.
<UNK>, this is <UNK> <UNK>.
As far as promotion is concerned, what we have now is as Chinese New Year is approaching, and traditionally we have a small promotion for deposits.
But this time, because our liquidity is quite good, we are not giving any concession increase in rates.
All we are doing with this promotion is to give a monkey (laughter).
It looks very nice.
You can see it on our website, I think.
You should see the monkey.
<UNK>, I retired from giving guidance on the margins, but we ---+ if you can look at our net interest income growth year-to-year and link quarter, it is pretty good.
I think that would bode well.
And we're going to let our securities portfolio ---+ we're going to be cautious on reinvesting it.
We would rather pay down this $300 million of wholesale CDs, so ---+ and then lastly, as I mentioned on the last call, February is a good month, because we have so much in the way of mortgages.
And I think this year it's a 29-day month, but it's still ---+ we get some extra margin increase from the short month in February, so that's where we are.
Sure.
Yes.
Let me look at that, because we ---+ the money market, we have a number of products.
And we have, for the large corporate customers, we have a premium money market account, and I mentioned that there was an increase in money markets, so ---+ And then the CDs, so the money market went up 2 basis points link quarter.
The CDs went up 2 basis points.
That is just the impact from our summer CD promotion, which is now fully ramped in.
We just track it by the individual loans that change by more than $4 million.
So it'd be ---+ any number we give you wouldn't be accurate, but it certainly was more than it was in the third quarter.
Yes.
When Congress passed the budget bill in December, it extended the solar tax credit until 2019.
So we have several years.
And given the amount of taxes we're paying, we have plenty of capacity.
So we would try to keep the solar tax credit at the same dollar amount.
And then meanwhile, if you look at the balance sheet, in the low-income housing and affordable ---+ I'm sorry, and alternative energy balance sheet, that went up by about $90 million from a year over year.
We are ramping up our investments in low-income housing, much as some of the other banks have been doing.
So that should help lower our effective tax rate in future years as well.
Great.
Thank you, Aaron.
Hi, <UNK>.
They would go up $4 million for the full year, so it's $1 million a quarter.
No, let me just try to do math without a calculator.
For the full year, that line was $33.3 million.
$24.5 million was solo, so the rest was ---+ I think it was $9.8 million is low-income housing.
So that could ---+
So that's going to go up by $4 million in 2016.
Yes.
So in no particular order, we are going to pay down the balances and then the average rate in those CDs are running off.
It's probably 85 basis points.
It's like our average CD ---+ yes, it's 85 basis points.
And then seasonality ---+ I'm doing this from memory, but in past years our money market balances have dropped during the Chinese New Year, Irwin, right.
Yes, that is our Chief Operating Officer.
So we and ---+
Well, last year was a little bit special because of our summer CD promotion.
We brought in quite a bit of money.
And the other one, of course, is our merger with Asia Bank.
But in the fourth quarter itself, our deposit growth was $270 million.
Right.
And that is net of those two lumpy deposit growth that I talked about.
Yes.
So, <UNK>, we repurchased 2 million shares in 2015 and we started in the middle of August.
And we generally had a price target of just right around [30].
So we have 622,000 shares remaining.
We would start buying back early next week when we are passed the blackout period.
Then we will go to our Board to ask for a new authorization.
We have plenty of dividend capacity.
So, yes, we've told investors we want to manage our capital levels, so if our stock price is reasonable or appropriate, we would try to buy it back 2 million to 3 million shares a year, and we will try to target like a 90% or 100% total capital return.
So our capital ratios would diminish over time as our loans grew.
<UNK>, this is <UNK> <UNK>.
Just to repeat, our priority of excess capital usage is ---+ first and foremost, is to grow our Business.
And secondly is on dividend and then I looked at opportunity to go to bank as well, so those are our priorities.
It's actually ---+ I'm guessing it's about $600,000 in Q1 for FICA, and then there's probably almost $1 million in the second quarter, because that's when we pay our bonuses.
And so that's a seasonality of our payroll.
Thank you.
Thank you again for joining us for this call, and we look forward to talking with you at the next quarterly earnings release.
Thank you.
