Customers Bancorp (NYSE:CUBI) reported second-quarter 2026 earnings per share of $2.05, up about 4% from the prior quarter and 18% from a year earlier, as loan growth, deposit gathering and net interest income increased. CEO Sam Sidhu and Chief Financial Officer Mark McCollum said the company reaffirmed its key full-year guidance and expects stronger net interest income in the second half of 2026.
Total loans reached a record $18 billion, rising $624 million, or 4%, during the quarter and 17% year over year. Total deposits increased by more than $140 million sequentially to a record $21.7 billion, while non-interest-bearing deposits reached a second consecutive record of $6.9 billion, representing 32% of deposits.
Net Interest Income and Margin Outlook
Net interest income totaled more than $193 million, increasing $16 million, or 9%, from a year earlier. McCollum said the increase reflected higher average loan balances and a lower cost of funds. On an annualized linked-quarter basis, net interest income rose about 4%.
The company’s net interest margin was 3.17% in the second quarter, which McCollum described as the expected low point for 2026. Customers Bancorp expects third-quarter margin to move closer to its first-quarter level and to build from there, while net interest income is expected to be stronger in the year’s second half.
Management pointed to deposit pipelines, continued remixing of higher-cost funding, the contribution from recently hired commercial teams and loan growth that accelerated late in the second quarter. During the quarter, the bank remixed more than $600 million of less-strategic deposits, improving pricing by 150 basis points, according to McCollum.
In response to an analyst question, McCollum said the company’s loan-growth outlook appears more likely to land toward the higher end of its guidance range. He said new-loan pricing varied by business vertical, generally ranging from 200 to 225 basis points over SOFR to 300 basis points over SOFR.
Deposit Growth and Commercial Team Recruitment
Non-interest-bearing deposits increased by about $175 million during the quarter. Excluding the digital-assets, or DA, channel, such balances rose approximately $375 million, up 14% sequentially and 37% year over year. The company has added more than $840 million of non-interest-bearing deposits outside the DA channel over the past 12 months.
Sidhu said teams recruited since 2023 account for 18% of the company’s deposit base. Teams hired during the past 12 months held more than $500 million in deposits across 1,600 accounts, with 63% of those deposits non-interest bearing. The company said about 30 team members had joined or were in advanced discussions to join during 2026, with four teams expected to join in the third quarter.
Management said the bank’s 2025 recruiting cohort became profitable in approximately three quarters and operated with roughly 1.7 times deposits to loans. The company also cited a roughly $250 million non-interest-bearing deposit pipeline for new teams over the following 90 days.
cubiX Payments Platform Expands
Customers Bancorp’s cubiX payments platform surpassed $5 trillion in cumulative transaction activity during the quarter. The bank said it processed more than 200,000 cubiX internal transfers year to date, double the level in the comparable period last year.
The real estate payments vertical is becoming a larger contributor, with transaction volume rising roughly sevenfold sequentially and spot deposit balances exceeding $400 million after only a few quarters. The bank added about 350 deposit accounts in the vertical.
Sidhu said the company projects that real estate could represent 20% of payment units by 2027. Management said mortgage-finance customers migrated to cubiX and newly added real estate customers represented about $1 billion in aggregate balances, with an internal target of reaching approximately $1.5 billion by year-end.
While DA trading activity was lower in May and June, management said total cubiX balances were roughly flat in the quarter because of growth in real estate payments. Customers Bancorp said it expects cubiX to become a growth area in 2027 as newer verticals scale.
AI Investments and Efficiency Efforts
Sidhu said Customers Bancorp is pursuing a goal of becoming an “AI-native regional bank.” The company is working with OpenAI engineers on custom capabilities and has piloted a multi-agent credit-underwriting process that it said helped close certain commercial-and-industrial and commercial-real-estate loans within a week.
The bank said its AI-enabled workflow automation has saved at least 46,000 hours, equivalent to 24 full-time employees, and that employees have built more than 600 agents and custom GPTs. All team members are now AI licensed, according to Sidhu.
Management is targeting a low-40% run-rate efficiency ratio in 2027, compared with roughly 50% currently, through revenue growth and productivity improvements. Non-interest expense was $114.9 million in the second quarter, including about $1 million of severance. The company’s operational excellence program has achieved its $30 million annual run-rate target, including about $4 million from revenue initiatives and $26 million from expense initiatives.
Tangible book value per share rose 3% sequentially and 16% year over year to $65.20. The CET1 ratio stood at 12.8%, while the tangible common equity-to-tangible assets ratio was 8.3%. Management said credit quality remained stable, with commercial charge-offs at 18 basis points and reserve coverage at 293%.
About Customers Bancorp (NYSE:CUBI)
Customers Bancorp, Inc (NYSE: CUBI) is a bank holding company headquartered in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, and the parent of Customers Bank, a federally chartered institution. The company offers a full suite of commercial and consumer banking services, combining traditional deposit and lending products with modern digital banking platforms. As a publicly traded entity, Customers Bancorp focuses on delivering tailored financial solutions to mid‐market companies, small businesses, professionals and individuals across the United States.
Through its commercial banking division, the company provides term loans, lines of credit, real estate financing, asset‐based lending and treasury management services.
