Americas Consumer Finance and Regional Banks: Key takeaways from COF, KEY, SYF, and ALLY earnings

Research evidence excerpt

Americas Consumer Finance and Regional Banks: Key takeaways from COF, KEY, SYF, and ALLY earnings

Equity Research

22 July 2026 | 12:49AM EDT

Americas Consumer Finance and Regional Banks: Key takeaways from

COF, KEY, SYF, and ALLY earnings

COF: Another quarter passes… and still expecting earnings power to be consistent Ryan M. Nash, CFA

+1(212)902-8963 | ryan.nash@gs.com

with original expectations Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC

COF reported decent 2Q26 results as core PPNR largely approximated expectations Lucas Haimes

+1(212)902-3305 |

on slightly higher revenues (+30bps vs. consensus) offset by higher OPEX while lucas.haimes@gs.com

Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC

marketing was a smidge lower; however, the OPEX wasn’t far off from expectations

and there was some noise due to the Brex/Hopper deals closing. The bottom-line

EPS beat was driven by much lower-than-expected provisions ($3bn vs. Visible Alpha

Consensus Data at $3.9bn) as COF released reserves in Card (and commercial to a

much lesser extent while building slightly in auto due to increasing subprime mix). NII

was a touch softer than expected on a slightly lower NIM (8.01% vs. street at 8.02%)

while AEAs were a touch lower. However, they should snap back given the $22bn

reduction in cash during 2Q (although AEAs ended lower). Fees were strong due to

the addition of Brex. In terms of expenses, marketing increased from 1Qs seasonal

low to $1.66bn (street at $1.7bn) while OPEX of ~$6.5bn was slightly ahead of the

street at $6.4bn. Buybacks increased marginally to $2.7bn as CET1 came down

~70bps to 13.7%, largely due to the addition of Brex. Card NCOs came in well below

expectations at 4.71% (street at 4.90%) as NCOs improved more than expected

during June. Speaking of June, credit metrics were solid as DQs rose 6bps MoM to