BOK Financial (NASDAQ:BOKF) held its second-quarter earnings conference call on Tuesday. Below is the complete transcript from the call.
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The full earnings call is available at https://events.q4inc.com/attendee/909226299
Summary
BOK Financial Corporation reported strong earnings of $176.5 million, or $2.92 per diluted share, for Q2 2026, with adjusted earnings at $156.5 million, or $2.59 per share.
The company achieved record quarterly loan growth of 3.4% sequentially, with a 13.7% annualized increase, driven largely by the C&I portfolio.
Fiduciary and asset management revenue reached record levels, contributing significantly to fee-based income.
Loan portfolio quality remains excellent, with very low levels of non-performing assets and no significant provision for credit losses.
The company added over 25 new employees, mostly in Texas, capitalizing on market disruptions and strengthening its team.
Future guidance is optimistic, with expectations of over 10% loan growth for full-year 2026 and a stable credit performance outlook.
Net interest margin remained stable with expectations for expansion in the latter half of the year, driven by securities portfolio and fixed-rate asset repricing.
Capital levels are strong, with tangible common equity at 9.6% and CET1 at 12.9%.
Full Transcript
OPERATOR
Greetings, welcome to BOK Financial Corporation second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers’ remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one again. Thank you. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.
I would now like to turn the presentation over to Heather King, Director of Investor Relations for BOK Financial Corporation. Please proceed.
Heather King, Director of Investor Relations
Good afternoon and thank you for joining our discussion of BOK Financial second quarter 2026 financial results. Our CEO Stacy Kymes will provide opening comments, cover the loan portfolio and related credit metrics, Scott Brower, Executive Vice President of Wealth Management, will cover our fee-based results, and our CFO Marty Grunts will then discuss financial performance for the quarter as well as our forward guidance. Slide presentation and press release are available on our website at bokf.com.
We refer you to the disclaimers on slide 2 regarding any forward-looking statements made during this call. I will now turn the call over to Stacy Kymes, who will begin on slide 4.
Stacy Kymes, President and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Heather. We appreciate you joining the call this afternoon. We are pleased to report earnings of 176.5 million, or EPS of $2.92 per diluted share for the second quarter. Adjusted for the net gain related to the exchange of the Visa B shares and a small amount of repositioning in the securities portfolio, earnings were 156.5 million, or $2.59 per share. This was an excellent quarter and one that reflects how we are positioning the franchise for continued growth.
We delivered strong results including record quarterly loan growth, record quarterly fiduciary and asset management revenue, continued expense discipline, with credit remaining outstanding. During the quarter, total loans grew 3.4% sequentially, or 13.7% on an annualized basis. This resulted in a quarterly increase of 896 million, representing record new loan production in a single quarter of the company’s history. Year over year, loans have grown an impressive 11.5%.
Importantly, nearly 70% of year-over-year growth has been in our C&I portfolio. This reflects both the strength of our customer activity and the benefit of the investments we’ve made over time. Our fee-based businesses contributed meaningfully with record quarterly revenue in our fiduciary and asset management business. During the last call we discussed aligning expenses with market opportunities and customer needs. Expenses this quarter remained well controlled, with total operating expenses excluding deferred compensation being down slightly.
Notably, this was achieved while making significant investments in talent during the quarter. Capital levels remain very strong, with tangible common equity at 9.6% and CET1 at 12.9%. Finally, we’ve talked over the past year about disruptions in the markets we serve. Periods like this tend to create opportunities for organizations like ours—those that are strong, stable, and focused on long-term growth. Historically, these environments have represented some of our best opportunities.
The current period represents another such opportunity. We’ve added more than 25 new teammates as a result of the disruption across our markets. More than 20 of those additions were in Texas, a market where we’ve been deeply involved for decades. We also saw success hiring in our Colorado and Arizona markets. This talent acquisition strengthens our ability to serve customers across the spectrum from large corporate relationships to small business.
Importantly, the loan activity this quarter was independent of these additions. As we’ve discussed, C&I is a longer sales cycle and we expect to see the benefits build over time. We’re excited to welcome this talent and we’re confident in the role they will play in driving future results. And now I will cover our loan portfolio in more detail starting on slide 6. As I mentioned before, total outstanding loans grew nearly 900 million, or 3.4% this quarter, and were up 11.5% year over year.
This growth was broad-based across our business line and our footprint. Our core C&I loan portfolio, which represents our combined services and general business portfolios, grew 3.9% sequentially and is up 11.1% year over year. This level of growth in core C&I loans doesn’t happen by accident. Our growth is a result of a disciplined long-term strategy centered on investing in top talent and deepening customer relationships. As we’ve often said, growth follows relationships.
The momentum we’re seeing today is a direct reflection of the trust we’ve earned from our customers. Health care loans increased 3.2%. As we indicated last quarter, activity levels and pipeline strength in this segment were exceptionally strong entering the second quarter. The growth we’re reporting today reflects the successful execution of opportunities that have been building for some time. Energy loans grew again this quarter, increasing 1.6%.
Mortgage finance also contributed meaningfully to loan growth during the quarter, with current outstanding balances of 452 million, an increase of 224 million. As of quarter end, we had active warehouse facilities of 870 million in commitments. This business continues to build momentum and achieved an important milestone during the quarter by recording its first month above break-even. Operating at a net profit less than a year after funding our first loan is a notable accomplishment by the team.
Our CRE portfolio grew marginally compared to the prior quarter, but is up 6.6% year over year. Moving to slide 7, once again, credit quality remains excellent. NPAs not guaranteed by the U.S. government increased 2.8 million to 55 million. The resulting nonperforming assets to period-end loans and repossessed assets was consistent with the prior quarter at 20 basis points. Criticized assets decreased this quarter, remaining very low relative to historical standards.
We had net charge-offs of just 500,000 during the quarter, averaging 3 basis points over the last 12 months. Once again, the limited charge-offs we’ve seen show no patterns or concentrations that raise concerns around specific business lines or geographies, and we continue to have no exposure to private credit facilities. In the long term, we expect credit metrics to normalize; however, we expect net charge-offs to remain below historical averages in the near term.
Consistent with the prior quarter, no provision was required. Improvement in economic forecast assumptions was offset by the impact of loan growth. Our combined allowance for credit losses is a healthy 323 million, or 1.19% of outstanding loans. Overall credit performance this quarter remains very strong, and with that I’ll turn the call over to Scott.
Scott Brower, Executive Vice President of Wealth Management
Thank you, Stacy. Turning to our operating results for the quarter on slides 9 and 10, fee income was a solid contributor to total revenue again this quarter. While total fee income was lower than the prior quarter, results remained healthy and reflected the strength and diversity of our fee-based businesses. Total fee income was 202 million, declining 7.8 million sequentially. Total trading revenue, which includes trading-related net interest income, decreased 9.7 million to 25 million.
As a reminder, we saw some mix shift from trading fee income into trading net interest income during the quarter as the yield curve steepened. From an activity standpoint, results in our fixed income business were impacted by lower customer activity, particularly as longer-term rates increased from March through May. As market conditions began to stabilize, activity improved and we saw better trading performance in June. Overall, our activity levels were consistent with broader industry trends, which also saw a decline in MBS trading volumes during the quarter.
Elevated long-term rates are also affecting our mortgage banking business, with revenue down 2 million compared to the prior quarter. Syndication revenue grew 3 million sequentially, supported by robust activity and continued customer demand, resulting in a record second quarter for the business. Turning to slide 10 to discuss our asset management and transactions businesses. As you can see, these businesses continue to serve as consistent fee generators, delivering steady long-term growth and diversification to our revenue base.
The biggest standout this quarter was fiduciary and asset management revenue, which delivered record-setting quarterly results, growing 4.5 million over the prior quarter. This reflects higher trust fees along with seasonal tax preparation fees. AUMA grew 5.7 billion during the quarter to 129.3 billion, led by increased market valuations and continued customer expansion. Looking at annual growth, which is not affected by seasonality, AUMA increased 11.4 billion compared to the same period last year, representing an annual growth rate of nearly 10% and highlighting the strength of customer activity.
Overall, our fee-based businesses continue to demonstrate the value of diversity. While individual categories may fluctuate from quarter to quarter, the underlying franchise remains strong and capable of generating consistent long-term growth. With that, I’ll hand the call over to Marty to cover the financials.
Marty
Thank you, Scott. Turning to Slide 12, net interest income increased $9.3 million and reported net interest margin grew 1 basis point. Excluding trading, core net interest income increased $6.5 million and core margin decreased 2 basis points. Core margin and NII benefited from loan and deposit growth as well as fixed-rate asset repricing. However, the offset was a 3 basis point negative impact related to cash margin we posted on behalf of our energy derivative customers as oil prices moved higher.
This impact is temporary in nature as energy prices have declined. The majority of that margin has already been returned. This item is of course market sensitive. During the quarter we recognized a pre-tax gain of $30.9 million on the exchange of our Visa B shares. We used a portion of this gain to reposition a small amount of the securities portfolio, realizing $4.6 million of pre-tax losses. This will improve yields on the $268 million of reinvested securities going forward.
Turning to Slide 13, total expenses increased $7.5 million during the quarter. The increase was driven by an $8.9 million rise in deferred compensation expense, which was offset by gains recorded in other gains and losses excluding deferred compensation. Total expenses declined $1.4 million reflecting a $6 million decrease in personnel expense, partially offset by a $4.6 million increase in non-personnel expense. The decline in personnel expense was primarily driven by lower cash-based incentive compensation reflecting reduced trading activity, as well as seasonally lower employee benefits costs.
The increase in non-personnel expense was largely attributable to higher business promotion costs. Slide 14 provides our outlook for full year 2026. Similar to last quarter, our guidance assumes no rate changes from the Federal Reserve and longer-term rates aligned with the current forward curve. Loan growth in the first half of 2026 has been strong and well diversified across the portfolio. We are increasing our guidance as we now expect full year 2026 loan growth to be over 10%.
On total revenue, our guidance of mid-single-digit growth is unchanged. However, we now expect to be in the upper portion of that range. As a reminder, with this somewhat steeper rate curve versus a quarter ago, we will see the mix of trading-related revenue shift from fees to net interest income. Consequently, we expect net interest income to be in the upper half of our range of $1.42 to $1.45 billion, and we expect fee income to be in the lower half of our range of $820 to $845 million.
On expenses, we continue to anticipate growth in the low single digits, and likely toward the lower end of that range. The Visa gain we recognized in the second quarter will impact the full-year efficiency ratio, and we now expect that metric to be approximately 62%. If adjusted for the Visa gain, our guidance for that ratio would be near 63%, unchanged from the prior quarter. Turning to credit, portfolio quality remains very strong. We continue to see very low levels of non-performing assets and no tangible evidence of broad-based normalization.
At this point we believe provision expense will be below $20 million for full year 2026. With that, I would like to hand the call back to the operator for Q&A, which will be followed by closing remarks from Stacy.
OPERATOR
Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you have dialed in and would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad to raise your hand and enter the queue. If you would like to withdraw your question, simply press star one again. If you are called upon to ask your question and are listening via loudspeaker on your device, please pick up your handset and ensure that your phone is not on mute when asking your question.
And your first question comes from the line of David Chiaverini with Jefferies. Your line is now open.
David Chiaverini, Analyst at Jefferies
Hi, thanks for taking the question. So to start on the net interest margin, up a basis point here in the second quarter. How should we think about the go-forward on the NIM?
Marty
Yeah, thanks for the question, David. So we feel good about seeing some—we’re happy with the basically stable margin in the quarter. We see drivers to see some margin expansion for the back half of the year. Kind of the typical drivers that have been long-standing positives: securities portfolio, fixed-rate asset repricing for both securities and fixed-rate loans, and then that derivative margin piece, you know, that was a negative 3 basis points going into Q2.
And we’re going to get that back over the next quarter or two, and a lot of that margin has been returned to us already. So those are high-confidence items. And then typically we have DDA growth in the back half of the year as well. So there’s some pretty good support to see margin expansion back half of 2026.
David Chiaverini, Analyst at Jefferies
Great. And related to that, deposit pricing is a hot topic this quarter. Can you talk about the competitive environment and where deposit costs could trend going forward?
Marty
Yeah, so deposits are always competitive. There’s really never a situation where deposits aren’t highly competitive. They are today; they have been previously. I would note that, you know, the pressure is probably rising there rather than falling. But, you know, within our market we’re really not seeing anything irrational. I mean, there are some areas that have irrational, but we’re not seeing irrational in our markets. And just as we think about deposit pricing in the guidance, you know, we’re not relying on any improvements in that rate.
You know, we’ll seek to get improvements in that cost of funds, but we’re not relying on improvements there to drive our guidance. Just a reminder, we still have, relative to others, a low loan-to-deposit ratio. So that gives us a lot of flexibility in managing rate-seeking deposits.
David Chiaverini, Analyst at Jefferies
Very helpful, thank you.
OPERATOR
Next question comes from the line of Peter Winter with D.A. Davidson. Your line is now open.
Peter Winter, Analyst at D.A. Davidson
Thanks. Good afternoon. Just on loan growth, if I think about loan growth for the industry, it’s been coming in better than expected, but a lot of the banks that are giving updated guidance, it does assume growth to moderate in the second half of the year. But when I look at your updated guidance of period-end loans over 10% and pipelines consistent with the first half of the year, it doesn’t seem like you’re expecting a slowdown in the second half of the year.
Stacy Kymes, President and Chief Executive Officer
This is Stacy. I think, you know, look, we grew loans 11.5% year over year, very diverse, with not a big contribution from real estate and energy, two big drivers for us historically. You know, they’re hard to forecast, you know, so it’s hard to know exactly what those numbers are in the last half of the year. You know, we still have a lot of tailwind to come from mortgage finance. I think that’s going to help us out. There’s some seasonality there that could make, you know, some of that a little bit lumpy.
But if you look kind of straight through to the end of the fourth quarter, I think you’ve got really positive tailwind there. But, you know, we feel comfortable with the guidance that we provided based on, you know, some things that are intrinsic to us. If I look at sales pipelines, frankly at this point they’re not as strong as they were heading into the second quarter, but they’re stronger than they were heading into the first quarter. And so obviously, you know, we had a record second quarter loan production.
The pipelines remain very strong and we remain very confident in our ability to grow even absent the talent acquisitions we’ve done, which should only add to that in some future period.
Peter Winter, Analyst at D.A. Davidson
Got it. Very helpful. And then on credit, what can you say? It’s been excellent. You’ve got peer-leading, low net charge-offs consistently, and rightly so you’ve taken a zero provision 6 out of the 7 quarters. But the ACL ratio at 1.19%—it has reached the CECL day 1 level. If we assume a stable economy, stable credit trends, would you let the ACL ratio continue to fall?
Stacy Kymes, President and Chief Executive Officer
Peter, this is Stacy. Look, you know, our credit metrics are better than CECL day one. You know, if you look at criticized levels and classified levels, non-performing levels and things like that. And so, you know, given what we know about credit today, then the percentage could continue to fall.
Peter Winter, Analyst at D.A. Davidson
Okay, and then just one quick housekeeping. Does the fee income outlook include the $31 million Visa gain and thus the total revenue comment likely coming in at the upper end of mid-single-digit range—does that include the $31 million?
Marty
Yeah. So Peter, for the total revenue guide, that does include both that gain and there was another gain last year. So both in the ’25 number and the ’26 number, we both have those in there. That’s correct.
Peter Winter, Analyst at D.A. Davidson
Okay, thanks, Marty.
OPERATOR
Your next question comes from the line of John Armstrong with RBC. Your line is now open.
John Armstrong, Analyst at RBC Capital Markets
Okay, thanks. Good afternoon. Hey Scott. Maybe a question for you. There’s been maybe some hand-wringing over the trading fees this quarter. How unusual is that environment in your mind? And can you help us a little bit with what June and maybe July look like? Does the business, you know, in aggregate, total trading revenue, kind of trend back to that mid-30s type level?
Scott Brower, Executive Vice President of Wealth Management
Yeah, sure. So, good question. So as we, you know, as I commented, really where, you know, we got off to a solid start quarter one. We saw in March—and mostly in April and May—we saw significant dislocation. And as I mentioned, we saw an improvement in June. So really the kind of key contributors there, when you think about our trading activity, it’s nearly 100% fixed income. So, you know, it’s mortgage-backed securities, munis, corporates, and Treasuries in that order, with mortgage-backed securities being the dominant chunk of that.
So as the dislocation and uncertainty has occurred in the markets, you know, that’s what causes the challenges there with that segment. But we did see an improvement in June versus the previous two months. Certainly.
John Armstrong, Analyst at RBC Capital Markets
Okay, so maybe potentially back to normal or an improvement from what you saw earlier in the quarter. Okay.
Stacy Kymes, President and Chief Executive Officer
John, I just want to add we’ve been in the fixed income trading business for decades and, you know, every once in a while you get one of these dips and they’re inevitably followed by a bounce back. It’s a solid customer base that we’ve got a long history with.
John Armstrong, Analyst at RBC Capital Markets
Yep. Okay, good. On the expense look, I see the guidance looks good. Marty, can you maybe talk a little bit about where you’re finding opportunities to hold the line on expenses and then maybe touch a little bit on the hiring that you’re doing, if there’s more to come, and kind of the profile of what you’re looking for and who you’re hiring? Thanks.
Marty
Yeah, I’d just say on expenses, if you let me give you a little bit of color on the expenses and talk a little bit about deferred comp and then kind of get back to that question. As a reminder, there’s two components in deferred comp and they’re inextricably linked because they come from the same source. There are actually assets specifically invested for deferred compensation. Those investments are marked to market every quarter, and that gain or loss shows up in the other gains and losses item that we call out on slide 13 in the footnote, 8.8 million in gains.
That gain plus some trivial administrative impacts is how the 9.1 million of deferred comp expense number is determined. So by definition, those must net effectively to zero or something close to zero each quarter. To get an accurate understanding of the core run rate of the company, you’ve got to adjust for both those impacts or neither of them, which I appreciate the fact that, John, you did this quarter, but to understand the core trends in NII.
Sorry for that long preamble, but you need to understand that context as well. So personnel expense was down, excluding deferred comp, by 6 million. Two drivers there: with trading revenue down, trading commissions were commensurately down; and then a seasonal decline in payroll taxes is the other piece that explains that 6 million decline quarter over quarter. So basically the base regular compensation was really steady quarter over quarter. Now, as you start from that starting place, when you look over the next couple quarters, you will see some expense increase within the personnel line items just due to the adds, but importantly that’s contemplated in the expense guidance that we provided.
Stacy Kymes, President and Chief Executive Officer
We’ve hired kind of a range from commercial to corporate to small business. Substantially all revenue producers — not exclusively, but substantially all are revenue producers. Obviously, the disruption in our key markets has created an opportunity and it’s a playbook we’ve used many times in the past. And we’ve got a great brand and are excited to welcome new teammates to help us grow the company.
OPERATOR
Next question comes from the line of Matt Olney with Stephens. Your line is now open.
Matt Olney, Analyst at Stephens
Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for taking the questions. Given the Visa share sale, just looking for updated thoughts around capital and capital deployment. Thanks.
Marty
Yeah, no, thanks for the question. Yes. So capital — we’ve got a strong capital position and that just makes it a little bit stronger. We are well aware that that’s an opportunity for us to be very thoughtful about how we deploy capital. But as you know, we’re always very opportunistic about how we do that. We’re always thinking about what’s the best long-term action to take and when to take it. And at the end of the day we’re willing to be patient to find that.
Matt Olney, Analyst at Stephens
Okay, appreciate that, Marty. And then, Marty, on your puts and takes around the margin outlook, I think you mentioned getting that 3 bps back from that cash margin of the hedging activity from the energy customers. Any more color on that dynamic? What happened in 2Q? And then where would I see this more specifically in the financials? Thanks.
Stacy Kymes, President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, let me just explain that dynamic there and then Marty can explain maybe how that runs through. We hedge on behalf of our customers. We don’t take commodity risk, but because we have mortgages on their collateral, we hedge. We offset the commodity risk with a third party or most predominantly with an exchange. The exchange requires initial margin and cash margin when the trades move. So when commodity prices moved up significantly, customers who had previously hedged — those hedges were underwater — so we had to post cash margin to the exchange.
We don’t get a return for that, so that dilutes our net interest margin. As those positions season and mature and roll off, or as commodity prices roll back down, we get a return of that margin which improves our net interest margin in that process. At one point during the quarter, I think we had over 900 million that was posted to the exchange; much of that has been returned back to us. But understand that obviously the conflict remains and as oil prices move, that number could change over time.
But both with time decay and then prices staying at this level, we expect that to return to a more normalized level — it really has — with some degree of uncertainty around where commodity prices go from here.
Marty
Yeah, so the majority of that has come back as we sit here today already. And to your question about how you see that in the financial statements, you’ll see that it’s essentially a non-earning asset or a low-earning asset that grows temporarily and then comes back. You see that in the non-earning assets section. And we can walk you through the specific line items later if that’s useful.
Matt Olney, Analyst at Stephens
Okay, perfect. Thanks, guys.
OPERATOR
Your next question comes from the line of Michael Rose with Raymond James. Your line is now open.
Michael Rose, Analyst at Raymond James
Hey, good afternoon, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Just wanted to get an update on the mortgage business, where you guys stand at this point, and if there’s any updated thoughts around expectations versus where you’re tracking. Thanks.
Stacy Kymes, President and Chief Executive Officer
No, I think I told — I think in the last six months or so I indicated — our goal is to be at a billion in commitments by the end of the year. We’re obviously tracking well ahead of that as we ended the second quarter. I’m not going to give any updated goal posts there other than to say we have lots of headroom and those guys are running awfully fast and we’re seeing lots of opportunity there. So we remain very excited about that business. As I mentioned, we broke even — first month of break even was in June — so that’s going to be a tailwind for us as we go into the latter half of the year.
They’re going to be a tailwind to us as we close the year. For sure there’s some seasonality in that business just like there is in the mortgage business. But net-net, between now and the end of the year, we think that’s going to continue to grow.
Michael Rose, Analyst at Raymond James
Very helpful, Stacy. And then maybe just one follow up going back to deposits. The NIB mix has remained pretty stable here, but it’s competitive in a lot of your markets and with the updated loan growth guide, it’s probably some incremental pressure. You guys do have a lower loan-to-deposit ratio. Just as we think about IB deposit costs as we move forward, given that competitive dynamic, what do you see as the puts and takes either under a base case with no rate hikes or if we do get one or two?
Marty
Yeah, so interest-bearing deposit costs now are probably going to be closer to stable than they have been in the last couple quarters in a scenario where you’ve got no rate hikes or rate cuts either way. And then in a rate hike scenario, probably doesn’t happen until later in the year if it does. But our deposit beta has been in the upper 60s for the down cycle; it was right about the same place in the up cycle. And so we would think about that as kind of a starting place for how you think about deposit costs.
However, when you go from cutting to flat and then to increasing, you’re probably going to be able to beat that just based on — anytime that direction changes, that gives the industry the ability to do a little bit of lags here and there. So we probably beat that — that’s how we think about it.
Michael Rose, Analyst at Raymond James
Okay, great. Thanks for taking my questions.
OPERATOR
Your next question comes from the line of Woody Le with KBW. Your line is now open.
Woody Le, Analyst at KBW
Hey, thanks for taking my question. Just had one quick follow-up question related to the Visa gain and how it relates to the guidance. So you said that’s included in the revenue, but is that also included in the fee guidance? Because when I look at last year’s 8001, that looks like operating numbers. I just want to make sure I’m looking at things apples to apples.
Marty
That’s right. It’s not in the fee number. Yeah, thanks for that follow up. I should have said that earlier. That’s not in the fees and commissions guidance. Correct.
Woody Le, Analyst at KBW
Got it. But it’s included in the total revenue.
Marty
That’s correct.
Woody Le, Analyst at KBW
Okay. All right, thank you for that. And then maybe just last for me, I wanted to touch on the fiduciary and asset management revenue, and as you noted there’s some impact of seasonal tax prep. I was just curious how much of that bump up was from the seasonal impact versus strong organic trends.
Scott Brower, Executive Vice President of Wealth Management
It was roughly a third of the quarter-over-quarter increase was due to the tax prep — the one time a year.
Woody Le, Analyst at KBW
Got it. All right, that’s all for me. Thanks for taking my questions.
OPERATOR
Your next question comes from the line of Jared Shaw with Barclays. Your line is now open.
Jared Shaw, Analyst at Barclays
Thanks. I guess just for me, where are you seeing the most loan competition, whether it’s geographically focused or certain subsectors? Are you seeing anything unusual on the competition side?
Stacy Kymes, President and Chief Executive Officer
No, I wouldn’t say we’re seeing anything unusual. I think the great part about our footprint is it’s growing rapidly. If you think about Texas and Arizona and Colorado, and even our home state of Oklahoma is growing at a great pace. And so when that’s happening, everybody gets a part of the pie. It’s easier to be a part of a growing pie than it is to be part of a stable or shrinking pie. What I would say is, from my perspective, we’re seeing lots of opportunities for loan growth.
I’ve never seen a more resilient American business enterprise in the face of so much economic volatility, really moving forward with their businesses, and that’s obviously creating opportunity for us. Structurally, I’m really impressed with this stage of the cycle how strong competitively structures are hanging in there. I think pricing continues to grind competitively, as you would expect it to in this kind of environment. But there are lots of lending opportunities as we look forward.
Jared Shaw, Analyst at Barclays
Great, thank you.
OPERATOR
Your next question comes from the line of Brett Rabatin with Stonex Group. Your line is now open.
Brett Rabatin, Analyst at Stonex Group
Hey, good afternoon everyone. Thanks for the questions. I noticed a lot of the loan growth was in Oklahoma. Was there anything unique about that? Was it the domicile, just being at the headquarters, or anything that drove Oklahoma to be a lot stronger? Obviously, the company’s based in Oklahoma, but I thought we’d see a little more broad-based growth from the other geographies this quarter, given the overall strength in loan growth.
Stacy Kymes, President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, sometimes those tables can be a little bit misleading because it’s not necessarily where the borrower is, but where the lending activity is headquartered. As we look at that internally, our growth was very broad based, and that was part of what we were most proud about — both by geography and by lending type, very, very diverse. Particularly if you look at C&I, what we’ve been defining for a long time now as core C&I, I think that was up 11% year over year.
I mean, that’s really outstanding and we’re really, really proud of the team here at the bank that’s delivering that kind of outcome, because as you know, that’s the hardest lending to be successful at, but it’s important to us because it feeds so many of our fee-based businesses. And so it’s really been fun to watch these guys be successful.
UNKNOWN, Analyst
Okay, I appreciate that, Stacy. And then the other question I had was, you mentioned 25 new teammates, 20 in Texas. Do you view this as a unique opportunity given some recent disruption, or do you have a pipeline that says you’ll be continuing to add folks to the team? Any thoughts on whether this was more of a one-off situation relative to what you might do from here?
Keller
Yeah, so for us, I would say talent acquisition is almost a line of business for us, just like other vertical lines of business. The way we’re going to grow is organic, and in virtually all of our markets, particularly outside of Oklahoma, we need more boots on the ground. And so we have, you know, our Mark Wade, our market leader in Texas particularly, but David, who leads our markets outside of Texas. You know, we have pipelines of talent in all of our markets that we’re consistently recruiting.
In these periods of disruption, obviously the receptiveness of our phone call and the opportunity we have to pull people across into our company is enhanced, and we’re taking advantage of that. But in many cases, the people that are coming across are people that we’ve been talking to for a very long time. And so, just like with the sales process, the recruiting process also is a very long sales cycle. But we’re open for business for talented folks, with or without kind of a budget for it.
We like revenue producers. We’re going to have to grow with more talent on the ground in all of our key locations, and we don’t see that any different. Obviously the disruption has created a disproportional opportunity in the near term, but talent acquisition is a line of business for us.
UNKNOWN, Analyst
Okay, that’s great, Keller. Appreciate it.
OPERATOR
That concludes our question and answer session. I will now turn the conference back over to Stacy for closing remarks.
Stacy Kymes, President and Chief Executive Officer
To conclude, I’m incredibly proud of the results our team delivered this quarter. The record pace of loan growth, continued strength in our fee-based businesses, and outstanding credit performance reflects the quality of our franchise and dedication of our team. Our consistent performance is rooted in a strong risk management culture. That foundation combined with a unique geographic footprint continues to create opportunities to grow faster than peers while maintaining our disciplined approach.
We are entering the second half of the year from a position of strength with strong business momentum and a solid foundation for continued growth. We appreciate your interest in BOK Financial and your willingness to spend time with us this afternoon. Please reach out to Heather King if you have any questions at [email protected].
OPERATOR
Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today’s call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.
Disclaimer: This transcript is provided for informational purposes only. While we strive for accuracy, there may be errors or omissions in this automated transcription. For official company statements and financial information, please refer to the company’s SEC filings and official press releases. Corporate participants’ and analysts’ statements reflect their views as of the date of this call and are subject to change without notice.
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