INDEPENDENT BANK CORP

The table below shows current and unused liquidity capacity from various sources at the dates indicated:

Table 22 - Sources of Liquidity

(1)Assets with a carrying value of $3.9 billion and $2.7 billion at December 31, 2023 and 2022, respectively, were pledged to the Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston.

(2)Loans with a carrying value of $4.6 billion and $1.7 billion at December 31, 2023 and 2022, respectively, were pledged to the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

(3)The additional borrowing capacity has not been assessed for these categories.

In addition to customary operational liquidity practices, the Board of Directors and management recognize the need to establish reasonable guidelines to manage a heightened liquidity risk environment. Catalysts for elevated liquidity risk can be Company-specific issues and/or systemic industry-wide events. Management is therefore responsible for instituting systems and controls designed to provide advanced detection of potentially significant funding shortages, establishing methods for assessing and monitoring risk levels, and instituting responses that may alleviate or circumvent a potential liquidity crisis. Management has established a Liquidity Contingency Plan to provide a framework to detect potential liquidity problems and appropriately address them in a timely manner. In a period of perceived heightened liquidity risk, the Liquidity Contingency Plan provides for the establishment of a Liquidity Crisis Task Force to monitor the potential for a liquidity crisis and execute an appropriate response.

In response to the banking industry turmoil experienced in 2023, the Company operated under the parameters of its Liquidity Contingency Plan, which resulted in various immediate action items taken during the first quarter. From a liquidity management perspective, the Company proactively borrowed under its existing FHLB capacity to increase current cash on hand, while also pledging additional assets to increase overall borrowing capacity. On an ongoing basis, the Company continues to monitor both on and off balance sheet liquidity sources to understand vulnerabilities through the application of various stress testing scenarios and other analyses.

Market and Interest Rate Risk Market risk refers to the risk of potential losses arising from changes in interest rates and the value of investments due to market conditions or other external factors or events. Interest rate risk is the most significant market risk to which the Company has exposure to due to the nature of its operations.

Interest rate risk is the sensitivity of income to changes in interest rates. Interest rate changes, as well as fluctuations in the level and duration of assets and liabilities, affect net interest income, which is the Company’s primary source of revenue. Interest rate risk arises directly from the Company’s core banking activities. In addition to directly affecting net interest income, changes in the level of interest rates can also affect the amount of loans originated, the timing of cash flows on loans and securities, and the fair value of securities and derivatives, and have other effects.

Management strives to control interest rate risk within limits approved by the Board of Directors that reflect the Company’s tolerance for interest rate risk over short-term and long-term horizons. The Company attempts to manage interest rate risk by identifying, quantifying, and, where appropriate, hedging exposure. If assets and liabilities do not re-price simultaneously and in equal volume, the potential for interest rate exposure exists. It is the Company's objective to maintain stability in the growth of net interest income through the maintenance of an appropriate mix of interest-earning assets and interest-bearing liabilities and, when necessary within limits management deems prudent, with hedging instruments such as interest rate swaps, floors, and caps.

The Company quantifies its interest rate exposures using net interest income simulation models, as well as simpler gap analysis, and an Economic Value of Equity analysis. Key assumptions in these analyses relate to behavior of interest rates and behavior of the Company’s deposit and loan customers. The most material assumptions relate to the prepayment of mortgage assets (including mortgage loans and mortgage-backed securities) and the life and sensitivity of non-maturity deposits (e.g., demand deposit, savings, and money market accounts). In the case of prepayment of mortgage assets, assumptions are derived from published median prepayment estimates for comparable mortgage loans. The risk of prepayment tends to increase when interest rates fall. Since future prepayment behavior of loan customers is uncertain, interest rate sensitivity of loans cannot be determined with precision and actual behavior may differ from assumptions to a significant degree. Non-maturity deposits, assumptions over customer behavior, shifts in deposits categories, and magnitude of impact to the cost of deposits all may differ from what is currently anticipated by the models or analyses.

Given the volatility associated with market rates, and the uncertainty surrounding future rate movements, management has been proactive in achieving a more neutral interest rate risk position as compared to the prior year. In 2023, management continued to increase the duration of its assets by marginally increasing exposure to fixed rate loans while deposit attrition reduced the amount of rate sensitive cash on hand at the Federal Reserve Bank. The Company runs several scenarios to quantify and effectively assist in managing interest rate risk, including instantaneous parallel shifts in market rates as well as gradual (12-24 months) shifts in market rates, and may also include other alternative scenarios as management deems necessary given the interest rate environment. The results of those scenarios are summarized in the following table: