PROVIDENT FINANCIAL HOLDINGS INC

Provident Savings Bank, F.S.B., established in 1956, is a financial services company committed to serving consumers and small to mid-sized businesses in the Inland Empire region of Southern California. The Bank conducts its business operations as Provident Bank and through its subsidiary, Provident Financial Corp. The business activities of the Corporation, primarily through the Bank, consist of community banking and, to a lesser degree, investment services for customers and trustee services on behalf of the Bank.

Community banking operations primarily consist of accepting deposits from customers within the communities surrounding the Corporation’s full service offices and investing those funds in single-family, multi-family and commercial real estate loans. Also, to a lesser extent, the Corporation makes construction, commercial business, consumer and other mortgage loans. The primary source of income in community banking is net interest income, which is the difference between the interest income earned on loans and investment securities, and the interest expense paid on interest-bearing deposits and borrowed funds. Additionally, certain fees are collected from depositors, such as returned check fees, deposit account service charges, ATM fees, IRA/KEOGH fees, safe deposit box fees, wire transfer fees and overdraft protection fees, among others.

The Corporation, subject to market conditions, intends to improve its community banking business over the next several years by moderately increasing total assets by increasing single-family, multi-family, commercial real estate, construction and commercial business loans. Further, the Corporation intends to gradually decrease the percentage of time deposits in its deposit base and to increase the percentage of lower cost checking and savings accounts, although deposit account diversification will also remain a focus. This strategy is intended to improve core revenue through a higher net interest margin and ultimately, coupled with the growth of the Corporation, an increase in net interest income. While the Corporation’s long-term strategy is for moderate growth, management recognizes that growth may be challenging given the uncertainty of current general economic conditions, the high interest rate environment and the inverted yield curve.

Investment services operations primarily consist of selling alternative investment products such as annuities and mutual funds to the Bank’s depositors. Provident Financial Corp performs trustee services for the Bank’s real estate secured loan transactions and has in the past held, and may in the future hold, real estate for investment. Investment services and trustee services contribute a very small percentage of gross revenue.

There are a number of risks associated with the business activities of the Corporation, many of which are beyond the Corporation’s control as described in the Corporation’s 2023 Annual Form 10-K. The Corporation attempts to mitigate many of these risks through prudent banking practices, such as interest rate risk management, credit risk management, operational risk management, and liquidity risk management. The California economic environment presents heightened risk for the Corporation primarily with respect to real estate values and loan delinquencies. Since the majority of the Corporation’s loans are secured by real estate located within California, significant declines in the value of California real estate may also inhibit the Corporation’s ability to recover on defaulted loans by selling the underlying real estate. The commercial real estate environment, particularly office space of various types, currently presents elevated risk within the banking industry. In response, the Bank has reviewed its existing office space exposure for any outsized exposure and implemented tighter underwriting standards for this collateral type. At March 31, 2024, our commercial real estate portfolio totaled $83.1 million, including office space of various types, totaling approximately $41.8 million or 50.3 percent of the total commercial real estate portfolio and 3.9 percent of the total loan portfolio.