Pathward Financial, Inc. serves as the parent company for Pathward, National Association, providing a broad spectrum of banking products and services throughout ...
Pathward Financial, Inc. is the parent company of Pathward, National Association, a federally registered U.S. financial institution focused on providing banking infrastructure and financial services to consumers, businesses, institutions, and partner organizations. The company operates through Consumer, Commercial, and Corporate Services/Other segments and is headquartered in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. ...Pathward Financial, Inc. is the parent company of Pathward, National Association, a federally registered U.S. financial institution focused on providing banking infrastructure and financial services to consumers, businesses, institutions, and partner organizations. The company operates through Consumer, Commercial, and Corporate Services/Other segments and is headquartered in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Its common stock trades on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol CASH.
The company’s origins date to 1954, when it was established as Storm Lake Savings and Loan Association in Iowa. It later developed through a series of corporate and banking transformations and was previously known as Meta Financial Group, Inc. The company adopted the Pathward Financial name in July 2022, reflecting a broader strategic identity centered on financial inclusion and access to banking services. Brett L. Pharr serves as chief executive officer of Pathward Financial and Pathward, National Association.
Pathward’s product and service portfolio includes demand deposit accounts, savings accounts, money-market savings products, certificates of deposit, consumer credit, and other personal financing products. Its commercial finance activities include term lending, asset-based lending, factoring, lease financing, insurance-premium financing, government-guaranteed lending, and warehouse financing. These services support businesses that may require specialized funding structures or alternative forms of credit.
Payments and embedded-finance activities are also central to the company. Pathward issues prepaid and consumer credit cards, supports tax-refund transfers, provides short-term taxpayer advance loans, sponsors merchant-acquiring services, and facilitates ATM access through debit networks. Through Banking-as-a-Service relationships and technology-enabled partnerships, it supplies regulated banking capabilities and payment infrastructure to organizations serving consumers and businesses that may be underserved by traditional financial institutions.
The supplied trailing-twelve-month data indicates approximately $1.83 billion in market capitalization, revenue of roughly $0.8 billion based on the reported price-to-sales relationship, net income per share of approximately $8.11, and return on equity of about 20.6%. Reported profitability metrics include a net profit margin near 21.9% and an EBITDA margin near 31.2%. The company also pays a modest dividend, with a reported dividend per share of $0.20 and a payout ratio of approximately 3.8%. Its reported workforce is 1,244 employees, placing it in the 1,001-2,000 employee category. As a regulated financial institution, Pathward’s cost structure and balance-sheet economics are influenced more by funding costs, credit losses, regulatory capital, loan and receivable quality, payment volumes, and technology-partner expenses than by conventional manufacturing inputs or a physical bill of materials. Its long-term objective is to expand accessible financial products while maintaining disciplined risk management, dependable infrastructure, and sustainable returns for shareholders.
YoYYoY means Year-over-Year. It compares the latest annual value with the previous annual value to show long-term trend strength.
QoQQoQ means Quarter-over-Quarter. It compares the latest quarter with the immediately previous quarter to show short-term momentum changes.
RevenueThe total money that came through the front door from selling things, before paying a single bill. Think of it as the grand total of every credit card swipe from customers. (YoY compares this year to last year's performance, while QoQ compares the current three months to the previous three).
$685.2M
+2.4%
-32.4%
Net IncomeThe absolute bottom line. If the company paid every single supplier, employee, banker, and tax collector, this is the actual money left in their pocket at the end of the day.
$185.9M
+1.4%
-60.2%
Gross MarginThe basic markup. If they sell a $100 pair of sneakers, this percentage tells you how much of that price tag is profit right after paying for the rubber and shoelaces, but before paying for things like store rent or TV commercials.
+90.0%
+2.1%
+3.4%
Operating MarginThe 'day job' efficiency score. Out of every dollar a customer spends, this shows how many cents the company keeps after making the product AND paying for all the everyday corporate overhead (like salaries, marketing, and keeping the lights on).
+32.6%
-0.4%
-45.4%
Net MarginThe final take-home percentage. When you strip away every conceivable cost, tax, and interest payment, this is the exact number of cents the company truly gets to keep from every dollar in sales.
+27.1%
-1.0%
-41.2%
Free Cash FlowThe holy grail of corporate cash. It's the spendable, physical money left over after the business pays for its daily operations AND buys the big, expensive upgrades (like new factories or servers) it needs to survive. This is the 'free' money they can use to pay dividends or buy back stock.
$236.6M
+33.8%
-59.3%
FCF MarginThe ultimate cash conversion rate. It shows how good the company is at turning regular sales directly into cold, hard, spendable cash. A high percentage means the business is an absolute cash-printing machine.
+34.5%
+30.6%
-39.8%
Debt / EquityThe financial risk gauge. It compares how much of the company's empire was built using borrowed money (loans) versus the owners' own money (shareholders). A high number means they are heavily leveraged and playing a riskier game; a low number means they are playing it safe.
4.9%
-89.9%
+238.0%
Current RatioThe 12-month survival check. It simply compares the cash they have right now (plus things they can quickly turn into cash) against the immediate bills they absolutely must pay this year. A score above 1 means they have enough in the wallet to cover the upcoming bills without panicking.
0.22x
-34.8%
-96.7%
Total AssetsThe absolute size of the company's empire. It bundles together absolutely everything of value they own—from the cash in the register and the inventory in the warehouse, to the software patents in the vault and the factories on the ground.
Operator : Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to Pathward Financial's Third Quarter 2026 Investor Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I will now like to turn the conference call over to Darby Schoenfeld, Senior Vice President, Chief of Staff, and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Darby Schoenfeld : Thank you, operator, and welcome. With me today are Pathward Financial's CEO, Brett Pharr, and CFO, Greg Sigrist, who will discuss our operating and financial results for the third quarter of fiscal '26, after which we will take your questions. Additional information, including the earnings release, the investor presentation that accompanies our prepared remarks, and supplemental slides may be found on our website at pathwardfinancial.com. As a reminder, our comments may include forward-looking statements. Those statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual and anticipated results to differ. The company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. Please refer to the cautionary language in the earnings release, investor presentation and in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our most recent filings for additional information covering factors that could cause actual and anticipated results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements. Additionally, today we will be discussing certain non-GAAP financial measures on this call. References to non-GAAP measures are only provided to assist you in understanding the company's results and performance trends, particularly in competitive analysis. In order to make our adjusted net interest margin as comparable as possible, we have excluded the impact of the gross accounting methodology on our consumer finance loans and included contractual rate-related processing expenses associated with deposits on the company's balance sheet. Reconciliations for such non-GAAP measures are included in the earnings release and the appendix of the investor presentation. Finally, all time periods referenced are fiscal quarters and fiscal years, and all comparisons are to the prior-year period, unless noted otherwise. Now, let me turn the call over to Brett Pharr, our CEO.
Brett Pharr : Thanks, Darby, and welcome, everyone, to our third quarter 2026 earnings conference call. This evening, before I go through the quarter's highlights, I want to address the outlier of the quarter, credit. We had an increase in provision during the quarter, largely driven by specific reserves on 2 loans and a CECL reserve build. One loan we mentioned during the June quarter earnings call last year, which at that time was shifting to non-performing with a path to work out, and another loan we believe is associated with a sophisticated fraud. You may have also noticed that our non-performing loan ratio increased. This was primarily related to certain renewable …