Deepak Rao

$HOOD: STRONG NET DEPOSITS, AI-DRIVEN EFFICIENCY GAINS, AND ACCELERATING BANKING ADOPTION HOOD participated in the Citizens JMP Technology Conference, where management highlighted continued strength in customer engagement and net funding trends. The company reported over $5.5B in net deposits in February alone, bringing year-to-date net deposits to more than $10B. Equities and options trading were both up year-over-year in February, with crypto activity also increasing month-over-month, suggesting broad-based engagement across asset classes despite market volatility. Management characterized customers as “leaning in” during periods of volatility, with retail behavior described as net buying and portfolio rebalancing rather than de-risking. From an institutional perspective, the deposit momentum and trading activity point to sustained platform engagement and healthy asset gathering trends entering the quarter. On AI, management reiterated that the firm views itself as structurally positioned to benefit from artificial intelligence across both product development and operations. The company was an early adopter of OpenAI Enterprise and is seeing measurable productivity gains in software development. Operationally, AI is now handling approximately 75% of customer service tickets, with expanding applications across fraud and account operations. The implication is incremental scale efficiency as volumes grow, with operating leverage potential over time. Finally, management emphasized momentum in the company’s broader “financial super app” strategy. The credit card has surpassed 600,000 customers, while the newly launched banking product has already doubled assets since the last earnings call, exceeding $400M in deposits with roughly a 50% direct deposit rate. Banking is described as faster to scale than credit cards, given underwriting complexity, and management expects accelerated growth as rollout continues. Taken together, commentary points to three key themes: sustained net deposit strength, expanding AI-driven cost efficiency, and accelerating adoption across banking and credit products, reinforcing HOOD’s positioning as a diversified retail financial platform.