Northern (NT4) Q3 2026 Earnings Report
DE:NT4 Q3 2026 EPS Results
- Actual EPS
- EUR 2.85
- Consensus EPS
- EUR 2.56
- Beat/Miss
- Beat by +EUR 0.29
- One Year Ago EPS
- EUR 2.04
DE:NT4 Q3 2026 Revenue Results
- Actual Revenue
- EUR 3.30B
- Expected Revenue
- EUR 2.02B
- Beat/Miss
- Beat by +EUR 1.28B
- YoY Revenue Growth
- +3.22%
Earnings Announcement Details
- Quarter
- Q3 2026
- Date
- 10/21/2026
- Time
- Before Open
- Conference Call
- Wednesday, October 21, 2026
DE:NT4 Upcoming Earnings
Northern's next earnings date is estimated for January 21, 2027, based on past reporting schedules.
Q3 2026 Earnings Call Audio
DE:NT4 Q3 2026 Earnings Call
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Q3 2026 Earnings Slide Deck
Q3 2026 Earnings Call Summary
Earnings Call Sentiment|Positive
The call was strongly positive. Northern Trust reported substantial year-over-year growth in revenue, earnings, EPS, operating leverage, margins, and shareholder returns, while all three businesses generated organic trust-fee growth and the company highlighted progress in AI, digital assets, wealth management, asset servicing, and asset management. The main challenges were sequential declines in deposits and net interest income, lower transaction activity, pricing compression, a reserve build, market-related fee pressure, and a planned CFO transition, but management characterized credit quality and capital as strong and provided positive fourth-quarter revenue and net-interest-income guidance.
Company Guidance
Assuming a relatively stable market environment and interest rate backdrop, Northern Trust now expects fourth quarter net interest income to increase 8%-9% year-over-year and total revenue to increase 6%-7%; excluding notable items, it expects positive operating leverage in the fourth quarter and 500 basis points or more of operating leverage for the full year. The company expects the effective tax rate to be closer to 25% in the fourth quarter and going forward, anticipates one more Fed hike in December, portfolio yields of roughly 3.5%, reinvestment opportunities of 4%-5%, higher average deposits, and no NIM compression going forward. Dave Fox said the normalized FX rate is probably more in the 70s, while capital ranges of between 11 and 12 remain comfortable and the company is above 12.
- Robust Reported Earnings and ReturnsNorthern Trust reported third-quarter net income of $642.9 million, earnings per share of $3.40, return on average common equity of 20.1%, pre-tax income of $804.2 million, and a pre-tax margin of 34.9%. Management said return on equity, pre-tax margin, and expense-to-trustee ratio were all at or slightly better than medium-term targets.
- Capital Strength and Shareholder ReturnsThe common equity tier one ratio was 12.4%, up 20 basis points sequentially, and the tier one leverage ratio was 7.8%, also up 20 basis points. The company returned $514.2 million to common shareholders in the quarter and more than $1.5 billion year to date, including $352.3 million of share repurchases and $161.9 million of dividends.
- Sustained Operating-Leverage and Efficiency ProgressExcluding notable items, expenses were flat sequentially and up 4.9% year over year, while the expense-to-trust-fee ratio improved to less than 109% from 112% in the prior-year quarter. Management attributed the progress to the COO office and a client-centric capability operating model that aligns operations and technology to improve resiliency and efficiency.
- Cross-Business One Northern Trust WinsThe company combined its relationship expertise with its Luxembourg asset-servicing platform to support a prominent European family's complex investment structure. It also won a large U.K. wealth-manager mandate combining NTAM index-management capabilities with custody, securities lending, foreign exchange, and fund-administration services.
- AI Deployment Producing Operational BenefitsClient action-plan agents save relationship managers 2 to 3 hours on every client memo. In alternative servicing, AI-enabled digitization has nearly doubled straight-through processing. Byron, the company's internal AI assistant, supports partner questions and is intended to provide wealth advisors with sharper client insights. AI is also being applied to institutional client onboarding with privacy, security, and governance controls.
- Digital-Asset Product and Mandate MomentumDemand is translating into mandates across tokenization, digital settlement infrastructure, and stablecoin-related solutions, with asset-servicing momentum building in the third quarter. Northern Trust launched the Northern Institutional Funds Stablecoin Cash Reserves Portfolio and earlier introduced a tokenized share class of its Treasury Instruments Portfolio.
- Wealth Management GrowthGlobal Family Office fees increased 16% year over year, and asset flows were the strongest of any quarter this year. Wealth-management trust, investment, and other servicing fees were $612 million, up 9% year over year, while wealth-management assets under management were $536 billion, up 9%. Pre-tax income was $392 million, producing a 41% pre-tax margin.
- Ultra-High-Net-Worth and Global Family Office ExpansionClients with $100 million or more in assets continued to outpace the broader wealth-management portfolio, with both fees and assets under management growing at double-digit rates year to date. Demand for Global Family Office solutions is increasing, and the company is investing in specialized talent to scale the offering.
- Alternatives Fundraising and Talent GrowthClient interest in alternatives remained broad-based across venture and growth, value buyout, hedge funds, and customized strategies. Year-to-date fundraising had already surpassed the level achieved during all of 2025. Focused recruiting accelerated hiring and increased the revenue-generating population quarter over quarter.
- Asset-Servicing Margin Expansion and New BusinessAsset servicing reported a third-quarter pre-tax margin above 30%, up 6 percentage points year over year, with a year-to-date pre-tax margin of 30% excluding notable items. Asset-servicing revenue was described as growing 12% in the quarter, while expenses grew 3%.
- Strong Third-Quarter Financial PerformanceExcluding notable items, revenue grew 11% year over year, supported by 8% growth in trust fees, 14% growth in net interest income, and 38% growth in capital markets revenues. Expenses increased 5%, generating more than 600 basis points of positive operating leverage. Pre-tax income rose 21% and earnings per share increased 40% year over year.
- UBS Fund-Administration ExpansionSubject to regulatory approvals, UBS's Swiss and Luxembourg management companies will extend Northern Trust's mandate to additional funds over the next two-plus years, including former Credit Suisse funds. The expansion is expected to increase UBS assets serviced by more than 50%.
- Asset-Servicing Scale and Capital-Markets GrowthAsset-servicing assets under custody and administration were $18.5 trillion, up 9% year over year, while asset-servicing assets under management were $1.4 trillion, up 11%. Asset-servicing fees increased 8%, investment-management fees rose 10%, and securities-lending income increased 38% year over year to $29 million.
- Asset-Management ETF and Intermediary MomentumNTAM achieved its sixth consecutive quarter of positive ETF flows and launched 10 new ETFs. The intermediary business delivered its strongest quarter of long-term flows in three years. Northern Trust plans to convert six Northern Funds, representing approximately $33 billion in assets, into ETFs during the first quarter of 2027.
- Tax-Alpha and Quantitative-Equity ProgressThe company is pursuing opportunities in a direct-indexing market estimated at more than $1 trillion. Its direct-indexing advisor education program received a 2026 Wealth Management Industry Award, demand for long-short strategies continued to build, and institutional clients were seeding strategies in the new adaptive equity suite using quantitative expertise, data science, and AI-assisted research.
- Net Interest Income and Fourth-Quarter GuidanceThird-quarter net interest income on an FTE basis was $679 million, up 14% year over year, with a net interest margin of 1.83%, up 2 basis points sequentially. Assuming a relatively stable market and interest-rate environment, management expects fourth-quarter net interest income to increase 8%-9% year over year and total revenue to increase 6%-7%, with positive operating leverage in the fourth quarter and 500 basis points or more for the full year.
- Foreign-Exchange Trading Run-Rate ResetManagement said foreign-exchange trading remained at a very high level despite declining from the prior quarter and described a potential normalized run rate in the 70s, compared with the traditional level in the 50s, due largely to newly added clients and outsourced FX trading flows.
- Potential Strategic AcquisitionsManagement said bolt-on acquisitions in wealth management or asset management could be an attractive use of capital if they advance strategic objectives, meet the required financial profile, and add capabilities or channels aligned with the company's strategy.
DE:NT4 Earnings History
| Report Date | Fiscal Quarter | Forecast / EPS | Last Year's EPS | EPS YoY Change | Press Release |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 21, 2027 | 2026 (Q4) | 2.72- | 2.4 | ― | ― |
| Oct 21, 2026 | 2026 (Q3) | 2.562.85 | 2.04 | 39.48% (+0.81) | |
| Jul 22, 2026 | 2026 (Q2) | 2.422.66 | 1.9 | 39.67% (+0.75) | |
| Apr 21, 2026 | 2026 (Q1) | 2.072.42 | 1.7 | 42.63% (+0.72) | |
| Jan 22, 2026 | 2025 (Q4) | 2.122.40 | 2.02 | 19.03% (+0.38) | |
| Oct 22, 2025 | 2025 (Q3) | 2.022.04 | 1.98 | 3.15% (+0.06) | |
| Jul 23, 2025 | 2025 (Q2) | 1.841.90 | 1.59 | 19.66% (+0.31) | |
| Apr 22, 2025 | 2025 (Q1) | 1.651.70 | 1.51 | 12.43% (+0.19) | |
| Jan 23, 2025 | 2024 (Q4) | 1.802.02 | 1.3 | 54.79% (+0.71) | |
| Oct 23, 2024 | 2024 (Q3) | 1.561.98 | 1.33 | 48.99% (+0.65) |
The table shows recent earnings report dates and whether the forecast was beat or missed. See the change in forecast and EPS from the previous year.
Beat Missed