Welcome to our Investor Day. I'm Iason Kepaptsoglou. I'm Alpha Bank's Head of Investor Relations. A very warm welcome to everybody who's here in the room, especially those that have traveled from far away to be here, and to everyone on the webcast. Just a bit of housekeeping before we kick off. First, we're going to hear from our CEO, Vassilios Psaltis, who is going to be talking about the strategy for the next three years, and then we're going to have Mr. Papagaryfallou talk about capital allocation. Lastly, we're going to hear from our CFO on the business plan up to 2030. We're going to have a couple of short breaks in between, and then we are hoping to leave about 45 minutes for Q&A. That's all from me. Vassilios, the floor is yours. Thank you.
Well, good morning, everyone. I'm Vassilios Psaltis, CEO of Alpha Bank. A warm welcome also on my side to you all that are present here today, both online and here in the room. Obviously, a special welcome to those who have traveled from abroad to be here with us. With that, let's start. Here is our financial North Star. By 2030, we aim to deliver a return on equity of 16%, 12% growth in earnings per annum, and deliver at least EUR 4 billion for distributions. That is practically the bottom line, the output of our business plan and of our strategy. Our plan, our strategy, is front-loaded and is based on conservative assumptions. We will deliver 16% earnings growth in the first two years of our plan, and there is clear upside.
Incorporating the impact from potential buybacks would increase earnings growth to 17% over the full plan period. More favorable macro, keeping in line with Greece's current performance, would add another 6% to our earnings projection. Clearly, we expect to outperform expectations and peers alike. Today, it's all about telling you three things: why we are changing what we do as a bank, how we're going to do it, and what we will deliver. Our transformation as a bank has gone through three very clear phases. From 2019- 2022, the priority was repair, stabilizing capital, cleaning up NPEs, transforming the Greek operating model, rebuilding governance, and exiting non-core international operations.
Then, from 2023- 2025, the focus moved to profitability and shareholder value. It was all about growing lending and fees, improving efficiency, reducing risk cost, reallocating capital, and most importantly, adding capabilities through partnerships and targeted bolt-on acquisitions. In the new cycle we're entering, the strategic task changes again. We're putting the platform we have built to work to serve more client needs, operate as one bank, use technology to improve service and productivity, extend our reach, and translating stronger capital generation into growing shareholder returns.
That is what we mean by Alpha Accelerated. That is our model for sustained per-share value creation, and that is the summary. In the next two hours, we will unpack the details of this plan. Let me begin with the institution itself. Our strategy is grounded in an identity that has built over generations. For 148 years, Alpha Bank has operated as a distinctive combination of continuity, commercial ambition, and stewardship. We have evolved significantly, but the principles on which the bank has built remain highly relevant. We are a relationship-led institution.
We have long-standing partnerships with Greek businesses, entrepreneurs, families, and affluent clients. Our relationships are not built on transactional market share alone. We are commercially minded. We have consistently sought to understand where our clients are going, to support them through investment cycles, and to build propositions around their changing financial needs. Our history of shareholder stewardship is equally important. We are the oldest privately owned bank in Greece. We have more than a century of listing history and a strong track record of shareholder distribution, interrupted only by the financial crisis.
That history creates an obligation to allocate capital responsibly and to convert profitability into sustainable shareholder returns. Our commitment extends beyond financial performance. Alpha has remained closely connected to Greek society. We have supported vulnerable communities and maintained long-term initiatives such as Together for Health. This continuity is reinforced by an independently led board and a governance framework aligned with European best practices. We are proud of who we are and where we come from, but continuity does not mean standing still. A few weeks ago, we unveiled our new brand. We would like you to hear what that means in this effort from our partners that helped us in that.
The original brief was quite restrictive. It said things like, don't change our logo, don't change this, don't do that. What starts off on a cold brief grew quite quickly into a conversation about where this might grow.
I think what was interesting about Alpha Bank was that we didn't need to tell a new story. The story already existed. People already knew it quite instinctively. What we were trying to do is create something that everybody understood, that the story was the starting point for it.
We as designers, especially here at Pentagram, you like design history, you look at classic pieces of corporate identity, and we all like this, their existing logo and its symbol. There is responsibility from Pentagram, there is responsibility from the client of how we manage this project.
They were very involved in the process, and we had a huge amount of time with the CEO, with his ex-co, with the heads of different divisions of Alpha Bank, which meant that they were part of the process. Every time we met them, we brought them something that was the output of what we talked about last time. It was not like we were going away and presenting something they had never seen. It was something we created together, we were paying back to them.
The existing symbol is based on a silver coin thousands of years old. We went in to see the archivist, and she literally showed us which were early examples of money. At one point, they said that this is the coin that we actually based our last identity on, and they put it in our hands. I mean, I was speechless. I mean, you are holding something that people thousands of years ago had held. That moment became the balance between the weight of the symbol itself, which to me, the symbol is the emotional heart of the brand, because it is from that coin.
The typeface we had created all stems from that symbol, the thick and the thin and the balance. You explain that all the iconography, which you have seen, it is all different, the shapes all come from that symbol. The symbol is the beating heart of the brand. By this point, we were able to change the symbol, but is it evolving it? What was very clear from the brief, and we talked a lot to them about being a heritage brand.
We have worked with brands like Liberty, Rolls-Royce, other brands where you are evolving. What is important to me with these opportunities is that you do not throw everything away. If you throw away all your heritage, you will never get it back. How can we take this really well-known and beloved brand in Greece into something that retains some of that emotional connection, but really was surprising and new for another generation?
I guess what Alpha Bank's always been is they've always been there when people need them, and I guess that's what this whole new brand promise is about. It's about showing up for people when they need you, in the moments they need you, at the time they need you, to help them with the thing they need help with at that point, whatever that means. Whether that means coming into a branch, whether it means logging on into their account, whether it means trading digitally when they're out on their holiday with their family. All of those things are just ways of interacting with you, but the fundamental need is, I've got something I want to do and I need you to be there when I need it.
Well, a special thanks to Pentagram, Domenic, Adam, for this long, rewarding, and very emotional journey. But this is who we are. Our brand is how our identity is experienced by our clients, and our identity is deeply connected to how our franchise is positioned. Alpha Bank serves approximately 4 million clients across individuals and businesses in Greece and Cyprus. Scale alone, however, is not the principal differentiator. Our advantage lies in the quality of our position in segments where relationship, advice, and product breadth matter. We have a leading franchise in wholesale banking. It is supported by underwriting discipline, by longstanding corporate relationships, and strong positions in key sectors.
We hold leadership position in assets under management, in private banking, but also with affluent clients. In consumer lending, cards, and loyalty, Alpha Bank has also long-established client positions and distinctive capabilities. Our geographic model is equally deliberate. It is a focused network. It is designed to serve existing clients more completely, originate cross-border opportunities, and increase the value generated from each relationship. Greece and Cyprus are our core operations. Specialized capabilities in London and Luxembourg provide targeted reach, and UniCredit then extends that platform into the European markets where many of our corporate and wealth clients operate.
The outcome is a focused cross-border platform, one that helps us serve existing clients holistically and originate additional value from relationships we already own. These capabilities reflect a deliberate series of strategic investments. Before discussing the next strategic cycle, I think it is important to review our delivery record. At our 2023 Investor Day, we set measurable targets for profitability, capital generation, earnings, and distributions. I can happily say that we have over-delivered on all commitments. Returns have reached 13.8% against a target of 12%.
We generated more than EUR 3 billion of capital, close to 50% above our target. Tangible equity reached EUR 7.6 billion against a target of EUR 7 billion. Earnings per share grew at a 25% annual rate, obviously, ahead of the original ambition. Cumulative distribution also were 3x higher than EUR 0.3 billion, which was the target. The bank has been able to convert strategic actions into profitability, capital generation, and shareholder returns. Looking at the expectations for this year, we will be entering this new cycle on strong footing. The transformation of Alpha Bank is visible across the entire financial profile.
Our loan and deposit books are growing strongly. Revenues are expected to increase by approximately 9% to EUR 2.5 billion. Profits will rise by 6% to EUR 0.92 billion, and we continue to integrate the bolt-on acquisitions completed during the previous cycle. At the same time, we expect to maintain returns at approximately 12% with capital around 14%. We enter the next cycle with a large performing franchise, a substantially improved efficiency base, and a greater capital flexibility. Now, let's turn to the future. Our strategy starts with a conviction. Greece's opportunity is to grow faster than Europe by becoming a more investment-intensive economy.
Our planning assumption remains prudent, and they are anchored in what the officials are projecting. They envisage growth moderating while at the same time remaining above the European average. Beyond the headline GDP number, investment is expected to rise from approximately 18% to more than 20% of GDP by 2030. That still leaves a gap with Europe, and it encompasses private and public investment, including RRF projects. As the RRF disbursements conclude, the financing mix changes. Investment supports productive capacity and employment while modernizing the economy.
Job creation strengthens household income, while fiscal discipline and falling public debt reinforce confidence. For us, this means more than demand for credit. Businesses need payments, need hedging, access to capital markets, and they need advice. Households, they need also investment and wealth solutions. We do not need a more optimistic macro scenario to deliver our plan. Stronger growth would provide obviously upside. Our task as a management is to capture more of the financial activity this investment cycle creates.
In our mind, the opportunity is clear. The change we're making is how we organize the bank to capture it, shifting from selling individual products to serving the client's full potential. We can make this shift now because we have built the capabilities. We can now bring them together around each relationship. For businesses, that means one relationship manager who understands their ambition, and the relationship manager brings the right specialists for financing, for payments, accessing the markets, for investment banking, and international reach. For individuals, we start with our strength in private banking. We follow our clients at home and abroad.
We extend that investment expertise to affluent clients, and we make investment solution accessible more broadly through our digital platform with a service model appropriate to each segment. These two engines are two application of the same model. Understand the client, provide one point of contact, and bring the whole bank in order to satisfy their needs. UniCredit broadened our reach. Technology creates capacity for better service. Our people bring the expertise and coordinated coverage. This is the transition from a balance sheet-centric driven into a capital-light financial model for businesses and for households.
Let's look at each part in turn now. Let me start with business. The opportunity is a larger financial services wallet as Greek companies invest, become more sophisticated, and expand internationally. A company building new capabilities, new capacity actually, needs financing, but it also needs payments, it needs liquidity management, it needs hedging. A business expanding into another country needs trade finance and cross-border banking. A company acquiring a competitor needs advice and access to the markets. These needs grow alongside investment, but they are not captured by credit alone. They represent a significant additional opportunity across the relationship we already have.
That is why we have spent the past few years broadening our capabilities. We have done this through bolt-on acquisitions and by building stronger specialty teams. We're positioning Alpha Bank to capture more of this expanding activity. This is better than competing only on the price of loans, especially as spreads have become under pressure. Our ambition is to support the client's growth strategy, bringing together financing, transaction banking with international reach through UniCredit. The target is to become even more relevant to our clients and to convert that relevance into deeper relationships, more diversified revenues, and attractive return.
This is the why. We are not starting from a blank sheet of paper. We already have the relationships. What we have added are the capabilities to serve them fully. Alpha Bank accounts for approximately 1/4 of Greek corporate lending. It serves around 4,700 large corporates, shipping, and SME clients. These relationships give us an established position. We can use it to support their next investment. Bolt-on acquisition or international expansion. The opportunity within that franchise is tangible.
Around 3/4 of our large corporate clients with meaningful lending exposure do not yet use our investment banking services. AXIA brings the advisory and capital markets expertise to address that gap. In SMEs, around 1/3 of eligible clients have yet to join our corporate service centers. Deeper servicing there is already associated with stronger fee generation. Alongside AXIA, we have strengthened transaction banking, leasing, added FlexFin, and extended our European reach through UniCredit. These are deliberate decisions we have made in order to make up the opportunity.
Our task now is to connect them systematically to clients we already know. Having built the capabilities, we are now changing who owns the client relationship and what they are accountable for. This is the what. One relationship manager will own each business client's full potential, not just the lending part. Their starting point will be the client strategy, where they are investing, how they operate, and what they need to grow. The RM delivers the whole bank, transaction banking, markets, investment banking, leasing, factoring. Specialists contribute their expertise through one coordinated relationship.
Coverage will be differentiated based on client needs, value, and obviously growth potential. We will direct our expertise and balance sheet where we can build deeper, attractive relationship. This also enhances how we assess the economics, looking at the full relationship and its risk-adjusted returns. Where existing businesses do not generate an appropriate return, we must act. The objective is straightforward. The client experiences one bank while we capture more of an expanding financial services wallet. Lastly, let's look at the how. The change will be visible in the way we cover clients, equip our people, and measure success. First, sharper coverage.
Large corporate shipping and SME clients will have one relationship manager coordinating their needs. They will be supported by sector and product specialists. On the other hand, small businesses will have dedicated area specialists bringing expertise closer to the client. Second, a different commercial discipline. Account planning will start with a client's ambition and identify where the wider bank can help. Training and incentives will reinforce advice and risk-adjusted returns. Third, better tools. Shared client information, CRM, and digital workflows will help relationship managers identify needs, mobilize specialists, and spend more time with clients.
This is how the capabilities we have acquired become part of everyday client coverage rather than remain separate businesses. AXIA, FlexFin, transaction banking, and UniCredit each broaden what the RM can deliver. The outcome we seek is more relevant conversation, greater use of our services, and a larger recurring fee contribution. This will lead to an increase in cross-selling to existing lending clients by 30%. That is how deeper relationship translate into more diversified capital-efficient growth. Let's now turn to the second engine and look at the same picture for individuals. As with businesses, the opportunity is to address a broader set of financial needs as households accumulate wealth and plan for their future. For private banking clients, those needs extend beyond Greece.
Why? Because their wealth is international, and they want advice and investment solutions that follows them across the market and jurisdictions. For affluent clients, the opportunity is to move beyond deposits and individual transactions. We move towards a more complete investment relationship, connecting their services with their long-term goals. And for households more broadly, investing, buying a home, protecting their family, preparing for retirement are connected decisions. They need accessible solutions with advice where it adds value and simple digital execution. These are different expressions of the same opportunity to become relevant to more of our clients' financial life.
This is our why. Here too, we start with an established franchise. We have a leading position in Greek private banking and investment management, long-standing client relationships, and expertise that can extend to more clients. Our affluent franchise demonstrates the value of advice. Where clients have an advisor, we have a stronger deposit position alongside our investment leadership. Investments and deposits can grow together as we earn a larger role within that relationship. We have also broadened what we can offer. Alpha Trust adds investment expertise. Our new wealth platform allows us to deliver personalized advice seamlessly.
Our private bank in Luxembourg extends our ability to follow our client wealth beyond Greece, and our insurance and pension capabilities allow us to address more of their long-term needs. The next step is to connect these strengths, a more complete proposition for private banking clients, investment advice scaled to affluent clients, and simpler access for households more broadly. That is the foundation for becoming their lifetime financial partner. Let's look at the how and how this will propagate across these different segments. We have Greece's leading private bank. Our ambition is to move from managing part of our clients' wealth here in Greece to earning a larger share in managing their total wealth wherever it is held.
This is an extension of relationships we already have. Our clients actually have been asking us for international wealth services. We want to meet those needs through Alpha Bank rather than leave that part of the relationship somewhere else. We will do this in three ways. First, a richer investment proposition, combining our existing expertise with Alpha Trust and a broader range of sophisticated solutions. Second, international reach. Luxembourg will become our international wealth management hub, complemented by Cyprus and London.
We are following our clients abroad, working with our established client base. And third, a consistent high-touch advisory model, supported by a common wealth platform and AI that helps private bankers deliver more relevant, personalized advice. More systematic referrals across the bank and access to UniCredit's broader fund offering will support that model. This proposition will allow us to have larger, more complete relationships. By 2030, we expect average assets per private banker to increase by 60%.
The next step is to make our private banking investment expertise available also to the affluent clients in a form that can scale. The RMs role changes from executing a transaction to understanding what actually the client wants to do, recommending an appropriate investment approach, and supporting him as his needs evolve. We will equip our RMs with the same investment view and wealth platform used in private banking, supported by certified investment advisors. Remote coverage will extend our access to clients without the need of a physical presence. Clients will be able then to act on ready-to-use recommendations or to delegate portfolio management through a discretionary mandate with full digital onboarding and execution through a mobile app and web interface.
The proposition combines human advice with digital convenience. It brings our investment capabilities into a broader relationship, and it tailors the offering to the client's profile rather than serving off-the-shelf products. By 2030, we aim to increase the proportion of affluent clients that have started investing from 40% to more than 66%, and to increase fund balances per relationship manager. That is how we turn investment expertise into deeper relationship and a larger recurring fee contribution. For every client, the ambition is to put the whole bank in the app and to build the relationship with those that will become tomorrow's affluent clients.
We will make investing accessible beyond our advice segments, funds, equities, bonds, managed portfolios, with simple digital onboarding and execution. The investment expertise remains the same. What changes is the way of how the client can access it. But we need to do more than present an investment proposition. We need to earn a larger role in all our clients' everyday financial lives, particularly where our core deposit proposition is weaker. Payroll, pensions, and household propositions will help make Alpha Bank their primary bank, bringing transactional balances alongside investments. Credit will become simpler too, with pre-approved offers based on transaction data.
For mortgages, we will combine digital convenience with one named advisor from preapproval to disbursement. Insurance and pension solutions complete the proposition, connecting everyday banking with longer-term needs. The objective is one accessible relationship that develops as the client's circumstances evolve, increasing deposits, increasing disbursements coming from the app, and increasing by 80% the investment by non-affluent clients. As our second home market, Cyprus will benefit from the transposition of the same client-led model. AstroBank has given us greater scale and specialist capabilities in small business, SME, and private banking. But we're already building momentum.
Even before the acquisition, we were winning around 11% on new lending, almost twice our fair share in the existing loan market, and we will now turn that larger platform into profitable growth. The first step is to complete the integration of AstroBank and to deliver more than EUR 20 million of annual cost synergies by 2027 while improving service and retaining client relationships. Second, we aim to grow across businesses and households. Unlike Greece, where our emphasis is on share of wallet, Cyprus also offers room to gain market share alongside building deeper relationship, attracting deposits, and earning fees.
And third, we need to scale our international business and wealth proposition, combining local expertise with the group's investment capabilities and cross-border reach. This will allow us to achieve broader growth through lending, but also with a more efficient franchise, serving more client needs. The loan book is expected to grow by 13%, with a cost-to-income ratio falling to 44%. Cyprus, therefore, adds a distinct source of earnings growth and diversification to the group, building on capabilities and scale we already have. Let me now bring these growth engines together in the revenue picture.
We expect revenues to grow by approximately 7% a year, from around EUR 2.5 billion- EUR 3.3 billion by 2030. Around 3/4 of that growth comes from our client business, with three broadly balanced contributors. First, what we call the Universal Business Bank, that adds more than EUR 200 million. Deeper relationship allow us to capture more than lending, transaction banking, advice, capital markets through AXIA, and cross-border origination with UniCredit. Second, wealth and personal banking adds around EUR 200 million.
We are extending advice and investment solutions across our client base, increasing the proportion of affluent clients investing, and earning a broader role in their financial lives. Third, our international business contributes another EUR 200 million. Cyprus brings greater scale and room to grow. Luxembourg and London extend our ability to serve clients' wealth abroad. The remaining contribution, around EUR 200 million, comes from securities portfolios and funding.
This is the financial expression of the model we have described, serving more client needs, putting our expanded capabilities to work, and building a more diversified revenue base. In our close partners at UniCredit, we have found people who share our ambition for our clients. Over the past three years, we have been building something important together, the ability to do more for those who trust us. Let's now hear from them.
Our partnership with Alpha Bank is a powerful example of what European banking can achieve when two organizations share a clear vision and work towards a common goal. Since we launched this partnership, it has grown significantly, delivering results that have exceeded our expectations. That success reflects not only on the complementarity of our businesses, but also the commitment of our teams and the strength of the relationship we have built together. Alpha Bank brings outstanding local expertise, deep market knowledge, and trusted client relationships. UniCredit contributes a broad European network, international capabilities, and deep product expertise.
Together, we are uniquely positioned to support clients, facilitate cross-border business, and help companies seize opportunities for growth. We are seeing the benefits in the work we are doing together. We have supported Alpha clients on real estate financings in Italy, Poland, and Romania. In sustainable finance, we partnered on a solar project in Italy, bringing together financing, risk management, and hedging expertise to support Alpha's client growth ambitions. Our collaboration extends well beyond lending. AXIA and UniCredit worked together on a landmark EUR 4.5 billion share capital increase.
These transactions span advisory, financing, sustainable finance, and capital markets. More importantly, they demonstrate how our partnership is creating tangible value for clients, opening new opportunities across borders, and bringing together the best of both organizations to deliver solutions that neither of us could provide alone. What we have achieved so far is encouraging, but I firmly believe the greatest opportunities still lie ahead. Europe needs stronger banking partnerships, greater connectivity, and more support for companies operating across borders. Together, Alpha Bank and UniCredit are helping to make that happen.
The strength of our partnership with Alpha Bank comes down to a simple idea. Together, we can achieve more for our clients than either organization could achieve alone. Over the past three years, we have turned that idea into tangible results across trade finance, payments, capital markets, and wealth management. Trade finance is a great example. Since the partnership began, trade finance volumes between Alpha Bank and UniCredit have doubled, while international guarantees have grown more than fourfold, significantly outperforming overall market trends. This is not just about volumes. Together, we have delivered more than 20 workshop and client initiatives, bringing our teams together to share expertise and develop new business opportunities.
We are seeing equally strong momentum in payments. Through UniCredit's FX converter and European portal, Alpha Bank's corporate clients now benefit from a more seamless and efficient cross-border experience. The impact is clear. Cross-border payment volumes between our two banks have increased by up to four times, creating new business opportunities and additional revenue streams. Ultimately, that is what this partnership is about, combining Alpha Bank's deep understanding of its clients with UniCredit's international reach to help businesses grow across borders. We have built a strong foundation based on trust, shared ambition, and genuine teamwork, and I am confident we can build on that success to deliver even greater value for our clients and the economies we serve.
When we began our partnership with Alpha Bank, we saw a real opportunity to bring together two organizations with complementary strengths and a shared ambition for the future of European banking. Over the past three years, we have not only delivered on that ambition, but we have exceeded our expectation. Together, we have built a powerful one-markets fund proposition, combining UniCredit capabilities with 14 leading global asset managers through an open architecture model.
Today, that offering includes 43 funds and around 150 share class across multiple currencies and investment solutions, providing clients with greater choice and flexibility. The results speak for themselves. We have attracted more than EUR 2.2 billion of inflows into one-markets SICAV funds through the partnership, while delivering total return of over 20% since the distribution began. Most importantly, these achievements reflect the strength of our collaboration and our shared commitment to creating value for clients.
That progress comes from what each of us brings. Alpha Bank's strong local relationship, market expertise, effective commercial processes, and extensive network, combined with UniCredit pan-European reach and international capabilities, enable us to help business grow, connect markets, and create opportunities across borders, bringing together local leadership with international scale and innovation. Alpha Bank has proven to be much more than an excellent distribution partner.
Their professionalism, expertise, and clear understanding of investor evolving needs have been instrumental in shaping our journey together and in delivering these outstanding results. I am usually proud of what we have achieved together already, but we are not done yet, and that is what makes me most excited about what lies ahead. This partnership has enormous potential, and I look forward to continuing our journey together, creating lasting value for our clients and supporting growth across the continent.
Well, a big thank you to our friends from UniCredit. Last week, actually, we celebrated three years of that partnership, and who would have thought that after these three years, we would be able to come to the point where we are right now, showcasing one of the few, if any, cross-border partnerships in Europe. I think this partnership with UniCredit extends our reach and broadens what we can offer to our client. Capturing the full value of that opportunity also requires us to change how we operate within Alpha Bank. That brings us to the next chapter of our plan, and this is technology.
Technology is what allows us to deliver a broader client proposition without adding cost at an accelerated pace. In the previous cycle, we built the foundations. We modernized our core platform, we rebuilt our digital channels, and we established the infrastructure that is ready for AI. We can now convert these investments into commercial results and productivity. We plan approximately EUR 900 million of technology spend over the period of 2027- 2030. All of the increase goes towards changing the bank.
The priorities follow directly from our strategy. Close to 40% of the investment goes towards client-facing capabilities. That means building one view of each relationship to plan for its full potential, equipping our RMs with better tools so they can have more and better quality time with their clients, making daily banking simpler, adding credit in the app, and giving one transaction banking portal for businesses, and delivering one wealth platform from private banking to self-service investment in our app by the end of 2027.
Behind these capabilities, we are strengthening central functions, shared platforms, data, and obviously cybersecurity. We target approximately 15% higher central operations productivity, with technology delivered more than 30% faster and at a 20% lower cost. AI runs across this platform. We will prioritize the use cases that carry most of the value, targeting approximately EUR 100 million of recurring gross annual benefits by 2030, split equally between revenues and cost. The required investment is already in the plan. The outcome is straightforward. Our technology platform will allow us to maximize the client experience.
Technology indeed changes what we can do, but ultimately, execution depends on our people. Over the last strategy cycle, we have invested in the capabilities needed for this next phase. More than 100 professionals have returned to Alpha Bank from over 20 countries. Bolt-on acquisitions, they have brought in significant expertise into the group. Alongside external talent, internal progression remains central. Approximately 92% of our extended leadership team has been promoted from within. The target is to make expertise available across the bank. Our expanded capabilities must come together around the client rather than remain within separate units. We have also invested in development. More than 20% of our workforce has been certified in digital skills.
New career paths, dual career tracks, and internal mobility give colleagues more opportunity to develop and apply their expertise where it is actually needed. Performance-linked variable pay, recognition, and a reinvigorated culture through the Alpha Way provide the foundation for horizontal collaboration. These investments support the same shift in our commercial strategy, from separate products and functions to one coordinated institution serving the client. The next step now is to align our skills, organization, and incentives with the client-led model we have described. We have three priorities.
The first, move talent towards growth. As technology reduces transactional work, we will reskill colleagues for advisory and relationship management roles. This will be complemented by targeted hiring. In branches, we aim to transition 30% of customer support roles into relationship manager roles, and to certify eligible RMs as financial advisors. Second, make One Bank a practical way of working. We cannot ask an RM to serve the client full potential while measuring success only with individual products or business units. We will further align objectives, referral processes, and incentives around the total relationship and the value created for the wider group.
Third, redesign work around people and AI. Technology will support preparation and processing, leaving our people to focus on advice, on building the relationship, and on judging the right things in order to take up risks. The capacity released must translate into better service and greater commercial reach. The objective is clearly to grow without adding resources at the same pace. Ultimately, our strategy only works if the client experiences Alpha Bank as one institution. That means one owner of the relationship, one team bringing together the right capabilities, and one set of incentives aligned around the value we create for the client and for the group.
This is the way to connect our people agenda directly to deeper relationships, productivity, and shareholder value. Disciplined capital allocation runs across the entire strategy. It determines where we grow, how we invest, and what we return to shareholders, with each division measured against the value it creates. We will fund attractive organic growth without setting volume as the overarching target. Alongside increased demand from wholesale, we will scale wealth, insurance, and our international franchise, building a more diversified, capital-efficient earnings base. We will invest in technology and productivity, with efficiency reflected in cost-to-income ratio of approximately 34% by 2030, further improving group returns.
Our capital generation allows us to fund these priorities and increase shareholder remuneration. We plan approximately EUR 2 billion of cash dividends over the period 2027- 2030, and approximately EUR 2 billion in additional distribution capacity. We will assess that additional capacity annually. Faster organic growth or bolt-on acquisition must justify retaining capital. Acquisitions must offer attractive returns. Otherwise, surplus capital goes back to shareholders, subject obviously to regulatory approvals. We intend to get to our management target of 13% Common Equity Tier 1 by 2030, while improving significantly the quality of our capital, with DTCs falling below 5% of Common Equity Tier 1.
Therefore, the principle is straightforward. Invest where we can create superior value and return what we cannot deploy attractively. Lastly, let's see how our strategy translates into financial targets. The strategy is expected to lift returns from 12% in 2026 to 14.5% by 2028, and approximately 16% by 2030. Returns on regulatory capital will go from approximately 20%- 24% in 2030, demonstrating that higher returns are not dependent solely on greater leverage. Profits after AT1 coupons are deducted, are expected to increase from EUR 0.9 billion in 2026 to approximately EUR 1.2 billion in 2028, and more than EUR 1.4 billion in 2030.
Earnings per share will grow by 17% in the first two years, or 12% over the combined plan horizon, before the uplift from any buybacks. We expect to have close to EUR 2 billion available for distributions or deployment by 2028, and above EUR 4 billion by 2030. These are interdependent outputs. Higher product penetration and fee income, they do strengthen the profitability. Productivity supports positive operating leverage. Disciplined capital deployment improves the per-share growth, and organic capital generation supports distributions. The proposition is therefore broader than just a narrow return on tangible equity target.
It is a proposition of credible earnings growth, stronger revenue quality, and disciplined investment, but also a clearer path from capital generation to shareholder returns. Let me close with articulating why we believe this plan is credible and can be delivered. We operate in a supportive economic environment. We have a demonstrated track record, having exceeded every ambitious target we set in our 2023 Investor Day. We have built a stronger platform through bolt-on acquisitions and the UniCredit partnership. Client needs, they are evolving in a way that favors our relationship-led model and expanded capabilities.
Alpha Accelerated is therefore built around a simple idea: be able to serve more needs and thus create more value, grow the full wallet of business client, become a broader partner to individuals, extend our reach through UniCredit, put technology and AI to work, execute as one bank, and allocate capital with discipline. The result is a more diversified, capital-efficient earnings base, a 16% return on tangible equity, 12% annual EPS growth, and more than EUR 4 billion cumulative shareholder distributions.
A more favorable macro scenario, keeping in line with Greece's current performance, would add another 6% to our 2030 earnings projections. Our profitability of 16% in 2030 is not the end of the journey. We have spent the last six years building the platform. The next phase is about putting it to work to help our clients achieve more and to translate their success into sustained value for our shareholders. That is the Alpha Bank that we intend to build for 2030. Thank you very much.
As per the original housekeeping, we have a short five-minute break, so if everyone wants to rush and get a coffee or something, feel free. We are going to be back shortly with the rest of the presentation. Thank you very much.
[Break]
Hello. Good afternoon to everyone, and a very warm welcome to everyone who has joined us here in Athens and through the webcast. Vassilios has spoken extensively about our strategy for the coming years. I would now like to take you through how we are allocating capital to support this strategy and generate attractive returns for shareholders. Operating in a high-growth environment like Greece makes a disciplined, robust capital allocation framework the critical tool for delivering sustainable value to our shareholders. For us, in particular, actively optimizing where and how we deploy our capital is paramount to accelerating earning per share and driving an uplift in sustainable profitability over the medium term.
So, what are our main pillars? Our capital story through 2030 is defined by four commitments. First, we will actively allocate capital in ways that are conducive to higher returns. It's not volume growth that drives our thinking. By 2030, 95% of our risk-weighted assets will be in segments generating a return on regulatory capital above 15%, compared to roughly 55% back in 2022. Second, we are structurally improving our profitability, expanding group returns on regulatory capital from around 20% in 2026 to approximately 25% by 2030, a level of performance which compares very well to top Southern European banks.
Third, we are delivering a step change in organic capital generation, expecting EUR 6.9 billion of capital generation between 2027 and 2030, double compared to what we generated in the previous cycle. Fourth, we are significantly increasing shareholder distributions, with cumulative potential payouts over the next four years of circa 40% of our current market capitalization. Before looking into the future, let's first see what we delivered over the last few years. From 2023- 2025, we generated EUR 3.4 billion of capital, driven by strong organic profitability, proactive RWA optimization through securitizations and the use of external ratings, and a decisive reallocation of capital away from our Romanian operations and legacy non-performing assets towards segments with higher returns.
The actual internal capital generation in the period is EUR 1.1 billion higher than what we had in the 2023 plan. Higher profitability justifies the bulk of this overperformance. Let's look at what we did with that EUR 3.5 billion of capital generated. First, we grew organically, expanding our loan book by deploying EUR 1.2 billion of capital. Second, we made important investments in our technology estate and in our digital channels and product offering through them, in branch automation and workflows, and in our wealth platform.
Third, using our organic capital generation alongside the capital released in Romania, we funded targeted bolt-on transactions, acquiring FlexFin, AXIA Ventures, AstroBank to build a comprehensive competitive platform delivering over 30% on regulatory capital. Fourth, we distributed roughly EUR 0.9 billion through cash dividends and buybacks using just over EUR 1 billion of capital, including the respective DTC acceleration. Over the period, we improved the quality of our capital while maintaining strong capital buffers through the cycle. As we look ahead to 2030, our capital allocation framework is governed by clear, disciplined philosophy.
Everything starts with sustainable growth, deploying new capital into structurally higher profit segments and scalable platforms that deliver superior risk-adjusted returns. In parallel, we are deliberately diversifying our revenue mix, scaling capital-light fee-generating businesses and selective international expansion to increase the quality and resilience of the top line. At the same time, we are investing more in technology and in transforming our operating model to unlock structural efficiency across our core engines. We will return residual capital to shareholders through predictable cash dividends and additional distributions, including buybacks.
All of this while continuously strengthening the quality and resilience of our capital base across the cycle. Let's now see how this framework translates into our capital planning through 2030. Starting from end 2026, we expect to generate EUR 6.9 billion of capital driven by strong recurring profitability and excess DTA utilization. To that, we should add the excess capital available at the starting point. This capacity makes our business plan entirely self-funded. We will deploy EUR 1.2 billion to fund organic growth across our core franchise and commit roughly EUR 0.7 billion toward technology and other investments.
Even after fully funding our growth and investment agenda, more than half of our total capacity remains available. We will use EUR 2 billion for cash dividends based on our minimum payout. That leaves us with EUR 2 billion to either deploy in faster organic growth, value-accretive bolt-on M&A, or substantial additional distributions capacity to our shareholders. Our capital deployment has evolved over the planning cycles. While we continue to optimize funding, all profitable organic growth, and scaling our strategic investments, the sheer level of internal capital generation between 2027 and 2030 drives a progressive structural shift in our capital usage mix towards higher shareholder distributions.
Absolute capital deployment into organic growth and strategic investments remains significant. The mix shifts towards distributions because capital generation grows materially faster than our investment requirements. Now, allow me to spend some time on how we dynamically allocate capital across our business units. Between 2026 and 2030, our goal is straightforward: to sustain strong capital backing and high returns in our main corporate engine, increase our capital allocation to our highest returning growth businesses, and simultaneously lift the underlying profitability of every single segment, driving group return on regulatory capital by 4 percentage points from around 20% to approximately 24%.
Our primary growth engine, wholesale, weathers market dynamics exceptionally well. Wholesale returns remain stable at very high levels despite lending spread compression. We offset that spread pressure and defend our returns by deepening client relationships, capturing a larger share of wallet, and growing capital-light non-lending fees. In retail, our absolute capital allocation increases over the plan, as do returns. While our baseline reflects a prudent view on household credit demand, if the market recovers faster or new opportunities emerge, we have both the appetite and the capacity to do more.
At the same time, we are allocating more capital to our international business, delivering a substantial uplift in terms of profitability. Real estate, wealth, and insurance take up a small part of our capital, but produce a significant uplift to returns. Our international footprint is key to revenue diversification, increasing its bottom-line contribution towards 18% of net profits in 2030. The geography with the highest capital allocation outside Greece is Cyprus, a market with strong liquidity and positive macro fundamentals, providing access to more markets in the wider region and to a growing international business community. Our presence there spans across banking and insurance.
We are transforming Alpha Bank London into a diaspora-focused digital proposition while retaining our niche real estate and private banking businesses. As mentioned by Vassilios, we are also building our high-net-worth private banking platform in Luxembourg, which is expected to start operations in 2027. Alongside Cyprus, London, and Luxembourg, we retain a capital-light presence in Romania's third-largest bank following the merger of our operations with these of UniCredit. Together, these initiatives drive our international cost-income ratio to 45%, support the profitability of our international region, which is expected to contribute 18% of group profits, and maintain a regulatory capital return above 30%.
Wealth management is a key source of capital-light business with significant structural growth potential, and it lies at the center of our strategy. It complements our holistic client coverage, boosts group returns on regulatory capital, and diversifies our income stream with high-quality recurring revenues. Through our enhanced build and expand execution, we are investing EUR 100 million of capital across our core wealth platform and security services centralization. We are also building our Alpha Bank Luxembourg for international wealth, and we are integrating Alpha Trust and AstroBank's wealth capabilities.
We are creating a unified Greek and international wealth ecosystem. This will drive high single-digit annual fee growth and deliver more than 1 percentage point of uplift to group return on regulatory capital by 2030. In insurance, we made an active strategic decision to reinvest in product factories to capture a bigger part of the value chain. Like wealth, insurance is another core focus area for us, as insurance penetration in Greece remains well below the European Union average, creating significant long-term growth potential. We have direct exposure across two pillars, which provide optionality for further investments.
First, our product factories include Alpha Life in Greece, a leading provider of pension solutions through life insurance wrappers with a 22% market share in Greek bancassurance and an 8% market share in life. Our product factories also include Universal and Altius in Cyprus, which together hold a 19% market share in the life and health segments. Second, in Greece, we have a distribution agreement with Generali for the promotion of our network of life and non-life products. The combined insurance premium generated in the group, be that from our own product factories or the product of third parties, amount to circa EUR 0.5 billion.
Insurance activities contribute circa 6% of group profits, pro forma for announced transactions. Our plans until 2030 include a 15% annual growth rate in AUMs and a compound annual growth rate of 6% in bancassurance fees. We will actively look to expand across both products, such as wholesale insurance and alternative distribution channels, to grow our exposure. We are backing our commercial ambition with increased yet targeted investments in technology and alternative assets. We are committing EUR 0.9 billion to technology through 2030 to power business growth, strengthen operational and cyber resilience, and embed AI across the bank, targeting over EUR 100 million in annual steady-state value creation from AI at scale.
In parallel, we are deploying EUR 0.1 billion incremental capital into alternative investments that offer attractive returns and revenue diversification while creating opportunities for strategic partnerships and pipeline for our product factories. We do expect our real estate income to grow at an 8% annual rate and generate a return on regulatory capital above 30%. We are also increasing our private equity portfolio and investing in fintech partnerships to stay deeply connected to the innovation ecosystem. Our disciplined capital reallocation does more than lift group returns on regulatory capital. It creates a much more diversified and resilient revenue profile between 2026 and 2030. Transaction banking broadens our recurring relationship-driven base.
Investment banking expands our advisory and capital markets revenues. Real estate adds a differentiated high-return earning stream, providing synergies with asset management product factories. Our international operations increase the group's geographic diversification. Together, these growth engines increase fee income by 20 basis points as a share of average assets to above 90 basis points, creating a more resilient revenues mix and reducing our dependence on traditional lending income and interest rate dynamics. All these investments empower our strategy. M&A remains a powerful tool to accelerate it.
We assess every potential transaction through a two-stage lens. First, strategically, any acquisition must accelerate the delivery of our plans. Second, it must satisfy strict financial criteria. It must require no change to our cash dividend policy. Its return on investment must exceed the return of share buybacks, plus a clear safety margin. We must have high visibility on synergy realization and value accretion, ensuring the deal adds to overall returns and is EPS accretive within two to three years.
The transactions we have recently executed, FlexFin, AstroBank, AXIA Ventures, and Alpha Trust, are tangible proof points that we follow these exact criteria and practice, bolstering our capabilities in factoring, Cyprus, advisory, and asset management, while expected to deliver more than 30% return on regulatory capital. We have defined and refined our distribution framework, which I will go over in detail. Our overarching goal is to maximize shareholder value while ensuring sustainable growing returns across the cycle. There are three elements to the framework. First, we are providing a predictable and growing cash dividend, progressively increasing our cash payout from 28% in 2025 to 40% by 2028, so shareholders have clear visibility on dividends.
Second, we will assess additional distributions annually, including buybacks. Our assessment will consider the excess capital available over 13%, the opportunities for funding faster organic growth, or value-accretive bolt-on M&A should opportunities arise. Either via buybacks or in organic growth, we are committed to utilize the residual excess capital and support earnings per share growth. Thirdly, we aim to have a Common Equity Tier 1 of 13% in 2030 at the management target for regulatory capital, which will support headline returns. Our distribution policy has a clear commitment. We will be operating at circa 13% Common Equity Tier 1 by 2030.
We confirm the 2026 dividend plans. We are accruing 55% and plan to have a cash dividend of 30%, with an additional 25% to be split between cash and share buybacks. Between 2027 and 2030, our plans translate into more than EUR 4 billion of potential cumulative distributions, representing circa 40% of our existing market cap. Within that envelope, EUR 2 billion is the cash dividend, while roughly another EUR 2 billion are our additional distribution capacity. Finally, let's finish with the trajectory of our capital. As I have mentioned, we will assess our additional distribution capacity annually. That means that we expect to progressively reach the 13% Common Equity Tier 1 target.
Already by 2028, we expect to be below the 14% mark, showing that additional distributions are well within reach. We expect our Common Equity Tier 1 ratio to continue its downward trajectory until we reach 13% by the end of 2030. At the same time, our DTC amortization is accelerated by the year-on-year increase in distributions. This results in a significant improvement in the quality of our capital, where we do estimate that the ratio of DTCs to regulatory capital will fall to below 5% by 2030. Thank you very much, and I would now like to give the floor to our CFO, Vasilis Kosmas, to walk you through the financials of our business plan. Thank you.
Hello, everyone. I am Vasilis Kosmas, the bank's CFO. Welcome to the numbers part of our presentation. If you only keep three numbers from today's presentation, these are the ones. By 2030, we will have a return on tangible equity around 16%. We will deliver 12% average annual growth in earnings before the effect of any buybacks, and that will get us to circa EUR 0.63. We will have more than EUR 4 billion available for distributions. My job today is to show you how we will get to these three numbers. Vassilios has gone through the strategy that will help us drive earnings growth, focusing on the Alpha that we generate. Here, we will look at the P&L picture and the drivers of this growth.
Largest contribution will come from net interest income, mainly driven by loan and deposit growth. Fees are currently about a quarter of our revenues and provide a second main contribution to earnings growth. Against that, costs will rise as we invest in the business, and provisions will increase as the loan book grows. Together, all these three drivers take normalized earnings per share from around EUR 0.41 in 2026 to EUR 0.63 in 2030, before any share buybacks. We start from a much stronger financial position in 2023 than in 2023. Normalized earnings per share have grown by 25%. Fee income is up by 60%.
Cost-to-income ratio has come down from 42%- 38%. We have also completed the balance sheet transformation and strengthened the quality of our capital. Deferred tax credits are expected to represent around 40% of CET1, down from 56% in 2023. That is the starting point for our next phase of growth. Before we look into the individual components of the plan, let us have some context on the macro. The plan is built on prudent assumptions rather than a strong economic cycle. GDP growth is decelerating somewhat from 1.9% in 2026 to 1.6% in 2030. Three-month Euribor at 2.5%, flat throughout the period. Corporate credit expansion remains firm, but normalizes from the strong levels we have seen recently.
For individuals, we expect a modest increase in credit demand. Last but not least, nominal wealth creation should remain pretty healthy. What this means is that we will continue to grow deposits and assets under management, which will support our funding needs and our fee generation capacity. The message should be pretty simple. Our growth comes from execution, not from an over-optimistic view of the economic environment. There are four drivers behind the earnings and returns we are targeting. First, balance sheet growth.
EUR 13 billion, around EUR 3 billion per year of net credit expansion, largely funded by our customer deposit franchise. Second, revenue diversification. Fee income is growing by around 9% per year. Third, scalability and productivity. Revenue grows well ahead of costs, with costs increasing by around 4% per year. Fourth, resilient risk-adjusted earnings. We are growing the top line, while at the same time, we keep the cost of risk broadly stable at 45 basis points- 50 basis points. Let us take each and every one in turn. Starting with the balance sheet. We expect performing loans to grow by just over EUR 3 billion a year, or around EUR 13 billion over the plan.
Wholesale loans drive most of it. Retail is showing some growth as well. Securities portfolio grows by around EUR 3 billion, tracking the balance sheet at about 25% of the asset base. At the same time, we reduce low-yielding assets by around EUR 3 billion. These include senior notes in legacy securitizations, as well as deferred tax assets. On the funding side, customer deposits are our main source, adding around EUR 9 billion for the period, with a balanced split between retail, corporate, and international. Senior debt adds another EUR 2 billion, with retained earnings another EUR 1 billion. Our loan-to-deposit ratio increases from 80% to around 85%.
Customer deposits remain the backbone of our franchise. Turning now to revenues, let me start with net interest income. We expect net interest income to grow from around EUR 1.8 billion in 2026 to EUR 2.3 billion in 2030. Rates provide only a small tailwind. Euribor flat at 2.5% between 2028 and 2030. Remember, our NII sensitivity is EUR 23 million for every 25 basis point change in rates. Loan volumes are the main driver of NII growth. The growth of just over EUR 3 billion per year contributes just over EUR 600 million in NII before any rate and spread effects. More than half of this contribution comes through by 2028.
On spreads, there is competitive pressure, which though has abated recently. We still assume another 20 basis points of compression throughout the four years. The pressure is assumed in SMEs, large corporate, shipping, and it's a bit higher than the headline picture. This is partially offset by a shift towards higher spread lending products. Securities portfolio contributes through average volumes at the current yield of around 3%. On top, we reinvest an additional EUR 3 billion of maturities at around 150 basis points higher pickup. Asset mix reflects the reduction in zero-yielding deferred tax assets, as well as very low-yielding notes in these legacy securitizations I mentioned.
Against all these positives, we have a higher cost of funding on deposit and senior debt balances. We assume a small tilt towards time deposits, and as a result, beta will increase slightly from our current 20% to around 21%- 22%, mainly as time deposits grow. Key point is that net interest margin improves by 25 basis points because of better balance sheet mix, not because of higher rates. Let's turn now to fees. Fees are central to our business case. This is one of the most powerful fee penetration story in Europe. We expect fee income to grow from our current EUR 600 million -EUR 850 million by 2030, around 9% per year, and closer to 10% in the near term.
We expect fees to climb from around 70 basis points of average assets in 2026 to around 90 basis points by 2030. Even with strong loan growth supporting NII, fees increase. This gives us a more diversified revenue base. In terms of individual categories, most of the growth comes from asset management and cards and payments. Asset management. Both Vassilios and Lazaros discussed, our franchise is very strong, and there is a structural demand for these type of products from Greek households. Part of the contribution comes later in the plan as our international franchise in wealth matures. Cards and payments. Most of the growth comes from corporate clients.
These are supported both by recent acquisitions and the new coverage model rather than retail activity. Other categories also contribute. Business credit-related fees benefit from loan disbursements, investment banking from stronger activity in Greece, and bancassurance from continued growth in insurance penetration. Let's now turn to my favorite slide, costs, where we expect 4% increase per annum. We continue to invest in growth while keeping cost increases well below revenue growth. Inflation adds around 7% to the cost base. This is pretty much in line with the macro assumptions I mentioned earlier. Business growth brings higher costs, including investment in people and technology to support the revenue plan.
Together, these two account for roughly 6% of annual growth before any efficiencies. This is still below our planned revenue growth. Efficiency measures reduce this number to around 4%. Two measures. One, AI. AI should improve productivity across the bank. Secondly, simplification of processes and the organization should deliver further efficiencies. It is important that you appreciate these are specific programs that we have planned inside the bank and not some general savings assumption. AI and automation have identified use cases, more than 100, 104 to be exact.
The simplification program has a detailed implementation plan, division by division. Around half of the planned cost increase is discretionary and linked to revenue delivery. If revenues develop more slowly, we will adjust the pace of spending. Overall, our cost-to-income ratio decreases from around 38% in 2026 to 34% in 2030. Let me now turn to risk management. The objective is profitable growth with more diversified and resilient earnings, underpinned by disciplined risk management. We start from a strong position. Legacy risk is lower, and our underwriting and monitoring is much stronger than what it used to be. From here, we have again three priorities.
Number one, we deploy risk selectively to specific clients, specific sectors in the economy. Second, we keep strengthening the quality of our balance sheet. Third, we want to improve the resilience of our earnings. All three of them rely on data, behavioral analytics, and real-time monitoring. By 2030, we aim for an NPE ratio of 2%, cost of risk around our long-term average of 45 basis points, compared to roughly 50 basis points in the near term. Our liquidity coverage ratio hovers around 160 throughout the plan, more than 160 throughout the plan. The deferred tax credit goes to below 5% of CET1 capital. Let's see what this all means for our asset quality and provisions. We expect our non-performing loan ratio to drop from 3.8%- 2%.
This comes both from lower non-performing exposures and disciplined loan growth. We assume cost of risk of around 50 basis points throughout 2028, moving to 45 basis points in 2030. The plan does not rely on taking more risk to deliver the growth. Let's now turn into capital. We expect to end 2026 with a CET1 ratio of 14%. Cumulative profits add an additional 14 percentage points of CET1. RWA growth consumes 5 points, and DTC acceleration an additional 5. All in, CET reaches around 22% before distributions or deployment. Put another way, pre-distributions were generating average 200 basis points of capital every year after strong RWA growth.
Our management target is 13% CET1 by 2030. That leaves around 9 percentage points of capital available for distributions or deployment, subject to the delivery of the plan, obviously, and the prevailing European regulatory framework. There is also an improvement in the quality of capital point. As profits consume deferred tax assets, the associated capital deductions decline. From 2030 onwards, for every EUR 100 of profit after tax will translate to EUR 120 of CET1 accretion. The message should be straightforward.
Earnings fund growth, allow for higher distributions, while CET1 converges to our management target of 13%. Turning now to returns, let me start with how much profit we generate per euro of risk-weighted assets. We expect that to increase from 2.7% in 2026 to 3.2% in 2030. Loan growth adds earnings, but also consumes capital. RWAs will grow in line with lending. Net contribution is therefore limited, given the spread and all the funding assumptions I mentioned. Much of the improvement comes from two sources in roughly equal parts: capital-light revenues that add around 25 basis points, and operating leverage around 23 basis points by 2030.
Lending and fee growth are connected. In corporate banking, lending relationships give us the opportunity to capture more payments, more advisory, more hedging, other fee businesses. Operating leverage is the second contribution. We grow revenue faster than costs. We continue to invest. We improve the profitability across the platform. That is what is giving us the other 25 basis points. Let us now connect this improvement in return on risk-weighted assets to our return on tangible equity. High profitability per euro of RWA is one part of the story.
Capital efficiency and the treatment of deferred tax assets is the rest. First, from a more efficient capital base, average CET1 decreases from around 14% in 2026 to 13% in 2030 as excess capital is distributed. Combined with higher return on risk-weighted assets, that takes our RoCET1 to around 24%. This is one of the highest numbers amongst any Southern European bank. As Lazaros explained, efficient capital deployment supports higher returns. Second, profits consume deferred tax assets, reducing the gap between return on CET1 and return on tangible equity. DTA drag falls from around 4 points in 2028 to around 2 points in 2030.
Other regulatory adjustments also affect the bridge, including dividend accruals and accumulated DTC amortization. The gap between return on CET1 and RoTE will be declining beyond 2030, when the benefit of amortizing DTAs will increase our RoTE by more than 50 basis points per annum without any required increase in profitability, with the same profitability as you see here. Overall, we target a return on tangible equity of around 16% by 2030, and the DTA mechanics I mentioned give me much confidence that the journey does not end here. Let me finish with the guidance, including the intermediate targets for 2028.
Normalized EPS will exceed EUR 0.54 in 2028 and reach around EUR 0.63 in 2030. By 2030, we target net interest income in excess of EUR 2.3 billion, fee income of EUR 850 million, and a cost-to-income of 34%. Cost of risk will be around 45 basis points and CET1 around 13%. Return on tangible equity, as mentioned, at 16%. We have built a strong bank. The next phase is about turning that stronger franchise into sustainable earnings growth, high return, and more capital return to our shareholders. Those are the outcomes that we would like you to measure against our targets. Thank you. I guess we will now take another short break and take the Q&A.
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Welcome back, everyone. Welcome to the interactive part of today's session. Rules of engagement first. We will take questions from the floor as well as online. When you do wish to ask a question from here, please raise your hand. I'm going to point to you. Please wait for the mic to come before we begin. Then I'm going to be directing the questions to the lovely panel on my right. Ben, please.
Thank you very much for the presentation. Ben Caven-Roberts from Goldman Sachs. Just two from me, please. First, on the growth outlook, then secondly on costs. First, on growth, could you talk a bit about where you see areas of uncertainty or indeed where you've put more conservatism in the plan? You give some helpful sensitivities around GDP growth, but if we look a bit deeper beneath the surface, could you talk about main variables you're seeing in terms of upside and downside risk there?
Then secondly, on costs, you gave a really helpful comment saying if revenues come in lower, you would adjust the cost trajectory as well. How do you think about the flip side of that? If revenues come in stronger, how much of that flows through to the bottom line? Thank you.
The first question on GDP growth will be for Vassilios Psaltis, our CEO, and the second question on costs, you guessed it, for our CFO. Thank you.
Even if he would have said that the cost would be for me, he would jump in in order to get it. I can assure you that. On credit growth, there is indeed quite a discussion around growth in Greece, given the fact also, number one, of the significant performance that we have showed, and number two, of the RRF. Let me start by latter, because I hear that in almost every discussion that we have on that. RRF so far has been a significant propagator in order to lure in people to look at investment, but at the end of the day, it was just 20%. This is all what it was.
Think about also the fact that as far as the European funds that are made available, they do not exhaust themselves as far as RRF is concerned. There are a variety of other Cohesion Funds that are made available, and you do know that there is live discussion going for the period of 2028- 2032 for Greece, where the number that has been making the rounds is about EUR 49 billion that allegedly our country has secured, which is a significant number in order to further facilitate growth.
Now, when one looks at the public side of things, obviously the subsidized part of the RRF, that is one that it will not go, but government, and we expect to hear also the multi-year plan along with the budget, has committed in order to overcompensate that through the public investment program that it has. I would say all in all, Greece, with a significant investment, and you have seen that in the presentation, that we do expect about EUR 170 billion coming forward.
There is still an investment-led growth that we do expect in the country, as the businesses with which we are discussing are increasingly confident about doing more, so not just repair work, in order to compensate for the crisis-led issues that we have, but much more importantly, in order to grow further into either being consolidated in the country or actually coming abroad. That is one of the key drivers that we are having in the plan. Over and above that, we need to anticipate that the second derivative, as far as the investment-led growth is concerned, is not going to be there forever. Greece is converging to Europe, but it is not going to be continuously having a higher growth rate.
When we sum it all up, we thought it for the latter part of the plan to focus more on the conservative estimates that came out of some international institutions that looked at that. Is it something that we fully subscribe to? I think for us, having a clear mind when we make our plan and make sure that the plan also makes up, it was the best decision to take.
Vasilis, on?
On the cost side, I think just to set the record straight from the beginning, I mentioned that around about 50% of our growth in cost is discretionary, and it is linked to revenues. That sort of gives you a bit of a sensitivity on what is going to happen on our plan on the not-so-good scenario. On a positive scenario, we should be able to decrease our rate of cost increase by 50%. On a good scenario, I think I would say it depends a bit on what sort of revenue pickup one would assume. Let me be very clear about that. If one thinks about marginal increases in revenue because of, I do not know, slightly better NII, better rates, then I would argue, very small part of cost will be attached to that.
But I think our upside scenario is more on more activity that the bank will do on event fees, things about hedges, investment banking, transaction banking. Obviously, these come with a cost. I mean, people need to deliver, people need to be compensated for the over-delivery. So for this part of revenues, I would be closer to the 30% mark rather than assume a very low marginal cost income ratio for these rates, for this type of rates.
Thank you. I will take a couple of questions from online, and then we can go to Alex here. Morgan Stanley, Noemi asks if we are going to be assessing annually whether we are going to top up the returns, and also where do we look for M&A opportunities? Then lastly, if we can quantify the impacts of the two acquisitions we have done in Cyprus on the insurance front. So maybe we can start with Lazaros on the distribution policy and M&A opportunities, and then speak about the insurance business.
All right. Thanks for the question. We have given you a lot of information, so I need to remind some aspects of my presentation which can provide useful framework for the question. I remind that our top priority is to be able to fund growth and investments in a way which is conducive to our strategy. Then we want to secure a predictable cash dividend to our shareholder that grows steadily. I also remind you about our capacity to deploy capital. We are having a capacity north of EUR 7 billion to deploy until 2030. If you take into consideration the growth and the investments, which are something about EUR 2 billion, still that leaves more than half of our capacity available.
So there is ample room, and we are projecting EUR 2 billion of cash payouts, plus an additional EUR 2 billion for further distributions. We do project our cash dividends to grow from a current 28%- 40% steadily in the coming period. Then on top of that, we add additional distribution capacity that will be assessed annually. What do we mean by that? We mean that there is going to be additional distributions either in the form of cash or buybacks, because we can afford it, and the numbers that you have seen in the plan are solved that way with higher payouts.
But we need every year to assess whether there are additional growth opportunities for organic growth, could be lending, could be other type of growth, or bolt-on M&A acquisitions which need to meet those criteria. So, yes, every year we will assess how much of that additional capacity, additional distributions go in the form of shares or buybacks over and above the 40%, take into account the other growth options that we have. In 2026, we are distributing 55%, and in the coming years, the payouts grow even higher. That is my first answer, Iason. The second question has to do with M&A opportunities we are looking at, we have been looking at, and there may be others in the future.
You may have seen that we have been focusing on product factories, strengthening our presence in wholesale, wealth, and insurance, plus some further consolidation of our presence in Cyprus, where we do see space to grow also inorganically through strengthening product factories. So, more or less, this is the strategy that will permeate any further transactions, focusing on bolt-on, product factories that can grow our capital-light fee business, and maybe some further consolidation in product factories in markets we are present in.
That is the focus area. Moreover, we are assessing opportunities that can get us closer to platforms, technology, and management team that can bring talent. We are very proud that with each and every acquisition we have completed in the last couple of years, all the management teams have onboarded to Alpha Bank, and they are with us to support the future of the organization.
And on the contribution of the insurance acquisitions that we have done in Cyprus, maybe that is for our CFO.
Yeah.
Thank you. I think we have been pretty clear with that on prior discussions. It is around 2% of EPS growth on account of the insurance acquisitions in Cyprus.
Okay, great. Alex.
Hi. Thanks for the presentation. So if we kind of think about the share of customer wallet, so if we are starting on the corporates, so at this stage, would you say that these customers are doing these additional services with competitors, and it is more about bringing this kind of in-house, or is it more about educating them on the additional service you provide? Maybe just kind of follow up on individuals as well. Is this more of an education of the services and the wealth offering, or is it now you kind of have the digital tools to do so?
I believe both of those questions are for our CEO.
I think on the first question, indeed, the plan has been built on a premise which—
Sorry, I think your mic is off. I think your mic is off.
Do you hear me now?
Yeah.
Okay, good. I think we tried at least to make it quite eloquent during the presentation that the plan has indeed been built on a premise that Greek businesses and individuals are reaching a level of maturity to pivot in the way that they're operating. The Greek businesses are indeed expected to setting foot abroad, whilst the individuals on the other side, and the next affluence, so both the affluent and the next affluent, they're increasingly realizing that just relying on their first pillar in order for them to enjoy a pension that would allow to sustain their quality of life when they go into pension is not going to be enough.
I think these are the two important contributors that are coming, and timing-wise, this is about now. That plan on our side did not start thinking about it in a contemporary way. We thought about it a couple of years back, and that's why we spent quite some time also thinking about the risks that may be related to that and also think how to mitigate them. The first that we started doing is enhancing our capabilities. I think that is an important element. We've worked quite consciously on that one, and we worked on two fronts. Number one is actually acquiring the capabilities which we did not feel that we'd had the time to develop.
Secondly, we worked very much with our own people in order to make them change ripe. That is an important element, and the organization has spent quite some time on that. If you look back, we have done major acquisitions, and we have been able to integrate our people. There is a bit of a in the DNA of the organization how to go along with that. Practically, when we look about the bolt-on acquisition, we're talking about 800 people that are actually getting integrated. So working with people proactively, working in enhancing the culture and giving them the time in order to have the relevant and develop the relevant skills in order to be able to practically perform with this upgraded operating model is also quite important.
Then the third element relates to investments. As you have heard also from the presentation, we're investing heavily in order to make them more productive and being able to accommodate with that model. Now, one question that begs is that if you are going for this wallet increase, which you have the client, but there is going to be more business, are you going to be able to do that with the same amount of people? The answer to that is through upgrading internally the talent. You heard, for example, how we are bringing up customer service people to our RMs on the one hand, and the other part is technology, where we are allowing them to do much more with broadened circle of customers.
I have also to stress that there are a few areas where we are indeed striving for increasing our presence through market share gains, i.e., gaining more customers. That is, for example, in one area, which is small businesses, where in Greece we are lagging behind, but by enhancing the payment platform that we are having, it is a good inroad in order to make more business with them. The other obviously is in the area of international wealth, where we have the clients, but we do not have their international wealth part, and we are going after that. That is also something that we are going to be increasing market share.
All in all, summing it all up, number one, it is important to appreciate that it is only now the time to do the pivot, because if you look three years back, the audience, i.e., our clientele, was not yet ready for that. Number two is that we have done extremely diligent prep work in order to be able to offer that service. Number three, that also technology has evolved in the meantime, which has allowed us really to be able to do more with less cost.
Okay. A couple of questions from the online crowd before we take the next one from the floor. UBS, Stefan, "Can we confirm that the 16% we are projecting for 2030 is on a 13% CET1?" That is probably one for Vasilis Kosmas. From Morgan Stanley, Noemi, "Can we split the DTA capital benefit of EUR 1.3 billion that we see between the various years?" Again, probably for Vasilis Kosmas. Lastly, a question from a retail shareholder, "Why do we favor buybacks versus cash?" I will let Lazaros answer that one. So, Vasilis, first over to you.
Thank you. First of all, yes, I do confirm that the 16% is calculated on a CET1 ratio of 13%, but I think it's important to stress that this 16% still has a drag on DTAs. As we mentioned, the drag of DTAs will be decreasing in the years post-2030. The benefit, merely the benefit of the DTA drag is more than 50 basis points on RoTE from that point onwards. On the DTA question, the number is linked to the profitability of the Greek franchise, of the Greek operations, so it's roughly EUR 300 million a year until 2029, and a final EUR 400 million in 2030. Lazaros, I guess you can—
Yeah, I'll take the third question on buybacks. We're not favoring buybacks versus cash distribution. Indeed, we have started a couple of years ago with higher buybacks as a proportion of total payouts. That has gone down in subsequent years as our share price and the respective economics of buybacks have changed. Every year, we'll be assessing the respective qualitative or quantitative criteria that will define how our additional distributions will flow to shareholders, either in the form of cash or buybacks. It's dynamic.
Okay. Just confirm from my side, the ROE target that we have for 2028 is also based on the below 14% CET1 ratio. So we're not normalizing for excess capital. With that, maybe if we can go to Gabor.
Thank you. Gabor from Autonomous. I would like to ask about the optionality, which I believe is embedded in your assumptions backing up the plan. Firstly, on capital, which Iason just mentioned, you seem to assume to hit the 13% by 2030 and run above that in the next few years. So what prevents you from committing to a 13% CET1 target by 2028? That's the first one. Then on interest rates, I believe you are assuming a flat 2.5% Euribor rate over the horizon.
If you could elaborate from I mean, we are above that level right now, and rate hikes are expected. If you could elaborate how your RoTEs could develop in a 50 basis points- 100 basis point higher Euribor rate scenario, please. Then on deposits, you target EUR 9 billion growth, I may say, only in the next four years. I think you collected nearly that much in the last year and a half. If you could elaborate on the level of conservatism embedded here. Thank you.
If we can start with Lazaros on the capital trajectory, and then Vasilis and Vasilis, I don't know if you want to answer the other two.
Yeah. Thanks, Gabor, for the question. We're moving towards the 13% Common Equity Tier 1 ratio gradually. Already by 2028, it will be lower than 14%, and by 2030, we will commit to operate with a 13% Common Equity Tier 1 ratio, and that's how we have solved the capital allocation and distributions in the plan.
Okay. On my side, first of all, on the assumption for the 250 basis points for the Euribor rates, I think there's two fundamental reasons, I would say, behind it. On the one hand, I would agree with you that rates are currently higher than 250 basis points, and there are projections out there that people believe that they could go up in the shorter term. About the same time, those same people do project lower than 250 basis points in the years of 2029, 2030, averaging, in my opinion, to the tune of 250 basis points. Adding this volatility into the plan would not change the distributions, the returns would end up producing, but rather would show much less of the execution that we need to deliver for the plan.
That is why we opted to stay with something which is pretty fair for the long term and not just go to 70 basis points, to 80 basis points, to 30 basis points in the outer years. On our interest rate sensitivity, the interest rate sensitivity we have disclosed on current static basis is EUR 23 million for 25 basis points of rates. I would say this would be a very similar number for 50 basis points. Then obviously, when one is looking at 2030, Alpha Bank is going to be materially bigger than what it currently is. So our loan and deposits won't be like EUR 100 billion, EUR 105 billion, whatever it is today, but will be closer to the EUR 125 billion mark. So that one would expect that this could increase sensitivity, bar any changes that we may want to do on our asset liability management. So, mm-hmm.
Then last, on deposits, effectively we're saying two things here. On the one hand, we're comfortable leveling, if you like, a bit the GDP and inflation assumptions for the Greek economy. That would impact the quantum of deposits in the systems. As I said, we don't want to assume any sort of market share gain there. That's what is driving our assumptions on deposits. On top of the fact that there is a continuous structural shift of Greek households towards managed funds, which should continue there and impact this number.
Let me stress what Vasilis has said about the fact that we want in this plan to ensure that people will not see us as wanting to gain market share. Particularly in deposits where we have a very strong position, we have 25% market share as far as corporates is concerned, 21% as far as retail is concerned. This does not necessarily speak about the ability of the organization to attract deposits, but from a planning perspective, doing it like that, it makes sure that other connotation, like for example, pricing or stuff like that, are shifted away.
The only area, as I mentioned before, where we're going to be, and that is a derivative, actually gaining market share, is because we're coming with a new proposition in small businesses. So through that, through the enhanced service, we're going to be getting some market share gains.
Good. One more question from the webcast. Alberto Nigro from Mediobanca, mainly referring to SRT, significant risk transfers. Do we have any RWA optimization actions embedded in the plan, or is there potential upside risk to capital and return on CET1? I'll leave it to Vasilis Kosmas, our CFO.
Sure. Thank you. As you know, we do like SRTs. SRTs form a good part of our strategy to enhance returns. If you look at the bank, its penetration of SRT into the business is pretty solid and is likely to remain that in the planning horizon. We do not assume an increase of penetration in the coming years. Why is that? We are not striving for capital, so we are in a position that we have excess capital. If opportunities arise and we need to use, there is opportunity to use more SRTs, we will be doing that, but obviously, assuming such an opportunity comes our way.
Okay, thank you. We will go to the floor again. Ben, I believe.
Hi, it is Ben Maher from KBW. My first question is just on the Cypriot loan growth target. I think I saw 13% in the slides. I look at nominal GDP in Cyprus, that implies you are going to be growing close to double what nominal GDP is. Just interested why you think you are able to do that. My second question is just on costs. You note the efficiency improvements. I see a lot of that. You can see the international business is coming down quite sharply, but I appreciate that is a smaller share of the business. I am just interested in how you see the Greek efficiency trajectory from here.
My final question is just on credit servicing firms. Obviously, these have seen a big accumulation of non-performing loans come onto their balance sheet over the years. I think some banks talk about reperforming loans coming back on balance sheet. I am just interested in any color on, does the plan factor any of this in, or is that just outside the loan growth? Thank you.
When it comes to the Cypriot loan growth, I think Lazaros is going to take that. We can all guess who's going to take the question on costs. For reperforming loans, I think probably, Lazaros, that one is for you as well.
Yeah. Yeah. On Cyprus, correctly so, you have pointed out that we are assuming loan growth above the GDP growth rate, which is right, and it assumes market share gains. There is a base effect in our Cypriot operations. We have revamped the management team. We have acquired an asset. We are capitalizing on group expertise, products, including UniCredit's products, increasingly now in Cyprus, in order to do what we have not been doing in previous years. The outcome of our effort is visible.
I mean, if you look at the market share gains in Cyprus, take into account Cypriot lending, not international loans booked in Cyprus, you will see that we grow steadily our market share. In the previous years, it was something about 11% of new lending that we captured, and that compared with a 5% market share on loans that we have. Clearly, there is a momentum we are building on. On RPLs, do you want me to take the question now?
Yep.
Reperformance. We have not assumed in our plan that we're buying or refinancing reperforming loans out of securitizations or portfolios that have been sold. Is this because we don't have a conviction that this is an opportunity for the market and for banks in particular? No. We do feel that this is an opportunity and an upside risk to our projections.
However, we think that there needs to be more visibility on EBA compliant recovery curves for portfolios worked out by servicers prior to us doing meaningful transactions in this area that can really move the needle. I think there is a number of stakeholders behind reperformance. It's good that we see this part of the private debt getting rehabilitated and back to banks' balance sheet, but all the stakeholders need to get comfortable about the recovery curves, and we're not there yet.
On the costs, I will try to answer the question because I am not so sure, and I am happy to take a follow-up if I do not pick all of it. I think much of the question was about what is the potential of the Greek operations further putting efficiencies versus the international operations. As we discussed, international operations show a much steeper cost-to-income decrease on account of the fact that they are starting from a different base versus Greece. On the other hand, from a euro amount point of view, much of the efficiencies come out of Greece.
I mean, Greece is by far our biggest hub. This is quite a lot of where the efficiency efforts are focused and should be driving efficiencies going forward. Is 2030 the end of the efficiencies? In my opinion, no. 2030 is actually a year where, for example, the AI efficiencies just start to mature, and I am sure there is going to be a second and a third wave out there to allow us to free up more of front office time to do more sales, to be more productive. I am sure this is not the end, but hopefully I managed to answer all the question and not part of it.
Okay, let us go to Simon.
Hi. Thanks very much. Simon from Citi. Thanks for the opportunity. Just a quick question on net interest income. It seems that you are a bit more optimistic in the first two years of your plan versus the second two. If you could just kind of run through the various drivers there, that would be interesting for me. On the fee and commission side, I see that bancassurance is also contributing to the expected growth, but it is not a big delta. I think other banks have been putting a lot more emphasis on there. I am just curious to hear your general views on bancassurance and whether there is more opportunity than you are actually currently forecasting.
Okay. First question obviously for Vasilis Kosmas for the difference in NII uplift between the two periods. Then maybe on insurance, Lazaros, you can take that.
Yep. Thank you. Yes, you are right to point out that the NII mechanics are slightly different for the first two years of the plan versus the remainder. This is a factor of a few things. First of all, 2026 will likely close with an average rate to the tune of 2025, 2030. So from that period till 2028, there is a small tail in rates, which is not there from 2028 till 2030. Secondly, the securities portfolio, much of the replenishment that I mentioned from around about EUR 3 billion book from 150 to 300 happens again in the first couple of years, so not in the latter years on the plan.
Last but not least, some of the M&A, which has been completed in 2026, will provide a bit of an uplift in 2027, given we are not changing our rates assumption or spread assumptions for the outer years. That explains much of the difference. Useful to note that also, last point, that the outer years we expect a more flattish macro environment for the country. Remind you the sensitivity there, if we were to assume something like a 2% GDP growth, that would add an additional EUR 0.04 of earnings, mostly activity business, but also to some extent long balances in NII.
Lazaros, on insurance?
On insurance, we have made an effort to show you the contribution of all insurance activities in our P&L, despite the fact that we do not have a different segment in our financial reporting. So, it is the first time that you see numbers presented this way. Why? Because we have progressed our strategy, acquiring product factories in Cyprus. Our Greek product factory, Alpha Life, has become much more important for the Greek market and for us. On top, we have the distribution agreement with Generali. So, if you try in the financial statements to identify the contribution of insurance, it will be distributed between retail, asset management, and international activities.
So, what you see here is a pro forma picture that tries to capture everything and show you that already there is a significant contribution that we project to grow in the planning horizon. This comes both from product factories that we own and products of third parties that we distribute in our network. Just to give you a sense of the quantum, something about EUR 0.5 billion of insurance premium is cleared through our product factories or distribution agreements. The AUMs that we have in Greece and Cyprus grow with a CAGR of 15% during the period, there is also a growth of bancassurance fees a little bit higher than the nominal GDP growth rate.
We'll stay with the floor.
Thank you very much. Hector Athanasopoulos, Optima Asset Management. I've got one question regarding M&A. After pursuing an active acquisition strategy, where do you see the next M&A opportunities, and which strategic capabilities are you looking to add? Thank you.
Lazaros, do you want to take this one?
I think I referred to that, so I may need to repeat. We have used M&A to access product expertise, management teams, technology, and this is pretty much the logic that permeates our thinking about M&A. It is again about strengthening product factories, especially on capital-light fee business. This is mainly the space we are looking at, without excluding some bolt-ons in areas that can bring technical expertise, including technology, into the group. But again, this is bolt-on that we are looking at, right?
Andreas, if you had a question, do you still? So, tag me behind you.
Hello, Souvleros from Eurobank Equities. Much of my questions have been answered already, but I have one quick question regarding the AUM internationally. You are targeting about an increase from EUR 0.8 billion to about EUR 4 billion by 2030. This is a significant increase. Does this target embed some clientele acquisitions, or this is organic? This is my question.
Lazaros, do you want to take it, or Vassilios?
I can start, and Vassilios, you can add. There's no inorganic transaction embedded in our projections for growing international AUMs. This mainly has to do with the Luxembourg business that we're building up. Bear in mind that while the business, the entity is new, the customer relationships are old, and we want to grow our share of wallet into existing customer relationships where we do not have access because we don't have the entity in international asset caps outside Greece. This projection is based on a bottom-up analysis, having looked at the portfolios of our customers with whom we bank for many years, and we think we can grow these relationships. Of course, nothing prevents us, and we target to add new relationships in the picture.
Perhaps stressing a bit what Lazaros said, I mean, if you look at the assessment of how many Greek millionaires are out there is a number that is north of 80,000. I think it would be not correct just to look at our 8,000 private banking clients, because practically all 80,000 of them are customers of ours. It's just that predominantly their wealth is international. It is client of ours, not necessarily private banking client of ours, but we do know them because these people are entrepreneurs, they're executives, so we have access to everyone.
That's what I said also in my presentation, that actually they have come to us complaining that the relationship that they get between service and pricing and attention, more importantly, isn't the one that they would like us and encourage us to make the move. On that one, we feel quite confident, assuming that we will be able to replicate the same level of quality of delivery that we have in private banking, which has been attested by the very high NPS that we have and by the fact that we're constantly number one ranking private bank in Greece. If we're able, and this is our aim, to replicate that level of service, then we have very strong execution. We're going to be having very strong execution capabilities and therefore conversion probabilities in order to achieve our strategy.
Good. I'll try to summarize a couple of questions we've received online on UniCredit's basically, do you feel this is a competitive advantage? How does it reinforce and fit into the ambitions you've set for Alpha Accelerated through 2030? What is the relevant benefits of acting as a gateway for Greek businesses to the wider EU economy? I think, Vassilios, that's another one for you.
Yeah. Well, I think with UniCredit, actually, UniCredit people made no secret how happy they are about the progress of this partnership. From our end, we see that it is very important for us, and particularly on three areas. The first is that indeed UniCredit serves as a gateway for our clients as a window to the world. The ability that they have to set foot in 13 countries where we can escort them with their support, be it for payments, be it for setting up foot, be it for looking at opportunities, be it for doing their exports, I think this is invaluable, and this is indeed a unique selling point that only Alpha Bank has among the Greek banks. That is not easy to replicate.
Even if there were someone else to try and replicate the partnership that we have, it will take him a lot of time to bring it to the same level. The second point is that they are helping us a lot in plugging in certain quality improvements that we wanted to have in our product offering. I think one-markets is a very distinct way of showing how we have been able to excel our ability to offer good service, good quality products to our clients. Then finally, which is not necessarily been captured in a monetary way, but it has been very important to us, is the fact of the know-how transfer.
I can assure you that people from UniCredit, whenever there is an ask from our side to discuss something, within 24 hours, the relevant person at the headquarter makes himself and his team and her team available in order to discuss that. That has been a tremendous support, and if you would want also a sounding board to us in a number of initiatives as we were thinking about how to include them. So, these are the three main benefits that we have been able to draw from that relationship.
On the other hand, obviously for UniCredit, it's very important that in one of the fastest growing, and I would also put more qualitative growth that can show among European banking, it finds in Greece. As you have seen, Cyprus is also, despite being definitely smaller than Greece, it has all the relevant characteristics to add to that proposition.
Great. Thank you very much. That's all we have time for today. Thank you for your active engagement. Hopefully, now things are much more clear with regards to Alpha Bank's direction for the next couple of years. We're going to be seeing a lot of you in our upcoming roadshows in the coming days and weeks. Thank you very much. That's all from us.
Thank you.
Thank you.