Good afternoon. This is the Chorus Call conference operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Banca Sistema First Quarter 2024 Results Conference Call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, they may signal an operator by pressing star and 0 on their telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Cristian Carrese, Head of IR of Banca Sistema. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you, operator. I'm here with Banca Sistema CEO Gianluca Garbi and Banca Sistema CFO Ilaria Bennati. Before we start the call, I would like to remind you that you can find the press release, presentation, and results database on our website, www.bancasistema.it, under Investors, Results, and Presentations section. Finally, I would like to remind you also the save-the-date for the presentation of the new three-year strategic plan, which we will present on May the 20th. Now I leave the floor to Gianluca Garbi, CEO of Banca Sistema.
Thank you, Cristian, and good afternoon to everybody. I'm using the presentation that Cristian just described where you can find it. I'm happy to comment starting from slide 2. I'm happy to comment a positive set of results with the total income growing by about 6% on a year-on-year basis despite the increased cost of funding on a year-on-year basis. The debt achievement has been possible thanks to a positive commercial effort in all the business division to increase turnover and also spending. As a result, the factoring turnover grew in a quarter by 28% on a year-on-year basis, the pawn loan by 12% on a year-on-year basis, the SME state guarantee financing loan by 40% on a year-on-year basis.
As far as for the CQ loan, despite the decrease of the outstanding by 11%, it's worth to highlight that the positive commercial performance with new volume that was equal to EUR 60 million in the quarter or up 50% compared to the same quarter of last year with an easy comparison link to the fact that last year, the first half, we have done a sharp repricing of the new production losing some of the market share. In terms of P&L, we provide for the first time the adjusted net interest income items, which is the sum of net interest income and trading from Ecobonus, and Ilaria will describe more in detail later on.
We invite you to look at this item from now on to have a more correct picture of revenue trend as the trading from Ecobonus as a cost in terms of interest expenses that needs recover in terms of trading income. So the two components need to be seen together in terms of net interest income. So the adjusted net interest income decreased of 21% through higher cost of funding equal to 3.6% in the quarter versus 2% of the same period of last year, but also to the fact that in the quarter, the bank sold more product with higher fee component. As a result, looking at the fee component, we have an increase that more than offset the decline of interest fees of 88%, which we don't think is the same nature which we don't think this is going to be the future run rate.
But as I said before, we add for the period more product that are fee-driven rather than interest-driven. The cost of risk was still pretty good at the 17 basis point. We did not see any major asset quality deterioration. Our gross NP stock improved in the quarter. The operating costs were flat on a year-on-year. The pre-tax profit grew by 19% at EUR 7 million, and we closed the quarter with a net profit of EUR 4.1 million. In terms of capital and liquidity, we confirm liquidity ratio well above the minimum requirement. We ended up with the quarter one ratio at 12.7%, which would be equal to 13.4% once the new CRR directive on the neutralization of Held to Collect and Sell portfolio reserve will be in place, which has been now approved by the parliament and needs only to be publicized on the European Official Gazette.
We confirm also the funding mix that registered at the end of last year with retail funding represent 76% of the total funding. Moving to slide 3 to go more in details of the factoring division, we show the usual breakdown of loan outstanding for factoring, which marks the growth in recourse loan of 48%, but also in the non-recourse component, which is 15%. More stable are the tax receivable. In terms of obligor, the public administration represents 71% of the total outstanding and loan for Ecobonus about 9% of the total amount, which is equal to EUR 183 million. On this point, I think it's worth to spend a few words as a newspaper and member of the parliament, Italian parliament and government, started to talk about the possibility to increase the period according to which the tax credit can be used up to 10 years.
Well, first of all, it seems based on the latest view that this change is not going to be retroactive and therefore will not have any impact on the credit, and we start only from 2024. But second and more important, I would say that all the contracts that we have signed have a specific clause of change of law. Therefore, if any new law will intervene even retroactively that can reduce the IRR, we will be entitled to ask our counterparty to get back their credit, and we can offer an alternative the possibility of buying back those credits maintaining the IRR unchanged. So we don't see any major risk from our side if any law will be in place, either if we'd be retroactive or non-retroactive.
The counterparty from whom we brought this receivable, more than 50% are other banks, and therefore we will have this adjustment towards other banks or companies that have a good creditworthiness. In terms of profitability, those loans have an interesting IRR, and we expect that the first quarter of that there will be an increase in the contribution to the P&L in the coming quarters. Moving on to slide number 4, you can appreciate the double-digit growth of the pawn broking business. Our control entity, Kruso Kapital, already announced their result. We just concluded the IPO in January last year, and we are in the process of completing the acquisition in Portugal that we already announced that is going to happen on the second half of this year. As far as the CQ business, we already touched this point, already mentioned something before.
The new volume were okay in terms of the quarter. The stock was flat. Profitability continues to be negative, not due to the new portfolio, but due to all the legacy portfolio that has a low fixed rate, which reduces the yield of the entire portfolio and is not adequate to remunerate the cost of funding. Now I'll leave the floor to Ilaria to describe more in details the balance sheet and the P&L evolution.
Thank you, Gianluca, and good afternoon to everybody. Let's turn to comment the balance sheet on slide number 5. Looking at the table, total assets have slightly decreased compared to year-end 2023, mainly driven by a reduction in factoring credits due to big transactions originated towards the end of last year carrying a very short duration, which have already been collected for the most part. The size of the Govies portfolio has increased versus year-end as we started to rebuild the portfolio after the sale of the majority of the held-to-collect book in Q4 last year. The new floating-rate bonds have been classified in the held-to-collect and sell book, which has now an average duration of 9 months, while the held-to-collect portfolio has an average duration of 40 months. Its market is negative for EUR 5.4 million.
CQ and pawn loan assets are stable versus year-end, and other assets include EUR 290 million Superbonus credits that we hold in the balance sheet mostly for trading purposes. On the liability side, due to banks has decreased quarter-on-quarter as both ECB exposure and interbank funding decreased due to customers increased compared to Q4 driven by the increase in term deposits and increase in repos, which more than offset the decrease in current accounts. Debt securities has decreased quarter-on-quarter due to elevated utilization of structured funding. We'll add further color on funding later on in the presentation. Before that, we move on to discuss P&L on the next slide. We have slightly changed the top-end graph, which now shows a breakdown of total gross revenues including interest income, commission income, gain for asset disposals related to the three core businesses, and SME loans.
The factoring figures from now on will include revenues from Superbonus, and consistently, also the factoring income margin includes revenues from Superbonus. Confirming the positive trend of the previous quarter, total gross income has continued its solid growth also in Q1, and as a result, is 51% up year-on-year. The factoring business has generated almost EUR 42 million income, marking a 62% year-on-year increase. Commercial receivables have positively contributed to the period income generation, and LPI from legal action has confirmed the brilliant performance of the past quarter. Legal LPI accounts for EUR 13.4 million in total compared to EUR 11.1 million in Q1 2023. The breakdown of the LPI is now the following: accrual is worth EUR 10 million compared to EUR 9.1 million in Q1 2023, and extra collection is worth EUR 3.3 million, while it was EUR 2 million in Q1 2023.
The accrual figure was boosted by the inclusion in the accrual perimeter of new credits with a significant backlog of LPI. On the other side, the contribution of the accrual of the EUR 40 per invoice compensation claim was negligible this quarter. As mentioned, a big focus of the origination activity of the factoring division was on the Superbonus product, which generated significant revenues. The contribution in the quarter was EUR 4.9 million, of which EUR 4.4 million generated by Superbonus assets held for trading. This amount, as commented by Gianluca, has been included in the adjusted NII, and it is going to be a recurrent component of our revenues. The yield of new credits has continued to grow, both for commercial receivables as well as fiscal credits.
Indeed, the gross yield of the new commercial credits excluding pharmaceutical in Q1 was 8.4%, which compares with 7.9% in Q4 and with 5.8% in Q1 2023, showing that the repricing action is still well ongoing. Overall, factoring margins on the outstanding stock stabilized in Q1 with respect to the whole 2023 and set at 7%, which, however, represents an increase of 150 basis points from Q1 last year. The 7% factoring margin also includes revenues from Superbonus, which have a 10 basis point accretion effect on the margins. In the CQ, the interest income has slightly decreased compared to last year as the effect of prepayment in the quarter was particularly severe. Also, the adjusted income margin is lower than the whole 2023, which had benefited from a few sales of assets.
The CQ margin is flattish versus Q1 2023, although new credits continue to be originated at increasing yields. We have 5.4% compared to 4.6% in Q1 last year. However, the weight of the CQ assets originated before 2022 is still predominant in the portfolio, and therefore, the average yield of the stock is still much lower than current market rates. Of the three businesses, Pawn loans confirm its outstanding ability to reprice assets. Indeed, its margin is now at 21.6% compared to 18.6% only a year ago. As a result of the described dynamics, consolidated gross margins of the three businesses have increased by 150 basis points since Q1 2023, moving from 5% to the current 6.5%.
As a final note, the contribution to the P&L of the SME loans, although we all know it's not a core business for the bank, however, it has continued to increase, doubling from a year ago and reaching the current EUR 5.6 million. We now move on to total income on slide seven. Q1 total income has increased 6% year-on-year thanks to a positive contribution from factoring and Pawn loans despite higher cost of funding and despite lower contribution from the CQ business. Adjusted NII, which, as we said, is NII plus the result of trading Superbonus, has decreased versus Q1 last year due to a higher cost of funding and a different portfolio mix. As Gianluca mentioned, in 2024, we have originated a bigger portion of factoring commission-based products whose revenues are not included in NII.
Indeed, net commissions played a big role in the increase of total income as they are up 88% year-on-year, driven, as we said, by factoring commissions, which have registered a EUR 4 million increase versus last year. As mentioned already by Gianluca, this is not going to be recurrent, and it's pretty much related to a particularly strong origination of credits with a very short duration. Also, Pawn loans commissions have had a solid growth year-on-year. Other income has grown as well year-on-year thanks to a good performance of the Govies portfolio, which is worth EUR 1.1 million, as well as capital gain from factoring asset disposal, which is worth EUR 0.9 million. In line with previous calls, in the bottom pie charts, we represent the relative contribution to total income of the three business lines.
The contribution of the factoring in pawn loans keeps growing, while the CQ total income has turned negative due to the negative net interest income on the legacy portfolio. We now move to page 8 to discuss costs. Total operating costs are flat year-on-year as the increase in personal expenses and administrative expenses has been compensated by the cancellation of the contribution to the single resolution fund, which is no longer due. In Q1 2023, such a contribution was worth EUR 1.9 million. Personal expenses are higher than Q1 last year due to a higher number of FTEs and the impact of the renewal of the national labor contract, while administrative expenses have increased due to higher business-related costs such as, for example, factoring collection fees. Let's now move on to slide 9 to discuss funding.
In the first quarter, we have continued to favor retail forms of funding, which continue to be cheaper than wholesale ones. The retail component, as said, is now 76% of total funding, pretty much unchanged with respect to year-end. The amount of retail funding has slightly decreased in absolute terms but just on the back of a large drop in current accounts from corporates. Actually, the spike in the current account figure as of year-end 2023 was more an outlier in the trend of a deliberate reduction of funding from this source. On the contrary, term deposits have increased from EUR 2.4 billion to EUR 2.7 billion, all driven by the foreign component, while the domestic funding is stable. The relative percentage of foreign deposits on the total stock has increased to 80%, and the residual maturity of the total outstanding stock is unchanged at 15 months.
As regards to wholesale funding, there are just a couple of comments to highlight. As regards to TLTRO, we have reimbursed EUR 193 million of the total borrowed amount in Q1 ahead of the maturity date in December. On the repos, they have increased with respect to year-end, also driven by a larger size of the Govies portfolio. And finally, over Q1, we have reimbursed the funding through BS I.V.A., which I remind you is the securitization backed by fiscal receivables. Before we finish, as regards to cost of funding, the average cost of funding set at 3.6% for Q1, higher than the whole 2023 but in line with our expectations. Compared to market rates, we're still raising funds at a negative spread versus EURIBOR.
With respect to the trend in funding costs, the Q1 figure has marginally increased versus Q4 2023, which was at 3.3%, and seems to have reached the plateau. We expect the average funding cost for 2024, indeed, to be at current levels, which is 3.6%, higher than the 2023 average cost. However, the marginal quarterly funding cost might slightly increase up to June. We are actually talking no more than 10 basis points and then should start to slowly trend downwards. As said, the average cost for the year is expected to be around the current levels, which is 3.6%. I now hand the floor back to Gianluca to comment asset quality and capital ratios.
Thank you, Illaria. Now I'm in slide number 10. So the asset quality show a slight improvement on a quarter-basis thanks to decrease in unlikely-to-pay and past-due category.
On a yearly basis, there was an increase mainly for some of the unlikely-to-pay position. As you can see from this slide, there is no pickup in the past-due loan in the last 5 quarters. But even if you go back farther, you will not see any real spike as we always apply the new definition of default in line with the guidelines provided by the regulator. I can be more precise if there is any question about the new definition of default during the Q&A session. In terms of cost of risk, the cost of risk on the quarter confirmed the previous trend of 17 basis points. The slide number 11, you can see the capital ratio. So the quarter one at the total capital ratio, we are slightly down to the increase of RWA to the factoring, where we had more exposure to private corporate.
The capital ratios saw more than 300 basis points vis-à-vis the SREP requirement, which is 17.7% versus the 9.4% of the quarter one ratio level. As I mentioned also before, the European Parliament has approved finally the CRR prudential filter, confirming the sterilization of the Held to Collect and sell reserve on government bond. Therefore, on a performer basis, the quarter one ratio would be equal to 13.4%, and the total capital ratio would be equal to 16.5%. Let me conclude by mentioning again what Cristian just said before, that on the next 10th of May, we will present our new three-year strategic plan, and we look forward to seeing you in this occasion as well. Now, let me thank all of you for your attention, and we can move to the Q&A session.
Thank you. This is the Chorus Call conference operator. We will now begin the question and answer session.
Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touch-tone telephone. To remove yourself from the question queue, please press star and two. We can be asked to use handsets when asking questions. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. The first question is from Fabrizio Bernardi of Intermonte. Please go ahead.
Hi, everybody. A few questions. We have seen a bank with certain problems during the last two days. I'm sure you don't want to comment on another player, but the question is how confident you are on your RWAs. So I put the question in very general terms so you can give us, let's say, the flavor, the color you want. Then another question about the stock of loans.
I go from page 3 to page - one second - 4, and I see that the outstanding loans in factoring are down. I remember you had a fantastic last quarter in 2023 while the CQ is going up slightly, and the pawn broking is going up as well. So maybe you can give us some color about which kind of trends we should expect going forward. You show that the asset quality is not deteriorating, so maybe you can give us an update comment on the macro. And I mean, other banks have said that they don't see a deterioration, so your impression would be great. And then on the Superbonus, I understand that you were in a situation in which you could, let's say, offset the problem of moving the, let's say, maturity duration from 4 to 10 months. The question I ask you is different.
What do you think about this kind of legal changes? Because it's not the first time that we see the government doing some, let's say, what I call banal mistakes about changing regulation onwards. So there is a law that was approved years ago, and now they change. So I don't know. Maybe you can tell us if we could expect something else because every time, it's a little bit of a mess for us on the brokering side, let's say. And then if I understood well, we are now at the peak, at the plateau, let's say, as Ilaria said, about the cost of funding. So we may expect the NII line to go slightly better going forward.
I know that there is a business plan in the pipeline, so I don't want you to anticipate something you don't want to say, but maybe some color would be good considering the situation. So considering the fact that you have a three-business unit, of which one is a little bit struggling on the cost of funding. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you for the question. I will leave the second question about the stock of loan at page 3 and 4 and the pickup of cost of funding to Ilaria. I will comment to the other one. So vis-à-vis the confidence of DWA or, more broadly speaking, the application of the DoD, let me say that we had discussed the impact in the introduction of the new definition of default in many of the previous calls since the introduction of the new definition of the call.
During this call, I remember that in several occasions, I was asked why our past due was higher than the one of other players. My answer has always been that we apply the regulation coming from the European Banking Authority and Bank of Italy. I think that maybe conservative or I don't know, but certainly in what we believe to be the correct way. We didn't know how it could have been that other player had such a low past due doing pretty much the same business. So based on this assumption, since the beginning, what we have done was to carefully consider the application of the new definition of default, and we did mainly three things. One, we reduce or even stop to buy receivable that could have a negative impact in the new definition of default.
Second, we apply all the possible remedies that the regulation, the guidelines of the European Banking Authority and Bank of Italy allow us to use to suspend the calculation of the past due. Third, we have reached an agreement with an international fund that buys our receivable before they become overdue. And this is a revolving facility that we use every quarter. Thanks to all this action, we ended up to be compliant with the regulation and be able to limit the overdue. And limiting the overdue will mean also limiting the calendar provisioning. So this is the only thing that I would say about the new definition of default.
And as I said, I will not comment about other players, but the difference that and as I said before, looking also at the previous balance sheet since the starting of the new Definition of Default, there was always a gap. Even though the assets were the same, the size the same, there was a gap on the Past Due and meaning probably the interpretation of some of the rules of the guidelines of the regulator. Clearly, if there is this issue and if you had a Past Due at that time, after a period of time, there will become calendar provisioning. In terms of macro declaration, at the end, we are exposed towards mainly the public administration. But even when I look at the smaller because it's not a big portfolio of SME financing, so far, we didn't see any deterioration.
So in terms of asset quality, I would say that even though we are a small player in this scheme, we didn't see any deterioration of the credit. In terms of Superbonus, well, I start with the assumption that I don't trust the government. You correctly said that we already have seen in the past some change in the Superbonus in the regulation retroactively. I refer in particular to the change that happened on the renewable energy incentive, where at that time, the government decided to retroactively change those incentives. As a result, there were several litigations, and everything ended up to the Supreme Court, Constitutional Court. The Constitutional Court defined that this change was legal because when there is a superior interest, which is protecting the government balance sheet, this prevails towards the individual interest.
For this reason, not only for a few of the Superbonus, but for the entire portfolio of Superbonus, we have included in the contract this change of law clause. I don't think that there are many players that did it. Probably nobody. I don't know. But we know that we have to turn down several transactions because some of the counterparty did not accept to introduce this change of law. So we are protected. As I said, I don't think that tonight, the government will introduce something retroactively, but there are other four years going forward. So maybe next year, a new government, in three-year times, they will see an issue on the deficit, and they will change it retroactively. If I'm not mistaken, I think that the Superbonus law has been changed 27 times. So I'm not concerned because of the, on one end, our contractual construction.
I'm not concerned because the counterparty that we have are all people that can afford it. I will also say that we have several contracts that have been done in two installments, which I make an example. I can say, "I buy the receivable for 80, but I will give you only 60 today. If the law doesn't change, I will pay you the difference at the time when I use this credit or I will sell it, the credit. If the law changes, this difference will become the indemnity that I will maintain as an adjustment of the price, making sure that my IRR will remain unchanged." So that is the situation. So I don't think that today, there will be a change that goes retroactive. I'm not 100% sure that in the next four years, there will not be a change that will be retroactive, of course.
Clearly, more time will pass, less of an issue will be. But never know what a government in our business, where we buy credit towards public administration, we learn that we cannot trust necessarily public administration. So we need to work in an environment that we are able to protect ourselves towards also the risk of change of law. Now, I'll leave to Ilaria to answer the other two points of the stock of loans outstanding and the cost of funding going forward.
Yeah. Sure. Thank you, Gianluca. So regarding the outstanding, let's start from the factoring.
The factoring outstanding has decreased versus year-end, but that was mainly actually, not mainly, but only due to the fact that the year-end figure for factoring was boosted at the time by the origination of a few big transactions that, as I said, boosted the outstanding at year-end but not the average outstanding for the year. These assets had a particularly short duration. Most of them have already been collected, which is the reason why, compared to the year-end figure, the factoring outstanding seems to have decreased. But that's the only reason, as the origination, as we said, was particularly robust in the first quarter. This is going to be the case also if we look at 2024 year-end figure for the factoring outstanding and we compare it to 2023 year-end figure.
So the year-end outstanding for factoring, we expect to be slightly lower than last year, but just for this reason. In terms of overall outstanding for the factoring division, which includes also the Superbonus assets, if we look at the two figures combined, the overall outstanding is going to be in line, if not marginally higher, for 2024 than for 2023. That's for the factoring. In terms of CQ, we expect the CQ outstanding to be around EUR 100 million lower at year-end 2024 with respect to year-end 2023. This is due to the fact that, as we discussed, we are going to be more selective in the origination, and we are still going to be more selective in the origination of CQ credits, which is going to be reflected in the fact that the outstanding is going to be lower than in the past.
We finish with the loans. The outstanding for loans is expected to increase at a steady rate when compared to the past. We believe the year-end figure is going to be just slightly less than 30% higher than last year. This figure will include also around EUR 14 million credits that will be acquired through the acquisition of the Portuguese business.
Sorry, if I can top up, one more question. You introduced the adjusted net income, which is more or less the sum of NII and Superbonus trading. Maybe you can give us a trend for the whole figure, and then you can split the two items in order to tell us how they may be going.
Yeah. Yeah. I was going to do that in picking up your second question. So we commented together the funding cost and the trend for adjusted NII.
So if we start from the funding cost, we said that this is going to be more or less stable at around these levels, which means that interest expenses for the following quarters are expected to be stable at around current levels, if not marginally higher. So imagine they are stable. On the interest income, we expect to have an increase. But without including the income from Superbonus, the non-adjusted net interest income is not going to increase compared to last year's figure because, as Gianluca mentioned and as we mentioned again in commenting the P&L, the Superbonus credits are going to be funded through interest expenses. So we need to include the revenues from Superbonus. That's why, going forward, we look at the Adjusted Net Interest Income.
This figure is going to increase steadily over the quarters and to reach year-end level, which is higher, double digits higher with respect to 2023. The same is, of course, going to be valid for the total income figure. But because you mentioned the adjusted NII, the answer is that, yes, 2024 year-end NII is going to be higher than 2023 year-end NII. Regarding the contribution of the Superbonus trading, we mentioned it to be just the trading component, EUR 4.4 million. This is going to increase over the quarters, reaching an amount which could be perhaps almost, for the last quarter, double the current level.
Okay. Thank you very much.
The next question is from Luigi Tramontana of Banca Akros. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you for the presentation and taking my questions. Regarding the adjusted income margin, you changed a little bit your methodology.
As far as I remember, on the CQ, the adjusted income margin was 2.8% at the end of last year. Is it due to the portfolios that you sold last year, which explained this drop in Q1? Do you plan to sell additional portfolios this year on this business, given that it is loss-making? Then a question on your costs, if there were any non-recurring costs in Q1 due to the listing of Kruso Kapital. Finally, on the cost of risk, if you have any indication for the full year. Thank you.
Quickly, I would say, on the CQ, I think that the drop is mainly driven by the prepayment and not by the sale of assets. Even though, going forward, we are going to sell assets, but I'll leave that to eventually Ilaria to comment more.
Second point, yes, there are some one-off costs at the first quarter of the year, which is the IPO of Kruso Kapital and part of the cost of the acquisition of Portugal activity for Kruso Kapital. In terms of cost of risk, I think our target is always to remain below the 30 basis points. But I will leave maybe to Ilaria to comment more.
Yeah. Sure. Regarding the question on CQ margins, it's correct. The Q1 margins have been affected by a more severe prepayment effect than expected. It's also true that if we compare CQ margins not with Q1 2023 but with the average 2023 margins, the comparison is not even because over 2023, we had some asset sales that have boosted the margins. Yes, we are still going to carry out asset sales in the CQ space this year.
In terms of contribution to P&L, we are not expecting the effect to be massive. So we expect something which is pretty much in line with what we had last year. Yeah. I confirm what Gianluca said regarding the non-recurrent costs in Q1. These were the two sources of non-recurrent costs. So it's all related to the loan business. However, in terms of absolute terms, these were not massive. So they didn't really play a significant role in the cost base for Q1. Overall, for 2024, we can expect the cost line to go up because we are investing in the business.
Many thanks.
As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press star and one on your telephone. The next question is from Davide Rimini of Intesa Sanpaolo. Please go ahead. Good morning.
I have just two clarification questions, if I may. One is on the Portuguese acquisition. You mentioned, if I've listened well, that it will be completed in the second half of this year. And I was just wondering whether there's been sort of any delay or any issue since I remember you were expecting it to be completed in the first half this year. And the second clarification is just on the guidance. So there's a lot of moving parts in the start of this year. So I was just wondering whether you can confirm the guidance of net income of EUR 16 million for this year. Thank you. Okay. In terms of Portugal, there's not any specific issue. There was a change in the Portuguese legislation whereby the creditor has three months starting from this year in order to give the waiver for the change of control.
This implies that from the time that we would get the authorization, which is going to happen probably in the next few weeks by the Italian regulator. We already got the authorization from the Portuguese regulator. We had to wait three months because the civil code in Portugal has changed, and the creditor has three months to oppose to this change of control. And that's the reason of the delay. So it's a technical, legal, but it's nothing to do with any concern on the change. I will leave Ilaria to comment on the guidance.
Look, regarding this question, I'm not sure we've ever been that explicit in terms of guidance. But what we envisage for we can say that what we envisage for 2024 is a net income which is in line, if not marginally up, from 2023 net income.
We have already given you some indications regarding the trend in adjusted NII, the trend in cost, and the expectations in terms of cost of risk. All we can say is that the positive trend in adjusted NII is going to weigh more in relative terms than the increasing trends in the cost base. So you can expect a positive outlook for 2024 year-end. But I don't think we've been more specific than that.
Okay. Thank you. Can I just add sort of one thing? Just looking retroactively sort of to last year, there was sort of a less even distribution by quarters in terms of net income distribution. Contribution. So I was just wondering whether, out of sort of your position, out of the first quarter results, would be any thoughts compared to last year.
You mean even distribution? You mean even distribution?
No, sorry.
In terms of net income contributions to the overall contributions, the full year, yes.
Okay. Again, also regarding these questions, we have already hinted something in the previous answers in saying that in terms of interest expenses, we can expect these items to stay flat, more or less flat at current levels for the year. Income revenues are expected to trend a bit higher. What is going to be what can be significantly higher is the contribution from Superbonus trading. So in terms of total income, we can expect the trend to be increasing over the quarters. The cost-based phasing can really play a role in determining whether a quarter net income can be higher than the other. So this is a bit more volatile than the income trend.
But all in all, we can confirm that, as usual, Q4 can be particularly strong and definitely stronger than the first two.
Thank you.
Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone. For any further questions, please press star and one on your telephone. The next question is a follow-up from Fabrizio Bernardi of Intermonte. Please go ahead.
Hi again. I mean, something very simple. Page 11, you show the capital ratios, including the buffer of capital coming from, let's say, the neutralization of, let's say, available for sale losses, to put it simply. Does this change in any way your payout policy? Or this is a buffer that sooner or later because this is a buffer.
The sooner or later will be reabsorbed technically because when the bond expires, you get back, let's say, the price paid, and the loss is evaporating. So I'm wondering whether, in the business plan, we may have any surprise about this. I know that you want to use your capital to feed the operating business, but maybe you want to say something else.
If you don't mind, I will leave the comment on this managerial buffer when we'll make the presentation on the three-year business plan on the 20th of May. So we can have a better picture on what we intend to do with our managerial buffer that is not only this but then maybe others.
Okay. I understand. Thank you.
Thank you.
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So I would like to thank you, everybody, for listening to this call. And I wait for everybody on the 20th of May for the presentation of our three-year new strategic plan. Thank you again, and have a good weekend. Bye.
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