FinecoBank Banca Fineco S.p.A. (BIT:FBK)
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May 5, 2026, 5:35 PM CET
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Earnings Call: Q3 2021

Nov 9, 2021

Operator

Good afternoon. This is the Chorus Call conference operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the FinecoBank 1/3 1/4 2021 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 zero on their telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Alessandro Foti, CEO of FinecoBank. Please go ahead, sir.

Alessandro Foti
CEO and General Manager, FinecoBank

Good afternoon.

Operator

Mr. Foti, we cannot hear you. Okay, we can. Please go ahead.

Alessandro Foti
CEO and General Manager, FinecoBank

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining our 1/3 1/4 results conference call. Before we start going through the details of the presentation, let me please underline that the last 1/4, once again, confirmed our new dimension of structural growth. We are progressively delivering on our 2 strategic discontinuities in order to become more a platform for fulfilling the financial needs of our clients than a bank.

First, we are carrying on our initiatives that already are keeping under control the growth of our balance sheet, which will in turn progressively increase and improve our revenue mix, boosting fees and commissions. Second, Fineco Asset Management is already delivering in its strategic discontinuity and is taking more control on the value chain to further accelerate our investing revenues and margins.

The strategic discontinuities are making Fineco more and more a fast-growing and capital-light business model with a structurally higher profitability, thanks to the jump of investing revenues and the structurally higher room for all to dispose of it. This will allow us to distribute at a higher level of dividends, and at the same time, to be in the position to invest more for our growth.

Let me please add that already now, with our initiatives that are not yet at full speed, our balance sheet growth is comfortably under control. Our leverage ratio is no more a point of attention. Coming back to our results in the first 9 months of the year. In the period, we recorded a record high net profit reaching EUR 257 million and increasing by 4% year-on-year, despite the increased contribution to systemic charges.

This result is even more valuable, considering that it has been achieved in a new normal world and beats the previous record set in the first 9 months of 2020. Revenues stood at EUR 597 million, increasing by 4% year-on-year, excluding Non-recurring items of 2020, and mainly supported by the growth of investing, thanks to the growth in assets under management and the operational efficiency by Fineco Asset Management.

Brokerage confirmed a structurally higher flow, also in an environment characterized by a much lower volatility compared to 2020. Operating costs were well under control, and the cost-income ratio stood at 44%, confirming operating leverage as the key strength of the bank.

Our capital position confirmed to be strong and safe, with a CET1 ratio at 18.4%. Let me please remind that after Fineco received the MREL requirements by Bank of Italy, we have successfully issued a EUR 500 million senior preferred, allowing us to be already compliant with the fully loaded leverage ratio exposure requirement with 2 years in advance.

Our commercial activity continued to strengthen compared to the impressive growth experienced in 2020. After the record net sales registered in the first 9 months, figures for the month of October are around EUR 900 million, increasing by 22% year-over-year. The mix confirmed to be strong with about EUR 500 million in assets under management, more than 3 times higher year-over-year.

Brokerage revenues are estimated for October at around EUR 16 million. This is a very good news considering the unfavorable market conditions due to low volatility, which was below the average level of 2017-2019. Nevertheless, revenues are around 42% higher compared to the average monthly revenues in the same period, confirming once again that the floor of the business is now definitely higher. Let's now move to slide 5.

As announced, we reached very strong industrial results also in the new normal world, with adjusted net profit standing at EUR 257.2 million in the first 9 months. Plus 4.4% year-on-year on a like-for-like basis, despite the higher contribution of systemic charges.

Revenue stood at EUR 596.9 million, up 4.1% year-on-year, as we have been able to catch the strong acceleration of the structural trends in place, mainly thanks to the contribution of investing. Operating cost stood at EUR 187.6 million, increasing by 5.2% year-on-year, excluding costs strictly related to the growth of the business.

Cost income continued to be very low at 31.4%, despite the continuous expansion in assets and clients, thanks to our strong operating leverage into the scalability of our platform. Let's now move on to slide 6 and start to analyze more in detail the dynamics of our results.

In this slide, we show our net financial income amounting to EUR 217 million and remaining flat in the first 9 months of the year. Net interest income stood at EUR 186 million, despite the worsening of the interest rates environment. Profit from treasury management stood at EUR 31 million. Let's now move on to slide 7. Fees and commissions stood at EUR 324.4 million in the first 9 months of 2021, growing by 13.1% year-on-year, mainly thanks to the positive contribution of investing.

Brokerage, net commissions and trading profits confirm once again a floor structurally higher compared to the past, despite the unfavorable market conditions in terms of volatility compared to the first 9 months of 2020 and the second 1/4 of 2021. Let's jump to slide 26 to deep dive on our brokerage business. Brokerage confirmed once again that the floor of the business is structurally higher compared to the past and regardless of the level of volatility.

As you can see in the chart on the top of the slide, in the 1/3 1/4 of 2021, brokerage revenues reached EUR 45.9 million in a period characterized by low volatility, also due to seasonality, resulting nevertheless in a monthly average 36% higher compared to the monthly average revenues in the period of 2017-2019.

In October, estimated brokerage revenues were equal to EUR 16 million, around 42% higher compared to the average monthly revenues in the period 2016-2019, and with a volatility that was lower than the average volatility of the same period. Let me remind you that the growth of the brokerage business is driven by the contribution of 3 structural components. First, the deep reshape of our brokerage business.

In this regard, we are now live with our leveraged certificates platform, and we are starting the marketing campaign. As a reminder, our offer will be listed on the Hi-MTF, the alternative venue of which we recently took a 20% stake. This allowing us to extract value from the vertical integration of the business as we are issuer, market maker and distributor.

Let me also remind you that in the first 1/2 of 2022, we'll be live with a brand-new brokerage platform, which will combine our state-of-the-art standard with top quality, easy to use. Second, the client base using our platform is widening with active investors that have grown significantly in absolute terms, standing around 35% above the average level of 2018, 2019.

Please note that our active investors have an average of 4 executed orders per month, are wealthy people in their 40s/50s with assets on average above EUR 200,000, and the vast majority of them have a relationship with our financial advisors for their Long-Term planning and their financial wealth. Let me please add that in order to further position Fineco for its Long-Term growth and build upon its stake in high quality client base, starting from January 2022, we will propose the most competitive offer in Italy to catch the next generation of active investors.

We will propose a very aggressive pricing for our investing and brokerage platform, giving them access to the global markets through shares, bonds, ETFs and mutual funds, also through accumulation plan. Third, we are continuously increasing our retail market share.

Let's now move to slide 8 for a focus on investing. Let me remind you that over the last few months, we have experienced a strong acceleration towards assets under management, as we have been able to catch trends in place in Italy.

We are already seeing the first contribution coming from the strategic discontinuity in Fineco Asset Management, which is allowing us to improve the efficiency of the value chain and generate higher revenues and margins. Investing revenues amounted to EUR 193.6 million in the first 9 months of 2021, increasing by 25.1% year-on-year, thanks to volume effect and strong net sales into assets under management, driven by higher contribution by Fineco Asset Management.

More in detail, management fees increased by 27.6% year-over-year in the first 9 months of the year, while in the 1/3 1/4 of 2021 increased by 32.4% year-over-year and by 8.4% 1/4-over-1/4. Let me please highlight that the management fees margins after tax are increased to 47 basis points. Let's now move on, slide 9 for a focus on our cost.

This slide confirms, once again, efficiency to be part of our DNA and core in our bank, representing a clear and unique competitive advantage. Let me please underline that in the first 9 months of the year were characterized by cost directly related to the strong acceleration of our growth dynamics in the new normal world.

On top of this, the yearly comparison is affected by the strict lockdown in the first 9 months of 2020, driving other administrative expenses below the average level of period 2010 and 2019. Operating costs in the first 9 months of 2021 stood at EUR 187.6 million, growing by 5.2% year-on-year, excluding costs related to the growth of the business, mainly additional EUR 2.7 million costs for Fineco Asset Management.

They are incurred with acceleration of the strategic discontinuity to further expand its business, allowing us to have a higher control of the investing value chain. Additional EUR 0.6 million in marketing cost in U.K.

Staff expenses stood at EUR 80.3 million in the period, increasing by 5.9% on a yearly basis, net of the cost related to the expansion of the business of Fineco Asset Management. Finally, Non-HR costs stood at EUR 107.3 million, growing by 4.9% year-on-year. Let's now move on slide 12 for a focus on capital ratios. Fineco is confirming a rock solid capital position on the wave of a safe balance sheet.

Let me please remind that the shareholder meeting convened on October 21, 2021, has approved the distribution for 2019 and 2020 of a dividend equal to 0.53 EUR, which will be paid out on November 24, 2021. Common Equity Tier 1 ratio stood at 18.37%, including the 2019, 2020 dividend payment. Leverage ratio stood at 4.04%, including the dividend payment. In line with the optionality allowed by ECB and Bank of Italy, our leverage ratio, excluding the exposure towards the central banks, is equal to 3.80%.

Risk-weighted assets stood at EUR 4,580 million, and total capital ratios stood at 29.29% as of September 2021, including the dividend payments. Let's now move on the slide 13 for a brief comment on our MREL requirements and senior preferred issuance. As you know, at the end of August, Fineco announced the MREL requirements received by Bank of Italy, which will be binding starting from January 1, 2024.

The risk-weighted assets MREL requirement is set at 20.83% and already consistently met by Fineco with own funds. The leverage ratio exposure requirement is set at 5.18%, with a net intermediate target at 4.11%, binding from January 1, 2022.

Let me please underline that our MREL requirements are the lowest disclosed in the European market, thanks to our diversified and low-risk business model, together with our high level of liquid assets. As you know, differently from the leverage ratio, which is calculated only based on the CET1 capital and AT1.

The MREL level duration exposure also includes other eligible liabilities. In our case, such eligible liabilities are senior debt, because the regulators has not asked us to issue any subordinated instruments. Thus, in order to be immediately compliant with the fully loaded requirements of leverage ratio exposure with 2 years in advance, on October 14, 2021, the bank successfully issued EUR 500 million senior preferred with a very negligible impact on our P&L. Let's now move on slide 15.

As you know, 2020 has made it even clear that Fineco is in the sweet spot for growth. In the first 9 months of 2021, the bank has been able to deliver even stronger net sales, reaching EUR 7.9 billion, with a very strong asset mix. October net sales were only the latest confirmation of this big jump in a new dimension of growth.

Let me now spend a few words on the recruiting. As you can see on slide 16, starting from last year, we have experienced a strong increase in the interest of financial advisors to join our bank, thanks to our business model, which proved to be the best position to grow in the new landscape, also thanks to our unique fintech DNA.

In this regard, please note that we have no need to overpay financial advisors with huge upfront fees and use the aggressive approach historically taken by the industry. As a matter of fact, in the new environment, Fineco emerged more clearly as the perfect bank for professionals looking to grow in their own business in a sustainable way.

Those dynamics were confirmed in the first 9 months of the year, resulting in a net increase of 146 Personal Financial Advisors in our network, as we recruited 88 senior and 119 junior, with a net sales generated organically by the bank at 86% in the period. Let's now skip to slide 21. In this slide, we summarize our guidance, which are all confirmed with some improvements related to banking fees and investing revenues.

With regards to our banking revenues, we expect our net financial income to stabilize, to remain stable in 2021 and 2022 at the level of levels of 2020. Overall, banking fees are now expected above EUR 45 million in 2021 and to grow going forward, thanks to the increase of our client base and to repricing actions.

For investing, given the strong growth experience of the last few months, driven both by the acceleration in underwriting trends and by the first effects of the strategic discontinuity in FAM, we are again increasing our 2021 guidance to revenues growing around 25% with higher margins compared to 2020.

Going forward, we confirm the guidance of around EUR 6 billion per year in assets under management, net sales, and EUR 6 billion per year in retail net sales by Fineco Asset Management. We also confirm the increase of the bank's management fees margins after tax up to around 55 basis points and the pre-tax margins up to around 75 basis points by 2024. Brokerage revenues are expected to remain strong, with a floor in relative terms with respect to the volatility that is definitely higher than in the past. Operating costs are expected to grow around 5% year-on-year.

Please note that we expect about EUR 5 million of additional cost year-on-year related to Fineco Asset Management, of which between 2 and 2.5 million in the fourth 1/4 of 2021, as we are introducing the strategic discontinuity to improve the efficiency of the investing value chain.

Going forward, we expect a stabilization in running cost growth compared to 2021, around 5% year-on-year, not including the additional costs related to the expansion abroad and to Fineco Asset Management. On Fineco Asset Management, let me underline that in 2022, we expect around EUR 6 million additional costs related to the strategic discontinuity.

Cost-income ratio, we confirm our guidance on a continuous decline in cost-income ratio in the long run, thanks to the scalability of our platform and to the strong operating gearing we have. This excluding costs related to our expansion abroad. Systemic charges for 2021 are confirmed at around EUR 38 million, which we already booked in the first 9 months of 2021 within provisions for risk and charges.

Please note that the more we will be effective in the de-leveraging of the balance sheet, the more we can decrease the contribution of systemic charges. Tax rate for 2021, we expect, while going forward, we expect a reduction of around 1 percentage point per year.

On our capital ratio, we expect core Tier 1 ratio to remain above the floor of 70% and leverage ratio comfortably in a range between 3.5%-4% currently, with a combination of both a strong acceleration in the growth of the bank and the distribution of generous dividends. As you can see in the slide, 55 in the annex of our presentation, the point of attention related to the leverage ratio has been definitely fixed.

On dividend per share going forward, we expect it constantly increasing, also thanks to the progressive delivery on our strategic discontinuities. Cost of risk was equal to 7 basis points in the 1/3 1/4 of 2021, thanks to the quality of our lending portfolio that is offered exclusively to our loyal customer base.

For 2021, we expect it below 10 basis points, and in 2022 in a range between 10 and 15 basis points. Finally, we expect a robust and high quality net sales with a mix mainly skewed towards assets under management and with a lower component of deposits, thanks to the wholly new initiatives we are undertaking. Let's now move to slide 22.

As you know, we have entered a new dimension of growth, and to take full advantage of it, we have undertaken a wide set of initiatives to keep the growth of our balance sheet under control. This will improve our revenue mix and evolve our business model to be more fee- and commission-driven, becoming more a platform to fulfill clients' financial needs than a bank.

Let me please underline that already now with our initiatives, not yet at full speed, at the same time, we can sustain our strong L growth, distribute a higher level of dividends per share, and comfortably remain well above our regulatory requirements. Let me now go briefly through the new initiatives. First, we changed the incentive scheme of our network of financial planners that is now only linked to net sales in asset under management.

This has produced a strong acceleration in improving the quality of our net sales mix. Second, we will further increase the productivity of the network through new software developments, leveraging on our deep internal IT know-how. Third, also thanks to Fineco Asset Management efficiency and strong time to market, we can count on a wider product range in order to fully catch the whole spectrum of clients' financial needs and effectively convert their excess liquidity.

For example, our FAM Target offer fits virtually all investment needs, while the platform of 1/3 party savings account, which is already live, is perfect for clients with no intention to invest in managed products. Finally, we are improving the quality of our client base, focusing our target market on the upper end, also thanks to the repricing of our banking services in order to better control the acceleration of new clients from traditional banks and to be more selective in our client acquisition.

All this set of new initiatives will allow us to be more selective in the growth, and we are pursuing it, resulting in a better quality revenue mix. Let's now move to slide 23 to deep dive on our banking business.

As you know, we have set a number of industrial initiatives to manage liquidity, improve the quality of our client base and total financial asset mix. In the end, deleverage our balance sheet. Among these, it is worth mentioning the more dynamic management of our treasury, the increase in the appetite for lending by our clients with no change to our cautious and conservative approach, the new platform to distribute 1/3 party savings account,

the new pricing of our banking services. Finally, the new platform to manage the tax credits towards the state under the Ecobonus and Superbonus, which we are progressively buying. This will help us to sustain the net interest income with an interest in yield and not use of capital, as the counterparty of credit is the state.

In this regard, the results of the first 9 months already show the first contribution coming from the tax credits, and going forward, we have a volume potential in a range between EUR 1.5 billion and EUR 2 billion. At the end of September, we bought around EUR 400 million tax credits, which we expect around EUR 800 million by the end of 2021. Let's now move on slide 24 for a deep dive on our investing business.

As anticipated, going forward, we expect an acceleration of our investing revenues and margins. This is due to a further increase in our netwtwork productivity, leading to growing volumes and to the strategic discontinuity in Fineco Asset Management, which will extract additional operational efficiency and allow us to take more control of the investing value chain.

In this slide, we summarize our actions to further improve both the volume effect and Fineco Asset Management contribution. Already delivering, as you can see from our record assets under management net sales, and by the strong retail net sales by Fineco Asset Management. In particular, in slide 25, you can appreciate how Fineco Asset Management is gaining commercial traction and increasingly contributing to the group net sales with retail net sales doubled year-on-year. On top of this, you can also see the acceleration in the internalization of the value chain, shown by the increase in the institutional classes.

Let me remind you that the discontinuity in Fineco Asset Management will allow our Irish company to progressively and structurally decrease the cost of 1/3 parties through number of initiatives, like for example, the launch of the new flagship product range, fully managed in-house new advisory services, or lower cost of mandates. I'll now leave the floor to Paolo Di Grazia, our Deputy General Manager, for an update on the development of our U.K. business on slide 29.

Paolo Di Grazia
Deputy General Manager and Head of Global Business, FinecoBank

Thank you, Alessandro, and good afternoon, everyone. For the first 9 months, results confirmed once again that our one-stop solution offer in the U.K. is proving to be very well welcomed, and our marketing campaign is providing a strong boost to quality client acquisition.

New current accounts in the period have been almost 70% higher compared to the whole 2020, and we are now developing a brand new proprietary model to maximize the efficiency of our marketing campaign based on volatility and clients' behaviors. The acceleration of our customer acquisition dynamics and the quality of our client base has been confirmed in the last few months.

For example, as you can see on the second graph on the left-hand side of the slide, the penetration of active clients on brokerage is confirmed to be strong at around 70% on the new current accounts in the first 9 months of 2021, confirming that we are now not attracting hit and run highly speculative and volatile customers, but we are attracting experienced traders, loyal and looking for quality offer.

This further evidence of the right position chosen by the bank in the U.K. This translates in a further boost of our revenues generation. On the right-hand side of the slide, you can see revenues in the first 9 months of the year being higher compared to the whole 2020.

On top of this, our cross-selling is working very well, and we are continuing to improve our revenues mix in favor of over-the-counter listed products, which are now the lion's share of the growth. In the slide 30, we sum up the next steps that are getting us closer to the full launch of our investing offer.

In particular, we are now improving our ISA offer with multi-currency and focusing on the user experience by building up easy-to-use journeys and maps to help clients choose the best investment solution based on their goals. As a final note, as Alessandro already described, the 2 strategic discontinuities on the leverage and on the investing will allow us to further increase our growth plan abroad.

In this regard, we are now planning a more robust marketing in the U.K. for 2022 with our usual gradual path, while we are preparing the setup to launch our offering in Germany also by the first 1/2 of 2022, as we think that our model, adjusted based on the features of the German market, can be very attractive for local German clients. Now thank you for your attention, and I will hand back to Alessandro.

Alessandro Foti
CEO and General Manager, FinecoBank

Thank you. Thank you for your time. Now we can open the call to questions.

Operator

Excuse me. This is the Chorus Call 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 2. Please pick up the receiver when asking questions. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. The first question is from Domenico Santoro from HSBC. Please go ahead.

Domenico Santoro
Executive Director, HSBC

Hello. Hi. Good afternoon. Thanks for the presentation. First of all, on the investing fees, I mean, your guidance for this year, which is around 25, suggests that the Q4 is gonna be flattish vis-à-vis the 1/3 1/4. I was just wondering whether there is any catch up in terms of expenses to offset the usual seasonality that we see in the last 1/4 of the year.

There was quite an improvement on margins in the 1/4. I was just wondering how much this is due to your initiatives at FAM, and how much was instead mix effect. At this point, whether you see any upside risk to these 75 basis points that you have as a medium-term target on uncertain .

The other question is, again, on the expenses to PFAs. Given all the initiatives that you have in place in order to accelerate sales, how shall we model this going forward? Do you see an increase? How do you still think, you know, sales and the payout to PFAs relate in a way? Just a quick question on banking fees. This year versus the one of last year, they grew by EUR 5 million. I wonder whether this is the run rate that we should include in our model in terms of increase. On the new rules regarding the patent box, I wonder whether you will apply and what that means in terms of your future tax rate, if any changes. Thank you.

Alessandro Foti
CEO and General Manager, FinecoBank

Thank you. Regarding investing fees guidance, clearly, as you probably are familiar, all throughout the year, we have always preferred to be conservative in the guidance going through the year, and progressively raising the guidance currently with the evidence that the big jump was stable. Clearly, at the moment, the momentum is extremely strong. There is clearly a seasonality in the first 1/4 that is related to the payments of the incentive scheme of the financial planners.

At the same time, clearly, if the run rate of the business is going to continue stronger than we were expecting, clearly there is room for also having some positive surprise. Again, we are remaining consistent with the approach we used all the year long. Progressively, when we were sure that everything was extremely rock solid, we increased the margins.

We increased the guidance. At the moment, this is something. It's like the same approach used when there are the stats saying, "Come on, the expected growth of the gross domestic product is this. This is what is in the pocket, considering the situation." Clearly, the momentum is extremely strong.

If we don't have any unexpected surprise by the market, clearly, we think that probably there is also room for doing even better. The increase of margins in the 1/3 Q is clearly a combination of mostly is driven by the impact, the beginning of the impact of the Fineco Asset Management discontinuity. The mix clearly is continuously improving. Slowly but steadily is improving. Just think to our accumulation products that are continuously increasing the equity exposure of clients.

It's a little bit too early to say just to give you an idea if there is or not an upside risk regarding the 75 basis points, 2024. At the moment, we prefer remain that we gave the guidance to market just a few months ago. We prefer to remain consistent with this guidance. Regarding expenses related to financial planners, it's clear that the higher are the results and the higher you have to expect the bonus we are going to pay to them. It is a matter of fact. The incentive scheme is built in a way that clearly is not linear, the progression.

Clearly, if we have a higher than expected level of results, they increase. We are going to have an increase in the incentive for financial planners, but it's going to be in a much smaller scale respect regarding the increase of the higher than expected results. In few words, if we have a much higher results, clearly we are going to be very happy to pay to our financial planner higher incentive schemes, because at the same time, what we are going to pocket is going to be massively higher. So it's.

On the banking fees increase of EUR 5 million year-over-year, the question if this can be considered as the run rate. It's the bank is growing incredibly fast. What has taken us by surprise has been the fact that despite the introduction of 2 waves of repricing, our expectation was for an increase of the quality of the clients, but probably for at least a modest deceleration in the client acquisition. What we are experiencing is exactly the opposite. The quality of clients is going up, but also the client acquisition is going incredibly well.

For this reason, we at the moment is not on the table, but we cannot rule out to introduce additional repricing for the new clients, considering that in relative terms, the gap, if we are considering the customer experience we are providing to clients and in respect to traditional banks, is keeping on widening. I think that it's a little bit to give a guidance of EUR 5 million as a run rate, I think is like to have a static picture, but everything is moving incredibly fast and is moving definitely in our favor.

On the Patent Box, I'm giving the floor to our CFO to give you a little bit more visibility on what's going on there.

Lorena Pelliciari
Chief Financial Officer and Executive Manager, FinecoBank

Thank you, Alessandro. Good afternoon to everybody. Regarding the new patent box regime introduced by the decree in October 2021, it's necessary to wait for more details by Italian tax authorities in order to evaluate the impact for the bank. The high level of uncertainty already existing on the research and development tax credit led us to consider the old regime more convenient for us.

We have already applied for the renewal of the regime related to the software for the period 2020-2024. As prescribed by law, the tax authority is now to officially validate the use of the same methodology that we agreed for the previous period. The previous period was 2015-2019.

At the moment, and with reference to the period 2020-2024, we maintain the option for the old regime as tax authority has already accepted our renewal. The patent box estimate contribution for 2021 is in line with the 2020 and is around EUR 4 million, considering the same methodology agreed with tax authority for the previous period, 2015-2019.

Alessandro Foti
CEO and General Manager, FinecoBank

Lorena, practically, we can say that up to 2024, there is, we don't expect the market does not expect any significant change in terms of impact of the patent box.

Lorena Pelliciari
Chief Financial Officer and Executive Manager, FinecoBank

For Fineco.

Alessandro Foti
CEO and General Manager, FinecoBank

Yes, for Fineco. Yes.

Alberto Villa
Head of Research, Intermonte

Thank you. All right.

Operator

The next question is from Azzurra Guelfi with Citi. Please go ahead.

Azzurra Guelfi
Equity Research Analyst, Citi

Hi, good afternoon. Couple of question for me. You have provided us a very detailed outlook, but the only one that I don't see is the net profit. Looking at the values movement with the strong investing, the banking stabilizing and a bit of higher costs from the inflation and the growth, is it fair to say that over the next couple of years, your net profit growth could be around mid-teens level? If you can elaborate a little bit of that. The second one is on the AUM flows that you target for next year. You talk about net sales of around EUR 6 million. This is a level that you have already achieved in the first 10 months of this year.

I wanted to know if you can give us a little bit more color on what are the assumption that you have made to get to this EUR 6 billion, and if there is any potential for higher results next year if the conditions remain solid as they are. If I can, a very quick thing on your brokerage side, you would not have any impact from the ban on the payment for order flow that has been announced today, right? Thank you.

Alessandro Foti
CEO and General Manager, FinecoBank

Regarding the net, clearly, we're not giving any precise guidance on net profit because I think that, considering the level of extremely precise details we provided in terms of volumes and evolution of cost, margins on investing and so on, clearly, we think that it is possible to model what you can expect. Clearly, the increase in terms of profitability is going to be clearly progressively quite large. We think that clearly the growth of the net profits that is going to be consistently double digits going through the periods.

We think that in my opinion makes a lot of sense that this is clearly what is emerging clearly if you put together all the information we are giving to you. Regarding assets under management net sales, we are clearly giving guidance.

We are on the EUR 6 billion guidance on assets under management. By definition, we have to be. I'm not saying a little bit conservative because we don't have the crystal ball, and so we cannot. We don't know what we can expect going forward. If your point is, if we have market conditions remaining extremely favorable as they are now, there is clearly a potential upside, yes.

Regarding the 1/3 point, the impact from the ban on payments fraud. For everybody that is familiar with our brokerage business, Fineco is not running in a business model based on payment for order flow. Our trading profit is 100% driven by our internalization of the flows. That means that thanks to the dimension of volumes we have and the quality of volumes that are extremely granular, we are able to match the clients orders directly and without sending them to the market and keeping for us the spread and providing and guaranteeing to our clients the best execution in terms of both pricing and size.

Really, it's absolutely a market practice that never has been part of our business model. We don't need to do that because we are in the privileged position that probably we are probably in terms of capability internalizing order flows, we are by far the best positioned European player.

Operator

The next question is from Giovanni Razzoli with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Giovanni Razzoli
Equity Research Analyst, Deutsche Bank

Good afternoon. A couple of questions from my side. As far as the increase in the risk appetite by clients that you've mentioned, which has driven the increase in the fees, can you share with us what the exposure to equity or how can we, you know, judge this increased risk appetite?

I was wondering whether you can also give us an indication of what is the backlog of potential money in the decumulation product that going forward may be invested into higher asset classes and whether this is going to also drive an increase in the management fee going forward. Second question related to the 1/3-party savings accounts. I was wondering whether you can share with us what are the volumes there.

I mean, the offer has started quite recently, but I think that the ramp up is quite significant. If you can give us the figure there. The last point, I may have missed the comment, but do you still plan to expand abroad, in Europe? If so, whether your guidance on the cost base, 5% growth in the long term, already captures this. Thank you.

Alessandro Foti
CEO and General Manager, FinecoBank

Regarding the increasing risk appetite by clients, at the moment we have the exposure of our clients to equity is slightly above 40%, but I'm asking my colleagues to confirm this number.

Lorena Pelliciari
Chief Financial Officer and Executive Manager, FinecoBank

Yes, I confirm, Alessandro. We are at 40.4%.

Alessandro Foti
CEO and General Manager, FinecoBank

Yes. We expect a slow but steady continuous increase of this of the exposure to the equity markets, driven by combination of a growing risk appetite by clients for the evident reason that is that if they want to protect their on the long term their wealth from for example inflation, they have to look to the in any case on the long run of the equity market. Second, the decumulation product. We jump directly in the second questions. The decumulation products clearly are continuously automatically bringing a contribution in the increase of the exposure to the equity markets.

At the moment, which is the total amount of the decumulation products that we show to the clients. I don't know. I'm asking to my colleagues because I don't remember exactly that number. We have to return to you later on because I'm

Giovanni Razzoli
Equity Research Analyst, Deutsche Bank

Okay, thank you. Because if I remember correctly, you provided that.

Alessandro Foti
CEO and General Manager, FinecoBank

Consider that is a continuously moving picture because the decumulation product solutions are one of the flagship solutions we are providing to our clients. Practically every month, there is a continuous increase of this solution. This, the potential of this is continuously building up. Clearly, we are going to give you a kind of a photo of the, which is the existing situation. Keep in mind that, clearly, month by month, the new, the amount of this solution sold to clients is continuously to increase.

This is probably the most powerful driver in moving clients into a more equity exposed asset allocation. Planning the expansion abroad, clearly we confirm that is in our plan. The guidance on cost clearly is, as Paolo has underlined before, we are going to keep an extremely rational and progressive approach. Clearly the more we get the right kind of feedback from the market, and the more we are going to put money on the table. The example is on U.K. U.K. now is clearly showing a good signal that we are moving the right direction.

Probably we are going to put a little bit more money on the table. But to give you a precise number is difficult because it depends, for example, on market conditions. In U.K., the largest part of the revenues generated by clients is related to brokerage.

The brokerage is a business in which it's worth it to push in terms of marketing if you have a decent market condition, a decent level of volatility. For example, if you push too much in terms of marketing when the volatility is very low, the risk is to waste money. It's difficult to give you any precise indication because we are going to be extremely, as usual, progressive.

For us, the main goal is to be very effective in what we are going to spend. We're going to remain extremely efficient on the operational cost point of view.

Giovanni Razzoli
Equity Research Analyst, Deutsche Bank

Thank you.

Operator

The next question is from Gianluca Ferrari with Mediobanca. Please go ahead.

Gianluca Ferrari
Equity Research Analyst, Mediobanca

Yes. Hi, good afternoon. Three questions for me as well. The first one is on the guidance of net financial income for 2021 and 2022 in line with 2020. I was wondering if you can give us the numbers without profits from treasury management, i.e. a number comparable with the EUR 270.8 million of 2020.

Or in a different way, how much profits from treasury management you expect for full year 2021 and full year 2022. The second question is on the 88 senior you recruited this year. If you can give us the average cost, i.e. if I recall properly, you are amortizing over 3 years, right?

If these 88 are just coming from the competition or you are also poaching people from banks, just a bit to have a bit of color about this. The final question is more strategic one. You talked a lot about optimizing the value chain. I was wondering something around your life offer. You keep distributing products, multi-class products from Eurovita and Aviva. So I was wondering why you don't ask a life insurance license, and you don't take advantage from the fund offer, which is now very wide, to build your own multi-class products. Thank you.

Alessandro Foti
CEO and General Manager, FinecoBank

Thank you. Regarding the financial income, it's practically impossible to give you a precise split right now because it means that we have to make a kind of guess of what is expected to go on interest rates. Because the 2 components are kind of communicating to 2 parts that they are communicating together.

For example, if we have a higher than expected rise in interest rates, you can expect clearly the component represented by the net interest income becoming higher than we were expecting at the beginning. At the same time, the contribution of treasury management going down.

Exactly the opposite in the case you have a kind of the moving in the opposite direction. What we can say that it's that there are the 2 components are. Thanks to the fact that we built an extremely smoothed portfolio. The portfolio has been built in a very progressive way. We don't have any situation. There is a continuous amount of bonds that are running off year by year in a very smooth way.

This is giving an extremely linear kind of approach that is making the linkage between the treasury management and the net interest income working extremely well. This is the reason why we are guiding on the financial income.

At the same time, clearly, the fact that we have perfectly now under control the balance sheet is giving us clearly more room for maneuvering. This is the reason why we are not in the position to give such a precise split between net interest income and treasury management, because it's a continuously moving situation.

For example, 10 days ago when we had the big spike on the interest rates, clearly the new scenario assuming that that was to be considered the new scenario for 2022. The plan was more in direction of a higher than expected net interest income and the lower than initially expected contribution by the treasury management. This is more. Putting everything together, considering that the portfolio is extremely very well balanced and distributed over the years, we are extremely relaxed in saying that we expect an unstable financial income.

On the recruitments of the 88 senior financial planners, and before leaving the floor to Lorena, as usual for the cost, I'm asking the most part of them are coming from banks, are not coming from other financial planners.

They, the big trend there is probably a growing awareness among the skilled bankers working in traditional banks that we're moving incredibly fast in a direction, a completely kind of different world, in which if you want to keep on doing your job in a very efficient and effective way, you have to keep on working in a completely different environment that is going to free you from any constraints from a temporal and physical point of view.

Clearly they are looking more and more in direction to a player like Fineco that is characterized by an unmatched level of efficiency from the infrastructure point of view, at the same time, an extremely broad and fair proposition. But regarding the cost, I don't know, Lorena, if you want to give to.

Lorena Pelliciari
Chief Financial Officer and Executive Manager, FinecoBank

Unfortunately, we don't have the split for the 88 senior FC-FCAs acquired in 2021. If you don't mind, we will come back with a precise answer on this point.

Alessandro Foti
CEO and General Manager, FinecoBank

As usual, we can confirm that we are remaining current with our approach, that is to pay what we think is something that is sustainable and fair. We are not interested in entering in the game of overpaying the new bankers in order to get them on board, because never has been our strategy, and clearly, no, we are not starting that now, and we don't need to do that.

Regarding the life insurance, this is a very good point you're raising because at the moment we think that in the insurance business we are clearly the production we have is quite large because it's at the same time we are still operating in a way that is we have not. When you look to the large life insurance producer, you have in front of you typically 2 kind of players.

You have players characterized by having their own internal factory, or you have players that have entered in a kind of a little bit longer-term and binding arrangements with insurance players. Both of them, both the 2 solutions have the advantage that they are providing to you higher margins. At the moment we are in a kind of a unique situation because we are a large, by far, for sure, a very large producer, but at the same time, we are not, nor we have an internal factory, and at the same time we don't have any kind of L agreement with a life insurance producer.

The results that clearly our margins on the life insurance business, there is room for improving them. Clearly we are going to start on thinking about that.

Alberto Villa
Head of Research, Intermonte

Interesting. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Operator

The next question is from Alberto Villa with Intermonte. Please go ahead.

Alberto Villa
Head of Research, Intermonte

Good afternoon, Alessandro and team. Thanks for the presentation. I have 3 questions. The first one is on the tax credit. You kept your target of EUR 1.52 billion in terms of potential for tax credit. The government now is pushing forward the expansion of the Ecobonus and so on. I was wondering if, given that, you are targeting to reach EUR 800 million by the end of this year, this guidance could be conservative or if you see there are caps so that it's difficult to go much beyond this figure. The second one is still on the-

Alessandro Foti
CEO and General Manager, FinecoBank

Yeah. Excuse me. Go ahead.

Alberto Villa
Head of Research, Intermonte

Also, if you can confirm the margins on the tax credit and the contribution we are expecting on the net interest margin for 2022 from this business?

Alessandro Foti
CEO and General Manager, FinecoBank

On tax credits, at the moment we don't think that it's the case to change the guidance because clearly we are extremely accurate and conservative in order to be sure that everything is done in the proper way. It's extremely complex and granular business, and we are not in a rush. We want to keep on doing that.

This is related to the second question, margins on tax credits. It's clear that at the moment we are in an environment that is characterized by a growing and a higher supply than was expected before, considering that clearly the possibility to get this bonus has been prolonged.

Second, that we are in any case in an environment characterized by expectation of a higher interest rates. Clearly we think that there is clear evidence that we have the possibility to improve the conditions in our favor going forward. For this reason, there is no reason to rush because we think there is quite a high probability that going forward it's going to be possible to buy fiscal credits to more convenient conditions for us than for the 2 reasons I explained.

A higher supply that is flowing in the market, and second, that clearly interest rates are higher than the beginning. For this reason, we cannot rule out that the margins on this business can go higher going forward.

Alberto Villa
Head of Research, Intermonte

Okay. Thanks. The last 2 questions I have is one on the other product margins on a normalized basis, how we should think about the profitability of this product. Finally, a sort of curiosity. We have seen a bank which recently presented the targets for 2024, including the fact that the Single Resolution Fund will be abolished. I was thinking if you consider that this is the scenario we are gonna face and what would be the positive impact on your 2024 earnings from this. Thank you.

Alessandro Foti
CEO and General Manager, FinecoBank

On ISA, I would say that we are talking about something that is just the beginning. In any case, the margins on ISA products are very, very low. It's a product that is mostly correlated with the concept of giving to our clients a one-stop solution, but is not expected to become a large contributor in the revenues.

Honestly speaking, for me, it's something that is completely brand new because I didn't know that there is the proposal for abolishing the Single Resolution Fund. I don't know. Lorena, did you hear something about that? For me, it's a-

Elena Perini
Equity Research Analyst, Intesa Sanpaolo

No.

Alessandro Foti
CEO and General Manager, FinecoBank

It's a complete surprise.

Elena Perini
Equity Research Analyst, Intesa Sanpaolo

I think that it's a good idea. Very good idea. I don't hear.

Alessandro Foti
CEO and General Manager, FinecoBank

If you want to get my personal point of view, it's probably a good idea. Exactly for this reason, I think that the probability that is going to be if we are going to go there is very, very low.

Alberto Villa
Head of Research, Intermonte

Okay. Thank you. Now, it should expire in 2023. That would be the mechanism. But we'll see. Thank you.

Operator

The next question is from Elena Perini with Intesa Sanpaolo. Please go ahead.

Elena Perini
Equity Research Analyst, Intesa Sanpaolo

Yes. Good afternoon. I've got few questions. Well, actually, you are going abroad with your offer while other banks like BBVA are coming to Italy with digital offers. Do you see a fierce competition and do you see it as a potential challenge for you?

Then on recruitment costs, you mentioned that your slide 16, a stock of EUR 35.4 million to be amortized. Can you remind us about the methodology of this amortization? Then it is not clear to me if we have to expect some one-off costs related to incentive scheme in the fourth 1/4.

Finally, on the dividend, you talked about growth in dividend. I was wondering what kind of base can we take because the EUR 0.53 is accumulated amount, 2019, 2020. So I don't know if to EUR 0.26, EUR 0.27 per year level, referring to the past can be considered as a starting point. Thank you.

Alessandro Foti
CEO and General Manager, FinecoBank

Regarding the first question, the fact that we have such a large traditional European banks deciding to enter the Italian market through a digital offer and instead of considering buying branches and so on is great news because it's pretty clear that when you have a bank like that that is giving up completely on any strategy based on the branches it is pretty clear that now the world has completely changed in a direction that is our world. Considering that the opportunity that there is on the table is so huge so large so big that honestly speaking the last concern we have is to have someone else entering the market.

It's exactly the contrary, because the more you have established large banks, the traditional established banks, that they are pushing in direction of a digital world. This clearly is going to accelerate the process of making clear to everybody in the country that the digital is the new world. Probably this means that the pie is going to become much bigger than we were expecting. For us, this is absolutely a great news and I'm very pleased by this because this is going to help in accelerating the process of transformation of the banking landscape.

Clearly considering that Fineco is still, despite the huge success, the very fast growth, still our market share is very small. Clearly we can have just benefits by the such a kind of a revolution. Regarding the recruitment cost methodology for our amortization, I don't know, Lorena, if you want to elaborate on the point.

Lorena Pelliciari
Chief Financial Officer and Executive Manager, FinecoBank

These costs are amortized in 5 years or 6 years. It depends on the contract that we made at the time in which we recruit each PFA. This is the residual and it may be there is 1 year, 2 year, 3 years, and so on, because it's the residual at today. When we recruit a PFA, we start an amortization that has a duration of generally 5 years. The average is 5 years.

Alessandro Foti
CEO and General Manager, FinecoBank

On the 1/3 question, no, we don't expect a one-off cost. I'm not sure that I got perfectly your point because it's. I don't know, Lorena, you want to again also on this point to elaborate the way it's working, the payments of the incentive scheme?

Lorena Pelliciari
Chief Financial Officer and Executive Manager, FinecoBank

No, we don't expect a one-off cost. Do you refer to the incentive scheme to PFAs?

Alessandro Foti
CEO and General Manager, FinecoBank

Yes. I suppose yes.

Lorena Pelliciari
Chief Financial Officer and Executive Manager, FinecoBank

Yes. No. We don't expect one-off cost. We expect to double more or less the cost that we have accounted, we have accrued in the 1/3 1/4.

Alessandro Foti
CEO and General Manager, FinecoBank

It's clear that, currently with the answer we gave to the previous question.

Lorena Pelliciari
Chief Financial Officer and Executive Manager, FinecoBank

Yes, depends.

Alessandro Foti
CEO and General Manager, FinecoBank

If we have results that they are definitely very well above what we were expecting, clearly we can expect a higher cost on the incentive scheme. We are going to be extremely pleased by this because as I explained, the structure in the way that what we are going to pay on the incentive scheme is going to be much lower than what we are going to get in terms of rewards by the extra performance by our financial planners. On the dividend, clearly there is. I don't know, Lorena, if you want

Lorena Pelliciari
Chief Financial Officer and Executive Manager, FinecoBank

The 0.53 we are calculating considering 70% payout in 2019 and 2020, retaining EUR 100,000

Alessandro Foti
CEO and General Manager, FinecoBank

No, EUR 100 million.

Lorena Pelliciari
Chief Financial Officer and Executive Manager, FinecoBank

EUR 100 million.

Alessandro Foti
CEO and General Manager, FinecoBank

Clearly the base and the EUR 100 million has been retained in terms as a kind of a conservative approach.

Lorena Pelliciari
Chief Financial Officer and Executive Manager, FinecoBank

Yeah.

Alessandro Foti
CEO and General Manager, FinecoBank

Considering that we were operating in a little bit, we were sailing in a little bit uncharted water. Clearly the base on which we made the calculation has been more or less in the region of a 70% payout. As we explained, we are not pleased. Don't use this as a guidance on the dividend payout, but for a very simple reason, that Fineco is a fast-growing company, and to give a precise binding dividend payout guidance on a company like Fineco doesn't make any sense, because clearly this can make sense for someone that has a kind of relatively stable and predictable base of growth.

Fineco, we expect our expectation that is going to be a company that is keeping on surprising in terms of what we are going to able to achieve in terms of growth and so on. To give to the market a precise guidance on the dividend payout, that we don't think that. This is the reason why we are using the concept of a continuously growing earnings per share and growing dividend per share. At the same time, if your question is which base you used for the calculation, we used 70% payout base.

Lorena Pelliciari
Chief Financial Officer and Executive Manager, FinecoBank

In 2 thousand and twenty-one. So the base for-

Alessandro Foti
CEO and General Manager, FinecoBank

Yes.

Lorena Pelliciari
Chief Financial Officer and Executive Manager, FinecoBank

Considering the dividend, the increased dividend per share in 2021. In 2021, as we already said, we are assuming a dividend payout at 70%, retaining the EUR 32 million related to the fiscal realignment of goodwill that we realized in the first 1/2 of 2021.

Alessandro Foti
CEO and General Manager, FinecoBank

Okay. Thank you very much. Very clear.

Operator

Okay. The next question is from Angeliki Bairaktari with Autonomous Research. Please go ahead.

Angeliki Bairaktari
Equity Research Analyst, Autonomous Research

Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. You mentioned during the presentation that you're planning to launch a brokerage offer to customers under 30 years old in Italy, which is going to be more aggressive in terms of pricing and will also include free current accounts. Can you give us a bit more information on how this offer is going to work?

In particular, sort of what gives you confidence that there is not going to be any pushback from the existing clients or any sort of cannibalization with your existing client base, also considering that, you know, if we look at your strategy over the past year, you are really repricing your current accounts upwards, and you're trying to limit deposit growth, especially in Italy.

Second question, could you please give us an indication of the incremental revenue from leveraged certificates for 2022? Third question, we saw that deposit flows were quite strong in October. Have you been able to shift any deposits yet into the 1/3-party savings platform? What should we expect sort of for the rest of the year and 2022 as well in terms of deposit inflows? Thank you.

Alessandro Foti
CEO and General Manager, FinecoBank

Yes. Regarding the planning to launch a brokerage offer for clients under 30 years old. First of all, it is a strategy based on the concept of targeting a cluster of clients that is not a particularly large cluster of clients for us.

Second, it is a cluster of clients that is starting to approach the investing world. If your question is if we expect any kind of pushback by the existing clients, clearly the answer is no. There is absolutely no risk of cannibalization and so on, because as I was saying, in terms of contribution of the overall margins of the bank, the contribution of this cluster of clients on brokerage investing is incredibly low.

It's a kind of strategy. The strategy is to start investing in the clients of the future. Exactly the same we are doing with our financial planners network. Because we recruited 88 senior, but then we had another more or less 65 junior that clearly are going to be productive, really productive in a 5-year time horizon. The rationale behind this is exactly the same.

There is a very clear evidence that the digitalization of the society, the growing awareness that they have to take care more seriously of your money, is increasing the level of participation of the young clients. Clearly, we are going to approach this cluster of clients in a way that is going to be current with extremely solid, sustainable and transparent approach we are using on all our base of clients. We are not going to. We are going to be very extremely focused on the target market. We are going to be extremely focused on the concept that the client has to be aware of what they are doing.

We're not interested in approaching these clients in the same way that they're approached by some high-flying brokers all around the world. Clearly, we have no interest in approaching these clients with making a proposal that is closer to the concept of gaming than investing. We are going to approach these clients in order to start on giving to them the opportunity to take part to the financial world, to become good investors going forward.

Clearly, there is absolutely no risk of. It's perfectly current with the overall strategy. There is no risk of cannibalization, and clearly, there are absolutely no risk of having any kind of pushback from the existing clients.

Regarding the indication of incremental revenue from leveraged certificates 2022, the business has just started. We started with the marketing right now. We can confirm that you have to be patient. We are going to need some months in order to start getting traction on the business.

Clearly, we remain convinced that there is a very sizable opportunity there, considering that the market share we have on leveraged certificates is, in terms of revenues generated by the business, much smaller with respect to the natural market share we have in the brokerage business.

The room for extracting a quite interesting amount of revenues, we think. I don't know, Paolo, if you want to add some more comments on this point.

Paolo Di Grazia
Deputy General Manager and Head of Global Business, FinecoBank

Yeah. Basically, we just starting now to spend money on the product. We have good evidence in the first days. We basically created a brand new platform with brand new user experience both on the mobile and on the laptop PC. It's going to be something interesting in the future. We have to keep on advertising, but also keep on adding a new underlying. I think it's going to be quite interesting. We will see in the next few months.

Alessandro Foti
CEO and General Manager, FinecoBank

As usual, the approach is not going to be a product approach, but it's going to be a platform approach. Clearly, we are going to propose to our clients a kind of platform solution for the certificates we have. That is much more than just giving to the clients a single product. The biggest reason behind the Fineco success has been always the capability to give to our clients a great experience in terms of the way the clients are interacting with us. The same is going to be done with the leveraged certificate.

We're going to create an environment, extremely easy to use but, extremely broad, that is related to the leveraged certificates, making the experience for clients using leveraged certificates absolutely unique. On the deposits, the strong deposits in October, clearly, when you are observing what's going on on deposits, you have to consider that there is seasonality, technical components.

For example, in October, there is, at the end of the month, there is the payments by clients of their utilities. Considering that the end of the month was in the weekend, the payments of utilities has been postponed in November.

Clearly, this has produced a higher than expected increase of the deposits, but just for technical reason. We had also some activity on the brokerage platforms that has produced a little bit more of liquidity. We have to consider that usually the clients, when they have very important tax payments to make, they tend to build up liquidity in advance. November is the most important tax month in Italy. Clients are expected to pay a huge amount of tax during the month of November.

For this reason, we think that number is clearly related. It's not in line with what we are doing. On the deposits, on 1/3 party deposits, I don't know, Paolo, if you want to make. Because the business has been up and running for practically one month and a 1/2. We have just one bank that is on the platform, and we expect over the next few months to add more banks and to give to clients a little bit more sophisticated solution.

I don't know, Paolo, if you want to elaborate a little bit more on this platform.

Paolo Di Grazia
Deputy General Manager and Head of Global Business, FinecoBank

Yeah. Basically, we started with just the first one, and now we are running the marketing campaign through the eligible customer base that we focus on this cluster. Of course, we don't offer this kind of the products to the old customer base.

We just choose the one where we need to. We want they to decrease the liquidity on their account, and it is building up. It also takes time because people they have to be, you know, they have to know the products. They have to see the products on the website every day, and eventually subscribe for the deposit.

In the next 6 months, we also have another 2 providers with probably also more interesting interest rates, we think. I think it's going to be to see some, you know, evidence, some results. We have to deploy the marketing campaign and also add the 2 providers I was talking about. Probably in the next 6 months, we will see some good results on some of these.

Alessandro Foti
CEO and General Manager, FinecoBank

Practically, if your question is going to be within the year end and an important contributor in reducing the liquidity, the answer is not yet. If you question what you expect for 2022, the answer is yes, it's going to be an absolutely decent solution that is going to give an absolutely very interesting contribution in absorbing the liquidity that is not going to be addressable by the investing solutions.

Paolo Di Grazia
Deputy General Manager and Head of Global Business, FinecoBank

Yeah.

Angeliki Bairaktari
Equity Research Analyst, Autonomous Research

Thank you very much. If I may just follow up on the offer on the younger cluster of customers in Italy. Is there going to be a time limit on this offer? And is the expectation that over time, and as these customers, you know, approach the average customer age at Fineco, which is closer to 50 years old, effectively, they will be paying higher fees on their, you know, current accounts or investing products. They will have to see some price inflation over time, assuming they stay on the platform.

Alessandro Foti
CEO and General Manager, FinecoBank

No, it's clear that at the moment this is a proposal that if you start that you are 30 years old today, and then next year you're going to be 31 years old, at the moment in the moment you are becoming 31 years old, you return to the old pricing. Clearly, it's so this is the scheme.

Angeliki Bairaktari
Equity Research Analyst, Autonomous Research

Thank you very much.

Operator

The next question is from Roberta De Luca with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Roberta De Luca
Equity Research Analyst, Goldman Sachs

Hi, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my question. I would just like a bit more color, if possible, on the international expansion. So maybe starting from the U.K., you put 18,000 clients as of October 2021. Obviously, that is somewhat aligned with your initial guidance. Clearly looking at the size of the market, it would be difficult to ignore the fact that the opportunity is in theory much larger than that.

I guess the first question is, what do you think Fineco can do to take advantage of the opportunity given that you clearly came to the market with a very attractive offering. On the marketing specifically, you've mentioned, for example, that you're developing a new model to maximize the marketing efficiency.

Maybe can you give us a bit more color of what that is and what you're expecting to kind of get from there. The second leg to the same topic would be what lessons you've learned from the U.K. that could ensure faster penetration in Germany. In other words, what are you planning to do differently when you enter the German market, which I believe you said would be in the first 1/2 of next year, versus what you have done from an operating perspective in the U.K. a few years ago. Finally, overall, obviously your cost guidance excludes marketing.

Can you give us maybe a bit of a guidance on what we should expect on the step-up of cost of marketing costs, both from the new marketing activities in the U.K., but also the potential launch in Germany next year? Thank you.

Alessandro Foti
CEO and General Manager, FinecoBank

I don't know. On the first question, Paolo, if you want to give a little bit more visibility, please.

Paolo Di Grazia
Deputy General Manager and Head of Global Business, FinecoBank

Yes. Basically, we are aware of the fact that there is a great potential in the U.K., but not only in the U.K., in the entire European nations, countries. What can we do to make all this much larger? We have to do smart marketing. That's the way we have to proceed. Basically, we have, as you said, a great platform, great products, one of the best price lists in the country. We have to be known by the potential clients. We are getting better and better in understanding how to acquire clients, customers.

The cost of acquisition is lower and lower every single month as we do campaigns. I think it's crucial. Of course, you have to adapt the platform, the products. In some countries, you have to use some products, some other different products.

I think it's crucial to understand how to market the platform and the offering in the U.K. It took some time for us to understand exactly what to do, where to spend, how to spend, because every country is different. In Italy, of course, we have the financial planners that are, you know, great channel to acquire clients. More than 95% of our clients in Italy are acquired by the financial planner.

We took some time. Now we have a clear idea how to proceed with the marketing campaigns to acquire clients. As we said in the presentation, we plan to spend more in the U.K. market and we will be also present on TV ads, for example, as we didn't do it before. We will be much more present in the affiliate programs and all this stuff. Of course, digital is going to be a lion's share. I think we quite well understood how to spend this money to be much more efficient and to grab a you know, a bigger market share.

Basically, this is the picture.

Alessandro Foti
CEO and General Manager, FinecoBank

Clearly, the experience we made in U.K. is going to become extremely powerful in making even more precise and effective what we are going to do in Germany, because clearly we made experience. The general market is different, but for sure it's going to help.

In terms of marketing expenses, it's as we were saying before, it depends on the market conditions, the kind of feedback we are receiving. We are not saying we are going to spend. For sure, we are going to spend more, but it's going to be perfectly in line with our extremely progressive approach.

The more we get the right answer and feedback by the market, then the more we're going to spend.

Roberta De Luca
Equity Research Analyst, Goldman Sachs

Can I ask just a clarification? Alessandro, I believe during the call you mentioned that the majority of your U.K. earnings are derived from the broking activities. What other earnings do you get from the U.K. business?

Alessandro Foti
CEO and General Manager, FinecoBank

The UK business, there is the other companies represented by the e-payments, so the multi-currency account.

Roberta De Luca
Equity Research Analyst, Goldman Sachs

Okay.

Alessandro Foti
CEO and General Manager, FinecoBank

The beginning of something coming from the investing business.

Roberta De Luca
Equity Research Analyst, Goldman Sachs

Perfect. Thank you very much.

Operator

Mr. Foti, there are no more questions registered at this time.

Alessandro Foti
CEO and General Manager, FinecoBank

Thank you for the questions. As usual, if you need to make some more deep dive, please, make us a call and we can arrange a Follow-up. Thank you again for your attention.

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