Morning. This is the Chorus Conference Operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the FinecoBank Fourth 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 zero on their telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Alessandro Foti, CEO and General Manager of FinecoBank. Please go ahead, sir.
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our Fourth Quarter 2024 Results Conference Call. Net profit in 2024 reached a new record high at EUR 652.3 million, up by 7.1% year-on-year. Revenues achieved EUR 1,316.5 million, increasing by 6.4% year-on-year, supported by all our product areas . Net financial income is increasing by 3.4% year-on-year, investing by 11.7% year-on-year, thanks to the volume effect and the higher control of the value chain by Fineco Asset Management, and the brokerage is up by 13% year-on-year, thanks to the enlargement of our active investors. Operating costs well under control at EUR 332 million, increasing by 6.1%, excluding costs related to the growth of the business. Cost-to-income ratio was equal to 25.2%, confirming operating leverage as a key strength of the bank.
Moving to our commercial results, we are clearly experiencing a step-up in our growth dynamics, and for 2025, we expect a higher asset under management and deposit net sales compared to 2024. This is underpinned by the positive tailwinds from the structural trends, and we are leveraging on this solid momentum through more efficient marketing activity. Also, we have recently released our new advertising campaign, where we are marketing with a more aggressive stance our main concepts of transparency, innovation, and quality. The result of this acceleration has been clearly visible in 2024 and is further improving at the beginning of 2025. First of all, in 2024, we recorded for the second year in a row the new record in terms of client acquisition, with new clients increasing by 27.8% year-on-year. This trend saw a further improvement in January with around 18,800 new clients, by far our best result ever.
Second, our net sales confirmed to be very solid, with EUR 10.1 billion inflows in 2024. In January, total net sales saw a further acceleration at EUR 887 million, up by a strong 53% year-on-year. In terms of mix, January is characterized by the usual monthly seasonality for asset under management, with net sales at a solid EUR 221 million, and with Fineco Asset Management at EUR 250 million retail net sales. Asset under custody was equal to EUR 1.18 billion, and deposits at minus EUR 512 million. Hence, our brokerage clients have been very active on the platform, buying govies on the dips after the strong increase in yields, thus resulting in very solid brokerage revenues estimated at around EUR 21 million, up by 26% year-on-year. Our capital position confirmed to be strong and safe, with a Common Equity Tier 1 ratio at 25.9 and a leverage ratio at 5.22.
We are very pleased to propose to the next annual general meeting a dividend per share of EUR 74, increasing by 7% year-on-year. On the right-hand side of the slide, you can find a summary of our 2025 guidance more in detail. Investing revenues are expected to increase low double digit versus 2024, with a natural market assumption. Banking fees are expected in a slight decrease in 2025 versus 2024 due to the new regulation on instant payments. From brokerage, we confirm 2025 expected revenues stronger, with a continuously growing floor thanks to the enlargement of our active investors. For 2025, we expect operating costs to grow around 6% year-on-year, not including a few millions of additional costs for growth initiatives in a range between five and 10 millions, mainly for marketing, Fineco Asset Management, and AI.
Finally, in 2025, we expect a payout ratio in a range between 70% and 80%. Let's now move on to slide five. As announced, net profit in 2024 reached a new record level at EUR 652.3 million in a very challenging macro scenario, with an outstanding increase by 7.1% year-on-year. Revenues achieved EUR 1,316.5 million, up by 6.4% year-on-year, and we have been able to catch the strong acceleration of the structural trends in place. The growth of our net financial income, increasing by 3.4% year-on-year, supported by our high-quality and capitalized net interest income. Net commissions increased by a sound 7.6% year-on-year, underpinned by the solid contribution of our investing business, up by 12% year-on-year, and our brokerage business up 9.6% year-on-year. Credit profit increased by 30.9%, mainly thanks to the higher brokerage activity.
Operating costs at EUR 332 million, well under control and increasing by 6.1%, excluding costs strictly related to the growth of the business, mainly additional costs for Fineco Asset Management to further expand its business and having a higher control of the value chain, additional marketing costs to catch the strong momentum of the business. Let's now move to slide six for a deep dive on the performance of the investing business. Investing revenues reached EUR 367.5 million in 2024, increasing by a solid 11.7% year-on-year, on the back of both growing volumes thanks to our best-in-class market positioning and to the higher efficiency of the value chain for Fineco Asset Management. Let me please remind you the great quality of our investing revenues, mirroring our transparent and fair approach towards clients. As a result, our revenues are mostly driven by recurring management fees with no performance fees at all.
Our set of results is particularly remarkable given the more challenging market environment for asset management industry. Let's now move on to slide seven. In this slide, we are representing the two main sources of growth for our investing business going forward. On one end, Fineco Asset Management is increasing the control of the investing value chain. Its contribution to the group net sales has been consistent over the cycle thanks to the incredible time to market in delivering new investment solutions perfectly aligned with what the clients are looking for. As a result, the contribution of Fineco Asset Management out of the total stock of asset under management has been steadily growing, and it's now equal to 37.7%. On the other end, being a platform, Fineco is the best place to catch the latest trend in terms of client investment behaviors.
There is a clear change underway in the structure of the market, with clients increasingly looking for quality, efficient, and fair solutions. All of this is channeling a strong demand towards Advanced Advisory services with an explicit fee, where Fineco is by far the best positioned in Italy, as you can see down in the slide. Let's now move to slide eight for a focus on brokerage. Brokerage registered an excellent 2024 with EUR 217.1 million, its second best just after the pandemic year. The start of 2025 has been very promising, with EUR 21 million revenues in January. This is confirming a structural increase in the clients' interest to be more active on the financial market and building up a clear bridge between the brokerage and investing world.
The brokerage business represents the best sign of how fast the structure of the financial market is evolving as a whole, as technology is driving a swift change in clients' behavior thanks to higher transparency. For this reason, we still consider the brokerage Italian market very much under-penetrated, and we see a strong opportunity to grow despite already being the market leader. Let's now move to slide nine to further deep dive on the potential of our brokerage business given the most recent development. As you can see in the graph, on top of the slide on the left, our base of active clients has recently seen a substantial increase, around 20% higher compared to 2023, and with a 40% step-up compared to the level recorded during the pandemic. The driver of such an increase are all structures.
Mainly, we are delivering on a number of new initiatives like the new brokerage-only account and the new platform, FinecoX . The new market structure is confirming the bridge between brokerage and investing. The recent increase in rates environment has resulted in renewed interest in govies, with Fineco emerging as the platform of choice for clients. In the graph down in the slide, we are showing the executed orders have been increasing in 2024 compared to 2023, and they are back at the pandemic levels despite the poor market environment for brokerage overall last year. Let's now move on to slide 11 for a focus on our capital ratio. Fineco is confirming once again a capital position well above requirement on the wave of a safe balance sheet. Common Equity Tier 1 ratio at 25.91, leverage ratio at 5.22, and total capital ratio at 35.78 as of December 2024.
The risk-weighted assets were equal to EUR 5.06 billion. As for liquidity ratios, liquidity coverage ratio is at 909%, and the net stable funding ratio at 382%, with the ratio high-quality liquid assets on deposit is at 77%, well above the average of the industry. Going forward, we confirm that we will continue to generate capital structurally and organically thanks to our capital-light business model. Now, let's move to slide 17. Let's now focus on our 2025 guidance. On investing revenues, we expect a low double-digit growth versus 2024, with a natural market effect assumption. Banking fees are expected with a slight decrease compared to 2024 due to the new regulation on instant payments. Brokerage revenues are expected to remain strong with a continuously growing floor thanks to the enlargement of our active investors.
Operating costs are expected to grow at around 6% year-on-year, not including a few millions of additional costs for growth initiatives in a range between five and 10 millions, mainly for marketing, Fineco Asset Management, and artificial intelligence. Cost-income, we expect to hit comfortably below 30% thanks to the scalability of our platform and to the strong operating gearing we have. On the payout ratio, we expect for 2025 in a range between 70% and 80%. On leverage ratio, our goal is to remain above 4.5%. Cost of risk was equal to 5 bp s thanks to the quality of our lending portfolio, and we expect to hit in a range between 5 bps and 10 bp s.
Finally, we expect robust and high-quality net sales with increasing assets under management and deposits flows and the continuous strong growth expected for our clients' acquisition, as we are in the sweet spot to keep on adding new market shares. Let's now move to slide 18 for a deep dive on our growth opportunities. Fineco enjoys a unique market position to capture the long-term growth opportunity resulting by the quite significant Italian households' wealth and the fast-changing clients' behaviors. In the graph, you can see the strong potential of our growth given the stock of financial wealth of the Italian families. As you can see, our market share is still pretty small, and the room to grow is huge. We are particularly positive on our future outlook as we are enjoying a clear market positioning on which we don't have no competition.
The most recent market trends are leading to a sweet client investment behavior. Fineco is the only big player with a service model truly based on transparency, efficiency, and fair pricing. Moving now to slide 19, the step-up of our growth trajectory is clearly materializing, as you can easily see on our recent client acquisition. On top of the slide, you can see the impressive acceleration of new clients, as in 2024, we have set the second record here in a row, and we recorded in January by far our best results ever. This acceleration is very healthy because it's based on the quality of our offer and not on aggressive marketing campaigns, for example, with a short-term rate remuneration. As a result, all our new clients are improving the matrix of the bank by bringing in more deposits or more business for our brokers and investing solutions.
In the box down on the left, you can see that it's not just about quantity, but we are also seeing a strong increase in the underlying quality of our new clients, like on the private banking and brokerage. The cumulative growth of high-quality clients over the last two years is now translating into better net sales dynamics, as shown in our most recent monthly updates, allowing us to be particularly positive on our growth trajectory going forward. Finally, let me remind you that we see a sizable mixed shift opportunity coming from a huge stock of govies of our clients bought over the last couple of years, given that a large percentage of this has a short-term maturity. This will give our financial planners an unprecedented opportunity to improve client mix into asset under management. Thank you for your time, and we can now open the call to questions.
Thank you. This is the 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 kindly ask to use handsets when asking questions. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. The first question is from Enrico Bolzoni of J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead. Excuse me. The first question is from Panos Ellinas of Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Thanks for taking my questions. My first one is on the cost growth. Obviously, in 2024, costs were up 11% year-on-year, but for 2025, you're guiding for 6% cost growth plus additional costs for the initiatives. So all in all, it gets to about 9% growth.
Shall we assume that 2024 was a year to rebase the cost base to a higher level, and then from there growing 6% organic plus the extra cost for the initiatives? That's my first question. My second one is on brokerage. We have seen activity picking up strongly in Q4 as well as in January. Do you see some opportunity there for an improving average fee per trade given the mix of the trades as well? I have seen in Q4 there was some shift into U.S. trades with clients preferring trading U.S. And then on the margin loans or Lombard loans, do you see opportunity as well for leverage there to push more on the lending side? So I think, and my last question is on the expansion abroad. Some of the European competitors, Nordnet, recently announced plans to expand in Germany.
So you have been more vocal about expanding abroad. So what's your thinking there? That's all from me. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you. So let me start by the cost growth. So during 2024, we had a step-up on cost. I'm referring to the costs that there are above the operational costs that have been driven by an increase in marketing expenses because, as we are explaining, the opportunity that is building up is absolutely enormous. And so we thought that that was the right decision, and this is going to, and so we are going to stay on the, in terms of marketing cost, we expect to stay pretty much aligned with what has been spent during 2024. And so yes, so let me say that probably the cost base of 2024 can be seen not exactly as a base because probably it's about something very close to that.
So yes. Brokerage activity picking up in January. In January, as we said, there has been, as usual, Fineco is running what is the platform of choice in Italy. And so every time that there is something relevant developing on the market, clearly, this is immediately reflected in the brokerage activity of our clients. Our clients are as we are continuously repeating, are typically acting as contrarians. So when there is something that is going down, they're buying, and when there is something going up, they're selling. In January, we had quite a significant pickup in the yields. And so the clients, the operators, they bought in a big way govies for taking advantage of the higher yields. Regarding in terms of mix, yes, we confirm that there is a continuous steady change in the mix.
And so the clients are more and more moving in the direction of foreign markets and with a particular strong interest for the U.S. market. And we expect that this trend is going to keep on building up considering that the U.S. market, and probably we don't know exactly what this is going to happen in terms of timing, but this trend is going to be further accelerated as much as we have the U.S. market moving in the direction of a 24-hour trading activity and on seven days in a week that is expected at least going through 2026. Lombard loans, the Lombard loans is typically extremely correlated to the level of rates, the short-term rates. The more we have short-term rates going down, and the more we can expect Lombard loans building up.
So yes, we expect that progressively the Lombard loans is going to keep on building up driven by the expected continuously declining short-term rates. On the expansion abroad, yes, we are still waiting for the final answer by the Italian Fiscal Authority in order to be sure that the non-applicability of the stamp duty to the non-local residents. We remain positive on the outcome. So we think that there is a high probability to get a green light by the local Fiscal Authority. And as soon as we are going to receive this, we are going to start on preparing a plan for moving abroad. And we confirm that Germany is going to be the first country that we are going to target.
And also, we are going to use a little bit different approach probably by the other players because the approach is going to be more focused on providing platform solutions for the local financial advisors. Clearly, we are going to as well present also in B2C solutions, but what is going to be distinctive is the offer of an extremely efficient and very well-working platform for financial advisors, clearly leveraging on the infrastructures we are using for our financial partners.
The next question is from Enrico Bolzoni of J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Good morning. Thanks. So just a few questions from me. So the first one, can you stretch out and tell us whether you think the total revenues in 2025 will grow again versus 2024?
On top of that, can you give any indication on the path of NII you foresee for this year and for the next one? Some of the other Italian banks that reported. They mentioned that they expect NII to grow in 2026. I was keen to hear your thoughts there. My second question is related to the financial advisors. I noticed there was a small drop in the number of advisors over the quarter. Can you just give us an update on the reason why the growth in advisors has been stable relative maybe to history? In the past, you talked about the opportunity connected to increasing the productivity of advisors. So I was just wondering whether you're taking any specific action there to make sure that the advisor productivity can increase. Finally, I just wanted to ask you on the customer growth.
In January, it was very, very strong. Related to that, first question is, can you break down the additional customer that perhaps you onboarded via FinecoX and via the new junior bank account offering? And then considering the strength of customer growth over the last few months, can you commit and give us a target in terms of what sort of medium-term customer growth you think the business can print? Can you say it's going to be above 10%, or can you give us some sort of range that would be interesting? Thank you.
So let me start by the revenues. So on the 2025, definitely by traditional banks, clearly the evolution of our financial income is just driven by two components. One is the level of rates. So clearly, but this also is the same story for traditional banks, but clearly for us. So the level of rates.
And regarding this, as you can imagine, it's very difficult to make a precise prediction because it's not in our hands. So what I mean, we don't know exactly the timing and the dimension of the evolution of rates. So the example has been the beginning of the year, which there has been a relatively unexpected rise in yields, and that has been quite different from what the market was expecting before. And so, for example, the month of January is the perfect example of what can happen because we had a decline in deposits driven by the quite brisk activity by our active investors. And this clearly has dropped down the deposits, but at the same time has caused a positive effect in terms of projected financial income driven by the higher rates.
So, for example, if we put everything on the balance, so the negatives represented by lower deposits and the positives represented by higher expected rates, the balance is more positive than negative. So the expectations in terms of evolution of financial income has improved driven by this. But clearly, this is something that can move extremely quickly, rapidly, and is relatively unpredictable. So in traditional banks, for example, they are quite active in putting in place hedging strategies on the portfolio. And we are not doing that for a very simple reason because putting in place hedging strategies means taking risk. And we are a bank that the investors are expecting by us is the generation of revenues really industrially produced and not driven by just because we are making bets on the market. So this is the reason this is not what the market is expecting by us.
Second, traditional banks are heavily involved in lending business, particularly to the small and medium firms, on which they have quite significant pricing power, and so when the rates are going up, they are quite fast in hiking the rates to the small and medium firms, and when the rates are going down, they are not so fast in decreasing the rates, and so they can enjoy this kind of. We are running a completely different kind of business, and so this is the reason why for us it's extremely difficult to make such a kind of forecast on the evolution of rates because there are elements that we are not controlling, but again, what is very important to underline is that we expect, in any case, higher deposits, and so this is going to be positive for the evolution of the financial income.
There's more growth in the number of financial planners. The comment I have to make is that, generally speaking, all the industry is experiencing a pickup in the churn rate of the financial planners driven by these new fiscal rules that they are allowing to. I don't want to bore you entering into details, but this is a law that is practically making it possible for financial planners not paying taxes on the upfront premium they are receiving. The result is, overall, at the industry level, there is a zero-sum game because there are some financial planners that are moving tactically in an organization, someone that is leaving. The result, generally speaking, the result at the level of the industry is an increase in the churn rate. This is going to finish in the next month because this kind of fiscal incentive is going to progressively finish.
And so this is just a temporary impact generated by this law. On the actions on improving productivity of financial planners, yes, we are absolutely working at the first team. When we were referring to the expected additional cost on top of the operational costs related to artificial intelligence, the largest part of the activity we are putting in place on the artificial intelligence side is exactly related to the actions in order to improve the productivity of financial planners. So helping them in being more efficient in building up the portfolio, helping them in being more efficient in managing clients, helping them in being more efficient in planning their activities. And so yes, this is what is going to be one of the most important points of focus of the bank. The customer growth in January, yes, has been very strong.
Our expectation is that this growth is going to keep on accelerating. So we are very positive because, as we were describing during the presentation, Fineco is enjoying a quite unique positioning because there is very clear evidence of a huge growing demand by the Italian families for fair, transparent, and efficient solutions. The generational change is keeping on accelerating and building up. As we were mentioning, we don't have a real significant competition there because all the industry, I'm referring to the decently large established financial institutions, nobody of them is focused there because the industry is mostly focused in squeezing to be the most efficient possible in squeezing the juice by clients. And for this reason, clearly, we are quite extremely positive on the evolution of the client acquisition that is expected to keep on accelerating.
The duration behind the new marketing campaign is exactly there in order to make very clear how different is the positioning of the bank and how Fineco is the perfect place for everybody that is looking for a much more efficient approach. In terms of breakdown of clients, what we can confirm is that the acquisition of clients is, in terms of contribution, polarized between, let me say, the young clients and the upper-end clients, the private banking clients. These are the two segments which we are growing the most. And it's pretty reasonable because of the two segments that are the most reactive in terms of chase for fairness, transparency, efficiency. The rich, because as you can imagine, the richer client is, and the more focus is on what is really getting. And the new generation, by definition, is there.
Target on mid-term customer growth, it's very difficult to give such a precise guidance because it's a developing story. Everything is incredible. Despite we are very positive, we have been taken a little bit by surprise by such a big acceleration. In order to be very transparent, the client acquired during the month of January, the real number of clients has been larger than nearly 19,000. The reason that the acceleration has been so strong is that we had a kind of backlog in terms of opening accounts. The real numbers probably are definitely comfortably above 20,000. For this reason, it's not easy to give you such a precise indication because everything is happening fast.
But what we can confirm is that we are incredibly positive on the future growth, but for structural reasons because the market is changing and the industry is not taking care of this.
The next question is from Domenico Santoro of HSBC. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning. Thanks for the presentation. I'm glad that everything is going in the right direction. I do have a few questions. First of all, I would like to follow up a little bit on the colleague question about the revenues for 2025 because I know how much you are reluctant to give guidance that is not put in black and white on the presentation. But I just wonder whether there is a little bit of ambition from your side to replicate at least the number of this year because when I look at consensus, consensus is implying a cliff edge on the NII. But in such a scenario, probably other sorts of revenues, they might be better.
Probably my sense is that consensus is failing to understand the other parts of revenues that could be better in a scenario where you have low rates, not much on the deposit inflow. Just please try to help us to understand if the ambition is to replicate the number. Maybe which kind of revenues you think consensus is underestimating a bit at the moment. I got a lot of questions on the cost side. It would be very useful if you could isolate in the P&L of 2024 the costs related to marketing, fund, everything on which you give us the delta but not the total pot. That would be useful. The other question is how about this EUR 20 billion of sovereign in the hands of your clients. What's basically the maturity for this year.
I have a question on the remuneration because it's not in the press release, it's not in the presentation. You just mentioned a 4.5 optimal leverage ratio. You're running the business at a leverage ratio which is above that. So my question is, when should we expect you take a decision on a potential share buyback if and how we shall quantify that? I don't know. Assuming EUR 2 to EUR 3 billion of deposit inflow this year, the rest will be allocated to remuneration. Anything from you? It will be very helpful. Thank you very much.
So on revenues, by definition, we have great ambition because we have to stay there by definition. So what is making it difficult to give such precise guidance is mostly related to the evolution of the net financial income because there is a component that we are not controlling. So that, again, is how fast and by which magnitude of the evolution of the declining rates. So this is not in our hands. And these can have a significant impact on the evolution of the financial income. On the other items, clearly, Fineco is different by traditional banks. It is a fast-growing company. It's a completely different by traditional bank because traditional bank is much more predictable because traditional banks are not really growing.
And what we can say is that we are very, very positive on brokerage, for example, because the evidence is pretty clear that the market is absolutely keeping on building up. We are very positive on the investing side for the combination of the volumes and the level of margins and also in a more efficient and also in a more efficient approach on the execution router. But to give you exactly the precise guidance, we think that it would not be serious. So probably as much as we have the interest rates starting on approaching the terminal rate, at that point, we can return and give a more precise guidance there.
But clearly, the bank is in an absolutely incredible position because everything is exactly all the cylinders are running at full steam, because what is very important to consider is that the growth is incredibly key, because the more we grow, considering that the growth is driven by extremely solid rational. It's not driven by extraordinary push marketing campaigns, so the clients are just coming to us because they want to use our platforms, our services, so every single more clients we are taking on board, as we were explaining, is increasing the metrics of the bank, so this, for us, is the polar star of what we are doing, and so for this, the reason why we are really, really very positive. Regarding if you can isolate the 2024 cost rate, I don't know. I'm asking Lorena, our CFO, if she can help me in doing that because it's.
Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Alessandro. Good morning to everybody. The 24 costs related to marketing are EUR 43 million, increasing EUR 13 million year on year. And the cost for Fineco Asset Management are EUR 23 million, increasing 2.4.
What's running off in 2025, if I remember. It's probably something that is close to EUR 5 billion. Yes, EUR 5 billion. And also, in terms of balance, there is a larger component that is going to expire in the first half. Yes. So this is what we expect. Remuneration, yes, we confirmed our 4.5% optimal level on the leverage ratio. And as we discussed in the past, clearly, now we took a little bit and we put on hold any kind of consideration on the possible share buyback because our expectations for going forward for a higher than expected initially base of deposit, clearly, the probability is building up. And so in the presentation, there is an extremely helpful matrix that is showing a little bit what's the possible evolution.
So for this reason, we think that driven mostly by the quite significant acceleration in the growth and combined with declining rates, we expect the deposits are going to keep on building up. And so we are not to rush. It's clear that as much as it's going to become evident. Probably my personal feeling is that at the end of the story, we are going to find ourselves with a significant increase of deposits, a significant increase of all the metrics attached to this, and in any case, leaving still excess capital on the table of the bank. And clearly, this is going to be in that case, we are going to put in place initiatives for giving back to the market.
The example is like the guidance we gave for 2025 payout that is now in a higher range exactly because the bank is in an incredibly comfortable position regarding the capital position. So we think that the possibility to have all these situations materialize and so higher deposits, higher financial income, higher metrics, but in any case, leaving still some excess capital on the table, we think that this is something that can make sense. It's not a remote possibility.
So basically, are you going to take a decision about that during 2025 or any decision is postponed, push back?
No, we are going to. So when you have in front of you such a fast-evolving company, a company that is on the fast lane of growth, that is clearly a company that has in front of him and clearly gigantic opportunity. So if you look to the progression of our growth in terms of client acquisitions and so on, it's really impressive because it's a massive. And so it's normal that we have to take some time in order to understand exactly the dimension of this growth. This is exactly because when you are preparing a share buyback, in any case, you have to be, let me say, a little bit conservative because it would be, in my opinion, not a great choice if we announce a share buyback, then the growth accelerates in a way that is much above what we are expecting to be, we don't think.
So we are not to rush. We are not a dividend company. So we are paying generous dividends. But probably the main reasons why the market is interested in us is growth. And so there is no reason to rush. The business model of the bank is incredibly capital-light. It's the most capital-light among other banks here in Italy. There is no doubt on that. And so yes, the generation of additional capital is going to continue. And as much as we are, the more we become visible, the dimension of this growth that we have ahead. Probably we are going to be a little bit more. We're going to start on being more precise on the capital allocation. But again, what we want to be very clear, we have no interest in keeping an amount of capital that is in excess with respect to what we need.
Very clear. Thank you.
The next question is from Luigi De Bellis of Equita SIM. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning. Four questions for me. The first one is on the banking consolidation ongoing in Italy where we are seeing a lot of unannounced deals. What impact do you expect for the financial advisor network sector in general? Impact, if any, on the quality of services and on Fineco in particular? So if you see some positive angle to catch up potential short-term opportunities from this? The second question on the insurance business. We know that margins are lower than average for this business and there are still some outflows. Are you considering any strategic move in this regard if there are some updates on this? On the third question on the NII, so can you elaborate a little bit more on the trend for deposits that you expect in 2025?
So also considering seasonality and the govies that should be issued to the retail customers in the coming weeks by the government. And if you expect 2025 as the bottom year for NII considering the current level of interest rate curve? And the last question on net inflows. We are seeing more dynamic inflows in the last months. What kind of signals are you receiving from your clients regarding the cash allocation? Where are the new flows being located? So equity, ETF products, and does fixed income product still have a significant weight in the choice of your clients? Thank you.
Okay. Let me start by the banking consolidation. So the banking consolidation is something that is extremely positive for the future development of our business for two reasons. So the first one that is structured because the Italian banking system is clearly moving and becoming more and more similar to the French and then Spanish market in which we have the four or five largest banks are controlling nearly between 75% of the market. And why this is positive? It's positive because the Italian market is more and more moving in the direction of becoming an oligopoly. Exactly. And oligopoly is a situation in which clearly the main priority of the oligopolistic players is not the quality of the services, is not the way they are managing their clients. And in an oligopoly, clearly, the focus is not on the growth because you don't need to grow.
And also the focus is not on the. I'm not saying that in an oligopoly, deliberately the bank are trying to deliver poor services. What I'm meaning is that this is not the top priority because in any case, and this is the reason why usually antitrust authorities are not particularly happy with any kind of oligopolistic and monopolistic position. So this means that there is the risk to have someone starting on really putting an eye on what's going on in terms of change of behaviors of clients, is extremely limited. Second, there is a technical reason because consolidations are bringing disruptions among the clients by definition because you have to restructure services, you have to change platforms, and so on. And this is going to put on top of a relatively not particularly exciting customer experience. This is going to accelerate even more the decision of clients.
So the concept change is good. Our marketing campaign is becoming even stronger in this kind of environment. On insurance business, we don't have at the moment on the table any strategic move. What we are doing, we are going through an extremely practical and fruitful restructuring of our solutions. And we expect this is going to bring an increase in the margins on the insurance business, not because we are increasing cost on clients, but because we, as I was saying, we are restructuring the services and what we are doing. Trend of deposits, we confirm, is definitely up, driven by two components. One is the growth because the more clients we are taking on board, and the more this is going to generate continuously growing transactional liquidity. And second, because clearly, declining rates are making a lowering down the sense of urgency of clients of reinvesting the liquidity.
And so on top of that, always, because we are always cautioning the market to be very careful in reading too much in every single month because there are components like we have seasonality, that it's a big component. So by definition, for example, December by definition is, from a seasonal point of view, a great month for liquidity. And January, as usual, is not a great month for liquidity because clients are. There are all the payments of what has been spent during the Christmas period. The restart of the activity is low because at least the first 10 days of the month, they are gone and lost. And then the second element, again, I'm sorry if I'm a little bit boring sometimes, but Fineco cannot be considered as a typical bank. We are controlling more than 50% of the retail brokerage in Italy, and the percentage is growing.
So this means that our clients, that they are actively trading on the market, clearly, they can have a quite significant temporary impact on, for example, the liquidity of the bank in the market. So as I was saying, our clients are contrarians. And the active clients, they are moving rapidly. They are more or less probably more than EUR 8 billion that they are really actively managed by clients and so on. And this clearly can cause some quite significant short-term temporary impact on the liquidity. But net of this, the trend is the deposit is clearly up. There is no. And yes, probably 2025 is going to be expected to be the bottom for the net interest income because then we put together the bottoming of the rates and the continuous building up of growth. Yes, we think that this could be the case.
The net inflows are more dynamic. Which kind of the messages that we are receiving are coming by this growth? First of all, we can confirm that there is an absolutely accelerating trend among the Italian families in the direction of getting high-quality, transparent, and fair solutions. So if you are a client that is really looking for the most efficient possible solutions, like for example, a portfolio made by a blend of govies, ETFs, and high-quality actively managed funds, there is no other place in which you can do that than in Fineco. So this is a very clear signal. We are also observing that there is a progressive increase of the interest of clients for taking more credit risk, lengthening the duration.
Also, we are starting on observing the restart of the building up on any equity exposure through the accumulation products or the decumulation products , depends from which angle of view you are looking to that. So these are more or less there is an absolutely amazing growth on the ETF side. This is a tide that is building up. In front of a tide, you have two choices. Or you can surf the tide. This is exactly what you are doing. Or you can try to swim against the tide. This is what the most part of the industry is trying to do.
Thank you very much.
The next question is from Gianluca Ferrari of Mediobanca. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi. Good afternoon, everyone. I think you just answered to one of the two questions I wanted to ask you a comment on what Vanguard said early this week, cutting fees. I think you just said that basically the industry is going from a rebate mechanism to a fee-on-top mechanism where you are very well positioned. But again, if you can comment if you think that the decline in ETF fees is more a U.S. issue or it could come also in Europe and some of your competitors in Italy are still relying too much on a rebate kind of mechanism. And the second one still on strategy is on private markets. We saw last night M&G making a deal, Amundi is generally speaking loud about that.
And basically, the new trend seems to be giving access to affluent and private clients on these particular products, private credit and infrastructure in particular. I was wondering if you expect to do something along these lines and what are your thoughts about this emphasis on private markets? Thank you.
Yes, so first of all, I think the two questions are quite strictly correlated. So let me start with what's going on on the ETF side. Yes, so what's going on there in the U.S. is extremely important because it's anticipating what we can expect to happen also in Europe, and for example, another trend that the market is ignoring is related to the massive growth of the active ETFs, so it probably is not completely insane to think that going forward in the future, progressively, we are going to have active ETFs replacing the traditional mutual funds because they are much more efficient and so on.
And this clearly, I'm totally with you, is going to move the market, is going to move the market more and more out from the traditional inducement-based system in the direction of a system in which the clients are paying an explicit fee. And again, this is an absolutely gigantic trend. We expect that it's going to keep on building up. We have been by far the first mover because we started in offering this kind of solution in 2008. Now we have more than half of our investing business that is on which the clients are paying an explicit fee. So we think that this is the future.
So when I was commenting that this is a tide that is building up and you have to make a choice if you want to surf the tide and put it in the right direction or you want to keep on fighting against the tide. Fineco traditionally is characterized for surfing the tides and not going against. On the private market, we're expecting the second half of the year starting on offering private markets to our clients. We are going to do that connecting to our platform, the Allfunds platform, that is going to give us the possibility to offer an extremely broad choice of solutions, helping us in understanding the real appetite by clients and financial planners, and later on considering also to move in even more, let me say, internalized solutions.
At the same time, probably in the same time horizon, we are going to have something structured by Fineco Asset Management in teaming up with one of the largest private market organizations. But yes, during the second half of the year, we are going to start on moving there. We think that it's an extremely interesting market, but we think that it's going to remain the backbone of the business is going to be the traditional activities.
Would you consider acquisitions?
No. No. No.
No. Okay. Thank you.
The next question is from Elena Perini of Intesa Sanpaolo. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning, everyone. And thank you for taking my questions. Actually, I've got one is a clarification on the cost guidance. So I haven't understood whether I have to consider the 6% year-on-year growth on a 2024 basis net of the marketing costs and the cost for FAM , or I have to consider the full amount of operating costs reported in 2024 as the base to apply the 6%. So this is the first one. Then I have other questions, just some small guidance on the provisions for risks and charges because you were mentioning about a step down in 2025 related to the banking contributions and then the tax rate guidance. All other questions that I had already been answered, actually. Thank you.
I leave the floor to the CFO. Please, Lorena.
Yes. Regarding the first question on the 6% growth, you have to apply this percentage to the overall cost in 2024. Regarding the provision in 2025, the usual provision for risks and charges could be estimated at around EUR 15 million. They are related to PFA termination indemnity . That is what we must give to PFA when they are retired. And these ordinary provisions are related also to normal claims and charges. On top of that, we have to consider the contribution to the newly launched insurance resolution fund, for which the contribution for insurance distributors like Fineco is equal to 0.1 per thousand of the technical reserves of the life insurance stock at the end of the previous year.
This contribution could be estimated in a range for Fineco between EUR 1.5 to EUR 2 million. We have also to consider possible additional contribution to the Deposit Guarantee Scheme and Single Resolution Fund in case of the increase of protected deposit or in event of bank failure. As you know, Deposit Guarantee Scheme and Single Resolution Fund have already reached their target. But in case of increase of protected deposit or bank failure, it is necessary to maintain the level of the target. Regarding the tax rate for 2025, we expect a tax rate around 31%, slightly increasing versus 2024 due to the end in 2024 of the Patent Box benefit.
Okay. Thank you.
The next question is from Marco Nicolai of Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning. First question, again, on the deposit growth. So you are saying the deposit stock will grow in 2025. But I mean, after all, it grew also in 2024 despite the macro environment, which was probably more complicated for deposits, especially in the first half. So shall we expect that it grows at least more than it grew in 2024? So this is on the deposit stock. And well, I understand probably the difficulty here, it's around your retail clients, trader clients that create always some volatility around this number. So this was the first question. The second question on the distribution, 70%, 80%. So I guess the decision between 70% and 80% in terms of payout is going to be linked to the leverage ratio and to this at least 4.5% of leverage ratio. Are you going to base your decision on this? Thank you.
Regarding the deposit growth, yes, you're right, so the 2024 has been for sure more challenging and expected to be more challenging than 2025 considering the level of rates in the first half, and so it makes sense to think that the growth of deposits in 2025 is going to be higher than the growth that we experience in 2024. Yes, makes sense, and on the distribution, on the 70% to 80% payout, again, I ask you to make some comments on the rationale behind.
Yes. The ratio behind are for sure related to the level of leverage ratio. Our target is to maintain a leverage ratio above 4.5%, and considering also that due to the expected reduction of net interest income, an increase in the payout ratio is expected.
In any case, yes. So yes, the level is going to be linked to the level of the leverage ratio. Yes.
Yes.
Okay. So 80% if it remains above 4.5?
Yes.
Above 4.5. Yes.
Thank you.
The next question is from Ian White of Autonomous Research. Please go ahead.
Hi, thank you for taking my questions. A few follow-ups, please. Just on Advanced Advisory and the shift towards that model, is the increased penetration of Advanced Advisory being driven by conversion of existing clients or because new clients are increasingly adopting that pricing structure? That's the first question. Just secondly, in general, can you say a bit about how your advisors perceive this shift to fee-based advice? Why would they prefer that model versus charging for advice via product fees, which is, as I understand it, much more commonplace in the sector?
Just lastly, just to come back briefly on NII, I know you're saying things are difficult to predict, like short-term interest rates and deposit levels, but can you give us a sense just on a static balance sheet, deposit levels unchanged, interest rate expectations as they are today, what sort of level of NII or year-over-year decline would you expect in 2025, please? Thanks.
So let me start by the Advanced Advisory . So the increased penetration is mostly driven by the new clients because one of the rationales behind our growth is also because more and more new clients are considering these approaches more transparent and more aligned with what they're looking for. So yes, sure, the growth is driven by the acquisition of more is more driven by the new clients than much more than the conversion of the existing clients. And the reaction of the financial planners, how they are reacting so we have to consider that Fineco started this approach many years ago because we started in offering advisory services with clients paying explicit fees in 2008.
At that time, this was perceived by the most part of the financial planners as something not very interesting because the typical claim by them was that never a client would accept to pay a fee, and so for many years, this has remained the point and has remained a little bit more in a niche solutions for particularly advanced financial planners. Progressively over the years, with the progressive building up in terms of changes by clients' behaviors, culture, technology, and so on, this is more and more becoming something that is absolutely considered by our financial planners as the future, so the financial planners are not stupid. They are understanding what's going on, and for this reason, now we can say that practically more than 90% of our financial planners, they have at least one contract in which the client are paying an explicit fee.
It has been a progressive change. Now we are in a clear acceleration path because, for example, the big tide represented by ETFs, the renewed interest from govies is paving the way for more and more in this direction. On the net interest income, it's clear that, again, so it's very difficult to give a precise indication regarding the level of decrease because there is, sorry, I'm understanding that I'm a little bit boring on this point, but that we don't have any precise visibility on the dimension of the decline of rates and the timing because the ECB is remaining, the narrative of ECB is remaining that they're going to act driven by the numbers. And so the situation is, so it's very difficult to give such a precise guidance. But again, usually when we are making our plans, we are assuming the worst.
The market moving rapidly in the direction of what can be considered the terminal rate. On the other end, we have the clear evidence of the growth of the bank. We can say that the only thing on which we can put some kind of, let me say, a little bit more precise indication that the net interest income 2026, there is a high probability it's going to be higher than the net interest income of 2025. On this, clearly, we have, let me say, a little bit more of a solid base for giving a more precise guidance.
Got it. Thanks for that.
The next question is from Adele Palama of UBS. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, good morning. Sorry, a follow-up on the NII. Can you give us a guidance on the sensitivity, at least on 100 bp rate cuts or if a terminal rate is 2% to where the decline in 2025 will go and in 2026 as well? And then on the financial assets, so you had an increase in the financial assets quarter- on- quarter, probably driven by the deposits. Do you have any target there on the growth of the financial assets as a way of offsetting the decline in NII? And then on the investing business, I know you have dropped the guidance on AUM flows, but do you have a long-term ambition for AUM flows per year? And then on the net management fee margin, it's 69 bp s. How do you see that to evolve in 2025?
Are you expecting that to remain stable at 69 bp s? Thanks.
So, regarding on the sensitivity, Lorena, if you can.
Yes. The sensitivity in case of parallel shift of the curve by 100 bp s, the sensitivity for net interest income is EUR 117 million, is slightly declined versus the previous quarter that was slightly above EUR 120 million.
Regarding where we can expect to have the net interest income with the terminal rates of 2%, clearly, there is an element that we don't control that is the timing which this is going to happen. So because, again, I'm returning to the point I was discussing before that we differently from the other central banks, like, for example, the Swiss bank, the Swedish central bank that has given a precise indication regarding the terminal rate and the timing which they want to reach the terminal rate. This is not the case for ECB. So it's difficult to give.
And in any case, consider that there is also a quite significant correlation between the, for example, if you have rates going down to the terminal rate more rapidly, clearly, this can be on one side negatives, but from the terms of impact on the net interest income, but, for example, this is going to accelerate the growth of deposits, and this is going to be positive. So it's impossible to just look to the rates without considering what's going on around. The example is January. January has been a month characterized by an, let me say, a little bit unexpected jump in yields on the market. This has caused a quite significant activity by the clients buying more govies, and this has driven a decline on deposits that theoretically is negative for the evolution of net interest income.
But at the same time, now the forward rates are higher, and this is positive for the net interest income. If we put on the table the two elements, clearly, at the moment, the expected net interest income is higher than the beginning because the positive impact generated by the higher forward rate minus the negative impact caused by the decline of deposits has been more positive than negative. So it's impossible to give you an answer saying if tomorrow morning the terminal rates are 2%, where is going to be the net interest income because the speed at which we are going to move there is very important. And then we have to consider the correlation between the level of short-term rates with the evolution of deposits. Increase on quarter- on- quarter financial. I suppose that you are referring to the increase, no.
To the balance sheet. The financial asset in the balance sheet. Yeah.
But you are considering all this so you are from the balance sheet. You are referring to the deposits because the assets under management and assets under custody are not on the balance sheet. So we.
Yeah. The financial asset in the balance sheet of Fineco.
Financial asset, so we are just referring to deposits.
Yes.
Sorry if I'm repeating myself, but again, it depends on how this decline of rate is going to happen, so if it is incredibly fast, immediate, and so on, clearly, this is going to have a significant impact on the evolution of deposits because this is going to accelerate, is going to make clients completely so that their sense of urgency for, for example, investing their liquidity is going to go down. Second, it's going to accelerate the appetite by clients for taking profits, for example, on the bonds they bought, so it's again, what is extremely important is the timing in this is going to happen, and so we don't have any specific target in mind.
We know that on the one hand and then on the other side, what is very important that we have to consider in the evolution of net interest income is the growth because every single client, more clients we are taking on board is contributing for increasing the deposits of the bank. Because all the clients we are taking on board, this is very important, are not clients we are attracting because we are giving them a gift. So we are not attracting clients because we are paying them at half of the market rates. We are not paying nothing to clients. The clients are opening the account with us because they want to use the platform, the services, and all the clients that they are using the whatever is the service they are using, they are leaving some kind of transactional liquidity on the current account.
The metric is pretty clear. Every single client, more single clients we are taking on board, and the more we can expect in terms of additional deposits that the bank is going to get. Exactly because the ratio of the IND is extremely solid. I repeat, our clients, they are truly joining the bank because they are interested in the service of the bank. On the assets under management side, any long-term ambition for a year, clearly, our ambition is to be definitely above the latest numbers. We think that there is clearly absolutely this is absolutely in our possibility considering the combination of growth on the base of clients, the macro environment that is evolving in the right direction. I'm referring to the decline rates.
And then we expect also contribution by the increase of the productivity of the network through the investments we are making, for example, in the artificial intelligence used for the network. On the management fees, pre-tax margins, we expect a possible slight increase going throughout 2025 that is related to an expected better mix going forward. Yes.
Okay. Thanks.
The next question is from Alberto Villa of Intermonte. Please go ahead.
Thank you for taking my questions and for the patience after so many. I have really not much left. It's just one clarification on the last answer you gave on the AUM margin. I was trying to understand what is your ambition in terms of rebalancing the mix of the assets under management of the clients towards the equity-related products. What is the current mix and what is your ambition? I know you had the convention for the anniversary of Fineco in December. Did you, let's say, give a message to the network in terms of, let's say, improving the penetration of these kinds of products? And what are you doing in terms of product launches in this direction? Thank you.
So regarding the assets under management margins, so the last year margins, they have been penalized by the mix of the net sales because the mix has been mostly skewed in the direction of short-term fixed income solution. And now the risk that the more we have short-term rates going down, and the more there is room for the appetite for clients is definitely going to move in the direction of a longer duration and credit risk and equity. And so clearly, this is going to be as usual, this is going to be driven. We are not forcing clients moving there because our business model is a business model in which we are fulfilling what are the real needs of clients. We are not pushing them in this.
So our expectation margins is driven by a very simple concept that the more you have short-term rates going down, and the more, by definition, the risk appetite of clients is going to increase. In terms of products, the most recently launched products are products that they are focused on, again, longer maturities, credit risk, and investment solutions, and they are helping clients in progressively moving out of the, for example, money market solutions into equity solutions. This is absolutely very smoothly driven by the changed conditions, the changed macro conditions. Also very important to underline that Fineco is in a better position than the industry regarding the pressure on margins because we were discussing before that the trend is pretty clear. One thing is to be set on products characterized by absolutely incredibly high level of fees.
So it's clear that this is going to, by definition, you are much more exposed to the pressure on margins. Another thing is to be characterized by being someone that has been offering extremely fair solutions to clients. So by definition, Fineco is less exposed to the incoming pressure on margins. But if you look to our numbers also going back faster, the Fineco margins are definitely more resilient than the industry.
Thank you.
The next question is a follow-up from Enrico Bolzoni of J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Sorry, very quickly. You mentioned that you will plan to offer private asset investment in the second half of the year. Can you please clarify if this is just going to be fund of funds product or whether you actually think to offer the so-called evergreen funds in partnership with the private equity or private credit player, perhaps to your private banking clients? Thanks.
The Allfunds platform is a platform that is very efficient because it's giving to you the possibility to have access to the most interesting solutions by the most established players in the industry. And so it's an extremely efficient way of starting the business because we are not going to be requested to commit any specific amount. So the financial planners are going to be able to invest also without taking any particular commitment. It's very good to be very flexible because the range of offer is going to be extremely broad. And for us, it's the perfect way for starting on entering this market. For us, what is very important is to understand the real appetite by financial planners and clients for these products with the idea, in any case, to make some additional steps going forward. But the first step is to start this way.
And so Allfunds is a great platform for doing that because at the same time, it's offering to you great flexibility and quite really significant broadness in terms of offer.
The next question is from Gerald Deutsch of Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Hi, there's just a quick question on the increase in RWA quarter-o n- quarter. Maybe you could give us some color on that. Thank you.
I leave the floor to Lorena.
Yeah. So the quarter-on-quarter increase was around EUR 400 million. And it's mainly driven by operational risk-weighted assets due to the update of the relevant indicator, including 2024 revenues and excluding 2021 revenues. As you know, there is a kind of calculation considering a percentage of revenues of the last three years. And the update at the end of 2024 has generated an increase for operational risk-weighted assets. And this is the main impact on risk-weighted asset increase.
Thank you.
For any further questions, please press star and one at this time. Mr. Foti, there are no more questions registered at this time.
Thank you for attending our conference, and thank you for the extremely interesting questions. As usual, we are available for any follow-up later on, so thank you again.
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