Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us. Established to disrupt is summing up today agenda, where we will focus on our company mindset and culture that are the key elements that allow us to unlock Fineco growth opportunities. Today, it will be a very customer-centric CMD. We will focus on the upgrade on our platform to improve the overall experience of both customers and personal financial advisors. As you can see from the agenda, first section will cover Fineco unique positioning, the disruptor advantage that we have been building over years, thanks to efficiency, transparency, and convenience. This will allow us to benefit from the structural trends that are reshaping the financial industry. Section two, our colleagues will guide us through the growth initiatives. This will shape Fineco next growth cycle, with AI is going to further amplify our competitive edge.
After a 20-minute break, we will then dive into our platform, IT platform. That is the key engine, the bank of the bank scalability. Section 3, financial and guidance up to 2029. Here, we will sum up all the structural trends, and how this is pushing stronger growth, and this growth is going to further accelerate thanks to the initiatives that we'll be disclosing today. There will then be a 45 minutes Q&A session, and for those attending digitally, you'll have the opportunity to submit questions through the platform. Now, I'll cut the story short and just introduce the speakers. They are going to be our CEO, Alessandro Foti, Deputy General Manager, Paolo Di Grazia, the CFO, Lorena Pellicciari, CEO at Fineco Asset Management, Fabio Melisso, Chief Information Officer, Gianluca Martinuz, Head of Product, Romualdo Guidi, Fabrizio Lingesso, Head of Marketing.
I'll stop here and ask Alessandro to join me on stage. Thank you.
Good morning everybody, and thank you for being here today. Now we enter the first chapter of our agenda, where we define what is an established disruptor. You know very well Fineco, a quality story of growth, execution, and consistency. An outperformance of 6.7 points versus the system, and a 25% ROE in 2025, clearly demonstrate our ability to generate growth and value. Most important element is the way we achieve those results, by winning clients' trust, leveraging on our core values of efficiency, transparency, and convenience.
It means we grew and delivered with no compromise on the quality of our revenues, without shortcuts, and with the full alignment with all stakeholders' interest, of our clients, of our employees, and financial planners, and of course, of our shareholders. This is why Fineco stands as one of the strongest long-term success story in the Italian financial services, delivering efficiently priced products to clients and quality returns to shareholders. Let me now to go deeper in what we mean by established disruptor and why we enjoy unique positioning in Europe. Every market has several layers of players. In Italy, like in the most of the EU countries, we have four. First, traditional banks. They control most of the total financial assets, and they are structurally losing market share due to overpriced and inefficient services.
Second, classic traditional asset gatherers, not positioned for long term trends due to whole commercial logic, high fees, and questionable practice like performance fees or large upfront. Third, neobanks and neobrokers. They grow big in number of clients, but lack the trust to attract big assets. Finally, the fourth layer, the one of established disruptors. In Italy, there is just one, Fineco. We are the only big financial institution that is combining in one platform the trust of a big significant bank, together with the mindset, the user experience in pricing of a challenger. Thanks to this combination, we can grow strongly, both in private banking clients and in the younger generations. This is what is making us a winner in long term game. This is what means being an established disruptor. Let me now share you the picture of the opportunity.
Our addressable market in Italy is in excess of EUR 4 trillion in household financial assets. Fineco accounts for only 3.7% market share. As you can see on the right-hand side, we have a long story of growth, but 2025 is marking a clear change in the magnitude of our growth. Here we come to the next question. Why in capital market date now? The reason is pretty simple. The most recent data tell us that the structural trends are clearly accelerating strong, and Fineco growth trajectory is going throughout an inflection point. Three big forces are reshaping the industry and everything is happening at the same time. First, AI disruption. AI is changing how people work, how they invest, how they bank. It will drive for both higher transparency in financial services and productivity. Second, we are seeing a massive generational wealth transfer.
This will completely change client needs and expectations. Third, the consolidation in the banking industry with traditional banks trapped in an oligopoly game where customer experience is not a focus. These three forces are reshaping the landscape, and Fineco is at the crossroad of this big structural change. Today, we are setting the foundations for the next cycle of our growth. Let's now watch a quick video to transfer you, how our company culture and mindset in a quickly evolving context.
Punto di forza di Fineco è la gestione interna di tutte le attività operative. Abbiamo internalizzato IT, back office, customer care. Questo ci permette di conoscere nel dettaglio tutte le attività e quindi di poter creare prodotti e servizi che siano di semplice utilizzo per i clienti. Nel dettaglio ci permette di avere un time to market veloce, di avere flessibilità, di contenere i costi e questo ci permette poi di avere prodotti e servizi che siano sostenibili nel tempo. Sicuramente siamo all'interno del sistema bancario tradizionale, un established disruptor. Questo è dovuto anche al fatto di aver creato una cultura aziendale interna molto forte che ci permette di innovare continuamente.
Coltivare una cultura da startup in un'azienda affermata vuol dire mantenere viva quella scintilla iniziale, quella voglia di cambiamento, di trasformazione, di voglia di mettersi in discussione. Questo è quello che viviamo in Fineco tutti i giorni, un'azienda fintech con un forte DNA imprenditoriale, dove le persone sono libere di proporre idee, di testare, di sperimentare. Proprio queste caratteristiche di autonomia e di ascolto delle persone permettono di creare un ambiente agile, tipico delle startup che vogliono cambiare le regole del gioco.
Noi siamo una banca consolidata che investe davvero in innovazione e questo significa unire il meglio dei due mondi: la solidità di una realtà ormai consolidata con la velocità di un'azienda tecnologica. Spesso nel nostro settore, quando si è grandi si è lenti e quando si è innovativi si è piccoli. Per un nostro consulente, per un consulente finanziario, poter lavorare in una realtà affermata che investe davvero in innovazione rappresenta un grande vantaggio competitivo. Per noi essere un established disruptor significa cambiare le regole del mercato. L'abbiamo fatto all'inizio, quando abbiamo unito trading, consulenza e banking, creando un'offerta pacchettizzata in grado di indirizzare i bisogni del cliente a tutto tondo per quanto riguarda i bisogni bancari. Oggi la nuova frontiera è l'IA.
L'obiettivo è quello di far evolvere l'AI da sperimentazione a capabilities stabile nell'ICT. Per questo l'AI in Fineco viene progettata all'interno del modello operativo per essere integrata nelle piattaforme e nei flussi di lavoro. Questo approccio diventa ancora più importante quando parliamo di agenti AI. Sono sistemi che potranno supportare azioni operative, ma solo se inseriti in un disegno chiaro, con confini, responsabilità e supervisione.
Noi siamo innovativi da sempre e continuiamo ad innovare. In questo contesto, si inserisce la visione di agentic organization, che è un modello dove la generative AI è una capability, una competenza, distribuita attraverso la quale siamo in grado di creare degli agenti AI che ci consentono di rendere più efficienti i nostri processi, perché l'agente AI viene calato all'interno dei processi core della banca, vengono fatti funzionare interagendo con le persone per rendere il lavoro più fluido e dedicare il lavoro delle persone alle attività a maggior valore aggiunto. L'intelligenza artificiale rende il lavoro di un consulente finanziario molto più efficiente. Le attività lunghe, ripetitive, burocratiche possono essere svolte veramente in pochissimo tempo. Il fattore umano, invece, resta centrale perché un cliente non cerca un algoritmo, ma cerca una persona con la quale instaurare una relazione e della quale potersi fidare.
Il valore strategico più importante per il futuro di Fineco è mantenere il controllo completo della nostra tecnologia. Non si tratta di un dettaglio tecnico, si tratta di garantire, di mantenere velocità, di mantenere flessibilità e quindi dare una risposta real time a quello che il mercato ci richiede. Per noi la catena corta è un elemento distintivo che risponde al cliente, ha dei gradi di decisione molto forti ed ha una stretta connessione con il resto della banca. In troppe banche classiche ci sono compartimenti, ci sono processi molto lunghi e la responsabilità è diffusa, mentre da noi la responsabilità è molto concentrata. Questo ci permette di avere appunto una catena corta e di riuscire a contribuire velocemente a risolvere i problemi dei clienti.
Nel nostro modello le persone rimangono al centro proprio perché sono caratterizzate da quella curiosità, da quella creatività, da quello spirito critico che sono tipiche delle aziende che innovano. Un altro elemento molto importante è che tutto questo va alimentato ovviamente con la formazione, con lo sviluppo di nuove competenze che permettono sempre di più l'innovazione anche grazie alla nostra academy interna. Il nostro modello è apprezzato fin da subito dai consulenti che arrivano da altre realtà. Riceviamo tantissimi commenti, ovviamente i commenti spontanei sono quelli più belli. Un commento che mi ha colpito particolarmente da un consulente che ci ha raggiunto da poco, ci ha detto: "Finalmente innovazione vera e non solo marketing". Quando lo sentiamo dire ci fa capire che stiamo investendo nella direzione giusta.
Good. Very good. Now we step into one of the main topics of this Capital Markets Day, one which has been discussed heavily in the last few weeks, AI. Let me take one minute to explain why Fineco is structurally an AI winner. AI creates value if you have the right foundations. Fineco has all of them. Thanks to our strategic decision to internalize IT, we have a large proprietary data on a unified architecture, a deep internal know-how, allowing us to innovate and build our tech in-house. All this is channeled through one integrated platform across our businesses. This means that we can scale fast and scale cost effectively. We can do this as a trusted player by both clients and regulators, and ultimately play the efficiency, transparency, and convenience game.
Thanks to this setup, AI becomes a real amplifier of our competitive edge. In banking, where it boosts customer experience and accelerates clients' growth, which in turn brings valuable transactional liquidity. In investing, it increased PFA productivity, allowing for a better quality service to clients, improving retention and net sales. In brokerage, it refines the quality of our platform, making it the natural home for self-directed investors, improving clients' engagement and revenues. In Fineco, overall efficiency, as we are going to reshape our internal processes. Given all this, AI is the enabler that will allow Fineco to capture even more market share. We step into one of the most transformative force reshaping our industry, AI as a driver of transparency and disruption. For years, financial products relied on complexity, but today, AI makes opacity much harder, and financial products are becoming transparent by definition.
Thanks to increasingly accessible analytical tools, clients can compare costs and returns with a single click. You can easily understand what this implies in a country where 65% of the domestic mutual funds are charging performance fees on top of overpriced products, together with a huge amount of upfront fees. While in the past, many traditional players have benefited from information asymmetry, today is much more difficult game to play, and tomorrow will prove to be even harder. Fineco stands on the other side of this story, no performance fees, low upfront fees, and a value proposition built on fair and transparent pricing. Let's move to one of the biggest financial transformation of our time, the generational transfer of wealth. This is going to be really huge and unprecedented.
For some research, in Italy more than EUR 2 trillion of wealth is on the move over the next two decades. This is part of a broader global trend that is true also for Europe. Within private banking, up to 24% of financial assets will be transferred by 2033. Here is the key point, 77% of the next generation clients choose a different private banker compared to their family's one. Fineco is perfectly positioned to capture these flows. We are a safe, highly regulated bank. We have a full range of products aligned with efficiency, transparency, and convenience, all backed by capable tech-enabled financial advisors. Our user experience is what younger generation are looking for. To sum up, Fineco is the best place to deliver value for money. Let's shift to what is happening within traditional banks.
They are keeping consolidating and playing more and more in oligopoly game that ultimately let them lose sight of customer and innovation. This leaves plenty of room for quality players like Fineco. Consolidation is creating an average, low-quality service offering in traditional banks. A player like Fineco consistently delivering superior experience becomes the natural alternative. Fineco is perfectly positioned at the crossroad of these structural trends. The way we acquire in both young and private banking clients tells you more than any statement. Let's start with the younger generation. In 2025, clients under 35 represented over half of our new accounts, an extraordinary shift compared to only in few years ago.
At the same time, our presence in private banking is strengthening clearly from 2.9% to 5.7% market share in just a few years. This is not coming by chance. It's the results of a platform that delivers value for money, efficiency, and transparency. Together with these two segments, put Fineco exactly where the future of wealth will be. Today's plan sets the foundation for improving our quality offer, boost our growth potential, and deliver shareholders value. I will now leave the floor to Paolo for giving you a little bit more in-depth color and description of all the initiatives that we are preparing on the market. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you, Alessandro, and welcome. Welcome to the Capital Markets Day. I want to start with a video that showcases a classic Fineco journey, and yeah, let's see the video.
Mark landed on Fineco's website with a simple question: What's the difference between Classic and Max? Instead of browsing pages, he asked the AI chatbot. In seconds, the chatbot explained the plans in plain language, compared features, highlighted costs and benefits, and even suggested the most suitable option based on Mark's needs. No menus, no friction, just conversation. Mark decided to open the account. He downloaded the app. A few minutes later, he completed the onboarding with a real-time video selfie for identity verification. Digital, secure, instant. This is Mark today. He values his routine, especially his bistro breakfast. While sipping his coffee, he opens the app. It's Monday. His 14-year-old son's weekly allowance is already scheduled. With Fineco, Mark set it up once. A fixed amount sent automatically every week to his child's Fineco account. No reminders needed. It just works.
Later that morning, a friend texts him, "Can you send me your share for dinner?" No IBAN needed. Mark opens Fineco Pay, selects his contact by phone number, confirms the amount, and the money is transferred instantly in real-time. Simple, immediate, seamless. Meanwhile, John, his personal financial advisor, is working on a portfolio review, but he's not starting from scratch. He's using the Portfolio Builder powered by AI. The system analyzes Mark's profile, market dynamics, correlations, risk exposure, and rebalancing opportunities in real-time. It suggests optimized allocations and simulates different scenarios. John applies his expertise, adjusts the proposal, and sends it digitally. Mark receives a notification. He reviews the allocation, expected volatility, long-term projections, and confirms with a tap. Human advice, AI intelligence, fully integrated. In the evening, he checks the markets again. He opens the global market map for a full overview. He retrieves a stock from his watchlist.
He accesses the five-level order book, evaluates liquidity and spreads, and places his order. Execution confirmed. Meanwhile, his diversified portfolio, optimized with AI and supervised by his advisor, continues to perform steadily. Speed when he needs it, guidance when it matters. Make your life easier, from your first question to your next investment decision, all in one place. Fineco.
The video shows quite clearly the power of the Fineco model, combining banking, investing, and brokerage, all 100% digital, and with a physical touch when you need it, with more than 3,000 financial advisors and more than 400 Fineco centers. The feeling of clarity and speed of the video you just seen is exactly what we are scaling. Before we enter the plan, one important note. You will see today, many previews, videos. You will see demos of our services and the Fineco people who build and use them every day. This is not theory. It's what client and advisor actually use and will use in real life. From now on, we will talk about the growth initiatives. Our plan stands in three pillars, three main pillars. The first one is more client acquisition.
The second one is higher productivity with AI. The third one is more value for advisory and brokerage. Let me clarify that these initiatives accelerate the path that is already very strong. Now we're adding new tools to amplify that momentum. What is it in practice? In practice is we acquire more faster with less friction. We use AI to simplify and make client life even easier than today. We extract more value from what we already do very well, especially asset under custody. You will see exactly this in the demos during the day. Let's now move to the growth initiatives in the banking area. Let's start with the onboarding, the new onboarding. It's a crucial point, the entry point of our client. Opening account must be simple, fast, and smooth.
That's why our new AI-powered onboarding reduces drop-offs and speeds up the very first important steps of our clients. In short, less friction, more conversion, better experience from minute one. At the same time, the new AI onboarding comes with a new AI chatbot and is transforming the prospect engagement. Since launch, the chat volumes have increased fourfold, while the human intervention has dramatically dropped. AI now handles most conversation, giving faster answers, and freeing our operators, human operators, to focus on higher value tasks. This mean more meaningful interactions with clients, better qualified clients and clients who really use the platform. This is very important. Even more important, they remain in the platform. They're sticky. They use the platform every day during the lifetime.
Let's watch the first demo of the day on the new onboarding powered by AI. Please.
Fineco clients can interact with the digital assistants, both in the public area and inside their private account. Let's start from the very beginning. A prospect landing on the site. The Fineco AI is right there. They can ask anything, products, services, conditions. Answers come from official sources, website content and product sheets. Nothing made up, everything verified. The prospect wants to know how to open an account and how long it takes. The assistant scans the sources in seconds and comes back with a clear picture. Process, required documents, timelines, all in a single answer. They're also interested in trading. Can they start right away? The assistant confirms, no waiting time. Once the account is activated, they're fully operational. At that point, they decide to go ahead and enter the onboarding flow. First step, choosing a plan.
Three options, from the One plan to the premium Max plan with dedicated services. They select the Classic account. Data entry is fast and seamless. Every field is validated in real time. Client data is captured via NFC reading of the ID documents, no manual typing. Identity verification happens through a video selfie, simple and instant. Card selection. The user browses the available options from the Fineco Card Debit to the Visa Gold with premium perks. They go with the Fineco Debit. Digital signature confirmation and the account is live. In under 10 minutes from the first interaction with the AI assistant to full operability. No paperwork, no waiting. The account is immediately active. An instant bank transfer funds it right away. The debit card is already live, ready for online purchases or to be added to Google Pay or Apple Pay. Trading features are available from the start.
They can begin operating straight away.
The onboarding, the new onboarding, doesn't just improve the experience, but also dramatically accelerate the speed of acquisition. Increase operational efficiency. We are much more efficient on our operations. Ensures that every client and every prospect actually enters the platform with a clear intent and higher chance of becoming an active and, most of all, long-term client of the platform. Let's now move to the new account offering. It's a key step to better segment our proposition and unlock the full potential of the bank, actually. We make it clear and flexible with simple plans, with competitive pricing, including zero fees, where it makes sense, of course. We speak to the younger generations, of course, with a One account. They're looking for clarity and convenience for sure.
At the same time, we speak to smart investors and private banking clients who wants either simplicity, transparency, and fair pricing. I ask Romualdo to join me to see together some more details o n the new plan. Please, Romualdo.
Thank you, Paolo. Good morning, everyone. As mentioned, the trend in acquisition is already very strong, and our goal is to push it even further. Just few weeks ago, we decided to launch a new offering on account designed around two main objectives. First one is removing friction. This allow us to attract clients with a free solution and then leverage on our outstanding platform and our financial tenant network. Second, giving the right value to the services we offer with a clear pricing differentiation. Today we have a comprehensive offering including three accounts. Fineco One is the free solution with a digital-only customer support aligned with a fully online experience. The second is Fineco Classic, is a paid account with full customer support.
Fineco Max represents our high-end proposition, including priority assistance, premium cards, and enhanced transactional conditions. It becomes free for clients who has more than EUR 5 0,000-EUR 100,000 in assets. This reinforces our value proposition to private clients, and in particular create a strong lever for our financial planner. Across all three accounts, we also waived fees on foreign currency transaction by debit card. Following our analysis, this is a key factor influencing customers' decision when they have to open an account, in particular young people and travelers. Alongside this solution remain active the brokerage account, which has been very successful in these first few years, with more than 50,000 clients acquired. It's a dedicated solution to self-directed investors where the main point is the immediate access to the market. Clients basically now can decide regarding their needs.
They can choose depending on their needs, and then we think this is the best way to have a full acceleration and to push again this strong momentum we are seeing.
Thank you, Romualdo. Please stay with me. Let's talk about the new application. We start with our application. We start from a strong rating on the app stores. For sure we want to raise the bar. The app, the new app will be AI native and mobile first. Data-driven personalization means each person sees what matters, and the application is dynamic. Clients choose what they want to see, and AI adapts content. Design is clean. Navigation is straight. It's fully aligned with the Fineco DNA of clarity and simplicity.
Absolutely. Well, the results we are aiming for are clear, increased engagement, higher satisfaction, and deeper client relationships. The app is a key branch of our client experience. It must perform reliably and keeping the user experience intuitive and friction-free. Here on the screen, you can see just the very first concept previews of the new app that is a complete rebuilding we are currently working on. To give you a better sense of how this redesign is coming together, we recorded a short video that combines the first animated preview of the app with a commentary from one of our colleagues, one team members, the design team, who worked on it every day, and so bringing this vision to life.
Our brief was guided by three structural pillars. First, AI at the core, not as a feature layered on top, but embedded into the architecture. Second, modular by design, a flexible structure that allows rapid evolution without rebuilding the system. Third, engagement as infrastructure, personalization natively integrated into the experience, powered by CRM and behavioral data. This enables continuous innovation without disrupting the client journey. The result is not a visual redesign, it is a behavioral shift. Navigation adapts to user intent. The homepage dynamically surfaces relevant signals based on profile, activity, and market context. AI enables conversational interaction across payments, portfolio updates, and investment orders. The result is a digital platform designed to scale with our strategy. This is not just a redesign cycle, it is an operating model for the next generation of digital banking. Fineco, built for scale, built for what's next.
Watching this demo, seeing this demo, the advantage is quite clear. Our new app is going to be AI native, which is going to be a huge advantage for us and for our clients. This can be possible thanks to the fact that our data and technology were born AI-ready, and Gianluca later on will talk a lot about this. We're not adapting systems, we're just accelerating what we already have. Let's now move to investing, growth initiatives in investing. As Alessandro mentioned before, markets are asked for more, for more transparency, for sure. Clients want to know what they pay and why they pay. This favors exactly our advanced advisory fee-based model, which is growing and getting quite stronger. As you can see from the figures.
Over time, we've seen AUM rising and larger share of explicit fee solution coming out strong. For sure, AI rates and the ETF wave is pushing this drive, of course, this fee-based model. Fineco is uniquely positioned to capture the trends that are coming out very strong. We answer with our fee-based model, simple tools and digital processes that brings speeds and quality to our platform, to our client, and to our financial advisor. Our network, our financial advisors widely active on this kind of tools and using this fee-based model. AI becomes just a multiplier of everything. More transparency, more trust, better long-term growth. Now let's watch some interviews among our financial planner. They are already using the fee-based model.
They're going to explain to us, how they use it. Please.
Every morning, I get a few smart nudges right in the app, things I'd otherwise discover too late. Today we've got three: a client's birthday, 12 bonds maturing in the next 15 days, and three meaningful deposits in the last 48 hours. These aren't generic alerts. They're generated by AI engines that are fully integrated into the platform, scanning live data. In 30 seconds, before I even get to the office, I know where to start. I tap the birthday alert. I'm straight into the client profile. Assets, risk profile, portfolio snapshot, everything at a glance. No hopping between tools. The AI and the platform share the same data layer. I ask, "When was our last meeting?" Instant answer, "Two months ago in the office." The assistant pulls the full interaction history and highlights the topic, annual portfolio return, and the option to subscribe to new funds.
I'm not guessing. I'm picking up exactly where we left off. I type two prompts, "Birthday wishes, it's been a while," and a suggestion to catch up, and the assistant drafts the email in seconds. The client is already selected. I review it, tweak a line if needed, and hit send. One command, done. The assistant already knows the client's email because it's natively connected to the CRM and the communication layer. Back to the notification center. This is my daily control room. Bond maturities, new liquidity, birthdays, plus any Advice+ dossiers flagged for review and other relevant events. I open new liquidity. Laura Martinelli just received a EUR 150,000 transfer. One click and her full picture is there. I ask, "Where did this money come from? What changed recently?" "Do we have notes?" In a second I get the context.
It's a corporate profit distribution. Plus there's a CRM note. Laura had already flagged this was coming, and she intended to invest around EUR 120,000. The AI pulls all of this together, transactions, CRM, and portfolio data, in a single unified flow. The next step is clear: Reach out and finalize the strategy. I say, "Block 30 minutes this afternoon to review the position and call Laura." Done. Slot confirmed, 3:30 P.M.- 4:00 P.M. From insight to action without ever leaving the platform.
What you've just seen is the new application for our financial planner, new design with the CRM embedded in the application. We will see the interviews later on and, j ust seeing, watching this demo, can you imagine the impact of all this? This level of AI support will dramatically boost the quality of our advice and the speed of execution and the productivity of our PFA. For sure, we will have sharper decision, faster actions, and more time for what really matters. Stay with the clients. Let's now move to another chapter of AI for financial planner. Now I want to show you another powerful capability available on X-Net. X-Net is the platform that our financial planner are using to manage the clients every day. The tool is the AI portfolio rebalancing.
What it does, flags portfolio off target, prioritize actions, generates proposal, move from proposal to execution in a single step. Why it matters. More time for the relationship, less manual screening, more client time, explainable rebalancing, and commercial lift. Turning rebalancing into concrete commercial opportunities. Let's see it in action.
Let's spot who might need a rebalance. I pull all Advice + clients with a year-to-date below - 4%. Instantly, I get a ranked list already enriched with the essentials: AUM, liquidity, allocation. The AI engine runs directly on portfolio data. I know right away who needs attention and why. Now I filter private clients with more than EUR 500,000 in liquidity. Just like that, the list becomes small and actionable. No noise, just the cases that really matter. I open the client profile, total assets, account, performance, everything's there. I can see the full Advice+ portfolio at a glance. One click, I import it into Portfolio AI. Now we are inside Portfolio AI with the full portfolio detail. From here, I can run a diagnostic, rebalance, or build a proposal with cash in or cash out.
Same data, different actions instantly available. The AI optimization engine is fully embedded into the platform, so no exports and no manual inputs. I choose a rebalance with a EUR 175,000 contribution. I enter the amount, and Portfolio AI builds the proposal automatically while staying fully within suitability constraints and the portfolio rules. Here's the output. First, the efficient frontier, so I can check consistency in one glance. The key metrics, expected return, risk, Sharpe, and costs. I also get ESG and an overall score. The practical part, a clear breakdown by asset class and by instrument with weights, and the simple summary of what to buy and what to sell. If it looks right, I send it to X-Net. Suitability confirmed with a single click. I send it to the client via web collaboration.
They can review it in their personal area, on browser, or on the app and accept it independently. From AI-driven analysis to portfolio proposal to client execution, one seamless, fully integrated flow.
What you've just seen is just, it's a real breakthrough. This tool allows personal financial advisor to run dozens of high quality simulations in just few minutes. Generate tailored content instantly and move from analysis to execution in seconds. Turns complexity into clarity and for sure boosts productivity and sharpen advice. Giving our PFA, our financial advisor, a level of speed and precision that simply didn't exist before. Let's go deeper into our advisory model. Before we continue, one thing is clear, quite clear to everybody. Today, the ETF world is gaining strong traction. Both among our clients, followed by financial advisor and among our direct client, self-directed clients. ETFs, together with active funds and the broader asset under custody, are becoming a fundamental components of our advisory model.
Clients want, again, transparency, efficiency and clarity, and our fee-based model deliver exactly that. To capture this trend, we are upgrading the entire ETF experience for our financial advisor. A better selection, a clearer visibility of automated plans, transparent cost. Again, we're among the very few players who can fully capture this opportunity, and the impact is clear. A new revenue engine that strengthens advisory and push the whole value chain. Now this is not just theory. Now let's watch the interviews of our financial planner showing how they work with the model I just talked about. This is how the majority of our financial advisor works every day with this model. They can do it because they have the right ingredients.
They have a solid fee-based model, they have an advanced technology, and they have fair pricing for clients. This combination elevates advice, strengthens relationships, and sets the stage for the next wave of quality growth. Let's now move to ETF, as asset under custody. Coming from advisory, where PFAs, where financial advisor play a key role, here the focus shifts to direct clients and asset under custody. Also here the trend is very strong. We're well-positioned to capture the rising ETF demand for self-directed clients. The ETF stock within AUC is growing fast year-on-year. This is not just a buy and hold story anymore. We see more activity, more turnover and significantly more revenues from that. To fully monetize this exploding market, we are deploying the key levers.
The first one, the platform fee, platform fee agreements with selected ETF issuers. Our own systematic internalization of the flow that is supported by higher volumes. The additional push from Fineco Asset Management, Fabio will talk about that later on, which has began issuing both passive and active ETF. Then the securities lending, our platform of securities lending. We will talk about that a lot. Finally, ETFs are becoming one of the most powerful client acquisition engine in our model. It's a structural path for the next years. We're among the few, again, players fully equipped to capture this trend. Now let's deep dive into our Fineco Asset Management, and I'll hand over to Fabio. Please, Fabio, join us.
Thanks, Paolo, and good morning, everybody. I think that the first, key message, that I would like to address, to all of you is, we are ready. Fineco Asset Management is now well-established, perfectly positioned, with full internal capabilities able to fuel, the next chapter of FinecoBank growth. We reach, our results thanks, to fair competition inside the FinecoBank platform. We are competing, with the global brands, since the beginning. We're born to compete. Then, we are providing an effective time to market. We are providing, solution investment strategies in less than five weeks. Five weeks. Think about that. We are, listening customer, involving the financial planners, and delivering, what they really wants in, this time horizon.
On top of that, we are used to provide a superior risk control that is able to increase, of course, transparencies and consolidate relationship between financial planners and customer as well. Finally, convenience. We are spread in our offer range, convenience, better price for customer, better quality, and of course, better margin for the group. EUR 42 billion. EUR 42 billion in less than 8 years. Over 300 investment strategies that we have realized in our catalog. Is a fairly young asset management company that already shown is able to scale up fast. Today we are presenting some important actions inside the FinecoBank slide.
Considering the big event, we are now representing not just new strategies for enriching the catalog, but action that can create impacts on our stock, or extending our customer base, or talking about private equity solution that we just released. Let's have a quick overview about these actions. Global Defence. Global Defence is a time to market products that we release in the market. We reinvent the formula funds and we created a successful story. Now, we are able to sustain additionally these important bulk of assets, moving gradually but mechanically. The asset allocation of these funds supporting customer and financial planners in a better asset allocation. We can include also a sleeve or equity, of equity only when products are closer to the end.
We can roll the products, creating a very effective asset allocation. On ETF, Paolo mentioned, I think that we are quite fast-evolving player in the Italian ETF industry. We release in 2022 a good portion of our passive ETF. From 2024 and 2025 we step into active ETF. Now we have just released wrappers of ETF that can maintain the asset allocation accordingly with the risk profile of customers, always in the efficient frontier. I think that is really supportive for productivity of the financial planners, but also better quality for customer as well. For a poor entry points ETF, no? You can consider MSCI World, S&P 500, EURO STOXX, where no new segment of customer can start with.
Now, we are able to create a cooperation with one of the most important global issuer, ETF issuer in the market, and we can enter also in this arena. We would like to enter in this arena, and it's very important for us because we can extend the customer base on which we can deal with. At the moment, we love to stay with the customer of financial planner, but thanks to this initiative in ETF, we can deal with a broader customer base. Finally, we have, you know, probably we have released a private market solution. First, private equity strategy, very promising in term of results, very effective in term of time to market.
We prefer entering the time to mark in the market when we have concern, when we have cautiousness in evaluating the quality and the dimension of our liquidity and the multiples that we would like to put in our portfolio. We started with a co-investment solution. The results are important. We would like to move ahead the catalog and move the catalog farther. In closing, I would say that our journey, the possibility to extend, as I said, the actions in the market, our crowded pipeline can support FinecoBank expectation of growth, but keeping margins in house. Thank you.
Thank you, Fabio. Fabio and his team, they are doing a tremendous job in pushing the Fineco model. We expect actually contribution of Fineco Asset Management in our stock of AUM to move from current 39% up to 45%-50% by 2029. It's going to be a massive improvement. Let's now move to another topic on our agenda, our brokerage business. In today's market, being fully integrated and owning the entire technology stack is unique, and it's one of the strongest advantages that we have actually. Our brokerage is vertically integrated. We have our own proprietary platform, our own products, our own Systematic Internaliser, our own securities lending platform, and our own integrated CRM. All this gives us full control over the quality, the reliability, and the service continuity.
This integrated architecture is not just a technical detail. It becomes the backbone that powers everything. Greater system stability, again, more flexibility on pricing, higher client satisfaction, and most of all, stronger economy of scale. Everything we just covered converge in one place. Our trading platform, the FinecoX. Let's watch a demo of our trading platform.
This is FinecoX, and this is the product catalog. Equities, bonds, ETFs, futures, options, CFDs, certificates, forex, thousands of instruments across global markets. Products like certificates and CFDs are built in-house by Fineco. The platform doesn't just give access to markets, it manufactures part of what it offers. FinecoX is designed for everyone, from a first-time investor to a professional trader. It runs on a single screen across a multi-monitor workstation or on a tablet. Same platform, same tools, adapted to any setup. Let me show you both sides. We start with the default workspace. Clean, intuitive, built for beginners. The layout is simple. A watchlist, a chart, key data, all connected. Select an instrument, everything updates automatically. The user can customize the view, rearrange the layout, make it their own. Placing an order is just as straightforward. Buy or sell directly from the watchlist. Price, quantity, confirm.
The beginner can go from browsing to executing in seconds. The advanced workspace, a completely different experience. Every component is resizable, linkable, and customizable. The user can add new components, pop out windows, and build the layout around their workflow. The order book opens with 10 levels of depth, full visibility on volumes and market liquidity. From the book, placing an order is immediate. The chart goes full screen. Switch from mountain to candlesticks, change instruments, all in one click. A full suite of technical indicators and drawing tools is available for in-depth analysis. Professional-grade charting, accessible interface. Finally, chart trading. The user places an order directly on the chart visually. Once placed, the order appears on the price action. Stop loss and take profit can be adjusted by dragging them on the chart. No separate ticket. Execution lives where the analysis happens. One platform, two experiences.
Beginner or professional, FinecoX adapts to the user and connects every tool to the same execution layer.
This is truly distinctive. A platform with a depth and precision of a professional trading platform combined with an immediacy and usability of a consumer-grade interface is quite unique. The combination simply doesn't exist elsewhere. It's, it's a true market unicum, and delivering power without complexity and raising the bar for the entire industry. Let's now move to, a gain, let's talk again and move to another section of brokerage. With our integrated brokerage in place, let's look at the structural growth ahead. Retail engagement in equities is still at the beginning, and there is room to grow, big room to grow. We are in the right position, just in the right position.
We have a large and growing amount of asset under custody base, and we are ready to extract full potential from our huge asset under custody base with clear levers also here. First one, more efficient internalization, securities lending platform. Again, the Auto-FX, the new Auto-FX service in the platform, the ETF for self-directed clients. The crypto business, actually, we're in talk with regulators, we're still waiting for the green light. The pan-European platform, we will talk about later. To talk about the, y ou know, go to a bit in the details, I'll ask Romualdo to join me and show.
Okay. Yes, Paolo. Thank you. As we have seen, the asset under custody we have is large and is growing faster. In this slide, we will see how we think to give a very big boost to maximize the value of this asset under custody. First of all, the first initiative is the security lending platform. We are already active on this service, but just for a small amount. We are lending just a small amount of what we have. We are working for a new lending platform that will be launched in June that will allow us to extract more value. We have a very high granular retail-driven asset under custody with ETF, with a good part of hard to borrow that adds significant value in the lending market.
Additionally, more than 40% of our volumes are already opt-in, so the clients has already signed the authorization to use their assets. That's a very important point. These numbers, 40% that I said, continue to growing year after year. Historically, it's continued to grow. Finally, a portion of the revenues generated by the lending is shared directly with clients. At the same time, we enhance the service also versus them. Second point, Auto-FX. From effective March 6th, so, on Friday, 1 million multicurrency clients will have the option to use Auto--FX. At the order entry, they will have this option. AutoFX allows clients to buy or sell securities in foreign currencies without taking FX risk on their cash balance. This help to reduce friction, delivers a smoother experience, and simplify access to the foreign markets.
We expect also more execution from them, thanks to this function. Obviously, multicurrency clients who want to continue using their multicurrency option can obviously to do so. Finally, flows management. We have a Systematic Internaliser. We are enhancing it to extend the growing share of client flows. Also, here we are internalizing part of the flows. This enhancement will help us to capturing stronger and more sustainable revenues together with more liquidity for the clients. Also here, a win-win solution. Together, all these three pillars levers our asset under custody, a key growth engine, driving additional revenues for Fineco and delivering an improved service to clients. This we can say position the bank ahead of Europe's shift toward a quote driven markets.
Thank you, Romualdo. We definitely expect big contribution from all these growing initiatives. Let's now move to same to the brokerage, let's introduce our AI for the direct client. I want to show you our trading Copilot for brokerage account client. It's going to be an AI platform that helps client to find ideas, understand portfolios, and follow the news that matters. It's going to have three simple functions since the start, screening securities, analysis on existing portfolios on relevant news, and natural conversation that takes clients from question to action. The beauty is that everything is fully integrated into the execution engine, fewer step, more fluidity, more engagement. It's a totally new way to live the platform in a simple, very simple way.
Just to be clear, this first release will soon be available only for our full brokerage account clients. Let's watch a demo of this.
What you're about to see is Fineco's new AI assistant built directly into the trading platform. It's not a separate tool or an add-on. The AI engine is fully integrated with the portfolio, with real-time market data, and with fundamental analysis tools, all connected to the same execution layer. Let me walk you through a full session. Here's the portfolio, about EUR 360,000 across seven positions. The entry point is right here in the portfolio view. One click on the Fineco AI icon, and the assistant kicks in. The assistant immediately scans news relevant to the holdings. It's not generic market news. It's filtered by what's actually in the portfolio, weighted by position size. The AI reads the positions live, so the feed is always in sync with what the user owns. The time window is adjustable. Default is two days.
No need to search for news on each stock separately. The assistant does it in one pass and highlights what matters. The user drills into Apple, not with a ticker lookup or a screener, just a question. Give me a deep analysis, latest earnings, guidance, and main risk. Fineco AI delivers a structured breakdown in one response, pulling from fundamental data sources natively embedded in the platform. Earnings, valuation metrics, strategy outlook, risk factors, all organized and clearly ranked. The kind of report that would normally require navigating multiple tools and reading analyst notes. A comparison. The user asks, "Compare Apple with Procter & Gamble. Which one has more upside right now?" The AI displays a six-month comparative chart and a full metrics table. More importantly, it frames the comparison in terms the user can act on.
One is a growth profile, the other is a stability play. It adds the key insight. P&G would fill a gap in the portfolio that the user might not have been aware of. The user tests the idea. Another plain language question: What happens to my portfolio if I buy EUR 50,000 of P&G? The AI runs the simulation instantly. A before and after comparison appears by sector, by instrument, with the full impact on diversification. The user can see exactly how one decision would reshape the portfolio. No spreadsheet, no manual calculation, just a question and a clear answer. The user decides to act. One click on the Order button, right inside the AI generator table. From portfolio analysis to sector diagnostic, to simulation, to order execution. One seamless, fully integrated flow. Every response was contextual, portfolio aware, and actionable.
From analysis to execution, one fully integrated experience. This is Fineco AI.
This goes far beyond a simple feature. It's having AI fully embedded in the execution engine creates a new level of engagement for clients. Client discover idea faster, they understand their choice, their choices better, and act with more confidence. It's the power, again, of a professional grade platform with the ease of an everyday tool. A unique combination that elevates awareness, strengthens the loyalty of the client, and pushes our already high satisfaction rate even higher. Let's close the brokerage, the AI on brokerage, and let's talk about our pan-European expansion. Our pan-European expansion, our pan-European platform actually rests on clear pillars. The first one, very strong, the operating leverage. The second, low fixed costs. The reuse of our Italian IT infrastructure.
The reuse of our EU banking license. We're going to use EU passporting. A distinctive, very distinctive offer on pricing and experience. We are fully convinced that this is a powerful mix. Aggressive pricing, high quality service. Being the significant bank, we can enter with focus and scale where we see traction. At the same time, control risk with variable costs tied to results. For sure, this is a growth option, and with an attractive ROE. Lorena will talk about it later on. Let's look at the number at the environment. In the continental Europe, we see pretty much the same drivers as in Italy. We see a large generational wealth transfer coming. We see a big share of wealth, still a ctually, the majority is still in the traditional banking system, very inefficient, and there is a big room for efficient platforms.
Our target is clear. Quality clients segmented by real needs and value potential. We offer, again, solidity, fair pricing, very simple usability. We plan selective entries, country by country, where product and rules fit our own model. To give you a more insight on the go-to-market strategy, I'll ask again Romualdo to join me. Yes. Yes.
A simple idea to close. Our strategy is based on these three pillars. Solid trust, you are a significant bank. Premium services, as we have seen, and the challenge of pricing enabled by the integration of the value chain. On top of that, I want to add a deep financial expertise, a knowledge, very strong knowledge of retail clients, retail markets, and proven matching capabilities. All together, this address us to serve demanding clients who seek for a convenient top-tier digital experience. The idea is that pan-European strategy fills the gap between the low-cost fintechs and the traditional banks. There are only these few players today.
We think to be positioned in the middle to be attractive for both, for the clients who want the low, low cost and very user-friendly platforms, and the one want the solidity of a brand of a traditional bank. I close saying that the launch is expected by the end of this year or early 2027.
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Romualdo. We will give you much more details closer to the launch date and some more with Lorena later on. Let's move to the last part of this section to marketing, which is a core engine of our growth. We've been working for years to strengthen our brand, very important, with consistency, discipline, and a clear long-term vision. We build a marketing machine that optimizes client acquisition, maximizes returns on every single campaign, and reinforces Fineco brand day after day. Today we will show you how these engines evolves. I ask Fabrizio to join us. Please, Fabrizio, give you the floor.
Thank you, Paolo. Good morning. Let me start with a simple observation. Today's financial services market is overwhelmed with noise. You can see it everywhere. Every player is shouting, promotions, offers, cash backs, short-terms incentives. The results it's that advertising clutter keeps rising. At the same time, customer attention is shrinking. Most banks respond to this by shouting even louder. More messages, more promotions, more discounts. At Fineco, we don't compete on noise. We compete on clarity, trust, and memorability. In a market where products and services often look the same, brand is our primary scalable differentiator. It's not just a nice to have, it's a structural advantage. Let me please explain you why it works. A strong brand does something that most marketing cannot. It makes acquisition self-reinforcing. About 50% of our entire customer base was directly influenced by word of mouth, one in two.
Not by promotion, not by a discount, by someone they trust. 75% of our clients saw Fineco advertising before opening their account. Now these two forces, word of mouth and brand, they are not alternatives. They work together. Word of mouth delivers trust, and advertising delivers reach. Together, they make our acquisition engine both very powerful and remarkably efficient. How do we make this happen? Before walking you through the four pillars of our marketing strategy, let me be clear about something. Marketing at Fineco is not a set of campaigns. It's 1 single system designed to optimize the full customer life cycle. The first pillar is brand. Our NPS, our Net Promoter Score, is 44. This compares to an industry average of 19. Customer satisfaction sits at 96%. These are not vanity metrics. They translate directly into lower acquisition cost and higher retention rates.
Second pillar is acquisition. We combine internal and external data with AI to reach the right audience at the right time, at the right cost. This is the power of value-based bidding. Third pillar, customer development. We use a fully integrated CRM and marketing platform to deliver personalized journeys across each client segment. This way, we turn value into better understanding of the client, and at the end, in a higher lifetime value. Fourth, the human factor. Our advisor run roughly 1,400 events every year all over Italy, reaching more than 70,000 participants. This is marketing you cannot buy because it's based on relationships. Now the question becomes, this model actually improves over time, or is it a one-off? The answer is clear, and you can see it in numbers.
Our digital cost per acquisition has dropped 64% since 2022. - 64% is clearly not a one-off. It's operating leverage that builds over time. We're basically transforming scale into advantage and not into costs. This is a fundamentally different equation from what you see in most financial institutions today. Coming to the bottom line, what all of these mean in economic terms? Every euro we invest in acquisition pays for itself in less than 12 months, and the value keeps growing from there. This is why our growth model is structural, scalable, defensible, and ultimately, this is the return of building a brand instead of just running campaigns. Thank you. Paolo, please join me back.
Yes. Let me First of all, thank you, Fabrizio. Let me reinforce one point. Marketing has been fundamental part of Fineco since the very beginning. It's not just a side function. It's not as Fabrizio just told you, a set of tactics. It's one of the structural engines that shapes how this bank grows, communicates, and build trust. With that legacy behind, I think it's the perfect moment to launch our new TV campaign. Let's watch it.
[Foreign language]
Thank you all. This concludes our session. We will now have a coffee break, and then we will start again with the information technology. Thank you very much.
Good morning and welcome back. I'm going to walk you through the technology platform that underpins Fineco Multi-Year Plan, and more importantly, the platform that will deliver it. We have built over the years, a platform that is one of the most efficient and effective in European banking. Well over 99.9% availability, a tiny fraction of 1 basis point for adverse events coming from fraud, cyber events, technology events, adverse events, I mean. 1.8 million customers served, over 400 million digital accesses per year, and an IT cost-to-revenue ratio of just 6%. We come back later to that figure. Quite important for us. This is the foundation. Of course, the next phase demands more.
Artificial intelligence at enterprise scale, keeping our total cost of ownership for technology low, under control, adding the option to open our platform to European markets. This challenge is real. We think, we believe that we have the architecture, the capability, and the credible plan to execute it. Here you have a north side view of some figures regarding our platform. For data centers between on-premises and cloud, over 1,800 servers under management, over 1,000 applications, and so on. We have around 250 tech professional in our department managing all of this and with a low turnover, by the way, so the department is stable in that respect.
We control, w e have a high level of control on our infrastructure and application landscapes, close to 100%, and this is unusual in banking if you take a look at other banks. I want to focus on this slide on the total cost of ownership for technology. We like to do benchmarks, okay? On the bottom left of the slide, you can see FinecoBank total cost of ownership versus the Italian market. This data are related to mid-sized banks in Italy, so banking for Italy, mid-sized banks. As you can see, in all categories, we have a clear advantage. Take IT cost to revenue ratio, for example, or even IT cash out over revenue. IT cash out means that we're operating expenses, capital expenses, salaries and so on.
As you can see, we are 49% or 50% more cheaper than our competitors in this segment. This is for Italy, okay? Take a look at the bottom right side of the slide. This is a Gartner IT spending benchmark. Gartner is a renowned IT research company, as you all know, I guess. Basically they score financial institutions. Using a kind of metrics in which they score with two indexes, the cost index and the value index, financial institutions all over the world. Okay? The panel we are comparing against here is a global one. Hundreds of institutions coming from North America, for example, Canada, United States, South America, Europe, Asia, and so on. As you can see from the data. Let me comment on cost index.
Cost index is basically how much you spend in technology, how much a financial institution spends in technology, divided in categories like hardware, software, applications, cloud, outsourcing, whatever. Departments, technology professionals, wages, and so on. The value index on the Y-axis is basically how much business value you create by spending $1 in technology. Okay? As Gartner does every single time, they divide the world in four quadrants, okay? Meaning that if you are here, for example, revenue efficient, basically you are creating business value, but spending a bit too much in technology. Okay? You are spending much in technology, you are creating business value. That's fine in some context. If you are cost efficient, then you are spending in a good way. You are spending less than others, but you are not creating business value. Okay?
If you, o h, go back, please. Okay. If you go to the data here, Fineco, you can see that we are placed here, value for money quadrant, meaning that we cost less and we deliver more. Okay? If you take a direct look to the data, 2.36 for us in cost and 1.94 compared to the best peer of the panel. The panel is made up, as I said, by hundreds of financial institutions all over the world. Basically this means that we are achieving business value by spending the money in the right way. Okay? By the way, this is the 4th year in a row that we achieved this kind of result from Gartner. Okay. Next. Artificial intelligence. Well, this is a cornerstone of our multi-year plan.
We see impact on two main dimensions here, revenue and client experience, of course. My colleagues before told you much about this. Tailored advisory, for example, AI-powered insights, intelligent onboarding, frictionless onboarding, for example, client life cycle, and so on. Also, on efficiency side and operating leverage, we are investing much in this. Process automation, of course. AI-assisted software developments. I'm sure you, lately you have heard many things on this, okay? Enhance the risk management process like fraud detection, like cybersecurity risk and so on can benefit from artificial intelligence. Okay? Intelligent platform operations of course. Our artificial intelligence program for the multi-year plan is structured in phases. We call those phases gates, okay? Gate 1 is the foundation. This is already complete.
We have now, as we speak, an internal AI team, a strong one, very skilled. The hybrid architecture, I'll come that to that later. A governance framework in place, very important. A literacy program for AI across the board for the bank, for the organization. To spread knowledge, know-how, awareness, not just in technical people, but in all the bank, in all the organization. Gate 2, largely underway. We complete this before this year is out. Regarding more technical stuff, machine learning, pipelines, first agentic solution. We have, as we speak, agentic solutions in place, and more will come in shortly, in the next weeks or months. AI assisted development, I mentioned before. From 2027 and onwards, AI first operations and scale.
Basically from 2027, our aim is to scale artificial intelligence across the bank. Not just a bunch of use cases here and there, but across the banks. Operations, compliance, risk management, technology and so on. Very important, we measure artificial intelligence value with KPIs. Those dimensions, cost saving or avoidance, of course, revenue impact and speed. Shortening time to market, for example, for the delivery of services. The KPIs will help us in understanding if we are moving in the right direction or we need to adjust something. This is our approach to artificial intelligence. Of course, artificial intelligence doesn't work without data. We all know that.
Our position here is a good one because we have 1.8 million customers. We collected data over the years, for them, behavioral data, transaction data, and so on. As we are not using integrators or we are not using outsourcing, we can have a ready access to those data. We can collect, we can analyze, we can reach those data, and build on top of those data our artificial intelligence models internally, by the way, using, for example, open source models and then fine-tuning them on-prem, okay, with our own personnel. More important, we have, what we call, a kind of client data set model across all the business lines. Brokerage, investing, banking, of course, and others can benefit of the same data model, okay.
We can access data here and there, independently from the business line, okay. This is not discounted in other banks where maybe they have silos, okay, data silos here and there. Of course, this is quite important, because the data basically represent the fuel for proprietary AI models, proprietary in terms that we are managing them. Hyper-personalization, of course, next generation fraud and risk intelligence I mentioned before. You can use artificial intelligence with the data you have, to enhance your models, for example. You can combine a market solution for cybersecurity, combine with your own artificial intelligence model internally, and then the combination works very well, okay. They're just doing that in this period, for example, for fraud management.
Crucially, when we launch a new market, this is an option, those AI models will be ready. We are not starting from scratch, from zero. We will use the artificial intelligence model we have built with Italian customer data. We'll fine-tune those models to open a new market, having, hopefully, the same outcome we are having in Italy. Last but not least, you know, in Europe, regulations are strong. GDPR and EU data residency, and so on are managed from scratch. They are built in as we are doing that in Italy right now. In the future, for European markets, we won't have to start again all over to put the GDPR requirements or EU data residency or ECB regulations on those markets because we are ready for that, okay. Hybrid architecture I mentioned before.
When much of the industry pursued cloud first years ago, we chose to have a hybrid model. What is a hybrid model? Hybrid model is a model for technology platform that works at the same time on premises and in the cloud. We have cloud, we do have cloud, and our footprint will increase in the future, but we have a strong on-premises technology infrastructure. Let me do an example to clarify my point. Take trading engine. Trading engine, also called matching engine, is the heart of our internalization market, for example, brokerage, okay. This kind of solution requires, at the same time, very low latency and a predictable latency at the same time. You need to be very fast, but also to have a pre-predictable latency, meaning that this latency must move in a narrow range, okay.
You can achieve with difficulties sometimes the first requirement, very low latency in the cloud, but you can't achieve in public cloud a predictable latency. That's why we are running that engine on-prem in our own data centers. Go to the other side, elastic workloads. We have applications or solutions that benefit from having a large computing power available, but for, I don't know, a few hours a day, few days a month, something like that. That's the perfect place, the cloud, to put those applications on. Why? Because we can increase and shrinking the computing power we have in the cloud at will on a short notice, okay. Those kind of workloads we run in the cloud. We have development and test environments in the cloud. We have standard software as application service and the like.
The idea here is to say, "Okay, we have many workloads." Workloads are application, basically. Imagine, take whatever you want, databases, final applications for customers, for internal users and so on. Then we can choose basically where to run those applications. The best idea is to have the optionality to move those applications from on-prem to cloud and the other way around at will based on the market condition. Imagine next month, best example, Microsoft or Amazon or Google just raises the bill for their cloud infrastructure. If you are stuck in that kind of public service cloud, then you have to pay. We could move some of our workloads back to on-prem, even the elastic ones, okay. Next one.
On resilience and trust, basically, for a branchless digital bank like us, resilience and trust, cybersecurity are not just requirements, but are commercial assets, we can say, basically. We are investing in on three main fronts. You can see on the slide: technology resilience, making basically our technology more robust and secure. Next-generation security operations, adapting to new threats and malicious actors out there. Out there is a jungle, by the way. Post-quantum cryptography, post-quantum technology. Imagine quantum computing is an emerging technology. We all know that. In a few years, that technology will break a bunch of traditional cybersecurity measures we have today. Cryptography, first of all. Of course, this allows us to do what?
We have low operational losses. This means that our earnings are more predictable, because if you have operational losses, basically you have to pay customers or fines from the regulators, whatever. This will impact your, of course, earnings. Proven resilience, lower risk, of course, operational risk and client trust. Client trust can help in putting your churn rate for customers lower, of course, because, you know, a customer usually stays, happily stays on a platform that he perceives like being reliable and secure. Okay. Scaling for Europe. European expansion, as my colleagues told you before, is a strategic option for us, okay? It's not a mandate, strategic option. Our platform is designed to unlock that option. As you know, launching banking services across Europe is really complex. It's complex.
You have different regulatory regime, local compliance, data sovereignty issues and the like. Okay? Those challenges are not trivial, but it is what, this is what our architecture was designed for. First of all, our platform supports pan-European expansion natively. We don't need to rebuild it. We don't need a parallel technology stack to open new markets. Each new market then adds revenues faster than it adds cost. Our current regulatory readiness, as you know, Fineco is a bank regulated by ECB and because it's a significant bank. ECB, Bank of Italy and the likes are already regulating us. Basically we have a current regulatory readiness that will make things easier to be DORA compliant, to be aligned to ECB requirements. We have already a robust cyber framework in place.
This will be a competitive advantage for us, okay? We are ready in Italy, so we can be ready at the same time in Germany, say, or in France, just to give you an idea. The roadmap. In 20, end of 2026, we'll have our infrastructure ready. We are planning to have a family and friends kind of testing, and then we should be ready to open in early 2027 in the market if the bank decides to do so. I'm talking to you from a technology standpoint, okay? I'm not talking about the business side. Alessandro can confirm this. From 2028 onwards, we'll have, hopefully, a proven playbook, the operational leverage here will accelerate. Okay. Next one. This is an important slide. Technology position, where we stand.
Let me put in context all I said before. If you map European banks on a chart on two axes, so you have an axis about cost efficiency, X-axis, IT cost of a revenue, for example. You can take whatever ratio you want. On the Y-axis, the full stack ownership. Full stack ownership in this context means how much of the technology chain a financial institution controls end-to-end. Okay? Basically, it's level of control of your own technology. We can usually place traditional midsize banks in the bottom-right quadrant, meaning that they are expensive. Their cost, they are not efficient in technology cost. Okay? At the same time, they have a low control on their own technology because they are stuck into vendors.
For example, outsourcer for the infrastructure and also in many cases also for applications. They are there. Okay? If you take large universal banks, they are, believe it or not, more efficient than midsize banks. Because they have economies of scale, they have, basically they have large revenues. Okay? If you take a ratio like that, you are spending technology, but your revenues are high. They are more efficient in terms of cost compared to traditional mid-size. However, their level of control on technology is low. Why? First, because they have complex infrastructure and applications landscape environment, okay? It's a mess, first of all. Second, they are damaged, if you like, somehow by a massive amount of legacy systems they are trying to transform, okay? This is a problem for them. Level of control, not so good.
We have digital challengers. They control much of their technology, more than you expect, but they are expensive. They are really expensive. They spend more than us, no question about this. We have FinecoBank. We are in the bottom left, in our opinion, because we basically, on the cost efficiency, I told you before, the data are there, so you can just check them out. 6% IT cost to revenues and so on. Also we control a large part of our technological stack. Close to 100%, 100% for infrastructure, for example, and most core applications are managed or even built in-house. Okay? This is a happy combination. This is a powerful quadrant to operate from, because you can choose what you will do in the future.
We are required to give artificial intelligence at scale and operating leverage and a solid, rock solid, hopefully, resilience. Let me tell this. If you don't own your stack, technological stack, you can't move fast. No question. If your cost base is already high now, you can't promise that cost base will stay flat in the future with higher volumes. We can make both promises on this. Last slide. Over the plan, with your plan, four main things will happen in parallel. First of all, AI moving from foundation to integration and then to scale. Okay? In the slide, for AI, I told you our approach in multiphase approach. Okay? Operating leverage. Operating leverage means that our cost base for technology stays flat. Why? Volumes go up.
Third, resilience and cyber. Our resilience must stay high. We are working on that. Even if, as I told you before, our current operational losses for adverse events in cyber or fraud or technology events, is just a small fraction of 1 basis point. Okay? It's very low, among the best in Europe. We are investing on that because, you know, the threat landscape is a ever-changing place and also you have also new kind of threats coming from artificial intelligence, for example, are emerging and so on. We are investing in that. European expansion, of course, I mentioned. Our aim is to be ready to open new markets when the bank decides to do so. Okay. What we'll have in 2029 at the end of the plan?
First, an AI first across the bank. An AI first approach across the bank. We will design not processes to be more efficient, using AI, but we will design processes to use AI first and then use human if needed. Okay? This is an approach, a strong approach on this. Agentic solutions at scale, of course. We hope our TCO will stay flat or increasing at a moderate rate compared to revenues, for example, with higher volumes. Post-quantum ready, I mentioned this before. Be open to entering new markets if needed. This is the last slide and we have a claim over there, "More clients, more markets, same cost engine. We're smarter every day." I leave you telling you that we are starting from a good position. Okay?
That's, that's a fact. Starting from a good position is better than starting behind. Okay? If you are delayed to recover, it's even more difficult, but we are starting from a good position, so this makes our plan more credible, if you like. This is technology engine behind our multi-year plan. Thank you. Now I leave the floor to Lorena Pellicciari, our beloved Chief Financial Officer.
Good morning, thank you again for being here today. In this section, my aim is to give you a clear view of Fineco. Looking at where we come from, the key strengths of our business, and most importantly, where we are heading. Before going any further, we would like to show you a short video highlighting Fineco results since the IPO. Please. As we have just seen, Fineco has constantly delivered robust growth, confirming operating leverage. T he plan we are presenting today is firmly built on the same foundations, with a clear focus on accelerating client acquisition and asset growth. Let's start from slide 52, and focus on the key strength of Fineco business model. A distinguishing factor in the quality of our is the quality of our balance sheet, leading to sustainable and resilient revenues.
Our liabilities are almost entirely represented by customer deposits, with a cost of funding close to zero to their nature of transactional liquidity. This is reflected in a Net Stable Funding Ratio above 400%, which is the highest in Europe. This is why our deposits are intrinsically stable, as they are led by the quality of our business proposition, and not by tactical short-term aggressive offers on rates. This implies that when market conditions change, clients do not move away from the bank. They simply reallocate within the Fineco platform across asset under management or asset under custody products, confirming their engagement with our proposition. On the asset side, lending activity remains intentionally limited with a conservative risk profile, because it is focused on our well-known clients. The vast majority of customer deposits are invested in low-risk assets, mainly European govies and supranational bonds.
Looking ahead, we expect our balance sheet to grow, driven by higher deposit net sales. We also expect an increase in Lombard lending, which is a very low risk and over-collateralized business, closely connected with our brokerage and investing activities. Considering that more than 70% of our assets are invested in financial instruments, let me now move to our investment policy, which is built on three principles. First, diversification across European government bonds, supranational bonds, and agencies. Second, safety, with no use of speculative derivatives. Furthermore, our new investments are going to be mostly at a fixed rate, allowing us to decrease even more our interest rate sensitivity. Thirdly, shorter duration with new investments typically around a three-year maturity, progressively reducing the average duration going forward below two years. These pillars sustain an industrially driven NII, resulting in a less volatile and more predictable interest income profile.
In the annex, you can find the usual details about the existing portfolio. This will allow you to assess the opportunity we have from reinvestment yields as our existing portfolio progressively rolls off. We have seen our investment strategy and our solid balance sheet, and these two element translate into a net interest income structurally different from that of a traditional banking system. Fineco benefits from highly sticky deposits with cost of funding close to zero, as already said, making even small banking clients profitable. In addition, low-risk financial assets, the absence of corporate lending, and limited credit exposure make our NII free from the credit charges that weigh on traditional lending-based models. Finally, NII growth is driven by client acquisition and deposits, and not by increased risk taking. These features define the structurally higher quality and value profile of Fineco NII.
With this framework in mind, let me now clarify why all our business areas are well-positioned to sustain revenue growth through 2029. By integrating banking, brokerage, and investing all in one platform, Fineco benefits from a natural diversification that stabilizes results across market cycles. When market challenge one area of business, another tends to accelerate thanks to the natural edge that is embedded in our business model. This is clearly visible in the quarterly net profit trend, which shows steadily increasing profitability with limited volatility across different market environments. Starting from banking, we have just discussed how NII guarantees a high quality and resilient contribution to revenues. In investing, our revenue mix is increasingly recurring and transparent. Management fees are supported by very low upfront fees, no performance fees, and a growing share of advisory solutions with explicit fees.
This model is fully aligned with long-term structural trends and with client demand for transparency and value for money. This approach leaves us in a better position to deal with the industry pressure on margins. In addition, we have still a lot of room to improve from Fineco Asset Management penetration into our value chain. Finally, brokerage. Brokerage continues to strengthen, driven by the increase of assets under custody. Over time, revenues are expected to naturally rise due to the correlation within assets under custody, assets under custody volumes. In addition to extract more value from the existing stock, we are launching all the initiatives that have been presented earlier by my co-colleagues. Now we turn to 2026- 2029 plan. Let me first focus on the key macro assumptions behind our outlook.
For the purposes of our guidance, we have based our modeling on Moody's outlook for the European rates market. Three-year bond yields and Euribor three-month are the key macro variables which impact our revenues, together with asset under management market performance. Of course, we don't control markets, that's why we are strongly focused on the execution of our initiatives and on what we can control, which are clients and net sales growth and our operating efficiency. Let's now move to our concrete guidance. As a preliminary comment, we will guide separately on pan-European platform because this is a greenfield development. Let's start with 2026, where we expect growth across all business areas. As you can see from the slide in detail, we expect net financial income to grow driven by more deposits. On investing, we expect a solid year-on-year increase of asset under management net sales.
Brokerage should deliver another record year. Banking fees are predicted to be stable. Operating costs are expected to grow by approximately 6% in 2026, excluding around EUR 10 million of additional costs for our growth initiatives. The cost-to-income ratio is expected to remain comfortably below 30%. The cost of risk should be low, between 5 and 10 basis points. Our payment ratio is expected in a range between 70%-80%, and our leverage ratio target will remain above 4.5%. Now I will move to 2029 guidance. Between 2021 and 2025, our net sales grew by a 6% compounded rate.
Looking ahead, excluding the European platform, we expect net sales to grow at a low double-digit compound annual growth rate to 2029, also due to the growth initiatives explained earlier today. Total clients are also expected to accelerate from around 6% year-on-year to a low double-digit CAGR. This represents a clear acceleration of our growth trajectory, building on a client and asset base that has already expanded significantly over Fineco's evolution. As Alessandro said at the start, we believe we are at an inflection point, and these expectations reflect that confidence. Let's now move on to another key feature of our business model for the future, our operating leverage. Operating leverage has always been a structural advantage for Fineco. In the coming years, this advantage will expand further, supported by technology, particularly artificial intelligence.
AI will reshape, we have seen, before by Gianluca, where AI will reshape the way the bank operates and streamline our internal processes. It will enhance service efficiency and automation across the organization, supporting the strong growth of our client base. As a result, we expect the increase of structural operating costs to gradually slow down from around 6% growth in 2026 to around 4% growth by 2029. The cost increase for growth initiatives, excluding the European platform, will peak in 2026 with around EUR 10 million, mainly related to AI, marketing, Fineco Asset Management. The cost for growth are expected to increase by approximately EUR 5 million per year for the rest of the plan, as our efficiency-related initiatives are progressively deployed. I will now focus on pan-European platform, a very promising growth option.
We have projected to enter Europe with a proposition focused on brokerage and smart investing, a model that is even more capital light than the one we have in Italy. We will address our expansion abroad with our usual pragmatic cost approach. First of all, we will leverage on our existing Italian infrastructure. Secondly, we will have limited additional fixed cost with direct set-up cost of EUR 5 million in 2026. In the following years, we expect fixed costs in a range between EUR 5 million-EUR 10 million per year. Thirdly, variable costs are mainly represented by marketing expenses. Here our approach will be progressive and pragmatic based on business results. The pan-European platform represents a valuable option with a limited capital requirement and a gradual build-up of profitability, leading to strong ROE over the medium term.
A broader business overview will be provided at launch, as for commercial reasons, specific terms, pricing, and implementation plan cannot be disclosed in advance. Based on the macro assumption and the guidance which we have disclosed so far, in our 2029 plan, we expect a clear step-up in growth driven by higher net sales, higher client acquisition, and new revenue opportunities, and we expect improved operating efficiency supported by technology and scale. If we combine all our initiatives with the macro assumption outlined earlier, we expect to achieve a low double-digit EPS CAGR over the plan horizon. Low double-digit earnings per share is confirmed even including the fixed cost for the pan-European platform. Let me close with few words on capital allocation. Our priorities remain unchanged.
First, to maintain, t he first priority is to maintain the necessary levels of regulatory requirement and especially leverage ratio. I want to spend a few words on the leverage ratio because it is the key KPI on our capital management. The reason is simple. We have a very low risk profile, and our risk-weighted assets are low relative to the size of our business. This explain why we have a CET1 ratio far exceeding regulatory requirements. In order to keep the leverage ratio above 4.5%, which is our management target, we operate with a structurally high CET1 ratio. The second priority in our capital allocation framework is to invest in accelerating the long-term profitable growth of our business. Much of today's presentation is focused on how we will do this.
Thirdly, our strong organic and capital generation allows us to target a regular and generous dividend with a payout ratio range of 70%-80% throughout the plan. Finally, if we have excess capital, we will evaluate the best way to return it to our shareholders. As a final point, I would like to leave you with three messages. First, Fineco's financial profile is defined by quality, with a natural hedged business model delivering recurring capital light and industrially driven revenues. Second, we combine this growth profile with one of the strongest balance sheet and one of the strongest capital and liquidity position in the banking industry, ensuring resilience across market cycles. Thirdly, our plan to 2029 is focused on growth, execution, and scalability, while preserving a low-risk profile and delivering sustainable long-term value to our shareholders. This closes the financial section. Thank you for your attention.
Now I give the floor to Alessandro for his closing remarks.
Thank you, Lorena. Today I think that we have been able to show how Fineco is perfectly aligned with the major forces reshaping our industry: AI disruption, generational wealth transfer, and consolidation of the traditional banking. Our model is built to capture these trends: AI-powered banking, a future-proof investing platform, a brokerage engine that keeps gaining momentum, and a more efficient cost base. All of this, combined with our unique positioning as an established disruptor, it is what moves Fineco confidently into its next cycle of growth. Fineco 2029 is the bank of the future built today. Thank you for your attention. Now we can open the floor for the Q&A.
Everybody. Hope you found the morning a useful one. We are just now giving time, few seconds to our colleagues to arrange and set the stage for the Q&A session. As a reminder, people attending in person will have the opportunity to ask question live, of course. For those attending virtually, you will be able to write question directly through the platform. Let me ask Alessandro, Lorena, Paolo, Fabio, and Gianluca to join me on stage, please. We can start.
Thank you. Hi, it's Enrico Bolzoni from JP Morgan. Thank you for the very useful event. I think the technological DNA of Fineco was clearer than ever. Just a few questions from me, please. Starting from the expansion abroad, you mentioned this fixed cost between EUR 10 million and EUR 5 million every year. Can you maybe break down for us a bit, what are these costs for, in terms of is it setting up premises there, or would be just interesting to know what actually are you gonna spend this money for? Also related to the expansion abroad, can you please clarify, will you launch simultaneously across the three countries, or it's gonna be country by country?
I had a question on the advisor and AI, I guess. You showed these amazing tools that are quite impressive that should make the life of advisor much easier. Can you please clarify, number one, if these tools are already available to the advisor? Second, you mentioned the targeted improvement in productivity, but what are you doing to proactively stimulate this increase in productivity? Are you thinking about poking the advisor a bit and making sure that the time they save is then not spent in for their personal time, but they're actually used to onboard more clients?
Just finally, a technical question on AI. It's great to know that you are, you know, vertically integrated, and you can do most things in-house. Just my understanding, which is sort of limited on AI, is that these are very complex models, and you told us that however you are using in-house solution, and I think at some point you mentioned open source models. Can you please elaborate a bit? I'm just curious to understand whether you are at all relying on third-party vendors for AI, and how this relationship might change over time. Thank you.
I think, Paolo, if you want, you can start with the giving a little bit more color on the cost breakdown on the expansion abroad and what we plan to do in terms of r egions to target.
Yeah. Basically, the costs are very low. They're related to the upgrades of the platform. that's the biggest part that we have to do the working on. but it's, again, it's few money actually to evolve the platform and be ready to go abroad and in multiple countries. I go to the second question, if we launch simultaneously or not. The platform is going to be ready simultaneously at the pan-European level. The structure is going to be ready since the start of at the pan-European level. We are going to launch gradually.
We decided to launch first in Germany, which is the country we believe there is the biggest opportunity in terms of total assets and again, generational transfer, but also the fact that is the banking system is not very, let's say, very efficient. Yeah. Basically, I don't know if Lorena has a breakdown, exact breakdown of the costs abroad, but it's.
The costs abroad are related, partially to people, that is dedicated to the business, to the development of the platform, and partially to the development, to the improvement of the current, the current, platform that we have. So they are disconnected by the volume, for sure, by the volume and the number of customers. This is
Let me now jump to advisory productivity. The answer is yes, AI is already available in the hands of financial planners, and more is expected to come mostly on the CRM side in order to make their interaction with their agents and their clients, even more efficient. You're raising a very good point, how to make, because typically as, I like to say, financial planners are not different by the human beings, so clearly. Typically, every human beings tends to be a little bit lazy, so trying to achieve the highest possible results with the lowest possible effort. AI is not going to change dramatically this approach.
What is AI is changing that, practically is what the bank is going to do more and more on their behalf, many of these, let me say, time-consuming, labor-intensive activity. Making for them easier to achieve better results, without changing their lifestyle. What I mean, so with them. This is the way. Clearly the way to make them more engaged is throughout in making them familiar. The more clearly they are going to keep on using it, they are going to become, they are realizing that is a great step forward. Probably, Paolo, you can confirm that the highest.
I can give more color.
Yeah.
Also on the, which one is already live and which one is going to be live. Where are you? I don't see where. I don't know where to look at. Okay. Yeah. Sorry. The Portfolio Builder is already live. We launched the Portfolio Builder now it's six months ago, pretty much. Just to share with you, the adoption rate is quite impressive. Just after the launch, 90%, after a few weeks, 90% of the financial advisor were using the Portfolio Builder to be fast and more precise and to higher the quality of their output for the clients. This is reality. This is today. What you've seen today is one, the portfolio rebalancing, which is going to be live in April. We're there. Pretty much, almost online.
The application, the CRM for the advisor, April, we target April also for this. It will probably, we need more time for the application, the first demo I showed you. Probably, you know, we target the end of the year or a few months, the first few months of 2027. Again, what we see now in terms of adoption and also the productivity that these kind of users are having, it's quite, you know, it's quite huge. I mean, we are very happy with that.
We monitor for the product-productivity, the number of proposal they do every day on their clients, and this is, we have very good signals on this. Then we monitor also the opening account, and we monitor the, all the, you know, operation they do on creating contents, analyzing portfolio. This also, you know, shows very good signs on those that are using this kind of tools. It's pretty much, you know, we see very good signs, and everything is going to be online in a few weeks. Almost everything. Not everything.
Gianluca?
Okay. That was a good question. First of all, let me say that artificial intelligence is just not strictly related to GenAI, okay? We are using machine learning models internally that are not using, say, ChatGPT or Anthropic or Claude or whatever. If we stay on GenAI models, our approach is this. First of all, we are using, starting the use case, for example, for PFA or for prospects, as I showed you before, using the reference for the market, say, an OpenAI model, say, ChatGPT or Google Gemini, okay, the best of the market. We start collecting data when the use case is in production, okay?
We are collecting data for financial advisors or for prospect, and those data are basically analyzed with key performance indicators and the like, metrics, the level of satisfaction of the customers, if the model is reliable, if the model is telling to customers and so on. When we have the statistics and the model, then in parallel, we use an open source model. There are plenty, okay. There are multiple models. This is a really dynamic environment out there. Then we feed the data to the open source model, and then we fine-tuning that model. Quite more manageable. Of course, we don't want to replace OpenAI or Anthropic. This would be ridiculous in those terms.
We are using not just a large language model, just to give you an idea, but also small language model, okay, specific model. They are smaller, faster, and we can run those models on our own servers. We acquired in 2025 servers with the power by GPUs from NVIDIA, for example, so we can run inference and training on those open source model on our own infrastructure, okay? When the performance of the open source model is comparable to the performance we obtain from OpenAI model, for example, then we switch. Okay? That's the approach.
Hi, it's Andy Lowe from Citi. I wanted to ask on for a little bit more color on two of the initiatives that you talked about in the slides. The first is securities lending. Could you just quantify your expectations for the utilization of that, and also the yields that you could achieve on those balances? The second question is to do with the recurring fees from ETFs, where you note that you've negotiated some fees from some providers. Again, if you could just quantify that would be really helpful. You've mentioned fees with some providers, so should we expect that you should roll that out to other providers going forward? Thanks.
Let me make a preliminary consideration on these enhancing initiatives. First of all, clearly we, the assumptions we made in embedding the impact of these initiatives in the guidance we gave clearly has been characterized by a good sense level of cautiousness. We, because we don't want to sell a book of dreams, clearly there is, we, by definition, when we are entering in a new dimension, in a new landscape, by definition we have to keep a little bit of cautiousness in what we are doing. This is a preliminary considerations that it's, I think that it's important. On securities lending, I think, Paolo, that you can try to give clearly some boundaries or some indications on the, some metrics that we can expect
Yeah, sure, yeah.
By securities lending. Yes.
The securities lending is something that we didn't explore it yet. It's. We started the securities lending many years ago, but just on a small part of our clients. Now we have EUR 64 billion of asset under custody, and we have roughly 40% of the client, they opted in to let us use the, you know, their assets to for the securities lending. Considering that the, you know, the clients are growing in a fast way, and the asset under custody, there's, you know, in the same way, they're growing very much.
The fact that we completely modernized the infrastructure that we use to operate the stock lending, this will give us the possibility to use external counterparty in a, you know, in a very efficient way. We can use our, you know, 40% of this EUR 64 billion, part of this, not everything is, you know, available for, is in demand in the market for stock lending, but a good part of that. We can use them to lend to external counterparty, mainly institutional player. This is something that is going to give us a quite interesting yield on the assets. Just to give you an idea. There is a, you know, strong demand on also on ETF for stock lending.
We had some offer from counterparties lately offering us for some ETF, of course, I'm talking about some ETF, not every ETF, but they're offering us. They were offering us up to 75 basis point, which is, you know, it's a good, very good number. The more we grow, the more we have, the more we have, you know, asset under custody, the more we have external counterparties to deal with and to do agreements with. Now that we have the platform, the more we will generate revenues on this kind of, this kind of business. Beside that, we still continue to lend money to our own clients because we also operate stock lending for clients. They want to use the short-selling services on the margin trading.
And this is, of course, is a business that's even higher in terms of revenues and margin. Internal margin with clients are higher, but volume, you know, smaller. External, with external counterparties, volumes are much bigger, but margin little bit smaller. This is pretty much, you know.
Probably it's worth the case to mention also that, for example, if we make a comparison with the German world, clearly it's the process of onboarding clients entering in because you have to get the permission by your clients in order to lend their stock. The process of getting the permission by the clients, for example, is much easier than in Germany because it can be managed purely in a digital way, so not using paper like in Germany. This means that also the, we expect also an adoption rate that is going to keep on building up and growing. It's and yes, it's a great deal.
On on recurring fees on on ETFs, just as a reminder, in order to go throughout the wide ETFs, it's a, it's a great world in terms of generating revenues. Number one, ETFs clearly are not characterized by an pure buy and hold strategy by clients, but clients are actively managing their ETF's position. This means that the more ETFs you are building up on the platforms, and the more you can expect that this is going to fueling growing revenues generated by brokers. This is the reason why we are so positive on the, on the evolution of the, on the revenues on the, on the, on the brokerage side. Second is the platform fees. I think, Paolo, that everything has been finalized.
Yes. We are, we're going to be finalized already by half of this year, so by June. We selected the preferred partners. There are going to be agreements, you know, with a short in time. I mean, probably every year or every two years, we will renegotiate. This is something that is going to help us to explore the, you know, a part of the value that we see in the ETF world. As I showed in the presentation, there are multiple, there are multiple source of revenues on ETFs. This one is just one of them. Very promising, but it's just one.
The fact that ETFs are, as a matter of fact, are also a trading product. People, they use ETF to trade. They move a lot. They go in and out. It's a very good source of commission on brokerage. We internalize the ETFs. The more ETFs we execute, the more revenues we will generate with our Systematic Internaliser internalization. Then there is the Auto-FX, of course, ETFs that are denominated in the U.S. dollar or some other currencies. You know, this is another source of revenues. Yeah, it's, there is a very, a very promising asset class.
Without mentioning that is a gigantic, as we read, we explained during the presentation, a gigantic entrance gate in the platform. This is what is making. What is very important to underline is the unique positioning. What we mean, if you want to get an efficient, convenient service on ETFs, where they're provided by a large credible and trusted organization, in Italy there is just one place in which you can move. That is Fineco. We are in control more or less of nearly 70% of the retail flows on the ETFs. This means that, thanks to the nature of our platforms, when the clients are entering, and usually they tends to do also something else, just for example, banking activities and so on.
It's incredibly important. ETFs is an incredibly huge opportunity for us, and is a very rich product.
It's an entry, fantastic entry product, both for client that are using directly the platform, or client using, they have a relationship with the financial planner. It's, you know, as a, in the video, in the interviews that we saw today, we watched today, you know, the majority of our financial planner use a fee-based model, so they, a transparent fee. They, you know, they can use either ETF or under custody or active funds or bonds, govies, whatever they think is the best asset allocation possible for the risk profile of their clients. ETFs are playing a big role also on this because it's, they're using ETF as an entry product.
The reason why the traditional players are shy in promoting ETFs for a very simple reason. If you don't have the right infrastructures, clearly you cannot exploit all the values attached. More importantly, ETFs really can be an gigantic ally of you also in investing, assuming that you have a business model characterized by an advisory platform, where the client is paying an advisory fee, very transparent. Clearly, in this case, ETFs are working in a synergic way. If you are just purely relying on a model based on inducement, clearly ETFs is like the heaven, cannot stay there. This is the reason why traditional banks, traditional asset gatherers are absolutely against.
They are just giving these, solutions to clients if they are really asked by the clients. This is, again, considering what's going on there, the gigantic opportunity, and we have the privilege to be the only one. Probably is the only region in Europe in which there is just one that is positioned that way. This is great.
Thank you. Hello. Elena Perini from Intesa Sanpaolo. I've got three questions. The first one is on margins for investing. You are mentioning the fact that from weight we will increase, in comparison from now and I would like you to add a bit more color on the trend in margins, because on the other hand, you also have the increase of the weight of ETFs, which can be dilutive in terms of margins, but also in this you have from on this product. The second question is more on how to model your costs. I was wondering which starting point shall we take for the 6% year-on-year growth and then down to 4%.
The starting point is in my view, the EUR 350 million that you had in 2025, excluding the one-off costs. Okay? Well, finally, I was wondering about your business trends in February about investing and brokerage. How have you opened in this new month with its new challenges?
Yeah.
Thank you.
Let me start by the investing margins. As we are always explaining, I think I'm not telling to you anything strange and brand new. The investing world is expected to keep on facing pressure on margins. I think that we are in the same boat with many of you. But, having said that, clearly Fineco is in a much better position than the industry for several reasons. The first one, clearly that, considering that Fineco has been always characterized by being positioned as an efficient, transparent, and convenient player, clearly our starting point is more manageable than the starting point of some other place.
Clearly, if you are, I'm going throughout them, some of the plans presented recently by traditional banks that, where there's a cornerstone insurance wrappers. There are, for example, unit linked, on average in Italy, they are charging 350 basis points of running cost per year. It's clear that the more difficult to convince the clients that is the right pricing. Our starting point clearly is much better. Second, there is for sure, as you were mentioning, Fineco Asset Management is going to keep on giving a great contribution because as Fabio has very clearly underlined, we don't have a model in which we are forcing financial planners or clients in moving in Fineco Asset Management.
Fineco Asset Management is, h as to fight, you know, to get attention. Fineco Asset Management is, which are the main point of strength of Fineco Asset Management? Number one, incredibly faster and reactive in spotting emerging needs and the interest by financial planners and clients. Then, as Fabio was saying, the time to market is incredible, because just five weeks from an idea to an living product, it's. So this means that they are able to be always a step ahead of the market. They are able to bring to the financial planners and clients something that is not available yet on the market. This means that we can, at the same time remaining in open architecture, the broadest open architecture operating in Italy.
At the same time, with Fineco Asset Management keeping on increasing the penetration, the market share. We think that probably reaching a penetration of close in the region of 50% makes sense without changing our approach. This is going to help in sustaining the margins, because clearly, not because we are making clients paying more, but because we are in better control of the value chain. This more or less is the picture. In any case, the ETFs are not necessarily dilutive, because the most part of the ETFs used by our financial planners is used in the advisory platforms. At the end of the story, it's not such as dilutive. In any case, the pressure on margins is there. We cannot, nobody can deny that is there.
Fineco is in a much better position than the market. finally, in any case, For us, what is important is the trajectory of the growth of the revenues generated by investing. that is a combination of volumes and margins. it's, Yes, on the cost, you are completely. I think, Lorena, you can confirm that.
Yes, it's correct. For the modeling, you can start from the cost, 2025 cost, EUR 56 million, to add the 6% growth related to the structural operating cost, and add the increase in the cost related to the growth initiatives.
Regarding the February trends, I'm sure that Lorena, she's not going to be happy because I'm giving a little bit more in anticipation some for me.
You can't. You can't.
I can't. Yes, but I can give some color. Please, Lorena.
Some color.
Thank you. The numbers are really great. Yes. I can anticipate. It's okay. We are on the-
He's done.
On the border. Oh, come on. I'm not saying the precise number. They are great numbers. Regarding, also the point was on the what's going on... as you can imagine, clearly, if you put together the continuous growth of the base of clients, the traction of the brokerage platform and so on, clearly this volatility through there. The brokerage numbers in this moment are absolutely really great as well. Yes, I can confirm.
Hi, this is Christiane Holstein from Bank of America. Thank you for taking my questions. I have three of them. My first one is on the multi-year guidance. From my understanding, you have included the costs for Germany but not revenue. I just wanted to see from your perspective how much upside potential that could be. How do you also think of the timing for such a substantial uplift in guidance as well? Do you think it'll be more back-ended when that growth will come through? My second question is just on the Germany expansion. You highlighted previously that marketing, and word of mouth are also both very important for the business. I assume you won't have such strong word of mouth benefits for Germany, given it's a new market.
Your costs are quite low for Germany, and it doesn't seem like you have a whole lot associated for marketing. Just wondering how you're thinking about growing your share there and customer acquisition. My third question was on AI. You mentioned that it will improve price transparency and also expose or highlight that a lot of the other funds charge higher fees and performance fees. Do you expect across Italy then, that it will create some margin pressure or fee pressure and competitors will lower fees, and do you think that could also flow through to Fineco? Thank you.
Let me start, I Paolo will leave you the. But on the cost on Germany, just in order to clarify, what the message that we want to transfer on Germany, that is a kind of free option that we have on the table, everything is there. Clearly the approach in terms of what we are going to spend in terms of marketing and so on, is going to be completely in our hands. It's going to be related by the progressively feedback we are going to receive by the market.
And on the lack of word of mouth, and how we think that we can be effective, despite that clearly we are completely unknown in Germany. Paolo, if you want to.
Yeah, you're right. I mean, we can count on word of mouth since day one. I mean, you need a critical mass to kick in the word of mouth. We think that, you know, for sure we will have a unique proposition. It's going to be a very peculiar commercial offering. I can't reveal right now what it's going to be. We're going to be, you know, not a neobank or neo broker, a significant bank. We're going to have a level of service very high. The combination of all these three things we think will, you know, will accelerate the critical mass from where we can use the word of mouth.
Beside that, of course, we will spend some money on marketing for sure, but we're not talking about hundred millions of expenditure in marketing. It's a mix, you know, you know, some marketing, you know, done in a very, you know, I would say, you know, in an intelligent way, in the way Fabrizio explained it before. I tried to transfer you that marketing is very important because we have a very strong knowledge in marketing. We know how to do marketing, digital marketing. We already have the platform in Italy, and we can use it, you know, pretty much everywhere. I mean, the marketing is pretty much the same in terms of logics, in terms of digital marketing.
The combination of this, very strong on knowledge in marketing, using the, you know, the very unique proposition, the combination of the three pieces I just mentioned, I think we can, you know, reach the critical mass pretty, you know, in a very fast, in a very fast mode. From there, of course, we will have another engine to adapt to the growth.
The more distinctive is the proposition and the easier is going to be the process. Clearly, as we explained, we think that clearly offering to clients a kind of the holy grail that is to give an absolutely amazing level of convenience similar to what is offered by the challengers with an absolutely amazing quality of services, is a very good starting point and this is going to make our life much easier. On.
On e-transparency, we mentioned before that this is going to be one of the main impact that AI is going to cause in the market, because clearly AI now is pervasive, so everyone is nobody is now anymore using the search engines in using the AI for everything, so on. Clearly this is going to put, we don't need to be genius and is going to be put in a continuously growing, accelerating pressure on business model based on clearly completely unfair and unsustainable practices and pricing. What the, p ersonally speaking, I'm convinced that the market is completely making a huge mistake. It's using the same matrix of the past.
The typical fork that I'm missing by some of my colleagues is, come on, the clients have been keeping on behaving this way over the last 20 years, for which reason they have to change now. Now is, well, I think that we are talking about that we are living in a completely different world. This. We think it's going to happen much more rapidly. In any case, the evidence we have, because the numbers that we are experiencing in terms of commercial results are really confirming this because our numbers have been absolutely amazing, not just by February, but is several months and so on.
Clearly this, and Italy is characterized by situation that it's a little bit out of scale in terms of what is proposed to clients, because clearly it's among, probably is among the three, four most expensive markets in the world. We have market practices that we know. We have commercial banks that now they have nearly 40% of their investing revenues, that they are driven by upfront fees, totally unsustainable, clearly. Clearly AI is going to make a mess of this. For us, it's, is the best possible news.
Yeah, if I can add, it's also to just to give you more color on AI. Our financial planner are already using massively, AI in building portfolios, but most of all to compare portfolios of clients they have maybe outside, so in the traditional banking system or in other banks. It's very easy to compare portfolios or to analyze portfolios and create a commercial pitch to say, "Look, you pay this. These are your performances." It's very easy to, you know, to highlight what are the weak points of the portfolio. This is already happening, so this is something that is live. One of the most used services in the platform is exactly this one, so the comparison.
They drop in portfolios from other banks, and they just, they're very efficient in, you know, explaining the client why maybe his allocation, their allocation is not efficient 100% in terms of costs or performances. It's a reality.
Because again, the typical narrative is, okay, the clients are paying 350 basis points total expense ratio because they are so happy of the service they're receiving by the others that they are paying this. They are happy to pay. This is not true. The clients are paying 350 basis points because they don't know how much they're paying. Through AI is going to be, j ust right now it's incredibly easy for our financial planners to approach and prospect clients or also clients we have in the, in the bank because we are increasing the share of wallet. It's the easiest way to get the attention of clients, say, "Come on. Look to that."
Thanks for the presentation. I have three questions. One is on the something that I ask many times during the results, maybe in the Capital Markets Day there will be more time to deep dive. That is the impact of the advanced advisory fees on the model. There was a slide number 21, that was explaining how fast you are growing in this business. How should we model it looking at your plan to 2029 in terms of contribution coming from advisory, advanced advisory fees? How much you are charging? How, how does it work, basically? If you can give us some color on that, it would be very useful. Second question is on capital remuneration.
We have the carrot of the excess capital being distributed that is probably postponed. Is it fair to assume that this is not gonna happen before the end of the plan due to the fact that you are growing so fast in terms of total financial assets, and so you prefer, as usual, to keep the buffer of capital to sustain your growth going forward? Finally, on, I would think about the growth in total financial assets. How should we look at the composition of this? Is it mostly coming from existing clients, new clients, a mix of the two, 50/50, or something like that? Thank you.
Let me start on the impact of advanced advisory fees. First of all, if the point is, which kind of impact we can expect on terms of on margins, we don't expect any significant impact because it clearly is, you know, what we are offering is pretty much aligned with the, what we are doing in using other solutions. Clearly the biggest impact of the advisory fees model is going to accelerate probably the speed at which we are going to gain market share. Clearly it's a model that is transferring to clients transparency. Clearly, again, AI is clearly moving more and more the clients in that kind of landscape. Clearly this is going to be the.
In terms of margins, honestly speaking, we don't see any significant difference between what we are doing there. What is important on the advisory model, the advisory model is important because is a can play a big role in accelerating our gain of market share. Again, the system is still stuck in a approach in which transparency is not there. Again, the pure inducement approach is an approach that is clearly the aim of this approach is to hide the highs of the clients exactly what he's paying. This is there. On the capital remuneration, the point is, Fineco is a growth story, so I want to be very, very clear at this point.
It's not an, so it's not an dividend stock or something like that. If someone is interested in picking up the stock with the possible, highest possible dividend yields, clearly this is not the stock to buy because this is a growth stock that at the same time is distributing very generous dividend, generating, keeping or generating a significant amount of organic capital. Clearly being an a growth stock means that you have to be, let me say, cautious because clearly. Now I'm going to make another consideration that I'm sure that is not going to make my CFO happy. Clearly if you ask me to me personally, this is not the, now is not the point of view of the company.
This is my very personal point of view. Clearly, I'm much more positive, so I think in the considering the positioning and what is the landscape, the opportunity we have, clearly I'm going to be, l et me put this way. I would be very disappointed if we are not going to go, to do more than we are presenting, because clearly the opportunity is so incredible, huge, and so on, clearly. In what we are presenting, there is just I was making calculation, just a modest increase of our market share of an additional 1%. I have difficulties in thinking that with this kind of positions on, this is just what, that w hen we are presenting a plan, clearly you have to keep your feet on earth.
Otherwise, the market thinks that you are selling a book of dreams, and we don't, we want to do that. Clearly it's, we don't need to rush in giving back capital when the opportunity for growing is so enormous. Clearly it would be absolutely crazy. The rush in distributing capital, it's fine if you are in a, you know, traditional bank that is not growing, keeping on losing market share, keeping on squeezing clients. This makes sense, but not for us. Regarding the growth, at the moment, the growth is more or less 65%. That is the growth in terms of total financial assets is driven by the existing client, by the new clients, the remaining part of the existing clients, because clearly we are keeping on gaining steam in getting, in increasing the share of wallet of the existing clients.
Clearly, particularly in the upper end, because when you have in front of you a rich client, typically is a client that has more banks, is banking with more banks. Clearly, the more they are realizing the difference between us and the system, clearly this is making us gaining additional additional share of work. Sometimes the share of work is just happening throughout the generational transfer, because the new generation that is taking the helm of the portfolio is saying, "Come on, but probably it's better I move everything there." 65 new clients and the remaining part of the existing clients.
We understand it correctly.
Please.
New clients, considering the client acquired in the current year and also in the previous year.
Yes. Yes.
We consider new clients-
Yes.
After 1 year of life, so.
Hi there, it's Ian White from Autonomous. Two questions please, both on AI. Firstly, thank you for the detail in the presentations around functionality that you intend to introduce or are introducing. Can you help us to think about the degree to which these are really idiosyncratic innovations that will help to differentiate Fineco even more from competitors over the coming years, as opposed to reflective of general industry trends towards more technology, more sophisticated solutions, I guess sort of table stakes, for want of a better term, that the whole industry will roll out? That's question one. Question two, can you comment a bit about the stability and stickiness of your deposit base in an AI world? Will we see a lot more optimization from clients on the cash deposit side?
Thank you.
Before leaving the floor to Gianl uca, just make a preliminary comment on the first questions. Please, Gianl uca, if I'm going to say something that is horrendously wrong, please jump in.
I'll try.
Yeah. It's clear that for sure we are not here for presenting. We are not presenting the case of making something that is strange. We are not, our aim is not to get the Nobel Prize for innovation in what we are doing. The work is a very important element that we are in a absolutely great position, because everybody's talking about AI. For example, as Gianl uca has shown very clearly, for example, the possibility to get easily high quality data is a preconditions. The same story, if you can work on this data and so on. This is my opinion, is much more a matter of who is going to be really in the position to make things and to transform this as something that makes sense and who is not.
Gianl uca, you are in a much better position than me for elaborating.
As if we stick on our AI program, for example, we start in a good position, as I said before, okay? We have a full access to data. We don't have any major outsourcer, and this means that we can implement our AI program in a faster and cheaper way, okay? First of all. Second, our ambition for 2029, for example, but in an incremental way, not just in 2021, but also in 2028, partly in 2027, is to fully redesign processes inside the bank. I'm not talking to you about our use cases for customers or for financial advisors. This is a topic for my colleagues here. What we are doing is just basically rethinking on how Fineco works from the internal, okay?
This is ambitious, but we are not here to say, "Okay, we just implement, I don't know, a bunch of use cases, very visible maybe on the market or whatever, and lay off people somehow." No. We are redesigning the bank, okay, with a view that is AI centric, okay. We are already starting that roadmap. It will be not this year, maybe, we'll see in 2027 some of this effect, and then in 2028 and 2029 we'll be much more there, okay. The idea is not to use AI to be more efficient, say. To think the bank in terms of AI, okay. That's very ambitious, I know, but our position is a good one because, as I told before, we don't need to ask anybody to do that, okay.
We have the data, we have the internal infrastructure, we have skilled people internally, we can go to, of course, to some vendors, integrators, whatever. We'll have a full control on our AI program, okay? We'll focus on high impact use cases, for example, in terms of efficiency or in terms of revenues, okay? I don't know if I.
No, makes sense.
Okay.
On stability and stickiness of the deposit base, this is quite, is a recurring topic. First of all, let me start by. Excuse me. First of all, let me start by in a more general comment on this point. It's AI. It's the using AI for optimizing the way clients are using deposits. I, honestly speaking, I think that is a little bit misplaced activity because it's something that is done by many years. It's many years that there are existing engines that they are trying to explain to clients where is the best place to put that money and so on. It's not a particularly sophisticated topic.
I don't think that AI is going to add much more. This generally speaking. Second, now coming back more directly to the specific case of Fineco. Fineco, as we explained, has a business model that is based on the idea that we are not attracting clients using shortcuts, strange offers and something like that. The clients are opening accounts with us because they want to use our platform. When a client is using a platform, technically speaking, he is leaving on the platform what we call the transactional liquidity. Is the liquidity that everybody of us, we have on the current account, on our current account we are using for the day by day life. It's impossible to keep a current account perfectly at zero.
Is the transactional liquidity that is kept by the brokerage clients on the platform because they need to have immediately available liquidity for taking the marketing opportunities. Clearly this liquidity is not chasing the rates, because first of all, it's small. We just some numbers, because in our world is just a matter of numbers. The median deposits of our clients is EUR 4,5000. That it's clear data. For which reason someone has to try. See, it's clear that theoretically you can say, "I keep my current account not at EUR 4,500, but at EUR 2,000 because I can get more." Come on, who is doing that? It's impossible. Second, the expected stability of the deposits.
We are really in a, we have the privilege of being under the supervision on an extremely efficient central bank. What are the ratio that Lorena was mentioning, the Net Stable Funding Ratio in a bank like us, that we have our liabilities are just represented by deposits, is practically is measuring that, is the expected stability of deposits. The fact that Fineco has the highest Net Stable Funding Ratio among the European banks is telling the full story. It's clear that if you are sit on a base of deposits, that is deposit that has been built throughout offering of term deposits and competing with the market, trying to offer rates, this clearly by definition is completely unstable.
We think that artificial intelligence is not going to change anything from that point of view. The stability of deposits are going to remain rock solid and the base of our financial income.
Transactional liquidity from banking and from brokerage.
Yeah, both.
Yeah.
Actually, just to tell you, we, I'm also very interested in looking to the, when there are the presentation of results of the other brokerage platforms, particularly U.S., because U.S. they are. At the end of the story, I went through the numbers of, for example, Robinhood, their plans. The plans of Robinhood, everything is based on the, what they expect to grow in terms of transactional liquidity to their clients. This is great. It's, for sure, they are, y ou're right. Same story when they're looking to Interactive Brokers.
Yeah.
65% of their revenues are represented by financial income again. The market is right in considering this valuable. Probably where is a little bit wrong when is considering our liquidity as a core business. When I'm going throughout some numbers on the sell side, usually this financial income is treated with a very low multiple, the same multiple of a traditional banks. Lorena has been quite effective in explaining the difference. Yes, our deposit base is incredibly value and really incredibly rock solid.
Hi. It's Marco Nicolai from Jefferies. First question is just a follow-up on the international expansion. I'm here.
Sorry. I was looking.
I just wanted to make sure, like what do you include in terms of revenues in this business plan from the international expansion? My understanding is that you don't include revenues of it, but you do include the costs. The, the follow-up on this is essentially when do you expect this to be EPS accretive, to your business? Like, when do you expect this, the revenues from this to go above this EUR 5 million-EUR 10 million fixed cost? Is it going to be within this business plan?
Yeah, the usual. Yeah, for sure. Yes. For sure, yes, this is the case. Clearly, when we are measuring what's going on in a business like that, for us, what is typically important is when you have a moment in which the revenues are exceeding the operational cost either in industrial margins. Clearly this can, t his is the reason why we are continuously stressing the point that the huge operational leverage. The fixed cost that we have for running the platform are so small that to reach a positive industrial marginal positive contribution is going to be extremely easy. Because we are talking about really very few money. It's. Yes, this is the great advantage we have. It's something that can achieve very easily and gross operating margins positive, relatively in a short period of time.
Thank you. Perhaps another question on the, on the crypto. Mr. Di Grazia mentioned quickly the initiative, also this initiative before. Any updates there? I understand now perhaps speaking about crypto is not that appealing given the Bitcoin-
No, not now.
The pressure, but I guess, you know, these things move in cycle, right? You've got to be ready for the next up cycle. Perhaps this is the right moment kind of to prepare your infrastructure. What you are doing on that front?
Yeah. You're totally right. I mean, it's a gap that we have right now, but not because we want it. It's because we cannot do it until we have the green light from our regulators. We're in talks. We have a clear idea of the infrastructure. We have a clear idea of the commercial proposition. We have everything in place. I think, you know, the day we will have, if we will have the green light, we'll be very, very fast in implementing it. For sure in the future, I see this world in the platforms. I mean, it's something that is evolving. Maybe it's going to become something also different from now.
For sure you will see tokens, maybe not crypto tokens, but tokens on, you know, for sure on equities or bonds or whatever. We need to be ready on the technological point of view. We're studying how to evolve, how to create an ecosystem for the tokens. This is a very, you know, important point. It's going to be, at least on the token side, it's going to be mandatory, or you're in or you're out. I mean, it's. The world is going that direction for sure, 100%.
Paola Sabbione, Barclays. I have a couple of question. One is on your new client segmentation. It seems that there is obviously a new offer, for example, on the current account for the younger generation, I wanted to ask if you have a specific marketing campaign or marketing tool, maybe digital tool that you're using for this cluster of client, with clearly a long-term ambition to capture them more and more. Another set of questions on the financial advisors. I wanted to ask if you think your AI, powered tool for financial planners can be a distinctive factor, maybe helping you even in hiring them versus the competitors.
Still on the competition, we have seen the banks, so not necessarily asset gatherers, but really the banks, planning, targeting new network of financial advisors they want to hire more, even the two main largest Italian banks. Do you see this as a threat or maybe as an opportunity creating more professionals to hire yourself? Thank you.
On the new client segmentation, we just started the new offering. We launched the new offering a few weeks ago, and you can already, you know, see how the new clients are positioning. For sure, you know, the biggest part is on the free account, the Fineco One, and then we will have a split from the Fineco Classic, the 10, the EUR 3.95 per month and the Fineco Max. You know, this is crucial for us because it help us to better segment the clients in the sense that we are very strong in acquiring both private banking clients and on the other side, let's say mass affluent or mass clients, so very young clients. They both want the same thing.
They both want, you know, a platform that works. They want to pay, you know, the right amount of money. They want efficiency, they want transparency, but they're totally different. One is they have few money, and the other one, they're big amount of money. But we think it's very important for us because the youngest one is the future. Without the younger, the youngster, you know, the future, there is no future. It's better, you know, to think about it now. We want to, we want to be very aggressive on this, and we will have in this segment many, many headcounts, but fewer assets in terms of probably cash. We will have benefits on brokerage, huge benefit on brokerage.
On the other side, private banking clients, I mean, it's quite clear where you have the advantages. I think the, you know, the new offering is going to work very well. The combination of, you know, a mass market account that is going to compete with the neobanks. If you do like a comparison now, our account fee with a neobank account, I mean, there's no match. We're so much better. We are a very significant bank, we are very solid, and then all the other things. On the private banking side, it's very difficult to match our offer because, you know, again, we're 100% digital, but with a physical touch if you want, you know, have a physical touch.
If you have money, you want to have a physical touch. I don't think it's going to change in the future. I see a future where, you know, financial advisor, they use AI massively for clients. They have, they have money for private banking clients. Just to say that the new offering is just the right, you know, balance to get every single segment of the client we aim for, we go for the next, not three years, but probably five, 10 years from now. In terms of marketing campaign, we do a lot of marketing campaign. We have a fantastic marketing platform, 100% proprietary.
We have the know-how in-house, and we are very good at targeting and performing, you know, digital campaigns, performer marketing. Usually we pay what we get, we don't just say, we spend EUR 1 million, and we don't know what is going to come back. If we spend EUR 1 million, we know, you know, we spend because, you know, we gathered our cash or our brokerage activities. Anyway, we pay for what we get, this is very smart and very efficient. You know, with the platform campaign, we target all different targets. From, again, from private client to mass and mass affluent. You know, private banking clients are very interesting right now because the majority of the private clients are connected to a financial planner.
We have a, you know, a significant number that is growing of client, private banking client, that they start using by themselves the platform, and eventually they will use then the financial advisor. You know, it's something that is all combined. It's a, it's a very bright future in, in our, in our opinion.
A quick comment on the, what's going on in the financial planners with AI tools. For sure, the AI tools we have in place, we are implementing on our network are going to make clearly, for sure, much more product in the network. It's going to make, for example, easier to take on board new financial planner, the financial planners of the new generation. Because this is a very important topic, because the industry has been until so far and still it is very short-sighted. Because it's been an industry that not investing on the young generation, I'm talking about financial planners, is an industry characterizing a significant high level of and high age.
Because for a very simple reason, because the industry has been much preferred to take the shortcut, hiring, seasoned financial planners, overpaying them. Clearly, this has made easier to get immediately the impact in terms of total financial assets because they are paying, just paying and so on. This clearly is creating a significant problem ahead, because the more you have your network aging and the more it's going to become difficult to stay on the market. Clearly, Fineco has been characterized by many years by being extremely active there in investing on the new generation. The new generation clearly are thinking and acting as probably during the video, there was the young guys.
They are just thinking and acting using this new approach based on technology, artificial intelligence, combining together efficient assets and so on. On the other side, unfortunately, the industry is keeping on reiterating the old, in my opinion, bad habits of keeping on playing the game of overpaying seasoned financial planners for convincing them in joining them. This is clearly a losing game because it's a vicious cycle. Clearly when a financial planner is hired through any huge payment, clearly this at the end of the story is paid by the clients. Because we are not talking about charitable organizations. The more they pay, and the more they are asking for their clients to pay. This clearly is not working in this kind of world.
We are not playing that kind of game, clearly. Our numbers are very clear. If we look to the net sales of our financial planners network, more than 90% is generated organically by the existing financial planners, and just less than 10% by financial planners recruited over the last 24 months. We have organization which the weight of the recruiting is in excess of 50%. Clearly it is. This is a world that we don't want to have anything in common with that.
On the hiring, using AI for the hiring of the financial planner, it's a huge advantage, just huge advantage. You know, we don't have time to show you also demo, a live demo of the X-Net, the platform that are using our financial planner, but it's something that doesn't exist in the market. We use the technology to hire, especially young financial planners. A young financial planner wants to use the technology. The old-fashioned financial planner, I mean, it's totally different from what we have here, especially the new hire. They want the technology, they want the everything digital. They don't want to see paper. Of course, we don't either.
This is already, you know, a big boost in hiring, but it's going to be better and better, and we're going to use it, you know, more and more as, you know, as we release the new AI services. Again, it's a huge service and it's a unique platform in Italy right now.
On banks targeting the network financial planners, we have to make a kind of distinction because we have banks. They have many years ago, they moved in the direction of offering to their employees a kind of a hybrid contract, so making them half an employee and half a financial planner. This is not, honestly speaking, is not efficient because if an employee has the commercial traction is the real, is someone that is perceived that is in the condition to get great results for which reason to stay by half. Who is remaining there are the people that they are not characterized by any significant commercial traction. This case is not working, so.
We have other, the other situation which we have some banks that have started an aggressive hiring of financial planners, but it's sad to say, repeating the old, the old mistakes made in the past, overpaying them for making them join. I'm not, I don't want to repeat myself on this point. Considering underestimating that is not, is not enough having a financial planners on board, but you need to have a platform. You need to have an ecosystem in order to make them working, because if they don't have the platform, it's completely, it's a waste of money to hire a financial planner. Third mistake is to put together financial planners with branches.
If you want to have the best way for experiencing a booming level of frauds and wrongdoings, put together financial planners with branches. This is the, because you put t he payment system together with who is in control of the relationship with clients. This is the clear answer.
Yes. Hi, good afternoon. Gianluca Ferrari, Mediobanca. Still on the network, if you can remind us how many new additions you are expecting per year from now to 2029? I think you're giving a base salary as a remuneration at the beginning. When is the switch from a salaried person to fully commission-based? The second is on life insurance. I think we discussed in some calls the make or buy decision, if to keep distributing third-party products or if it's time to leverage on FAM to manufacture yourself life insurance. There is nothing in the plan. I was wondering why you still go for the buy decision. Third is on protection, so P&C insurance. Don't you think a platform like yours is also probably useful or in the need of offering also this kind of products?
Thank you.
In the plans, what, how many?
I think we have around 70 new senior and 120, 130 beginners.
Yes. In any case, it's not a cornerstone of the plan. Just, so we are not, it's not a big driver of the numbers we're. Regarding the beginners and so on, I'm seeing, there is our head of HR. Marco, do you want to jump here to give some color in how does it work in terms of salary and so on? Excuse me for the short notice, Marco, but I know that you are extremely flexible. Please.
First of all, we are hiring more or less 100 new personal financial advisor per year. That's the more or less the number. We will increase in the next year based on the multi-year plan. Regarding the payout.
For the beginners. How does it work? The fixed salary.
Yeah. Yeah. In the first two years, they are receiving a fixed salary. They are participating to the incentive plan. Starting from the third year, they are full financial advisor. They are receiving the fees for what they are producing.
At the moment, how much we are paying, so as a fixed salary, the new plan?
EUR 1,200 for the first year and EUR 1,000 for the second year.
Okay. Okay. Thank you, Marco. Excuse me again. No, please, if you can, Marco. On the insurance side, we know we are not planning to internalize anything because our volumes are not justifying such a kind of a move. We are not planning any kind of involvement of Fineco Asset Management there. On the other side, we think that we have still some room for making what we are doing there more efficient. Yeah. Clearly, because in any case. On the, I think on the latest part, insurance, I don't know, Paolo.
Yeah, it's something that makes total sense. It's one of the point in our roadmap that never reaches the top five or top four. It's something that has sense. It's, in the future, maybe we will add also this kind of products, insurance products.
Thank you for taking my questions. Just one from my side, on the pan-European platform, because I think it's an important test for your business model. It would be interesting to better understand the competitive environment for that platform, because you explained the positioning, but I'm curious about where do you expect strong competition from existing or other new entrance players in that new geographies on technology, on pricing, a mix of these, something like that. Thank you.
This is a very competitive landscape. There is no doubt. Usually, the players acting there are extremely efficient, so they are not. At the same time, we have on the other end, still, the journey is just at the beginning, because also Germany, that is a country which probably the acceleration is the fastest, still the vast majority of clients' assets are still in the hands of really inefficient traditional banks. Clearly, the room for growing. Yeah, my suggestion is not just looking to the starting immediately making an direct comparison among the different players, assuming that is a kind of limited world. It's, we are just beginning. What is going to be very important is the effectiveness of what you are proposing.
When we are saying that we are going to bring on the market something that is combining together an absolutely amazing level of convenience and an absolutely amazing level of quality, it's not such as easy. Usually, it's quite, it's quite impossible to find that kind. We, we think that, but in all the industry, if you are able to do that, there is no doubt that you are going to make your way through. In any case, consider that is not a limited world. Is a world in which this process, this transformation is just at the beginning, because we are in front of an gigantic and cycle of transformation, which you can expect that a growing, continuously growing direct interaction of clients with the market.
This is going to increase the market, because when you are looking some numbers of, some of the fastest-growing players, for example, in Germany, but they are just scratching the surface of the, I don't know, Paolo, what do you think about this?
Yeah, you're totally right. I mean, we're talking about a market that is huge and still concentrated in traditional banking system. It's pretty much the same in everywhere in pan-Europe. It's pretty much the same story.
In the world, probably.
Yeah. I don't want to go, you know-
Yeah.
-far away, but it's, yeah, for sure, yes.
Probably only the Nordics are probably the most advanced.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There is a, y eah. Where do you compete? We compete mainly on trust and efficiency. This is our terrain, our territory. Of course, pricing is helping for sure. That's why we have in mind something, you know, very innovative. I cannot tell you more now, but it's a mix of, you know, competing on trust and efficiency. Here we compete with the traditional banking system because you find trust in the traditional banking system, not in the neobanks and neobrokers.
Just, this is just a pure technical point. Consider that usually a client that is using actively a brokerage platform is not just using one platform. There are more for many reasons. Just for example, the reliability and the resilience of the platform. The more you are emerging as an high-quality platform, so for that I would be very interested in, I don't know. Look at recently, for sure, in the last few days, there has been days of absolutely incredible numbers in volumes. I'm sure there are going to be also days of malfunctioning and downtime by many platforms. I'm sure. This clearly is the, i f you are consistently there, okay, fine. That's, c ome on, this is a significant bank. I can trust them. Incredibly competitive pricing, very efficient, great services, very reliable.
For which reason I don't have to open an account with them.
If you also add the fact, we were talking about the new generational transfer. The younger generation, they will look for a model like our model. I would say, you know, in Germany, but everywhere, there is no space just for one Fineco. There is space probably for three, four, five Finecos. It's just the right moment to be there with what we have.
I don't want to be boring, but it's amazing that in Italy there is just one Fineco.
Yes, that is right.
This is what is incredible. Good.
We have a question from the digital side.
Yes, please.
Digital.
It's from digital platform. The Ledger.
Adele Palama, can you provide a guidance on the expected average asset under management flow per annum in 2026- 2029? We don't enter in a such precise guidance that nature, because clearly it's very difficult to give a precise numbers there for a very simple reason. There is an trade-off, because between the, d epends also by what's going on in the market. What we can say, that we have an steady, progressive, continuously rising growth of asset under management net inflows per year. This is something that is going to keep on building up that. This, d eposit flows per annum.
Deposits is, is when I was answering to the point of the capital, I was explaining that clearly we had to be cautious on in not rushing in trying to give back to the market as soon as possible the theoretical potential remaining capital we have, because we are a growth company. The probability of growing even more than we expect is not can be material. Clearly this means that clearly you can have an even higher growth in the deposits and so on. We are a developing story. We, I don't know if we have been able to transfer to you the concept that we are entering in a kind of uncharted waters, very positive uncharted water with incredibly huge opportunities.
We try to build up and and plans that for us, the main objective was to give the flavor of the opportunity to give a base of rock solid numbers without selling a book of dreams. Clearly, as I was saying before, if I putting together everything, clearly the difficulty is in seeing for which reason we cannot grow more. For this reason, in my opinion, it's difficult to give you such a kind of a number. In 2026, 30%. No, 30, 33% cost-to-income ratio is not a target. In the 2026, 30% cost-to-income ratio target, including the cost of the pan-European platform. No. What we are saying, we are going to stay comfortably below the 30% level. It's not a target. It was clearly, o therwise, it's to be insane as a target. C an you provide a guidance for tax rate in the business plan?
Yes. The tax rate in the business plan is expected around 33% due to the new legislation, including the 2% additional IRAP, and also the non-deductibility of interest expenses IRES/IRAP. We expect a tax rate in that region, 33%.
Guidance on possible banking levies expected in the business plan horizon.
No, we don't expect. What we have included is that is the additional IRAP already started. That will start in 2026.
Yeah.
Exactly. Who knows? We have included what we already know.
That's it? Okay. Thank you f or your presence and the very interesting questions. As usual, every one of you that has interest in deep diving, in getting more details, numbers, and so on, please make us a call. We can arrange a follow-up anytime. Thank you again.