Good morning, everyone, and welcome to BBVA's third-quarter results presentation. I'm joined today by our CEO, Onur Genç, and our CFO, Gonzalo Rodríguez. As in previous quarters, Onur and Gonzalo will walk you through the quarter and the figures, and we will then open the line for the Q&A session. With that, I will turn it over to Onur. Onur, please.
Thank you, Patricia. Good morning to everyone. Welcome, and thank you for joining BBVA's third-quarter 2026 earnings webcast. Before going into the presentation, sitting next to me is Gonzalo. I believe most of you have already had the opportunity to meet him at different events, since he took on the role. But I would like to welcome Gonzalo to his first earnings webcast as the CFO of BBVA Group. Gonzalo, welcome. Regarding the quarterly results, let's jump into it, starting with slide number three. Slide number three, on the left-hand side of the page, basically what you see is we continue to deliver outstanding value creation for our shareholders. Our tangible book value per share plus dividends increased by 14.3% year-over-year.
Very strong figure already, but if you exclude the impact of the share buybacks, you arrive at nearly 20% growth year-over-year, indicating an exceptional underlying organic growth of tangible book value. On the right-hand side, our profitability ratios remain at outstanding levels, with a return on tangible equity of 22% and return on equity of 20.8% for the first nine months of the year, placing BBVA once again as the most profitable large bank in Europe. On page number four, on the left-hand side, another basically EUR 3 billion+ net attributable profit quarter, which represents a 19.1% increase year-over-year the quarterly profit. Earnings per share at the bottom of the page, it grew even faster at nearly 23.9% year-on-year, supported by the share buyback programs that we have executed, as you know, in the last year.
On the right-hand side, our CET1 capital ratio decreased from the pro forma 12.41% in June to 12.21%. During the quarter, as we will discuss in a second, strong earnings generation was more than offset by the capital consumed by our excellent profitable growth, lower impact of SRT, the risk transfer operations, due mainly to summer seasonality, and negative market-related impacts. We will go through the capital evolution in more detail later in the presentation. Moving to page number five, let me highlight the outstanding and sustained evolution of our earnings over the past few years. As you can see on the left-hand side, we have surpassed the EUR 9 billion mark in the first nine months of 2026, up 13.6% year-over-year. But more importantly, we remain positive about our earnings outlook going forward.
The macro in general remains supportive across our footprint, with good prospects for continued lending growth in Mexico and Spain, and in many other geographies that we are in. At the same time, interest rate headwinds are gradually fading in Mexico and Spain, markets where our NII has a clear positive correlation with interest rates. This means that looking forward, volume growth should increasingly translate into earnings growth. While part of our lending growth has so far in the past few years helped offset margin compression, we expect to capture more of this positive contribution to our P&L, the contribution of volume in the future. Moving to page number six. I like this slide. It illustrates what I believe is BBVA's truly unique profile, which is becoming even more evident this quarter. Our ability to combine strong growth with best-in-class profitability consistently over years.
On the left-hand side, you can see the acceleration in our loan growth since December 2023, reaching more than 20% year-on-year in current EUR at the end of last quarter. While our European peers are also growing faster, BBVA continues to outperform, supported by our diversified presence in relatively low-leverage countries, the strength of our leading franchises, our growth in the enterprise segment per our strategic plan, and our consistent ability to gain new customers. What is particularly remarkable is that we are delivering this growth while maintaining outstanding profitability. On the right side of the page, our 22% return on tangible equity stands well above our cost of equity and compares very well with the 15.6% for our European peers, an important gap that we have consistently maintained over time.
On page number seven, this slide summarizes the key financial messages of the quarter, which I will cover in more detail in the following slides. Let me move directly to the next page number eight, the summarized P&L for the quarter. As usual, I would highlight the excellent performance of the core revenues, especially with NII growing 16.5% year-over-year and 5.7% quarter-over-quarter in constant, serving as the main driver behind our net attributable profit growth. Slide number nine, the summarized P&L for the first nine months of 2026. Similar message, similar to quarterly evolution. Our excellent core revenue growth is the fundamental reason behind the record EUR 9.66 billion of net attributable profit. Moving to slide number 10, you see the quarterly evolution of each revenue component.
Starting with net interest income, it is worth highlighting the acceleration of NII growth in the last quarter, supported by the strong activity growth. Turning to net fees and commissions, we recorded a 12.4% increase year-over-year, with payments and asset management business continuing to be the main growth drivers here. Net trading income increased by 5.7% year-over-year, with a slightly positive quarterly evolution as the positive contribution coming from the FX hedges are practically offset by the muted global markets activity. All in, gross income increased by 15.7% year-over-year and 4.2% versus the previous quarter. Moving to slide number 11. For Spain and Mexico, our two largest markets, let me focus on activity and loan growth, which again remain the key drivers of our net interest income growth.
In Spain, loan growth remains very strong at 7.3% year-over-year, while in Mexico it further accelerated to 12% growth. In both markets, growth continues to be driven by the most profitable segments. You also see that in the middle of the page, consumer and credit cards on the retail side and enterprises on the wholesale side, most profitable segments, they are growing even faster. Coupled with the stabilization of interest rates, the very strong activity growth translates into a very strong quarterly growth of NII in both markets. In fact, if you annualize the last quarter growth of NII in both markets, you arrive at a higher run rate of annual growth, which again makes us positive for the quarters to come. Moving to page 12 on efficiency.
On the left-hand side, gross income grew by 16.3%, as we discussed in the first nine months year-over-year, while expenses increased by 16%, leading to positive jaws, even including the non-recurring items recorded during the year. On the right side of the slide, our efficiency ratio slightly improved by 9 basis points to 37.9% in annual comparison. Excluding the non-recurring effects described in the footnote, the true improvement in the efficiency ratio would have been 81 basis points, which we also value a lot. In short, we continue to deliver an outstanding efficiency ratio while investing on growth and transformation. Turning to slide number 13, asset quality metrics. They remained stable throughout the quarter in a context of, again, very good growth in lending.
Starting with the cost of risk on the bottom left, it remained broadly stable at 144 basis points for the first nine months of the year, in line with our expectations. The quarterly evolution of absolute impairments, it shows an increase due to the impact of a large portfolio sale that we have done, if you remember, in the second quarter. On the bottom right, our NPL ratio also remained stable at 2.6%, while the coverage ratio stood at 84%, basically overall broad stability. Slide number 14 on capital. Our CET1 ratio stood at 12.21% compared to 12.41% in June, the pro forma after deducting the EUR 2 billion extraordinary share buyback currently underway. This represents a 20 basis point, as we discussed in the first pages, 20 basis point reduction during the quarter. So focusing on that difference in the waterfall, main impacts of the quarter.
Number one, the strong results. That contributes 71 basis points. Dividend accrual and AT1 coupons, deducting 38 basis points. Then, as you see on the page, - 44 basis points from RWAs growth, again, reflecting our exceptional lending activity in the quarter, deploying capital to profitable growth, enabling our future earnings and future capital generation, as we discuss all the time. This figure, the 44, it's net of SRTs. It includes the result of SRTs, basically, which contributed + 3 basis points, which is, as you know, a somewhat smaller figure than other quarters due to summer seasonality. And finally, - 9 basis points in the other category, which is also a bit different from other quarters. It includes a relatively large - 22 basis points impact from the market movements, especially the sharp movement of the interest rate curves and the currencies.
On shareholder remuneration, on the right-hand side, we paid a record interim dividend of EUR 0.37 per share on October 15th, and we are now executing the second EUR 1 billion tranche of the extraordinary EUR 2 billion share buyback program that we announced last quarter. Moving to page number 15, let me briefly also update you on our AI transformation strategy. As I mentioned last quarter and also even the quarter before, at BBVA, we are determined to lead the AI transformation in banking as we did in digital transformation. We held our BBVA strategic talk on AI, on other things, but including AI, on October 6th, where we shared our strategy and the progress we are making. I will not go into too much detail today, but two messages to highlight from that session, which is also summarized on this page.
First, we are already starting to see very tangible positive impact. Using AI, we are improving customer experience, achieving higher productivity by redesigning our processes, and utilizing AI tools broadly across the bank. Just to give you a couple of examples that are listed here, our AI-powered voice assistant is achieving close to a 90% successful resolution rate in pilot interactions, while some of our first AI agents are reducing the time for the preparation of a financial program on the risk side for the enterprises by as much as 30%. The second message on this page is that we believe the real opportunity is to scale these use cases and the results across the entire bank, and in a controlled but facilitated manner. This is precisely what The Frame, as we call it, will allow us to do.
We are already making headway in industrializing AI, and this will enable us to build, deploy, and manage the AI agents at scale, again, faster, but with full control. More to come on this one in the following quarters. Finally, moving to page number 16 regarding the evolution of our financial goals for the 2025-2028 period. This page is very important to us. That's why we bring it to you every quarter. As usual, I will not go through each one of them, but we do have the full confidence to beat our goals at the end of the planning period, I guess is the main message. Now for the business areas update, I turn it to Gonzalo. Gonzalo?
Thank you. Thank you very much, Onur, and good morning, everyone. Let me start with Spain, where net profit reached EUR 934 million in the quarter, with nine-month earnings reaching EUR 3.1 billion. That is up 2.3% year-on-year, excluding two non-recurring items. First of all, VAT adjustments in the second quarter of both this year and last year, and second, the amnesty cost in the first quarter. Overall, in Spain, solid earnings performance. This performance is supported by strong core revenue growth and commercial momentum. On lending grew by 7.3% year-on-year, driven by sustained growth across the most profitable segments, with consumer and enterprise lending both growing at around 10%. On the liability side, deposits grew 5.8% year-on-year, driven by sustained growth in retail deposits through customer acquisition, through our focus on customer transactionality, and additionally, wholesale time deposits.
Now turning to the P&L in Spain, NII increased by 3.4% year-on-year and 1.2% quarter-on-quarter, supported by robust lending activity. Customer spread improved slightly in the quarter, benefiting from higher lending yields due to the repricing of our new loan production. Deposit costs also increased, mainly reflecting the immediate repricing of wholesale deposits, while retail deposit costs remain broadly stable in the quarter. Looking ahead, we expect further support for customer spread from the gradual repricing of our mortgage portfolio, which is still at an early stage. As for fees, net commissions grew 2.3% year-on-year. The quarterly decline mainly reflects lower CIB fees, partly offset by growth in asset management. Costs remain well controlled in Spain, increasing by 4.5% year-on-year, excluding the non-recurring items. Finally, asset quality metrics remain very solid in Spain.
Higher impairment in the quarter is explained by the positive one-off of a portfolio sale in the second quarter, and cost of risk stood at 33 basis points within our full-year guidance. Overall, Spain continues to deliver a very solid performance fully in line with our guidance. Turning now to Mexico on slide 19. The business in Mexico delivered again another strong quarter, driven by lending growth and solid core revenues. Net profit in Mexico totaled EUR 4.5 billion in the first nine months, up by 8.4% year-on-year in constant euros. Loan growth accelerated to 12% year-on-year, supported by stronger demand from mid-sized companies and retail lending, which also maintained very solid momentum, with consumer and SME segments growing at around 2% in the quarter. This strong activity translated into solid revenue performance. Let me elaborate this a bit further.
NII increased by 2.6% quarter-on-quarter and 8.5% year-on-year, with strong lending growth more than offsetting the remaining pressure on customer spread from the easing rate cycle. As Onur mentioned before, we expect lending growth to provide further support to NII as the easing cycle has come to an end. Fees remain broadly stable in the quarter due to lower CIB fees following a strong second quarter, while maintaining a solid year-on-year growth of 7%. At the operating level, gross income grew by 8.5% year-on-year with a cost-to-income ratio of 3.7%, supporting outstanding efficiency in Mexico while we continue to invest for future growth in this country. Moving to asset quality, the key message is that underlying trends remain very sound. Cost of risk declined to 319 basis points year-to-date, mostly benefiting from provision releases following the annual model parameter update.
Underlying cost of risk stood around 330 basis points, in line with our expectations. Overall, Mexico continues to deliver strong and profitable growth, and we remain on track to meet our full-year guidance in Mexico. Moving now to Turkey on slide 20. Net profit in Turkey reached close to EUR 260 million in the third quarter, with cumulative earnings of EUR 789 million. That is close to up 22% year-on-year in current euros. Looking first at revenues, we deliver strong NII growth, up 16.8% quarter-on-quarter. NII benefited from a significant improvement in Turkey's lira customer spread, reflecting the normalization of funding condition and also our active funding cost optimization strategy. Higher lending volumes also contributed positively, and fees in Turkey remained broadly stable in the quarter.
On asset quality, retail credit risk remains under pressure in a higher for longer interest rate environment, and cost of risk increased to 255 basis points year to date, explained by elevated provisioning needs in retail portfolios and lower recoveries in wholesale. As a result, cost of risk in Turkey could come slightly above our guidance of 220 basis points for the year, reflecting a more prolonged period of elevated rates than we initially anticipated. Nevertheless, we remain confident in delivering our net profit guidance in Turkey of around EUR 1 billion, with a downward bias. Given our positive sensitivity to lower rates in Turkey, the recent easing cycle should support customer spread and NII growth going forward. Moving to South America on slide 21, the region continued to deliver a strong year-on-year earnings growth.
Net profit reached EUR 265 million in the third quarter, taking the nine-month total to EUR 821 million, up 42% year-on-year in current euros. This performance in South America was supported by solid core revenue generation across our main franchises. NII benefited from sustained lending growth, with the loan book increasing by close to 15% year-on-year in constant euros, together with improved customer spread, particularly in Colombia and in Peru. Fee income also contributed positively, driven by growth in payments and transactional service fees. Overall, solid income growth in South America that, combined with disciplined cost management, brought the region's cost-to-income ratio to 41.5% in the first nine months of the year. Turning to asset quality in the region, underlying trends remained solid in Peru and Colombia. In the case of Argentina, impairments remained broadly stable quarter-on-quarter, though still elevated.
Following our proactive adjustment of risk appetite, we are beginning to see signs of stabilization in asset quality metrics in Argentina, and a gradual improvement expected throughout 2027. For the full year in South America, cost of risk could come slightly above our guidance of below 250 basis points, mainly depending on asset quality developments in Argentina. However, stronger gross income performance should offset this impact in the region. Overall, in short, we remain confident in the region's earnings contribution to the group. Finally, let me turn to rest of business on slide 22. The unit delivered another strong quarter, with net profit reaching EUR 291 million, up 7% quarter-on-quarter, and EUR 800 million for the first nine months. Lending continues to grow strongly across geographies, reflecting the strength of our global CIB franchise and our ability to support corporate clients as they grow internationally.
As we have been emphasizing, our CIB strategy is about corporate banking. Our aim is to be a key partner for wholesale clients, and in fact, close to 90% of our CIB business revenues are client driven, with close to 40% involving cross-border activity. This strong commercial momentum continues to translate into solid revenue growth. Gross income increased close to 12% quarter-on-quarter, supported by a strong NII and higher NTI. Expenses continue to reflect investments in strategic initiatives and key capabilities while maintaining positive jaws year-on-year. Finally, on asset quality, asset quality remains very strong, with cost of risk declining to 11 basis points year to date. Overall, in short, rest of business continues to deliver a strong and profitable growth supported by the strength of our CIB franchise. Now, back to Onur for the final remarks.
Thank you. Thank you, Gonzalo. For the main takeaways on page 23, again, let me not take time by repeating all the key messages, but in short, in our view, another set of excellent results in the quarter, driven by the strength in activity and as a result in core revenues, further improving our industry-leading growth, profitability, and efficiency ratios and profile. Regarding guidance, we maintain the positive outlook shared last quarter. At the group level, we see upside potential for the ROTE, return on tangible equity, guidance at the group level, which we now improve to be above 20%. Now, back to Patricia. Above 21.
21.
Above 21. What did I say?
20.
Above 21, obviously. We are already at 20. Now back to Patricia for the Q&A. Patricia.
Yes. Thank you, Onur and Gonzalo. We are ready now to start the Q&A session. Operator, could we have the first question, please?
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star followed by two. When preparing to ask a question, please ensure your device is unmuted locally. First question comes from Maksym Mishyn with JB Capital. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hello. Good morning. Thank you very much for the presentation and taking our questions. Two from me, please. The first one is on Spain. You mentioned that cost of deposits went up due to wholesale. I was wondering how much of the growth in deposits was driven by wholesale, and given that you are at almost 100% loan-to-deposit ratio, do you think loan growth may force you to attract more wholesale deposits, pressuring the overall deposit costs going forward? The second question is on trading income. I understand it's hard to give guidance, but it moderated significantly, and I was wondering what run rate should we think of for Spain. Thank you.
Thank you, Max, for both questions. On Spain, as you mentioned, most of this came from wholesale deposits, which is the relatively automatically repriced part of the deposit base. The 13 basis points that you see as the cost of deposit increase in Spain, 13, basically 10 of that increase has come from non-retail, which is mainly corporate. If you isolate for that impact, and if you only look into the, we call Banca Comercial, which is 150 billion of the roughly 200 billion of the demand deposits in Spain is, as we call retail and SME. That group, 150 billion, the cost of deposit increase for that group is around 4 basis points. There is a small segment there, which is again, automatically repriced. If you isolate for that, the increase is actually 2 basis points for the group.
So we are not seeing that much pressure, to be fair, on the retail side. As such, most of the increase that you have seen came from the wholesale deposits, as we mentioned. On the trading income, actually the highlight of Spain, if you look into the quarter, in my humble view, the only negative, core negative of the Spain P&L this quarter was trading income. Why is that? Because of the interest rate curves. We are primary dealers. We are market makers. We are the emitters of securities in Spain, in other European countries like Italy and so on. As part of that primary dealer role, obviously, we have to hold some of those securities. So with the interest rate curves going up, it had hurt the NTI also, not only in capital but also in NTI, there was this negative impact.
If the interest rate curves remain as is, if they do not go up as much, the NTI would improve in Spain and broadly for the group. It was mainly for that. You are asking what would be the run rate. NTI is the only one that I cannot say what the run rate would be because it is a very volatile item, as you know, Max. There was that impact which was coming from the interest rate curve, which seems like will not be the case in the fourth quarter or for the quarters to come. Anything you want to add, Gonzalo, on Spain?
Yes, thank you. On the cost of deposits, just to reiterate that we are having very strong momentum on new customer acquisition. At September, we are above last year figures, and we expect to reach close to 1 million new customers at the end of year-end. Again, as we have said, more than 70% become primary customer and more than 30% become payroll customers within the first six months. We see a strong momentum. We see strong momentum also on a small business acquisition. We expect to reach more than 70,000 customers this year. Again, also in payroll market share, we are above 17% and we grew 30 basis points year-on-year. In short, we will continue to grow inside deposits, mainly coming from retail.
Maybe let us tangibilize this one also. In the chart of Spain on page 18, you see the growth year-over-year of the deposits as well. When you look into the growth in deposits, you see that in the last year, September versus September, our demand deposit balances, they have gone up by EUR 4 billion, roughly. When you deep dive into the growth of that EUR 4 billion, basically the majority, close to 80% comes from retail. Despite a very heavy competition, because we have a lot of fintechs and neobancos, neobanks operating in Spain, we are increasing on the retail side, we are increasing our demand deposits in our view, in a very healthy way. If you look into the growth of the time deposits, and that time deposits is again, more price sensitive, obviously, and so on.
Basically, the majority of the growth of that amount was driven purely by corporate. We are doing corporate time deposits, but we are increasing our demand deposit base in retail, which in our view is good news for the coming quarters as well.
Thank you very much, Max. Next question, please.
We now turn to Miruna Chirea with Jefferies. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thank you very much for taking my questions. The first one is on Mexico. I guess it's very encouraging to see growth very strong at 12% year-on-year, and especially this being driven by the acceleration corporate loans. I was wondering, what is your updated view for lending growth in Mexico this year, and how would you see growth in 2027? On the customer spread in Mexico, was Q3 the bottom, and how should we expect the margins to progress from here? On what base rate assumption is that based on? Maybe just a quick follow-up on the wholesale deposits in Spain. I wanted to ask, what is the duration of these deposits that reprice very quickly with rates?
I guess my question is, out of the two ECB hikes that we've seen so far, is the whole repricing on the wholesale deposits already seen in Q3, or should we expect some more to come in Q4? Thank you very much.
Very good. Thank you, Miruna, for all the questions. I will take the Mexico questions. Maybe you jump in also, Gonzalo, on Spain, on the corporate deposit pricing frequency. On Mexico, some of you, when we meet face to face, you tell me that I am too positive on Mexico. At least so far, I have been proven right, and I continue to be very positive on Mexico. Very positive. On lending growth, you see 12% growth. Because of the base effect, this 12 might modulate a little bit, but as you know, our guidance was around 10%. Most likely we will beat our guidance, but very positive lending growth. Very positive. And you see it across all the product categories. Consumers going up 9%, credit cards going up 11%, SMEs going up 10%. We now have 34% market share in SMEs. Other commercial is going up 17%.
Very positive, very healthy lending growth. We stick to our guidance. We do not want to change our guidance, but obviously we have a positive bias on the number that we guided you on activity. It is going very strong. Regarding margins, we do think we have reached the bottom on the margins. It is very much related to the interest rate, obviously, of the central bank. The central bank has reached 6.5% interest rate, and they are indicating that it will be at these levels for some quarters to come. They do not have a tendency to increase, but they do not have a tendency to decrease either, which was originally the base case when we started the year. The 6.5%, the bottom reached at interest rates, is implying that we have also basically touched the bottom in customer spread. Looking forward, you asked about 2027, Miruna.
We do not obviously give guidance yet on 2027, but you will again criticize me I guess, but I am very positive on Mexico for the coming quarter and for 2027. On the pricing of corporate deposits?
Yes. On the pricing of deposits and duration of deposits in Spain, wholesale, which was the main increase this quarter, the duration is very short term. We may see in cost of deposits some increase in the fourth quarter, depending on Euribor and also on the mix. But to your question, the duration is very short term.
Miruna, it's already repriced, everything. It's tied to the Euribor or sometimes to even the central bank rate. If central bank rates go up again in December, you will see some impact from that, and that's it today, but we are not expecting an increase today in the central bank rate, ECB rates. The ECB rate increase is the only driver here. The pricing frequency is very quick.
Thank you very much, Miruna. Next question, please.
We now turn to Benjamin Toms with RBC. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Morning, both. Thanks for taking my questions. The bank SREP requirement will go up 40 basis points from January. Given this movement, are management still comfortable with running the business at an 11.5%-12% CET1 ratio range? Could we see the range move up to a circa 12% target ratio? Secondly, the ROTE for the nine months so far is 22%. Do you still expect ROTE to go up from these levels in 2027 and 2028? Thank you.
Very good. Thank you, Benjamin. On the target, we discuss this from time to time. This question comes in the quarterlies in general. We have no intention to increase our management target for a specific reason. Again, we are one of the most profitable banks in Europe. We are the most profitable large bank in Europe, and more importantly, when you look into the volatility of this profitability and volatility of capital generation, organic capital generation, you do see that we are not only very highly profitable, but the volatility of that is also very low. As a result of all of this, the supervisors, they set a requirement on different banks. When you look into our requirements, and we published it two days ago, our 2027 requirement would be 9.36%. That requirement, again, is relatively lowest compared to some of our peers.
The difference between the requirement and the upper end of our target range, which is 12%, it is 264 basis points. How does that compare, that 264 basis points, with our competitors? When you look into that large bank group that we also list in our presentations, in the footnotes who they are, the large European banks, the average is 258 basis points. Even with the increased requirement on BBVA, our buffer, if you will, on CET1 between our management target and the requirement is larger than the average of our peers. In that context, relatively speaking, us as well, we are very well positioned, very well situated in terms of that buffer, so we have no intention to increase our management target. Then return on tangible equity of 22%, should you expect more on this in the coming years?
We do not give guidance for the coming years, specifically for 2027 yet, but we do have, as you know, our midterm plan. In the midterm plan, our average commitment to the market is 22%. Last year, if you remember, it was 19%+, so the average of the two years, or the average a year and nine months, as you see in the document that we are sharing, is 20.6%. To be able to get to 22% on average, we have to do better in 2027 and 2028. In short, we expect the return on tangible equity to further improve in 2027 and in 2028.
Thank you very much, Benjamin. Next question, please.
We now turn to Antonio Reale with Bank of America. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Morning, everyone. It's Antonio from Bank of America. A couple of questions from my side, please. The first one is on Spain. I guess it's a follow-up. Looking outside in, the growth in the quarter looked like it came with some margin pressure. I know customer spreads have moved up slightly, but I wonder if maybe hedging strategies were put in place earlier in the year when expectations were for rates to drop, or if there is anything else that we need to be aware aside of commercial drivers. So if you could just talk us through your moving parts in NII and what we should expect going forward for NII in Spain. That's my first question. The second one is on Turkey. My question is, do you see further NII recovery picking up from here?
I'm conscious that you also have much more conservative macro assumptions for 2027 on both rates and CPI than what your peers seem to have in Turkey. Related to that, a follow-up, if I may. While you've taken the better part of NII growth this quarter, you also seem to have taken the worst part when it comes to asset quality. So I wonder if embedded in your guidance for cost of risk in Turkey to be around 220 basis points, you're also really telling us that the worst with Q3 is now behind us in terms of NPL inflows and cost of risk in the region. Thank you.
Thank you, Antonio, for both questions. On Spain, let's start with the NII perspectives going forward. So you see the two sides of the NII, the volume, and then the margin. On the volume, it's very clear. You see it in the figures, 7.3% growth year-over-year in the overall book. As you see in the document as well, we are relatively very cautious, actually, on mortgage. So we are losing market share in mortgage, but in consumer we are gaining share, and especially in enterprises. We gained 50 basis point market share in enterprises in the last year. So we are growing very nicely. The market is doing well, and we are doing even better than the market. So you should expect very robust loan growth in Spain going forward. So volume, very good. Margins. On the margins, we do expect a slight improvement going forward.
Actually, the fourth quarter numbers are going to be even better than the third quarter in terms of spread. It depends on the rates a bit, but we have been guiding you to a sensitivity of 4% NII improvement with 100 basis points step up in the interest rate curve. Interest rate curves, it seems like they're going to be going up further. There will be even more improvement in the coming year, in our view, with that change. But even without that change, when rate changes happen, like in the case very recently of ECB, you get immediately a hit on cost of deposits, but then you get some time in repricing your loans. If you remember, we guide this to the market as well. In our mortgage book, two-thirds of our mortgage book is repriced every six months and one-third every year.
You get the Euribor typically 12 months of two months before. So actually it's a 6 + 2 and 12 + 2 repricing. The loan repricings have not come into effect yet from the latest increases that ECB had done. As a result, even there is no increase in the ECB rates, we are expecting some improvement in the spreads. If the interest rates continue to go up, as is the base case scenario for us, you will see even more. In short, we are very positive for Spain NII. Lending is very strong, and I've been here for some time now. I have seen negative, negative, many years of negative growth in loans. Spain continues to do well as a country. Investments, it's 5% up year-over-year, the investment part of the economy, and consumer spending is also very robust.
The services economy is doing really well. That's why our expectation for GDP growth of this year is 2.6. For next year, it's 2.1. Very robust economic growth. In this context, we are gaining market share. In short, volume is very strong. Margins will continue to improve. On Turkey, as you said, the macro assumptions turned out to be worse than what we have originally planned for. At the beginning of the year, if you remember, we guided you to a net profit figure. But with that net profit figure, we had a clear footnote, I mentioned it multiple times, that we had certain macro assumptions baked into it. At the beginning of the year, we were expecting 25% inflation for the year and 32% end-of-year interest rate. We are very sensitive to those two parameters. 25 inflation turned out to be it's going to be around 30.
The 32 end-of-year interest rate, it's going to be 36, maybe 35, but our base case scenario is 35, 36, in that range. So much higher than what we thought. Those have a direct impact on the profitability. As you say, this has an implication on asset quality. But despite the fact that we missed on those macro assumptions, we even provided a sensitivity on those figures. We managed to basically deliver what we would have been delivering in that scenario of positive environment. So we are more or less there. Asset quality will come out a bit higher than the 220, as Gonzalo mentioned in the presentation. So it will come a bit higher, but that higher asset quality figures, higher cost of risk, will be compensated for other factors, especially NII. So we are quite confident with the guidance that we have for the year.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much, Antonio. Next question, please.
We now turn to Francisco Riquel with Alantra. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you for the presentation and taking my questions. I want to ask about loan growth in CIB outside your home markets in what you call the rest of business area, which is very strong. It is up 15% QoQ, 69% year-on-year. You give the split by region, but I wonder if you can comment on the exposure by sector. BBVA has appeared as a lender to one of the AI built out in what the market believes could be some trouble. How can you reassure about risk-taking in this fast-growing loan book? Also connected to this, your loan-to-deposit ratio for BBVA SA has reached 100%. Do you see that as a constraint that could limit loan growth in the international CIB loan book or even in Spain? Thank you.
Let me start with the second one very quickly. On the 100%, we don't see that as a restriction. As you can imagine, we have multiple We prefer deposits all the time, obviously, but we have multiple funding sources available to us, and 100% is obviously something that we can live very nicely, very comfortably. We don't see that as a restriction at the moment at all. On the CIB book, you mentioned about diversification, and you mentioned about the overall growth. Maybe I talk a little bit about the overall CIB growth. We did a strategic talk on this in spring, but let me be a bit more clear on this one. CIB, we put it into our strategic plan.
We made it very clear to all of you, to the market participants as well, that we want to grow in this area for a very simple reason. We want to accompany our clients on their journey of internationalization, which is a very high-level framing or statement to say. There are very few banks now who do have local presence in the countries that we are in like we do. You can be with the CIB franchise everywhere, but being with the full-fledged retail, SME, corporate, commercial presence in multiple geographies that we are in is relatively rare these days. These geographies, we are in the core of those economies. Our clients in those geographies, they do business beyond their geographies. A Mexican client does business in the U.S. A Spanish client does a lot of business in Latin America.
Our CIB strategy is based on something which we call right to compete. Do we have something different? Do we have something better than our competitors? We believe not in the investment banking side of this purely, but especially on the corporate banking side of CIB, we do have a clear right to compete and right to win. That is where we are growing, and I think Gonzalo gave the numbers in the presentation. 90% of our CIB income, 90%, 90% , is client revenues. The prop trading business, we are not in that business. That 90% of clients' revenues, when you deep dive into it, 40% of that is what we call cross-border, which is the revenues that you generate from a client of yours in a geography beyond the home country of that client.
We are basically tagging along with our clients to serve them, to help them in the, again, international footprint that they have. Given that, we believe we have something different and we have something resilient to bank on. As part of that process, as we grow in some of those rest of business that you ask, Paco, geographies, there are opportunities there as we are in the market. Again, we will be very selective. Again, like in project finance, which we think we have something better than others because we have been in that business for so long. We will be there, and we will do some business. We will not be doing M&A in the U.S. We will not, because we do not think we can compete.
But in the debt financing, in debt advisory, debt structuring, project finance, we have the expertise, and we believe we can generate enough returns to be able to compete there. I am giving you all this background because this is receiving attention, but I want to make sure that you all understand that we are doing this in a purposeful, in a deliberate, in a strategic manner, not in the way that we want to grow. With that strategy, we are growing, and we are growing profitably. That is the most important thing that I would highlight. Our return on capital for the CIB business is now 23% if we exclude Argentina and Turkey, which is very high return. You have to exclude them to have a more conservative figure, and that is 23%.
In the rest of business, depending on where you count the revenues, it's between 20%-24% return on capital. It's profitable. It's clearly above cost of equity. That's why we are in that business, and we believe it's going to create further returns and further capital for our shareholders going forward. Coming back to your one question, in the press, you say something came out in a project finance. First of all, I don't know which one you refer to, but I have a guess.
Obviously, we don't talk about specific clients, but the referral regarding that specific publicly available, or there were some public comments on a certain client, I can tell you that in general, the exposure that we have is not, it was a debt syndicate information, and the net exposure that we have obviously needs to be considering the post-origination sales, all the hedges that you do on that, and so on. Again, we don't talk about a specific client, but we feel very well comfortable with the exposure that we have. It's mainly project finance that we do on the AI topic, mainly project finance, data centers. When you look into those transactions, 95% of those project financings, they are backed by an investment-grade hyperscaler, and the construction risk that you are looking into, a majority of them are in the middle of their construction period and so on.
We see very little risk in that. Obviously, we have to be vigilant. It's an environment that we have to be very vigilant, but we think our risks are well controlled.
Thank you very much, Paco. Next question, please.
We now turn to Álvaro Serrano with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Good morning. I guess these are another two follow-up questions. Just to make sure I understand the moving parts in the Spanish deposits. I think, Gonzalo, I think you called out the balances, but also the increase in term was wholesale driven, and I see there's a significant quarter-on-quarter increase. That's EUR 5.9 billion in balances in term. Is that a lumpy wholesale deposit? Because we can see the demand has dipped. The question is it wholesale? Is it going to come down again, or how should we think about the mix of the deposits over the next few quarters as we model the rate sensitivity and the pass-throughs? Then second, on Mexico, volumes obviously doing very well. On the customer spread, I think the guidance was that it would bottom out in the second half of the year. Is this now the bottom of the customer spread?
Could it dip a bit more? A bit of color on the progress there. Thank you.
Let me start with the second one, and maybe Gonzalo will take the first one on deposits. On Mexico, I mentioned it very briefly before, we do think we reached the bottom. It obviously depends on the mix a bit. If you grow much more on the enterprise side, it has a negative impact on the average spread. But beyond the mix effect, we have seen all the repricings of the loans and the deposits done already. So we do think we have reached the bottom, and it should be going up from here, again, excluding the mix effect. On deposits?
On deposits, just to reiterate what Onur said before, we keep our rate sensitivity and our sensitivity in Spain to ± 4%, to 100 basis points movement in the curve. Also, we expect customer spread to improve slightly going forward. To your question on the exact mix of wholesale deposits going forward, it is difficult to predict, but we keep our, as I said, reiterate the sensitivity of ± 4% and the improvement in customer spread.
But on the quarter-over-quarter also, Alvaro, you referred to a quarter-over-quarter evolution of deposits. It is pure seasonality because at the end of June in Spain, there are still some companies who have 14 salaries and so on. At the end of June, point balances, you see a hike, and then you see a decline. These are point balances that you see in the presentation, but average balances, they are actually up quarter-over-quarter. They are actually up because of retail. We feel quite comfortable on this topic.
Thank you very much, Á lvaro. Next question, please.
We now turn to Sofie Peterzéns with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you for taking my question. Here is Sofie from Goldman Sachs. My first question would be on your guidance of EUR 36 billion in payout between 2025 and 2028. Consensus has somewhere around slightly more than EUR 5 billion in share buybacks over the next two years in 2027 and 2028. How should we think about your CET1 ratio? What can you do to improve it? Is the 12.2% that you reported today a little bit transitionary, and you can do more SRTs going forward? If you could comment on this a little bit more. My second question would be on market share gains. You mentioned a few times that you're gaining market share both in Mexico and Spain. Could you maybe just discuss a little bit more in which products and from what type of entities you're gaining the market share?
Thank you.
You refer, Sofie, to market share gains in Mexico? In which products?
Sorry, in Spain and Mexico, so in lending.
Okay.
Overall lending, okay. Because we are not gaining market share.
Yeah.
In mortgages. I thought you said mortgages. Okay, so on the market share, Gonzalo, you continue on that one. On the capital topic, Sofie, I mentioned it briefly also in the presentation. SRTs is a very important lever for the bank to be able to utilize to optimize the use of capital. Obviously, in the third quarter, it's basically summer seasonality because August is a very slow month, if you imagine in Spain. In the third quarter, the impact of SRTs in the capital ratio was 3 basis points. That 3 basis points is a relatively small number as compared to the other quarters. In the first quarter, for example, we did 12 basis points. In the second quarter, if I'm not mistaken, we did six. So 12, six, and then three in summer.
We had the guidance that this year we should be doing between 30 to 40, which implies that in the fourth quarter, we will have a very good delivery on the SRTs, which will then liberate more capital. Actually, we are expecting around 12 to 15, 12 to 14 basis points SRT impact in the fourth quarter because the deals are already in process. The SRTs would be a clear lever, and in the fourth quarter, you will see obviously a much higher figure coming as a positive contribution from SRTs than what we have had in the third quarter. Looking forward, we still see a very robust demand there, especially for players like us. There is a lot of demand, so we might be increasing our pace on SRTs in the coming years.
Coming back to your first comment on the EUR 36 billion, it's a very important number for us. We have multiple figures in this medium to long-term plan, and the guidance that we have for 2025 - 2028. If you remember, in that plan, we said we will be generating EUR 49 billion of capital in the four-year period, 49. 13 will be dedicated to growth, and then 36 will be distributions to shareholders or excess capital above 12, above our upper end of our management range. We still stick to that 36. We just looked into the numbers very recently on where we are. There might be more than EUR 13 billion dedicated to growth, which is very good.
Once again, as long as it's profitable, as long as it's above cost of equity with a nice margin. We do think growing should be the priority because it will create a better franchise going forward. It will create even more capital for our shareholders going forward. There might be more than EUR 13 billion dedicated to growth. But again, looking into our planning at the moment, we still will be delivering that EUR 36 billion that we referred to as distributions to shareholders or excess capital, about 12. That number is still standing very robustly, very nicely out there. Regarding the market shares.
Sí. Yes, on market shares in Spain, we are growing in the most profitable segment. We are growing in consumer and commercial. In consumer, we are growing 6 basis points year-on-year, and in commercial we are growing 51 basis points year-on-year. On mortgages, market share is declining 31 basis points year-on-year, and this is due to the new mortgage origination market share, which is around or even below 10% over the last three, four months. Again, in Spain, we are growing market share overall, but focusing on the most profitable segments, consumer and commercial. In the case of Mexico, despite competition from fintechs and neobancos, we keep growing market share. We are growing 34 basis points in total year-on-year, and the breakdown is the following.
We are growing mainly in wholesale, 40 basis points, but we are also growing in consumer, 7 basis points. Overall, I think, again, focusing on growing both in Spain and Mexico in the most profitable segments.
Very good. Thank you. Thank you, Sofie. Next question please.
We now turn to Ignacio Ulargui with BNP Paribas. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Thanks very much for the presentation and for taking my questions. I have two questions, and one is on capital, a follow-up on capital. If you could update us in what kind of regulatory headwinds, operational RWA inflation could we expect into the fourth quarter? The second one is on the Danish compromise. If you could update us on when you plan to get approval for that, for the treatment, and whether that could have an implication for yourself looking farther into insurance revenues, particularly in Mexico. Thank you.
Very good. On the regulatory headwinds for the fourth quarter, we don't expect anything, Nacho. On the Danish compromise, we already applied for it. We are in the process of receiving that approval, or we are in the process of that thing to be sorted out. We have, in general, positive news, but it's taking some time. In terms of the impact of the Danish compromise, the impact on the CET1 overall at the moment would be marginal. It will not be affecting too much the number that we have today. But we do have a clear intention to grow that business. So for that growth to happen and for that growth to come along with not consuming too much capital, that is important to us. So it's more of a future thing than a present thing, in short.
Thank you, Nacho. Next question please.
We now turn to Andrea Filtri with Mediobanca. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
I wanted to know your expectation on the impact of the reform of securitization that was approved by the European Commission last week. Thank you.
I didn't get the full question, but the securitization framework.
Securitization
Approved by Europe last. It's going to help us even more, Andrea. Again, we are one of those banks who will benefit more from, in general, securitizations, SRTs, for one very simple reason. Our RWA density, even after the full program, the model review, and everything else that we did, which helped us a bit, is now 44%. RWA density, we have 44%. The average of our peers is around 27. Any SRT would be helping us more because at the moment, it's basically the risk weights of how much capital would an outside investor would be dedicating to this versus us. We have a better arbitrage, let me say it that way, to be able to benefit from the SRTs. In that context, the framework, the new thing that was approved also in the past few weeks, it's going to help us even more.
It is going to facilitate the process. It is going to help us to do even more SRTs. That is why I said that for this year, 30 to 40 basis points was the number that we put into our capital plan, and we are going to be delivering that towards the upper end, actually. But for next year, probably we will put even a higher, depending on the markets, obviously, but we will put a higher figure into our planning.
Thank you very much, Andrea. Next question, please.
We now turn to Carlos Peixoto with CaixaBank. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hi, morning. Carlos Peixoto from CaixaBank here. A couple of questions from my side as well. The first one in Spain, looking at the cost of risk and also asset quality in the quarter, you had a minor uptick in the NPL ratio, and if we look at the cost of risk on the quarter standalone, it does seem to have picked up a bit as well. Just wondering, how do you see this going forward? The 38 basis points that I get too on the quarter standalone, would that be a reference for the future? Was there any reviews of macro inputs here that triggered this? Just to understand a bit what happened here.
And then the second question, sorry to go back to the Spanish NII as well, but just putting it briefly, you now see it closer to the lower end or the upper end of the low to mid-single-digit growth guidance that you had provided before. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Carlos. On the two questions, on asset quality, at the business as usual level, we don't see any change whatsoever. The asset quality continues to perform really well. If you remember, you referred to the quarterly evolution. In the second quarter, there was a large portfolio sale, and that has helped on cost of risk and also NPLs, but on cost of risk, and that has reverted. In the third quarter, the house price, the curves, the macro IFRS 9 upfront provisioning that we do, there was a slightly negative impact. It was a slight negative impact, but it was there. So that slight negative impact coming from macro calibration. The macro continues to be really well, but there are other components in that macro parameters that affect IFRS 9 provisioning.
House prices are going very strong, but they're going to be growing a bit slower than what we have originally thought, which created a slight negative impact on IFRS 9 provisioning. Then in the second quarter, again, there was a very big positive one-off on that number. But at the business as usual level, stability, and in line with our guidance, we set low 30s in our guidance. We will deliver that, and it turned out to be the case. On the Spanish NII, our guidance is our guidance. You're asking for specific information. I will repeat what I said before. We are positive. Activity is very positive. Margins, slight improvement, but every quarter we will see improvement, and if the rates continue to go up even more, so we are quite positive.
Thank you very much, Carlos. Next question, please.
We now turn to Borja Ramírez with Citi. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hello, good morning. Thank you very much for taking my questions. I have two, please, related to Spain. Firstly, a bit more technical. If you kindly remind me the percentage of loans that are floating rate in Spain, and maybe also the amount of index remunerated deposits. My second question would be on the rate sensitivity, I understand it is more geared to the short-term rates, so Euribor three months and six months. I guess maybe the bigger benefit from higher rates is still to come, but maybe you could provide a bit more color on maybe if you could see maybe a bigger benefit maybe in the first half of next year, or when do you see a bigger benefit? Thank you.
Very good. Thank you, Borja, for the questions. In terms of the loans, 44% are variable rate loans in BBVA Spain. In the BBVA SA, which also includes the rest of business and so on, that variable rate portfolio goes up to 60%. Spain business unit, it is 44% floating rate loans. In terms of deposits, they are not a very direct automatic thing, but you get repricing because they are very short-term daily. Some of them are overnight daily deposits, so you get immediate impact. On the corporate side, it is much lower, obviously. As you know, 80% of our deposits in Spain is retail. Coming back to the second question on the Euribor, you are 100% right. Our real sensitivity is actually to Euribor three months, Euribor six months.
Euribor 12 months, we do have mortgage hedges, so our sensitivity is actually lower to Euribor 12 months, but the three months and six months. The impact of the Euribor three months and six months is going to be coming more in the fourth quarter. It takes some time for that to be reflected. That is where we are. The two most important index for us is three months and six months.
Thank you very much, Borja. Next question please.
We now turn to Fernando Gil with Intesa Sanpaolo. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for taking my questions. Quick one on rest of the business. Can you please update on the digital exposure to Italy and Germany, loans, deposits, and number of clients, please? Thank you.
We announced last week, we did a press release on this one, that we reached 1 million clients in Italy. 1 million. This was launched five years ago, so five years, 1 million, clearly beyond our original business plan. We are doing really well. In Germany, we launched very recently, as you know. It was June 2025, so slightly more than a year. And in the first year, we basically passed the 100,000 mark there as well. And you see the numbers in the documentation. In the deposits, you do see that we have EUR 10.6 billion of deposits from those two franchises.
Thank you very much, Fernando. Next question, please.
We now turn to Britta Schmidt with Autonomous Research. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi there. Good morning. I think we've gone through most of it already. Just a clarification on your SREP, please. The Pillar 2 asset, the removal of the add-on for potential provisioning, shall we assume that this will now be deducted from capital, or is that going to disappear entirely? If it is a deduction from capital, would that already have been included in Q3, or should we factor this in for Q4? Thank you.
Thank you, Britta. The NPL backstop, which was originally again, part of the requirement, it's not anymore because we will deduct it from capital at the end of the year. If you remember that number, we started, if I'm not mistaken, on 21 basis points, and then 18, and then the last year it was 12 basis points. There has been a clear trend of reducing that backstop figure, mainly through portfolio sales. We are in the process of doing another sale on that one. If the conditions continue to be positive, we will continue that sale process in the fourth quarter. Our expectation is that that number will come down to a very marginal figure at the end of the year, at the end of December, and we have the commitment to take it out from the capital at the end of the year.
But it's going to be a marginal figure. It's not going to be affecting the figures too much.
Thank you very much, Britta. Next question, please.
We now turn to Hugo Cruz with KBW. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for the time. My questions are on NII, and apologies if some of this has already been asked. For Spain, I'm more in the camp that you have good control of your deposit costs. You missed a bit on NII this quarter versus consensus. But the loan growth is stronger. The loan mix are positive to margin, so you miss basically because of cost, and I was wondering how much of that higher deposit costs are you willingly paying more to take market share in loans, especially on the corporate side, where your loan growth is very strong, versus just corporates just have flush with liquidity and are just sending you a lot of deposits, and you're not going to say no to that.
The second question is around Turkey and rest of business. The deposit growth QoQ is very strong. Should we see the level in Q3 sort of the new floor, or could it go down in the coming quarters? Thank you.
Hugo, I didn't get the second question. It was on Turkey.
On Turkey and rest of business, on deposit also.
Can you repeat the second question, Hugo?
Yeah. The NII growth was very strong QoQ. Should we see that level in both Turkey and rest of business as the floor, for example, for Q4? Thank you.
For Turkey and for rest of business. Okay. Very well. On the first question, there are camps out there. As you said, you are in the camp of we are controlling our cost of deposits really well. I can tell you once again the same thing. It's not because the growth on the lending side is so high, and it creates a pressure. Not at all. You mentioned loan-to-deposit ratio of 100% for our euro book, which is the case, but if you look into the Spain business unit, our loan-to-deposit ratio is 80%. If you look into the Spain banking system, the loan-to-deposit ratio of the Spain banking system is less than 90. In most of the banks, you will see 80s. The reason that it's 100 for us is there is also funding to the rest of Europe and so on in the CIB book.
The reason that it's 100 is because of that, not because of the fact that Spain is now very tight on liquidity. Not at all. Because of the growth on the lending, we are then now pressuring the cost of deposit. That's not the case. As we mentioned before, this is coming from corporate deposits. Some of the corporate deposits are very quickly priced. The pricing of the loans take some time. The pricing of corporate deposits happen very quickly. We mentioned that maybe we weren't there in the first question, but we mentioned it before, if you look into the Banca Comercial, the retail segment, which is the most important segment in deposits, the cost of deposits have increased only 4 basis points in the quarter. And then you deep dive into it, there's a very small segment with automatic pricing there as well.
If you isolate that segment, it's actually 2 basis points. The cost of deposits for the core segment, which is at the core of deposits, is only increasing 2 basis points in the quarter. So we don't feel in that sense that pressure. But we'll see. How the market develops, we will see. But the retail side of this, because there is a lot of competition now, the cost of deposits are going up too much, that's not the case, and I want to make sure that you all understand this. Regarding the NII for Turkey and for rest of business, they will continue to be positive, good in the fourth quarter, you were asking. Rest of business NII would be very well because we have grown, we are growing, maybe not as much in the coming quarters.
But we have grown so much that that loan volume growth will be translated into higher NII for rest of business. For Turkey, interest rates have started coming down. If you have seen it, 100 basis points. Now the interest rates are 36%. They were 37% in summer. So they started this easing, maybe not too much, but it started helping us on the margins, on the spread, and the spread will continue to improve. So you will see also strength in the NII in Turkey in the fourth quarter as compared to the previous quarters. So in both cases, you will see a good NII evolution.
Thank you very much, Hugo. That was our last question. So thank you everyone for joining us today and for your questions. Let me remind you that the investor relation teams remains available for any further questions you may have. So thank you and have a great day.