Good morning, welcome to CaixaBank Results Presentation for the first quarter of 2026. We are joined today by our CEO, Gonzalo Gortázar, and our CFO, Javier Pano. As usual, we plan to spend about 30 minutes with the presentation and about 45 minutes to an hour with the Q&A. The Q&A is live, and you should have received instructions via email on how to participate. Needless to say, at the end of the call, my team and I will be at your full disposal. Without further ado, Gonzalo, the floor is yours.
Thank you, Marta. Good morning, everybody and l et's get into substance. first quarter of the year, we feel quite happy with the way things are progressing, particularly in light of the unstable environment that we have outside of Spain, particularly in the Middle East and its consequences. You see volume growth, 7% in year-on-year revenues. You saw the NII, which is in line with our expectation and our guidance in the quarter, still affected by a negative repricing as we had explained in the last presentation. Very positive figure from services, insurance and fees and commissions, 7.5% year-on-year.
Quite remarkable in terms of the speed at which we continue to see asset quality improvement, coming down to just below 2% in terms of NPLs and maintaining a very attractive cost of risk, which we see sustainable for quite some time. Good capital creation. We decided to, as in line with our policy, to effect another share buyback, which we are announcing today. Return on tangible equity, close to 18%. In fact, we are improving our guidance for the year from, as you'd say, tweaking from around 18% to above 18%, and we'll get into the reasons for that. We reiterate our guidance and positive spirits about what we're seeing despite the very concerning environment in the Middle East.
Start with the economy. Not on this slide, but just learned the figures for GDP in Spain, 0.6% growth quarter-on-quarter, which is higher than our expectations. Our economics team was expecting somewhere between 0.4%-0.5%, embedded into our current estimate of 2.4% GDP for the year was 0.5% growth, so s tarting better than expected. I think this is remarkable because the first quarter not only has Iran, but also in Spain, we had some heavy rains in February and problems with particularly train infrastructure, and to be honest, seeing 0.6% growth in the first quarter is very good news, no.
We still have to incorporate into this 2.4% growth that we have for this year forecast. We need to incorporate the impact of situation in the Middle East and the measures that the government in Spain has taken to offset, at least partially, what may come from increase in crude and oil prices and gas and fossil fuels and the consequences but n ow we have, again, a positive data from this first quarter. Quite good. Eurozone numbers have been a bit more mixed between the strong Germany and weak France and, Italy, so-so but i n overall, the environment again is very resilient.
If you look at what's driving growth, which I'm not going to go through the list because you know what's happening in Spain in terms of very positive dynamics, very strong inertia. Some of the factors that I wouldn't say prevent us from having an impact from the Middle East, but certainly moderate any negative impact from the Middle East, particularly the lower reliance on fossil fuels, thanks to renewables in Spain. Now we're seeing last few weeks, remarkably low prices in Spain relative to most other European countries. A potentially positive, as we're seeing already, impact on tourism based on the spending of cards for non-residents. We've already seen in these weeks, better dynamics for tourism in Spain. We'll obviously have to continue monitoring the situation.
All in all, to be honest, within all the conservatism and prudence that one has to have in a such a volatile environment, we see both Spain and ourselves in a very good relative position. Even Bank of Spain is saying even in adverse scenario, they still see growth in Spain at 2%. Time will tell, obviously, the impact of rate movements, which is again, very volatile, but clearly is suggesting increases in rates by the ECB and already increased rates in the markets are also positive. As you know, our NII sensitivity, I'm sure that Javier will discuss that in some detail. With that kind of background, which is in this case is very, very relevant because really is critical.
What we see is, our performance being, I'd say above expectations, above our internal expectations in terms of client acquisition, 372,000 in the last 12 months, and relational clients, volume growth of 6.6%, and then market shares with some delay. We continue to see sustained continuous increase in market shares across most of our product range, you know. Transformation, technology, AI, we're spending a lot of money and a lot of time in making sure that we adapt to what the new technologies offer to our clients and to ourselves, so that as far as we can, we not only adapt, but that we lead.
Here are some of the initiatives. Basically, they have to do with how the clients interact with ourselves through the app, mostly, how our employees interact with the bank and this is AI helping employees in various forms. Most relevant that we're deploying now to the whole network is for the preparation of commercial meetings with customer, which is bringing down preparation time by 75%, i.e., freeing up a lot of capacity to grow. There's a lot of AI and technology we're implementing, looking at how we run operations, how we sort of review processes end-to-end, and how we make them much more efficient.
We are very happy with the fact that this is not just plans, but actually things are happening and are starting to have an impact as we speak in these in these quarters. Going back to financial performance, lending, 7.2% growth year-on-year for the performing portfolio. Growth in quarter-on-quarter in a quarter that is obviously seasonally difficult, we have 1.1% growth. That's quite notable. You see residential mortgages, 6.7%, consumer lending, 12.3%, and business lending, 8.8%, is very strong across the board and comparing to previous years. The traction or the pickup of activities is very remarkable, you know.
Obviously at some point we'll stop growing even faster than the previous 12 months, but the ability to maintain those levels is what's embedded in our guidance. Certainly the first quarter has surprised us on the upside. Customer funds, again, similar story, 6.3% growth in wealth management, in deposits, and market movements. We also wanted to share with you what was the last quarter, because obviously that's when we had the negative market effects in March in particular. You can see that despite those effects of EUR -3 billion, actually in April we're up by more than EUR 7 billion, so we're recovering those impacts very easily. Again, subject to markets, but so far so good.
Most remarkable, the net inflows have stayed positive in the first quarter and continues and accelerate in the month of April, as you see the run rate at EUR 1.5 billion. Pretty good performance despite the events in Iran makes us quite satisfied with where we are and obviously confident that we can continue on that in that direction. You have some more details on wealth management. You can see how net inflows have been relatively well-balanced between mutual and pension funds and savings insurance. The end of the first quarter, end of period AUMs are at the same level under the average.
As you can imagine, after what I said of the April performance, this is going up. It obviously looks good for the rest of the year if market does not deteriorate again. The story of our potential on this part of the business is well known to you, our pre-eminent position, what we've done and what we see is another quarter that vindicates that position and opportunity. Similar reasoning applies to protection insurance. 12% premium growth, very balanced between life risk and non-life. MyBox continues to be a great success and here is probably the area where we're gaining market share more rapidly across the business lines.
You can see last 12 months in life and non-life but h ere you have some delay in the data. Some of it is still from December. It's actually working well across the board, health, auto, household, good performance, gaining market share, in line with what we've done for the last 10 years. Lots more in front of us 'cause there's clearly much more potential in Spain and generally the Eurozone. I'd like to finish with just a summary of what I said. If you see what we're saying for the environment, the economy in Spain, we have lower reliance, we're better shielded from Middle East crisis. Our clients are less levered than ever and t he financial sector generally is in a position to support the economy.
Similarly, or to the opposite of what we saw in the Great Financial Crisis, where Spain was badly hit and the financial sector, not us, I have to say, but the financial sector overall obviously had some trouble. Here we have the opposite. The financial sector is gonna help the economy, which is quite nice. On our side, it's our scale, our balance sheet, our limited risks, give us a lot of confidence. We think that we have a good period ahead of us, hence the reaffirmation of our guidance and that slight increase for our short-term return on tangible equity, which I'm sure we'll discuss later on. With that, I guess, Javier.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Gonzalo. Well, from my side, as always, the additional details on the P&L and the balance sheet. Starting with the consolidated income statement, as you know very well, net income at EUR 1,572 million. This is up by 7% year-on-year, more than 5% quarter-on-quarter. Moving upwards, first NII, moving to revenues, is up by 0.6% year-on-year. Quarter-on-quarter, down by 2%. You know that this quarter affected by seasonal impacts, mainly a larger day count and larger negative, still negative loan interest rates, although, I'm pretty sure it's the last quarter to have those negative impacts.
On revenues from services, pretty good news. As Gonzalo was saying, strong commercial activity here, mainly on protection, up by 7.5% year-on-year. Quarter-on-quarter, slightly negative, as we are comparing with the fourth quarter last year. You know the fourth quarter always strong positive seasonality, so that is why it's slightly negative. Below other revenues, doing well, also up by 6% year-on-year. Dividends, I would remark that we have the dividend from Angola, from BFA, slightly smaller than last year. You know that we sold part of the stake. This is why we have a slightly smaller dividend on that front. Equity accounted up by more than 10% year-on-year. Strong contribution from SegurCaixa Adeslas. Other operating income and expenses and trading pretty much in line with last year.
Total operating expenses, also, in line with guidance, moving up by 4.6%. Impairments, or loan loss charges, although higher in euro terms, if you look at the cost of risk, on a 12-month trailing basis, it's currently 23 basis points. This is down by 2 basis points versus last year. Good performance on other provisions and gains on losses. My final comment here would be that on taxes, we are including a write-up of DTAs for EUR 135 million. A few words on Portugal. Here we are disclosing what we call the BPI segment. That is for the first quarter, EUR 89 million net income. You know that the BFA dividend, it's in the corporate center.
Well, here also a really strong performance in terms of business volume, up by 5.5% year- on -year. Since we took control back in 2017, business volume up by 43% versus 26% the rest of the industry. A remarkable performance that results into broad-based market share gains, as you see here on key products, even on a year-on-year basis, we are gaining market share in Portugal. High profitability, ROT 17.4% in line with the group, a really strong balance sheet with NPLs at 1.6%, coverage 82%. On the right-hand side, you have several KPIs on the well, transformation process on IT and digital in Portugal. We are gonna be able to follow up as BPI has its own program on that front also.
With that, let's move to the usual details on NII. On the central part you have the usual quarterly NII bridge. You have a negative impact here from day count, EUR -28 million. This is larger than last year as the size of the balance sheet and volumes in general are also larger. We have positives from business and ALCO. On ALCO, you may see that we have increased the size of our hedging portfolio and the fixed income portfolio, but this has been done late into the quarter, so the impact in the quarter is not that much. Once you have a, let's say, a longer-term view, on the upper left bridge, you may see the evolution on a year-on-year basis. You may see that business volume and ALCO is clearly offsetting the negative impact from client yields.
As I was saying, on ALCO, basically what we have done is to front-load hedging activity for the second quarter, taking advantage of the significant increase in market rates. At some point, even the market pricing four rate hikes from the ECB. What we have done is to front-load part of our, let's say, regular hedging activity. Here you have hedges up by close to EUR 6 billion, the fixed income book by close to EUR 2 billion, on top of, like, EUR 3 billion of maturities that we have had in the quarter.
Below you have margins and yields. I would remark that net interest margin is already starting to move up to 163 basis points, a trend that is expected to gradually continue in coming quarters. The customer spread at 300 basis points ex hedges on deposits. You see that it's down by 2 basis points. The pace of reduction is clearly coming down and, well, set to stabilize and start increasing again soon. On the right-hand side, the bottom right, you have the back book yield of the loan book, 345 basis points, down by 4 basis points. This is also set to stabilize and start growing soon. The cost of deposits, ex hedges at 45 basis points. Precisely on deposits, let's zoom in on the composition.
Here you have, remember, the average quarterly balances for interest-bearing and non-interest-bearing. The most remarkable in my view here is that the relentless growth of non-interest-bearing deposits, up by 6% year-on-year, also with positive evolution in the quarter, as you may see. We have a reduction on interest-bearing balances. This is basically outflows from the public sector. The weight of those interest-bearing deposits at 26.4%, pretty much stable since already a few quarters. The cost of those interest-bearing balances is stable in the quarter at 1.56% and t his is despite the fact that, as you may see, 12-month rates are already starting to move up, starting to price rate hikes later into the year.
Moving to revenues from services, really good performance here, up by 7.5% year-on-year. The remarkable in my view here is that the combination of wealth management, protection insurance, and CIB revenues is growing by 12% year-on-year, much more than offsetting the underlying, let's say, the inflationary pressure that the industry is feeling on fees, on lower added-value products or more basic fees on certain products. You know, maintenance fees on current accounts, debit cards, etc. , you know? The whole thing is that the key engines are really firing on all cylinders and much more than compensating that. You may see wealth management up by 9.4% year-on-year.
A strong growth despite the volatility in markets in March. Protection insurance up by 13.5% year-on-year. A strong commercial activity here, mainly on life insurance and health insurance, and also on the back of all the cross-selling attached to new mortgage production. Moving to costs, here, everything according to plan, up by 4.6% year-on-year. Depreciation costs, as you may see, moving up by 7.4%. This is the result of the IT and AI transformation drive that is going on. Well, everything according to our planning. Cost-to-income, 39.6%, which compares extremely well with the peer average that is above 50%.
Asset quality, as good as ever. We have been able to reduce our NPLs by circa EUR 300 million, fully organically. EUR 8.3 billion, the stock of NPLs. That is an NPL ratio of 1.98%, below our peers here in Spain. You may see that the evolution across the different segments is really a good one, even on a quarter-on-quarter basis, so not any sign of deterioration in any portfolio. Record high coverage, 79%, and with the unassigned collective provisions that have remained unchanged this quarter over EUR 300 million. Cost of risk, as I said before, 23 basis points on a 12-month trailing basis, even lower if we annualize the first quarter at 22 basis points.
Liquidity, also ample as always, EUR 220 milllion, liquidity sources. LCR 194%. NSFR 145%. A really solid loan-to-deposit ratio, really stable, 87.6%. That compares extremely well with peers, as you know very well, this is on the back of really stable retail deposits and corporate operational deposits. A few words on MREL and funding. We are ending the quarter with an MREL ratio at 28.6%. This is an MDA buffer at 336 basis points, pretty much the same as the NDA buffer, slightly 1 basis point, so 1 basis point below 340 basis points. On the right-hand side, you have our funding activity. 60% of our three-year plan already executed, circa 40% in foreign currency.
Remarkably, a few weeks ago, $2 billion senior non-preferred with a very big demand. A few days ago, a new ratings upgrade by Moody's, upgrading our Baseline Credit Assessment to A3. That results into an upgrade on AT1s, Tier 2s and senior non-preferred. A stable senior preferred, this is already taking into account the incoming impact of the full deposit preference, which is actually very good news. Finally, capital. We are already deducting the EUR 850 million share buyback from our CET1 ratio. That is a negative impact of 20 basis points. Capital accretion, + 65 basis points. Organic risk-weighted assets, - 9 basis points. This is basically new lending. 41 basis points from dividend accrual and 81s, and then just a few - 2 basis points from other impacts.
We are ending the quarter with a CET1 ratio 12.51%. On the right-hand side, you have the evolution of the book value per share, obviously adjusted by the DPS of EUR 0.50, up by close to 15%. Finally, just a recap of our usual guidance slide. Here we are upgrading our ROT to more than 18% from circa 18%, as we have better visibility into the year and some improvements here and there. Thank you very much, and ready to take questions.
Operator, we are ready for the next question, please.
The first question comes from Maksym Mishyn with JB Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning. Thank you very much for the presentation and taking our questions. Two questions from my side, please. The first one is on loan book press reports. You may have changed your approach to mortgages. I was wondering if this is the case and how you plan to grow your loan book by segment for the remainder of the year. The second is on NII guidance for 2027. If you plug in the current forward curve, where would you see your NII in 2027? Thank you.
Thank you, Maks. Good morning. I would start with the mortgage question. There's been no change in our strategy on mortgages. What we are seeing clearly is the fact that we have a very broad presence throughout Spain, and the fact that we can fund fixed-rate mortgages for the long term as well as cross-sell is definitely a competitive advantage. We still think that, given the competitiveness of this market, what we should be aiming is to maintain market share. It's nice to have a small few basis points growth, but that is really the factor.
Mortgage pricing is increasing in Spain. It, it is still obviously below the cost of funding of the same term if you don't include the associated profits from the cross-sell. If you include the associated profits, then the return is attractive enough, and over the longer term, obviously, you gain clients that tend to be quite positive, you know. Not really any change. The press in Spain is very focused on what's happening here. I keep saying that we have very attractive rates. In fact, some of the lower rates in Europe for both floating and fixed-rate mortgages. Obviously, that's positive for the economy. At the same time, given the way, A, we're efficient as an industry and the way we price, including the cross-sell, this is also sensible growth for the industry, you know.
In terms of how do we see the future, you've seen very strong residential mortgage market. I think it is likely to moderate its growth, at least looking at our own production levels. What we see for the second quarter is volumes that are below what we produced last year in terms of new production. That doesn't mean the stock of lending is gonna come down and w e'll keep growing, but we'll keep growing at I think a lower pace, and this is about sort of the limitations we have in Spain in terms of building new houses t hat even though the new houses initiated new permits are close to 150,000, the reality is for the last figures known, the new houses that were finished were only 83,000, you know.
The timing is a long process for sort of land approvals and just the whole real estate process is not helping. You're likely to have a slowdown in volumes there. Consumer is doing very well. You see this double-digit growth we had last year. Actually, we have even increased it in the first quarter, which is surprising. I think that double digits should come down to high single digit when you look at sort of likely moderation for the future but s o far, what we see is very strong consumer behavior. Even the figures from GDP this quarter indicate precisely consumer sort of behavior being one of the forces that is driving the economy ahead.
Clearly there's room for more, even if we have to be cautious. Business is again doing very well. We have the expectation to grow above nominal GDP growth, but taking into account that some of this growth is also coming from our international branches, where, given our very small position, we also tend to find good investment opportunities with great risk profiles that contribute positively to our return on equity, you know. That's the sense, certainly. In this quarter, no change in strategy and more momentum that we would have expected given how intense in events, the quarter was, you know?
Hi, Maks. I touch on NII. From here we are expecting upside every quarter, I would say. We expect sequential positive evolution on NII quarter- on -quarter and year-on-year. I have to say for the foreseeable future. That goes into 2026, 2027 and also 2028, honestly. It's a combination of everything we have been talking about in the past. Better rates in this case. No longer rate cuts priced as it was the case earlier in the year. Volumes, Gonzalo was commenting our views in terms of lending, but also on deposits is pretty a bit our view.
Well, what was a headwind, which was this negative repricing that we still had that negative impact in the first quarter of this year, that is ending, you know. It's ending already this second quarter. As a consequence, what was a headwind becomes even a tailwind. You should expect consecutive quarter- on- quarter positive evolution on NII, you know. There is upside to 2027 with the current market rates, so better rates is always a positive for us, you know. We are guiding you with some sensitivities.
You know that the first year sensitivity is low because actually the loan book is not repricing that much during the first year, but you have the full impact of higher rates in the second year, which actually coincides pretty much with 2027. The point is that I would like to flag is that the yield curve is not moving parallel, so there is a clear flattening of the yield curve in the sense that short-term rates are moving up much more than long-term rates. If you look at short-term rates year to date, maybe implicit for 2027, maybe up by depending on the moment you look at it, you know, by like 40 basis points, 50 basis points. The implicit rates for 2029 or are, let's say, almost flat versus year-end.
It's not a parallel move, so the sensitivity in that case is slightly lower than what we are guiding because we are guiding for a parallel move. In any case, the net impact is a positive one, you know? Let's see how everything settles. It's important today also the body language from ECB in that sense, and see at the end of the day what the central banks end doing because you know what is being priced by the market is that central banks act, raise rates, contain inflation. As a result of that, long-term rates are not moving that much. All that is having an impact, you know? Finally, although we are really a bit on volumes and on lending, we have to see how the uncertainty in the Middle East ends impacting overall.
It's too early for us to give new guidance for 2027, you know? In any case, what I can confirm is that there is upside at current levels and more into 2028, if I have to say because we start having already quite a good data or consensus data for 2028. On that front in 2028 is where we see a clear upside to current consensus. That is from my side. Thank you, Maks.
Thank you, Maks. Operator-
Thank you.
...next question, please.
The next question comes from Alvaro Serrano of Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Maybe a couple of follow-ups really. Just on having on the hedging while you're on the subject. You flagged that 7.5% sensitivity is still there, I get that it's not a parallel movement, if you look at the curves, there's two, three hikes priced in, depending on the day, which may or may not end up happening. I kind of wonder why not sort of be a bit more aggressive at locking some of that curve in considering your rates sensitivity is quite high versus historical standard. It looks like you're under hedged. Like, I mean, I see that you've increased the swap book. Is this something to do with the stickiness of the deposit growth you've seen lately?
Sort of comments around how much of that curve you can lock in and when you're not locking it in. The other question is more maybe for Gonzalo on the general environment. I know your comments around sort of some seizing of the growth in mortgages, but it's more broadly, I don't think anybody's that worried about asset quality in Spain, given the war, but, maybe activity levels could slow down. At what point do you think, are you worried your sentiment might deteriorate and some of the strong growth in corporate and international might slow down? Or if at one point you might decide to slow that bank growth if uncertainty continues. Just color on that would be much appreciated. Thank you.
Thank you, Alvaro. Maybe, Javier, you wanna.
Okay. Well, on hedging precisely is what we have tried to do this quarter, you know? As I was saying, to some extent front-loading hedging that otherwise what had been done further down the road. We front-loaded it to by the end of March, you know, when precisely what was priced by the market, what the ECB was expecting to price up to 3x, 4x, you know ? To what extent we can do even more is always an open question and intense debate in the ALCO committee. Keep in mind that while managing the sensitivity of a bank, you have to make always an assumption on which is gonna be the behavior of customer deposits, okay?
Well, although we have our models and back-tested and so on, there is always a certain degree that if this time something can be different, you know? What I mean by that is that it's extremely difficult to be fully hedged. If a bank says that it's fully hedged, well, you never know, you know? We have a natural tendency to keep positive sensitivity to rates just in case models are not exactly accurate and, well, we will always retain a certain degree of positive sensitivity, as I say, you know? It's always a debate, Alvaro.
We think that we have done a lot this quarter, and let's see how things evolve. Eventually when the yield curve started to price, one rate hike, it looked like it could be really a nice level, then you have four hikes, priced, you know? It's always a little bit, tricky in terms of, market timing, you know? It's always we are thinking all the time about.
Alvaro, and on the second point, obviously, we do not have a crystal ball. At some point, consumer confidence and business confidence may suffer as a result of what's going on in the world. That's a possibility. I would say if we move to an scenario in which consumer confidence is weaker, which has not happened, you know? Could have happened, but has not happened yet, clearly, then we actually could see an increase in the savings rate, and then that is not going to be necessarily negative for P&L, you know?
Some impact the current situation has to have, but the fact that so far we've seen really none, and also the fact that over the last few years we've been constantly surprised by the strength of the economy, despite that obviously the more significant event was the Ukraine invasion, and we actually in Spain did very well, gives us some confidence. What's happening now in the electricity market in Spain is quite striking. If you look at the pool prices in March, you have Spain, Portugal, and Finland at the very bottom and then sort of most of continental European central economies, prices that are more than double the level in Spain. Obviously, it's also this depends on wind, sun hours, all that.
Even if you look at the extended periods, you see there is a very strong difference, you know? Population continues to grow. I see it's not easy to break this cycle. We have the risk if we look at two, three, four years that the cycle gradually sort of loses force and then we gradually converge to lower levels in GDP. When you look at the next 12 months, barring a very serious environment outside, I think we were pretty confident, you know?
In fact, when you look at our expectation for this three-year period where we move the 4% growth in business volume to 6%, given how well the 2025 and now the first quarter of 2026 have gone, really, there's an implicit slowing down of business volume growth in our targets. In the current scenario, that kind of makes sense for us intuitively to say, "Well, all this cannot be positive." When we look at the data quarter- after- quarter, we see that things are moving in the right direction. I still feel that we may have a few months ahead of us that will be tough.
The situation for oil in the Strait and how lengthy it is likely to be for the market to be normalized, even if there is a satisfactory agreement and that's not clear that there will be one in at least in the short term. I think we are seeing some, at least for some months, a complex period. The markets are kind of seeing through it, which is very helpful for AUM and commissions and all that, and obviously also for new inflows. We've seen our clients being very calm about events and knowing that will happen with the pandemic, will happen with Ukraine, happen with the tariffs. Running away from the market at the wrong time is not a good thing to do.
I think we're likely to be quite resilient even if there is a kind of more adverse scenario. What I was saying, the Bank of Spain is bringing now growth to 2% GDP in an adverse scenario. I think in that, we may have some impact, but we would still be meeting our 6% guidance or revised guidance for this three-year period. Having said that, again, I started where I go back to where I started. We don't have a crystal ball. We'll have to adapt the strategy if events suggest something different.
From an asset quality perspective, we're seeing no pressure. Again, with the low level of leverage of our clients and the relative insulation from what's going on, we're not expecting issues there. We are obviously now seeing NPL falling much faster than what we expected. April is no different. No, I wouldn't see a different second quarter on that front, you know? We'll see, but it looks pretty good.
Thank you, Alvaro.
Thank you, Alvaro.
Thank you, Alvaro. Operator, next question, please.
The next question comes from Ignacio Ulargui of BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Thanks very much for the presentation, and for taking my questions. I have two questions, if I may. I mean, one is on deposit and deposit cost. When you look to the deposits, I have seen a very good growth in the quarter. Seasonally Q- on- Q, you have grown non-interest bearing deposits by around 1%, which I think is quite supportive. If you could elaborate a bit on what is behind that, the strategy, so that we can just see that growth going forward, which I think is crucial to the NII performance.
Linked to that, just wanted to get a bit of a sense if you have found any change in customer behavior in terms of deposit costs now that rates are looking to go up again, whether people is becoming more price sensitive on deposits. Then one clarification, and being mindful that it's a very volatile line, but, I saw gain losses in disposal of assets in the quarter. Looking to the quarterly report, it comes from real estate asset disposals. I mean, how should we think about this line going forward? Thank you.
Thank you, Ignacio. I'll just make a few comments and let Javier continue. I will start with the, with the latter. I was reading some of the comments this morning from the analyst community. Kind of typical, okay, there's a bit, but it's low quality because revenues or NII offset by fees, revenues, etc. , and the bid is low quality, which I perfectly understand. I'd that's the usual analysis that one would do. This particular line is associated to our disposals of real estate assets. It's not a transaction or a big transaction. It's very granular, and it is a consequence of a very strong real estate market, which given the imbalance between supply and demand is not going to change.
You're seeing here a line that traditionally resulted in bad news is gonna be consistently resulting in moderate but good news, positive line. When one look at the quality versus low-quality bid, obviously the low quality is usual because it's a one-off. This is below the line, but this is not a one-off. We're gonna be having positive results quarter- after- quarter, I would say, with maybe some ups and downs, but clearly, results that are positive from real estate sales. Margin that we had this quarter was around 40%. It's not that we're selling just a bit above the market prices in our books. It's a very significant change in the real estate market dynamics.
This is, to me, a high-quality good news because this is not going to be a volatile negative line that is occasionally positive, but it is going to be positive in a consistent manner. I wanted to make that that that comment because it's I think it's relevant very relevant, the question and the point. In terms of deposits, there's not much change, and we're very happy with our performance, I would say. Javier, I'm sure you would be able to elaborate much better.
Indeed. Yes, we are happy and the mix also. The remarkable, precisely, Ignacio, is what you said, you know, the good performance of non-interest bearing deposits. What is behind that is more of the same actually, you know. We are operating in a growing market, we are gaining clients, we are gaining payrolls. Employment is growing, our market share is huge in the payroll market. It's basically more of the same. More operational balances. Deposits are growing because also the economy is growing, in nominal GDP terms, deposits should be growing in line with that, a nd we are being able to capture that part of the business, you know?
As you saw in the presentation, year-on-year, non-interest bearing up by 6%. We think that this trend, this is the direction of travel. I will not pre-commit with a specific figure here, but it's clear that we are expecting the non-interest bearing part to keep growing steadily. You know that the second quarter is a very important quarter with a strong positive seasonality.
We expect that this year will be the same, so we have big expectations on that front also. Hence for the third and fourth quarter, you will have the retained balances from the, those big inflows, we have usually during the second quarter, you know? On the interest-bearing part, you can see that the time deposit, say, retail time deposits, because time deposits are only retail. You know that basically SMEs and corporates, the interest bearing deposits are current accounts that are indexed almost a major part to the overnight rate with a margin, but to the overnight rate. Hence, no impact so far from higher market rates because this is linked to the overnight, and the overnight has not moved at all.
On time deposits for retail, it's true that, let's say 12-month rates are already higher, so we may have some slight increase on that part. Remember that last quarter, Matthias gave you a guidance for our the cost of our deposits in the mid-40%s. Obviously with higher rate, Well, for sure, if those hikes crystallize, we will have a higher cost of deposits, but obviously we'll be compensated or more than compensated for sure on the asset side. No, the situation is calm, I have to say, so n o tensions at all. Everyone is being very rational, so no tensions in, on any single player. We're happy the way we are managing that, you know?
There is a new cycle ahead. We thought that that would take more time, but now we are facing a new, a new rate cycle. Our assumption is that the performance of our deposit base is gonna be in line with the performance we had on the previous cycle, you know? Those are the assumptions we are making in terms of deposit betas, etc. , back to all that discussion. This is how we are confronting this new situation.
Thank you, Ignacio.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Operator, next question, please.
The next question comes from Sofie Peterzens with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Here is Sofie from Goldman Sachs. My first question would be how we should think about kind of cost growth beyond 2026. I understand there might be some wage negotiations and inflation is ticking up. How do you think about, like, salary growth beyond 2026, in 2027, 2028? My second question is that when I look on slide 30, I see that the international branch is thought to be a quite meaningful part of your loan book, almost 10%, and growth there is very high, 27% year-on-year. Could you just talk us through what international CIB branches include, in which countries are you present, and how do you see growth in this division going forward? Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you, Sofie. In terms of your first question, you're right that obviously inflation has become now a number that is obviously going to go up in the short term. It's not clear up to what level. I guess that's what ECB and many others are trying to second-guess. Future markets indicate 3.2% on average for the next two years. We'll see, because obviously also this was 2.8% a week ago. There is obviously a different inflation rate that to what extent this sort of leads into wage indexation inflation or not is precisely what the ECB, as you know, is trying to avoid.
Spain has, yes, for some years reduced the indexation of wages to inflation, i s less common. The wage growth, in fact, has moderated recently. Currently, it's around 2.7%. There is obviously here uncertainty, and I think it's very early to say how negotiations that for us will start next year, most likely, affecting 2027 and onwards will evolve. It's also something that typically we've maintained for ourselves for obvious reasons. You're right to point that the same happened at the time of Ukraine, that inflation is going to have some impact generally for companies, corporates, financial institutions, everyone, and we'll have to see how that develops.
On CIB, we have basically four very large markets in which we operate in Europe, is France, Germany, Italy, and the U.K., with four large branches in Paris, Milan, Frankfurt, and London. We have a significant and fairly attractive presence in Warsaw, in Poland. We started there earlier. In all, we now have outstanding there are over EUR 35 billion currently. It is true that it's growing, it has grown fast because we basically started. Actually, we started now 12 years ago with converting. We had rep offices and we started converting them into branches.
We decided that we would do it very slowly, 'cause my experience is that when people expand outside of their markets, they tend to run risks that they're just not fully aware of. This has been the result again of 12 years as branches, and then obviously gradually in different countries. The exposure is almost all of it investment grade, so we have refrained from going down the investment rating specter, because we obviously feel that we do not have the necessary sort of investment focus to long-term competing SMEs and other types of high-yield market in other countries.
Most of the clients we're banking with are clients that we knew because they were banking with us in Spain, because they had subsidiaries in Spain or because they are subsidiaries of Spanish companies. This is something that is been actually very low risk for us. NPLs have been consistently at near zero. What we have now is a clear mandate is not to necessarily grow the business, but to continue to increase the profitability of the business. It's already obviously double digit in terms of return on tangible equity and adding to what to what we do, but we're expanding the number of products and services to these corporations.
Still, we are the sixth-largest bank in Europe by market cap, and people call on us, and when we call on someone, they open the door, because we are on relative basis so small and we have this great sort of funding franchise. We actually become competitive very quickly and hence, this is a nice sort of complement to our business longer term. You'll see, obviously it will continue to move towards the European Union. In reality, the same way we say we're not seeing value on acquisitions, we see clear value in being a corporate bank in the Eurozone given our size and our opportunities, you know?
The way to do this rather to make, by making an acquisition one day, we think has been building our business gradually, organically, without any rush, but sustainably. That's what we do. We're very happy and we'll keep, I think we'll keep providing good news on this front. Again, the emphasis is not growing at all cost. The emphasis is continue to build in a reasonable business completely connected with our CIB franchise. This, when we talk about Germany, to me it's part of a business where there's a branch in Madrid and Barcelona and Germany and Milan and Frankfurt and Paris. It's just part of the same business and managed in that way.
Thank you, Sofie. Operator, the next question, please.
The next question comes from Miruna Chirea of Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Hello. Thank you very much for taking my questions. Firstly, I had 1 on the outlook for deposits in Spain, and I appreciate your comments that the situation in Iran has a very limited direct impact on Iberian economies. Given the higher uncertainty backdrop we are in, do you think there is upside to deposit growth as households increase their savings rate in Spain? Another one related to this. If we are in the situation in which we do get the hikes from the ECB, what would be your best guess of deposit betas on any upcoming hikes?
Just a quick follow-up on mortgages. Are there any metrics that maybe you could share with us just to get a better sense of how much cross-selling of insurance, mutual funds, and so you are doing onto your new mortgage customers? I think one of your peers was reporting, for example, the average number of customers per, the average number of products per customers. Anything along those lines I think would be helpful. Thank you.
Thank you. I'd say on the latter point, generally what we offer our clients is up to 1% of a rebate in their mortgage rate, depending on the products that they buy from us, you know? This is contractual, so if at some point they cancel, then the rate goes up, you know? I think that's something that is working very well for us, you know? Now, not the same, I think ability for some others to compete in this market. Obviously I'll let Javier elaborate on this and the other questions, you knw?
Well, on that one, you saw our protection insurance performance, you know? Up by more than 13% year-on-year. On that front, obviously the new mortgage production is having a positive impact, you know? For sure, you know? We have commented that, maybe we can be more specific, you know. Also, how many products per client. This is not like, because on the selling process, we don't set a specific target for that, you know? At the end of the day, it's more about building the relationship with a client, and over time, we get the penetration, you know?
Remember back when we were talking about revenue synergies coming from former Bankia clients that were not that engaged on protection or wealth management, et cetera. It's more a gradual process, you know? It's not like saying, "Okay, a mortgage automatically results into a cross-selling," which it is, you know? Because, as Gonzalo was saying, there is a rebate on yields from that. You establish a relationship, and beyond the initial rebate on the yield, you start building that relationship and getting more traction. What this is, this is the way we work, you know? Everything starts not on the mortgage many times, but on the payroll being, for us, the anchor product, the way we have to acquire the client.
From there we get the mortgage, we get the consumer loan, we get the protection services, etc . To your point on deposits, if there is upside in case of increased uncertainty, well, what we don't see is a transfer from AUMs to deposits. What happens usually is that those clients that look for, let's say, a lower risk profile on their portfolios, what they always move from, let's say, equities to money markets, etc. , but not to deposits. You know that in Spain, if you convert into cash, your AUMs, you have to pay taxes for any unrealized profit you have done since the very beginning.
While, say, you move your asset allocation within the AUM universe, then, you don't pay those taxes for unrealized profit. We don't see an upside from that. Every time we have had strong market impacts, what has happened is that we face some slowdown of inflows, and during that short period of time, we may have some upside or uptick in terms of deposits, but honestly not that material. Once things tend to normalize, everything settles, you know? I will not say that we are not considering actually on our forecast any upside on deposits coming from that angle you mentioned.
In terms of deposit betas, I answered to a previous question that we are working with the same assumptions because it's the most recent back testing you can conduct of the last rates rate cycle, you know? Well, we're considering deposit betas in the very low 20%s, and so that's basically what is behind our assumptions, you know? Well, every time may be different, you know? Maybe even better than that or who knows. As a starting point and as a way to calculate our sensitivities back to a previous answer to Alvaro, is this deposit beta. Thank you, Miruna.
Miruna, sorry, because as Javier was answering, I realized that you had asked about these, sort of, products per client and, just trying to make some comparison. My experience, honest, from the outside and then more from the inside is these numbers are not really easy to compare. When we look at how banks define clients, there's a very different definition because not everybody that has an account with us is a client. They need to meet certain minimum activity or balance levels. Similar thing applies to what's a product. You can get into a product for per client that is very different if you compare across institutions.
We have more emphasis on looking at when we know what do we sell, we sell payrolls, and obviously associated payrolls is the deposit and activity. What we sell is payments, cards. What we sell is insurance, then finance. Then when you look at the market shares that we have in these products and you see market share in insurance, that is, if it's life risk is, you need to add the next five or six to get to our level, all together to get to our level. If it is health, we're by far the leader. When you look at the bancassurers, we are much ahead in auto, in household, across everything.
That obviously means that we're cross-selling more to clients and that our products per client are clearly above the average of our peers, you know? When you look at numbers, it's very arbitrary how you define the two, that's why we don't use it that actively for external purposes, even if obviously we keep track internally of our own definition, so.
Thank you, Miruna. Operator, next question please.
The next question comes from Marta Sanchez Romero with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thank you very much. My first question is to follow up on deposits. Growth is running at 5% year-on-year, which is in line with your guidance, but it's below the 6% we saw for the system as of February. It's behind what we've seen for your large domestic competitors. Could you break down that performance across retail, corporate, and public sector? Where specifically do you think you're losing ground? Related to this, on payrolls, your market share looks stable year-on-year, but one major competitor has launched an aggressive mass market campaign. Are you seeing any early pressure on new payroll captures? My second question is on costs. We've seen a few banks in Spain launching voluntary redundancy schemes. Is that something you contemplate? One of your peers today was mentioning a three-year payback. Where do you think yours would be today? Thank you.
Thank you, Marta. On the second point, we're not contemplating voluntary redundancy schemes. We're adding people to our network. We feel that we're gonna keep growing the business. I will not comment on payback of something that is not on the cards, you know? On deposit, we may have to sort of double-check the numbers because I think we certainly see in terms of payrolls gaining market share, not maintaining, gaining market share. The year-on-year for us is 22 basis points. We have a pretty good sense. Obviously, the market has been very competitive now for some years.
There was some time when only two institutions during the crisis were pushing for payrolls because rates were negative, and that had a cost by itself. We knew that it was an anchor product for many other things, and that's why we have the 36% market share that we have today, you know? A lot of this, I have to say, is also associated with our capillarity, our retail presence. We have 4,200 points of sale in Spain, and that makes a big difference. I know that's often you look, not you personally, but the market looks at it as could we operate with fewer branches. We always said we could, but it wouldn't make sense because the branches are very profitable, you know?
My experience from talking to some of the large U.S. banks is there's a huge difference in capturing payrolls when you have a very large retail presence. You capture more, you capture sort of non-interest bearing deposits. That is clearly what's happening to us. Even if our peers are very good peers and competitors, they have less than half the branches than we do, and that makes a big difference.
Obviously, at the same time, we have top of mind in terms of brand awareness. For many people that come into Spain, actually, we're a natural bank to go. There are many reasons we're doing well, and I think we'll continue to do well. Obviously, market is going to be competitive and will make our job tough, and, but it is tough today. I am not particularly concerned about that one. Our deposit evolution has been pretty good, I think. Javier.
Indeed, Marta, well, I think that here the key is the mix, you know, between interest bearing and non-interest bearing. To a previous question is what I answer, you know. Non-interest bearing up by 6% year-on-year, every single quarter in the last 12 months, four quarters. Well, I mentioned, I think, in the presentation that we have had some outflows from the public sector this first quarter of the year. Basically, because it's always more volatile, and they have their own schedule in terms of what they collect from taxes, whatever, payment, investment. We will not read too much. Honestly, to growing deposits, paying 12 month ROI where the overnight rate is very easy.
The key is to grow with the adequate mix, which is, I think that what we are doing. Honestly, we don't think that we have any weakness on that front. We are quite a bit on future evolution. The situation is very calm. We are rolling over our time deposits at a very nice yield versus market rates so we're n ot seeing much competitive pressure, honestly. Everything is very clear for us. No problems.
You should know, Marta, and with wholesale clients, obviously we tend to be the bank that. Let's put it another way. We are not the bank that pays most for deposits because we have a liquidity when we're talking about wholesale. Our liquidity situation, this affects particularly the public sector, which is the reason why you may see a difference this quarter. The numbers we have for private sector deposits and for non-depository deposits indicate very good absolute and relative performance versus versus others. Obviously, this, you need to see it in a sustained basis, but we see no reason why that would change going forward.
Thank you, Marta. Operator, next question, please.
The next question comes from Francisco Riquel with Alantra. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you. My first question is on revenues from services, which are growing 7.5% in the Q1. I wonder if you see upside risk to the mid-single digit growth guidance. You have commented on wealth management, market impacts, recovered already net pro, steady inflows, insurance also growing double digits, banking fees resilience. If you can please elaborate on these revenues from services and the guidance. My second question is on the tweak to the ROT guidance that I understand all the core headlines of the remain unchanged, so it should be taxes. If you can please comment on the tax rate DTA write-ups and how sustainable is that going forward. Thank you.
Paco, I think on the second point, it's not just taxes. One of the lines that I mentioned before was precisely results on real estate sales clearly indicating better numbers than what we had anticipated. I think even the turn in the real estate market, this is pretty sustainable. Javier, please.
Yes, back to services. Yes, good performance. As I was mentioning, during the presentation, 70% of the revenues coming from wealth protection and CIB, and this is growing more than 12% year-over-year, you know. Really happy to see that. Well, AUMs, with the strong recovery in April, we are back to a situation that is more normalized, with the uncertainty that all of us we know, on that front on markets, but quite resilient so far. Our guidance here is to expect to be somewhere between mid and high single-digit growth, on that line, skewed towards the higher end, if markets perform, I would say, on a stable manner, you know?
I think that that's the guidance, you know. We're expecting inflows in line with last year. That's the summary, you know? In terms of protection, we are doing pretty well. I said before also that it was mainly on life and health. Good cross-selling coming from a new mortgage origination. I think that on that front, we may be between high single digit and even double digit. Let's see. This is the good news is that here we don't depend much on markets. Actually nothing. We are quite a bit on that P&L line. Volumes are doing pretty well. Well, we have been gaining traction since several quarters as you know?
Well, banking fees, it's always the same story, you know. It's about the deflationary pressure, generally speaking, on lower, low added-value fees. We started with maintenance fees. Now you have pressure also on transfer. You have instant transfers that have to be made at a low, with a low fee, like a normal transfer previously. All that is having a kind of a deflationary pressure that is being, to some extent, compensated by better volumes. The pressure in terms of margins is still there, you know. The good news is that 70% of that pool of service revenues is growing over double digit. Hence, we are doing pretty well, you know?
That's the message, you know. As always, a bit on AUMs and wealth and protection and CIB being more and more stable and recurrent. What has been commented before to a previous question about our international branches also is adding to this over time, to this steady pace of revenues, on fee revenues, from CIB also. From, let's say, the initial lending, you start to obtain additional business. That's the story. Is there upside or not? Maybe, you know, it's too early to give you formal guidance, honestly, Paco, considering all the uncertainties we still face in the year, mainly coming from the market's evolution, you know?
Thank you, Paco. Operator, the next question, please.
The next question comes from Andrea Filtri with Mediobanca. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for taking my question. I am actually following up from Paco. What is driving the ROT upgrade? Is it higher profits or lower tangible equity? If the higher profits, if you could detail a bit more. Can you guide us a bit more accurately on tax rate expected for 2026? Thank you.
Yeah. Sorry, because Paco, I missed the answer on taxes. We have, and, well, as basically, Andrea, is part of your question also. The write-up from DTAs has been EUR 135 million and w e think that this figure can be the max you can expect every quarter. It's gonna be higher than last year, you are right. Why? Because, well, I made also a comment about 2028 NII that where we see upside, clear upside to consensus. We are incorporating to our recovery model on DTAs, well, the long-term projection for the bank, those are becoming better and better. The recovery pace of balance sheet DTAs increases, you know?
This is why we have some step up on that from that front. I think that 135 is what you can expect max. It can be a little bit below that some quarters, but in any case it's gonna be higher than last year. As for the return on tangible equity question, the improvement is. Well, Gonzalo mentioned the, let's say, gains and losses and the real estate behind that. You have taxes. We have quite a good feeling in terms of cost of risk and w e see volumes doing well. To some extent it's not only specifically some lines, but the general feeling that everything is doing fine, and that may be upset here and there. As a consequence, is why we upgrade our ROT to over 18%. Thank you.
Thank you, Andrea. Operator, next question please.
The next question comes from Cecilia Romero with Barclays. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much for taking my questions. I have three follow-ups. First, on NII sensitivity, you were saying that given flattening of the yield curve, the NII sensitivity to a parallel low, to a parallel move of the curve, could be lower than what you guide. I understand your sensitivity is still 7.5% at year two. Wouldn't you also see now better upside on your ALCO activities given that government bond yields are higher versus last year end? My second one is cost. You were mentioning that renegotiation of wages, if environment continues to be what it's like today in 2027, could bring some more cost inflation given the backdrop.
You had also mentioned to us in the past that your IT and artificial intelligence investments of the last year will start having a positive impact on efficiency from 2026-2027. Wouldn't you say that there are levers to compensate for higher cost pressure? Finally on provisions, if things holding up very well and growth expectations still look resilient, but obviously the situation is very fluid, if things macro were to deteriorate, could you outline how will it flow through your provisioning models? How quickly it will impact provisioning, and how severe the deterioration will need to be before you reconsider your cost of risk targets of less than 25 basis points on average? Also considering that you have unassigned collective provisions of around EUR 300 million. Thank you.
Thank you, Cecilia. As the answer, let's try to go fast because we're running out of time otherwise, and. Basically on cost, you are right that we expect savings associated to the investments that we are making, so of course there are levers. We'll have to eventually look at how the whole thing adds up, but certainly we will be doing those and traditional sort of efficiencies to offset other inflation and cost pressures that we are we may have, you know? Absolutely.
Well, on NII sensitivity, yes, long-term rates have also moved up, and obviously we are taking advantage of that in terms of our co-management, but by a lesser extent than short-term rates. If short-term rates have moved like 40, 50 basis points, long-term rates have moved by 10 or less than 20. This is why the sensitivity is lower because when you model the sensitivity, the new production at fixed rate being mortgages or ALCO is not having the same positive impact in the future than what is priced at the short term of the yield curve.
This is why you don't benefit fully from that increase in the yield curve, you know? There is part of the new production that is having a lower positive impact. This is why the sensitivity is a little bit smaller, but it's not much. In any case, it's a net positive for the bank for sure. In terms of IFRS9 models, we have to make a decision on that. In any case, the worst scenario is massively better than the scenario that we are managing for this middle situation. Maybe we have some changes in terms of weightings. We have to make a decision on that. Obviously, the guidance we have given to you is already considering any potential change we can do. Keep in mind also that the new input for the model is not only GDP, it's also recent history of performance, which is extremely positive.
There is another leg that is also very important, which is the performance of the real estate market in the terms of the impact that this has on value of collateral and as a consequence on provisions. The real estate market is also doing very well. I say that because it's not only one thing. It's history, it's real estate, and obviously, macro that, what we have to, in the next few weeks, we have to make a decision. In any case, in any of the scenarios that we are thinking about, our guidance is under any kind of pressure. Thank you.
Thank you, Cecilia. Next question, operator please.
The next question comes from Britta Schmidt of Autonomous Research. Please go ahead.
Thanks for taking my question. I just wanted to follow up on your 2028 outlook. You say you see clear upside to the consensus, which already bakes in 6% growth versus 2027. We've just discussed the curve outlook, and for 2028 the short-term rates don't look that different from previous assumptions. Could you let us know what is driving your more positive view, or what is driving your more positive view versus consensus, but probably also your own plan, given your comments regarding the deferred tax loss carryforwards?
It's simple. It's more of the same. It's the compounded effect of volumes and our internal assumptions on volumes and on lending, but also on deposits, on interest-bearing deposits. Remember that we constantly have the tailwind from ALCO maturities that are gonna be rolled over at a better yield, and this is constantly adding, you know? Remember that from 2026 and trying to put things simple, because you can make this very complex, I think that the best way to simplify is we have combined hedges and fixed income, EUR 26 billion and EUR 27 billion, EUR 28 billion that are maturing and are being rolled over. The average yield of those EUR 28 billion is 0.55%. This is gonna be rolled over at rates, let's say between 2.5% and 3%.
The annualized impact of that rollover is EUR 600 million annualized. This is not happening day one, but I mean that by 2028 you are gonna have the full impact of that, and then you still have the impact from maturities that you have in 2028. You have, I think it's in page 27 this quarter, a lot of detailed information. That constant tailwind from legacy ALCO is gonna be there. Well, that's why according to our internal projection and the assumptions we are making on deposit betas that I've, I commented previously, we see a clear upside to the current consensus. That's our, my message.
Thank you, Britta. Operator, next question please.
The next question comes from Borja Ramírez with Citi. Please go ahead.
Hello, good morning. Thank you very much for taking my questions. I have two, please. Firstly, a follow-up on deposits. It's quite great to see the decline in cost of deposit and also the strong deposit growth. Despite some competitors that are showing increased focus on digital account deposits, I would like to ask if it's related to your better digital offering?
Borja.
If you could elaborate.
Yeah, Borja, we cannot hear you properly, so we cannot understand your question. I think it's something about deposits.
Can you hear me now?
There's-
A lot of echo and resonance.
Yes,
Borja. I don't know what it is.
Hello?
Can you hear me better now?
A little bit better, yeah.
That's it.
No, well, let's try.
Apologies. Basically, what are the competitive advantages of imagin compared to the other neobanks? I think you're showing very strong trends in deposit.
Sorry.
Nice and contra neobancos.
Vale. Okay. You're talking about, like, if we understand, the advantages we have versus other neobanks in terms of deposits. Is that correct?
Yes. That is correct. Thank you.
Okay.
Well, if I may, I think imagin is very different from neobanks because it's trying to match or do better in terms of the digital offering that it has, but it combines it with a real bank behind. We find that our customers love the fact that even if they do not ever visit a branch, everybody knows that imagin is part of CaixaBank. That obviously is a very strong message in terms of how confident you are to trust your money to someone else. They also know that through imagin they can get a full banking offering, so that you can have imagin as your primary bank and don't need anything else.
That's not typically what you see with the, other neobanks, and particularly, even if you can, you kind of not necessarily trust the same sort of solvency and stability and, and confidence that a brand name like CaixaBank, brings. Obviously having the ability to our imagin clients can go into a branch, can chat with someone. The top level have, relationship agents, and when we call them, they love it, even if they don't use it, you know? At some point they do use it. Obviously we think we're a fresh, offering. We have, obviously, the fact that we know very well the market.
We can go to universities and other places where we can actually have the right employee support and school, university, etc. , to gain clients, no? Very often it's parent company. It's not parent company, the parents that would come to the branch and would want their son or daughter to open an account, or they did open it when they were kids and they want to activate it, so it's, we're a kind of family bank. Every client of imagin, of CaixaBank has someone that is a target for imagin. They're happy. We'll ask clients for, "How about your sons and daughters?" Do they have a bank account? Now bring them in, we can facilitate things. They will operate online, but let's not forget that we have these 4,200 points of service and they are great tools to acquire clients in imagin as well.
Okay. Thank you, Borja. That's all we have time for today. Thank you all for joining us another quarter and have a wonderful long weekend, everybody. Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Bye-bye.