Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our first quarter 2026 results presentation. First of all, I would like to confirm that earlier this morning, before the market opened, we published this presentation and the related financial information on the CNMV and our corporate website. Today, our Chief Financial Officer, Pablo, will be the one presenting the first quarter trends. The presentation will last approximately 20 minutes, and it will be followed by our usual Q&A session. Without further ado, I would now like to hand over to Pablo.
Thank you very much, Jaime. I will start on page three, where we show the main highlights of the quarter. Starting with our business activity, I would like to highlight that business volumes have accelerated their growth rate to over 3% year-over-year. This progress has been supported by an almost 4% growth in customer funds and supported by an increase of almost 11% in off-balance sheet funds, mainly mutual funds, where we are showing a 17% year-over-year growth, maintaining a 9% market share in net inflows. This improvement is also supported by a 2.4% growth in total performing loans, which for the second consecutive quarter continue to accelerate their growth. Turning to profitability, net income for the quarter amounted to EUR 161 million.
Both net interest income and fees showed year-on-year growth, something that combined with lower provisions more than offset the mid-single digit increase in total cost. The adjusted return on tangible equity remained at 12%, while the cost-to-income ratio stood at 46%. Asset quality remained strong. The net NPA ratio stood at just 0.7%. The NPL ratio continued its downward trend, reaching 2%, and its coverage further improved to 80%, significantly above the 70% reached a year ago. The cost of risk also showed a positive trend, declining to 20 basis points, marking one of the lowest levels in recent years and below our initial guidance. Lastly, we remain focused on value creation. Our CET1 ratio stayed stable at 16% during the quarter as we are allocating capital for shareholder remuneration and lending growth.
Two weeks ago, we paid the 2025 final dividend, which together with the interim dividend paid in September, reached EUR 443 million. This represents a payout of 70%, resulting in 9% dividend yield. Looking ahead to 2026, we expect to further enhance shareholder remuneration up to 95% of net income, thanks to our relatively higher capital position and also to our robust organic capital generation. Overall, our tangible book value per share, adjusted for dividends, was 9% higher than the previous year. In summary, all trends remained solid throughout the first quarter of 2026, confirming the recent positive momentum. We recognize that uncertainty has increased in the past couple of months. It may be too early to provide more specific effects.
Nevertheless, based on the information available so far, and despite market volatility and the possible direct and indirect effects of the current geopolitical risks, we reaffirm all targets and commitments outlined in our strategic plan. The beginning of 2026 has been better than initially expected, which is obviously great news given the uncertain environment we are facing. All in all, we confirm our initial guidelines for the year. I will continue with the commercial activity on page five. As you can see, total customer funds increased by 3.9% year-over-year. On-balance sheet funds grew by 1.6% or 2.4% when excluding the public sector. Off-balance sheet funds rose by 10.6%, driven by a remarkable 16% growth in mutual funds.
It is worth mentioning that mutual fund balances have grown from EUR 14 billion to nearly EUR 17 billion over the past 12 months. On the next page, you can see the details regarding our assets under management and insurance business. As highlighted in the previous slide, assets under management increased by 11% year-on-year, with mutual funds showing particularly strong growth of 17%. Despite challenging environment this quarter, net inflows reached EUR 468 million, representing a strong 9% market share. On the right side, we show the revenues from these two business segments, which have risen by 4% compared to the last year, and now account for 19% of total revenues. On page seven, as you can see, loan volumes continue to grow.
Total performing loans increased by 0.8% quarter-on-quarter and 2.4% year-on-year, reflecting a positive performance across all segments. Private sector loans rose by 1% compared to the previous quarter, while corporate loans posted an increase of over 3%. Lending to individuals maintained its gradual growth trajectory. Mortgage volumes remained stable during the quarter and on a year-on-year basis, whereas consumer loans continued to expand at high single-digit rates like in the previous quarters. Overall, first quarter evolution demonstrates a slightly better trends than previous quarters, driven mainly by improvement in the mortgage and SME segments, both of which showed some growth this quarter, while maintaining positive dynamics in corporates and consumer. On page eight, you will find details regarding the new loan production.
During the first quarter of 2026, new lending to private sector increased by 10% compared to the previous year, reaching EUR 2.5 billion. As we have just seen, we are delivering growth in the loan book in all main segments. You can see consumer lending maintains very good momentum. Mortgages are close to our natural market share level, in business lending, lower volumes are explained by some large tickets last year. We are delivering a strong portfolio growth here on much better portfolio and customer management. Turning to slide nine, we would like to briefly present some evolution of digital sales and customer acquisition. In the top left, 65% of consumer loans were granted digitally, significantly higher than the 49% in the previous year.
It is also worth noting that digital consumer loans amounted to EUR 160 million, representing an 82% increase compared to the first quarter of 2025. In mutual funds, the weight of digital sales grew from 25% to 36%, reaching EUR 230 million, which is nearly 50% higher than last year. Also, as shown in the bottom right of the slide, I would like to highlight that more than 1 million clients use their Bizum with us, which is the instant payment tool most used in Spain, something that is quite relevant for the transactional business, as you can only have one Bizum account per phone number.
It is worth noting that in the first quarter of 2026, the acquisition of new salary accounts has doubled, explaining the quarterly increase in the cost of deposit, as we will see later. The commercial campaigns include an upfront compensation for the client in exchange for their formal commitment to maintain their salary with us in the future. As you can see, a strategy that is working very well to further improve the transactional business with our clients, which is one of the main commercial focus of the bank. Moving now to slide 10, we highlight our continued progress in our sustainability strategy. We keep financing the transition and actively pushing green bond issuance. During 2025, our green bonds enabled the avoidance of 142,000 tons of CO2.
Our pool of eligible projects continue to grow together with our ESG business, both green and social. We are well on track on the decarbonization targets over the lending portfolio. Overall, the evolution we are seeing is very positive, and this is clearly reflected in our sustainability ratings that show a consistent positive trend. We now continue with the review of the P&L in the next section in slide 12. Net Interest Income increased by 1.3% compared to the first quarter of 2025. On the quarter, it fell by 1.2%, primarily due to the lower day count. Total fees were 1% higher than in the previous quarter and 3% higher than last year. Overall revenues reached EUR 520 million, 1% higher than the first quarter of 2025.
Total costs grew by 1% on quarterly basis and 4.5% compared to last year, in line with our mid-single-digit growth guidance. Loan loss charges decreased by over 20%, both quarter- on- quarter and year- on- year, confirming the positive asset quality trends. Other provisions were 9% lower than last year and also significantly lower than last quarter when we booked some restructuring charges. Profit before tax stood at EUR 232 million. After accounting for EUR 71 million in taxes, which include EUR 6 million of the banking tax, net income reached EUR 161 million, representing a 1.4% increase over last year. Now, let's review the income statement in more detail. Starting with the net interest margin on page 13.
As you can see, the customer spread remained stable compared to the previous quarter, reversing a negative trend that began in the first quarter of 2024. Loan yield increased by 2 basis points, the same as the cost of deposits, which as I mentioned earlier, grew due to the impact of our successful salary account campaigns. Net interest margin fell to 1.69% due to the volume effect, driven by higher balances in repo market activity. However, if we exclude this effect, net interest margin stable during the quarter. On the following page, we show the details of the quarterly evolution of net interest income, which decreased by 1% during the quarter, but was 1% higher than the previous year. The lower day count of the quarter amounted to EUR 6 million, while the NII decreased almost EUR 5 million.
Without this effect, NII would have actually increased in the quarter. As you can see in the bridge, the increase in deposit cost, mainly driven by customer acquisition campaigns and the lower lending income, which is also fully explained by lower day count, were partially offset by liquidity, ALCO, and wholesale funding. Turning to fee income, the trend observed in recent quarters was confirmed with a slight decrease in banking fees, which is more than offset by non-banking fees growth, mainly from mutual funds and insurance. Despite the negative mark to market at the end of the quarter, fees from mutual funds continued to improve, increasing 19% year-on-year and nearly 4% quarter-on-quarter.
Fees related to assets under management and insurance further strengthened their contribution this quarter, accounting for 53% of total fees, up from 48% last year and 43% in the first quarter of 2024. In slide 16, we show you the details of the rest of revenues, which also shows a relatively stable trend in recent quarter, with a slightly lower trading income this quarter owing to market context, but nothing material. Regarding total cost, personal expenses continued to grow due to the salary increases agreed with the unions and new hirings. Other administrative expenses also reflect some of the initiatives needed to implement our business plan, leaving total cost 5% above the previous year, in line with the mid-single-digit growth guidance.
In the right-hand side, you have our cost-to-income ratio that grew to 46%, mainly owing to the mentioned initiatives that we expect to have a positive impact in the future revenues. Something that going forward will help to revert this trend. All in all, the ratio remained below our 50% target. On the next page, we continue with the cost of risk and other provisions, which in my view are one of the most positive news of the quarter. As you can see on the left-hand side, the cost of risk was 20 basis points, which is the lowest since the merger with Liberbank and below our initial guidance of less than 30 basis points for the year. The remaining provisions, including legal ones, were also lower, leaving total provisions at EUR 43 million in the quarter, which is 19% below 2025.
Provisions showed a very positive evolution at the start of the year, which is obviously great news and leaves us in a comfortable position for the rest of the year. Moving now to page 19. The bank's return on tangible equity continues its upward trajectory, reaching 10% as of March 2026, or 12% when adjusted for excess capital. As we frequently highlight, we consider the return on CET1 to be a reliable benchmark for us, as it effectively isolates the relatively larger accounting equity that Unicaja must uphold to offset higher solvency deductions, mainly from deferred tax assets. In the first quarter of 2026, the return on CET1, adjusted for excess capital, stood at 17%. Lastly, on the right-hand side, you will find the tangible book value per share plus dividends, which has grown by 9% over the past 12 months.
Let's move now to the credit quality section on page 21. As you can see on the slide, positive trends remain in place. NPLs are down 20% year-on-year, with their coverage growing to 80%. Overall NPAs are also down 26% year-on-year, with coverage also improving to 79%. A very positive evolution that leaves total net problematic exposure at only 0.7%. If we now move to solvency on page 23, you have the quarterly bridge. CET1 was very stable in the first three months of the year. Quarterly capital generation, including a positive impact from the state in DTA, was mainly allocated to shareholder remuneration and lending growth, which are the two main uses where we plan to put to work our comfortable solvency position, leaving the CET1 stable at 16% in March 2026.
On the next page, you will find our MREL position. As shown, our MREL ratio stood at nearly 27% at the end of March, providing a substantial buffer above the key requirements listed on the right, including an MDA buffer that was higher than 680 basis points. In terms of liquidity, all ratios remain among the highest in the sector, with the NSFR at 159% and the LCR at 292%. Finally, our loan-to-deposit was 69% in March. Summarizing the excess of retail funding of the bank that, among others, explains the size of our structural ALCO portfolio that we show on the following page. The yield of the portfolio grew from 2.6%-2.7%, a small improvement owing to the reinvestment and active management.
Duration and size also represented a modest increase in the quarter. It is also worth noting that 81% is public debt, and that 83% is included in the amortized cost portfolio. Finally, as shown on page 27, despite geopolitical uncertainties, we reaffirm our guidance for the year. We expect net interest income to exceed 2025 figure, net fees to grow at a low single digit, and total cost to increase by mid-single digit. Regarding cost of risk, our initial forecast was to finish the year below 30 basis points, which we also maintain despite the strong first quarter of 20 basis points. It is obviously better than expected the start of the year, but given the current situation, we prefer to be prudent. In terms of business volumes, we remain well on track to achieve the target of 3% growth.
Finally, we confirm our expectation that net income for 2026 will surpass the EUR 632 million from last year. This concludes my quarterly update that, as demonstrated, shows a continued improvement in the bank's overall financial position with a stronger commercial performance, enhanced results, consistently high solvency, and very positive outlooks for shareholder remuneration. Thank you very much, and I will now hand over to Jaime for the Q&A session.
Thank you very much, Pablo. We will now begin with the Q&A session. Please remember to limit yourself to two question each one. Also, kindly mute the line, your line after asking your questions, please. Operator, please open the line for the first question. Good morning, everyone, thank you for joining us for our first quarter 2026 results presentation. First of all, I would like to confirm that earlier this morning, before the market opened, we published this presentation and the related financial information on the CNMV and our corporate website.
Thank you, Marcos. Regarding the cost of risk, as you can imagine, we are in an uncertain environment, geopolitical risk are part of our analysis, and we have considered with our post-model adjustment some impact in the quarter. We are quite aware that the potential cost of risk for the quarter was quite good and even below our guidelines for the year. We want to be prudent for the year and maintain the guidelines for the time being.
Yeah. The other one, the second one was related to a potential exit scheme, because another competitor has announced one. Just as a reminder, in the fourth quarter of 2025, we booked some restructuring charges to implement a similar exit scheme, a voluntary exit scheme. In our case, that exit scheme, it is more focused on renewal of part of the staff rather than a specific cost-cutting. That was announced in the fourth quarter. It was booked in the fourth quarter, and it will be implemented throughout 2025.
Yeah. Was within our guidelines for total cost was considered this scheme.
Thank you, Pablo. Please, operator, can we go to the next one?
Next question from the line of [Miruna Chirea] from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Hello. Good morning, and thank you for taking my questions. I just had two, please, on NII and then one on the salary account campaigns. First on NII, you are maintaining your full year 2026 guidance of NII greater than 25. If I'm just analyzing your Q1 NII print, I'm already getting to a number that is more than 1% above 25. Presumably, you're also looking at some volume growth and potential further margin expansion for the rest of 2026. It feels that there is some upside your guidance. If you guys could just walk us through your expectations for quarterly NII provision pool.
On the salary account campaigns, which showed the increase in your cost of deposits for the quarter, could you give us some color on how successful the campaigns were and then some details on the pricing? I hear your comment about the upfront cost. Is there also a promotional rate? If so, for how long does it last, and what does the rate reset to afterwards? If you could share any thoughts on the outlook for the cost of deposits for the rest of this year. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much. I'll try to give you some information on the NII. We maintain the guidance. The guidance, if you consider the improvement compared to one year, it's only 1.3%. This is quite in line with what we were expecting. We maintain the NII. I think for the coming quarters and the expectation on a quarterly basis of what we expect in I think the first thing to mention is interest rate volatility, it's paramount and will have an impact mainly on 2027 and 2028. In the short term, in the quarterly, the impact of any interest rate shock is always smaller.
Our expectation remain that the first quarter was going to be slightly below last year. If we consider the day count, it could consider the fourth quarter the bottom of NII. From this onward, our expectation is a gradual improvement, slower in the second quarter and then taking and picking up and having some momentum from the second half of the year and especially in 2027. We maintain that expectation and we will see how this evolve.
The salary account.
The salary account, this has been quite successful. This is one of the reasons that we have some pickup in cost of deposits. It's with our strategy to improve the transactional business with our customers and improve the transactional business down the line. The overall cost of risk this quarter has been quite stable regardless of this impact. Going forward, obviously, we have higher rates on market prices. We will have some impact down the line, but within the expected beta that we have at the moment. Consider that we have only 25% of remunerated deposits in our book.
Okay. Thank you, Pablo. Please, operator, can we move to the following question?
Next question from the line of Cecilia Romero from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much for taking my questions. I have two. The first one on NII sensitivity in the sense the market rates in one year have moved higher again. Over a 24-month repricing horizon, how much incremental support can NII realistically receive from higher rates, including outcome reinvestment at higher yield relative to the assumptions you had at the end of last year? In a scenario where sector loan growth is affected by the macro backdrop and lending slows, will a stronger deposit growth support NII? The second one on provisions. If the macro environment were to become more uncertain, how would that typically feed through into your provisioning models and cost of risk? I think you have a high weight in your base case. Are you thinking of changing your weight for each scenario, and do you have any overlay? Thank you.
Thank you, Cecilia. Regarding the NII sensitivity, I think, as I mentioned, for the first year, any interest rate shock has very little impact since we started at the end of 2023 to lock in the level of rates for the next two years to three years. For this first 12 months, the impact will be very small. From a more second year impact, we think we have an impact for 100 basis points parallel movement of around mid to high single digit impact in NII. This, obviously, as you can imagine, will depend a lot on how customer deposits cost evolve.
It's always with the assumptions that everything, the beta is maintained as it is now, which has been quite stable, so there's no reason to think it in a different way. Obviously we consider in this analysis that we have some renew ALCO portfolio reinvestment, and we have also some new lending at higher rates after the shock. This give us with a positive evolution in the second half of this year, a small one, and then picking up some momentum from 2027 onward. Overall, I think it's important to remember that we have quite a significant NII sensitivity in the medium term due to our liability and the deposit, the transactional deposit base that we have.
Regarding the volumes in the impact of NII, we have given a more stable and constant balance sheet impact rather than dynamic impact. We haven't considered in this sensitivity the impact on volumes. I think in the short term, the impact on of reducing expected volumes, we were expecting to have around 3% growth in volumes more or less for the year. If maybe anything of this geopolitical risk has an impact of some reduction in lending, maybe we have an increase in the saving rate that support the deposit side. I'm not convinced this is negative or neither positive. We have some NII coming from the lending.
The good news is the front book is ahead of the back book, and the deposit are behaving as expected. We're comfortable with the guidance that we give for the year and expect to improve next year. Regarding provisioning and how we consider, we have a prudent approach in our model. Just to give you some color, the model of our IFRS 9 macroeconomic variables that consider our basis scenario, we were expecting only 1.9% GDP growth for the year. The last number that we have for the first quarter is we have analyzed 2.7%. Still room for then some reduction in the year in the GDP numbers.
We consider the situation to have some impact, but not a very significant impact and still maintain positive momentum in the Spanish economy. Regarding the post-model adjustment and the one-year cost of risk, I think we already have some buffer on top of this provisioning within our IFRS model, which is we already consider last year, and we mentioned that we consider geopolitical risk as one of the potential impact that our model didn't consider. We already have some provision last year, and we slightly increased this year, this quarter again, our post-model adjustment. We are comfortable with our guidance of below 30 basis points for the year, even in some stress scenarios we are witnessing today.
Thank you, Pablo. Please, can we move to the following question, please, operator?
Next question from the line of Borja Ramirez from Citi. Please go ahead.
Hello. Good morning. Thank you much for taking my questions. I have two questions, please. The firstly is on the payroll accounts, if you could kindly provide more details on the volume outstanding and the average cost, and also, if you could provide details on the ongoing system competition in Spain. My second question would be, I understand that you have some ALCO maturities at, I think it was between 80 basis points and 90 basis points, around EUR 2 billion maturing this year. If you could kindly provide, we confirm this number. I think you also have an NII benefit from the maturity of an expensive bonds at the end of this year.
If I know well, so there could be some NII uplift from that. If you could, confirm this as well, please. Thank you.
Thank you, Borja. Regarding the customer acquisition campaigns, I think just to give you some color, we have spent around EUR 6 million in this quarter on these campaigns, which represent the success of the campaigns, which is more than EUR 4 million more than the previous quarter. This strategy is picking up and we pay slightly less than EUR 500 up front with a compromise from the customer to be with us at least for two years. The impact and the cost is within those EUR 500 that I mentioned. The amount, we gather more than 12,000 new salary accounts for the quarter.
Regarding the ALCO portfolio maturity, as I mentioned last presentation, we have for this year, slightly above EUR 2 billion. We still have remaining EUR 1.7 billion for the year, and the average cost is very similar to the number for the whole year, so it is around 0.8%. This has been considered when we say that we expect to have a slightly higher NII for the year than compared to last year. We already took this in consideration and we, as you can imagine, we are reinvesting this at a higher level.
Thank you very much, Pablo. We can move, operator, please, to the following question.
Next question from the line of Sofie Peterzens from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hi, this is Sofie from Goldman Sachs. Thanks a lot for taking my question. My first question would be on cost growth. Some of the wage negotiations are coming due next year, if I am not mistaken. How should we think about cost growth beyond 2026, more in 2027, 2028? What cost pressures do you see kind of from the horizon? My second question would be, can you just remind us how much DTA benefits we should be expecting every year going forward? Thank you.
I think regarding cost growth, I think as you can imagine, it's a combination of different things. As we mentioned, within our strategic plan, we have a strategy to diversify our revenue sources. In order to grow in corporate lending and in consumer lending and import-export lending and private banking and so on, this requires some deployment of IT developments, process, and people and talent. We have been hiring some talent. This, you have to consider this on top of the actual salary increase that we mentioned. We maintain, and we are comfortable with the 5%. I think to talk down the line for 2027, 2028 is too premature, and we will give more details on the future position for the bank.
On top of this, we have this, as I said, on top of these new hirings, we have some schemes, as we mentioned, to reduce some of our workforce. What we are doing is not a cost-cutting measure, but to renew and to uplift the capabilities of our workforce. Regarding your second question, Jaime, can you comment?
Yeah, on the DTAs, very straightforward. I think that, you can expect a run rate between 20 basis points to 25 basis points per year of solvency generated by lower deductions from DTA at current profitability levels. That will be probably the summary. We can move this, operator, to the next question.
Next question from the line of Carlos Peixoto from CaixaBank BPI. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, morning. Thank you for taking my questions. The first one will just be a bit of follow-up on fee income. Basically, you're maintaining the low single digits growth for the year. Do you see any tailwinds here or headwinds, sorry, actually from the markets, recent market volatility or potential hampering of your assets under management business because of this? Then the second one would be on capital distribution plans. You have already approved payout to very high levels. I was just wondering whether there are any additional plans to distribute or to accelerate the distribution of the existing extra capital. Thank you.
Thank you, Carlos. I think on fee income, as we said, we have managed quite well the headwinds coming from the market volatility. I think that the market is performing quite well, considering the geopolitical risk environment. I think there's still some momentum in the Spanish and our customer base to increase their investment compared to their savings. We haven't changed our expectation on off-balance sheet growth and mutual funds. This obviously will depend on how market evolves. So far, I think the drawdown that we saw in March is almost recovered now.
We don't think the customer and investor base will change their attitude unless we have a more significant impact on market that we don't foresee in the short term. Regarding capital distribution plans, I think we have a quite general level of 95% shareholder remuneration of net income. Just to recall, we will have in the second year, second quarter presentation.
Second quarter presentation.
We will have the update of our interim dividend of 70% of this first half of the year. In the third quarter result presentation, we will announce what, how is going to be delivered the EUR 25 additional remuneration that we planned. In the final year presentation, we will have the final dividend. We don't think we need to accelerate anything regarding shareholder remuneration, and we stick to our strategic plan.
Thank you very much, Pablo. Can we please move to the following question, operator?
Next question from the line of Ignacio Ulargui from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
On corporate lending, if you could elaborate a bit more on what has been the plans delivered in the quarter, and how should we expect about the growth in the future? Do you think that the strong quarter-on-quarter growth that you have delivered could be maintained, or there was any specific one-off transaction that distorted the growth? The second question is on capital, linked to the previous question of Carlos. We wanted to understand whether you could use part of that capital for any organic growth, and what will be the priorities and the capital hierarchy that you will be looking for in terms of businesses, whether you will prioritize fee-based business or whether you would like to, as the press has been suggesting, looking for a diversification.
I think I got both of the questions. Thank you, Ignacio, for your question. I think regarding the corporate lending, although the quarter has been significantly good, we think the year-on-year numbers are sustainable, and we probably maintain this 6% growth for the coming quarters. I think you have to think that we have to catch up in terms of customer activity. We are deploying more resources for this business, and although the level is higher than the market growth, we have to do some catch-up in terms of market share in this business. We still have plenty of opportunities to maintain the growth.
Maybe not the growth on a quarterly basis, but the growth on annual basis could be some guidance for how much we expect to grow in the high single-digit number, between mid and high single-digit number for the coming quarters as well. Regarding the capital on top of what I mentioned of shareholder remuneration, we also mentioned in our strategic plan that we will consider any bolt-on operation in M&A. This will have a clear view on improving and accelerating our diversification of revenues that we were thinking. As you can imagine, this diversification spans from fee business, but also in areas where we have a lower market share, like consumer lending or other type of specialized lending that we have a smaller market share.
We maintain that possibility. I think to be clear, the whole idea of this bolt-on is not something that we need to do to deliver in our strategic plan targets. It is something that will help us to accelerate the process of diversification. We will maintain hiring people and improving capabilities to do this diversification.
Thank you again, Pablo. Let's move to the following question, please.
Next question comes from the line of Fernando Gil de Santivañes from Intesa Sanpaolo. Please go ahead.
Hello. Thank you for taking my question. I don't know if you can hear me.
Yes. Go ahead, Fernando.
Go ahead, Fernando.
Okay, good. I see headcount substantially up by 100 persons in the quarter. I just want to get a sense of how should we be thinking about headcount going into the year-end of 2026, and given that you approved and charged three early retirement in Q4? Just that question. Thank you.
I'm not sure I got your question properly, but I think you were looking at the headcount of employees and how this has evolved in the quarter, increasing it slightly. You have to consider that we have two different forces. One is we are growing our capabilities in certain areas, in IT, in artificial intelligence deployment and some specialized areas like specialized lending and things like that. On the other side, we have the redundancy, the voluntary redundancy plan. In this quarter, we have the first impact, but we have not any impact from this plan. Net, I think the headcount will be very similar, slightly up, but not very significant.
We maintain our cost guidance of mid-single digit for the year, and this consider the employee and workforce.
Thank you very much, Pablo. Just to double-check, I think that we don't have any more questions, but please, operator, can you confirm it?
Yeah. There are no other questions at this time. Thank you.
All right. Thank you very much, everyone. The IR team remains at your disposal. If you need further info, please do not hesitate to contact us. Thank you very much for your interest and your time.
Thank you very much. Have a good day.