Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to our Bradesco Day, APIMEC 2019. I am Leandro Miranda, Bradesco's executive officer and IRO. It is great to have a full house in this first Bradesco Day. I would like to thank all of you for joining us and the more than 2,500 people who joined us online. I would also like to acknowledge and thank the presence of Ricardo Tadeu Martins, President of APIMEC, and Vinícius Corrêa e Sá , Vice President of APIMEC. They'll be with us during the Q&A. I take this moment also to acknowledge and thank the presence of investors, analysts, clients, the press, and authorities here with us. Of course, I have to thank the members of our board of directors and executive committee, here represented by Mr. Luiz Carlos Trabuco Cappi and Mr. Octavio Lazari. It is great to be with you today.
In today's event, we'll share with you our vision about the macroeconomic outlook of Brazil and the world. Speak a little bit about Bradesco's DNA, culture, principles, values, which allowed us to come this far. We'll speak about our strategic positioning for the coming years. We are very confident about this new Brazil that is coming, and you'll see that our financial performance reflects this. I will be coming back later to talk about our financial results in Q3 2019, and I'll share with you how we are getting positioned to continue with the good performance. At the end, we are going to have a time for questions with our speakers and the president of APIMEC, so that we can answer your questions and clarify your doubts from you here and from the people online. We will be getting questions in writing.
This is a very special day because in addition to our Bradesco Day, we also had here an advisory communicated to the market this morning as we start talking about the integration of the Brokers for Individuals by Ágora. We will be here to answer your questions regarding our strategic positioning. To begin the meeting, I would like to invite our Executive Officer and Chief Economist, Mr. Fernando Honorato.
Thank you. Good afternoon. It is a great pleasure. We have a full house, as Leandro mentioned, so welcome to our home. It's great to welcome you. My mission is to speak about the outlook for the Brazilian economy, and I'd like to start provoking regarding the great transformation that Brazil is going through.
This is a transformation of a country that has been used to public spending for many, many decades, and that will have in the private sector its main growth engine. This is what we will discuss here, and this is what I want to speak about. I would start saying that the essence of this transformation goes through the establishment of a cap on public spending that started in December of 2016, and this is a transformation amid Brazil that spent 6% a year above inflation, public spending growing 6% above inflation per year. They started growing 0% from that moment onward. This brings changes in bank loans. It brings changes in the way the government relates to companies. With the leading role that the private sector will have to take on, this brings a change in the economic policy that we haven't seen since the Real Plan.
It seems that now we got the right combination so that we can finally have a balance of our public accounts and an easing of the monetary policy, as you will see. The essence of the cap on public spending is the perspective that the country will become solvent. When we look at what happened with the pension reform, plus the cap on public spending, that produces an idea that the public debt in the several scenarios that we simulate will become not only convergent, but declining. That transforms the perception regarding Brazil's potential. It is natural to see that public deficit that got to 10% during the crisis will stabilize around 4% in the coming years, which is a huge deleveraging of the Brazilian public sector. This will translate into greater expansion for the private sector.
The main consequence of having this agenda is a convergence of interest rates to international levels. For many, many years, we used to say that Brazil needed to converge the interest rates to advance. With this reduction of public debt, we can bring Brazilian interest rates that used to be double of other emerging countries to very close to that of the emerging countries. This is the nominal interest rate. Every project to transition from the public sector to the private sector involves low interest rates or funding that used to be provided by the BNDES, the Brazilian Development Bank, will go to the private sector. Nominal 6.5% interest rates are unprecedented in Brazil. With that, it is possible to finance infrastructure projects and more accelerated growth. This is the essential transition that we've been having.
When we look at the countries with low interest rates, what we see is that credit is more dense, more abundant, greater percentage of the GDP. It is not an exaggeration to say that Brazil can double loan over GDP if our interest rates stabilize. Average of emerging countries is 135%. Brazil, 70%. With a marked difference between companies and households. In the case of companies, the role will be fulfilled by the capital market. In the case of the households, this is linked to mortgages. Mortgages account for about 10% of the GDP, in the world, about 30%. We have a lot of room to grow. In the case of the capital markets, this transition that I am describing as being a future one is already happening to some extent.
While BNDES portfolio shrunk by about BRL 200 billion, BRL 630 to BRL 400, the Brazilian capital market has delivered a lot more. We had a lot of IPCA indexations this year, and IPCA indexed the issuances with an average tenure of 140 months. This transformation is in the heart of what we are going to see in the Brazilian economy with a deeper access of companies to this market. This fiscal adjustment agenda is coupled with an agenda that goes way beyond the pension reform and the cap on public spending. We will not take up your time talking about all of these reforms listed here. We're talking about a set of agendas linked to the business environment, privatizations, opening of the economy, demand stimuli. Even the reforms that have been passed, they need to advance in coming years.
Just to mention a few, the Economic Freedom Act. We say it's going to empower small businessmen and entrepreneurs. It will provide more loans to small businessmen. The Basic Sanitation Legal Framework, the Petroleum Law, for privatizations and concessions, BRL 204 billion in projects and an administrative reform that will give more flexibility to the Brazilian government and will make it more efficient. This is all part of a set of agendas that go way beyond the pension reform and the cap on public spending to drive lower interest rates and more loans. The market is already pricing this adjustment that I've been talking about. When we look at a 5-year CDS for Brazil, about 120 points. This is the level that Brazil hit one year before we got investment grade. The risk was at 109, 110 points.
The markets price this scenario and the rating agencies hopefully will follow the kind of pricing and will give us some upgrades. Who knows, maybe Brazil will regain investment grade by the end of this administration. It is fundamental to keep in mind that the economy is beginning to respond more intensely to this scenario. I would like to highlight here two things that have to do with loans and the labor market. We talk a lot about unemployment rate at around 12%, very high. I would like to focus on activity. We had 93 million people in the labor force, but it is already at a level prior to the crisis. Brazil created five million jobs in the last three years. A lot of them are informal jobs, but these jobs start to produce income, increase the demand and consumption. Real income is growing around 2%.
What is very interesting, this process of creating jobs that is coupled with this agenda to empower small businessmen and entrepreneurs and this agenda of providing more flexibility to the economy, is that many of the formal jobs today are being created in small and mid-size companies. This is a focus of this presentation. Small and mid-size companies in the industry or agriculture are creating more jobs. This is a typical phenomenon of a more competitive economy with greater density of credit, and we start creating a more robust GDP base for the future. This is what we expect as a result of this process. This job creation starts having an effect on the household's consumption. We can clearly see this in some indicators. We may get job creation plus loans credit.
Loan to households has been the greatest engine for growth. We see household credit growing 16%, the highest expansion rate since 2018. This is free credit, of course. This is expanding. It comes from low indebtedness of the families and lower interest rates. The cost to service the debt is reducing. This will allow us to close the gap with the emerging world in trends of interest rates and loans. It seems very sustainable and solid looking forward. In credit, just like I spoke about jobs, small and mid-size companies are the highlight, in this case, legal entities. This segment will have a lot more access to credit in this whole new world of low interests. We can see that this process is advancing. The basic consequence of that is that segments that rely on credit start having an interesting performance.
We look at the sales of vehicles, they grew 11% per annum in recent years. This is the half full or half empty glass. No exuberant data here. If we focus on the half full glass, any indicator growing two digits should deserve some attention. 11% of vehicle sales growing. In the case of real estate market, which is highly credit dependent, where we have the biggest gap, this is data for São Paulo, data for Brazil, are very heterogeneous. We are not going to see in Brazil such great abundance. In the case of São Paulo, we have launches growing 100%, 105%. We cannot ignore data doubling in size in six months, as is the case of the real estate market in São Paulo. This joint action, jobs and credit, produces retail expansion. Look how retail started gaining momentum.
Earlier today, data were released, even better retail data. Retail will add to the workers' compensation fund that will be released another BRL 40 billion inflowing to the economy. Retail will push the industry. Since inventories are very reduced, what we have looking forward is space for retail to generate more demand from the industry, and this will create more jobs. This is clearly an important driver for 2020. I'm moving to my last point. What happens to exchange rate, interest rates, and growth in this environment in the mid-run? When we look at what's happening in the economy, the transition of the economy, which was more public sector-oriented, moving to more protagonism of the private sector, it is a recent but relevant phenomenon. The fact that that engine that propagated inflation, public spending, when it's no longer there, it drives down inflation.
Inflation used to be 6%, 6.5% for almost two decades. Since 2016, it is at the lower end of the range of inflation. It will be very close to the lower end of the range set by the Central Bank. This will make more room for new cuts in Selic interest rate. Expectation is that it will get to 4.5% by year-end and 4.25% next year. Could even be lower than that. This is not by chance. This is happening because of this reorientation of the economic policy that finds in the cap to public spending, the right condition to help drive down inflation. The exchange rate reflects a lower interest rate. Brazil has lower attractiveness for investments. Our currency is detached from the emerging markets' average, which is the white line. Our currency drivers are very diverse.
We have the U.S. dollar in the world, interests differential. There is also a growth differential. Our main bet is that if Brazil is able to set itself apart from the rest and deliver stronger growth in 2020, this driver will attract more currency investments and our Brazilian real will appreciate. We don't estimate BRL 360. We estimate BRL 380 for the dollar by next year. This is the appreciation of the currency of a country that tends to grow more with accelerated growth. This is being followed by us, Bradesco, and it's shared by the IMF. The IMF has just released its forecasting for 2020 in their October annual meeting. Brazil is the country with the fastest growth next year compared to most of its peers. Of the 180 countries monitored by the IMF, Brazil is among the top 20 in terms of growth acceleration.
It includes India, Russia, the U.S., and Brazil is leading the way. Hopefully, this growth driver will help the political outlook and the agenda of reforms and will also help with our exchange rate and to appreciate the Brazilian real attracting more capital to Brazil. I'm moving to the end. When we think regionally, Brazil should grow 2.2 next year with growth all over Brazil, across the regions. There is some heterogeneity. The north of Brazil and the Midwest, with its two main growth drivers. We can see in parentheses, growth for this year, how much we are estimating, and we see that this growth is spreading. Several states started adjusting their accounts, controlling their accounts with more organized public management.
The labor market, which is very informal still, as we move towards a more formal market, we start gaining traction in the regional economy level. If we were to summarize my message, we are quite hopeful regarding the economic agenda. We believe that there is room to have a lot more protagonism of the private sector, a lot denser credit, a lot more room for SMEs to grow and prosper in the country in an environment where interest rates and inflation rates will remain low. This is my take-home message for you. This is what I had for today, and now I would like to invite on stage the Chairman of our board, Mr. Trabuco.
Thank you very much. Good afternoon, everyone. To begin, I would like to acknowledge and greet the investors, analysts, journalists present here, and the president and vice president of APIMEC.
It really honors me to have you all on board of this Bradesco Day and APIMEC. This event welcomes journalists, investors, and analysts, because we always want to have transparency. I would like to remind you that this is the first APIMEC with the absence of Mr. Lázaro Brandão. He was always very present in our APIMEC meetings and in the old ABAMEC meeting, when we had the first meeting here in the auditorium of the foundation in 1985. I would like to begin my speech greeting all of you, my colleagues, and to specially greet and thank the executive committee of the bank, here represented by its CEO, Mr. Octavio de Lazari. I would also like to thank the members of the board for their support and constant presence in helping build this organization.
As Fernando mentioned, we now live a context of great changes in the Brazilian economy and in the world economy. We have new winds regarding pricing in the economy. We have all-time low interest rates, inflation under control, reduced volatility, and a fluctuating exchange rate performing its role. This is a situation that changes, and changes for the better our risk management. In society, and I should say in society as a whole, we feel that everyone is anxious for transformations. Unlike a famous book of the past that talks about the risks of democracy, we think that we currently live a moment that is a historical moment to strengthen Brazilian democracy. What we see is a functional, organic democracy. A living being in permanent evolution, according to the perspectives of the 21st century.
This is how a country is transformed, a country, its companies, and its people. This is a vigorous transformation in our view. The more debate, the better. However, modern time is not for subtleties. What represents this new context of the economy? In our opinion, structural changes came to stay. These are achievements of the Brazilian society and of the world in this new world of digitalization of all social and economic relationships. We believe that this is the ideal scenario for a bank like ours, with our values, with our business practice, with a strong commercial bias, and a deep footprint across Brazil. The main strategic pillars of Bradesco's culture is to cope with the challenges, but always keeping an eye on the future, preserving our current revenue streams. In a nutshell, it means to be grounded in the present, envisaging the future.
This is in our DNA. For that, we have six main directions. First, to permanently improve our ability to capture opportunities. Number two, to have a cost to serve which is adequate for the new economic scenario. Three, to fully use the force of our distribution. Four, to have the broadest portfolio of products and services with product segmentation and with a focus on clients. It sounds like a heresy when we talk about product segmentation, but we have a focus on client, which means a client targeting adequate to our relationship model. Number six, development of our mindset for innovation and attractiveness. In March of 2020, we will complete 77 years of existence. Bradesco was founded in the city of Marília in March of 1943. At the time, the financial system was formed by small banks with a local or regional footprint.
They were enough and sufficient to meet the needs of a little complex economy based on the exports of agricultural products. Better yet, of almost just one agricultural product, and two-thirds of the population lived in the countryside. Great advantage of being a speaker is that we get to drink more water. As I mentioned, 2/3 of the population lived in the countryside. Our founders anticipated the economic transformation that was coming in Brazil back in the 1940s and 1950s, as is happening again now.
Industrialization in Brazil required more sophisticated financial instruments and large banks with a national footprint. Since the beginning, those who conceived of Bradesco, notably the legendary Amador Aguiar, persisted in the pursuit of one goal, to have a large-scale bank. This was a fundamental target. We had seven branches in 1943, 44 branches in 1946. In 1968, the bank had branches in all of Brazilian states.
Ten years later, a historical milestone. We were present from the north to the south of Brazil. In 1985, we had 2,000 branches. In 2020, we reached all Brazilian municipalities. That is why since Bradesco's day one, back in 1943, we opened our doors to all: poor, rich, the labor force, the business community, farmers. This was the big news. It was a paradigm shift in the 1940s. At that time, people with little money did not have access to banks, but Bradesco opened its doors so that these people could have access to savings accounts, to loans, and the possibility to talk to the manager because the manager would speak to everyone in the branch. This is an important trait of our DNA, which is the title that I was given for this lecture.
We were always very inflexible in terms of the following: all clients, no exception, deserve the best services. We were very inflexible about that. This is a powerful legacy. What can we do for clients to have more convenience, speed, and efficiency in their relationship with the bank? This is a permanent question for us. Many of the actions that the organization conducts in that sense were pioneering initiatives and later copied by other banks. There are many examples. I will mention one. In 1946, we created the payments and receipts section, so taxes, rent, water, and electricity bills could be paid in Bradesco branches. With that, people no longer waste their time moving around to pay their bills. Along 76 years of our history, Bradesco published year after year substantial reports explaining its activities at the end of each fiscal year. There's an interesting reading.
We see in all of these reports an interesting reading. In all of these reports, we see in print a set of values that now people call organizational structure, and which guided the first managers and officers of the bank, and that remains as firm and current beliefs among us. What are these principles? Support to the country's development. We are the biggest public bank among the private banks. The bank has always believed in reducing regional inequalities in the ongoing modernization of banking practices. The bank has always believed in the well-being and motivation of its employees, in capturing opportunities to add value to clients and shareholders alike. We have always focused on education as it is so important for Brazil. Today, we provide services to the most remote areas in the country, in some cases, only reachable by boat.
This is one of the means through which we support development. What is Bradesco today? Bradesco today is a significant bank, world-class, be it in assets, market cap, management quality, or brand value as it was very well shown by the first video. Decades of financial soundness, growing income year-over-year, nonstop. Today, we turn 77 with a high ability of innovation and reinvention. If in the 1960s we were pioneers in adopting computers to process data storage. Today, currently, we are one of the leaders in the application of technology to serve our customers. The most recent achievement is BIA, Bradesco Artificial Intelligence. BIA is information, financial education, supporting and qualifying our customers, which is one of our key commercial pillars. This is why building Bradesco involves a dignifying corporate trajectory with very well set values and beliefs going through several bank generations.
The banking activity in Brazil is one of the most competitive in the world. For that, it takes a permanent look where we came from, who we are, and where we're heading to in the banking industry. Along this journey, our main challenge is ourselves.
Just like this famous book, Dante Alighieri's "Divine Comedy," he used to say that in the path of human existence or organizations, it is always built by errors, success cases, and discoveries. The same goes for the corporate world. We are working on errors, successes, attempts, and also discoveries. This is why in our culture, the operating risk is measured by our capacity of not being proud nor arrogant to understand the economic scenario and the risks it entails. This is why we have these three powerful letters in our organizational culture, DNA. You copy processes, you copy products, you can even copy strategies. Copying a company's DNA is extremely hard. For people, DNA is the life molecule. It stores personal information.
It is naturally passed among people, a corporate DNA needs to survive relentlessly to the evolution of generation of employees who work at that company. That's why Bradesco's DNA sets characteristics which define its perpetuity, and it all depends on the engagement of everyone. Why is that? The culture of our bank, in addition to being a career bank, it also supports the company, preventing it from growing old. The only thing that doesn't age is time, companies are updated just as they take care of their legacies of people transferring the company's culture. Bradesco has been through tough times. Waiting until the end of the Second World War, not easy at all, having a bank back in 1943 with a world that hasn't come to an end. Also the end of the new stage.
We've been through changes in the political regime back in 1945, 1964, 1985, and other events. We've also been through inflation, hyperinflation. Regardless of the time volatility, the main defense of the organization was respect for our DNA. The pursuit for professional excellence is a driver that set us apart in different moments. That's why highest positions are only taken by people with a lot of capital knowledge and commitment to our values. It was through this path that our corporate culture got stronger from one generation to the next. We already mentioned Unibrad, the corporate university, providing hundreds of courses to our employees. All employees to start working at Bradesco have available to them the means to build their careers.
Now, if we look deeply into our main characteristic in our DNA, I would say that equal opportunities is there for everyone who can work on a brilliant career in our organization. Bradesco's best is our main value reserve, leveraging a commitment or productivity. Now, in this very accurate picture, Bradesco's DNA as a characteristic has its social environmental practice. For a long time now, we've been working on several actions, but I'll be limited to the oldest and most far-reaching of all, the Bradesco Foundation, established back in 1956 with a purpose to provide free education to low-income communities. Today, it owns 40 schools in all Brazilian states, more than 49,000 students. That's a commitment in terms of social role as our DNA. In order to close, I would just like to pose some food for thought. At the bank, we have very strong examples.
The food is really salt-rich. I need some water. Here at Bradesco, we have a strong example. At the main entrance of this building in front of us, there is a message displayed with a final statement: "Only work can produce wealth." This concept is dear to our hearts. It means trusting and believing our work as an individual driver for growth, and also a driver in the corporate and national level. That was inspired by the legendary Amador Aguiar. Today in Brazil, we have Xi Jinping, and I'd like to share with you something that I've been doing. I'm reading the man's biography. The recent biography of Xi Jinping, known as the governance in China, is the size of China, 1,257 pages, two books. 10 million copies sold in 27 languages. There is this chapter that really drew my attention.
It drew my attention because it really resonated. The text which supports, "Working hard turns dreams into reality." That's a rationale lived by our DNA in Bradesco throughout our lifetime. Xi Jinping even adds, quoting, "Work is virtue. Feet on the ground. As for the noxious attitudes of practical work are formalism, bureaucracy, extravagance, and hedonism." These are ideas that are part of our DNA as well. Quote again, "If the work is good, values and commitments of a company when they start their job, this can assure the future in terms of success, leadership, and activity." I borrowed some words from this biography, and I do recommend that you take some time during the holiday to read both books. Simply, in three days, you have a chance to come to your assumptions.
These are values and commitments that I really wanted to share with all of you, gentlemen. They are preserved by our employees, and once they are acknowledged by the public as important and necessary, they will be critical to project the company for many generations in the future. That's what has been happening to our organization. We are part of a tripod, shareholders, customers, employees. We exist to transform to shareholders the best way to invest in stocks. Our raison d'être is also to turn or to have for the customer the best way to invest and have credit. We're not a loan institution. Before providing credit, we have credit from the customer because we have a solid brand. The other part of the tripod, employees. We exist to turn this place into the best place to work at.
This is our commitment from all the management, a commitment from the board, the executive committee, to make sure we stand to these principles so they can be observed and practiced in many years to come. Thank you for your attention. What comes next? We have a video.
[Presentation]
Good afternoon, dear friends. Trabuco, thank you for the kind words. I thank the board. Reading a book of 1,300 words or pages in a weekend is a little bit too much. Let's try to do something else or at least start reading it. Welcome, analysts, journalists, shareholders, investors, and friends. Thank you so much.
I thank the board, Trabuco, our whole executive committee for being with us today. It's an honor and delight having you all here in our home. A home that came from Mr. Amador Aguiar's dream with a mission to serve and provide return to shareholders and the Bradesco Foundation, more than 100,000 low-income children, and continued with Mr. Brandão courage, Maurício's continuity, and the challenge faced by Mr. Trabuco. It doesn't matter whether it is in the financial heart of Latin America, in the head office of our wholesale bank or Paulista Avenue, where we have Prime and wealth management, and Ágora, your investment home, or even BAC, our bank in the U.S., or in each one of our branches and mini branches throughout the country of absolutely continental dimensions.
Our team has a unity, just a single purpose: to serve 72 million customers who chose and trust us for their investments, their business, and their dreams. We acknowledge the challenges behind the new scenario, the new competitive scenario, but we also know very well our strength and competitive advantages we have. Possibly the largest distribution strength in Brazil, as you've just seen with Honorato's presentation. We have a constructive scenario to the whole Brazilian economy. At first, it is well-adjusted, particularly after the pension reform, and ready to grow as we have a more consistent upturn in investments, the lowest interest rates in our history, sustainable. We expect to see soon a more consistent reduction in unemployment rates. Companies and households are slightly leveraged, we believe these are ideal conditions to begin a very significant and long credit cycle in Brazil.
To some extent, it is already happening, particularly in individual and personal loan, and this expected to benefit the whole country, contributing to speed up investments and growth. We see Bradesco particularly well-positioned for this credit cycle, owing to our positioning in Brazil and in all income segments. The market is highly competitive when it comes to banks. Big banks keep on competing for customers and business as usual. Public banks are more rational, and we believe that will keep on reducing their share in the absence of subsidized credit. Brazilian capital markets in the low interest rate scenario should address demand and credit for investment. New competitors using new technologies, and they're very competent. If in the past we knew who our competitors were, today they come from everywhere, different sectors, new competitors, and we acknowledge the change, and we know the size of the challenge ahead.
We're also aware of our strength in the market, and we're doing a lot of things, a lot of initiatives to transform the bank very soon. There is a transformation in the way how we work, and how we solve problems, and how we relate to people. That's what I'm going to show you next in my presentation, how we face our business, our strength, our strategy, and how we are putting into practice through key initiatives. We know these current advantages will not assure our leading position for all. That's why we work hard to evolve and turn the bank in all its aspects. The most important ones are to bring convenience to our customers' lives, bringing great experience, and having our people fully engaged in this evolution. This is the reason why digital is so important in our strategy.
In digital, we have a full-fledged footprint allowing our customers to meet their bank needs: daily transactions, investments, insurance, and banking. This is why we simply have to place our bets in AI, artificial intelligence. We believe our digital footprint gets even stronger with BIA, Bradesco Artificial Intelligence. BIA used to be with information, and now it's already with transactions, transfer payments, and in the future, in the near future, BIA will also be active in product and service distribution. We believe that in the future, banking, particularly in retail, will have intensive use of AI. In this field, we are leaders in the use of development and particularly knowledge. In addition, people are different depending on the moment of life, and Bradesco tries to be absolutely segmented, providing customers with the expertise required to meet their local needs.
We also believe that proper segmentation is critical to meet the expectations of customers and assure satisfied relations. Customer evolve in our segmentation based on their needs in a very dynamic manner, and they are the reason that we love our bank. Some of the most important current projects in the organization pursue to improve our customer performance. Our distribution evolved from product sale to full-fledged service to our customers with intensive use of technology and journeys of hiring, very intuitive and digital. This is why when we shift our focus from product to a vision on the customer, in addition to improving experience, we believe we also had a positive impact in profitability and sustainability of customers in the long run in all the relations we want to see. This can be measured by an increase in NPS.
The new model, we check the global profitability of customers and not based on product return. It takes a change of behavior in our teams. In order to change this mindset. To make it happen, we start by changing the way how we work. We reorganize our vice presidencies. We have four VPs and departments in order to have the customer at the core of the system with the most important products in the same vertical. This allows us to constantly understand the customer holistically and measure our assets dedicated to this customer. We have a vertical, for instance, of the wholesale bank. With the whole environment, so the investment bank, asset management, corporate, foreign exchange, institutional, global market, private banking, operations. We are positioned as the main banker of Brazilian companies.
We use our balance sheet and our ability to provide top quality services to set deep and ingrained relationships with our customers, always providing full solutions. Oftentimes, we operate in less profitable products like corporate loans, for instance. We know spread is low. We also benefit from the full result and relationship with far more attractive returns. By placing value on what the customer really needs, in addition to having happy customers, we have higher profitability. Please note that back in 2012, 28% of our customer relations were from commissions and services. Now 47%, we don't depend so much on loan and relationship increases with services in addition to investments. We've been successful in growing our fee income and investment share. Another vertical, for instance, retail.
If we consider the whole environment, warranty, cards, digital channels for the sale of products and services, CRM products and services, consortiums, Bradesco Expresso, redesigning a new retail bank, trying to have a new retail bank as a reflex of the opportunities generated by the change of habits from our customers who migrated partially or fully into digital. We have important opportunities to change our branch network. We are evolving in the definition of capacity and profitability of the branches, adjusting our numbers based on revenues generated by customers who use services only in digital without the branch interference, for instance. This new vision will bring a clear picture of the right size of our network. We have the opportunity to streamline the network, closing less profitable branches, for instance, but mostly reducing the size of other branches.
We envisage a future with hubs and satellite agencies, like mini branches acting in the influence sphere of this hub branch that will surround all the satellite branches. We see our branches and mini branches taking more and more the role of business and relation points with customers and investment consultants. This is why in the earnings release, we said that this year we're going to shut down more 100 branches and possibly 300 branches in 2020. That brings a cost reduction close to 30% when we convert a branch or a mini branch into a business point. Not only that, another process that is ongoing at full speed is digitization of our branches, allowing us to eliminate bureaucracy. We've been investing in order to have the manager journey and all the processes even more digital.
As a concrete result, 40% of processes of credit are no longer paper. These measures have allowed us to reduce the back office even more with gains of efficiency and improve customer and manager experience. Speaking of our managers, what have we done? Focus on mobility. In other words, we can serve people from different ages, different needs, everywhere, anytime. Bradesco Link gave us this power. A corporate mobile phone in the hands of more than 30,000 managers with tools required to turn a financial terminal something that you can do in the palm of your hand for loans, investments. In addition to our partner distribution, we can also work relationship with our managers with an iPad or a mobile phone in the palm of the hand to sell the bank's products and services.
Another important aspect, also true and very successful for an open bank, a traditional open bank, is Bradesco Expresso, which is one of our strengths and competitive advantage. It adds on to our branch network, allowing us to reach out to customers anywhere in Brazil with a very low cost, particularly only with variable costs. 40,000 stations of Bradesco Expresso with partners like bakeries, drugstores, mini markets, Bradesco Expresso accounts for 39% of Bradesco's account openings and 36% of credit card sales. One of the highlights of our footprint, it makes all the difference to our customer.
Now we are in a process of digitization of Bradesco Expresso, moving away from the former PDV and getting into tablet. It brings possibility to sell credit and products more efficiently with a pleasant journey to the partner and the end user, and it all driven by an important driving force of business to Bradesco and very close to our footprint, which is payroll agreements. We have a strong position as bankers for corporations, and it allows us to have a relationship with payrolls of SMEs. Despite the portability that has come to Brazil, we can see that owing to good services and credit operations and credit limits, the bulk of these accounts are active. We also actively benefit from these purchase opportunities of the rights of services of payroll of the government.
Our network of Bradesco Expresso has proved to be a significant competitive advantage vis-a-vis our competitors fighting for payrolls. We have very attractive levels of return from these operations, generating many opportunities and also payroll deductible loan origination. 70% of public accounts were issued by Bradesco this year. On average, return 25%. Lastly, we are the greatest benefit payer, so almost 33% of the total benefits of INSS come through Bradesco, and this positioning is owing to our branch network and also Expresso and the ATMs. Owing to this business and other business that will definitely come in the future as we have the economic upturn, we are very thought of on how to adjust our network. Point of service is absolutely key to all of us. Another vertical, our high income bank.
This high income bank, Bradesco Prime, investment, treasury, the economic area, and right now, Ágora, our investment house. Let me tell you more about our investment house. We are fully committed to revolutionize the experience of our high-income customers and provide it to the market as a unique offer. Currently, our performance in high income is through Prime with internal segmentations and also Private, segmented based on the volume of funds.
In addition, our investment advice done by bankers, investment experts, and investment consultants. Well, we have a strong positioning in all of these segments, offering our clients our own products and third-party products through mirror funds in our treasury. However, we know that we need to innovate to gain more space and to offer our clients an even better service. It is with this vision in mind that we launched Ágora Investimentos, which becomes an open platform at the disposal of all our clients, Bradesco checking account holders and non-checking account holders. Clients of Bradesco from all segments will be able to operate on Ágora with a simple digital onboarding, settling their operations directly in Bradesco's checking account with the convenience of seeing their global Bradesco investments in a totally consolidated way. Ágora has a unique positioning in the market. Our clients already acknowledge this differential.
It counts, of course, on the health and reliability of Bradesco with the strength of our relationship. Above all, it counts on the user experience and an open platform with all investment products. This new Ágora structure is formed by a number of, say, Ágoras. Ágora Academy that deals with training, knowledge, dissemination, leads. Ágora Resources, Ágora Investimentos, Ágora CTVM, Ágora Seguros. Well, we remodeled completely the Ágora platform, and we will continue to evolve it. We have squads focused on promoting constant evolutions in the features in last generation content. One of the key points about our new wealth management strategy is the forming of our team of investment experts offering our clients financial advice at the branches. We have one expert in each Prime branch, at least one expert, and one expert in each branch with more than 500 clients.
More than 830 investment experts by 2020 that will spend 60 days in training. In addition, the acquisition of BAC Florida that complements our offering for high-income, strengthening our offering of products such as checking account, credit cards, mortgage, and investments. BAC Florida and Ágora will offer what's best in investment products in Brazil and the U.S. alike. Combined with a complete investment advice in an avant-garde digital platform. We make available a unique offering in the market in terms of investment options for our clients. The vertical that provides the foundation for everything else, which is our vertical of people technology and support, legal, technology and innovation, and HR. We have a strategy that we consider broad and bold, divided into three pillars. We focus, speaking about the first pillar, we focus on one hand on the digital transformation of the traditional bank.
We have Next as a disruptive strategy, playing with even better weapons than our digital competitors. We believe that we can also capture opportunities in the open banking concept. The first pillar of our digital strategy is digital evolution. We want to onboard an incumbent bank, all of the benefits and efficiencies of digital bank. One of the fundamental points in the process of transformation of the traditional bank is a complete digitization of all processes. We are moving towards a 100% digital onboarding in all banks, products, and services. We want it to be paperless. Our transactions are becoming multi-platform, allowing for formalization of contracting products in the digital channel, even when the process begins at the branches. Digital transformation has an important aspect in clients' experience, which evolves strongly in this context, together with a change of our commercial focus, from product to customer need.
A good example of this is on the screen, the result of our digital strategy. With that, we presented significant growth in the origination of credit via digital channels. In individuals, we grew 55% until September, and in legal entities, 45%. Our digital strategy is complemented by the physical world because clients operate in both channels. With the reduction of transactional use, we can transform the way in which we present our network of branches to our clients, broadening particularly our consultive focus and business generation focus. Revolving for smaller, cashless mini branches without back office and consequently, with a lower cost. The second pillar of our digital strategy is Next, a native digital bank, where we compete with even stronger weapons than our digital competitors. We have a flexible platform, totally digital, with a totally different and pleasant experience and journey.
In addition, we offer free of charge service. Next will mean a deep relationship with clients by use of products. Also because we'll have alternative revenue streams, such as data and business directing to partners, working as a hub for all of our clients. We also offer a digital experience that does not charge a fee. It offers convenience of products for the whole network of ATMs of Bradesco and TecBan ATMs. Next has an offering of products and services, which is complete, comprehensive among all digital banks. We made available the main banking services to our clients, among them, financial planning, credit limit, insurance, and a complete portfolio of investments. Next will be decoupled from Bradesco Institute. The goal is to bring more autonomy and speed in business management, in addition to having more regulatory symmetry with our digital competitors.
8,000 checking accounts opened to date and 2 million clients by end of 2019. This is our target. We'll definitely need it for Next. Finally, our third pillar in our digital strategy, which is to actively work with the open banking concept. Our technology platform is flexible. It's structured with APIs. It allows us to connect with other platforms from third parties, and that's why we see open banking as an opportunity to distribute our products and services, and even data, using all of our technology. Bradesco as a service, for example. We have concrete examples of actions with the open banking concept in our main platform, such as Ágora Next, that works as a platform plugged to Bradesco APIs. Bradesco has a natural appetite for innovation.
We are in a constant search to facilitate the lives of our clients to be ahead of the competition, always seeking greater efficiency in our operations. We know that technology will continue to change the way in which banks operate, as has happened in the last seven decades. This will happen even faster. It is with this vision that we constantly invest in innovation, more than BRL 2 billion invested per year. This led us to a pioneering position in artificial intelligence with Next, with the use of biometrics and other pioneering actions. We advanced quickly in incorporating several technologies to our day-to-day, reaping concrete benefits in our origination and quality of credit, and we continue to evolve. We have invested strongly in our analytics with an exponential evolution curve.
We have invested in three fronts, both in infrastructure, data architecture, people, and systematic coordination, leveraging the work among different areas using the agile technology. We have had relevant results in terms of credit granting and adapting our offerings. The next steps will happen with an evolution in the brand project and in distribution, our CRM 2.0 project. The brand project will bring us data science and analytics, and it will help us in our decision-making in real time. The main evolutions will be in broadening the understanding of the client and considering complex data, such as big data and behavioral data on a timely basis to allow us to better decide on credit limits and pricing. CRM 2.0 will bring us important evolution in the coordination of distribution in journeys that are mapped, and always to put clients' needs even more at the center of our offerings.
The integration of different data sources, such as the Salesforce platform, for example, will be an access to improve the process and will contribute to an ongoing evolution in the integration of physical and digital channels, moving towards a totally omni-channel approach. All of that is supported by a broad program of innovations, which is our Inovabra. We invest also to develop a culture which sees innovation as a priority. It was with this concept that we developed the Inovabra program, with its several branches, habitat, ventures, lab, startup, and hub. We believe that this is a successful program with palpable benefits for the culture of our organization. We have a rapid incorporation of the use of the agile methodology into several development processes and search for new solutions that improve clients' experience in our organization.
We've had very consistent, great results with a strong engagement of the several areas of the organization and implementation of squads. We have several important examples of deliveries using the agile methodology. All of these processes and evolutions are fundamental, but we never give up on what is the reason for our organization to exist that makes everything more tangible, our people. We serve our clients with trained and motivated teams that have career meritocracy as fundamental points. We are convinced that to better serve our clients, we need to take care of our employees. We try to attract, develop, and retain the best talents with a focus on their career, offering opportunities to those that dedicate themselves and to stand out. Our teams have a robust training. In addition, through our corporate university, Unibrad, we train all of our employees that join us at entry-level positions.
Also those employees that joined our headcount through mergers and acquisitions and those that we hired at the market. It is true, we never lose sight of our DNA. Bradesco is a bank that believes in the concept of a career. We defined this concept in the past as a closed career. We also called it internal career, but we just prefer now the concept of a career. We aim to have the best talents and give them the right conditions so that they can progress professionally in the bank, offering them training and the ideal environment for personal and professional evolution. These talents can be trained internally from the start. They can join the bank through acquisition, or they can be hired at the market. It does not matter. We follow the market's development, we create new job positions for a more digital world.
Experts in algorithms, data scientists, anthropologists, journey experts, we train these new professionals with the new skills that the position needs or requires. We give them the new skills that are necessary, that's why we work for a headcount of diverse people. People from different backgrounds, different social classes and income brackets and personal traits, because we believe that Bradesco is the bank that the best represents Brazil. We have a strong footprint everywhere in the country, we become naturally diverse, as is the country. Gender diversity. Women are the majority in our commercial sales force. Race, racial diversity, age diversity, four generations working together, reinvention of our labor relations. We are rich in diversity. Just like a career opportunity, education is one of our strengths.
I can conclude saying that Bradesco understands and sees the importance of training our team, because with that, we'll be prepared to tackle the challenge that we are facing with all of these changes that are happening in the several ways of serving the clients, to retain the clients and meet their needs. We understand, however, that the bank is prepared with the right tools, the right methodologies and with the adequate team so that we can keep up with this success story that Bradesco has had for 76 years. Thank you very much for your attention.
[Presentation]
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, shareholders, analysts, investors, colleagues, and friends of Banco Bradesco and Bradesco Seguros Insurance Company. It is a pleasure to be here to speak a little about our numbers and the strategy of Bradesco Seguros. We operate in all business lines trying to meet the needs of all clients of the bank.
Our ambition is to be present along the different moments of our clients' lives, offering adequate protection solutions to serve the needs and the expectations of our clients. To speak a little about the insurance group structure, we act through specialized insurance companies, Bradesco Vida e Previdência, life and pension, Bradesco Capitalização, Bradesco Saúde or health, Bradesco Auto and P&C, and we also control Odontoprev, an open company, a listed company that sells dental plans. We have a relevant share of Europ Assistance, an important company in our auto insurance and residential insurance. We have a share of Coris that provides health insurance, connectivity, service providers, and MCOs. We have a share in the area of great risks with Swiss Re for corporate solutions. It allows the insurance company to continue to offer insurance and specialty lines of great risks for our corporate clients.
We have a 16.3% stake at [IRB Re] and IRB Brasil Resseguros. We also have to mention our sharehold, BSP Empreendimentos Imobiliários, with about 900 properties of the Bradesco organization. Okay, let's speak a little about the fact that we are part of this huge capillarity of the bank's branch network. We benefit from this capillarity. We have thousands of brokers present in our branches offering our insurance products. We have about 24,000 market and corporate brokers that work with the market. We manage our sales force by 1,100 employees in our sales organization distributed in 181 offices. We have 13 corporate subsidiaries, 63 market ones, 64 network subsidiaries, and many representation offices spread all over the country. Speaking about our product portfolio and how we divide our distribution. Pensions, this is done through the branch managers.
When we look at auto, property, casualty, health and dental and life, about 50% is distributed through our network and our network brokers, about one-third by market brokers, and approximately 17% by our corporate brokers. Let me speak a little about opportunities. This is well-known to us. This shows our opportunities in terms of relative under-penetration of the insurance market in Brazil. Even considering the most popular product policy, auto insurance, only about 30% of the fleet is insured. We have about 13% penetration in dental plans, less than 25% of health plan beneficiaries. Homeowners insurance, about 14%. This shows overall that we are under-penetrated in terms of insurance. Brazil, despite being the ninth economy in the world, we rank 16th in the ranking of insurance premiums, and we are ranked about 50 in terms of premiums per capita.
We have a vision in terms of how to increase our penetration of insurance. Here, I'd like to mention a point that was mentioned by Octavio. In our journey to be customer-oriented and to transform the organization into one organization which is client-oriented and less focused on product distribution. In our digital transformation journey at Bradesco Seguros, we have massively invested in digital transformation. We have introduced our squads. We are operating with about 45 agile cells at Bradesco Seguros as part of the digital transformation process, which is a process that involves a shift of mindset, as mentioned. It involves more training, skill-building of our people. It involves an innovation-driven culture and all of these aspects. We had a complete restructuring of our digital department. This year, we grew about 28% our investment in digital.
We created a customer experience department, bringing new competencies with user experience, user interface design, in addition to our journey to deepen the use of the agile methodology. I would like to highlight some progress we've made. In our self-service in some areas such as health, we had 38% of our reimbursement is done digitally. This is a considerable progress. We started last year. A year ago, less than 10% of reimbursements was done digitally. Now more than 38%. About 37% of our auto inspections or vehicle inspections are done digitally. We have six products whose sales are done 100% online. We have many, so six products and what we call the Prestamista as well. We've had a considerable evolution. We are investing a lot in this digital transformation journey. Let me just drink a little bit of water. Let's talk about the structure of our companies.
In health, the main element has been the deepening of our strategy to change our relationship with our service providers. This is part of an important change in order to have better cost control, better loss controls, and we want to have a relationship based instead of fee-for-service, which is more outcome-based, and to control our medical and hospital costs. Here we have invested a lot in this change by the creation of payment models based on standardized procedures and by expanding our network of primary care, a Meu Doutor Novamed. We have now three Novameds working. There will be 16 by year-end, another 12 in 2012, totaling by end of 2020, about 28 Meu Doutor Novamed clinics, considering full clinics and in-company clinics. We are working to increase our learning regarding the best outcomes, what are the best protocols and bundles to serve our clients.
We have strongly worked in the health area to create more competitive products with a regional focus, and we want to create customized network of providers so that we can compete regionally very strongly. We have a family of products called Saúde Efetivo. We recently launched Saúde Efetivo in Bahia, São Paulo, countryside, Recife, Vitória, Minas. We'll be launching it in the city of Manaus next week. We have a product, Saúde Rio. All of these products with a focus on a customized network of providers focused on regional competition. I think it's worthwhile mentioning the new list of dental products geared to our checking account holders. Initiatives, strategic initiatives for Auto and P&C. Here, we see a strong improvement of our results when we changed our pricing models. We have better acceptance, and we saw an increase in conversion in our automobile business.
We created a fleet trading desk that allows us to have a much better situation to accept fleet risks. We have been growing this business with profit. We also have a customized homeowners insurance, which is a product with flexible coverage that can be adapted to any segment of clients of the bank. It can be easily hired for the high-income segment, for example. We also had the launch of a new product called Auto Correntista. Here, we have a product identifying all of the advantages of having our checking account holders on board, because these are the clients with the best claims ratio. It is the client with the best relationship with the insurance company. We have this Auto Correntista, where they focus on increasing conversion and renewal of insurance policies with our checking account holders.
We created the Auto Light product, which is a product with a more effective cost. It is a product that is able to compete with low-cost alternatives out there in the market. We estimate that we have savings of about 30% in the premium of several of our competitors with the Auto Light product.
Speaking of pensions and life, we have a new insurance, a new life product, Meu Seguro Bradesco, my Bradesco Insurance, also with highly flexible coverages targeting different segments of the bank, easy to use. Here, we're pretty much focused on increasingly evolve in this journey to design customized products, increasingly more customized for different profiles. We also launched our new Top Club Bradesco. For pension, we also have a full review of our grid of pension funds. We can say today that within the pension segment, we have our grid of products, the largest in the market, active in multi-market funds. We already have this characteristic, and therefore, we have competitive products with the ability to compete with the whole market in different segments of customers. We also go deeper into the integration of pension in the full investment platforms.
It's one of the main strategic drivers behind pensions. A little bit about our results. In the first nine months of 2019, Bradesco Seguros, with sales of BRL 56.6 billion, accounting for 24% of the market. Our insurance company is the leading company in premium in Brazil and Latin America. A total of nearly BRL 270 billion in technical provisions, or approximately 27% of total provisions in the market. Net worth of BRL 36.7 billion, shareholders' equity. Net income, BRL 5.5 billion. ROAE of 23.6%, and combined ratio of approximately 83%. I would like to underscore, considering the first nine months of 2019, the total of benefits and indemnification. It's a way to depict the return for the society. This is paid to Bradesco Seguros totaling BRL 24 billion. Daily average of 126 million BRL paid, including benefits and indemnities.
When we speak of purpose and adequate products to serve our customers, the best example of product category that fits into this pursuit of adequacy and products that have a purpose to the customer, insurance is the best fit. If you think about health, 16.4 payments as indemnities and benefits. For life, BRL 5 billion, 600,000 indemnities and pensions paid. In vehicle and home, 155,000 claims and BRL 2.5 billion. The most amazing figures, if we break down health, we can have it tangible.
What does it mean? Nearly 32,000 babies came to the world in the first nine months of 2019 owing to Bradesco Saúde. 61 million exams ordered, 12,000 medical appointments, 6.1 thousand. That's the number of admissions. You can have very tangible results considering the size of our insurance company. I thank you all. Thank you for the opportunity. Now I give the floor to Leandro Miranda. Our Executive Director and IRO.
Thank you, Vinícius. I guess Mr. Trabuco gave us several examples of Bradesco's DNA. One of them is simplicity, considering that I'm so thirsty, there are only two glasses of water. Break the protocol and drink from the bottle. Okay. Let me tell more about our major financial performance. I guess the best way to get started is by exploring our NII. More effectively, it fits in an expansion status. We are increasing the volume and the mix. This has provided us with a maintenance of the historical levels before the crisis, around 10.5%. That's a trend that we believe that owing to the mix and the scale, now as the economy resumes, we expect it to be maintained.
Most of it, like Octavio also mentioned and explored in his presentation on credit and loans about our loan models and our analytics, we've been evolving a lot in this regard. Despite the growth in our portfolio, we managed to maintain our low ALL. In absolute numbers, it was reduced in the past quarters. As a result, we can grow in our net spread despite the competition and the contraction that we've seen in different lines. At the bottom, you can see that more effectively, our financial or NII is very robust when it comes to customers, for the market is not so significant to us. We are a bank of relations. We work in each one of the product lines with our customers, and this is where we really are positioned as an organization. Now, what about the shift in the mix of our credit portfolio?
We have a question. Undoubtedly, we have this question in all our meetings with analysts, this is about how we see the growth of each one of our customer classes. If you have a look at this, at the core, at the center part, you will see that back in 2016 and 2017, we are already going down in the number of corporate. Like Octavio said, it is not a segment where we expect to see a lot of substantial growth with credit. This will happen owing to services and owing to our central relations with the customer. What we expect to see here, as you can see on the first part of the slide, is continuous growth for personnel or individuals, 31% in 2012 to 38% in the third quarter, growing more than 19% of the portfolio and expect to keep on growing.
That's an amazing segment to all of us, the best margins. Effectively, the spread is fully in line with what we pursue, the most profitable lines. Also our ALL is very much controlled owing to our models and the use of algorithms. A second part that we place our bets on with a very robust growth in the coming years has to do with micro and small-size companies at the bottom of the chart. Despite the level of 18%, we believe there is plenty of room to recover our historical positioning, which was up to 30% in 2012. Bradesco is the only bank in Brazil that is 100% of the towns. We are the only bank in Brazil serving the whole, all social brackets. As a result, as a resumption of the economy, it is the first segment that is strong.
It needs us, and we manage to serve better than anyone else. As analysts tend to say, Bradesco has an aggressive target for Brazil. Brazil does poorly. Well, by far, we have the best performance, and it clearly shows our positioning in the belief that there will be an economic upturn in Brazil. Going deeper into personal loan, like I said, we're growing around 19%. As you can see, we are growing significantly in each one of our business lines. Personal loan benefit a lot from the new modeling with the use of algorithms, 36.2% per year and growing. Payroll-deductible loan, like Octavio said, vis-a-vis our share in INSS auctions and public companies, it's growing by 24%. Other lines as well, double-digit growth. Vehicles at 21.4%. Real estate loan, despite all the squeeze of spread, we are in line and also fully digital.
We have 18.9% in credit cards despite the full competition in the market at 12.5%. Credit modeling. That's a beautiful slide for us to understand how we've been managing to grow by evolving our credit modeling and also the use of algorithms. As you can see, our portfolio has robust growth in all product lines. Our loss of loan, our provisioning is going down. Like a paradox. Usually, you're growing in the ALL together with the credit portfolio, which is something we expect to see starting mid-2020. As we speak, we're doing fine. This stems from what? From all the hiring of scientists, all the progress achieved with credit, and also the recovery of credit via good collection strategies. NPL creation, good performance. Some people only focus on the last picture showing our growth in NPL, but I'd like to invite you to see a deeper analysis.
Firstly, individuals, the highest risk segment, our NPL is going down. The segment where we are more profitable, more dilution, our NPL is going down. Second segment that we place our bets on micro, small, and mid-size companies, we're increasing our portfolio. It is one of the best for the future. Double-digit growth. What about our NPL? Well behaved at 1.4. Large companies. Now we have a significant increase of 0.3 to 1.2, but also a rise, not in the whole segment. In some cases, it's very specific, and they were properly provisioned. We didn't have to work on additional provisions. However, in this segment, sometimes you have more important cases, and they can bring a mass if you fail to look into details of our performance. Like I said, our focus is increasingly more strongly in individuals, micro companies, small and mid-size companies for credit purposes.
1.1.3%, but net of that, we would have the NPL fully in line with the latest quarters. What about reduction with ALL expenses? Look at the cost of credit vis-a-vis of our portfolio. It's going down. As we speak, we are the only bank in Brazil posting this result for three consecutive quarters. In other words, we have increasingly healthier vintages. Our vintages, owing to the choice and selection of assets, owing to lower risk in Brazil, our vintages have proved to have less ALL need. When we check our debt guidance, 11.5, 14.5, 10.5 in September, we'll be meeting the target very smoothly. Fee income. That's an important item for us to keep an eye on. We have a decreasing order vis-a-vis the place of an importance of each one of the business lines.
We can say that despite competition in acquiring, that's a reflex, particularly at Cielo, in our lines, and regulation of debt interchange, a reduction in asset management rates owing to the new environment of interest rates in Brazil. We adjusted several of these lines. We made efforts fully concentrated in the second quarter, the difference is beginning to appear in the current quarter. There was sign of improvement, both vis-a-vis the third quarter of 2019 and the third quarter of 2018, and more effectively in the first nine months year-on-year. As of now, what do we expect to see? Higher volume of trading as the economy recovers, a comparison base adjusted because we will not have such a depressing scenario for interest rates. Our products and services are very well priced. A change in the mix of investment funds.
At the end of the day, our asset management company, BRAM, will recover growth and go back to its natural position after a new adjustment to the fee income and administration fees. What about insurance? Vinicius explored this a lot. We can see that all lines are growing, but I'd like to draw your attention to two lines. First, health. In health, we have the best healthcare plan for corporations in Brazil. Bradesco Seguros is a corporate plan that companies use to attract and retain talents. In moments of crisis, they can be replaced. In moments of economic upturn, as we've seen right now, it naturally grows. In addition to having adjusted the operational aspects of suppliers in the health arena, now we have a great outlook when it comes to the economic upturn. Then P&C and other lines also posting significant growth.
We have a good outlook in terms of maintaining our ROE greater than 20%. This year, we are at 26.3, and we're confident that we'll remain as such. Bradesco is a very organized and very well-balanced group. 1/3 of our revenues come from fees, 1/3 from spreads, and 1/3 from services. On the other hand, we can also understand that 1/3 comes from retail, 1/3 from wholesale, and 1/3 for health insurance. The insurance branch is balanced, and that's a strength for us. Operating expenses. Once we reposition our machinery, particularly for individuals, mini companies, SMEs, and adjusted the service area owing to the change in interest rates, this turns out to be our strongest focus. Most importantly, we have to understand what happened this year. First of all, we created two very significant lines. One part of the program for extraordinary performance.
Now we are compensating more than 30,000 managers with variable income. We also began to get into labor agreements that favor us with the use of algorithms. We can see that in several regions, depending on the claim, we can also reach substantial savings with our labor claims. That's what we did. It was not part of our track record, so when analysts make comparisons, they don't find a previous comparison. In the future, this is expected to be crystal clear. As of now, we'll be focusing more and more on the reduction of branches, like Octavio mentioned, shifting satellites into hubs. Now with the point of sale, we reduce approximately 3.5% of our workforce, and we have digitization of branches, processes, which also support us in terms of costs. For investors and analysts in this room, we are focusing on cuts expenses.
This is our priority, cutting down on costs. Converting this into numbers, we have closed 50 branches this year. We have another 100 to shut down by December, totaling 150. For 2020, the number will be higher than 300. Our voluntary severance program with 3,500 employees or 3.5% of our headcount, with savings not only now but also for the coming years. Labor expenses for the moment, we created this new line, this new practice. For the future, it is expected to be maintained at the current levels this year. Lastly, something that we also did this year and we intend to keep on doing in the future, proved to be highly profitable for us, is negotiation with big suppliers. We can assure minimum values, extending terms, and therefore generating substantial savings.
Our results, as you can see, concerning everything we've shown so far from our operations and also net income, more effectively things are growing and are expected to keep on growing. Also sustainable returns at 21% ROE. It's worth mentioning something. The ROE in September was 20.2%. However, if we consider extraordinary dividends that we paid out at BRL 8 billion in October, this would be equivalent to ROE of 21.5% for the fiscal year. It helps as a capital base for next year. We have a strong organic capital generation, 14.7% Tier 1 in September. Now, if you work on the numbers, pro forma, extraordinary dividends paid out BRL 8 billion and reallocation of funds from the insurance group, then we have 14.1%. In addition, we have accumulated income and we also have even other proceeds.
At the end of the day, we are confident that we keep on having robust capital to benefit from business opportunities that we envisage in our economic scenario. Our dividend payout is very robust, around 35%, and it would be close to 80. If you consider by year-end, based on the numbers and the market agreement, because I cannot talk about future numbers, the market consensus is that we would have 70% of our results as dividend payout. Something that we really like to show and to talk about stakeholders, Mr. Trabuco said before, here we have a vision not only for shareholders, but also for employees and also the society at large. Here we can see that if we consider compensation and salaries, we distributed 29%.
If we consider reinvestment of income with what we effectively paid as interest on capital and dividends, we'll be paying out 38% out of the 49.6 billion BRL. Part of it will be at the company, 26.6%, because it's a better capital use, and the remaining share will be as dividend payout. For the society at large via tax, 30% of nearly BRL 50 billion. Just to conclude my talk and to invite some of the speakers to join us upstage so we can start the Q&A session. I would like just to address the outlook for 2020. First of all, like Fernando said in the beginning, we are fully convinced about an economic upturn. We don't believe there will be a rally, we don't believe there will be a sudden boost, because that would be harmful, generating inflation.
We believe in step-by-step growth, healthy growth, and also a kind of growth that help us keep inflation rates under control. We can see the benefit of a strong credit growth cycle. ALL will be under control. The risk environment will be very low in Brazil. There is still significant room to leverage individuals, households, and companies. Our market positioning, we consider to be fierce competition. Through our DNA and our strategic positioning, we can see that we are ready to face it. A reduction in public bank market share from the moment they will not have subsidized funds, and naturally, private banks will have a historical market share. We can see a reduction in the positioning of public banks and constant focus on customer journey in all business.
Like Octavio said, "We are here effectively positioned, having the customer at the core of our actions." Lastly, plenty of opportunities via branches, routes of digitization processes, and opportunities for cost reduction in our ALL. Thank you very much for being with us today. Now I'll invite some of our speakers to join us upstage for the Q&A. I invite Mr. Trabuco, Mr. Lazari to be at the center of the stage.
You'll be with us, right? Please next to André Cano, and I'll be sitting next to Firetti, and we'll all be ready to take your questions. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, everyone. We are starting now the Q&A session. We'll take questions from the web and also via WhatsApp. On the screen, we are going to show you our number.
If you want to ask questions, call us at this number. Send your message, text us. The first question is about the launch of the new investment platform, Ágora. Ágora Investment House. The question is, could you give us more color about how the platform will work into practice? What does it mean with regards to Bradesco's strategy? Also a question from a customer wanting to better understand the migration between Ágora and Bradesco. Thank you for your question. Truly, Ágora today is the news of the day. More effectively, what we wanted to do was to design a single route to the market, an alternative that is not only a brokerage house from big banks, but that are equally valued owing to institutions, legal compliance, reputation, and we didn't want to have an individual independent brokerage house.
We want to have a user experience, but we also need robustness. Sometimes we see also self-agencies, but Ágora is unique. It turns out to be our platform for individuals with the best from both worlds. Ágora is a digital platform that is state-of-the-art. Ágora has an open platform to all products and services, financial services, and Ágora counts on the robustness of Bradesco's serious approach, and it's deeply ingrained in the checking account system of Bradesco. With altogether, we have the best from both worlds. A checking account holder at Bradesco won't have to anticipate funds as it typically happens with an independent brokerage house. There can be a debit in the checking account on the last day when there is the settlement of the investments. Second point about migration, it already happened. It is happening in waves.
As of now, if you're an account holder at Bradesco Corretora, you have a service, Plus. What does that mean, the Plus service? The same functionalities served by the same people, now with more products, more services, and more technological functionalities. That's what we designed. That's a new animal that will be competing with the independent world, the bank world, but a brokerage house that is 100% Bradesco group. There is another question. This one is about Next. I'll pull questions. A couple of other questions about competition in digital banks. Why did Bradesco decide to create Next rather than simply converting the traditional bank operation? Also another question about the benefits of splitting Next from Bradesco. Along the same lines, another question about how we see the competition environment about digital banks and fintechs.
First question, in reality, we did not abandon the traditional bank or known as Next. Quite the opposite. All functionalities, all improvements, all new discoveries, all the journeys and the efficiency that we implement in Next, or that we find out in Next, is embedded in the traditional bank, so to speak. There is a specific Next journey with dedicated exclusive Next teams, and also teams dedicated to the bank, so that the whole incumbent bank journey is as good as or even greater than Next. That's the first point. The traditional bank is as digital as our digital bank in its own right or Next.
In Next, we have an expectation in the first quarter of 2020 to decouple so we can have its own life, and so it can have its own balance sheet, its P&L with proper evaluation of the bank because it runs in a different market or a different competition. I believe the digital banks in the market, all of them have their own competencies and advantages. I simply have to mention Next. Next has to be seen as one of the greatest digital banks in the market. This is not my comparison, but an expert company work on this comparison of several different banks side by side. Next provides more products and services. It is not by chance that NPS was 76. There was an increase in this item. We are only second to Nubank, which is 84, if I am not mistaken.
I think we're very well positioned with a digital bank that is in a vanguard without forgetting everything that we're up to do with the incumbent bank. Maurício, any comments?
Very well. There's another question about Bradesco Expresso. It was highlighted. Bradesco Expresso, we would like just to know more about the importance of this channel for Bradesco's operation and what else can be done with this channel. Bradesco Expresso was born at the time that we had a postal bank. We ended up losing the postal bank, we decided to grow our branch network. Before anyone started talking about open banking, we started doing open banking, perhaps in our own way. It became very successful. We signed partnerships with many supermarkets, little grocery stores, drugstores, bakeries, with a number of clients.
We put our systems on the premises of these partners, so it's linked with Bradesco. These partners, well, you go to the supermarket or to the drugstore, and you can pay your electricity, water bill, you can pay a payment slip, or you can withdraw money, get your government pension, and if you're a client, you can even sign up for a payroll deductible loan. This was done in the POS, in the card terminal. Now we're implementing at Bradesco Expresso an iPad. The offering of products and services to serve our clients will become even better. 40,000 points of service all over Brazil in many locations where the community does not have adequate banking services. The retirees, for example, can be served by Bradesco Expresso. These partners of ours are remunerated with variable pay.
The more checking accounts they open, the more they sell products and services or grant a loan, they are remunerated for their performance. I think that for this country, and hopefully the country will start a growing journey, having this kind of distribution network with 40,000, I quote, unquote, "operators." We could even call them, quote, unquote, "managers" serving the clients, doing deals for the bank and being remunerated for that. We can only say that this is a significant competitive edge for the bank.
There is another question about mortgages. How does Bradesco see the segment in this new landscape of low interest rates? How to make more long-term funding available? More specifically, how does Bradesco see the IPCA-pegged funding for mortgages? Let me remind the ABECIP times to answer this question. When I was president of ABECIP, back in the past, I was fortunate. We were living one of the best real estate credit in Brazil, the best time for real estate credit in Brazil. There were a lot of problems abroad, but we didn't have such a terrible problem here back in 2008.
Mortgages are strategic, not just for the bank, but for the economy of the country, because it creates a lot of jobs. It's all we need. It's no use thinking that we are going to be able to train this mass of 28 million unemployed and get them new skills to find other new jobs in other companies. This is not going to happen. We need to create jobs in civil construction. We have to generate income for these people, and they'll continue working in civil construction. Perhaps the next generations will have different skills, but we have to create jobs for these people that have low skills, and these are the 14 million unemployed plus 14 million, 15 million unemployed in other areas.
Civil construction is a fast response to create jobs because you're strip building, erecting a building, you have to hire one to 300 employees for the construction site. A building to be erected takes three to five years to be erected. Mortgages are a great bet. Firstly, it doesn't show in the statistics. When somebody does not have their own home, most likely they pay rent. Rent is not included in the household debt. The moment that they sign a mortgage, that's when it starts showing. This is great because indebtedness of families is very limited considering mortgages. Delinquency is very low, by the way. It is not by chance that, underscore, all banks have focused on that project. If you get the top three, I'm going to exclude Banco do Brasil and Caixa.
All the other three, Itaú, Bradesco, and Santander, are investing more than BRL 1 billion in mortgages. What is the average number of products per client? 2.8, 3.2 real estate clients, 7.2 clients. Oh, 7.2 products, I mean. They become very loyal because Brazilians, they like to or they have a passionate relationship with their own home. "Having my own home was always my dream." This is a business line that we are going to continue to invest very strongly in. We have strongly adjusted our mortgage product. We were the first bank reducing interest rates to 7.3%, right? 7.3%. Caixa followed, reducing interest rates to around 6%. They're different. This is a serious bet for us. We're very focused on mortgages. We have a couple of questions here regarding costs.
Considering the expectations to reduce the branch network, what is the expectation in terms of costs for next year and the coming years? Can we grow our costs below inflation? How do you see this? Would you like to speak about this? This is a target for us, right?
I can speak about that. Well, this year we had costs increasing a little more than we expected initially, and this was done because of a number of projects that do bring a counterparty in terms of commercial results. We are very much aware that now in 2020, we have to be very disciplined regarding our costs. We will be, in a way, benefited by this program of voluntary severance. Like I said, it reached 3,500 employees.
In kind of the same amount that we had in the prior program in terms of percentage of employees that were eligible and that joined the program of voluntary severance. This should bring savings in terms of personnel for next year. In addition, we are working strongly on other points. We want to reduce the number of branches, this should bring a more rational use of our resources and costs under control. We always have to remember that closing branches does not mean missing or losing business, because we'll close some branches, but we'll take these accounts to other branches, or we can turn a branch into a satellite branch, a mini branch, as Octavio mentioned in his presentation. This will bring about a cost reduction without impacting our revenue and our results.
Also, we are calling on all of the areas of the bank to review their processes to use technology as much as possible. In other words, all departments are seeking to have a cost reduction. Our expectation is not only for next year, but for the coming years, to continue to grow our expenses below inflation, which is something that we managed to have last year with a lot of discipline here at the bank. I think the challenge for the banking industry, not only in Brazil, but everywhere in the world, and in particular Brazil, is reducing relative operating cost. It's not absolute cost. It is about reducing the cost to serve vis-à-vis the business volumes that we can have.
We have to pursue an operating efficiency index, which is based on two variables: reducing costs, which depends on being clever, being resilient, having determination, and increasing revenues, which depends on talent. These two variables will give us the right conditions to have the next fiscal years in very good shape, because as the charts showed that the reduction of the presence of the state on banking will open some space for private banks. With the same cost, which is not the case, but with reduced cost, our businesses can expand. In addition to that, we have a portfolio of products that is profitable as the economy rallies.
We have one question to Trabuco, which is: considering everything that is happening in the world in terms of competition and digital transformation, in the bank's strategic decisions, how do you see and how do you discuss evolution in the next five years in terms of opportunities and potential changes in the way the bank operates?
I think Octavio was very clear in his presentation. He talked about all of the efforts the bank is making to be in the avant-garde and to be in the first peloton of digital transformation. Of course, in this admirable new world, which is not that new, with so many shifts in the paradigms for banking, for transportation, medicine. The whole society is shifting given the progress of digital in people's lives. Of course, banks do face challenges given all that.
Of course, I would not be able to predict what's going to happen in five years. Undoubtedly, actually in the timeline, the banks will continue to exist, but in a totally different way. That transactional bank will happen more remotely, more independent of a physical presence. On the other hand, being close to clients, it doesn't matter whether it is by boat or using our branch network or using Bradesco Expresso or digital channels. Well, that is what matters, to be close to clients. That's why our financial intermediation has to be profitable. We are optimistic about that. We hear a lot of people internationally, financial intermediation will continue to exist. There will always be people offering money and another group of people borrowing money. The question is to have the adequate cost for the new reality.
This is the material question: to have adequate cost when serving our clients in this whole new world.
You mentioned in the presentation CRM 2.0 and BRAM projects. Could you give us more color on these two projects and what is the impact on the bank's operations?
Well, I had an opportunity to talk to some of you before we began, CRM 2.0 and BRAM are two revolutionary projects. They bring credit granting decision and loan offering and loan pricing online real-time for clients. That's your BRAM. CRM 2.0 will have the best offering at the right timing for the right client on the right channel. It's joining these two worlds so that we can serve the client in the best way possible with the best channel, with the right offering, and already giving them an answer.
When it's a negative answer, if there is an alternative answer that will meet the client's need, we would use that channel. It's an omni-channel approach. All of the channels should be fully integrated so that clients can continue their journey coming in through one channel, going out through another. We want to integrate these offerings so we can be more assertive in credit granting to make decision on loans, but it is incredible the amount of information that we have at the bank and that we didn't fully put to use.
CRM 2.0 is exactly this ability to capture data from all departments of the bank. 25% of the Brazilian GDP goes through Bradesco's collection portfolio. This kind of data didn't use to be captured. Credit card purchases of our clients at the different merchants, we can use that data. We put together a team now with 80 data scientists to focus just on that. When we talk about BRAM, well, it will give us ability to make decisions online. We used to gain a client, we would understand the client, give them a loan limit. Now this is happening online through omni-channel. We have a work desk where all of our data scientists, analysts, the product expert, the pricing expert, they're all sitting at that same desk working together and running offerings to our clients.
Once we have an offering being accepted, we try a more bold and daring offering, and we'll compare and see which one is giving us the best results. If that challenging, daring offering is generating more businesses, it will become the primary offering and the new challenging offering will come up so we can test it. It is this kind of wisdom, the ability to join teams with different team members with different skills, competencies, and wisdoms, so that we can get to the client. If they use BDN or if they use the mobile phone more or the ATM, so we have to serve them with the right channel. These clients, if they don't use the bank mobile phone during the day, only at night, that's when we have to send them that offering in the evening.
We have to understand the client, their moment in life, and the way in which they prefer to relate to the bank. That's where we derive advantages of such powerful tools such as CRM 2.0 and BRAM.
Next question. I think it's a question to Leandro. The reformulation of Ágora involves an important platform reformulation. What is the appetite of the bank to have a broad opening of the funds platform with third-party funds to be offered to Bradesco's client base, even in the segment below Prime? In addition, there is a question about BAC, the strategy, if it's possible to expect the bank to offer checking accounts for Prime and Ágora clients abroad.
Like we said before, Ágora intends to be an open platform. That's the new demand from individuals in Brazil. Open platforms have to begin with the best products in the house. BRAM stands out year on year, being awarded in many cases from its funds. All the categories, it highlights in all categories, and it's a flagship. At BRAM, we're also going to have all the funds available in the market at first via curatorship, the funds that we consider to be adequate to our customers. Even those that we wouldn't recommend passively because we are a brokerage house and we need to serve our customers, well, if they need other funds, we have to pursue them. That's a strategy of an open platform, just as we have in Ágora. As for the connection between Ágora and BAC, we have to set two things apart.
BAC is a bank, a commercial bank in Florida, and it's critical to the strategy of high income, be it in private or Prime. You're speaking of high income, so you have to supply to Brazilian customers the possibility of open an account overseas and having a credit card in the U.S. You can even go for Apple stores and iTunes. You have to pay IOF. BAC is the greatest real estate funder in Florida for foreigners. BAC has BFI. BFI is a securities brokerage firm, and we want the U.S. to approve of the transaction, so we want to connect it to Ágora. It's going to have the symbol of Ágora Labs. We're going to think about the name. The idea is to give Brazilian customers the possibility of buying each and every product in the U.S. Real estate offer, fund, bonds, equities.
We wish we could pass them on to our customers, and that's a point of uniqueness vis-à-vis the brokerage houses in Brazil today.
Just adding to the comment and precisely answering your question. Once we have the suitability of the customer, if it has the right profile and he wants to have the product, it's up to him. If he is cognizant of the product he's buying, Ágora is going to distribute the Ágora. It's the purpose. We're going to meet the needs of our customers through open platform. As for BAC, the idea is that customers, whoever they are, open an account in the U.S. if they want to do it and have access via mobile, checking the statement, the transactions, respecting naturally all the rules of sending funds abroad.
Just as he checks Bradesco's account in Brazil, he should be able to do the same in BAC, an American company in Florida, U.S.
Good afternoon. Good afternoon, everyone. Just want to add something to what Leandro and the CEO said, specifically about customers. We are a very happy date with the launch of Ágora that really takes the individual part of Bradesco Corretora, and Bradesco Corretora follows its specific DNA in global markets and institutions. That's a brokerage house to the market with clear missions to pursue and go for a big number of customers in the market, and mostly Bradesco customers. Bradesco customers through mobility, accessibility, and customer mobility, in fact, knowledge, profile, and having access to all open platform for products in order to be served. Like Octavio said, pretty much based on suitability.
A customer that can buy any third-party product or the products offered in Ágora platform, once suitable, he can definitely go for it. That's the DNA for Ágora, an investment house with an outreach for all targets and investors. Bradesco customers that are account holders at the bank or not, in addition to investors from other audiences as well and from the competition so we can have a larger market share. Just wanted to add this comment. Thank you.
We have another question about the strategy of Bradesco vis-à-vis digital payments using the QR code. Payments with QR code. The Central Bank has been discussing the instant payment system. QR code applies very well. We don't know exactly what the Central Bank is going to decide. They say it will be their own platform. They're going to be with a clearing.
We need to set up the whole structure at the central bank. The technological aspects, 24/7 payments without having any additional cost to customers. It all involves a time frame. I don't know if the central bank can deliver that to 2020. Bradesco will be ready to launch the payments with QR code, be it with a central bank or our in-house platform. Bradesco is working on it. There is another question. How will Bradesco assess the performance or customer satisfaction, actually? What about specific actions to improve the level of satisfaction? We have very stringent follow-up of our customer satisfaction rates. We conduct surveys every year in all customer segments, many times over the year, and we watch very closely our NPS in each one of the several segments. Sometimes offenders, for instance, when NPS can be improved, points of improvement.
We discuss this very broadly. We even have an executive committee dedicated to that, the quality committee and service committee. That's a critical topic to us, and we're constantly keeping an eye on it. Satisfaction boils down to quality, and that's a never-ending thing, a constant point of improvement moment by moment. The final aspiration of a satisfaction process is satisfaction guaranteed or having your money back. A question on dividends. In terms of proceeds policy, Bradesco pointed significant signs for extraordinary dividends. What should we expect to see down the road? How does the bank consider to be the ideal level of capital for the operation? We have adequate, good level of capital, and these are discussions that take place in a timely manner. We have a question about the use of data.
What are the tangible benefits behind the intensive use and availability of data in Bradesco? How does it happen with credit origination and maintenance of good quality of credit? We created the data management department two years ago, and ever since then, we hit a lot of targets. They include the use of our collection base. We have the greatest collection base in the market with over 30% share. It's very rich. We have information on customers who are paying, receiving, where the money is going, a number of information, and we can download, work on the database and use a modeling put into production. Just to mention a single benefit, our average income in the Ágora income, which is inferred at Bradesco and reactive in all segments from Class A to E. That's very critical in the credit decision-making process.
It increased average income by 41% compared to the master file. It brought progress to credit. Credit assignment is more assertive, effective. Once again, approving more, approving better, and also denying credit better. That's an example. I mentioned the credit process, we also had several benefits from statistics to understand the public, the audience with a legal claim, for instance, human resources, investments. This area was involved throughout the organization, putting a modeling throughout the bank in areas where information was not used. They didn't use statistics. Now as if we had a ladder, different areas in different steps of maturity. The purpose of the area was to make one driver push everything upwards. Some people could migrate the steps into other steps, and that's precisely what's happening at the bank right now.
Some areas didn't use and are using now, others have a more sophisticated use, and now we're moving the ladder upwards, and also with different areas. There are two questions on insurance. I'll pull the questions. The first question, well, should we give more color about competition and insurance, particularly for insurtechs? The other question, Bradesco has a full portfolio of insurance in several lines. Why do you consider this to be the best strategy?
Good afternoon. Answering the question about insurtechs. The insurance scenario shows some companies really getting into the insurance chain. Insurance involves several links like acceptance, loss ratio regulation. There are many different innovations in these links. These innovations tend to be very beneficial. They bring opportunities to have more efficient and fluid processes. One of them is disruption. The concept of insurance at insurtech is something that we haven't seen yet.
We're keeping an eye on everything that is happening in terms of distribution, innovation, products. Well, the thing is that to date, we've been seeing insurtech innovation as a very favorable scenario. The majority of these companies, they are great levers and drivers of our processes when it comes to efficiency and quality and relations to our customers. The second question about the reason why we have this vision. First of all, we are in the insurance business in the long run. We are not here just placing our bets in the short run. We know how resiliency in the market is associated to grabbing opportunities in different lines of business. We firmly believe that the future is more multi-line rather than a monolithic future.
If we believe that customers will actually come to the center of our attentions and brokers' attentions in all channels, the broker and ourselves will have to grow more and more in terms of risk consultants. The customer doesn't buy an auto insurance, but during a certain time in life, he might need a life insurance or pension insurance, or be in need of asset insurance. We have to understand customers, and we believe that having a full multi-line offer is critical. Secondly, because we are in this context of the organization, we want actually to serve all our segments of customers. Thirdly, because we have a full-fledged bank, the corporate bank companies, and that's necessary. They need to buy. It's great that we have all these products to sell. Fourthly, in all our lines, they're all given returns higher than the capital invested.
The return on equity is even greater than the banks. We're confident these are winning strategies. Octavio?
Vinicius, well, this question is always asked, and if we consider the importance of insurance in Bradesco, it always involves a timeline. Bradesco has been against the grain. They tend to say that banks didn't need an insurance area. We've been claiming for decades that insurance is a good business, and that's why we have an insurance company. However, there is an actuarial technical reason. For life insurance, well, we have the risk of death. When I work on pension funds, we have the risk of survival. These are opposite, opposing risks. From the actuarial viewpoint, they bring a balance. Just as customers are healthy, they can have the dental health. By the way, health starts from the mouth.
If I don't treat people's teeth well, they can have other diseases, like a poorly treated cavity can be transformed into a heart disease because of the infection. I'll spare you from my poor advertising manners. This wholeness of the insurance world, I think Bradesco was against the grain when it comes to specialized insurance companies and multi-line insurance companies. The bank runs financial risks. Insuring risks also have the actuarial risk, and actuarials like big numbers. That's the vision, so to speak, in our strategy for insurance. Our time is up. We would like to thank you very much for joining us today. Thank you for your questions. Questions that were not answered, our question by Firetti is going to provide you with answers. We tend to ask all the questions.
In order to close the meeting, I'd like to give the floor to Vinícius so he can deliver the take-home message.
Thank you. Vinícius. I would like to thank Bradesco and the early remarks from Trabuco vis-à-vis ABAMEC and APIMEC. A lot was spoken about the bank's DNA, Ricardo Tadeu, APIMEC president, said that Bradesco's DNA is mixed with APIMEC, ABAMEC's DNA. Well, we'll be turning 50 next year. Our association was incepted in Rio. Bradesco was born in Marília. Next year, we'll turn 50. We're so happy to renew this partnership with another joint meeting, Bradesco Day APIMEC, a public meeting that gives us the chance to exchange ideas and better know the bank. Congratulations on the opportunities. Right now, I'd like to invite Ricardo Tadeu to give the platinum 20 year of ongoing meetings with the diligence CEO and APIMEC through the public meetings. Ricardo, over to you.
Well, hello again. I would like to thank you for joining us today. We hope we were able to clarify some questions you had. I think that in the past, we've had crisis. We always say that Bradesco was not just a survivor. We were winners in this process of stabilization that we had in the last 20 years. Now to face the new models and the new challenges that are arising, particularly regarding the digital world, we are sure that we are moving in the right direction. We are not moving as a cruise. We are moving as a destroyer, fast, with agility, so that we can implement all of the necessary improvements for our bank. We're very confident regarding our results. Our VPs, I think give you a clear idea of to what extent the bank is well-aligned.
All of the executives are very much on the same page regarding what we need to do. We have no doubt about our success. We just don't know how successful we'll be, but we know we are going to be successful. Thank you very much for joining us today, and we remain available. Our VPs are here, Firetti and Leandro, and everyone is available to you. If you have questions, if you need further clarification, you can call me as well. It is a great pleasure always to speak with you. Thank you very much, and I hope we have a great year ahead of us.