Good morning and welcome to the third quarter of 2025 results conference call of Banco BTG Pactual. With us here today we have Roberto Sallouti, Renato Cohn, and Julia Rosa. We would like to inform you that this event is being recorded and all participants will be in a listen-only mode during the bank's presentation. After Banco BTG Pactual's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session for investors and analysts when further instructions will be given. Today we have a simultaneous webcast that may be accessed through the website www.btgpactual.com/ir and the platform. There will be a replay facility for this call from today. Before proceeding, let me mention that this call may contain forward-looking statements relating to the prospects of the business estimate for operating and financial results and those related to the growth prospects of Banco BTG Pactual.
These are merely projections and, as such, are based exclusively on the expectations of Banco BTG Pactual's management concerning the future of the business. Such forward-looking statements depend substantially on changes in market conditions, government regulations, competitive pressures, the performance of the Brazilian economy and the industry, among other factors and risks disclosed in Banco BTG Pactual's final disclosure documents and are, therefore, subject to change without prior notice. Now, I'll turn the floor to Mr. Roberto Sallouti, who will begin the presentation. Mr. Sallouti, please go ahead.
Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for the third quarter earnings call. If you could, please turn the presentation to page three. We will start there with the highlights of the quarter. As you all probably saw, we finished the quarter with a 28.1% return on equity, exceeding last quarter's performance, and I think it shows the strength and execution of the franchise. What really this return on equity shows is that we're continuing to move along the J curve of various initiatives that we have done over the last decade as we continue to benefit from operational leverage, and we're always focused on great client service. At the end of the day, this is the result. This is what gives the result that we have this quarter.
Not only that, but we continue to develop new lines and new geographies so that we continue to have these new initiatives along the next decade so that we continue to have strong growth. Some examples are the acquiring business, which we just announced, the cash management business that we are developing, the bank licenses in Europe and the U.S. These are all investments that right now will not be generating huge value, but over the next years, we expect them to move along the J curve the same way we are seeing of the investments we did in the last few years. Going to the next bullet point, our investment banking results were also very strong. We had record DCM revenues on a very solid quarter and M&A from a great franchise that we have built.
Corporate lending and business banking reached new record revenues as we continue to expand the portfolio while focusing on good risk-adjusted spreads, focusing on quality and continuing to diversify. Here, we're greatly benefiting from growing market share in new geographies and new market segments in Brazil. In sales and trading, we had, again, a record quarter. We benefited from increased client activity, which benefited the whole market, but also from the maturation of new business initiatives that we had in this unit and the efficient VAR allocation in the quarter. Wealth management and personal banking continued to show very strong growth. Once again, record revenues, net new money of BRL 49 billion, of which BRL 18 billion came from the consolidation of JGP.
Finally, asset management, we also had record revenues with strong net new flows, net new money flows in the quarter, BRL 34 billion, reaching BRL 1.2 trillion in assets under management. If you turn to the next page, we have some highlights of the key numbers, key figures for the quarter. Revenues reached BRL 8.8 billion, growing 37% year- over- year. Net income reached BRL 4.5 billion, with a growth of 42% year- over- year. Here, the difference in growth clearly demonstrates the operational leverage we have on the platform. We had a return on equity of 28.1% in the quarter. Turning to page five, we had between wealth and asset management, BRL 83 billion of net new money. Our assets in wealth management grew 32% year- over- year, reaching BRL 1.1 trillion, and our assets in asset management grew 19% year- over- year, reaching BRL 1.2 trillion.
Finally, on page six, our unsecured funding grew 20% year- over- year, reaching BRL 308 billion, and our corporate and SME portfolio grew 17% year- over- year, reaching BRL 247 billion. Finally, we continue to have robust capital ratios of 15.5% Basel ratio and net equity of BRL 66 billion. Turning to page seven, we show the financials as we do every quarter. Once again, total revenues of BRL 8.8 billion, net income of BRL 4.5 billion, net income per unit of BRL 1.19. The cost income ratio that continues to gain efficiency. We had an adjusted cost income ratio for the quarter of 34.1%. We continue to have a not very leveraged balance sheet. We finished with BRL 685 billion of total assets for a shareholders' equity of BRL 66 billion. We increased VAR a bit to a more normalized level, even though still below historical levels.
As we have told you in the previous quarters, VAR was excessively low, and our objective was to be in a situation where we could allocate more VAR. This occurred this quarter, so we finished with 30 bps VAR in the quarter. If you turn to page eight, we talk about the performance for the first nine months of the year. Net income for the first nine months of this year compared to the nine months of last year grew 34%, reaching revenues BRL 24 billion and adjusted net income of BRL 12.1 billion. For these nine months, we have a return on equity of 26.4% and a cost income ratio of 35.4%. Once again, shareholder's equity growing 16% year- over- year for the end of the third quarter.
Turning to page nine, this chart shows basically what we have been telling you or commenting with you guys over the last few years. Very strong growth from the corporate lending and investment management franchises. So 33% growth in corporate lending and business banking, 24% in asset management, 26% in wealth management. Finally, back to growth in sales and trading as the new initiatives are producing results. Here, we continue to expect this trend of faster growth in the investment management business and the corporate lending and business banking business than in sales and trading. Investment banking, it will be much more a consequence of the market given the very robust market share we have in this market. It is very hard to say exactly what will happen in investment banking. We have what can be a very volatile and uncertain year next year.
I think it will develop. It will depend on the developments of the year what will happen to investment banking. With that, I'll pass to Renato Cohn, who will talk about each of our business units.
Thank you, Roberto, and good morning, everyone. If we turn to page 11, we start with our investment banking, where we once again had a strong performance, this time driven by strong DCM activity. Total revenues came at BRL 643 million. That's a 17.8% decrease from the very strong second quarter numbers, but still a very robust number, especially when we compare to many previous quarters, again reaffirming the strength of our investment banking franchise. Unlike the second quarter, when M&A was the main driver of revenues, this quarter DCM delivered record results and was the main contributor to revenues with 52 transactions being executed during the quarter. M&A also posted solid contribution as we continue to keep our leading position in industry rankings.
In ECM, during the third quarter, we ranked number one in number and in volume of transactions in Brazil and second in number of transactions in LATAM . If we move to page 12, we see our corporate lending and business banking line, where we had record revenues driven by continued portfolio expansion, high-quality risk-adjusted returns, and an ongoing business diversification. Revenues came at BRL 2.154 million. That is an increase of 2.2% during the quarter and a 25.8% increase when we compare to the third quarter of 2024. Total credit portfolio grew 3.8% during the quarter and 17.4% when we compare to the third quarter last year, while our SME portfolio grew 1% during the quarter and 13% when we compare to last year.
Spreads remained stable, and despite the challenging macroeconomic scenario, our portfolio continues to show its resilience based on superior asset quality, also supported by our diversified origination in terms of sectors, in terms of segments, and also in terms of geographies. In October, as Roberto mentioned, we launched our BTG Pay. That is an integrated payments platform marking our entry into the acquiring business, where we will offer end-to-end payment solutions through proprietary devices and also sales management tools. Looking now at our sales and trading business on page 13, we also see that we had a record quarter supported by increased client activity, continued growth of our new business initiatives, and an efficient VAR allocation. Revenues came at BRL 1.941 million. That is a 1.5% increase when we compare to the already strong numbers from the previous quarter. They were driven mostly by robust market activity.
As Roberto mentioned, as we continue to grow our client base, this expanded client base benefits from the launch of new products, new services, and our new business initiatives. Our average VAR rose to 30 bps , still remaining at comfortable levels, well within our risk appetite and still below historical levels. The market risk component of our risk-weighted assets remained stable at 26%. If we go now to our asset management on page 14, we also had record revenues supported by another quarter of strong net inflows with assets under management and administration reaching BRL 1.2 trillion. Revenues came at BRL 747 million. That is an increase of 20% when we compare to the previous quarter and a 23% increase when we compare to the third quarter of 2024. Revenues from management and administration service fees continue to grow alongside the expansion of our assets under management and administration.
During this quarter, we also recorded a positive contribution from dividends received from the minority stakes in independent asset managers that we invest in. Net inflows came in strong at BRL 33.5 billion, with most of the flows being directed to fixed income funds and also to our asset services business. As we mentioned, assets under management and administration reached BRL 1.2 trillion. That is a 5.7% growth during the quarter and a 19% growth when we compare to last year. Looking at page 15, our wealth management and personal banking business, we saw outstanding performance also with record revenues and strong net inflows. Revenues came at BRL 1.366 billion, which represents a growth of 10.2% when compared to last quarter and a 36% growth when we compare to the third quarter of 2024.
Revenues grew as a consequence of wealth under management expansion, a larger number of business days during the quarter, sustained levels of return on assets, and the consolidation of JGP Wealth at the beginning of the quarter. We closed the deal at the beginning of the quarter, so revenues impacted the full quarter. The consolidation of JGP Wealth added BRL 18 billion in net new money and in wealth under management. Overall, net new money for the quarter came at BRL 49.2 billion. When we exclude the BRL 18 billion of net new money that came from JGP Wealth consolidation, we still see a strong and consistent BRL 31.2 billion of purely organic net new money during this quarter. Overall, if you get the full year numbers during the year, we managed to bring BRL 168 billion of net new money. Wealth under management reached BRL 1.136 trillion.
That's a 7.6% increase when we compare to the previous quarter and a 32% expansion when we compare to the third quarter of last year. During this quarter, we have been recognized as a Wealth Management Bank of the Year for 2025 by Latin Finance and Best Bank in Brazil, in Latin America, and in emerging markets overall by Global Finance. If we turn now to our participations page on page 16, we see that we recorded profits of BRL 325 million with contributions coming from TuSeguros with BRL 77 million there, BRL 151 million in profits from equity pickup from Banco PAN, and BRL 97 million from accruals of portfolios that we acquired from Banco PAN during previous quarters. In the same case as last quarter, we didn't acquire any additional portfolio from Banco PAN, so there's no elimination effect.
Going now to our expenses and main ratios, we see a continuing improvement in efficiency as we leverage our scalable platform while we maintain our disciplined cost management approach. Total expenses increased 3.2% during the quarter. They were mostly impacted by goodwill from the recent acquisitions such as JGP Wealth and Justa. Bonus and administrative expenses remained flat during the quarter, while salaries increased 3%, mostly related also to the consolidation of JGP Wealth and Justa and a little bit of hiring. Our effective tax rate remained stable at 20.4%. Overall, our adjusted cost income ratio decreased to its lowest historical level at 34.1% as we continue to benefit from operating leverage derived from our scalable platform. If we go now to page 20, we look at our balance sheet. As Roberto mentioned, total assets reached BRL 685 billion, and that represents 8.8 x our equity.
Liquidity increased during the quarter, and we now have BRL 88 billion in cash and cash equivalents. Our coverage ratio remains at 169%. That is a comfortable level sustained by the strong expansion of our unsecured funding base. Our corporate and SME lending portfolio now represents 3.8 x our equity. Moving to our unsecured funding base, on page 21, we see that our total unsecured funding base reached BRL 308 billion during the quarter, a strong growth of more than BRL 28 billion, or a 10% growth when we compare to the previous quarter, and a 20% expansion when we compare to the third quarter of 2024, with most of the growth coming from time deposits and also the issuance of securities in Brazilian domestic markets. Demand deposits grew by 7.3% in the quarter as both our retail funding and our cash management initiatives continue to support our funding diversification.
Demand deposits now represent 6.8% of our funding, while our retail funding now represents 28% of our total fund. On page 22, we look at our Basel ratios. Here we see that our total Basel ratio ended the quarter at 15.5% after distribution of BRL 2.3 billion in interest on equity, or the JCP. Our tier 1 capital closed the quarter at 12.4%. Finally, as Roberto already mentioned, our VAR closed the quarter at 30 basis points. That is an increase from the previous quarter, but still well within our risk appetite and below our historical levels. I think with that, we can open for questions.
Thank you. The floor is now open for questions from investors and analysts. If you have a question, please click on raise hand at this time.
If at any point your question is answered, you can remove yourself from the queue by clicking lower hand. Questions will be taken in order that they are received. Please hold while we pull for questions. The first question is from Renato Meloni as an autonomous researcher. Just one second.
Hi everyone. Can you guys hear me?
Yes, go ahead.
All right, thanks here for the opportunity and congrats on the results again. You have just been to this period of fast expansion in profitability, right? You have been mentioning about how businesses that you have been investing for some time are maturing, and you still have other businesses there further to mature down the line. I am wondering here if you expect to go through a period of accommodation in profitability now, so more stable quarters going forward.
In the longer term, still want to see what is your perspective on what is a sustainable level of ROE. Thank you.
Thank you, Renato. First, I just want to make sure I made myself clear. I think of the various initiatives, I still think we are in the early stages of the J curve. We still expect to see a lot of growth and consolidation to come from these various initiatives as they continue to mature. This is not only in Brazil, but across Latin America. I also mentioned with our wealth management initiatives in the U.S. and Europe. On your question, if we can continue to see ROE expansion from these levels.
In the medium term, right? O r if we are just going to see some accommodation in the upcoming quarters.
We will continue to accumulate capital, so we do not expect to increase the payout. You start having the rules of big numbers. I would say it is fair to say that yes, it is hard to be facing expansion in ROE from these levels. We are not ready to give any guidance different than what we gave in the recent past. 2026 will be a volatile scenario. We do not know exactly what will happen. We do not want to give any guidance right now. Yes, we do expect continued growth. We expect continued increase in equity. As given the law, just a mathematical rule of big numbers of what we are seeing, using your words, some accommodation should be expected.
Clear and just in the long term, do you have an ROE that you feel comfortable to say that is the sustainable level?
No, we're not ready to give any guidance different than what we gave. If you remember, the last guidance we gave was that we expected this year to be above 2024. Mathematically, now I would say it should not be below 2025, but we're not ready to give any guidance for the future.
Perfect. Thank you very much. And congrats again on the numbers.
Thank you. The next question comes from Daniel Vas with Safra. Please go ahead.
Hi everyone. Congrats again on the strong results. Very, very impressive. I wanted to touch base on the net new money that you have been printing, roughly around BRL 30 billion-BRL35 billion on your wealth business like organic. Just to understand, how do you see your marginal allocation going, right? So we see a little bit stronger equities environments in terms of performance this year, especially Brazil equities.
I know this has a global component of a weak dollar, and some Latin peers are also performing. I wanted to understand where your marginal allocation is going, mainly to understand your retail and wealth business. If we have a better trend already to equities, if you see a little bit more appetite from investors going to this product, or maybe the risk on your scenes not relative to equities, maybe offshore, maybe something related to crypto. If you wanted, given that you're systemically relevant to the net new money's inflows to the system, wanted to touch base if you see a different appetite for Brazil equities recently. Thank you.
On the wealth management side, I would say that we have not seen any significant shifts. This is reflected in the very strong DCM activity.
Still, given the very strong levels, very high levels of interest rates, the wealth management flows have been mainly to fixed income. Marginally, yes, you start seeing some allocation to equities, but we do not think that is what is driving the stock market. I think the stock market is driven mainly by institutional investors and international institutional investors. We have not seen anything yet, but we do think it is a matter of time. Yes, that will eventually come depending on the scenario that develops for next year.
All right. Maybe if I can follow up on your asset management side, I know funds have been very liquid in terms of allocation for this credit product. Like this tax-exempt mainly has been the willingness to invest from the retail investors. Can you share with us your views on the current credit spreads scenario?
I mean, we see some levels of 80 bps negative spread at some offerings and some issuances. This seems to us not so organic, or maybe in the future you could not see these spreads maintaining such low levels. Can you share with us your perspective also on the spreads and how could we see this indicator in 2026, especially considering some events that have been stressing these spreads recently? Thank you.
Yes, Daniel, we tend to agree with you. We think capital markets, and especially the tax-exempt products, are tightening spreads in the high grade to very tight levels, such that in the large corporate segment of our corporate lending portfolio, we have not been growing exposure because we do think that the capital markets are accepting spreads which are tighter than what we think will happen in the long term.
We do think there's a negative correlation to interest rates. If interest rates decrease, we expect to see spreads increasing even without any deterioration in the credit environment. As you mentioned, a prolonged period of interest rates at these levels does present challenges for more leveraged companies. We have started to see some companies, how do I say, reporting these difficulties. We do not expect anything dramatic, but yes, we are cautious, especially on our corporate lending book that does not have any of the tax-exempt or the money market features which capital markets have on these levels of spreads. We do think that yes, if interest rates decrease, you might be able to see wider spreads, and this would be potentialized if you start seeing further credit deterioration.
Thank you, Sallouti. Congrats again.
The next question comes from Yuri Rosa Fernandez with JP Morgan.
Please go ahead.
Thank you all. Thank you, Sallouti. Again, congrats on another very strong quarter. I would like to understand a little bit the interest and other line, just to understand the sustainability of this strong quarter, right? On interest and others, what we saw was a very strong quarter print, right? It is up 22% quarter over quarter this line. When we go to the SELIC, the average SELIC is only up 3% quarter- over- quarter, right, from 14.6% to 15%. When we go to your tangible book, when you add the evidence, the goodwill from M&A, like the moving parts on Banco PAN, there was not a major increase on the tangible book neither to justify the 22% increase on interest and others.
Can you explain to us what happened here, why the implied yield on this line versus your book moved up? Is this the new level? Is this sustainable? That is my first question. If I may, just on capital, great quarter, great ROE, but when we go to your quarter Q1, it was down 50 bps . I think dividends, they explain most of it, but also we note a higher marked RWA, right? I know on a proportion it is the same, the 26% that Cohn mentioned in the presentation, but marked RWA, they are up 14%, mostly on inflation. If you can also explain on capital, how you see it, are you comfortable with 11.5%? Is this temporary? Given you are generating so much capital, you do not need to do anything here.
If you can comment a little bit on capital, also we would appreciate it. Thank you very much.
Hi, Yuri. Thank you for the questions. I think on interest and other, obviously, I think that there are a few effects there, but the main effect is, as you pointed, the CDI, but you are taking the nominal or the unrealized rates during the quarter. If you look at the number of business days in each of quarters, it is very different, right? Sixty-six business days for third quarter with sixty-one, if I am not mistaken, business days for the second quarter. You have an effective CDI rate, which is way higher than the previous quarter. If I am not mistaken, it is about 12% difference there. Then you put on top of that the growth of our equity, right?
You have the main part of the difference. This would be around 19% or something like that, which, and then you have obviously the margin of the others that have some contributions that could be either positive or negative, but this is a minor effect. The main effect is the effective CDI rate for the periods related to high rates and the number of business days and the higher equity or capital base that faces the interest and other line. When we look at our capital and our risk-weighted assets, yes, risk-weighted assets increased during the quarter and market risk-weighted assets increased during the quarter, although as a percentage of total risk-weighted assets, they remained quite stable, right? If you look at our, which is in line with the growth in VAR, right?
You see that VAR grew from 22 basis points to 30 basis points, although sometimes you have some discrepancies between VAR and risk-weighted assets depending on the type of asset risk that you are incurring. At the end of the day, looking at the bigger picture, you will see that our capital ratio has been quite stable throughout many years, which means that the amount of capital that we retain with our dividend policy is sufficient to support and sustain the level of growth that we are showing. We are very comfortable with the levels of capital that we have and that they will, together with the profitability that we are showing, the amount of capital that we retain will be sufficient for us to keep our capital ratios stable in the future.
Super clear, Cohn.
Basically, calendar working days and the CDI, you're right, like should be on the quarterly, not the yearly. Thank you for the clarifications on that and congrats again on this quarter. Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Mario Pieri with Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Hey, guys. Good morning. Congratulations on the quarter. Very strong results. Let me ask two questions as well. On sales and trading, you talked about new initiatives. Can you elaborate a little bit more on these new initiatives? Because again, sales and trading is running at about BRL 1.9 billion per quarter. I think last year was running at about BRL 1.3 billion-1.4 billion. How much of this is a structural change in the level of sales and trading, or how much of this was just like opportunistic trading during the quarter?
Then my second question is related to you talked about introducing BTG Pay. Can you just give us a little bit more perspective on exactly what is the strategy here, which segments are you targeting, what size of clients? Thank you.
Thank you, Mario. On sales and trading, you have basically three facts which explain the growth. One is the growth and maturation of new client initiatives. I'll just use two here to make it easier. Share trading, which came into our platform and is benefiting from the network effects, the development of our commodities sales and trading franchises. We started in grains and oil seeds. We are expanding to sugar. We are now expanding to cotton. We continue to increase the product offering to our client base. As you know, Brazil is a very important agricultural powerhouse globally.
You then have the increase in client base, and this is the increase that we're seeing in our high net worth clients, the fact that we're now covering multinationals, the fact that we're now covering SMEs, middle, corporate, all these flows together. Also, we had better client activity in the quarter, so you have a bigger client base and higher activity. Also, we had the increase in VAR, but not only the increase in VAR, but the effective allocation of this VAR. For you just to have higher VAR, it does not mean anything. I would say it is fair to say that this is roughly spread evenly among these three initiatives, but it is very hard to give you a very specific scientific answer. On your second question on BTG Pay, we think acquiring is a very important product to complete our product offering for all our segments.
We have started an SME. We are going into middle market. We expect probably sometime in the second quarter of next year to launch our cash management for corporate and large corporate. We expect the acquiring product to be in all of these platforms end to end. It is not a specific business, but it is a product that will compose our product offering to the corporate sector across all the different segments.
Okay, clear. Sallouti, just let me follow up then on, we are already in mid-November, so well into the fourth quarter. Has your VAR changed at all from the third quarter levels?
More or less stable.
Stable. Okay. Perfect. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Gustavo Schroden with Citi. Please go ahead.
Hello. Hello. Good morning, everybody. And congrats on the results. My question is regarding the credit book and the strategy.
I remember that in the past, the leverage here, the credit to equity was about 2%. This quarter, you reached the 3.7%. Clearly, the bank is gaining leverage. My question is, still, when we compare with incumbent banks, for example, the credit to equity ratios of BTG's is still below the average of incumbent banks. What is the level that you should think that BTG could reach in terms of credit to equity? Just to follow up about the BTG Pay, about the distribution channel, my question is, 100% of the product offering will be through the digital channels, or are you planning to have some hubs throughout the country? Thank you.
Thank you, Gustavo.
When we talk about leverage, and we always use this metric as a good indication, our credit book compared to our equity, I think that it has been more than three for, I think, more than three years. I need to check the number, but it is quite a long time. We have been slightly leveraging the bank as conditions allow us in a way to expand our portfolio with the types of credit quality that we feel comfortable with. If we can leverage a little bit more, we will. Obviously, we compare our numbers with other participants in the market, and we see that we are with very low leverage, way below most of market participants. As we expanded our funding base and we access a much higher retail base and the retail share of our funding became much more important, we became obviously more competitive.
The funding is more stable. It is cheaper. It allowed us to go into that process of expanding a little bit. Again, we are still way below most of our peers, and there is room for us to continue in this process. Regarding the second one related to the products and the relationship with our clients, most of those relations are done through digital channels, but we do have some regional offices that represent parts of our business, be it on the wealth management side, be it on the corporate lending side. We have a few regional offices spread all over the country where we will see support from origination or relationships with different clients from different segments within the business.
Okay. Thank you, Roberto.
The next question comes from Thiago Batista with UBS. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Congrats for the very strong numbers. I have two questions.
The first one regarding the acquisition, the poor acquisition of Banco PAN. Is there any relevant change in BTG strategy for the retail segment after this integration? The second one about BTG loan portfolio. How are you guys seeing the asset quality evolution?
Hi, Thiago. Yes, with the integration of Banco Pan, we think we will probably in the beginning of 2027 be able to converge to one single core banking platform, which will be BTG Pactual's. This will greatly improve client experience, will improve operational leverage, and will reduce operational risk. With that, we think that we can continue to grow in this segment, and it is one further line of diversification for us to grow, especially in the credit segments. Yes, we see many benefits from this consolidation, and we still are early days, but we will probably start to see these 2027 onwards.
We'll probably not see any huge impact in 2026. On your second question, if you could please just repeat it. It was not very clear to me.
No, only how do you guys are seeing the asset quality evolution of BTG Pactual credit portfolio?
Oh, we're very confident of, as was mentioned previously in one of the questions, we are already factoring into our credit underwriting a more not such a benign macro situation. We have been doing that for the last 12 months, so that has benefited us. And if you look at all of the situations that recently happened, we have no significant exposure to any of those. We are very confident with the asset quality of our credit book.
Very clear, Sallouti. And again, thanks for the opportunity and congrats for the very good results.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Pedro Le Duc with Itaú BBA. Please go ahead.
Thanks, guys. Good morning. Congrats on the great numbers so far this year included. Two questions. First one on the corporate and SME book. Of course, the consolidated numbers keep growing on the portfolio. When we look at the SME piece, at least the managerial one, it is roughly flat for three quarters now, around BRL 28 billion-BRL 29 billion. Even though you have been rolling out more initiatives for SMEs, from banking to other products, this line is kind of flat. If you could give us some light here if it is preparation for something else or that you are really seeing no major opportunities or if it is purely mechanical, some effect.
The second question on funding, a great quarter here on the unsecured side, nearly BRL 20 billion QoQ on time deposits, growing much faster than loan book or anything else. I was wondering if there was any unusual effect on the funding side, maybe some consolidation that you did. If not, then if you're seeing opportunities to leverage this funding going forward a little bit more. Thank you.
Hi Duc. On your first question, on the SME side, the lack of growth is basically because we're being very disciplined. As you know, we are focused on the low-risk credit products, basically supply chain financing and discount of credit card receivables.
Competition has been fierce in those sectors, leading to spreads that sometimes we think are below what would be ideal for the spread per unit of risk that you will be running on the balance sheet. We have decided not to grow there. Yes, we have been growing. We have been launching products mainly on the banking side. At some point, this will give us enough information for us to be confident with the credit modeling for us to expand the credit lines into higher risk and for, say, risk with more clean credit risk. We're not there yet. We're in no hurry. We think discipline is the most important thing here. This more or less relates to your second question. The growth in the funding, we're benefiting from the growth in the franchise, from the marketing campaigns, from the capillarity that we've been gaining.
Yes, of course, we see the opportunity. We have the desire to put this funding to work, especially because we're getting a lot of term funding at very competitive prices. We will not exchange that for the discipline that I mentioned before. We will only grow if we think we are being rewarded in the spread per unit of risk on the balance sheet. If that means that we have to either reduce what we're paying for funding, give up some of the funding, and not grow, that will be the case, no problem. It will be discipline above anything else on our side.
Great answer. Thank you so much.
The next question comes from Marcelo Mizrahi with Bradesco BBI. Please go ahead.
Hello, Roberto. Congratulations for the strong results. And thanks for the question.
Regarding the sales and trading line, I want to come back to this line. Even looking to the RWA, the RWA was market RWA was higher than last quarter. The exposure, this RWA was around 220% of the core equity tier 1. The average level of this leverage was around 200%. Looking forward, it makes me more optimistic about the sales and trading line. The question is regarding the sales and trading line. In the last quarters, you guys were always saying that a more normalized level was something around BRL 1.5 billion-BRL 1.6 billion. Could you guys give us some color? What's the level that could be more recurrent looking forward comparing to the size of the bank, the size of the balance sheet, and these good perspectives? Thank you.
Thank you, Marcelo.
Actually, RWAs have its idiosyncrasies of the regulation of the Brazilian central bank. We believe that the VAR is a better indicator for you to use, for you to look at efficiency or, how do they say, balance sheet deployment, risk deployment in that line. We believe that is better than RWA. We also, on the guidance, we continue to think that the average of the last four quarters is a great indicator to show you the trend of sales and trading. Because you have always a bit of volatility, nothing significant. That is why we think a normalized four-quarter average is a very good trend line for sales and trading.
We can say that this level, the average of the last quarters, is something around BRL 1.7 billion. We can say that that is a good point to forecast next year average.
1.7% ± 30%, right? That is a good average or 25%. Yes. Okay.
Okay.
Thank you. The next question comes from Tito Lubarta with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. Thank you for the call and taking my question as well. Not to repeat myself, but congratulations on a very strong quarter. Two questions, if I can. Just on investment banking, it was down in the quarter, somewhat expected, but continues to be overall very, very strong. You mentioned DCM, you had a lot of transactions, M&A also solid. How do you think about the sustainability of this in the short term? I mean, there were some corporate bond issues with some specific names. I do not know if that could be a headwind in any way.
How do you think about this going into next year as well, just to think about the sustainability of the investment banking? The second question, more high level, I mean, I would expect most revenue lines would tend to do better potentially in a lower interest rate environment. Yet you have been delivering record revenues with interest rates at 15%. I know the growth will get tougher just given the higher base. As rates potentially do come down, would expect most revenue lines to potentially benefit, I guess, except for interest on other. Is that a right read that we should have? Anything that could maybe be not sustainable that would not benefit as rates potentially come down? Thank you.
Thanks, Tito. I will start with the second part of your question, which I think will answer the first. Yes, you are right.
If interest rates go down, it's only normal that interest and other will decrease. But then we expect higher ROAs in wealth management and asset management. As we spoke previously, credit spreads might widen. And with lower interest rates, maybe we're more confident to be less conservative in underwriting standards. If we have lower interest rates, we expect more market activity in sales and trading and in investment banking. Clearly, we think in investment banking, the level that we are seems to be a normalized level other than, let's say, something very dramatic happens to the market. It will change geography. It can be more DCM, less DCM, more ECM, more M&A. When you look at the overall level, this seems an appropriate level for the current market environment. Definitely, it could benefit if interest rates go lower.
Okay. No, that's very clear.
Thanks, Sallouti , and congrats again.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. This brings us to the end of the question and answer session. I will now return the floor to Mr. Roberto Sallouti for his closing remarks. Please go ahead, sir.
Once again, we would like to thank you for participating in the third quarter call. Above all, thank you for your partnership and trust. We look forward to having you again in our fourth quarter earnings call. Have a great week. Thank you.
This does conclude today's presentation. You may disconnect your line at this time and have a nice day. Thank you.