Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I am Chorus Call operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Bank of Cyprus conference call to present and discuss the preliminary full year 2023 financial results conference call. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Panicos Nicolaou, Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Nicolaou, you may now proceed.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our financial results conference call for the year ended 31 December 2023. I am joined by Eliza Livadiotou, Executive Director of Finance, and Annita Pavlou, Manager IR and ESG. After my introductory remarks, Eliza will go into more detail on our financial performance, and then we'll be happy to take your questions both during this conference call and afterwards. I would like to start by briefly reminding you of our powerful equity story and our core strengths on slide 4. We are the international group across banking and other financial services in Cyprus, which is a highly liquid and concentrated banking sector. We operate in a supportive macroeconomic environment. The Cypriot economy remains strong, delivering good growth, proving once again its flexible and resilient characteristics.
We are one of the most liquid banks in Europe and hence enjoy the benefit of fast and steep interest rates rises in 2023. At the same time, we have been undertaking proactive actions to position ourselves against a more normalized rate environment in the years to come. We have strong levers under our control. Our diversified business model, our ongoing focus on cost control, our robust asset quality, and our strong capital position all support us for continuing to deliver shareholder value. We remain confident that under a more normalized interest rate environment of around 2% to 2.5%, we can produce sustainable mid-teens growth over the medium term. Let's now turn to slide number five, which shows an overview of the macroeconomic environment. In an environment of weak European growth and geopolitical turbulences, the macroeconomic outlook of Cyprus continues to stand out.
The economy expanded by 2.3% in the four quarters, and for 2023 overall, delivered growth of 2.5% outpacing the Eurozone average. Based on the latest projection of the Ministry of Finance, economic growth is expected to be around 2.9% for 2024. Tourist activity continued to improve with arrivals for 2023 now back to their pre-COVID levels. Tourist receipts for January to November 2023 were 11% higher than the corresponding 2019 levels, indicating higher spending levels by two weeks. The unemployment rate decreased to 6% in the third quarter and is expected to grow further to 5.8% for 2024. As in many other countries, consumer inflation continued to be taxed by energy prices but has now come under control. In Cyprus, inflation stood at 2% in January 2024 and is expected to average around 2.5% for the whole year of 2024.
Slide 6 highlights the group's strong financial performance for the year, supported by the high interest rate environment. Net interest income for 2023 has more than doubled compared to prior years, benefiting from the steep rise in interest rates and our high liquidity. But I want to also draw your attention to other metrics. We have diversified sources of income, and non-NII is an important revenue driver covering around 90% of expenses in 2023. Cost to income at 31% reflects both strong revenues and disciplined cost management. Asset quality remains strong with our NPE ratio at 3.6%, in line with our 2023 target, and our cost of risk at 62 basis points was in the middle range of our guidance range of 50-80 basis points. Let's now turn to slide number 7. The strong performance has led to accelerated shareholder value creation.
Our CET1 ratio increased by 315 basis points to a 3.7% printed distribution, of 16.5% when accruing at the top of our dividend distribution policy of 30% to 50% payout ratio in accordance with Commission Delegated Regulation. This reflects strong organic capital generation of around 480 basis points in the year. Earnings per share was at EUR 1.09, a tangible book value increase by 34% before distributions. When we compare our dividend distribution policy, we are targeting a payout ratio between 30% to 50% of adjusted recap profitability, building progressively through the years. We have begun our engagement with the EU with regards to shareholder returns for 2023, and any return will be in line with that dividend policy. We look to update our shareholders in due course when we receive the final ECB approval.
Looking now in more detail at the quarterly evolution on slide 8. We delivered a rate of 25.6% in the fourth quarter, the fourth consecutive quarter of returns over 20%. This is supported by strong net income, which grew by 3% in the fourth quarter to EUR 220 million. We believe that this now will be weak. Slide 9 shows how our performance is tracking against the 2023 targets. We provided guidance for 2023 and the medium term at our 2023 investor update event in June, and I'm pleased to share with you that 2023 actual financial performance exceeded all of our targets. Our guidance was for NII to exceed EUR 650 million; we delivered NII of EUR 792 million on the back of high ECB delivery rates averaging 3.3%, and well-managed double pass-through and mix.
The cost-to-income ratio of 31% came ahead of our sub-40 guidance, mainly due to better revenues. As already mentioned, NPE ratio at 3.6% was in line with our target, and our cost of risk at 62 basis points was in the middle range of our guidance of 50 to 18 basis points. Our ROTE of almost 25% clearly met our over 17% guidance. Moving now to the outlook for 2024 on slide number 10. We are iterating our ROTE targets for 2024 and 2025 of over 17% and over 16% based on a 15% ETR rate. Most importantly, we do so while we are incorporating conservative adaptations for rates, normalizing around 2% to 2.5% in 2025.
Starting with ECB rate environment, we expect a higher average ECB rate in 2024 of 3.4%, but now expect a faster normalization with ECB deposit rate at 2.7% and 2% by the fourth quarter of 2024 and the fourth quarter of 2025 respectively. Our guidance for 2024 is as follows. We are updating our net interest income expectations from above EUR 625 million to above EUR 670 million. Eliza will discuss in more detail the drivers on the next slides. We maintain our cost to income ratio at around 40%, and we reconfirm our ROTE guidance of over 17% on a 15% CET1 rate. On asset quality, we expect to continue improving the NPE ratio to around 3% by year-end, and cost of risk trending towards the normalized level of 40 to 15 basis points.
On capital, we expect significant CET1 generation in the range of 200 to 250 basis points payout distribution for 2024. Our aim to provide sustainable shareholder returns is reiterated. Dividend revenues are expected to build prudently and progressively over time towards a payout ratio in the range of 30% to 50% of the group's adjusted recap profitability. Importantly, we reiterate our 2025 guidance for a rate of above 60% based on a normalized rate environment of 2.2%. The path of rate normalization seems very volatile currently, but we want to reiterate our commitment that Bank of Cyprus can sustainably deliver mid-teens ROTE in a normalized rate environment of 2% to 2.5%. I will now hand over to Eliza to take you through our NII guidance for 2024 in more detail.
Thank you, Panicos. And good morning from me too. So starting on slide 11, we have seen a rapid increase in interest rates in 2023, and recent market expectations have been extremely volatile in respect of the path of rate cuts. 2024 is expected to be a transition year, a year marked by a declining interest rate environment. Currently, market expectation is for rates to normalize by 2025. Euribor rates have already started to move in anticipation of this move, with six-month Euribor expected to rate at 3.2% in 2024. As you can see on the chart on this page, the current rate outlook is more conservative compared to market expectations in November 2023 at the time of our third quarter results. You can also see how it compares to our rate assumptions at the time of our investor update event in June last year.
We think this is an appropriately conservative scenario, which is how we run the bank. As a result, we would expect NII to decline in 2024 to a level above EUR 670 million, higher than our previous guidance of above EUR 625 million. We expect quarterly NII to decline during 2024 and start stabilizing towards the year-end. I will explain the main drivers of this. Higher deposit costs. Term deposit pass-through increased slowly during 2023 to 18% in the fourth quarter, but we expect it to continue to increase to an average of 40% as deposit balances repriced to the higher Euribor rates. We expect rate cuts to be passed on gradually to new deposits. Hence, we expect a slow and gradual repricing of the deposit back book in 2025.
We continue to allow for a changing deposit mix with time and mortgage deposits increasing from 32% in December 2023 to around 45% of the total by December 2024. On the lending side, we expect single-digit loan growth in 2024 and 2025 supported by economic growth. Almost half of our loan book is Euribor-linked, and this will reprice to lower rates. Wholesale funding costs will increase to reflect the full-year impact of the 2024 MREL issuance and further planned issuance in order to meet the 2024 MREL requirements. Finally, we will continue the structural hedging activity to reduce the NII sensitivity. This will come at a cost in 2024, but will support future revenues while continuing to carefully grow our fixed income portfolio to around 16% of total assets, with NII benefiting also from the rollover of the portfolio to higher rates.
Let me now touch on the bank's NII sensitivity on slide 12. As you know, we are structurally rate sensitive on the asset side, but over the last year, we have reduced this rate sensitivity, and we plan to continue to do so in 2024 by converting some of our assets from variable to fixed. The NII sensitivity to 100 basis points rate drop has reduced by EUR 16 million during the year from 34% to 14% and reflects the following actions. About one-fifth of the group's loan portfolio is linked with the bank's base rate, which provides enough cash against the cost of deposits. We added more fixed-rate loans by granting around EUR 245 million of such loans. We increased the investment in fixed-rate funds by 54% to EUR 3.1 billion. We entered in reverse repo of EUR 400 million.
And finally, we entered into fixed interest rate swaps totaling EUR 950 million. We expect to continue careful further hedging of the balance sheet in 2024 to reduce the NII sensitivity by a further EUR 30 million to EUR 40 million. Specifically, we intend to add another EUR 4 billion to EUR 5 billion structural hedging positions with expected average duration of three to four years depending on market conditions. These actions will have a cost on the 2024 NII, but will support future revenues and, most importantly, will result in lower rate sensitivity. Slide 15 shows the income statement of the group. I will not go through every line here as I will be discussing the drivers of our profitability in the following slides, but I would like to highlight our pre-tax profit of EUR 487 million for the year, corresponding to earnings per share of EUR 1.09.
Slide 16 highlights the main drivers for the strong NII, which more than doubled in 2023. Forecast NII at EUR 220 million is, we believe, the peak. As already discussed, we expect continued increase in deposit costs while the repricing of loans will start reflecting lower Euribor rates. On slide 19, you can see that deposits remained roughly flat on the prior quarter but increased by 2% year-on-year to EUR 19.3 billion. We're encouraged that the shift in deposit mix towards time and mortgage deposits is progressing more slowly than we expected. In Q4, it was around 32% of the total. And if you look at the breakdown of our EUR 19.3 billion deposit base, you can see on the bottom left chart that almost 80% of our deposits are from Cyprus residents.
Additionally, deposit pass-through levels were well-managed, facilitated by the very liquid CPR banking sector. This is evident by the evolution of our cost of deposits, which remained low at 24 basis points, corresponding to a pass-through of 18% on time and mortgage deposits in Q4, up from 15% in Q3. We expect the cost of term deposits to continue to increase from 74 basis points in the fourth quarter as deposit balances reprice to the higher front-book prices. We expect rate cuts to be passed on gradually to new deposits. Hence, we expect slow repricing of the deposit back book in 2025. Overall, we assume an average term deposit pass-through of 40% in 2024. Now, let's move to new lending on slide 20. During 2023, we granted EUR 2 billion worth of loans driven mainly by corporate demand.
The cross-performing loan book remained broadly flat at EUR 9.8 billion, both Q-on-Q and year-on-year, as repayments had offset new lending. Going forward, we expect some recovery on the loan book as repayments stabilize, with low single-digit loan growth assumed for 2024 and 2025 supported by generic growth. Towards that goal, in December 2023, we agreed to acquire a small portfolio of 300 structured loans with cross-book value of EUR 58 million. Completion is expected in the first half of 2024. Now, turning to the fixed income portfolio on slide 21. As of 31st December, the portfolio amounted to EUR 3.5 billion, up by 42% on the prior year, representing 14% of total assets net of TLTRO. The majority of the portfolio is measured at amortized cost and is held to maturity.
Hence, no fair value gains or losses are recognized in the group's income statement or equity. The mark-to-market positive impact of the amortized cost portfolio amounted to EUR 3 million as of December 31st, reflecting a reduction in 14-point yield. We expect to continue to carefully expand our fixed income portfolio in 2024 so that it represents around 16% of our total assets. Moving now to non-interest income on slide 22. On this slide, we would like to highlight that non-interest income is an important driver to the group's profitability, covering almost 90% of OPEX for 2023. Going forward, we expect it to continue contributing significantly in the coming years at around 70%-80% of total OPEX. Net fee and commission income continue to grow by 6% year-on-year, driven by higher credit card commissions and transactional fees.
We expect net fee and commission income to grow broadly in line with economic growth in both 2024 and 2025. The net insurance result was also ahead compared to the prior year due to improved experience variances and the reduction in the loss component of the insurance recognized upfront in the life insurance business. I would also like to remind you that the FX gains are volatile profit contributors. Now, moving to slide 28, which provides an overview of operating expenses. Our cost-to-income ratio of 31% in 2023 was supported by strong revenues and disciplined cost management. Total OPEX rose by 5% year-on-year, driven by the termination cost of EUR 7.5 million, variable pay of EUR 11 million, and the cost of the customer reward program of EUR 2.5 million. Excluding these items, costs were slightly down by 1% year-on-year.
On a quarterly basis, our cost-to-income ratio increased to 32%, driven by seasonally higher expected expenses. Now, let's move to slide 30 and capital. The bank's capital position remains robust. During 2023, we saw a rapid capital buildup, unlocking around 480 basis points of organic capital generation, driving our total capital ratio and CET1 ratio to 23.7 and 18.7, respectively, pre-distributions. Accruing for a dividend at the top end of our dividend policy of 50%, in line with the regulatory framework, our total capital ratio stood at 21.5% and our CET1 at 16.5%. Let me remind you that this level of dividend accrual does not constitute an approval by the regulators for a dividend nor a decision by the bank with respect to the 2023 dividend payment. Further details on capital requirements are set out on slide 56. Moving now to slide 32 and asset quality.
The NPE ratio stood at 3.6% at year-end or 1% on a net basis, in line with our 2023 target and our NPE coverage improved to 73%. When including tangible collateral, NPEs are fully covered. During Q4, we recognized EUR 53 million as unlikely to pay exposure with the completion of our assessment. Most of these UTPs are not macro-related and continue to present no arrears. We expect to reduce our NPE ratio to around 3% by year-end 2024, and our NPE ratio target of below 3% by end 2025 is reaffirmed. Now, turning to slide 33 and cost of risk. Q4 cost of risk was broadly flat on the prior quarter at 73 basis points, averaging 62 basis points for the year.
This cost of risk includes 19 basis points relating to the classification of specific customers with idiosyncratic credit characteristics as UTPs, even though they adhere to their payment schedule and present no arrears. Going forward, cost of risk is expected to trend towards the normalized levels of 40 to 50 basis points in 2024 and 2025. Additionally, we incurred impairments and other provisions of EUR 15 million in Q4, relating mostly to REMU on specific large liquid assets. So moving on to real estate on slide 34. REMU, as you know, is our engine to manage the stock of properties acquired from defaulted borrowers. As you can see, REMU reduced by EUR 217 million on the prior year to EUR 862 million as of December.
With balance sheet derisking completed, the inflows are expected to remain at extremely low levels, and our focus will be on delivering sales. Staying on track to achieve our 2025 target of reducing the REMU to around EUR 500 million. We continue to sell on average close to 90% of independent assets of open market value or 106% of book value. The prospect for real estate market in Cyprus remains strong. Based on data by the Central Bank of Cyprus published in October, property prices rose by 7.6% year-on-year in the first quarter. It's important to note that these prices remain below their 2010 peak level. So now, hand back to Panicos for our closing remarks.
Thank you, Eliza. Moving now to slides 35 and 36. 2023 was a milestone year for the bank achieving strong financial and operational performance.
We generated profit after tax of EUR 487 million equivalent to a ROTE of almost 25%. This facilitated rapid capital buildup, reflecting accelerating shareholder value creation. Going forward, we are entering 2024, a year of potentially declining interest rate environment on a position of strength. We will continue to execute on those levers under our control, and we remain confident that we can deliver a ROTE of over 17%, maybe 15%, since the ratio for 2024. Under a more normalized interest rate environment of around 2% to 2.5%, we reiterate our 2025 ROTE target of over 16% on a 15% CT1 ratio. This concludes our presentation. I will now open the floor for your questions.
The first question comes from the line of Sevkinaz Ismail with Axia Ventures Group. Please go ahead.
Hello. Good morning. And congratulations for the strong set of results.
I have three questions from my side. First one is on the structural hedges. Out of the EUR 4 billion to EUR 5 billion guidance, what percentage would be allocated to the interest rate swaps? And the second question is, as attention shifts to the net fee and commission income, if you could give us some more color on how you're planning to keep growing that part of your income statement and what are the moving parts. And the third question would be on your CET1 target, like the guidance you provided. Could you talk a little bit more about the underlying assumptions here, especially the RWA trajectory? Thank you.
Okay. Let me start with the net fee and commission income. Okay. And I will, again, reiterate that this income is strong contributor in diversification initiatives and resilience for our business model. So 2023 increased by 6%, excluding non-recurring items .
We expect this to grow in line with the equity growth. We also present in the presentation the contribution from our insurance sector, which is growing fast up and contributes around 30% of our non-NII in 2023. So insurance subsidiaries are growing and contribute to this growth. We also, for the first time, presented Jinius with a new initiative. And we are launching, actually, today our marketplace. And Jinius is another new source of non-NII in the years to come. At the same time, again, the first quarter, we are launching our affluent banking initiative, which is kind of more general offering to the wealth clients of the bank, which is also an additional initiative for non-NII contribution. Going back to the CET1 target and your question on the RWAs, I think RWAs are relatively flat through the year.
So organic growth will not consume much capital for the bank. And at the same time, revenue reduction will actually delete capital from the bank. So I think that is your question about structural hedging, Eliza.
Structural hedging, around three-quarters of our hedging strategy is through IRFs, and the rest is covered through the three-quarters in the natural balance sheet items, fixed loans, and fixed income investments.
Ms. Ismail, are you done with your questions?
Yes. Thank you very much. And again, congratulations for the strong set of results.
The next question comes from the line of Alexandros Boulougouris with Euroxx Securities. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning. Congratulations. The numbers as well from me. Quick question on the deposit mix. You have in your targets that it will reach 45%. Even that, a bit too conservative given the declining rate environment.
So are you being a bit too conservative, or is there some data that you see that you think this indeed seems to be going up to this level? That's my first question. A second question regarding the fixed income portfolio. You mentioned that you target to go to 16% of assets by end of 2024, and the fixed income book has increased in 2023 as well. Should we see this trend continuing, or is this 60% where more or less you want to be? And one final question regarding loan growth, and this is something that we are gradually seeing in the Greek market, regarding reperforming loans from old NPLs. Is it something that you would consider as well, buying reperforming loans later on in 2, 3 years' time as a potential growth in organic, let's say? Thank you. Okay.
I will start with general on deposits, not just the mix, but also on deposits pass-through. General comment that the Cypriot banking sector is very liquid and concentrated. This will not change. This was also the main driver of us having total deposit cost of just 24 basis points and overall pass-through rate of 6%, 18% on tenor and term. We expect to continue some gradual repricing of the backbook, which means that there will be an increase through the mix as well. I remind you that the pass-through of 40% or whatever pass-through we end up in the end does not necessarily mean that the deposit cost will go up because the Euribor rate is actually expected to drop. What is important is total cost, total deposit cost.
We provided a number there and guidance which says that every 10 basis points increase has an effect of around EUR 19 million to the NII. So we focus mostly on deposit cost rather than on pass-through and mix. Of course, we'll have to navigate 2024 reduction until more stabilization comes in 2025 in the rates. And until we start gradually seeing the rate cuts to pass back to the end depositors. But all in all, pass-through mix, I mean, has been all taken into account in our ROTE guidance for 2024 and 2025 in a rather conservative rate assumption scenario. So going to the loan growth and reperforming loans, actually, what Eliza mentioned before about the acquisition of the EUR 58 million coming from doValue, this was kind of more acquisition for over-reperforming loans in Cyprus.
But I will say that we need to be careful on doing this because the definition of stage one, stage two, and stage three, based on the ECB guidelines, it's much different of what the services of the NPs are actually in mind. So we'll be very, very careful, and this will take some time. I don't expect this to materialize within the next one to two years. And this is not part of our plan A for loan growth. We don't assume in our loan growth assumptions of any acquisition or reperforming loans. All these are actually in line with the growth of the economy. Plan international initiatives. I think that's your question also on the fixed income, Eliza.
So on the bond portfolio, this is a dynamic exercise.
As you know, our 16% guidance is based on our current risk-return characteristics of the portfolio versus other alternatives, be it the ECB or other options on liquidity management. It's not a ceiling, but it's also not something we can guide to more specifically at this point, i.e., a higher or a different level. Our current strategy goes to the 16% level on the basis or on the back of current rate expectations and current risk-return dynamics of the bond portfolio.
Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of James Hamilton with Numis Securities. Please go ahead.
Thank you. And thank you for the presentation. I just wanted to touch on the Jinius business. You've mentioned it in your presentation. It's the first time it's appeared in the slides.
I was just sort of wondering if you could give us a flavor of where you feel this could land in, say, sort of two or three years' time. What are your aspirations for it? Obviously, you mentioned more interest income, but I'm more sort of thinking about the sort of strategy, the data, and analytics you might get from it from the sector of the bank.
Okay. Thank you, James. As I already mentioned, Jinius is a new subsidiary aiming to drive the digital economy in Cyprus, create an ecosystem-driven platform to create opportunities for all. What we have is what we initiated for Jinius is to connect business together, B2B, which is already live, to connect customer with business, B2C, which just the first step is already live with the marketplace we launched in February.
Of course, to combine all this and support them with banking and financial products. So this is part of us investing in the digital bank value chain, diversify our income. And as I already explained earlier, this will be an additional contributor of non-NII, which you know that we aim to cover most of our expenses through non-NII. So in the near future, let's say in three years, we expect naturally more tangible contributor in our non-NII from Jinius. But we also expect more progress in the business-to-consumer part of Jinius towards a more lifestyle platform service in Cyprus. We probably expect to have loyalty schemes. We'll have personal analytics, offers, promotions, financial and insurance products offered to the client, service bookings, consumer communities, different ecosystems including productive ecosystems, green ecosystems, crowd ecosystems. So all these have to do with us developing the business-to-consumer concept of Jinius.
We are very enthusiastic about doing this. This is something you will see coming in 2024 onwards.
Thank you. I had one other regarding loan book growth. Could you sort of chat a little bit about how you see the dynamics of sort of the growth that you're talking about given the tough environment that we saw in 2023? Is this just as we see lower rates, you'll see fewer sort of prepayments, or is this sort of a more active process of expanding growth, or is it just purely the macro?
Okay. I'm afraid I didn't hear very well your question, but I got the headline, which is loan book growth. I will start by saying that 2023, the loan stock was actually flat because of higher repayments.
I remind you that 2022 had a loan book growth of 3%, which we expect abnormalize repayments to come in in 2024 to be the case. It's in line also with the growth of the economy in Cyprus. We do expect to return back to loan growth in line with the economy in Cyprus. Over and above to support this assumption, we accelerate our international strategy for diversification, including shipping syndication and some corporate loans in. We expect to start seeing more tangible results on this on the second half of this year. Of course, it goes without saying that I will not change volume at exposure of our portfolio quality.
This is, and it's very important for us that actually, since 2016, 99% of our new exposures are performing and have been performing through tough times in Cyprus, COVID, the war in Russia, Ukraine, the inflation, the high rates. So all these are also important for us because they define our future cost of risk.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Hugo Cruz with KBW. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for the time. I have a few questions, first of all, on the NII. You talked about the fixed income portfolio, but can you talk about what's the upper limit for the hedging as well? You flagged some additional hedging in 2024. So can you do more in later years?
And then on OpEx, if you could tell us what's your guidance for OpEx and ideally splitting the impact of levies and other regulatory costs. And then also for provisions, if you could give us other provisions, if you could give us a guidance there as well, it would be very helpful. Thank you.
If you go on hedging, the EUR 4 to 5 billion but not so now that we put in the slide or disclose, is not the upper limit. As you know, we were and continue to be a relatively rate-sensitive bank. And we will look through the hedging in 2024 at opportunities to reduce this rate sensitivity going forward and make returns more predictable and planning more manageable.
I mean, at the end of the day, our NII decision, our hedging decision, all link back to our ROI target, which is about 17% for this year and about 16% going forward on normalized rates. So there is no upper ceiling. So the EUR 45 million or there is not the upper ceiling, but it's what we plan to do this year.
Okay. On OPEX guidance, I will take you back to the cost-to-income of around 40%. So this covers everything. Of course, there is some room to grow. We need to invest in technology. We need to keep continuing investing in technology. There is also some inflation to go. But we will not forget that our focus on cost visibly in a forward-looking perspective is there. It will continue.
Probably, you have noticed that in 2023, we have concluded a small exit class of employees, about 50 people, at the cost of almost EUR 8 million to EUR 9 million. And I also remind you of the aggressive and rapid outsizing of our network and also our number of FTs. So cost-to-income, about 40%, is a good proxy to have in mind on the provisions, I think. Okay. I think on the provisions, I don't expect any one-off provisions. We do expect, as we said, the normalized cost of risk to trend towards the 40 to 15 basis points. And this is our best-case scenario for the years to come. Okay.
And sorry, I asked as well around the levies. Do you have any kind of confirmation what the levies could be in 2024? The.
The bank levy is at 15 basis points because you go to a formulaic in terms of cost.
Okay. Thank you very much. We don't assume any additional levies, and we don't assume any of the excessive levies to be actually canceled. So this is the main assumptions for the financial plan.
Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, there are no questions at this time. I will now turn the conference over to Mr. Nicolaou for any closing comments. Thank you.
Thank you all for your participation and questions. As always, we will be very happy to arrange one-to-one calls to take you through in more detail on our actual financial results of 2023, but also most importantly, in the driving factors and assumptions of our 2024 and 2025 guidance. Thank you all.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now concluded, and you may disconnect your telephone.
Thank you for calling, and have a good day.