Earnings Call: Q3 2025

Nov 3, 2025

Summary

9M revenue rose 27.4% and net profit 16.2%, supported by loan growth and sharply higher investment income. Rising deposit costs, provisions, and NPLs weighed on spreads, while digital and sustainable-finance initiatives expanded.

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to City Bank PLC's earnings disclosure web event of the third quarter of 2025. I am Syeda Saima Hussain, your host for the event, welcoming you today. Thank you all very much for joining us. Today, we are honored to have among us Mr. Mohammad Mahbubur Rahman, Additional Managing Director and Chief Financial Officer, who will preside over the meeting in the absence of our Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Mashrur Arefin, who is unable to attend to this event due to unavoidable circumstances. Moving on to the next member of our esteemed panel is the Deputy Managing Director and Head of Wholesale Banking, Mr. Mirzawan Hossain Siddiqui, Deputy Managing Director and Head of Internal Control and Compliance, Mr. ATM Saifullah Tausar, and Chief Risk Officer, Mr. Mohammad Firoz Alam. At City Bank, we take great pride in engaging the investment community in our endeavors. While disclosing our performance and actions, we adhere to a strict code of full transparency and responsibility. City Bank has always measured its success not only in terms of its bottom line numbers, but also in the terms of the goals it has set for itself in order to become one of the finest banks in Bangladesh. Our success is attributed to the continued growth of our business as well as the market's evolution to satisfy the increasingly sophisticated expectations of our respective clients in areas of liquidity, service, reliability and mobility. We have made it this far with the help of our community, team, and stockholders by tenaciously adhering to the motto of service and trust. In light of this, we have gathered here today to discuss the bank's current financial situation and its forward-looking strategies. We shall start with our AMD and CFO, Mr. Mohammad Mahbubur Rahman, presenting the financial performance and conclude the event with an interactive question and answer session. Before we proceed, I'd like to inform you all that while scheduling the event, we attempted to choose the most fitting time slot so that we could accommodate most of the participants, both from local and foreign vicinities and time zones. I'd also like to add that we have opened our Q&A portal, which you can see at the bottom right corner of your screens. During our presentation, you can log in and place any relevant question in the window. We shall try our best to address them in our Q&A session, depending on the time available for the program. Ladies and gentlemen, I now request our AMD and CFO, Mr. Mohammad Mahbubur Rahman, to start with the financial performance presentation. Over to you, sir. Thank you, Saima. Hope you can see my presentation. Yes, the presentation is visible. Okay. Good afternoon, everyone. Hope everyone is well and good. It is a really great pleasure to present our financial performance for the third quarter of this year. Again, we have been continuing our growth and profitability, even in this challenging environment. We will discuss in detail regarding our performance as an overall macroeconomic situation and also our strategic development to actually address the opportunity that are available in the market. Also, we will share with you how actually we are making all the efforts to actually develop this organization as one of the finest organization in the country. We are starting with the macroeconomic industry outlook. We all know that the GDP is hovering around 4% at this moment. World Bank, IMF and ADB, all are projecting higher GDP growth in next year. That is a positive sign for us. That means actually we are recovering whatever the macroeconomic shock that we have absorbed so far. One of the major challenge of the economy was inflation. Bangladesh Bank has taken a very appropriate, strong, actual measure by increasing interest rate to contain inflation. You can see that the main challenge of the economy, that is inflation, how actually they have addressed it very successfully. The inflation, when it peaked more than 11%, had come down to below 9%. Though in September, there is a few basis point increase in inflation. But, in total, the overall price situation is under control. This will definitely help Bangladesh Bank to reduce policy rate, which will, again, actually we hope that propel the more growth in coming days. On the external, macroeconomic side, we are doing pretty well, though the growth rate may not look very strong. Despite all the global challenges like tariff related issues and geopolitical issues, we are still having growth in export around 5% in this 9 months. Also import is growing narrowly with 3%. The main contributor for helping our external factor to lead it to the positive area is the remittance. Though still remittance is growing with very high rate in this financial year as well. Last financial year, we ended with around 30% growth and this growth is still continuing. That help our FX reserve situation much stronger. In September last year, the FX reserve was around $20 billion, which has increased to $26.6 billion with almost 34% growth. Now it's covering more than 6 months import. With this kind of trend, we hope that also Bangladesh Bank is projecting to have around $40 billion FX reserve in next financial year. Also, if you look at the current account balance, we have also covered huge deficit in current account balance. From external balance point of view, we are having actually much stronger position at this moment, and it is reflected in our FX rates also. If you look at the movement in the FX rate in recent last 6 months, you'll see that it's very much stable at this moment and sometimes even Taka is getting stronger. Private credit growth as per the monetary policy, actually, we are having kind of appropriate private credit growth, though it looks lower because Bangladesh Bank has actually hiked the interest rate and naturally consequence of that interest rate hike is the slower credit growth. That we are observing at this moment. The credit growth is around 6.4%. NPL is the major challenge of the industry, which is increased to 27%. But all you know that a certain number of banks are having actually exceptional problem. Because of that, actually, this NPL ratio has risen. But still, the industry have many strong banks. Their NPL ratios as well as ours, actually, still remain in a very acceptable level. Unfortunately, we don't have the data, actually, how much NPL is coming from all those problem banks. Probably after completion of their forensic audit, they will come up with some sort of idea, actually. Then we'll come to know how much NPL is coming from these problem banks. Now we are starting our discussion on our bank. We have already witnessed that the credit growth for the country is around 6%. But you can see here that our credit growth, our loan advance, actually grew by almost 16%, actually, from the end of 2024 in 9 months. So we have already reached BDT 516 billion. For the first time, City Bank loan and advance book actually crossed BDT 500 billion. So it's another milestone for the City Bank. We are actually trading very strongly in this difficult situation also. Interest rate, on the other hand, actually, has increased by 23.7% and reached BDT 40.2 billion compared to last year, 9 months. Main reason for higher growth in the interest income is basically the yield on advance has also increased, actually in line with the increase of policy rate. Along with the higher growth in loan and advance and also higher yield on advance, our interest income actually grew even higher than the growth of the balance sheet. Here you can see that segment-wide analysis, which segments are actually contributing more in our balance sheet growth. Still, wholesale banking contributes 60%. They are growing very strongly. Their growth rate is around 17%. On the other hand, retail has grown very significantly in this year with 24%. Small and microfinance, they grew by around 14%. All of our actually major segment of our business actually are contributing much higher growth compared to last year. Even in this actually little bit slow economy, our bank is actually growing very fast in every segment. In deposit also, you can see that last year, if you remember that last year our overall growth in deposit is around 30%. This year also, we are enjoying very high growth in deposit in terms of volume. From the end of 2024, our deposit grew by 23.4% and reached BDT 634.5 billion. But interest expense has increased naturally because as Bangladesh Bank has increased their policy rate, as a result, the treasury bill and bonds rates have risen. Naturally, we had to increase our deposits rate to attract more deposit. We will actually show in the latter part of the presentation how we have actually addressed this higher cost by having actually very strategic investment and you will definitely see that this higher interest cost actually was not a problem for us. Rather, we took the advantage of the growth of our deposit, and we successfully deployed our fund in an alternative investment manner, which has actually yielded a much higher return and it will actually set a very strong footings for us for future growth as well. We will discuss actually later on in our presentation. Here you can see that our cost of deposit has increased from 4.5% to 5.7% because the FD rate has increased to 8.6% from 7%, in line with the increase of the interest rate. So, interest cost has increased quite significantly with 86% growth. Here you can see the retail, the main contributor of our deposit growth is retail. They contribute 64%. Then wholesale banking through their strong cash management, and other corporate solution they provide 20% of the deposit. Current and savings, if you look at the ports actually contribution or actually kind of separation between the term deposit and CASA, which was actually 55.44%. CASA ratio has actually decreased because we had to actually acquire more term deposit because when actually interest rate increase in the market, you cannot expect to have free cost fund. Naturally, customer will shift their fund from current and savings account to term deposit. That actually naturally happened in our case. But if you look at the number of new CASA account opening, here you can see in the bottom of the presentation, we have opened in nine months around 232,000 new current account, which is 72% higher compared to the last year, nine months. The number of account opening in our bank is still actually continuing at a very higher pace. That means actually we are still attracting a new customer to open an account with us, and that shows the confidence about us in the market and the brand image and the service quality of the bank. We will also discuss more later on. Because of the higher increase in the cost of deposit, if you look at the red line, here you can see the cost of deposit has increased from 4.8% to 5.7%. On the other hand, the interest yield or advance actually increased from 9.8% to 10.4%. So increase of yield is lower than the increase of cost of deposit. Because of that, the spread has come down from 5% to 4.7%. Again, actually, I will explain later on here. Actually, you will get some answer, and I will also explain more in next slide how actually we have deployed this high cost deposit into more profitable business. Here you can see and here you can have the clue how actually we have done the investment in this year. As the policy rate actually has been increased by Bangladesh Bank, and as a result, treasury bill bonds rate has increased. So we have actually invested naturally more in treasury bill and bond. Here you can actually see the growth in investment. The growth is 51%. From 2024, our growth investment has increased to BDT 212.6 billion from BDT 140.4 billion, with 51.4% growth. Because of the increase of interest rate of treasury bill and bond and some capital gain from this portfolio, our income from investment has increased by 172%. From BDT 10.1 billion, it has increased to BDT 27.7 billion. So 2.7 times higher actually growth in income. Here you can see that though actually we have incurred higher costs in deposit, but we have successfully deployed this high-cost deposit to very high yielding asset, which also contributes much less risk profile for the bank. So the condition of the risk-weighted asset of the bank has improved rather. Even we have done significant investment in treasury bill and bond, because that actually attracts much less RWA. So in terms of everything risk point of view, in terms of higher return, actually, that costly deposit has actually contributed more in our profitability. Here also, the other line of business, City Bank is also very much strong in trade business. One of the core area. Here you can see the country's export actually grew by 5%. Our growth in export is more than 13%, around 13%. So we have handled $2.5 billion worth of export. Import also. When import of the country is around 3% growth. But our growth in import is 6.4%. So in import, in 9 months, we have handled $2.7 billion worth of import. So commission income, if you look at the commission income and other fee income, here actually is showing very minor growth with 1.7%. But Commission income from the trade business has grown by significantly. So I think around 10% growth we have experienced in commission income. But because of the stability in the FX, actually, unfortunately, the FX income actually declined. So it is good for the economy, but not very good for the bank. But definitely it helps our client who are doing export-import business, more favorable situation. That is actually good. That is a better situation for the bank and the industry as a whole. Our FX income has declined, but our commission income has increased, and this will actually continue. There will be more growth in commission income in coming days. Credit card is another strong pillar of City Bank. City Bank is the number one credit card service provider in the country. Still we are holding around 20% of the market share. Our growth in credit card business in terms of increase of card base is 7.8%. Now we are having around more than 700,000 customer base. The bill business, which represent the main consumption pattern of our credit card customer, which shows that the bill business has grew by 18.8%. That means, our customer base, they are having good confidence about the consumer market. It's a good sign for the economy and for the bank as well. The credit card income as a whole increased by 9%, and reached BDT 1.6 billion. BDT 1.6 billion, sorry. Revenue as a whole, though we incur very high cost in deposit, you have already seen, our revenue as a whole grew by 27.4% from BDT 27.8 billion in third quarter of last year. It increased to BDT 35.4 billion, in this nine month. On a consolidated basis also, there is also 26.4% growth. Our subsidiaries, they are small contributors in terms of revenue and profitability. There is minor difference between the solo and the consolidation, consolidated revenue. After revenue, now we are showing the operating expense. In revenue, you have seen that the revenue growth is around 27.4% on a solo basis. On a consolidated around 26.4%. Operating expense on a consolidated basis increased by 26.3%, from BDT 12.1 billion to BDT 15.3 billion. Main contributor of this increase of operating expense is the staff expense, which increased from 6.6% to 8.9%, with 34.6% growth. The major reason for the growth is we restructured our salary last year, in line with the inflation and also the performance of the bank. Bank has been performing consistently, significantly well in last few years. Also we felt that we needed to reward our employees with better salary structure, and we have done that with a very bold step. On an average, we have increased the salary of our mid-level employees by 30%. It's one of the highest ever increment, that is given by any bank in the recent history. Other operating expense has increased by 16.3%, and the cost has increased from BDT 5.4 billion to BDT 6.3 billion. We are continuing with our effort for more automation, more digital solution. At the same time, because of the increase of our customer base, we are also expanding our physical presence as well. Though we have converted, like for example, more than 80% of our customer use the digital platform to do the transactions, either through Citytouch or ATM. Even 20% customer who visit our physical distribution channels like branch, sub-branch, and agent banking, you have seen that the number of accounts has increased by 72%. That's why still we have huge crowd in our physical infrastructure. We need to expand our physical infrastructure as well, though we have converted 80% of our transaction to digital platform. Here, we are showing that in last few years we are continuously investing in IT. As a year-wise breakup, we are showing you, in 9 months, we have invested BDT 728 million. Whereas in last year, in whole year, the investment was BDT 561 million. You can see that how much we are investing in IT. It is for making the bank more digital. At the same time, the expansion of our physical channel is also going on because the number of footfall is still significantly high in our bank as well. Because currently, we are acquiring numerous customers quite aggressively. For infrastructure purpose, we are also investing. Here you can see the figure, like in 9 months, BDT 312 million we have spent for our expansion of physical infrastructure. Here you can see that each year how we are increasing our branches or sub-branches. For example, in 2023, we have expanded our sub-branches by 29, in 2024, 12, and this 9 months, 17. By end of this year, our new sub-branch or branch will be around 50. You can see how fast we are growing our physical presence as well. Every year also, we are adding ATMs. We have already crossed more than 500 ATMs in the country. Also, at the same time, we are continuously hiring new employees, basically, to support our business. Most of the employees are being recruited for branches, sales team, and SME segment. Each year, we are hiring quite a significant number of employees. In 9 months, we have hired 458 employees, whereas it was 266 last year, and in 2023, it was 323. It indicates, these figures, the purpose of showing all these figures, that City Bank is expanding very fast and we are investing quite significantly, and that has also reflection in our increase of operating cost. Here you can see the summary of what I have said. Interest income grew by 23%, but interest expense grew by 86%. Because of that, net interest income growth was showing negative. To explain the thing better, I will show in the next slide that, because we have to follow the format given by Bangladesh Bank. In this format, it shows that we are incurring negative growth in net interest income. To show a better picture, actual picture, you have to include the investment income with the interest income. If you just do that, you can see that though our net interest income is showing negative trend, but if you add the investment income with the interest income, that here you can see that the adjusted net interest income, which includes the investment income, which has grown from BDT 21.9 billion to BDT 29.2 billion with 33% growth. The fund that we have deployed for the investment, has given much higher return. Though net interest income under the format of Bangladesh Bank is showing negative trend in our revenue, our revenue has grown by 33%. That is the purpose of showing this slide. Because of higher revenue growth, you can see that our operating profit has grew by 26.4%, and operating profit was BDT 16.5 billion in 9 months of last year, which has grown to BDT 20.8 billion with 26.4% growth. From this operating profit, now actually we definitely deduct the debt charge or provision. Here, actually, we also made a significant provision this 9 month, which has increased from BDT 6.4 billion to BDT 8.8 billion. So increase in provision charge by 38.1%. Because the NPL actually has increased from 3.7% to 4.7%. In volume, NPL was BDT 16.5 billion, which has increased to BDT 24.3 billion. Overall NPL situation of the country actually has deteriorated, and definitely because of the political change, global political scenario, and also the inflation and also the FX crisis that we actually faced in last 2 years, actually has a lot of toll on our customers. Because of that, actually, the NPL has increased. Also, one good thing is that Central Bank has tightened up their NPL regulation. Now we are actually considering classification after 90 days DPD. Now actually, even when the country's overall NPL situation has deteriorated, Central Bank has actually rather opted for very high standard NPL regulation, tighter regulation. Because of that also, NPL has increased in our case. Our case, for example, around 20 to 30 basis. Our CRO will actually explain it later, around 20 basis point NPL actually has increased because of that. We are maintaining higher provision coverage. That is the main cushion that we are building for managing the credit risk. Here you can see that NPL is BDT 24.3 billion, but our total provision is BDT 25.5 billion. So the coverage ratio is 104%. Provision coverage is higher than the NPL volume. This is the contribution of our subsidiaries. We have City Brokerage. We have City Bank Capital, which is a merchant bank. We have a company in Hong Kong. The name is City Hong Kong Limited. We have an exchange house in Malaysia, CBL Money Transfer. Their contribution is not that big, so that's why we are not actually basically giving a detailed explanation on that. Their contribution is minor compared to the overall size of the bank. After considering the Subsidiaries result and deducting provision cost, debt charge from the operating profit. Our profit has actually stood at BDT 7.2 billion at the end of 9 months, which was BDT 4.5 billion. So growth rate is 16.2%. Again, we are actually presenting you one of the highest ever profit growth in the City Bank history. We are really happy to produce this kind of result considering all the macroeconomic and international situation. Also even after incurring huge cost in deposit and also overall other challenges, you can see that our profit growth, even after considering higher provision costs with higher NPL, our net profit growth is significantly higher. With this profitability, our return on equity has also increased from 15.26% to 18.47%. Our return on asset has increased from 9.7% to 1.2% in 9 months. So definitely, we are very much hopeful when we will have year ending, this ratio will show you much better result. Earning per share for 9 months is 4.7, which was 3.3 one year back. Book value also increased from BDT 29.9 to BDT 38.09. So significant increase we are having in NAV. Because of the very high growth in asset, our NPL CRAR has, on a solo basis, declined from 16% to 15%. And on a consolidated basis, it declined from 15.3% to 14.8%. We are actually working on issuing a new Tier 2 bond. So hope after issuing Tier 2 bond, this ratio will also improve. This is the actual credit rating of the bank. We are being rated by Moody's. The country's rating is B2, so we cannot have more than B2 rating, unfortunately. But one of the top rating company in Bangladesh, which is CRAB, they have rated us a AAA bank of the country. So, we have graduated to AAA last year. So these are all about the financial position of the bank and performance of the bank. I will also share with you some digital initiative of the bank. You already know that City Bank is the first Google Pay launcher of the country. So within just few months, we have added 63,000 customer and already handled 120 million transaction. So it has become a very trendy and popular product among the youngsters of the country, and we are targeting those young group. And they are grabbing this product quite happily. Also there are some other digital initiative that we have been doing very successfully. CityTouch, we believe that is one of the top mobile banking app in the country. And here you can see that the transaction volume in 9 months is BDT 908 billion and with 37% year-on-year growth. And number of transaction is 25 million in 9 months, and growth is 30%, and we have already added 906,000 customer. So, in Digital Nano Loan, it is another success of the digital initiative of the bank. So we have already disbursed BDT 39.8 billion, and the growth rate is 239%. So it is a fully digital loan without any human intervention. We are actually distributing this loan through bKash, the largest mobile financial solution of the country, probably also in the world. And we have already added 1.3 million customer. And number of loan is more than, I think, 110 million. And we are also giving a very smart solution for our customer through IVR. So it is basically self-service kind of solution. So here also, we are like last, in 9 months, we have given 4.8 million service. Citycorp is another internet banking solution for our corporate customer for their deposit and collection. So here you can see that in 9 months, our transaction volume is BDT 618 billion, so with 45% growth. So we are also giving a solution for our corporate customer. So number of transaction is 23 million, 44% growth. And also, as we are targeting to launch more digital solutions. So we are engaging with our customer through social media as well. So if you look at our interaction with the customer through social media, you can see that there is also tremendous growth. In Instagram, 532% growth. In Facebook, 33% growth. We have very active social media engagement with our customer and prospective customer, and especially young generation. Here, we are actually again showing you the success story of Nano-lending. Here you can see the average ticket size is BDT 4,128. So around less than actually $40. This is actually huge success. I have told you that we have actually already, in number of account-wise, we have already given 10 million actual loan. We are expecting to have actually much higher growth in Nano-lending. The NPL ratio is around 3%. So still within our risk appetite, and interest rate is around 17%. It is growing very strongly. Now actually, I will end my first part here. I will come back again. Now actually, our CRO will explain our initiative about the sustainable finance. I am now handing over my presentation to Firoz. Firoz. Thank you, Mahbub. Good afternoon, everyone. You know, City Bank awarded by the Central Bank as the number one sustainable bank. You also know that this award, actually, Bangladesh Bank rated based on the environmental sustainability as well as the core banking sustainability. This emphasis actually both of the criteria, bank strength as well as the environmental initiatives. At the environmental sustainability side, they consider the green and sustainable finance, green refinancing, CSR, and green office or in-house green banking activities. At the same time, for the core banking sustainability is focusing on the capital adequacy, NPL position, liquidity, profitability and bank financial strength side. This is the highlights related with the green and sustainable finance and the green initiatives regarding our liability product also. Our nine months total green finance disbursement was more than BDT 5,000 crore against the Central Bank target of BDT 1,500 crore. We achieve actually more than the Central Bank target within the nine months, and our year-to-year, nine months growth is more than 132%. For sustainable disbursement, we disbursed in nine months, last nine months disbursed more than BDT 42,000 crore and against the Central Bank target of BDT 12,000 crore. If we consider year-to-year target, this year-to-year target in the sustainable finance disbursement was more than 42%. As I already mentioned, that we are not only focusing on the actually asset product, we are also focusing on the liability product. As a part of our initiatives, we launched innovative Green Savings Account in last year. Till date, already Green Savings Account opened, that means till September, more than 27,000 account. The main features of this account, we using this savings fund investing in the green and sustainable finance project. Also another, I think the criteria, another of this plant one tree for every account. Almost we, till date, planted more than 19,000 trees. As a green financing disbursement, City Bank are focusing on the new avenue. As a part of that, we are focusing on the already mentioned of the CFO, Mahbub. We finance in the green and digital lending. We are financing focusing on the women entrepreneur financing. Also we are focusing on the renewable energy efficiency, and green factories. Last 9 months, our disbursement was in the renewable energy. That means solar power as well as the windmill. Our total disbursement was BDT 220 crore. Energy and resource efficiency financing was more than BDT 1,100 crore. We also funded in the LEED certified factory more than BDT 200 crore. Also, we are taking more initiatives on the green banking initiative that in-house ESG. As part of that, we are focusing on the install of the rooftop solar. We installed rooftop solar in our 45 branches and 33 ATMs and also 28 agent outlets. We continue focusing on the green initiatives as well as its reporting to focusing on the reporting side compliance with global standard as well as the Bangladesh Bank standard. This year, in the first time, we published the ESG report complying with global standard already met GRI, IFRS S1, S2 and the SDG. You know, City Bank is the first bank in Bangladesh joining Net-Zero Banking Alliance of UNEP FI. As part of this, we already taken initiatives to reduce our carbon emission, and we already published in our website in net zero emission reduction journey. Actually, City Bank, as part of our initiatives, we are always recognized locally and internationally. Already mentioned that this year we are awarded by the Central Bank as top number 1 sustainable bank. Also, we are the top sustainable bank for the last 5 years in a row by the Central Bank. We are also awarded by the SDG Bank Forum as the most sustainable financial institution and bank category. Also, we are recognized as a climate-focused bank by USAID, GreenTech Foundation, and the Institute of Energy of Dhaka University. We are also awarded by the GCPF as the Global Climate Partnership Award. Also, we are awarded as top 10 sustainable bank by the Sustainability Magazine of England, and also top sustainable finance bank in Bangladesh by the Global Finance. This year, City Bank has been featured in the Bloomberg ESG rating of 2024. Actually, this is our major achievement only, since the list is actually more. I am just focusing on the few major achievements. This is our first time ESG report that is already in our website. You can scan this QR code via your mobile device, and also you can download from our website. That is all from my side. Over to Maufey. Okay. Thank you. Actually, who are interested to have this report have already scanned this QR code, or you can also download it from our website. I am just actually going to show just a few more slides. We are almost end of our presentation. City Bank, you have seen that not only just actually focus on the business, we are very much actually passionate about ESG and sustainable banking. Also at the same time, we think that in order to actually ensure the sustainability of the bank, we must actually invest in our main resource, that is our employees. We have already shown this thing actually in our earlier earning disclosure, but just we are giving update that through this pillar, actually, we are continuously adding more actually initiatives, so that we can develop very quality human resource and leaders who will actually take this bank to even higher level than now. City Cares, we are actually ensuring the health and safety of the employee. We are supporting them through health insurance, and also we have developed an emergency support fund for the low-income employee whose actually medical expense is not fully covered by insurance. So we actually ensure additional support for them. For example, so far in 9 months, we have supported around 1,200 employees with additional support for themselves as well as for their family. City Innovates, by that we actually motivate our employee for more innovation. Now it has just become part of the KPI, so that they contribute to the innovation and process development. City Leads, actually, we are creating new leader for the bank, so that they can carry on the development and the leadership position of the bank in the next generation. So we have launched City Talent Management, and we named it City Future Fit. We have already identified future talents, and we are investing quite heavily for them for the development of the leadership. The City Careers, City Ambassadors, all are actually basically under all these pillar. We are continuously actually working with our employees, and by giving them more actually training. For example, in 2023, our average employee training hour is 20 hours, so it has increased to more than 30 hours this year. Target is to actually take it up to 40 hour training hour for the employee. Now we are showing some of the major accolades that we received this year, especially DHL-The Daily Star Bangladesh Business Awards. The Daily Star is the leading newspaper of the country, and this award is known as the best corporate award of the country. The Daily Star actually recognized City Bank as the best financial institution for 2024. So it is the best actually corporate award in our country. Already our CRO has shared with you, but here, actually as it is again, recognition from Bangladesh Bank. That is why actually I am showing it again. We are now actually the number one sustainable bank of the country, which consists of actually both financial and sustainable actually, market. Not only just this year, we have been continuously getting top position here for last five years on the sustainable banking criteria. Also, we have won three awards from ADB as their leading trade partner. Also, this shows that, in trade area also, we are actually going very strong and being recognized by the major development partner of the country. This year also, we have won three prizes award from Financial Alliance for Women. They have recognized our initiative in women banking. Also, this is another business segment where actually we are progressing very fast. In Islamic banking also, we have got one of the best Islamic banking by one of the award, SFFF. Also Visa recognized us because of our successful launching of Google Wallet and tap and pay service. Mastercard also recognized us and also FinanceAsia also recognized us as best bank of the country. With this actually, I'm ending my presentation. Now I'm handing over to Saima again, for carrying out question answers Q&A session. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Mahbub Sir and Mr. Firoz Sir for your insightful presentation on the financial performance. Ladies and gentlemen, we now welcome your questions as we begin our Q&A session. The first question is: what is your view on bancassurance business? How many policies have you sold so far? When do you think it can be a- I'll give you the number, but at this moment, we know that our more than 50% of the market share is owned by City Bank. Again, City Bank actually is holding a leading position in the bancassurance market by far. But I'll give you the precise number actually, how many policy we have sold. But definitely it's also another success of City Bank. Actually, we are going to be a very big in bancassurance and that will contribute to the non-interest income to the bank. Thank you, sir. Moving on to the next question. What is the bank's view in entering to MFS and digital bank business? MFS, actually, we are not targeting to enter into MFS business, but digital banking as a bank. Actually, we are not just going to launch a digital bank like other digital bank in the world, but we are continuously digitizing our existing product. Digital will be actually a kind of new avenue or distribution channel for us. For example, Nano Loan is one example. Then our loan acquisition and disbursement process from microcredit segment will be more digitized. Account opening for a digital customer will be more digitized. In this way, issuance of credit card will be more digitized. In this way, actually, we are going to basically offering all of our service through digital platform. It's natural. I think we are one of the few bank of the country who is actually infrastructure wise and conceptual wise, fully ready. Thank you, sir. Moving on to the next question. What is the update on Beximco zero coupon bond? Are you getting coupon payments timely? Have you started making provisions for it? We are getting coupon payment on timely. Thank you, sir. Moving on to the next question. Any plan for portfolio diversification, like focusing more on ability to avoid current scenario like negative NIM as in quarter 3 2025 scenario and lowering loan repricing risk? I think actually, Asif can also give us a more idea what is the actually interest rate situation. I request Asif to answer this question. Sorry, disruption. I could not hear the question. Can you repeat? There was a- Yes. Sure. The question was, any plan for portfolio diversification, like focusing more on retail and SME for long-term stability to avoid current scenario like negative NIM as in quarter 3 2025 scenario and lowering the loan repricing risks? Sorry, can you hear me? Still having some disruption. Can you hear me? Yes. Yes. Okay. Regarding the interest rate, it depends on the market liquidity. Interest rate is double digit, in terms of the lending. Since you know the government a contractionary monetary policy where the interest has to come, then it is also, as an indication the interest rate will go down. The repo rates are also slowly going down. The interest rate go down in subsequent quarters. Also, market condition is another, I think, the aspect which- This interest rate. Another question? Yes, absolutely. Regarding the actually doing more business in other segment, we are continuously doing it, and I think we have already achieved a very nice mix in our portfolio. We are very much comfortable with the current mix, and gradually every segment will grow. We have built a very strong position now. Actually, we can pick and choose the best customer. Wholesale Bank is having this advantage. We have built a very strong engine to grow more in retail and other segment, SME segment. Yeah. The mix is very unique so far. If I add with, we have 60% in the wholesale side and rest is in retail. Others are mixed into small and medium SME. I think in the most of the banks is having around 70%-80% in large loans. This mix will continue in with better in the future. Okay. Moving on to the next question. How does the bank view the headwinds and sector-specific risks in Bangladesh? Firoz actually can answer. Thank you. Actually, you know the last one from the last year, Bangladesh Bank more focusing on to adopt the international standard. As part of that, they have already changes our classification, regulation and classification rules. As part of this already implemented and fully from the April of this month. That means the bank are already adopted this, and regarding considering this in our presentation, I have already showed that the overall sector NPL goes up to 27%. I think that this is the already reached in the top level. The overall outlook of now the scenario are improving. You know the overall business condition improving because of the Bangladesh Bank reserve improving, our capital account also improving, and the overall business environment improving, but still there is a concern of the election. But we are expected that the another side, the government, Bangladesh Bank already take initiative by giving policy support as also to regularize the customers who have suffered during the political situation as the dollar situation. Considering this and overall macroeconomic improvement, I think that this will be improved and the classification status, classification ratio will be goes down. Economic perspective, if we consider that still our growing sector is the export. As well as, if overall political condition improve, I think that the infrastructure sector and other sector also will be improved and the overall NPL position, we are expected to improve. Thank you, sir. I will move on to the last question of today's event. What is the bank's approach to green finance or sustainable finance or ESG, given that Bangladesh regulators and development finance ecosystem are adding focus on this? Boss, I think Asif also can add something also and as well as- I am adding, boss. We are already to increase our green and sustainable finance in line with the local and international standard. We also planning to issue. We already, I think, introduced the Green Savings Account, and we also plan to issue the green bond as a liability side source of the fund. Also, you know that we already, as if we give our roadmap for the Net-Zero Banking Alliance, as well as we already introduced our carbon account, as well as to implement the climate risk rating. At this moment, City Bank actually, this is their, already in the assessment. As assessment tool, we introduced the environmental social risk rating. Also, we are calculating the carbon emission of our portfolio as well as the customers. We already almost 50% of our customers' carbon emission calculation covered. Going forward, we also increase to our carbon emission calculation, and we published our climate related disclosure IFRS S1, IFRS S2 and separately. Thank you all for your insightful answers in the question and answer session. We have reached the end of today's earnings disclosure event. Thank you all for your participation and patience. Before concluding, let me inform you that the recorded version of the entire event will be made available in the same web link as for the live program very shortly. Those of you who missed the live event or want to skim through it at a later time, will find the whole event documented there. The financial presentation will also be available in City Bank's website under the investor relations section. We appreciate your participation and patience. Thank you again for your interest in City Bank PLC. Goodbye. Stay safe and stay well. Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you, everybody.