Good morning to all. Thank you very much for taking the time to attend this session. Indeed, you've seen a few clients, very diversified clients, from the activities we are going to talk about. I think these sessions are very important because we are going to talk about figures. At the end of the day, these figures are generated, first of all, by people. People, it's a great opportunity for you to meet with also our teams on these activities. You will see, I think, the very well-balanced mix with long-term employees of Société Générale, also newcomers, effectively people all dedicated to the firm, effectively to serving these clients in a very integrated way.
It's also the opportunity precisely to talk a little bit more about the flesh of these activities, again, not just about figures, looking also at the medium and long term. I will leave the floor in a minute to Philippe, who will enter more in detail. I just would like to tell you a few introductory comments. First of all, when we talk about this pillar, which we see really as a profitable growth driver, a long-term profitable growth driver, I just would like to come back to what we have achieved in the last few years. We really worked very hard to adapt in the last years these businesses to make them precisely this growth driver. If I just take the profitability, in 2012, these activities were making EUR 600 million of net profit.
In 2018, they delivered EUR 2.1 billion of net income with, as you probably have noticed, a profitability above our 2020 targets for the last seven quarters. We have worked very hard, in particular, to refocus the activities. Just after the euro crisis in 2012, we, in particular, refocused the consumer credit business, exiting, I would say, small activities, smaller franchises, and concentrating where we could really compete with leadership presence. In 2017, we announced a second, if I may say, wave of refocusing, having sold the Balkans and Poland. We have been able to sell them with a very good price, in very good conditions to industrial players. Also because of the hard work we achieved on these banks, improving their profitability, cleaning the balance sheet. They were banks which were attractive to these industrial players.
Meanwhile, we also worked very hard, for example, for a country in Romania and across the board in the risk. Romania suffered till 2010 from growth, which was too quick. We were able to adjust the setup, improve very much the risk. Overall, the cost of risk has been divided by five. It's five times lower today than it was in 2012, and it's even seven times for Romania. We also work very much on all the liquidity setup, ensuring that these activities were not relying on any group funding, but of course, having a very good balance sheet also from a liquidity perspective. We worked also on productivity. You will see that during the different presentation made by our activities, businesses. If let me just mention that, for example, in Russia, we were able to increase the NBI per FTE by 50% since 2014.
Again, I will not enter into the detail. You will have more illustration of the work which has been done. It's not just a coincidence that these activities are now delivering such good results. Where do we stand now? We think we have really a relevant and differentiated business model, and when I say this, when I think in the next 5-10 years about the banking services, a lot will change. We spend, to a certain extent today, more time to discuss about the impact of the low-rate environment on eurozone retail activities. May I say that we have a presence here in countries, in geographies, by contrast, which, first of all, I think will never enter negative rates, have overall better growth prospects, have banking markets which are much less mature, which offers much more growth than any mature eurozone retail activity.
We will also discuss, of course, different ways of doing businesses. We don't talk very often of that when we present our quarterly results. We will talk about bank-as-a-platform and Banking-as-a-Service. I mean, how we can also offer our services in partnership where it's not just the traditional relationship which is at stake. It's true for insurance, it's true for ALD, it's true for consumer credit. When I think personally the next five to 10 years, I have to think about these kind of activities and partnerships. You know that, and you will see that it's a very important feature of the way we develop these activities. They work very much in sync with the rest of the group. These clients that you saw, the Chinese guy who mentioned Africa, it's about synergies, it's about connection. These activities are not developed independently.
The people that you will see have had career development, which makes them understand very well what we want to achieve globally. It's not just a series of businesses alongside. That explains that a lot of the synergies we develop in this integrated group comes also from this pillar. You will see again that we are able, I think, to leverage on long-term growth trends, for example, on the mobility sector. Let me just conclude, again, I will leave the floor immediately to Philippe, who will enter more in detail. When I think again about banking and how to differentiate, in the coming years, it will be through geographies. Geographies will be a key differentiating factor. It will be, again, also about the way to do business, and digital technologies are at the forefront of that, which means the capacity to deliver the businesses differently.
From that perspective, when I look at our setup, now that we have completed the geographical refocusing, I'm very confident in the capacity of the businesses to grow. The first item, as I've said, is bank-as-a-platform. The way the services will be, again, developed and channeled through the clients will change. I think here you will see that we have a long history of very robust partnerships. You've seen some people also mentioning that Otto Group, Otto is a very large retailer in Germany. We have developed for the long term a bank to serve their clients. That's just one example. Second, mobility and leasing. A lot of people try to think about what they can do outside the banking business, going in directions which sometimes are a bit theoretical.
Here, we have something with ALD which is real around mobility, around the way people will change their usage of cars. ALD is in a formidable position as a mobility leader to take advantage of these trends, and it is just the beginning. It is just the beginning. When you look at the next 10 years, a lot will happen there. I don't even talk about autonomous vehicles here. I'm just talking about, for example, the fact that individual clients will look more and more for usage and not just ownership. Here we are developing beyond, of course, the structural growth of our corporate activity, the car fleet for corporate. We are developing very well. Same thing in partnerships also, the usage of cars for individuals, long-term leasing.
We will mention things also that we develop, for example, with Amazon, with clearly a recognition of ALD, which is, as you know, the number two in the world, as an extraordinary high-quality innovator in the way to develop also their services. When I come to geography, Africa, a lot of people say that when you think about the next 20, 30 years, the continent to look at is Africa. This is the only continent with a strong demography. Let me just remind you that Nigeria had 39 million inhabitants in 1950, 190 million today, and more than 400 million in 2050. Africa is, of course, a continent which needs political stability. The sustainable economic growth of Africa is maybe, with climate change, the number two core issue of the world.
If we don't ensure sustainable growth in Africa, we, the developed countries, the pressure on migration will be untenable. That's why we have a conviction that not only companies are looking at Africa as new areas of growth to start with, effectively China. Beyond, all the governments, all the national multilateral development agencies are going to put more money at stake. At a time where all the international players with a small presence are withdrawing because it is the same as elsewhere. People have to choose their battle. In Africa, where you have regional economic integration, you need to be not just in two countries. You need to have scale. We are here a formidable differentiating factor. We want to take advantage of this, again, in a very responsible way in terms of risk monitoring.
It means we will not jump from one quarter to the other, but my role as a CEO is not just to think about the next quarter. It's also to think about the next five to 10 years. Here we have, in particular, a formidable differentiating angle. That's what I wanted to say in a nutshell. Now I will leave the floor to Philippe, who will feed you with much more information, figures, and other things. Thank you.
Good morning, everyone. A pleasure to be with you this morning. I see a lot of familiar faces. The objective of this morning is to share with you convictions that this pillar, IBFS, is a major growth driver for the group. We'll do that during this morning. A general presentation I will make, and then we'll have specific workshops with my colleagues. You will have one on Russia, led by Ilya, one on Czech Republic with Jan Juchelka , one on Africa with Laurent, then one on Assur with Philippe Perret, one on ALD with Mike, and then one on consumer finance with Jan Juchelka . To consumer finance-
Jan Lukaszoma.
Jan Lukaszoma. Excuse me. Just to start with, just general convictions that are structuring, let's say, the presentations, the point I want to develop. We are a leader in attractive markets, I will explain to you why. We have a track record of successful growth, I will explain. We constantly work on efficiency. This is a point of permanent attention of the management. We have high standards in risk management. When you operate in emerging countries, of course, this is a point of attention, I will tell you how we are working on that. As already mentioned by Frédéric, we actively manage our capital allocation. We work on our footprints, hence we have raised the profitability of the mix.
Also mentioned by Frédéric, let's say as a banker and as a large bank, we have a responsibility to accompany positive transformation, and I will mention that as, let's say, also a driving force in our project. First, starting with, we are leader in attractive markets. To simplify, to present IBFS, the most simple way for me is to say, okay, we have the vertical lines. We are on three continents of universal or diversified banks. Take the wording you prefer. We have banks in Russia, Eastern Europe, and Africa. We serve all kind of clients in those geographies, retail, wholesale, in private banking, in insurance. We will see. We are number 3 in Czech Republic, number 2 in Romania. We are the first international bank in Russia by assets. We are the first international bank in Africa by our footprint. We are in 20 countries.
The point is, we have businesses bringing synergies to those platforms, first in consumer finance and then in insurance. We have a focus on car loan. We are number one non-captive in France, number two non-captive in Germany, number three in Italy. We are a large life platform in France, but we are developing and turning the mix, and I will elaborate on this. We are worldwide leader in mobility and leasing. As you know, we are number two in the world for mobility and for equipment finance. Globally speaking, all those things together as united, as you know, top line of EUR 8 million, net income of EUR 2.1, and a profitability of 18.1%. Okay. The presentation will be very simple. Top line, operational efficiency, risk management, and then footprint. First starting with the top line, of course, we have tailwinds.
Of course, yes, we are based on very solid macroeconomic fundamentals. Here I will mention some mega trends. First obvious one is the macro. You see that the story around KB and BRD, this is one of productivity catch-up, alignment on the standards of EU. This is also a story of to better consume structural funds provided by Brussels. As mentioned by Frédéric, we are also benefiting from a normalized interest environment. In Russia, currently, we are below the long-term potential of the country, but let's mention it. This is a country with amazing growth potential. Just bear in mind, as a Westerner, that the public debt in Russia is roughly at 15% of GDP. In terms of monetary policy, we have, let's say, very talented Central Bank of Russia, having managed the waves of 2015. The inflation stands currently at 4%.
Let's bear in mind that the unemployment rate in Moscow and Saint Petersburg is nil. Africa, this is also a story of catch-up, supported by the demographic transition. The population in Africa will grow by 1.1 million in a midterm. This is pretty impressive. Of course, the challenge for all of us, for those 500 young Africans coming to job markets, what are the prospects? This is something we have to keep in mind, we Westerners. The 1st level of growth is macro. The second is banking penetration, which is still very low. You know that topic by heart. The banking penetration in Africa is at 25%. Another aspect, credit to GDP in Russia is at 50%.
You know that in France, it's at 100%, and it's far above in China. There is another megatrend I didn't mention on that slide, but let's keep it in mind. The shift of paradigm, the shift towards usage. We see that in insurance, we see that in mobility. This is a megatrend supporting the development of mobility as a service, and the development, and Philippe will elaborate on that, of the contextual insurance. The small tickets for small moments in your life. You buy air tickets, you do, let's say, purchase internet, and you need to have an insurance for that. Okay. There I've described the tailwinds. Now I want to focus on this very important slide. Where I think we are very good at is to build synergies and partnerships. Synergies, and then I will leverage on what was said by Frédéric.
When we onboard a client in France or in China, in Africa, where we are good at is to serve that client locally with our retail banks, but also more globally with our CIB business. Globally speaking, for example, in France, we are generating EUR 2 billion revenues of synergies with our various businesses, insurance, IBD, consumer finance. In CIB is the fact that we are serving our corporate clients with GTB solutions, transaction banking, trade finance, cash management. The fact that we're also accompanying our clients with market platforms in Abidjan, Casablanca, Prague, Moscow, and also in structured finance. There is a project that will be explained by Laurent and Katia Laussin, for example, the Nachtigal project in Cameroon. We have capacity to take the best of our local presence and our global expertise.
Globally speaking, in a nutshell, IBFS is generating EUR 3.9 billion of synergies. It represents half of the group synergies, and it is increasing at a fast pace. Much for synergies. Coming to partnership. Partnership is simply to team up with a third party, to improve the client experience, to shape new business models. Behind mine, and Mike will explain that, let's see. The very essence of the success of CIB is about partnership with OEMs, with car manufacturers. Our leadership in car loans, where we are a leader clearly in Western Europe, is the fact that we are the partner of choice of dealers. I can mention also for Assur, the point is not just to saturate the existing retail network. It's also to find new partners, wealth managers, willing to distribute our products. First kind of partnership.
Commercial partnership, obviously, in countries or area where we are not. You know that we serve adequately our clients in Western Africa. You will see that with Georges and with Katia and Laurent later on. We team up with Absa to extend our reach in English-speaking Africa. Another example, what we did with OTP, when we decided to exit the Balkan part to continue to serve our clients. Open banking, another kind of partnership to shape, to design new business models. I give you there two examples. What we do with Amazon to distribute cars through the platform of Amazon, and this is very successful and opening, let's say, large avenues. Another one, which is the partnership with the TagPay fintech that allow us to build our mobile payment and mobile banking solution called YUP. Here, this point is key.
YUP could be described as a massive weapon of client acquisitions. During yesterday, we mentioned that our objective was to get 1 million clients in 2020, and we are pleased to announce that as of today, we are already at 1.2. If I look forward, and if we keep this pace, we'll be within quarters or within two to three years, we will be at 3 billion. We have acquired through YUP as many clients as we did with our existing retail banking in one country of presence in Africa. This is very meaningful. Building new business models with partnership. Okay. What about revenue growth? I think the figures are pretty easy to read. We are talking of, this is our track record, so what we have delivered over the past three years. The cumulative average growth of 6.8%. Okay.
This is the result of what you've seen before. Leadership positions, capacity to extract revenues, building partnership. You see that it was based on the growth of our loan book, and the growth is across the board in all kind of businesses and geographies. So much for the top line. Now let's explore operational efficiency, and cost income topic. First element there to mention is how the digital transformation can support this ambition to be more efficient. We had last year with Frédéric and Philippe Mich, my colleague, already a session this day on all kinds of initial things we are supporting. There, I just want to pick and choose some elements, just some elements to highlight, let's say, what we are doing. Here, I come again with YUP. YUP described just previously as a weapon of a massive client acquisition.
YUP, more fundamentally, is a way for us to solve a problem we have in Africa. In Africa, it may be provocative, the main issue we have, we have too many clients in our branches. We have clients queuing to withdraw small ticket of cash. This is of paramount importance, let's say, to process all daily banking activities through the mobile. In a sense, we have the same strategy as in France, is to refocus the branch on added-value operations. This is one example of new models to be more efficient. I can mention that when we brief what we do with KB, the fact that we can digitally onboard a client within 15 minutes. I can also, in the field of client interface with Ilya, the fact that the time to cash for cash loan in Russia is within seven minutes.
Can mention that with ALD, we distribute 60% of used cars online with the ALD Carmarket, and so on. On static, the team, Jean-Luc will explain that we have a self-collection system which is very efficient using AI. Okay, much for this first level. Okay, moving to app stuff, what we are doing fundamentally in three areas, upgrade branches. This is like in France, the point is to optimize, to right-size the footprint of our branches, and it's pretty efficient to see what we have done in Russia. We halved the number of branches. Same direction in KB and BRD. At the same time, we upgrade the kind of service we deliver in the remaining branches. Another area is about mutualization and creation of apps. The fact, for example, that we decided to merge Rosbank and Delta to have one single headquarter instead of two.
The fact that in Africa, we decided to relocate our supervision, and to pool scarce and expensive resources in finance, in risk, in compliance, in transformation, in Abidjan and in Douala. Georges Wega will be there to explain what we are doing there. The whole story of ALD also is around apps. There are two centers of expertise, one for new form of mobility, one for the B2C experience. The network of 43 countries is structured through seven apps. Now moving to near-shoring and offshoring. It's very simple. First element, this word is awful, de-moskovization, but let's explain it. Maybe Moscow is one of the few city of the world more expensive than London. Okay?
We decided in the past years to relocate 25% of our staff from Moscow, to three regional hubs, one in Samara, one in Nizhny Novgorod, and the other one for Far East Siberia in Krasnoyarsk. We decided also to relocate our digital factory from Paris La Défense to Casablanca, and in that movement, to halve the cost of development. Okay. It was a move we decided last year. Same movement in Halle. Halle is in eastern Germany, and we have the same man-day cost in Halle than in Bucharest, and this is a hub for the German-speaking countries for GEF. Maybe around Halle, we'll move forward. At the same time, we decided to rightsize the holding functions using a zero-based budgeting approach. We reduced the staff in Paris by 40%.
You see that we are mobilizing all kind of levels on branches, on apps, mutualization, and nearshoring, to work on our costs. The point is not to, let's say, to develop everybody alone bespoke solutions. It is to combine the best of breed, to combine, let's say, what we find at the group level, and what can be developed locally to share best practices, to align ourselves on high standards, and to work on culture and conducts. Here I will be very brief. Funding, as a matter of principle, we are very, let's say, consistent on this over the past 10 years. Our retail banks are self-funding by principle. We fund our consumer finance platform, GEF and ID, through the group, not entirely, but a large part. We have also aligned vertically the control functions.
In IT, the point is to leverage on group infrastructure, but at the same time to use KB, and Yannick Helka will explain it, our expertise, known in Europe in the Agile area. KB is our center of expertise. Then HR is the fact to grow a new generation of local manager. If it's too theoretical, I will give to you some hard figures. We have replaced, over the past five years, 75% of managers, out of which 70% are new CEOs. In Africa, out of our 100 key positions, 90 are local managers. The point for us is to design dynamic career paths between geographies and functions so that those managers are able then to evolve in the group. Very proud on that. Okay. What's the benefit of that, ultimately? In finishing this section on operational efficiency.
You see that we have improved over the past 3 years when we compare the CAGR revenues, OpEx. Over the past 3 years, we improve our operational efficiency with positive jaws in Europe, Russia, and Africa. Let me share it very bluntly. It was not a breeze. When you have high inflation rate in those countries, when you have pressure, competition for talents, when you have inflation of salaries, which is very significant, to be able to extract positive jaws is a challenge, but we are committed to that. The story of insurance is a completely different one that you are familiar with. We accept to, let's say, here to have negative jaws, but it's the flip side of a structural change of the business towards more protection incentive activities, consuming less capital, and at the end of the day, being more profitable.
Atchu delivered a profit of 20% last year, and the first nine months was 25%. Mobility positive jaws, of course, as you know, we have neutralized the effect of Carted results. Down the road, with inception of insurance, but we are committed to deliver positive jaws. Now moving a new section on, let's say, cost of risk and then compliance. You see the improvement of the cost of risk over a period of 10 years. We are here at a very low level of 30 basis points in 2018. On first nine months, we are at 42. We are not just surfing on the macro or low interest rates because this explanation is only relevant in Eurozone. We are surfing on a selective origination policy. The fact that 60% of our exposure is made of corporates, financial institutions, and sovereign.
Within retail, 60% of our exposure is made of mortgage and car loans. We have a very selective adaptive origination policy. At the end of the day, even if we are evolving in emerging countries, you see that operating losses are below 0.5%. Moving now to compliance, maybe one of the most important topic. Here, the point for us, there is here a strong alignment of the management team, of the heads of local banks, and the teams. We intend to apply the best standards throughout the group. This is a very important topic because when you are in emerging countries, what we are talking about is our license to operate. Simply, we apply global standards.
That are for the group at, let's say, you may be in the U.S., in Europe, in Russia, in Africa, we have global standards set by our compliance department. We have completely reshaped our governance and oversight with the direct reporting lines. Each and single compliance officer in each single entity is reporting to the headquarter. We have increased FTE. We are at 2,800 people. We invest in training, we invest in expertise, and we invest also in IT. You know because most of you are working in banks, those processes are cumbersome, are complex, are also intensive in people. The most advanced AML tool in the industry, you may be in the U.S. or in Europe, you have roughly 98%, 99% of false alerts when you filter operations.
That's why everybody in the industry, we are working, and ourselves, we are working on AI solutions to improve our filtering tools. Okay. All in all, here our commitment is to, let's say, apply the highest standards and to target to be the best in class. Refocusing here, I will be very short, and it was covered largely by Frédéric. Over the past 10 years, we applied simple, let's say, strategic criteria. If you want to stay in a country, simply, we want to deliver added value to our clients. We want to have leadership positions. Of course, we want to be profitable, and of course, to have a level of stickiness to be synergistic with the group. We conducted more than 60 operations since 2012.
You are familiar with our exit of Greece and Egypt in the aftermath of the Eurozone crisis. Frédéric mentioned the wind down of our consumer finance platform in small countries. We accelerate this movement with Transform to Grow in the back-end areas. At the same time, we keep investing out here, notably in ID or the insurance business. Okay. This is a slide I like very much. This is, let's say, the summary of the transformation journey of IBFS. Our focus on the top line, to have leadership positions, to create synergies, develop partnership, to work on operational efficiency, and to manage our risk. Basically, to summarize, we have 50% of our risk-weighted assets delivering a return below 10%. Okay. Now we have 50% of our risk-weighted assets above 17%. Okay.
Simply what we did, and of course, we will continue to work on that, and this is a point of constant attention to continue to improve, let's say, the quality of our operations. Maybe before concluding in the remaining four minutes, as one of the largest international financial institution in Europe, we are very aware of our responsibility. We need to participate to the positive transformation of the world. We are aware that we can contribute to that through our presence in Africa. Let me be blunt, doing business in Africa is doing good for Africa because we help the development and the stability of the continent. We have many areas of focus. We support African SMEs, we support infrastructure, we support financial inclusion, and we support also agriculture.
In mobility of smart cities, some examples you know, we do participate with ID to the development of alternative powertrains, the development of electric vehicles. Lighting as a service also is something very interesting GEF is working on. Of course, we participate to the development of positive impact finance instruments in line with the group's other business lines. To conclude, it will be my last slide. I want to share my conviction. We have strong foundations. Once again, we have leadership positions. We have built, and we continue to nurture those synergistic, let's say, relationship. Those also long-term partnership with third parties. At the same time, I think we have a good track record in operational efficiency, in managing our risk.
We have been, for the group, a strong driver of profitability, and absolute conviction that we continue to be this kind of strong engine of profitability and growth for the group. Thank you very much. Now maybe we can open the floor to your questions, and we'll respond with the team. Yes. Okay. We have a mic for Tariq, then for Stefan.
Hi, good morning. Tariq Kebbaj from Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Thank you for the presentation. Just two quick questions. First one, I can see Frédéric and you, Philippe, are quite excited talking about this division, high profitability, much easier. Where is the growth coming from beyond the organic growth? Can you see, like in five or six years, the mix in capital allocation and earning generation more towards IBFS versus retail in France and CIB? Would you consider more M&A there and more, how to say, stronger growth than just the organic and penetration as Philippe described? Second question is on the compliance and AML.
You had a very useful slide there about compliance and what you do and how you deal with it, but how you're comfortable to really take all the culture in terms of compliance and being very diligent through all your divisions, because there are many of them, and also it's different standards and backgrounds. Really interesting to see how you feel comfortable about that being a very serious topic at the moment.
Take the first one?
Perhaps, yes. I can take the first one. We are open to look at opportunities in terms also of M&A. I think the situation varies a lot across the businesses. If I look at international retail, if they had an opportunity, for example, in the Czech Republic or Romania, easy. Easy as long as it creates value, no big deal. If I think about Russia or Africa, it's more complex. It's not at all obvious that you can see a bank which fits precisely also with your own culture. You refer to compliance. Philippe will comment more. We are really paying attention to that. It's less obvious also to find banks which would make sense for us. In the short term at least, I see no real opportunity. I would prefer much more to grow organically.
In insurance, we bought the minority stakes of Antarius. I think it was a very good opportunity. Beyond this, I think there are very few M&A activity in insurance, to be frank, and we are not going to buy legacy life insurance portfolios. It doesn't make sense. ALD, we've always said the purpose of floating ALD was also to look at opportunities of acquisitions, and actually, we have made acquisitions. You will see that small and mid-size, which are very accretive, because same thing, you will see that certain banks who are doing the business, they prefer to sell, or we made the acquisition of Parcours, it goes back a few years, which was also very successful, open to that. Leasing, not a lot to do there. As you can see, yes, it's something where we are absolutely, in certain geographies and business open to that.
We already do a few things. Also, in other activities, it's more complex.
Okay, regarding your question on compliance, yes, this is a challenge to see difference of culture between different countries. Maybe let me, for example, give the example of Africa. There, clearly, what we are doing in Africa, at some point, we have to raise awareness among our clients, among the stakeholders about what are the new rules of business. Let me put it that way. When we say we want to get the highest conduct, brutally, we say to our team, we accept to stop a relationship with the clients. If we don't have, for example, for the KYC justification, we accept not entering into business opportunities if we are not comfortable. This is absolute, let's say, prerequisite of our presence in Africa. If you take, you have a long-term view, what we see are you have some international competitors in Africa.
You have some U.K. banks or American banks. They have exactly the same standards. We are, let's say, on the same page, and then our confidence is that progressively, there is a shift in the continent. There is a movement. We are evolving, and regarding ourselves, once again, and not because we are on the remediation, but once again, we have, let's say, global standards set by our chief compliance officer and being the resume and the synthesis of what we need to apply between U.S., Europe, and then it is applied vertically. We have strict governance of the site, and we have selected, and we train our people.
Perhaps on this, first of all, I think sometimes, and we will perhaps elaborate in the different workshops, our perception is a little bit different from the reality, including, for example, in Russia, there was this recent mission by this international body, which is called the FATF. They ranked the Russian system to fight against AML as very high, very well developed. Sometimes even the reality is a little bit different from your perception. Second, what I would like to highlight, really in terms of governance, I think it's fundamental because again, same thing, you might maybe have perceptions or intuition which are not the right one. We are in the middle of a very significant remediation. We just signed with U.S. authorities in 2018.
We have a series of projects governed at the central level with the support of our internal line of defense number 2, which are, as we’ve said, fully integrated, and we review the progress across the world. There’s absolutely no difference in the way to approach how we remediate on the different categories of clients, the PEP, all the KYC, blah. The processes, the way we approach, and the implementation is exactly the same. I think here I remain very humble. What I mean by this, we are in this remediation process. We are investing in tools, et cetera, but I would like to make you understand that there’s no difference. It relies a lot also, again, on the people. That’s where we pay so much attention in the way we appoint, develop, and grow the people.
The people that you will meet, as I said, you will see that they are committed to this topic also. I think this is the whole thing. Of course, personally, when I look at some of the events which have occurred, I tend to think that probably there was a different governance at that time also. I have to relate sometimes to previous things when you think about what happened in the Baltic countries, but the idea is really to govern from the central, and there's no development, even business development, which we'll not be very careful. A lot of humility on this, a lot of dedication also to further improve, but I would say a governance which is very, very similar across the board.
Pierre, you have a question? Maybe a mic for Pierre. Okay. Sorry, Pierre.
Guillaume Tiberghien at Exane. On the profitability target, you're already where you want to be next year. Do you have in mind that the pre-provision profit improvement will be offset by rising cost of risk? Do you think you can exceed your target?
We don't provide new guidance. You have seen that originally, our target was to be at 17%. We decided to extend the ambition to a bracket between 17%-18%. Nothing to mention to our cost of risk. We said 70 basis points, it was two years ago. We are 52 on a nine-month basis. No comment on this. We stick to this level of ambition. Yes, Pierre, please.
My question is, I have two questions. First question is, actually, when we look at IBFS globally, it is clear that it is a very beautiful setup. We can see that the picture, and Guillaume said, this picture is based on the cost of risk, which is, I would say, abnormal, particularly in Romania, with lot of write-backs. Very mature positions, what it will be difficult to be better even if the country is growing, it is very beautiful yet. I would say that your growth will mainly come from Africa, I would say, in terms of NBI. My first question is, do you think that the ROE of IBFS is sustainable at this level if you grow in a part of the world which is promising in terms of NBI, but in terms of cycle, it is more complicated? First question.
My second question, sorry for the name-dropping, but I was discussing yesterday with Thomas Buberl of AXA, and I was thinking that I will assist tomorrow to a presentation from you in Africa. I said, "Why don't you go to Africa?" He told me Africa is very promising, effectively, and he told me that in Nigeria, for instance, they had last year 15% growth of turnover. He said, "Everything I win there is lost with foreign exchange decrease." He said, "It's not possible to work in this continent because of foreign exchange." What is your view on that? Thank you.
Okay. Two questions. The first answer is, you challenge us on the capacity to grow the top line. You see that on this slide, what is growing is not just Africa. Most of the businesses also are growing at a fast pace. Normalization of cost of risk. Yes, to be fair, the 30 points of last year was a very low point. We have the benefit of write-backs in Czech Republic, also the benefit of write-back and insurance reimbursement in Romania. All in all, you see the trends are there. Let's say we have structural benefits out our policy over the past years. That's why we are confident on the evolution of the cost risk. Going to your other questions.
Thank you very much for your question. Let me highlight one element I didn't mention, that our presence in Africa, we are principally located in two monetary zones with the peg with euro. The benefit, the justification of our presence and the consistency is that we are around two single monetary zones, free trade areas with high level of integration, with a single rule book. By the way, let me highlight some provocative elements. In Western Africa, we have the capacity to use our excess deposits from one point to fund another banks. Okay. It's possible in Western Africa. Okay. The consistency of the level of integration of those monetary zones is, of course, the perfect environment to support development of our businesses. There we don't have, let's say, the effect mentioned by Thomas Buberl.
If I may just come back to the level of maturity of this country, they are still very different. I think KB, Czech Republic, and I speak under the control of Jan, is probably close to be as mature as any Eurozone country. When I say about this, it's also the penetration or the development of products such as life insurance, something like this. There's not such a difference. The only difference, as you know, is that it's probably a country from a macroeconomic perspective, which is much better than any Eurozone. Look at the public debt deficit. Second, in terms of banking market, which is probably the best in terms of concentration. If I could dream about an ending point for other Eurozone market, I could think about Czech Republic.
When you look at Romania, even Romania, as you said, which is doing well, and also on the back of, yes, the cost of risk today are still benefiting from write-backs. The penetration and the sophistication of the market, there is still more to be done in terms of just saving products. There is here, I would say, I think it's intermediary, and even the banking penetration, I think in terms of number of banking accounts per head, per population, is not as developed as in Eurozone. Russia. When we think about Russia, on the retail side, I would say it's a very still nascent market. The amount of mortgage loans versus GDP is what? 6%?
20%. So 20% versus 60%, something like this, in Eurozone, if I'm not wrong.
There is a lot to be done. The saving industry in Russia has still more a lot to do. I think that even in these countries, and I put aside Africa, there's more maturity that we can benefit. Let me just highlight in Africa, as I've said, you will see, I think you've seen other French banks withdrawing. When you are just present in three countries, with what is happening with the integration of Sub-Saharan Africa, with Mediterranean Basin, with the local also banks, which are themselves taking advantage of integrated networks, makes no sense. You've seen also BNP exiting Tunisia. I think you will see further move. Beyond what we are doing, let's say the organic growth can also be fueled by the fact that effectively we take advantage of the withdrawings of certain other banks. Yes. Jean-Pierre? Sorry, Stephan.
Go ahead.
Maybe Stephan, you go ahead. Yes. Stephan.
Yes. Thank you very much for the presentation first. I have two questions, please. The first one on growth capacity. I think last time when we met with William, it was mentioned that we have about EUR 5 billion-EUR 6 billion of organic risk-weighted asset capacity to allocate to the businesses every year. If we allocate all of that to your division, that gives about 5% organic growth capacity, but your revenue has been growing at 7% in the last couple of years. Do you think with that kind of capacity going forward, you can maintain this kind of revenue growth, or do you have to slow down a bit given the capital situation of the group as a whole? The second point on synergies. The numbers sound very impressive. You have about EUR 4 billion of synergies in the revenue base of EUR 8 billion.
Can you help me understand a little bit of how you define these synergies, how you think about synergies, what exactly generates these synergies? That would be very helpful. Thank you.
Okay. I will let you the second question on synergies. On growth, it was mentioned on the slide by Frédéric. We have the capacity to develop our growth. We are, in fact, the bulk of the risk-weighted asset growth, to simplify, and we are very lucky by the way, will be allocated to this division. As we speak, I don't feel any constraint in our capacity to grow, bearing in mind that we are also very mindful at protecting, let's say, the kind of margins we have in our businesses. Let me explain. This is a growth not supported by volumes, but supported by, let's say, the extreme attentions to be profitable. You will have, for example, the discussion with Mike on ALD.
The competition is fearful, and sometimes we prefer not, let's say, to position ourself on a very large corporate bid where margins are so thin that, let's say, the profitability will be jeopardized. You have seen, for example, GEF continuously in the financial communication the past quarters, we have improved margins. It's about also to be selective. The extension to our profitability is also optimization of the usage of our capital. We are very lucky globally to have, let's say, to benefit from this allocation. At the same time, our responsibility is to be also very selective. Going back to the synergies, for example, in France, we are mentioning 2 billion EUR of synergies. This is mainly coming from the insurance business we do in France.
The commissions we serve to the French network, also the benefit for insurance on the premium and on life insurance. We can give you the details. We have a granular analysis on how we construct and how we are in the detail, of course, of those elements. Jean-Henri?
Just a quick question on how you see the capital requirements in every country evolving. Do you see a little bit more countercyclical buffer done at local level, just speaking very globally, and how that interferes with your plan and what you had in mind? Thank you.
Very good question. Capital requirements are significant in Czech Republic and Romania. Under your control, Jan, the countercyclical buffer in, excuse me, in Czech Republic is around 1.75%. Okay. Locally, for example, BRD has a core Tier 1 roughly between 19% and 20%. Okay? We have the stack of the different levels of capitals are very demanding. Here, of course, we apply return on normative equity. We reset the capital base to 11% to, let's say, to benchmark, of course, the businesses. Yes, please.
Yes, hello. Jean-Pierre Lambert, KBW. I have two questions. The first one is, can you elaborate a little bit on the corporate side? We had the interviews in the film earlier with CEOs and so on. What's the corporate contribution, and how is it related to CIB as well? The second question, before, I think internally, you had Tier 1, Tier 2, in terms of autonomy of your units. Are you still following that, or what's the balance between
Centralized control and autonomy for your management in large institutions.
Okay. The organization of the group is very simple. You have key group clients that are served from Paris. You have a banker in Paris, but we serve these key clients globally speaking. In my previous life, when I was a banker, I have a specific client who operates in many continents. I was in contact with the corporate teams in Moscow, in New York, in Africa, to accompany the client with the respective team. You have a tier 1 client on the respective markets, which are now key group clients. The point is that we have platform of our CIB business located on some strategic spots, Moscow, Bucharest, Budapest, then you have Paris. In Africa, it's organized around Casablanca, around Abidjan. Let me keep you focused on Africa.
We have a JV with our market operations, one in Casablanca and one in Abidjan, serving all the Southern continent. We have a team in structured finance, a very talented team to source deals all across Southern Africa. The point is to combine our global expertise and our local coverage. During the workshop in Africa, you had the opportunity to discuss with Katja. Katja Rusant is our banker covering Africa. She's coming from GBIS, so she's from the corporate side, but she's working closely with our team locally to accompany the teams and to source deals.
Yeah. If I may just also on this, again, I don't know what kind of ideas you might have, again, in the governance of all this. I'd like to insist, we are governing, of course, the risk at a global level and looking at these regions, these sectors, the way the sectors are developing, industrial sectors, exactly in the same way as any developed country. Second, you mentioned Katja. It's interesting that you can discuss also with Jan Juchelka and Ilya Polyakov. Jan is the head of KB. I personally spent time to build this area. It's not an accident. He spent five years in also the head office in dealing with CIB, with the large clients for the whole Central Eastern Europe region. He has also a perfect understanding of the way we look at things at a central level. It's the same with Ilya.
Ilya spent what, 10, 15 years? 12 in the head office in the CIB. Same thing. He's head of Russia, but with a background which is very robust in terms of understanding what we want to do in CIB. I think it helps a lot in having a pretty consistent approach of the clients, the tiering, the strategy, et cetera. I think it's for good.
Maybe one more on the tier 2, tier 1 question. You have to distinguish the autonomy of funding we want to have for each and every big subsidiary of the group, especially on the retail side, with the effective centralized management of the balance sheet. We want to make sure that most of the subsidiaries are not dependent upon group funding. As Philippe said, it's been very successfully done in the past years, especially Russia as a case in point. That doesn't mean that the funding strategy is scattered in the group. It is very centralized. When a subsidiary wants to issue, we obviously discuss about the instruments, the terms, and conditions, obviously bearing in mind areas where you have minorities, of course.
Now, technically speaking, as relates to tier 1 and tier 2, you have to be mindful of the fact that in certain jurisdictions, you don't have such instruments that can be raised, and so you have to go via the mother company, should you have to comply with local TLAC rules, for example. That's obviously something we do from the center as an exception. Insurance is also a case in point, to optimize the capital usage on the insurance side. Going to subordinated instruments as opposed to core equity is just a way of improving returns. It is a centralized management to be sure that you get this point. Jacques-Henri?
Synergy?
Synergy? I think you covered.
You covered. Okay.
That was the topic. Jacques-Henri, no? Jacques-Henri, you have a question? Okay. Omar.
Hi. Omar Fall from Barclays. Two questions. Firstly, I understand the reasons for not being too interested in M&A in Africa. What about buying out the minorities, which are quite sizable? Doesn't that make financial sense? The second question is on Russia, and could you just update us on the strategic value of keeping that asset, which is a question we've been asking, I guess, since Frédéric's predecessor. You're making a 12% RONAE, which just makes it be not very interesting in the context of the rest of the group. It doesn't really fit the criteria that you had for keeping the other CEE-related assets, which is to have a high market share domestically, given that, yes, you're the number 1 international bank, but that's not the best benchmark given the size of the local players.
Okay. I will maybe let Frédéric respond on the benefit of buying the minority interest. On Russia, let me tell you that we're absolutely convinced of the potential of the country. In the transformation journey of Russia, we are exactly where we intended to be. This is a point we'll develop shortly, with Ilya. We are convinced that our objective next year is, let's say, to cover our cost of equity in Russia. According to the plan, we disclose to the market. In Russia, maybe I have to be very specific, we are, let's say, the critical mass in this large market. We are leader not just in retail, but also on the corporate side. In retail, you know that we have a niche, let's say a business mix. We are leader in car loans with market share of roughly 13%.
We are leader on the mortgage market. We have upgraded considerably our platform. This is an element of pride of the team. On the corporate segment, maybe Ilya will elaborate with [Kerizat], but be it on the BTM segment, on CDD loans, in project finance, we have meaningful positions. This is a country where, today, we see, thanks to the progress we made in the retail side, we can make progress and gain muscle on the retail segment and capture our double-digit growth. Of course, what is key is, let's say, to be where we intend to be in terms of return next year. There we are confident that starting next year, we'll cover our cost of equity.
Perhaps let me further elaborate on Russia. I think that you cannot exactly see a market like Russia, like the small Balkans, five, 10 million inhabitants. We were number 4, 5, 6, 7. Ahead of us, there were banks also more or less with the same business models. In Russia, again, we will discuss with Ilya probably more in detail. First of all, as Philippe said, you need to understand the market is dominated by two large governmental players with a clear willingness of the Central Bank to ensure competition, you will see that. There is here the specific nature of one or two animals, which are huge, but which leaves room for other players. Second, the market is largely a corporate loan market. A corporate loan. When you look at retail, you need to look at the two things.
In retail, you have at this stage, yes, the large two, first two global banks, public banks, but we are, again, very well positioned in a still nascent market. What is key for us is going forward, of course, to ensure that, yes, we can have and we can maintain a position on this market, on retail, which makes sense. Today, we have already a very good position, as Philippe mentioned, knowing that what is the percentage of loans in the corporate, in the banking sector overall, 70%? You have probably 70% of loans which are corporate loans, when in developed Europe, it's the reverse. In our balance sheet, more 60%-65% in retail.
If I may say, there will be, in my view, a growing rebalancing, and that's where today looking at our market share just as one figure does not make a lot of sense. Let me also say that we are selective on the corporate side for many reasons. Sanctions for certain counterparts, risky counterparts for others. Really, I think I cannot look at this market share today and the projection exactly as I was looking at Bulgaria or Slovenia. Of course, as we've said, our commitment is based on the fact that, yes, we will reach a profitability in line with the cost of capital.
As we said, we are not yet there, but we are confident to go there, and next year will be, from that perspective, very interesting year because we will get the full benefit of still a lot of restructuring which are taking place. You will see that more in detail. Ilya can elaborate on what is being done. Of course, the benefit also of strong franchises to grow the NBI. Regarding minorities, let me say, of course, there can always be opportunities, but on one hand, first, the focus on capital is also to meet the overall requirements of Basel IV, maintaining a dividend, et cetera. I think at this stage, and we are discussing a lot about capital, and we might still discuss in the coming quarters, the priority is not necessary to do that.
More fundamentally, when we look at sometimes the way governments look at the banking sector, the ownership by foreigners, we tend to think that it's better to be able to say it's not the 100% ownership. There is effectively local shareholders which are benefiting. Again, same thing going forward, there can be tension in certain countries. We know that in this world. I think that it's a kind of protection to be able to say, "Listen, it's not just foreign shareholders, dividends which go out, it's also you have people here in this country which are benefiting." Strategically, I'm not sure that the 100% ownership makes that much sense from that perspective.
Maybe one last word on Russia. Conviction, or maybe some passion in it, but conviction. Being a frequent visitor of Russia over the past 10 years, I tell you, it's amazing the progress we've made there in Russia. There are some objective criteria to measure that. The fact that today we are seen as frequently the most reliable bank in Russia. The fact that now, in terms of look and feel on the retail side, we are best-in-class now on the Russian market. The fact that now we are attracting talents, Natalia is one, we are attracting talents from the local and public bank. This is very important. In terms of performance, yes, okay, we stick to our plans. We delivered our plan. It's not enough. We are aware of that. Let me share with you one statistic.
If you carve out Sber in the Russian statistic, the profitability on the Russian market is currently at 10, okay? Just to see the kind of performance we are today delivering, but also we are committing to uplift that performance. Okay. Maybe one last question, because then we have to shift to workshops. Maybe Delphine?
Thank you. Delphine from JPMorgan. Just one last question from me. You've done a lot in terms of refocusing the international footprint, clearly profitability has improved quite a bit. When we look again at your operations, you still have quite a lot of a diversified footprint. Just thinking a little bit of, going forward, what else can be optimized, again? In terms of synergies, you obviously have a strong franchise with very good positioning. In terms of synergies with the group, when we think about, I don't know, whether it's consumer finance or insurance outside of France or some areas of leasing. Any other activities that you would say could change in terms of the scope or disposals in the next few years?
Thank you for the question. A very short answer. I think we are done in terms of refocusing on international retail banking. We are done. You are mentioning consumer finance, but let me stress one point. Consumer finance business is the fastest-growing one within Eurozone. By far. It is focused on car loans, and in the last vast consumer finance space, this is a risky business because we have the car, of course. For us, there is no question there. Insurance, our international operations is where we capture the fastest growth. In Morocco, in Russia, in Romania, in Czech Republic. This is a strong level of development, progressive, but really meaningful in P&C.