Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I'm Constantinos, your Chorus Call operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Yapı Kredi conference call and live webcast to present and discuss the Yapı Kredi first half, 2024 financial results conference call and live webcast. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Kürşad Keteci, CSO, and Ms. Hilal Varol, Head of Investor Relations and Strategic Analysis. Mr. Keteci, you may now proceed.
Good afternoon, and thank you all for joining our first half earnings call. Before going into our performance, I would like to share some of the information about the operating environment. Türkiye's gradual normalization process continues, and the preliminary positive results started to support the outlook, whereas the tight monetary policy stance is sustained. During the second quarter, central bank has built up extensive foreign currency reserves. Swap-adjusted net reserves improved by $90 billion since March, and currently standing around $25 billion. FX-linked deposit balance also decreased by a total of around $30 billion since end of 2023. Altogether, TL depreciation pressure is totally eliminated. Looking at inflation, June prints show the first signal of improvement, and it's expected to continue in that trend.
Also, the improvement on the current account deficit is more visible and expected to be around $20 billion- $25 billion for the full year. Budget deficit, whereas, is also improving from its peak in January, and currently it's at around 4.8% of the GDP as of June. All in all, improvement in macroeconomic data is visible, and as we have been expressing, 2024 is a transition year and [stepping]. As these improvements continue, 2025 and 2026 will be quite positive than this year, for sure. Alongside with the positive trends, we now witness a gradual improvement in TL loan deposit spread and net interest margin, which were under pressure mainly in the first half of the year. Now, I am moving to the second page of our presentation.
I would like to start sharing our strategic pillars that solidifies the outlook for upcoming periods, mainly in 2025 and 2026, as well as second half of this year. Our strong customer base will further support our financials. As we speak, number of customers exceeded 16 million. Our customer acquisition strategy is asset under management focused rather than pre-lending motivation. The main acquisition point is still our strong, strong branch network, our service model, and as well as our sales force. We also see digital onboarding as an important tool, but we are closely monitoring profitability and penetration levels and decide accordingly. This strategy creates a long-lasting relationship with our customers and provides us more room for product penetration, which will further support our balance sheet and profitability.
Another important point, we have the highest salary and pension customer base, which is now above 6 million. This will continue to support our demand deposit base, deposit pricing, and number of transactions, thus altogether, revenue generation. We are very careful on salary customer acquisition with a detailed model focusing on IRR generation, also keeping the acquisition cost under control. Thanks to this strategy over the years, more than 60% of our customers are efficient in terms of penetrated products, and this level continue to improve. Our service model and sales force efforts results better than peers' customer satisfaction levels in between. Share of demand deposits reached to 43%, highest level among our peers that announced so far. This is driven by sticky individual deposits showing further potential.
We have gained more than 500 basis points market share in TL individual demand deposits since 2022, within the private banks, and reached to 25% market share of demand deposits in TL as of June end. Our second important pillar is the repricing for the future. We are gradually widening our TL duration mismatch and getting ready for the rate cut cycle. We are increasing the duration of TL assets, whereas TL funding duration gradually reduce. Our widespread customer base will differentiate us within the competition in terms of core spreads. Thanks to excellence in our service model and customer base, our new TL loan pricing is around 250 basis points above sector average. And also on TL deposits, we are 140 bps lower than the markets.
This improving trend will support our net interest margin performance in the rest of the year. As you also see our net interest margin composition, our core spreads is positive and much more higher than our peers. Regarding the foreign currency side, we had been deleveraging our foreign currency loan portfolio since 2018, and now we are seizing the opportunity to expand our portfolio in a controlled way.... especially widespread small ticket lending for eligible, companies and with a hefty spread. This will also continue to support our overall performance going forward, with also healthy asset quality out. To strengthen and diversify our funding base for the growth cycle, we have secured $7 billion worth of external funding within a year period. Last but definitely not the least, is our sound asset quality.
Since 2018, after we set our new strategy, we have set aside close to TRY 100 billion provisions, bringing our total coverage, currently around 3.5% levels. Thus, we have a very well-covered portfolio, providing us room for potential deterioration as well as provision reversals for the following normalization periods. In a year in which we expect a normalization, mainly on unsecured consumer lending and net NPL inflows to previous years' growth loans stands at a limit of 1.6% for our portfolio. This is thanks to limited NPL inflows, but more importantly, the change in our collection strategy that already show a visible improvement in the collection ratio. As of the first half, our collection ratio increased by 50% versus 24% levels in 2022.
A part is related with the recent macro trends, but the significant parts of the improvement is driven by our own efforts and will sustain. One of the main reasons that we are comfortable about asset quality is the support from our salary customers. As of first half, around 60% of our general purpose lending is to our salary customers, of which their lifetime PD levels are below 1%. Since the establishment of the bank, as you know, payment services are among our strength. Our well-diverse, diversified and managed credit card portfolio is visible in terms of NPL generation also. As of the first half, credit card NPL ratio is limited to 1.4%, and it is around 50 bps lower than the sector. Another important point is we have constantly lowering our concentration in lending portfolio.
As of first half, highest sectoral concentration in overall exposure came down to 6%, which is much lower than our minimum, maximum 10% threshold. What I would like to say in this page, all in all, worst is over. We are ready to seize all the upcoming opportunities and getting ready for the future. If you go to the first half results, briefly, our cumulative net profit is $ 17.4 billion, and we had a return on tangible equity of 19.5% and return on asset of 1.7%. As you know, we always keep our fundamentals at the highest possible and strong levels. That's why our solid liquidity continues. FX LCR more than 500% levels, total LCR 141%, and our total LDR is 89%.
Our capital buffers in terms of CET1 is 280 bps , even this macro backdrop, which is higher than our minimum 200 basis points threshold. Prudent loan provisions continues, and we have 3.5% total coverage as of the first half. Now, I am leaving the floor to Hilal, and she will provide the details behind our numbers.
Thank you very much, Kürşad. Thank you all for joining our call today. I will start with page 4. In first half, our lucrative and selective lending strategy sustained, and we had 10% increase in Turkish Lira loans quarterly and year-to-date growth, so that's 28%. Foreign currency loan demand sustained in the quarter, and we have further increased the portfolio by 9% quarterly, reaching to 18% on a year-to-date basis. Once again, our foreign currency lending is also all across the board, so no big tickets, no concentration, so we are not increasing our concentration. Small ticket sizes for the eligible companies, which have the level of the spread. Talking about lucrative regarding general purpose loans, we had 30% year-to-date increase with 92 basis points market share gain among private banks.
On the credit card acquiring volumes, now, it's much more profitable than last year. We gained 128 basis points market share. Looking at the business loans, our growth is 26% year to date, with 40 basis points market share gain, mainly driven by Turkish Lira commercial installment loans that went up by a strong 60%, and we gained 129 basis points market share. We maintain our real Turkish Lira loan growth guidance for the full year, but increase on the foreign currency loan is visibly up, so now we forecast double-digit increase. It was previously low single digits. So the lucrative lending strategy will support our spread going forward. On the funding side, we are on page five.
We had another quarter of eye-catching demand deposit growth, and this is driven by, once again, individual deposits. Turkish lira deposits increased 16% quarterly and 25% year-to-date, reaching TRY 774 billion. Where the growth is mainly from, Turkish lira demand deposits. Increase was very strong at 32% quarterly and 43% year-to-date. I believe, we have now a proven, track record on the sustainability of our performance. We gained 232 basis points market share since end of 2023, and our market share is at 20.9%. So thanks to this performance, and definitely thanks to our strong customer base, we have not just, have the highest Turkish lira deposit share in total at 24%, but also the highest amount at TRY 189 billion.
Looking at the individual Turkish lira demand deposits, which is obviously sticky, we gained 410 basis points market share year-to-date and reached to 25.1%. Thus, we have a TRY 20 billion difference in nominal terms with our closest peer that announced so far. Foreign currency deposits, on the other hand, declined 11% quarter-on-quarter and 4% year-to-date, when the share of foreign currency demand deposits in total stood at a significant 73%. The share of foreign currency deposits in total is coming down, and we are, witnessing seeing some de-dollarization. All in corporated, our demand deposit market share is at 17% and our total demand deposit, so deposit share is at 43%.
Again, this is the highest level among our peers that announced so far, and this will continue to support our cost of funding in the upcoming period. On page six, in the first half of the year, we recorded TRY 55.7 billion worth of revenue, increasing 6% year-over-year in a very challenging macro vector. Core revenues up by 14% and support from our treasury trading income sustained. In terms of net interest margin, we have seen the bottom, I can say in the first half, at 33 basis points, due to higher Turkish lira funding costs, slower Turkish lira repricing given the growth caps and ongoing regulatory impacts. We have already started to see the improvement in the NIM, with loan repricing gradually becoming visible in the back book.
We are seeing it almost every day, and Turkish lira cost of funding stabilizing, even easing slightly. With improving movement in every quarter, we expect the NIM to be at around 2% by the end of the year, when the exit NIM, so the starting point of next year, will be above, we expect it to be above 4.5%. Our core revenue margin stands at 4.6%, and now we foresee around 6% level for full year, definitely supported by our strong fee performance that I will go through in the next page. Showing our strong core business profitability, thanks to one, Turkish lira loan deposit spread, and also foreign currency side is supporting as well, but a higher level of demand deposit support is there also.
The contribution from loan deposits to our net interest margin is at 1.5% as of first half, and this is the highest level among peers announced so far. This performance will support our net interest margin from second half of the year and onwards. So moving to the fees. Another impressive quarter for us in terms of fees, thanks to consistently increasing number of transactions with higher customer penetration level in terms of products. Support from credit card business is visible, bancassu rance is supporting investment products, and this is despite the slowdown in lending-related fee growth. Net fees increased an additional 15% quarterly and annual, growth stood at 173%, and this provides us comfort in revising up our fee growth guidance to above 100%.
It was, as, you would recall, it was above 8% previously. Our fees to average interest earning assets also improved to 3.7% as of first half. It was 2.2% last year. Payment system fees, is supporting, definitely our fee base, surged 4.8 x, year-over-year. The increasing trend in number of transactions consistently supporting our money transfer fees, that more than doubled. Bank insurance fees, they are also doubled year-over-year. So once again, the ongoing customer acquisition, along with increasing penetration, will continue to support our fee generation through number of transactions, and I believe this is another, proven track record for us.... Moving to the OpEx, we're on page eight.
In the quarter, we have maintained top-notch efficiency, and our quarterly cost increase was limited at 7%, and our annual increase contained at 7%-8%. This is thanks to ongoing cost elimination efforts. And now we foresee our cost increase to be lower than 65%. It was lower than 80% previously. The main support is from running cost increase, which increased 65% year-over-year. Our efficiency KPI is definitely the best in class and better than our peers. Consolidated fees fully 100% cover OpEx, when bank-only fee generation is even above our costs. Cost-to-average asset ratio also by far the lowest at 3.4%. And so we had another impressive performance on this front.
Looking at the asset quality, in the quarter, we had classified one big NPL, which was well and pre-provisions. Even with this, thanks to strong collection performance, net NPL inflows to taled TRY 5.3 billion. Looking at the segment, we have already started to see some normalization on the unsecured consumer loan side, meaning general purpose loans and credit cards, but it's under control and even below what we had been anticipating. Quarterly average NPL inflows from this segment are 2.5 x above the low levels of 2023, and it's mainly driven by credit card, in which we just have 1.4% NPL ratio. As Kürşad mentioned, this is around 50 basis points lower than sector. So, it's going better than what we have initially expected. SMEs still limited inflows.
Normalization likely to come late in 4Q, maybe on, it might be in the first quarter next year. So showing our strength, net inflows to growth loans is at 1.6%, a slight increase versus 1.5% level last year, and improvement in collection performance is definitely impressive at 50%, doubling from 2022. Looking at the cost of risk levels, in first half, cost of risk is at -3 basis points, with a strong 119 basis points support from specific collections. On top, we are also seeing important recoveries from Stage 2 . All in corporate zone, corporate and commercial segment with limited inflows, strong collections, cost of risk is at negative territory, compensating for the gradual normalization in unsecured consumer side.
With this performance, means strong collections, we now foresee the year-end cost of risk to be below 75 basis points. If you recall, our previous guidance was around 100 basis points. Looking at the stages and our coverage levels, our total coverage is strong at 3.5%, and if we adjust it for the NPL sales, this is still at 3.7% strong. And I just want to mention that in first half, we saw TRY 2.1 billion Turkish NPLs with a price of 40. Also, one important point is we are prudently increasing the coverage level of unsecured consumer and credit card loans when the strong performance in corporate and commercial sales side prevails.
Moving to our solvency, our CET1 ratios stood at 10.9% and buffer versus the regulatory thresholds stood at 280 basis . And this is, as we mentioned, in a challenging environment, and this is still above our guided threshold of a minimum 200 basis points. Capital adequacy ratio is at 14.3, with 233 basis points buffer. Please note that this is without regulatory forbearance, but includes the negative impact of higher risk weight implementation, and the impact is around 150 basis points. In the second half of the year, with support from internal capital generation, we foresee the CET1 capital buffer to emerge to 300-320 basis point levels. Thus, we are comfortable with our solvency. In terms of sensitivities, the impacts are very limited.
First, 10% depreciation has 28 basis points impact on CET1 and just 4 basis points on capital adequacy ratio. The impact of the first a hundred basis points parallel shift in Turkish lira yield curve is just 15 basis points. And I just want to mention this again, these figures are not linear. So looking at page 12, this is a summary now for our guidance revisions. I went through all of them throughout the presentation. Just one more, these all revisions, we end up with now foresee, our return on tangible equity to be at mid to high 20s at the end of 2024. Now I'm leaving the floor to Kürşad for closing remarks, and we will be taking your questions.
Kürşad?
I would like to take this occasion to extend our thanks to our stakeholders, who stands by us with trust and support, and to our dedicated employees who contributed to the achievements of our bank. On behalf of, of the whole team, we would like to thank you all for joining our call, and now we can take your questions.
The first question comes from a line of Butkov Mikhail with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Good day. Thank you very much for the presentation. I have a couple of questions. So first one is on net interest margin. What level of remuneration for the conversions have you received in the second quarter and included in your net interest margin? Then on the cost of risk, we can see that, yes, Stage 1 and Stage 2 cost of risk was negative. Was it supported by the reversals of provisions and in which particular segment? And maybe more broadly, how do you see cost of risk developing into the year 2025, next year?
Lastly, what appetite do you have or not for any more effects issuances, given that the first half of the year was generally quite strong for the Turkish bank and banking sector? Thank you.
Thank you, Mikhail. For your first question, net interest margin. Within the net interest margin, level of remuneration for reserve requirements, we are fully eligible for reserve requirements remuneration in the second quarter, and you can take it has a positive impact on the NIM close to 1% levels. For the cost of risk side, asset quality, yes, we have reversals in terms of Stage 2 and Stage 3, which are mainly driven by our collections. In our presentation, we tried to give our collections impact, which is 119 basis points coming from specific collections between the Stage 3 collections. These collection sectors are related to some of them related to energy, some of them related to construction sectors.
And also in Stage 2, we have some cost of risk reversals, which are also mainly due to decrease of the risk in our Stage 2 portfolio coming from company sides and mainly on the construction sector. For your third question, debt issuance, as we always say, we are opportunistic in this issuance market, and we have already been on the market quite much during the first half of the year, specifically during the first quarter of the year. We believe we have covered majority of our funding needs. Apart from that, what could be the activity in the market will be totally opportunistic. Thank you.
Thank you very much for the answers. Much appreciated.
Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Taranto David with Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. I have four questions, please. The first one is about the NIM. Thanks for the NIM progression chart on page six. It's very helpful. I was wondering if your fourth quarter NIM expectation includes a rate cut? Second question is about the swaps. Your swap costs have remained elevated in the second quarter. How has been the utilization so far in the third quarter? I know it's still a bit early days, but onshore swaps have been down at the sector level. Have you increased your offshore exposures? You know, how should we think about the swap cost in the third quarter? Third question is about the asset quality. Stage 2 loans remained somewhat flattish, but the breakdown has changed. There was a shift from regular Stage 2 loans to restructured Stage 2 loans.
Was that driven by a big-ticket item or a collection of small-ticket loans? Finally, it seems that there was around TRY 4 billion of mark-to-market or revaluation loss under equity in this quarter. What has been the driver of that? Thank you.
Thank you, David. For the first question, again, going with your first question, please. Fourth quarter rate cut, yes, we have, we are assuming a rate cut in the fourth quarter. In this fourth quarter, we believe that, there could be, two types, two set of rate cuts, and, it could be somewhere around, below 45% levels if we see—if the Central Bank sees, inflation is decreasing, in a decreasing trend. Therefore, our fourth quarter exit of 4.5%, more than 4.5% net interest margin includes this rate cut. There was another question, on the online, combining, this with that.
If this rate cut going to happen in the first half of the next year, which we don't assume, and then this will shift our net interest margin recovery, will shift it to first quarter. And for your question, for the swap cost, during the second quarter, swap volume approximately decreased by 25%-30% in terms of volumes. But as you know, the policy rate increase mainly hit second quarter. Therefore, the pricing impact is much higher than first quarter. That's why you see swap cost is higher than first quarter. For the upcoming periods, in the third quarter, it's going to be very low in terms of volume, as you also mentioned. And we assume that swap cost will be somewhere around TRY 10 billion levels, close to TRY 10 billion, maybe higher than TRY 10 billion levels. This is our assumption.
For your third question, I think it was for the recoveries and also collections on the portfolio. Yes, there were some couple of big tickets, mid-size tickets collections, as I mentioned in the first question. Some of them from the construction, some of them from the energy, and a couple of bits and pieces, including some retail collections. Just to give you the sense, on a quarterly basis, we are averaging more than TRY 3 billion-TRY 3.5 billion collections, pure collections on our NPLs. And that is—that's the main impact for our cost of risk reversal. And it's going to, for the future quarters, for the upcoming quarters, as we are always mentioning, yes, there is going to be some pressure on the asset quality, the tightening in the market.
It depends on how it's going to impact the asset quality. It depends on how deep the tightening will continue, which is also linked, again, to rate cuts. That's why if it's going to be quite deep, and then 2025, we will be talking some asset quality problems. But currently, we believe at the end of third quarter, fourth quarter, we will start seeing a bit more NPL inflow coming from unsecured lending on the personal loans. As we said at the beginning of the presentation, our portfolio is quite strong in terms of lifetime PDs. Therefore, we believe we are comfortable.
Can I add one thing?
Yes.
So regarding the Stage 2 loans, the restructured portfolio seems to be increasing. It's mainly from some times we are lengthening the maturity or pricing the loans. One reason is that, and second one is the big ticket recovery that we are having, as Kürşad mentioned, mainly from Stage 2, and it is construction and energy-related. So it's changing the composition a bit. You're right, but it's not showing any worsening. On the other hand, it's showing a strengthening in terms of Stage 2 portfolio.
Thank you, Hilal. And for your last question, TRY 4 billion mark-to-market loss is purely related to our, related to our marketable securities portfolio, in line with the policy rate increase and interest rate increase on security portfolios, over all the markets. I hope it works, and if anything remains, please ask.
No, it's all good. Thank you very much for your answers. Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Sevim Mehmet with J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, Kürşad. Good afternoon, Hilal. Thanks very much for the presentation. I just had a couple of follow-up questions. First of all, on the real TL loan growth target that you have for this year. Clearly, in the second quarter, we've seen some slowdown, but you're pretty much in a good shape. But thinking that you have delivered about 27% or so growth so far this year, where do you see the trends therefore in the second half? And could you translate this into a number? Essentially, you know, if we assume inflation is still 60% average this year, how should we think about that real target that you're communicating?
Secondly, on the coverage declines that we've seen, is this basically just a function of the NPL sales and collections that you've done, maybe, from highly covered portfolios, or, was there any other color that you could share there? And secondly, thank you for the views on, the asset quality in 2025. Yesterday, we heard from one of your peers that the, the wholesale book could see some deterioration in 2025, following the worsening in the consumer books this year. Are you seeing any signs of stress in the books so far or anything that would indicate this? And if we think about cost of risk next year, would you say that this could be above the normalized levels then? And, did you have any, maybe, figures to share at this point? Thanks very much.
And thank you, Mehmet. For the real Turkish loan growth, as you mentioned, it depends on the inflation, but maybe it is better to share our inflation expectations. We believe it's going to be somewhere low 40s. That's why we believe according to that market scenario, we will be a bit more than this inflation levels in TL lending. In case, as you mentioned, if we are talking about 50%- 60% inflation, then we are going to be discussing something else, if it's going to be, and therefore, for sure, we will be revising accordingly. But this is purely related to our inflation assumption of low 40s. And the second question, coverage decrease. Yes, it's mainly related to NPL sales as well as the collection efforts.
This collected portfolio, collected loans, are mainly with high coverages, close to full coverages. That's why collecting them with also the risk balance, but we are also removing 100, close to 100, 99%- 100% of provisions. It impacts the coverages. Other than the collections, we are not touching any remaining provisions of the existing NPL portfolio just to be secure, and the cost of risk next year and asset quality worsening on the wholesale book. Asset quality worsening, retail, started. We are able to see it. We see an increase in NPL inflows. We also share in the presentation. For the small and micro companies, yet it's also visible, but we haven't seen yet for the big commercials and conglomerates regarding the asset quality worsening.
Also, the yesterday comment from one of our competitors, it may happen for that wholesale book. It depends, again, according to how deep a country going to tighten, and that's why we believe it is so crucial about the rate cut planning and this tightening levels. If tightening sustains, yes, then we could be starting to talk for this wholesale book, but we don't see it yet. And for that reason, our cost of risk assumption, as you see, we revised down for this year, lower than 75. But it's going to be, we believe, a current, that's going to be higher than this year's, we can easily say. I am not able to say whether normalized, because since the new IFRS rule, we are always, every year for the last five years, talking about normalized cost of risk.
We haven't seen it yet. Let's hope that it's going to be normalized next year. I also share. I would like to also share your question that you have sent us through a mail about the CPI linkers impact on our NII. With the funding cost of the CPI linkers in NII, we are talking about for the first half, TRY 15 billion, something, income coming from the CPI linkers. I hope it works.
That's super clear. Thanks very much.
Thank you.
The next question is a follow-up question from the line of Sevim Mehmet with J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.
Hi, thanks very much. Just maybe just one more for me then. On the capital ratios, clearly, you're seeing an expectation, you're seeing an improvement into the second half, which I believe is obviously driven by the improving ROTEs. But also, when we think about the normalization in the economic environment, maybe, hopefully with, the also relaxation on the loan growth caps, et cetera, when do you have any views on the, adjustments for the high risk ratings by the BRSA and when this might be happening overall?
Mehmet, for starting from your last wording and about this high risk, RWA, we are aware that there are some discussions going on within the regulators, Banking Association, BRSA, and there is no clear result of it yet. I think they are going to make those decisions in line with, again, seeing the inflation, policy rate, et cetera. But it is on the table. We believe that according to the normalization of the macro environment, these are going to be released. And for this capital adequacy ratio and then the regulatory loan caps, growth caps, et cetera, released, it will be the, firstly, the accumulation of the profit and internal capital generation to exceed macro conditions and loan growth. Then all the banks will start again growing in a normal way.
That's why it is not going to for sure happen in the first half of next year. Then it will come a bit in the second half of that year.
Great. Thanks very much.
Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, I will now pass the floor over to management for any webcast questions. Thank you.
So, looking at the questions, we have one on the effective liquidity. We have more than $8 billion immediate liquidity for Valentina, and one-year maturing ones is close to $4.5 billion. So we have a still very strong coverage on that front. I'm just looking at... There are lots of questions that we have already answered. So lots of questions about net interest margin. And.
Well.
So you have stated that the work is over. Has net interest margin turned back into black as of July? Thank you.
Thank you for asking that. Yes, let me say the worst is over, from our daily follow-ups on our results. Yes, we are seeing it.
So, one question about asset quality: Are you seeing or do you expect any pressure on collateral values? Are you seeing any pressure on SME segment?
Thank you, Zenel. For the collateral values, it has increased a lot. And when we look at the overall 2-3-year periods of assets, fixed assets increase, price increase, and it's still, yet in line with the overall 3-year inflation. Therefore, we are not seeing it yet. And the collateral levels, you know, quite LTVs are, quite adequate, for any, any possible pressure for the collaterals. And for the SME segment, from the micro, SMEs, yes, there are some, stress that we are seeing, but, these are easily manageable, thanks to low ticket sizes and widespread risk. Therefore, it is manageable. But to your question, specifically, yes, we see.
I think we covered almost all.
Ladies and gentlemen... Oh.
Please go ahead.
Yes. We do have one more question. The next question is again, a follow-up question from the line of Taranto David with Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Sorry, just one more question from my side. Would you be able to provide any guidance on the tax rate for the second half? Because in the first half it has been a bit slower than the usual. How should we think about the second half tax rate, please? Thank you.
Thank you. But it is changing in every month. Therefore, theoretically, we believe the effective tax rate will be higher than first half, but theoretically, without commenting on what may come differently than today's regulation. But theoretically, yes, it will be higher.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the conference over to management for any closing comments. Thank you.
Thank you all for joining our call today. If you have any further questions, need any clarification, know our team is here to help you always. Thank you. Have a lovely evening. Bye-bye.
Bye-bye. Thank you.