Good afternoon. Welcome to our conference call. It's been a quarter since our last call. As promised, we are back to discuss our results for Q3 2026 and the results for nine months of 2026. Today we have here Taras Skvortsov, Financial Director and Deputy Chairman of the Executive Board. We have a brief presentation, and then as usual, we will have a Q&A session. Please feel free to submit your questions to the chat, or you can also ask them in SberJazz. A couple of housekeeping remarks. Today's conference call on October 28th, 2026, is being recorded. As part of our discussion, we may announce plans and forecasts, which may subsequently differ from actual results. More detailed information on potential risks and conditions is provided on the second slide in the disclaimer section. Taras, the floor is yours.
Thank you, Anastasia. Good afternoon, analysts, journalists, shareholders of Sber.
Today we are summarizing the performance for nine months of 2026. As you've probably noticed from our reports, over the quarter, our net profit increased by 13.9%, in line with the market consensus to RUB 510.8 billion with a return on equity of 23.5%. Over the nine months, Sber earned over RUB 1.5 trillion, which is 17% higher than last year, and return on equity amounted to 24%. We all know that the macroeconomic context remained challenging. In Q3, the growth rate of business turnover slowed down compared to Q2. This cooling was observed in most of the largest industries, including mining, wholesale, and manufacturing. In addition to the corporate sector, consumer activity also slowed down. Nominal household spending in Q3 increased by 11% due to a more moderate growth of spending on services and HORECA, as well as non-food items.
This is partly due to a slowdown in household income growth, up to roughly 10%, due to less active growth of wages and social payments. Given these trends, we expect Russia's economy to grow in 2026 within the range of 0.5%-1%, with a shift toward the lower bound of this guidance. Over the nine months, consumer prices increased about 5%, mainly due to steadily high rates of services. We have slightly raised our inflation forecast for 2026 to the range of 6.5%-7.5%, versus the previous forecast of 6.5%-7%. At the last two meetings, the Central Bank took a break in the key rate reduction cycle due to the preservation of high inflation expectations and the retirement of production capacities in certain industries.
That said, according to our estimates, the regulator may maintain the key rate at the last meeting of the year in December. We also believe that there is a high likelihood that the key rate might go down 25 basis points. Now the financial performance, the detailed results of Sber, the number of our retail clients increased in Q3 2026 and reached 110.7 million, while the number of corporate clients amounted to 3.5 million companies. There was a noticeable growth in the children's segment. In Q3, the number of active monthly users of the SberKids app increased by 300,000 up to 2.9 million people. Over the course of the number of SberSpasibo loyalty program members increased by 1.8 million to 99.4 million, while the number of companies participating in the SberBusiness program increased by 70,000 to 1.2 million companies.
In terms of lending, the dynamics in Q3 were rather strong. Our corporate loan portfolio grew in real terms year- to- date by 8% or by 5% over the quarter and amounted to RUB 34.2 trillion . The largest growth was observed in residential real estate and in oil and gas due to the expansion of financing for large and major clients. Sber's market share in the corporate lending market increased by 0.3 percentage points over the quarter to 32.7%. Our expectations regarding the corporate lending market and our market share there remain unchanged overall for 2026. As for the quality of the corporate portfolio, it continues to be under pressure. Over the quarter, the share of stage 3 loans increased slightly by four basis points to 4.8%.
We, of course, created provisions in advance, and we formed a macro add-on for certain industries, and in Q3, we reduced it somewhat, so the cost of risk over the quarter went down to 0.7%, and over the nine months, this indicator decreased to 0.6%. By the end of the year, we expect this indicator to be a bit higher than what we have at the moment. The retail loan portfolio, it has grown in real terms by almost 10% since the beginning of the year, and over the quarter it grew by 4.1% to RUB 20.9 trillion . Sber's share in the retail market over the quarter increased by 0.5 percentage points to 51.1%. In this segment, the main growth in absolute terms was concentrated in mortgages, primarily under state support programs due to this big hype, especially in September before the revision of the terms of family mortgage.
The mortgage loan portfolio grew by 9.5% year- to- date. In the second quarter, it grew 2.6% and reached RUB 13.6 trillion . We increased our share in the mortgage market by 0.7 percentage points over the quarter to 58.7%. Despite the record demand for preferential mortgage programs, the volume of market mortgages continues to grow. In September, it exceeded RUB 114 billion , the highest value since the beginning of 2026 and for many years on record. Overall, in nine months, the volume of market mortgages doubled. The volume of the consumer loan portfolio increased by 5.7% over nine months, and more than half of that growth, 3.4%, was in Q3. The portfolio is currently RUB 3.7 trillion . Over the quarter, our share also increased by one percentage point to 42.2%.
The credit card portfolio increased by 3.8% since the beginning of the year and by 1.7% over the quarter to RUB 2.6 trillion . Sber's market share is 54%. A strong dynamic remains for several quarters in a row in the car lending segment. Our portfolio grew by almost 24% over nine months and by 8.2% over the quarter to reach RUB 897 billion. Sber's share gained 0.9 percentage points over the quarter to 22.5%, and for the first time, we reached the first place in terms of market share in the car lending market in Russia. In the retail lending market, we maintain our guidance for the corporate clients, for the rates of growth, and our positions in that market. We will continue to increase our share. As for the cost of risk for the retail portfolio, as expected in Q3, it was below 2%, i.e., 1.7%.
For nine months, it is a bit higher, 1.9%, but it is a significant drop from last year, - 0.8 percentage points year-on-year. Speaking of the quality of the total loan portfolio at the end of Q3 2026, it remains stable despite isolated deterioration in individual segments. The share of stage 3 loans, including those initially impaired, decreased by 0.2 percentage points over the quarter to 5.3%. That was related to the improvement of the risk profile for new retail disbursements. As I said, mostly those disbursements were concentrated in mortgages. The total provisions to impaired loans ratio was 97.6%, which decreased due to the write-off of insolvent claims at the expense of the created provisions. The total cost of risk over nine months decreased to 1.1%.
Given the challenging situation in individual industries, we maintained the overall cost of risk forecast for 2026 at the level of 1.4%, but we do acknowledge that it might be slightly better depending on how situation evolves. Retail funds in real terms increased by 0.9% over the quarter to RUB 35 trillion . Since the beginning of the year, the growth has been 4%. A restraining effect on the growth of retail funds was exerted by the ongoing outflow of client funds into cash. Sber's share increased over the quarter by 0.1 percentage point to 45.1%. We also saw a steady growth of clients' interest in the securities markets. The number of SberInvestments clients exceeded 10 million and has grown by 16% year- to- date. Net asset inflows over the nine months increased by 80% year-over-year, while the total client assets exceeded RUB 3 trillion .
In September, a system of quick transfers of securities between brokers was launched, and we welcome this step forward. It adds flexibility for the clients. It allows us to compete better, and against that background, we strengthened our market positions during the first month of the system operation. The inflow of assets to SberInvestments from other brokers exceeded the outflow by more than 11 times. The amount of corporate funds increased by 13.5% in real terms over the quarter to RUB 16.7 trillion . The growth year- to- date has been 3.7%. Our share increased by 1.6 percentage points over the quarter to 20.1%. Our expectations for the growth of the corporate deposit market in 2026, in the range between 5% and 8%, remain valid. The forecast for the retail deposit market growth was lowered to 10%-12%, mainly due to the outflow into cash.
In both markets, we will grow in line with the sector. An increase in the volume of working assets supported the growth of net interest income. In Q3, this indicator increased by 24% to RUB 1, 108 billion , and in nine months of 2026, net interest income increased by 23% to RUB 3 , 159 billion . The net interest margin began, as expected, a slight decrease, and in Q3, it lost 4 basis points to reach 6.65%, mainly due to the payment of record dividends in August 2026. Amid the current trends, we expect the net interest margin to be decreasing, but we are slightly raising our guidance from 6.2% to slightly above 6.2% at the end of 2026. Net fee and commission income in Q3 decreased by 1.9% to RUB 212.3 billion.
Over the nine months, the growth was 2.8%, and overall, it reached RUB 632 billion in net fees and commissions. As I said, a restraining effect came from the revision of rates for a number of our products, including the cancellation of all limits and commissions for transfers within Sber and for payment of utility services in SberBank Online. These services are now completely free of any charge. In addition, we expanded SberPrime subscription privileges and improved the terms for payroll clients. Given these changes, the dynamics of fee and commission income will also be under pressure in Q4 of this year, so our guidance of 0% fee and commission income growth will remain. More and more of our clients are choosing new convenient payment methods. Around 3.3 million clients use the payment with a smartphone service called Whoosh.
The total turnover exceeded 52 billion, which is 17% higher than in the previous quarter. In October, we added the Whoosh payment service to our smart rings, so you can pay with our smart ring or with a card or with your smartphone. About 2.8 million people used the Pay by Smile service, which was twice as many as last year. The turnover of biometric payments increased by 28% over the quarter to RUB 51 billion . The cost-to-income ratio, our operational efficiency indicator, remained at a comfortable level and amounted to 28.4% over the nine months. We did not change the CIR guidance for 2026 and expect it to be within the range of 30%-32%. One of the key reasons for Sber's continued high operating efficiency is the further adoption of artificial intelligence.
We are at a stage where AI is becoming not just a working tool, but a full-fledged digital employee. Currently, Sber has over 1,000 AI agents that take on up to 80% of routine tasks, and this is bringing tangible results. In September 2026, Sber increased the volume of development by 70%, which is crucial because it means a completely different speed of deployment of the new changes, the new releases that we're constantly doing for our clients. Further development of generative AI and products based on our GigaChat model remains Sber's strategic priority. Recently, we hosted a GigaConf technology conference where we introduced our new products and solutions, and I will list just a few key ones. In September, we opened access to the new flagship model, GigaChat 3.5 Reasoning, Russia's first neural network with a reasoning mode.
This is a very important step forward because this paves the way to a broader adoption of GigaChat in finance, in law, in software development, and in other areas where reasoning was the key barrier to improving the quality of the model. We also created a whole range of services for business for everyday tasks. One of them is GigaCowork, a platform for creating and managing AI agents, which also includes a showcase of ready-made roles for AI agents, which accelerates their implementation in work processes. Today, GigaCowork is used by over 1,000 companies. To work effectively, agents need access to high-quality information, so we are developing partnerships with platforms and database developers. GigaCowork agents are already working for SPARK, Cbonds, and Garant database, expanding their capabilities in legal, financial, and analytical tasks.
Another solution is that the agent for developers, GigaCode. It already has gone beyond the chat and is now available as GigaCode desktop app. It brings together a team of specialized AI agents in a single interface. It works with local project folders and enables users to connect additional specialized agents for higher efficiency. For everyday life, we developed a GigaAgent. It can take over routine tasks such as calendar management, paperwork, news digest, and by that, it frees up time for important personal matters. I would like also to invite you to our annual international conference dedicated to artificial intelligence, AI Journey. This year, it will be held from 26th to 28th November. The equity of the group has increased by 7.8% and by 5.5% over the quarter and amounted to RUB 9 trillion .
The capital adequacy ratio N20.0 in the third quarter has decreased by 1.4% to 13.7% due to record dividend payments in the amount of RUB 850 billion . Half of the total amount of dividends, which is RUB 425 billion , was sent to the state budget, and the remaining funds were received by more than 2.4 million private and institutional investors of Sber. In terms of guidance, I would like to draw your attention to our expectations for 2026. We think that the GDP growth will be in the range of 0.5%-1%. Annual inflation is expected to be between 6.5% and 7.5%. Also lowered the retail deposit market growth to 10%-12%. As for other markets such as the corporate deposit market and retail lending, our previous guidances still stand.
In terms of financial performance of Sber, we increased the forecast for the average net interest margin to the level of over 6.2%, and the rest of guidances remain the same. Finally, in conclusion, I would like to invite you to our investor day that will take place on November the 12th, which is also the 185th anniversary of Sber. We will summarize the results of the current strategic cycle and present the new group development strategy until 2029. There, we will voice the financial forecast for three years for 2027 and also the dividends expectations and the other things you are waiting for so much. I think this part is now finished. I will be happy to take questions.
Thanks, Taras, for your presentation. We are welcome with your questions. Please use the raise your hand option in the reactions panel, and do not forget to activate your microphone before you ask the question, before you start to speak. We see that there are a number of analysts. Evgeny from Alfa -Bank, floor is yours.
Hello, dear colleagues. Thanks for this presentation and congratulations on good performance. I have a question on the events of the two weeks ago in Saratov region. With the services, I think we were able to see that the incident didn't lead to any technical degradation or breakdowns, but it will be very interesting to hear your comments on how your clients behaved at that period, because the reaction is usually quick. Have you seen any anomalous withdrawal of cash or maybe movement of funds to other banks? What kind of dynamics you saw, which was different from the usual?
Thanks, Evgeny, for the question. We really understand the time we are living in, so we realize the responsibility that we have, responsibility before our customers. We have taken and will take all the necessary measures to protect the infrastructure to ensure sustainability of our services and of Sber as a whole. In terms of that specific date, there was not any surge in any way because there was actually no basis for that. All of our services continued to work as usual, and the clients could know about that only after reading the news about potential risk. There was no real implemented risk, so no transactions stopped. No things like that happened.
Thanks, Evgeny, for your question. Next one, Egor Dakhtler from T-Investments.
Hello, dear colleagues. Congratulations on the wonderful results. I have a question on the quality of assets. On the background of what we see, the macro indicators are not improving, the rates are not decreasing, and at the same time, we see a really low cost of risk in the corporate segment. So what in future, how shall we look at this indicator? I mean, the corporate segment in general, like cost of risk and the quality of assets. Do you expect any points in time that could be indicative of the changes in the trends in this specific segment? Currently, we see a downtrend in terms of cost of risk in the corporates. Is there any turn in that process in the future or not?
Thanks a lot for this question. The quality of corporate portfolio is something we think about.
In retail, the trends throughout all the products are very positive, and in the corporate segment, that is the period of higher rates, the high real rate, it continues to accumulate, and this negative impact presses on the customers. As considering the pause that is now here, I mean the pause in the decrease of the Central Bank rate. In terms of the third quarter, as I said in my speech, in 2025, we already had prepared for even a more negative scenario, and we have created special provisioning for this case. The third quarter part of this provisioning was freed up and they are being moved over to specific cases. So I think as far as the third quarter is concerned, it was a bit lower if we account for the macro-prudential provisions.
Also, there are in some cases where there are problems with revenues, with sales in certain segments, export limitations that appear, the demand for investment. There are some industries which are not ideal in this extent, and there are customers who feel a bit worse than average, and for them, there are additional provisions, and in that case, the fourth quarter will be more negative in terms of corporates than we have seen in the first, second and third quarters. As for 2027 and on, let us wait for 12th of November when we will tell you about the trends. There are, I think, no foundation for the situation dramatically improving for such legal entities. That is my answer.
Next question, Svetlana Aslanova.
Hello. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to ask the question. It is relative to the funds of your customers. What is your opinion? Are the trends towards saving changing, especially in retail? Can the change in taxation impact that? I mean, the income from deposits, can it affect their behavior? What may your reaction be, and what can it mean for the income of Sberbank?
Hello, Svetlana Aslanova. As far as deposits by individuals are concerned, there is a slowdown in the market, in the deposits market. It is very considerable, especially in the third quarter. The growth of portfolio was minimal, and even with such growth, we were able to increase our market growth. We understand that the sector as it is, the third quarter had almost zero growth. A lot of drivers for that. Taxes will be increased in 2027, even two times. They will be increased two times. Taxation of, let us say, the most rich segment of more than RUB 2.5 million in a year.
Also they increased with the fact that they are levied right on the moment when the interest is paid. So they will pay both for 2026 and 2027 at the same time. Of course, it will affect the market of the deposits. The part of the growth, of course, will shave off a bit from this market. A lot of drivers that affect the dynamics here, the dynamics of the key rate, and probably another important factor is more withdrawal of cash. This year, there were a lot of withdrawals and they hindered the growth of such deposits. I hope in the last months of the year will give us some optimism, and we hope there won't be as many withdrawals, because this market will be under less stress.
Of course, the income of the population is also a driver, and how they will grow is also a question. All these foundations form the trend. Our opinion is that a very drastic slowdown that happened in 2026 will not have a double further on. Of course, the investment markets is sort of being revived, but this trend is a trend of the last many years. I think that this ratio between these two markets will not change. The decrease of the key rate is also one of the drivers, as I said. This, then the tax, then withdrawals, and little growth in the income of the population. This will affect the deposits market and the investments markets, but not a very serious decrease in dynamics. We were not expecting that. We will be able to tell you more on November the 12th.
Thanks, Svetlana. If you do not have any questions, we will move on to the next speaker. Olga Naidyonova, floor is yours.
Thanks a lot for making this presentation, and congratulate you with your results. My question is relative to the credit quality in the corporates, but maybe you can specify the size of the restoration of the macro-prudential buffer that you carried on. Due to that, the cost of risk decreased very seriously. That is one question for better understanding.
Olga, hello.
Actually, the impact 2.3%, right? Thank you very much. Are there any other questions? In terms of restoration about depreciation of assets, can you make a comment?
Yes, we are actually reassessing our assets. Tangible assets and goodwill, and we have a very flexible approach here. You understand that this time is now when development is going very fast, and we are seeing that the number of companies who have depreciation of assets or investments. So we are working with the same logic. In the third quarter, we held very serious reevaluation, but it is not due to just one factor, only one factor.
There are a number of projects in tangible assets as well. Frankly, it was the amount that is in the report, but I cannot say that it will be on a regular basis. It is a one-time effect, which is shown in the third quarter as part of our conservative policy of posting these ratios to understand that the equity must be very reliable, very proven, and we shouldn't move all the potential risks into the future and posting them right now this year. I mean, the real cost of assets that we have right now.
Thank you. Thank you. I think there is another question from Vasiliy Nikin from Sovcombank.
Hello, thank you for making this presentation. I have a question on project finance. What is the growth of portfolios expected in the fourth quarter and in 2027? What is the dynamic of new limits for that?
Thanks, Vasiliy. Project finance, in general, has been growing mainly due to pre-approved projects, due to mainly the financing of housing and construction. We see that the companies that have started this housing have started the construction, the actual construction. They need support, even in the current conditions. They still finalize the projects. They sell them afterwards. And in general, we see that in the third quarter, as far as the objects are concerned, that is already put to the market. There are even new lots for sale.
The escrow coverage is 5 percentage points better, 5 percentage points better than what we had expected in terms of the models approved with the clients before, at the stage of the approval of loans. In general, these are high-quality projects. We don't see any sizable risk here. Risks are with older projects, especially with the regions, if we talk about specific regions where there is a lack of demand or a lot of construction sites.
There are big regions, big cities in Russia with such situation, where only a small percentage of apartments sold, less than 60%, in some regions, less than 50%. And in those regions, there are specific customers, although they are big customers, they still have some problems, and they require additional provisioning. In general, it is mainly about pre-approved projects. There are no big sizable projects that come to us for lending. Very few of them.
Everyone is waiting, or have postponed their investment projects, their ideas, until the moment where the cost of loans will be more accessible. Thank you.
Thank you for your question. Next question, Artem Perminov, BCS.
Good afternoon, colleagues. I would like to ask one question about the macro add-on. Its growth was concentrated in only one segment, in the corporate segment? Or did it also occur in retail? Did it occur only in certain isolated segments or was it total growth, overall growth, across the book? Could you please comment on that?
Regarding the macro add-on, it only occurred with legal entities, with corporate clients. As for retail clients, we do not have any macro add-ons. We believe that the current portfolio quality does not require any special reserves or provisions. As for legal entities, what we reduced was a separate add-on, a macro add-on for the residential real estate segment. We reduced it. We did not abandon it completely. We halved it. We will continue to be conservative vis-a-vis this segment.
If necessary, we will be able to compensate in specific cases, compensate for losses with this add-on. I would also like to comment on the depreciation of assets. It is a standard thing for us. We always do this revaluation at the end of the year, engaging independent evaluators, independent appraisers. A bit higher than 3% over nine months. I do not think that is a big enough value to comment on it specifically. Thank you.
The last question from analysts. Mikhail [Ganyev], please.
Good afternoon. I have two questions. First, about your margin, record high margin in Q3. Great results. The question is, we thought it would go down, but it did not happen. What are your expectations in Q4? Do you think it will go down in Q4, given the deposit interest rates that are growing? The key rate stopped to decrease. That is the first question. The second question is about the inflation rates for your costs. It is rather high. It is sustainably high. What about your costs and expenses? Is it mostly going to go for salaries, your headcount? What about the cost efficiency in the fourth quarter?
Thank you, Mikhail. Regarding the margin in Q4, the main factor that will be putting pressure on our margins is structural deficit of liquidity in the market. We see that there has been a pretty long period of the interbank lending interest rate continuously being above the key rate, which reflects the structural deficit. Secondly is the outflow of cash, the outflow of funds into cash, which is exerting pressure on banks in terms of delivering on the liquidity ratios. Banks had to increase their rates for corporate deposits, and they maintained their rates even though the key rate decreased in the previous six months.
These two factors continued to put pressure. But amidst the decrease in this outflow into liquidity, and also with the context of the regulators' steps and measures, we see that we largely overcame this crisis point. Our rates are pretty much following the key rate, give or take. If this situation persists, we do not expect any significant decreases in the margins in Q4. If the crisis continues to evolve, the trend might be more negative than that. But following the reduction of the key rate, our margins will continue to decrease. This is a straightforward trend. We have negative sensitivity to key rate decreases in terms of our net interest income. But what the Bank of Russia does, what it does with its key rate, we will only know in mid-December.
So in October, in November, the first half of December, we will continue to live with the key rate that we have right now. We will do our business with the key rate that we have. The more important thing will be about the cost of risk in the corporate lending portfolio rather than the margins. As for the expenses, previously, the salaries were the main object for our expenses. We increased our headcount lately. Over the past year, I would say the trend has reverted, and we see that it's cooling down. We are not growing our headcount anymore, so we don't feel the need to take any intensive steps in this regard. We are aiming to increase the efficiency of our expenses, our expenses on development using AI tools. Another important factor is investments.
We are increasing our investments in AI and also in the security and safety of our data centers. So these two priorities will be taking up more and more expenses. They will be driving this expenditure growth, which means we will not be growing in terms of OpEx in line with the inflation. We will be growing higher than the inflation. We will need to sustain this growth with our income, especially with the net cost to income indicator, which will be one of our priorities that we will be monitoring very closely.
Thank you very much. We have a few more questions in the chat in this SberJazz channel. One is communications with the sellers who suffered the blow on the Ozon and Wildberries marketplace outlets. Are we supporting them in any regard? And the second question is about the new dividend policy of Sber. When will it be presented?
So, regarding sellers, we've had a peak in terms of applications for restructuring. It occurred right after the hits on the warehouses. Obviously, about a few months ago. We currently are handling about 6,000 applications for restructuring from them mounting to RUB 21 billion . But our loan portfolio is not very sensitive to this segment. Overall, the relevant part of the portfolio for the sellers is less than 1%. It's 0.2%, I would say. So of course, we are taking steps. We are offering support to them in terms of restructuring and free services, legal counsel, legal support, individual service packages. All of this has been made available to them. So we do support those sellers. And the second question was?
The dividend policy.
Right. With the dividend policy, clearly, it's one of the key aspects of our strategy, and we will present all of the information after November 10th, once it's been adopted by the supervisory board, and on November 12th, we will announce it to the public.
Thank you very much. And now the questions from the journalists. Marina Anufrieva, RBC Investments, the floor is yours.
Hello. I have two questions. First is your guidance for the USD to RUB rate in 2026 and next year. Second, 13% is the average deposit rate. The Bank of Russia is likely to reduce its key rate. Or what about your guidance for 2027 in terms of deposit rates? What steps do you need to take to encourage this transitioning of funds from deposits to other financial instruments, such as securities? Thank you.
Regarding the first question, in 2026, we expect the rate to be between 80 and RUB 85 per USD in Q4. As for deposit interest rates, two factors here, the dynamics in terms of deposit rates will be following the key rate, clearly. Will this gap vis-a-vis the key rate be varying up or down? It will depend on whether the banking sector has any liquidity deficit, normative liquidity, primarily. The gap currently is around 1%, maybe even lower. Unless this condition changes, we may expect pretty much the same situation in 2027. If the normative liquidity situation gets better, deposit rates may go down slightly more than the key interest rate, because we've had, historically, this gap be more than 1%, be it around 1.5% and even 2%.
As for investments, I do not think the deposit interest rate, since it is following the key rate, I do not think it will be significantly impacting the inflow of investment unless we are talking about the key rate reduction to, I do not know, 6%, as we had several years ago. A 1%-2% reduction will not have any material impact on these flows of funds into other financial instruments. The lending market may reinvigorate, but for that, we will need the key rate to be around 12% or ideally around 10%. This will encourage structural changes. But judging by the guidance of the Bank of Russia that has just been recently published, we do not expect it to be around 10%, as I said. Structurally, we will likely be in the same situation as we are now.
Thank you. Next question, Tatiana Voronova, Ragmedia.
Good afternoon. Can you hear me?
Yes, please go ahead.
I have several questions about your statements. The securities portfolio, as it follows from your presentation, 70% is OFZ, more than RUB 8 trillion . Will you maintain this participation in the Ministry of Finance auctions? Do you have any strategy in terms of participation in auctions? As I said, I have several questions. The next one is, what is your take on the way the regulator works with cash? In May, we saw the first methodological restraints, restrictions. Is it creating any complications in settlements for parallel imports? Does it have any impact on the share of liquidity, on the share of funds in cash? Another question, the quality of corporate lending. Sberbank is a huge creditor for the Samolet developer. You have a big stake in project finance, but you probably have some other borrowings. What is your take on this situation?
Will it have any impact on your financial metrics in terms of restructuring? One more question, in terms of year-on-year, you reduced your expenses on your ecosystem significantly. Why is that? How did you achieve this result, not including the cost? This is slide nine. Will this result be sustainable? Thank you.
Thank you, Tatiana, for studying our statements. So many questions. I will try to answer them one by one. As for securities and OFZ, our share is about 30% in Q4. It will go down to around 25%, according to our estimates. Sorry, in Q3. I meant Q3, I said Q4. In this regard, it is in line with our share in financial assets in the banking sector. Our share is varying depending on the demand from other participants.
The floater auction, as we saw it, there was a big demand from the non-banking sector because the Ministry of Finance doesn't very often offer floaters, just for the second time this year. But the first time, we were talking about such a big amount. There was a big demand from the non-banking sector. We took what we could accept, what we could afford in terms of yield. We have certain requirements in terms of OFZ yield, so we apply them when we participate in such auctions. If not, we're not going to support it by any means. We're going to adhere to our standards, to our requirements. Given the budget deficit from the Ministry of Finance, we see that they're planning to increase the issuance of OFZ. So our forecast will be roughly the same share that we will try to maintain next year.
We're not going to radically revise our strategy at this point. Speaking of the actions of the regulator and the impacts that it may have on the companies who do parallel import, the cash-related actions of the regulator. Of course, they are taking steps, and this is not just the strategy of the Bank of Russia, it's the overall strategy of the government to encourage this transitioning from the gray area to the biggest extent possible for the sectors, the industries, salaries, et cetera, to legalize all of those things, and of course, we also encourage it. This means, among other things, that the amount of cash is going to grow, and the package of measures announced last year is also going to make an impact.
But the economy is adjusting to this new reality, and hopefully by the end of the year and next year, we will not see such a great outflow in cash. Has it had an impact on parallel import? I can say that the importers who've been working officially, legally, they did not feel any impact. This was fully targeting those who work in this gray area, who avoid paying customs duties and charges. We see this outflow of cash in the deposit market, and this is a concern for us. But still, we see a positive trend, a largely positive trend. We expect the dynamic to wane a little.
In terms of corporate customers and the construction company that you named, there's now a process going on, complex program of overcoming the current situation. It's done with several key banks, which financed the projects of this customer. So what I can say is that we don't see any big risk of things going haywire. There are agreements made. But there's still time needed to finalize the decisions. But no risk for the provisioning in the fourth quarter from this specific customer is awaited. The current provisions are enough considering the current financial standing of the company. As far as the ecosystem is concerned, we have always had a target of the development for the financial business, its effective development, probably because of this whole situation with the sanctions that we have. The increase of the rates. Of course, these are businesses are growing, developing.
It's hard to develop when the cost of borrowing is very high. But step by step, little by little, the indicators are improving, if you talk about marginality, about income profitability, I mean. This is within the expectations, the goals that we have set for 2026. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question, Anastasia Savelyeva, Interfax. Hello.
I have one question on the report. You wrote that the group purchased shares in some companies, but following the analysis, you came to the conclusion that these assets are not part of the business. You cannot disclose what assets these are, but you can say these are not main assets, right? These are new areas for you or not? A question about your strategy as well. Maybe you can give the guidelines whether you want to retain the 50/50 payment of dividends, 50%, I mean, of income paid as dividends, and ROE of 22%. Because we understand that to reach this indicator, Sberbank every year needs to earn more and more. Thank you.
Anastasia, thank you for the question. In terms of the assets that we're buying, sometimes we're making such transactions. In the reports, we are disclosing that, but with no specific names, but they were high-quality assets that will ensure us the return on investment. Very good return on investment, I must say. In terms of the strategy, if I tell you about the dividend policy and ROE, it will not be correct because the supervisory board hasn't approved that. It's only at the level of the suggestions of management, and we'll discuss that on 10th of November.
Only after that it can be published for the market. There will be no intrigue, and you will not watch our conference on November 12. We really want you to come and see and join us. We'll not be able to answer your question right now. Invite you to join us on November 12. Also, the 185th anniversary of Sberbank. We will give you all the necessary expectations and comments for 2026 and the following three years. Thanks a lot.
Next question. Well, I think we must speed up. We're over the limit. Elena Fabrichnaya from Reuters.
Situation with cash in October, is there any growth dynamics, and how will the measures of the Central Bank affect that? They recommended the banks to confirm the funds that the people and companies are disposing of, and then if it's after October 1, maybe you have seen the negative dynamics in the mortgage. About Samolet, I think you've covered that.
Thank you for this question. In terms of cash and the trends of October. October is better than September. September was better than August. So good dynamics here. In October, very sizable decrease of the outflow. Still one week remaining. We hope it will stay the same, but it's a very optimistic trend for us right now. I think it's a good thing to keep for the following months.
In terms of mortgage, we have very big demand in September for the state-supported programs, and a very sizable part of the customers try to jump on the last car of the train and have this mortgage supported by the family mortgage state government program. After that, there will be a decrease for sure. I think RUB 100 billion, this will be this deferred demand. Now the fall of the confirmations of such mortgage applications is rather big. The effect of the decrease of new conditions, if we compare them to the older conditions, and if we take account for the peak periods, there is a 20% probable decrease. October, the coming weeks, is actually what we are having. At the same time, we see that approvals of the market mortgage programs is actually quite more than 50%, closer to 60%. It is increasing.
I think it is a positive signal because the fact that in our portfolio, 63% of mortgage issued with state subsidies is generally not a very good situation. We think that the market mortgage will grow and replace the mortgage with the state support. The limitations of the time period and change of the rate for specific categories, it is all directed at orienting the customers towards market programs. Only specific customer categories with several children, they have these decreased rates. The third quarter was the last one where we have seen such high approvals with the state support applications. Then in November, I think, you will see a decrease in the mortgage approvals, much lower than September.
Rita Shpilevskaya, TASS.
Can you hear me?
We can hear you very nicely.
Thank you very much. Taras. Hello. I wanted to specify that you said that maybe you can Do you plan the increase of about the GDP? I think you did not mention the drivers behind that improvement of GDP.
Hello, Rita. Thank you for these questions. About GDP, I think it is very simple. The main driver is the actual data that was published. We expected less growth even for the financial sector that is within the forecast. This was underestimated. Actually, the first half of the year in July showed very good dynamics, and the figures increased. We were actually on the brink of the 0.5. Now it is quite another range, closer to the lower border. If we take our expectations, they have not changed as much, but the range broadened. This is about the GDP.
In terms of data centers, the short answer is yes, we will continue to increase the investment in this year, expenses, and we will continue to do so. The current situation, it is inevitable because it is better to have some additional measures of protection than having problems having to do with the lack of these capabilities. Of course, there will be these expenses, and this will impact the financials, but mostly for the following year. Thank you.
We are finalizing our Q&A session with the last question by Daria Mitina from RIA Novosti.
I have a question about the new strategy. Which segments of business of the strategy can become the key sources of growth and for net income growth in the coming three years?
Thank you for this question. Actually, I cannot comment in detail, but I can say that at our conference, Alexander Vedyakhin will speak, who is responsible for the whole corporate business, and Kirill Tsarev, who is responsible for the whole retail business. These are the key areas that will form our income basis and the financial performance. They will tell everyone in detail about the novelties and what areas we plan to develop in. In general, I must say that Sber is a very big company. We are first in the RBC rating in terms of revenues in 2025. By profits, we were first in 2024 already. By revenue in 2025. We will not radically change our activities. We will continue developing the segments we are working in, but of course, there are new initiatives launched. They are being scaled out, and then they find their way into our results.
They are one of the drivers of our development, even though there are changes of the markets and macro changes, and sanctions policy, we still find there are opportunities for growth and opportunities to show very strong results as I think, and we will strive to remain very active and we will make analysts and our shareholders very happy. Thank you.
Thank you very much. That is a wrap with this call. We invite you to join the live feed of November 12. There will be a lot of news there. We will wait for you there. If you have any questions left after this call, use all of our channels, use our email, and we will answer them. Thank you very much. Have a nice day.