Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the 2023 Half Year Results Conference Call and Live Webcast. I am Moira, the Chorus Call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in listen-only mode, and the conference has been recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star one on your telephone. Webcast viewers may submit their questions or comments in writing via the relative field. For operator assistance, please press star zero. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. For the call today, the speakers will refer to the slides, which are available for viewing on the IR section of the BCV website since this morning. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Pascal Kiener, CEO. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you very much. Good morning, good afternoon, everybody. Let me jump directly on page four. I think the main point I want to make, I think you have already seen the figures, is basically a, a sharp increase in revenues due to the increase in interest rates. Consequently, since we are managing costs quite tightly, a, a, a sharp increase in net profit and operational profit. Net profit being CHF 240 million, up 22%, which is basically the best result since 2007. Why 2007? Because in 2007, 2006, I think we had some extraordinary items following the recapitalization of BCV, 2002, 2003.
Basically, which means CHF 240 million is the highest half-year profit from the creation of BCV, which was 1845. Okay. Directly on page six, you see the volume development on the main business lines. Probably, I will rather comment that when I co-comment the different business division, I think it's more, it's clear. Just on page seven, just to remind you that the two main rating agency confirmed their Double-A for BCV. This is the highest mark we can get since we don't get an official, explicit guarantee from the states. We don't have any guarantee. I just wanted to mention the ESG ratings, which I think are getting in importance for you guys, but also for us.
You can see for those three, let's say, main players in this, in this business, we are always the second highest rating in their, in their rating methodology. Which is, I think, quite good. Now let's go to business. Retail banking, it's going, it's going very good, very well. The mortgage loan is, is increasing. Also, the mortgage book is increasing a bit slower than last year. We had something like 2%, here we are at 1%. This is due to basically the market in our region, let's say, going less fast following the increase in interest rates, which is quite normal. That was to be expected. Here I expect to, to have a kind of 2%-5% growth year, growth this year.
Deposits, basically, this is a bit more than GDP. There are also some funds coming from Credit Suisse, as you can imagine. The revenue is basically driven by increase in interest rates. That's quite easy to understand, and you see the impact on operating profits. Nothing tremendous here, except interest rate increase. On the corporate side here, you have to remember, here we have three business. Now we have decided to be more transparent to show the four business lines, the SME in Canton Vaud, the real estate firms, and the large corporate, and the trade finance business. Basically, SME is quite stable. We have those COVID-19 bridge loans. They are almost 60% repaid, so that shows that the Swiss economy and the economy in Canton Vaud is doing quite well.
Some increase in real estate firm. This is basically a mortgage fund based on Switzerland that we are financing. Large corporate, this is always a kind of volatility. Maybe the main, the main point I would like to make is trade finance. We decided to let's say, reduce our exposure following the problems in Ukraine, Russia, and also the letter of credit business we have, which is really geared to China. As you know, probably in China, there might be some issues we don't know, but the news are not very, very good. We are ready to concentrate on several banks where we believe they are quite strong, and they will be supported by the government, whatever happens.
This letter of credit business has been concentrated on fewer banks than before, just to make sure that we don't get into deep problems. In this corporate banking business, the credit risk is very low. That means, first of all, the Vaud economy is doing quite well. All this business basically is quite resilient, and we have very limited provisioning needs. Thomas will talk about it later. In the wealth management here, you have to think that this is institutional asset management, so basically pension fund. This is also the private banking onshore at the mother company. This is also the offshore banking, which is very small now, and the business of our subsidiary, Banque Piguet Galland.
Those numbers are really aggregate, so it's difficult to be very specific and then say what's going on in each business line. More or less, this is the same trend everywhere, with even increasing, and basically also, you can imagine that you have also some interest rate driven business here, being mortgage or being also basically saving accounts. The effect of the increase of rates, of interest rates is also significant in this business. Trading, slightly down, but this is very small. This is basically our Forex trading. The volatility has diminished as of March, April in the Forex market, and basically seem to take advantage of volatility, went down, but then also revenue slightly down. As you can see, this is quite a stable business.
I repeat, this is just client-driven activities. There is no speculation or let's say, risk taking from our part, except intraday, we have to pull some volumes, but there is no position taken by this unit. Okay, I give the word to Thomas for the more financial part of the results.
Okay, hello, everybody. Well, on page 13 on the P&L statement, which you know, I actually have no precise comment to add, and I would like to directly go to page 14. Now, this time we are more explicit on what's going on with the balance sheet management. Basically, what you can see is on the upper part of the chart, well, our total banking operations income of CHF 582 million, and you see the NII of CHF 290 million, which up CHF 55 million from an interest income from an accounting perspective. Now, let me take to the lower part of the chart, where basically, I come back to the CHF 290 million, where I split them, which is net interest income before any, any balance sheet management.
Then there are CHF 44 million of charges induced by balance sheet management, or we can also call it the arbitrage. Basically, this is, these are US dollars or Euro, which we take in, and we pay the charges, and obviously, the charge has increased with the higher rates. Then below that, come back to the CHF 105 million of trading income, but I, I split them to show you what is really the trading of what Pascal just talked about. What is, on the other hand side, the income from the arbitrage by placing the money which we received by swapping them in Swiss franc and placing them at the Swiss National Bank.
Basically, these are the FX swaps, which then produce CHF 53 million of income against the CHF 34 million of charges, which means that they produce a net income from balance sheet management or from arbitrage of CHF 19 million. You understand that from a, what we call, what we call internally as an interest income, as, as in from an economic perspective, it's the sum of the NII before balance sheet management, plus the net income from balance sheet management, which actually adds up, which is not written here, 324 plus 19, CHF 343 million. That number is up CHF 80 million. That number is up CHF 80 million, actually increase here is an actual number is more, more important.
It's for accounting reasons, obviously, that You can say, still has these FX swaps and these elements in trading income. I must admit, I must admit some, some, some of other Swiss players have, have changed and have put them into, all of that stuff that I just described into interest income. I think the important point is that now you have the transparency, and you, you get, get a better understanding. Now you can see more precisely that from an accounting perspective, the trading income, which you see in the P&L, is, is not driven by kind of, amazing, crazy trading income ideas, but it's just the, the mirror of what I just described.
You can also see that absolute numbers, the, the jump up in Net Interest Income, income from economic perspective is even higher. We go to commissions and fees. I think it's, it's, it's, it's pretty forward, straightforward. I mean, there are three elements in here. As mentioned by Pascal, right, we have, we have reduced in the current geopolitical environment, our trade finance exposures. We have the wealth management, which given the market turbulences, in particular in March, people were more refraining from investment. There's been less activity. Finally, there has been a little bit more, of course, with regard to the payments of, of shopping and traveling. Still, commissions is then down by 6%.
Then last, by the way, the last but not least, I mean, the other income was higher in H1 2022 because there was a real estate disposal. Well, I obviously, I will take time and question this. This has not been perfectly clear. On page 15, there is here in a more focused, still NII, but more focused on impairment charges. It's very simple to see that, well, they are really minor, and sometimes are releases. However, it will be minor the half year before. This doesn't any change with regards to the year-to-year comparison. With regard to operation expenses, Pascal mentioned, right? Our, our controlled way of managing costs. The some nominal increase in project costs, I insist on nominal increase.
In the current inflation environment, there has been some person points of increase in salaries. Then more important in person to, in relative terms, the other operating expenses. Here you see the classic higher energy costs, IT costs up, even though we work in efficiency, volumes are increasing, and financial data is, is always getting more expensive. The total headcount on page 17, is what I mentioned before, they are, they are fluctuating around more or less the same numbers. On page 18, total assets, well, with regard to the business development, where we understood that the mortgage is still progressed 2% in this high real estate market, in the loans and advanced to customers, that we have different forces at work, which reduce volume to trade finance.
The bridge loans are getting more and more reimbursed, but they are under the underlying business factor of, of SMEs and, and other companies have increasing loans. Well, with regard to financial investments are basically, which are an HQLA reserve. There had been no opportunity to invest into short-term SNB bills , which we took, but which we ended in over the half year. That's why you see the decrease. With regard to liabilities and equity, well, nothing particular to signal. The customer deposits are down by the volatility of some large actors, whereas in the core business, we have a continued increase. Nothing dramatic, but continued increase. Well, of course, my shareholder equity is down for seasonal reasons as we paid our dividends.
With regard to assets under management on page 20, I think the interesting point, which I actually insist on, is that on the lower part of the chart on the right-hand side, that the business with personal banking customers, with SME institutions, shows a net inflow of CHF 2.5 billion, right? It's just these, this very small, large corporates, let's call them, who have the typical size for them of treasury movements, which make that the net inflow onshore is CHF 0.8 billion. There's ongoing, or always, or, or, well, most time, net, net outflow, slight outflow and offshore of CHF 0.1 billion.
In regard to capital ratios, well, finally, we stay all the time with the same capital ratio, you might say, which is, which is a very solid capital ratio of 70.5%. The leverage ratio is also stable. With regard to the ATR, we are, we are more or less stable on 131-132%. Nothing special to add here. For a bank like ours, the net stable funding ratio, of course, is stable and on a high level. That's all. Thank you very much. Pascal?
Okay, going forward, I mean, in terms of economic situation, we believe that Switzerland will not make absolutely no, no sign of a possible recession. I think if you look at the strategy of the Swiss National Bank, I think they did quite well. Inflation is around 2%, less than 2%, now the latest, the latest figures. That means they should not go much further with increasing interest rates. It will depend, of course, on the European Central Bank decision. The consensus today is rather that they would, I mean, for the Swiss National Bank, they would maintain their current level of interest rates, which I think should not damage the economy too much. The growth is not expected very low.
I think 1%, probably 1.2%, would be the maximum that we will get. Probably rather 0.8, 0.9. Small growth, but definitely no recession. I think that's the main point. When I talk to SMEs, when I look the credit risk provision, I mean, this is okay, there is no problem as far as economic growth is concerned, although our trading partners maybe have more-- some more difficulty. This is exactly the same for Canton Vaud, probably even better than Switzerland, since here we have really a network of small SMEs, very flexible and working or using a product with high, high margins. That would be okay. That will definitely help us on those dimensions.
If I take one of our main business, which is a mortgage business, I mean, increasing prices is clearly slowing down. There is also some reduction in prices, the, the, the fundamentals are still good because we have an increase in population and the, the building rate or the, let's say, the rate of the, the, the pace of building new houses cannot really keep with the, the, the increase in, in, in, of the population. Basically, you see in the last two years, and again, this year, the vacancy rate is going down at around 1%. This is why I don't expect this market to collapse or whatever. We see with the increase of level of interest rates, we see that the, the prices are, are leveling off, and I think this is a very good thing.
For us, the, the policy will not change. I think we will try to grow all more like the market, which I think is rather a 2.8%-3% growth rather than the 4% we had in the last years. We will not try to grow at 4% if the market doesn't grow at 3%, and take risk just for getting some more volume. I mean, as you know, the vacancy rate is quite differentiate between areas in front of all. We are also careful and targeting those areas where the vacancy rate is very low. In terms of outlook, I mean, what can I tell you? I think this is the continuity. I don't expect any surprise as far as BCV is concerned.
No, I cannot talk for the entire financial market or for, for the world, but I mean, you know, the economic situation as well as myself. In terms of BCV, specific item, I don't see any surprise or any change. This is why we believe we are in the continuity of the last semesters. Be careful, guys. Don't assume 240 times two, because if you look at history, usually the first semester is better than the second one, for, for, for some reason. Basically, I hope that we will have a very good year. I'm convinced we will have a very good year. If you look at the numbers, probably above last year, I think that's not very difficult to, to guess.
Okay, I'm done. We are ready to take your questions, which come up.
We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question, may press star one on their touch tone telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you've entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star two. Questioners on the phone are requested to use only handsets, and eventually turn off the volume from the webcast. Webcast viewers may submit their questions or comments in writing by the relative field. Anyone who has a question, may press star 1 at this time. The first question is from Stefan Stalmann, from Autonomous Research. Please go ahead.
Yes, good afternoon. Thank you very much for the presentation. I have three questions, please. The first one is going back to your observation, Pascal, we have obviously a very good profit growth, maybe to the tune of 20%, and maybe that is also true for the full year. Now, if I look back over the last 10 to 15 years, your profit has grown at around 2% on average, and your dividends have almost perfectly matched that growth. Your dividends plan for the next five years also calls for that kind of 2% growth. You now have probably 20% more profits that you may or may not have expected at the time you set the target range for the dividends.
Is there any possibility that the dividend range also has to reflect the fact that, you know, your, your profit level is at a different level? Or are there reasons to assume that maybe this jump in profits will, will not have an impact on your dividend target range?
Okay, let me, let me first answer that question. It's a good observation. Look, when we define our dividend, I mean, there is an uncertainty. I mean, we all knew that interest rates were going to go up. The big question mark was, what would be the pricing on deposits? If you look at the different Swiss banks, they've been able, without talking to each other, of course, they've been able to get, let's say, attractive rates, not to lose clients and to reconstruct in a way, the margins we lost during the negative interest rate period. Now we are reconstruct... So, this +20%, I mean, we may not do +20% every year. That doesn't make sense.
I mean, we have, we have this change of going to a, a negative margin on deposits and, very low pricing on, on, on mortgage. Now we are, we are again, in, in margin on deposits, and we have a, let's say, higher rates on, on, on mortgage and, and, and credit overall. This jump, we not repeat. I mean, we, we are rich in, in new normality, if I... Don't expect +20% every year. This is clear, there is a, a jump because unless, unless interest rates, become again negative, which I don't believe. Let's assume interest rates would more or less stay the same for the next two to three years. We had a jump, we will not repeat the jump.
It's clear now, we should see maybe 2%-3% growth, which is our-- I mean, this is our volume growth more or less. We should see that in profit, more or less, but this is at a higher level. Now, it's very difficult to be very specific about this level, because it depends really on the margin we will get on deposits, and on deposit with the time going on, okay? With time passing. Now, to answer your question more precisely, we will think about it. It's clear that when we define our, let's say, our dividend and our dividend policy, so the range are basically 3.80-4.20, we have not really-- I mean, we could not be sure that the pricing on deposit would be so positive.
I think this is a surprise for everybody. We knew that it would be higher, I mean, that the profit would be, would be higher, which is why also we said we are increasing our target, our target, for the dividend. It was a surprise for everybody that the banks could manage to reconstruct their margin. The question now is, is it fully sustainable? I don't think so. Is it not at all sustainable? I don't think so as well. We really have a margin on, on deposit product. We have no margin, but even a negative margin. This is the assessment that we need to do, to see, whether we can, let's say, review, our, let's say, our guidance for, for the dividend. How sustainable are those increased margin?
As I told you, this is between 0% and 100%, because I don't know, but certainly a part is, is sustainable, and we will assess that. What we want, don't want to do probably is just to increase the dividend and going back in 12 months or 16 months. This is not our strategy. We always say we commit to a, to a dividend. We have delivered that for the last 15 years, and we will continue to do so. Looking at the numbers, I mean, we have to ask ourself the question, and this is a discussion we're going to have in the executive board. Certainly, and certainly we have to have this discussion with the board because they, they decide the, the, the dividend. We don't, we make a proposal.
I propose.
We will do that, before the end of, I mean, before January, February, next year, when we announce the result and also the proposal for the general meeting, dividend, where the shareholder have to decide. I hope I could answer your question more or less.
No, that was very helpful. Thank you very much. Very clear. I'm, I'm almost concerned that my next question has become a little bit pointless, but I, I'll try it anyhow. That, that is more about the net interest income and net interest margin prospects. I guess from what you said now is, I should conclude that maybe net interest margins and net interest income are broadly in a good place, and they could go down or maybe even go up a bit, but maybe the risk is more to the downside. Maybe the question I wanted to ask specifically is, your, your net interest margin on loans, if I adjust for balance sheet management in the first half, was around 170 basis points, give or take.
In 2006 and 2007, when interest rates were at the current level for the last time, the margin was around 50 basis points higher, let's call it 220. Now, if interest rates do not change from where they currently are, do you think that there's any chance that net interest margins could go back to this level, 15 years ago? Has there been enough competition and maybe changes in product mix that makes it basically impossible?
No, I, I think that's impossible. I mean, the competition on, on, on, on mortgage has completely changed. Now, this is a commodity. We have competition from, I mean, all, all the banks, of course, from insurance, from broker. No, I, I don't expect. I don't expect interest margin to come back to 2007 or 2010 level. No, no, I don't expect that. You see the point, that once we have reached this normality, and we don't exactly know where the normality is, the commercial margin on a mortgage product, they're quite stable, and I expect them to, to remain stable. The point is what's going to happen on, on, on deposit exactly. Once we have we have reached this new normality...
I mean, think about it, I mean, if we have on average a growth of 2%-3% on mortgage and deposit, which is the ongoing normal, let's say, growth rate for those two businesses, we will see that anyway in the revenues. During the negative interest period, we had to fight against that. Every year, we would reprice, we would reprice mortgage at a lower rate than they were issued. Now this is exactly the other way around. I mean, we still have in the book, maybe this year we will reprice, I mean, let's say 20%-25% of the mortgage, more or less. I don't know exactly. Next year, this is another 20%-25% that's going to be repriced, and they're going to be repriced at a higher rate.
I mean, unless the interest rates go down, which we don't really expect totally, given the current situation. There is an inherent growth. Now, we have to mix that with arbitrage, et cetera. This way, this is a bit complex, but I'm quite confident that we will, we will as of a certain normality, which I don't know exactly where it is. We will see a sustainable growth in our interest margin business. What is for us not clear is also the SNB. How SNB will carry on its policy of adding this amount that is paid.
I mean, before SNB, I mean, before the interest rate situation, SNB would not pay on the bank, money deposited with them. Now, it has changed. They pay up to a certain amount. I don't know their strategy. That's also something that we should assess.
Yes. Could I maybe add one last question on the similar topic? You now, I guess, in your country, which is quite affluent, you have a lot of borrowers of mortgages who also have quite a lot of financial wealth and maybe deposits. I guess there's always a temptation for these borrowers to collapse their balance sheets, and particularly if they think that they are not getting much on the deposits, I imagine that could become an issue. Do you see any of that at all, that customers are thinking about using their excess deposits to reduce their loan balances?
No, I think it has happened during the negative interest rate period, and we, we would pay zero. So I think it has happened, so I don't expect any significant move on this side. You see, the other thing that for savings, I mean, I mean, a lot, a lot of savings. I don't know exactly which, how many percent of the volume, but those are people, they have something like CHF 50,000, CHF 20,000, or CHF 80,000, and that's it. They have no, no mortgage.
Right.
They just sit on their, on their savings, and this is the majority of our customers. In terms of volume, this is not maybe the highest volume, but this is certainly something around, I don't know, 20%-25%, and I don't expect any more here. I think now they are quite happy to get, maybe 0.5, 0.75 for the first CHF 20,000. We don't have that much pressure. I think the pressure comes from journalists, that try to trigger the discussion. From customers, we haven't seen any, let's say, departure or any, any, any, any outflows due to the interest rate. If you look at the other banks, they pay something similar. Sometimes it would be different because you have also some, some fees on the account, et cetera.
Difficult to compare, but, as far as we are concerned, this is very stable, and I don't expect any significant move here.
Great. That was very helpful. Thank you very much.
Any further questions, please press star and one on your telephone. The next question is from Michael Klien, from ZKB. Please go ahead.
Oh, yes. Good afternoon. Thank you very much for taking my questions. I had a similar question on the mortgages. Firstly, maybe just, could you provide us some indication in terms of the new mortgages and those that are renewing, whether they are mostly certain type mortgages or whether you're now seeing also some customers switching to fixed mortgages? You mentioned in your presentation also the environment for real estate, that your policy remains unchanged. You focus on loan quality, target areas and so on. Have you done any changes to your standards? Have you maybe tightened them as well in view of maybe the economy being somewhat more difficult going forward? The second question would be on trade finance.
Business has been going down for quite a few periods now. You mentioned, for the latest period, down 37% in terms of volumes. You still see uncertainties in terms of the geopolitics, China, you mentioned. My question here is, when, when should we expect that trade finance has kind of reached a bottom, and what are you looking for, for trade finance to pick up again? The third question would be on your balance sheet measures that you mentioned. I guess, some of it is strategic, some of it is tactical. Could you provide us sort of what, what amount in the numbers was from a strategic perspective, and what amount might be considered maybe tactical? Thank you.
Okay. I will take the trade finance one, and the two others will be answered by Thomas. Okay. Let me try the trade finance. Okay, good. I think we are, I'd say, close to the bottom as far as, let's say, tactical consideration, given the current environment, i.e., China, i.e., Ukraine and Russia. Okay? Now, what I cannot guess is suddenly there is another problems in another country. I don't know. The price of raw materials would go very low. I don't know.
Given the, the, let's say the-- I mean, the main driver probably now is the price of raw materials, because in terms of, let's say, taxi, I, I don't want to, to use the word structural, because, I mean, I hope one day that Russia and Ukraine, that we can solve that problem, and that we can go back to our normal business- Mm-hmm. -over there. I don't know exactly when, and probably you don't know when as well. In terms of those, let's say,... to make sure that we don't take risk. I think this is mostly over. What I can-- what I don't know is the development of raw material prices. If they would increase by 10% overall, probably we would have 10% volume.
If they decrease by 20%, probably we have 20% less, less, less volume. From our part, in terms of active management, I think we are done.
Okay, I take the question on the mix of, of mortgages. I mean, well, we, we had we've seen a movement more into short term, into SARON mortgages, 12 months ago, when, when the interest rates were, were very low on the short side. We now see rather again, it's more it's typical situation, where, where people, where we have, have mix of 20% or a bit more of SARON , and, and people take a long other leg. It's not always completely rational, they choose five, six, seven, eight, nine or 10 years. Sometimes they seem to be very driven just by, by basis points considerations, it's quite amazing. To make a long story short, there's, there's no, there's no dramatic move, right?
The overall on the, for the fixed loans, mortgages, we, we, we have an average maturity of four, five years. There's, there's no major, major movement. With regard to our standards of approval, there has been no change. We have a solid standards, I mean, the economy in our area is doing well. As you've seen in the presentation, as Pascal just made. We, we have a, we have a healthy economy with so far what we can see, a healthy loan portfolio, healthy customers, and we, we stick to our, our policies. There's no change here. With regard to the balance sheet management, I'm, I'm not used to talk about strategic or tactical. I mean, let me re-explain that to you.
It's just all the same. It's taking opportunity of the two-tier system at the Swiss National Bank by attracting money as cheap as possible on the liability side, very often in Euro and US dollars, and swapping them into Swiss franc to place them with DSM-Firmenich. These operations are typically of some one to two months. It's a tactical behavior to take full opportunity of the two-tier system at Swiss National Bank, at the maximum limit, which we try to fill up. I mean, we're not doing just for two or three basis points. We try to capture five basis points or more.
Well, the issue here is that with these higher rates, we move a lot of liabilities to capture this gain. Well, we have a shareholder value of focus, so we do that because we think it's an opportunity which is almost the Swiss National Bank wants us to take. That is the way they absorb excess liquidity to, to, to make sure that there are monetary policy functions, that the reference rate, let's say, target for, is, is really this place where people exchange. I hope that answers your question.
It's very helpful. Maybe just one follow-up on, on the outlook. As you, you highlighted, obviously, that it's gonna be along the same lines as in previous periods. Don't assume it's gonna be 240 times two, because H2 is somewhat seasonally weaker. From a, from a growth perspective, should we assume a similar year-over-year growth, H1 2023 versus 2022 in H2? Or should it be maybe lower because of the expectation and interest rates might not rise as much anymore?
Well, it's good. I don't know. I mean, I would not assume 22%. I think that's, that, that's a bit too much. You see, it's very difficult to be precise here, because it depends on the development of deposits, of pricing on deposits. For the time being, we can maintain our rate. Some people found this is too, too low, of course. Some others say, "Okay, fine." It's very difficult, but if you see, last year we had about CHF 388 million, and I think until now, and we are already CHF 240 in the equity now. Definitely it will be, it will be higher, because a, a, a semester with CHF 148 would be, would be a poor, a poor semester.
I would not assume 22%. No, I think the growth will be smaller. You see, I mean, then there is always the possibility of a credit risk issue, and suddenly it's, this is CHF 10 million, because we have to provision CHF 10 million for a company, whatever. It's difficult. I mean, what I can say is that it should be much better than last year, but I don't want to mention number. I mean, see, you have to think also all those rules, the six rules, et cetera. As soon as you give two specific numbers, then you put yourself into trouble when you are not really reaching exactly that number, positive or negative.
This is why I don't see any upside for us to be too specific in the guidance. I see only downside. I think it's also your job to understand exactly how the, the, the economics of the bank develop. I think you know the interest rates, as well as we, we do. If you study carefully, the development of, of, economics, you should be able to have a well good educated guess.
I, I, completely agree, and, and your comments are very helpful in this respect. Yeah, thank you.
Thank you.
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Cool. Thank you very much, everybody, and we talk to each other maybe sooner if we have a roadshow. Otherwise, we will talk to you next year in February, probably. Bye bye. Have a nice day.
Thank you. Bye.
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