EFG International has developed from a startup to a leading Swiss private bank in just three decades. Our journey is all about entrepreneurship and innovation. Since Geneva-based Banque de Depots was acquired by the Latsis family in the 1980s, this entrepreneurial mindset has shaped us. With over 40 locations worldwide, we have a truly global footprint. This ensures that we always stay close to our clients and understand their needs. From New Zealand to Miami, our regional experts combine local know-how with a global network and expertise. As a pure-play private bank, our clients are at the center of everything we do. We support their financial needs at every life stage. We know that top talent is key in our people business. Therefore, we strive to be an employer of choice, with corporate values embedded in our daily operations. At EFG, everything starts with our clients' goals, needs, and ambitions.
Our CROs deliver first-class investment and client solutions. Their focus is on building long-term relationships with our clients through customized, impartial advice. At EFG, there is no one-size-fits-all. We provide our clients the freedom to choose what suits them best. Over the past years, EFG has consistently delivered sustainable and profitable growth. Our global team and well-diversified business model have generated significant value for EFG stakeholders. As a publicly listed and family-controlled bank, EFG has a longer-term planning perspective, allowing us to seize opportunities at the horizon. At the same time, our robust compliance and risk management framework remains essential for our continued success. With a sound balance sheet, EFG maintains strong liquidity and capital metrics exceeding regulatory requirements. We remain committed to our purpose: empowering entrepreneurial minds to create value, today and for the future.
Welcome to our Investor Day 2025, which we host today in Zurich with increasingly improving weather, so that's very nice. I'm obviously joined, as you have seen today, by the whole management of EFG International. Obviously, Giorgio Pradelli, our CEO, Dimitris Politis, our CFO and Deputy CEO, and the rest of the team across the whole stage. I hope you have seen the program. We're looking forward to some interesting presentations, insightful information, and obviously afterwards we will have enough time for Q&A. I will no longer hold off pointing out, obviously, the disclaimer in the presentation, and I hand over to Giorgio for the start of the event. Thank you.
Thank you, Jens. Good morning, everyone, and also from my side, a warm welcome to our 2025 Investors Day. Thank you for joining us in person here in Zurich and also via webcast and telephone. Let me start by saying that our business is doing extremely well. This morning we posted a record net profit of approximately CHF 320 million for the first 10 months of the year, and our assets under management are at the highest level at CHF 184 billion. Today we will present to you our strategy, our priorities, and our targets for the next strategic cycle. Consistency and the power of compounding. The title of our presentation already invades the essence of our strategy for the next cycle and beyond. Looking back at the past 10 years, we have delivered a consistent performance through three different cycles amid the times' highly volatile market conditions.
In the next strategic cycle, we want to continue on this trajectory. We want to deliver a consistent performance and unlock the magic of compounding in order to create value for the benefit of all our stakeholders: for our clients, for our shareholders, for our colleagues, and for the communities where we operate. In the next few years, we want to become the private bank of choice for the generation of clients, and we want the ambition, and we have the ambition for every client to be better off banking with us than with any other institution. In the next couple of hours, we will present to you how we intend to achieve these ambitious objectives. Now, before we go into the how, let me introduce to you who is committed to continuing this exciting journey and to deliver a consistent performance, creating value for all our stakeholders.
I am very pleased to have with me here on stage all the members of the EFG Executive Committee and Global Business Committee. They represent our five regions and all the key functions of our firm. Many of us have been working together for many years, actually some decades. Some of us have joined more recently and brought valuable new perspectives. Together, we have created strong teams across geographies and functions with an incredible team spirit and a desire to perform and excel. As you can see, we come from different countries and backgrounds, but we all share an ambition to have impact and to make EFG one of the best players in our industry. I must also say that we're having a lot of fun in working together while we bring EFG to the next level.
This drive and ambition have been in our DNA from the beginning, even when the prospects for EFG were arguably more difficult. Today, our drive and ambition are even stronger now that EFG is much more competitive. Stating the obvious, we enjoy much more competing in the top league and winning than playing in the second league and struggling. We have a super strong team, and guys, I'm very grateful. Now, I would also like to welcome our Chair, Alex Klassen, and the other members of the Board that are with us here today. The strategy of EFG is ultimately defined by the Board, and we, as an executive management team, are grateful for the constant guidance and support we received from the Board. Let me now turn to the next slide and present the agenda of the day.
As you can see, I will spend in the next section for the next 20 minutes or so. We will talk about the 2028 ambition, our outlook, and our strategic framework, and then we are going to deep dive on the value drivers of our strategic framework in the following hour. Finally, Dimitris, our CFO and Deputy CEO, will wrap everything up and present the 2028 financial plan. After the closing, there will be, as Jens already mentioned, a Q&A section. Now, 2028 ambition, outlook, and the strategic framework. I would like in this section to do three things. First of all, I would like to put the next cycle in the context of the last 10-year journey that we started with the acquisition of BSI in 2016.
Actually, to be fair, 10 years ago these days, we were drafting the binding offer to acquire BSI, and also we are going to give you the targets for the next three years. Second, I would like to give you a retrospective overview of our performance figure, focusing mainly on how we have achieved the strong performance of the last seven years. Third, we would like to give you an outlook for the next cycle, for the next three years, and we will present to you the strategic framework. This helps us to visualize the strategic plan and defines the areas that we will focus on and invest on. Now, as you can see from this slide, I'm on slide eight. We have a strong track record of delivering sustainable and profitable growth. We are now closing the third strategic cycle since the acquisition of BSI in 2016.
Over the last seven years, we delivered sustainable and profitable growth under completely different market conditions, so it is obvious that our performance has not been driven by markets and not has been accidental. This shows also that our business model is very well diversified and resilient, too, that we have the agility, the levers, and the mindset to adjust swiftly to changing market conditions when and where necessary, and that we are strong as a management team to execute against a sound plan and ambition targets. Looking at the three cycles, actually, they are very different. The first one was all about integration. The second, 2019 to 2022, was all about turnaround, and the current cycle, which is about to close, was about achieving scale.
Looking at the current cycle alone, we delivered double-digit net profit growth in excess of 20%, as you can see here, and we have been beating our target and our guidance of 15% CAGR. We have also achieved a return on tangible equity of 19%, again exceeding our target of 15%-18%. Now, we are entering the new chapter of growth, of sustainable and profitable growth, and we want to deliver a consistent performance, and as I mentioned earlier, to unlock the power of compounding. We will do so, continuing growth by focusing on excellence and generating operating leverage. We believe that we still have potential to generate a double-digit net profit growth in the tune of 15%, and we believe that we can achieve a return on tangible equity of 20%.
Now, besides the financial targets, we have defined and distilled the vision for 2030, and I'm very pleased that this was an exercise that was done by the whole firm, so everyone in the organization stands behind it, and we aspire to be the private bank of choice for the generation of clients delivering truly personalized service and impartial advice. In line with this vision, we have updated our financial targets, as you can see in the following slide on page 10. As you can see on this slide, you have the targets that were relevant for the current cycle, what we have achieved, and the new targets for the next cycle in 2028. Now, out of the six targets, we have upgraded and improved four targets, and we have maintained two targets.
We have maintained the NNA growth target, 4%-6%, although we have been always running at the high end of the range in the last cycle. We have not changed this target since 2019, and it has served us well, and so we decided to keep it. We have upgraded the revenue margin targets. Now, the 85 basis points is de facto a floor. We have improved the cost-income ratio to 68%. We have improved the return on tangible equity to 20%. We have maintained the management floor in terms of capital equity tier one, and we have improved the dividend payout from 50% to 60%. Now, the key question that we want to answer today is how can we realize our vision, how can we continue to consistently perform, and how we can continue to achieve our targets.
I believe that when we do planning, strategic planning, it is always good to go back, see what we have delivered, learn from what we have done in the past, and then look forward and see what we have to do given the new market environment to deliver the plan that we have decided. In the next section or so, I will look back and I will show to you this journey of sustainable and profitable growth, with the focus not so much to talk about the numbers, because you know the numbers very well. We have presented them every single year, every single semester, but to focus more on how we have achieved these numbers, and I think that is important because it gives you how we drive the business, and this gives you insights on how we will drive the business forward in the next cycle.
On the next page, we are on page 12. You can see that our delivery over the past two strategic cycles was very consistent. We have been able to meet or beat all our targets, and we have been able to outperform the industry. Here you see the four key performance indicators that are also our targets, and this is how we drive our business. If I look at this page, I must say that I'm extremely proud of what we have achieved in terms of business development and NNA growth. You can see I mentioned it earlier, seven consecutive years of positive NNA growth, 14 consecutive semesters. We are at the top end of our range, and we have done better than the market.
I'm also very proud of what we have achieved in terms of realizing synergies, realizing efficiency and productivity, and we have brought down our cost-to-income ratio target from 92% to 69%, again in line with the industry. We have improved, and I would say that our margin has been very resilient, and this allowed us to actually quadruple our return on tangible equity from about 5% in excess to 20%. Again, the question is more how we have achieved this performance and what can we learn from the past that will guide us in the future. We have a very clear approach. We call it our proven operating model. At the end, if you distill it, it is relatively simple to project in a slide. It is a bit more difficult to do it month in, month out, year in, year out, but you see it on page 13.
Sorry, apologies, thirteen. Basically, this approach says that we need to start with growth. Growth is in our DNA. We want to deliver sustainable growth. We want to translate this growth into growing profitability. While we increase the profitability, we want to use some of the profit generation to transform the bank for the better and for the future. Clearly, when we grow and we transform the bank, we do not want to compromise with our risk appetite. We want to maintain a low-risk profile and further the risk, our balance sheet. If we manage to do all this, we are able to generate attractive returns for all our shareholders. Looking at just the last three years, we were able to grow at the top end of our target range at around 6%.
We were able to translate this growth into a profitability growth double the pace of the industry, and we were able since 2023 to deliver a total return to our shareholder in excess of 100%. Now, I would like to go a bit area by area, again, not to focus on the numbers, but to explain how we try to drive these different components. In the next couple of slides, I will talk about growth and NNA. Again, on this slide 14, you can see our trajectory over the last three cycles. I think the first thing that comes up in this slide is that during the integration of BSI, actually, we were bleeding assets under management every single year. We lost assets, and for us, it was imperative to reignite growth, and this is what we did since 2019. Now, the key question, and there are actually apologies.
I will mention three numbers. I cannot avoid mentioning three numbers here. The first number I'd like to mention is the CHF 9.3 billion NNA that we have achieved in the first 10 months of this year. I think this has been communicated in the press release this morning before 7:00 A.M. I'm pleased to say that as of today, we have already crossed the CHF 10 billion mark, touching wood, this should be another record year in terms of NNA. The other number I already mentioned is the all-time high assets under management at CHF 184 billion, but I always like to compare that with the beginning of the cycle. On the 1st of January 2016, they were CHF 83 billion assets under management, and clearly, if I look at that, the last 10 years have been a period of very strong growth.
Now, the question, again, the numbers are very good. I'm sure you would agree with me. The question is how can we achieve this growth, and how can this growth be sustainable in the next cycle and beyond? In a nutshell, our growth strategy is predicated mainly on organic growth. Organic growth, at the end of the day, boils down to two things. First of all, we need to continue, and we have been very successful in attracting high-quality CROs throughout the cycle, and we will continue to do that. Obviously, quantity in hiring is important, but even more important is the ability to ensure that the new CROs that join us can be successful in a very short period of time after they've joined EFG. The second element is about existing CROs.
How can we make sure that our existing CRO, year in, year out, become more productive? I think we have achieved significant improvement here. I will not go through the numbers now. We have a more deep dive later on. For us, organic growth is the focus of our growth strategy. The simple reason is that there we believe we can control most of the levers that can deliver this performance. Having said that, in the tradition of EFG, we like inorganic growth, we like M&A, and we like to complement our organic growth with inorganic growth. If you look at the right-hand side of this chart, you can see that gross we have added in excess of CHF 80 billion assets under management through acquisitions, starting from the acquisition of BSI.
It is fair also to say that we had a bit of a dry season from the years 2020 to 2024. Also, there were not easy years with COVID and 2022, which was the annus horribilis in financial markets, but I am very pleased to say that this year we managed to close already two transactions, and obviously, we believe that the market will consolidate further and will allow us to do additional acquisitions. I must also say that we are very proactive in managing our portfolio of businesses, and we do not hesitate to divest the businesses that either are not strategic or do not perform in line with our expectations. Now, again, growth is great. We love it. It is in our DNA, but growth that doesn't translate in profitability is a bit sterile. The key question is how can we translate our growth into profitability?
I'm now on page 16, and as you can see again here, during the integration years, the integration costs were quite high, and actually, we were loss-making. For us, it was very important to reignite growth and again to translate this growth into profitability, and actually, since the last two cycles, we have done quite well. The question is again, how can we sustain this growth in operating profit and ultimately in net profit? I would say that if you ask me this question, usually I come down with this answer, which is that we have a continuous focus on generating operating leverage throughout the cycle. What we always intend to do is to translate our NNA growth in consistent revenue growth, actively managing operating expenses. Internally, we talk about the golden rule.
The golden rule is about driving the revenue growth at twice the speed or the pace of cost growth. If you are able to do that, or if we are able to do that, we can generate double-digit operating profit growth and ultimately net profit growth. This is what we have done in the last two cycles. In the first cycle, the IFRS net profit growth over the four years was around 30%. In the current cycle, it is around 20%. In both cycles, we are outperforming the industry in terms of profit growth. Now, the beauty of generating profit is that you can use some of the profits to transform the bank, to transform the firm for the better and for the future.
We will deep dive on many of these topics that I have in the next two slides later on with my colleagues, but let me give you the headlines. First of all, we always try to transform the bank for the better, for the future, and for the benefit of our clients. Ultimately, what we want to do is to deliver the best possible service and the best possible content to our clients, and I think that we have done pretty well over the last two cycles, but as I will say later, we can do even better going forward. Now, we do not focus only on the front, on the client-facing areas in terms of transformation. Simplicity is part of the DNA. We always want to reduce complexity and transform the bank in order to become more efficient and more productive.
Ultimately, our change agents are our people, and we are committing in developing our people, and we are committed in attracting talent to further grow our business and make our business better. Now, I realize that I used the adjective proud a couple of times, but I'm afraid I will have to use it again. I'm very proud of the fact that we have been able to grow our business at a good pace, and we have been able to transform our business in a quite profound way, yet we have never compromised with our risk appetite. We have managed to maintain a low-risk profile, and we have furthered the risk, the balance sheet, and we are very pleased that this progress has been recognized by the rating agencies and the regulators around the world.
Now, if we are able to maintain this performance and this consistency, this will lead to fantastic and attractive returns to shareholders. As you can see on slide 21, we have delivered a total shareholders' return of almost 300% over the last seven years, taking into account the dividends, the buybacks, and the appreciation of the stock. In turn, the appreciation of the stock is due to improving earnings per share, but also re-rating of our multiples. For us, this is a great encouragement and is the sign that the market believes that our progress is sustainable and can go to the next cycle and beyond. We also believe that our performance, our consistent and strong performance, is due to a clear strategic direction, which is rooted in EFG ownership structure and governance.
I think in this respect, EFG is quite unique because on one hand, we are a family business. We have a founding family, which is the anchor shareholders that set the long-term targets, the long-term perspective, and defines also the prudent risk appetite. On the other hand, we are also listed, and clearly, we have a shorter-term perspective and a much more, I would say, stringent focus on performance and targets. Here, the professional management, so us and our teams, we have to balance between these two perspectives: long-term perspective and short-term perspective. I always say that if you want to have the right to be successful in the long term, you need to hit first the short-term targets, and this is a bit of a mantra that we have in our firm.
Now, this is about the past, and I hope that you got some insights on how we drive our business forward, and for sure, we will continue to use this approach also for the next cycle and beyond. Let us look now at the strategic outlook. Now, this is for several of us, the third Investors' Day that we have done. For me, in my capacity as CEO, it is also my third Investors' Day. When I was preparing for this day, I was reflecting on what we were seeing in March 2019 and in October 2022, and ultimately, this was the environment at the time. Ultimately, as you can see at the bottom of the slide, where we focused on and what we have delivered. Clearly, things were completely different. 2019 was, in general, a benign year.
Nobody had an understanding that in a few months after, we would be all in a lockdown. For us, we were coming out from a painful and complicated integration, and for us, it was all about reigniting growth, start hiring, and turn around Switzerland. 2022 was a very complicated time, October 2022. China and Asia were still under COVID lockdown. We had a carnage in the market, very, very complicated. Yet, we were doing well, and actually, the stock started re-rated in 2022, and we felt that for us, what was critical was to continue to maintain the growth and to go to the next level of sophistications in terms of content innovation, digital acceleration, and invest of our people. The point that I'm trying to make here is that what we are trying to do pretty well is, on one end, to navigate the market environment.
This is something that affects all the industry. It does not affect only EFG. On the other hand, to have a very clear strategic direction, strategic course that is in line with our cycle, with EFG cycle, and have clear objectives and drive towards that. Now, today, what do I see? I see that actually the environment is for sure much better than three years ago. The visibility is not great. I will come back to that. Overall, for us, the key, the core value drivers are about going to the next level of sophistication and in certain areas to the level of excellence. Now, looking ahead, we always try to understand what is the market developments, the short-term trends, and to distinguish them from the underlying long-term trends. Our Chief Investment Officer, who is here with us today, Mozamil Afzal, published last week our outlook for 2026.
The key message here is that there are clearly opportunities in the market, but they might be tempered by external headwinds. I will mention only a couple. One is related to interest rates. We will see what the Fed will do in December. The second is obviously to do with the dollar. Dimitris will elaborate on the sensitivities later. Again, the visibility is not great, and in any event, all of these market developments will have an impact on all the industry, not only on EFG. We, as always, will try to anticipate and to navigate as best as we can. On the other hand, if I look at the underlying long-term trends, I become extremely positive for our industry. I become extremely positive for EFG. I believe that for private banking and wealth management, there are two key questions that really matter.
The first question is, are we going to have wealth creation in the next years? I believe that the answer here is absolutely yes. We believe that across geographies, across continents, entrepreneurs will continue to create wealth. As you can see here, the global growth of financial wealth will be at around 6%. By the way, this is double nominal GDP growth for the foreseeable future. You can see that cross-border wealth will grow even faster at around 9%. The second question is, will we be able to intercept and attract this wealth? The point here that we want to make is that wealth is on the move. Wealth is on the move across geographies, but wealth is also on the move across generations.
Now, we believe that we are very well positioned to benefit from these trends because on one hand, we are very close to the entrepreneurs in the countries where they generate the wealth. On the other hand, as I said, cross-border wealth will grow faster, and cross-border wealth will come into the international financial centers where EFG is very well positioned. By the way, in this day and age, Swiss private banking sells. Swiss private banking is a positive. Finally, we will see the biggest wealth transfer in the history of humanity only in the next five years is $11 trillion. This is the estimate, but if you look at the next 20 years, it is in excess of $80 trillion over 25 years. We believe that our CRO model is well positioned to cater for entrepreneurs and the next generation.
If the underlying long-term trends are positive, we believe that there is further potential to grow and realize the operating leverage following the approach that I described earlier, and we believe that we can continue to deliver a double-digit net profit growth of around 15%. Now, let me now introduce what we call our 2026-2028 strategic framework. We are confident that we can continue to create value in the long term for all our stakeholders, and in particular, for our shareholders. We believe that we continue to create NNA growth, EPS growth, and attractive returns on capital. We will do so building on our strengths, client content, and simplicity. This has served us well in the last two cycles, but we also believe that we can capture new opportunities for growth going forward.
Now, if I look horizontally at the chart in the middle, I think that our CRO model is extremely competitive and attractive, and we have done very well in serving our clients and growing our business. Yet, we believe we can do even better in terms of delivering a better client experience and positioning our brand even better. We have done, and André is going to talk about that. We have done a lot of progress in terms of content and improving our client solution and advice. As I said earlier, we need to deliver service to our clients and content to our clients, but we also believe we can do even better in terms of commercial excellence. Again, simplicity is in our DNA.
We always try to reduce complexity and to use technology to improve both client experience and the efficiency and productivity of our firm, but we believe we can do even better. We believe that we can have tech-enabled services and processes front to back across the bank. This is basically our organic growth strategy, and again, I'll make it very clear. We will never compromise with our foundation. We will never compromise with our risk appetite. Compliance and risk management are prerequisites to growth. Operational and financial resilience are more important than ever. At the end, the EFG people are the ones that are going to drive all this process. Here, I always like to mention the quote of Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan said, "The talent wins games, but teams win championships." We need both.
We need talent, and we need teams because we want to win games and championships. Clearly, as I already mentioned, we believe that M&A can have a bigger role in this cycle in fueling growth, depending on how the market will consolidate, and this will complement and strengthen our growth trajectory. Now, in the next hour, my colleagues and I, we will deep dive on the key elements that we have just described on our strategic frameworks. I'll cover clients and commercial excellence. André will cover the content. Alain will cover branding and client experience. Demis will cover simplicity and technology. We will hear from our colleagues about the core foundations later. Now, talking about clients and CRO, I would like to start from the client-centric CRO model and talk about the next level of sophistication in client servicing.
Now, to be fair, we have debated a lot whether we had to have this chapter, this section in our presentation because we believe that everybody knows what is the CRO model in EFG. Actually, we were told that it was not bad to have a recap, so I'll try to be brief and only focus on the key elements. Clearly, I'm happy during the Q&A to answer any question about the CRO model. I'm very passionate, and I could talk, and I can talk for hours about it. Now, the key point of this slide is twofold. First of all, the client-centric CRO, and by the way, CRO, just for any avoidance of doubts, stands for Client Relationship Officer. So our client CRO model is the engine, has been the engine, and will be the engine of our growth.
This is why we have dedicated a chapter for that. Now, this model has been introduced from the beginning, around 30 years ago, and the spirit, the philosophy of this model has never changed. It has remained the same, although clearly over time, and you can see here on this slide some adaptation. Obviously, we need to adjust it to the new challenges and the new priorities. In the next cycle, we are going to introduce the augmented CROs, and we are going to introduce the next-gen CRO. I will come back in a minute. The other point that I would like to make here is that our clients and CROs are at the core of our value proposition. We are very client-centric because we are very CRO-centric. As I said earlier, we want to be close to our clients, so proximity is very important.
We want to deliver the best possible service to our clients and the best possible content to our clients. Now, what are the key features of our CRO models? We believe, and you have seen the numbers, so clearly, it is not only a belief, it is also a fact that the CRO model enables long-term partnership with clients, delivering truly personalized and impartial advice. Long-term is extremely important across generations of clients. Truly personalized and impartial advice is very important. We are open architecture. Obviously, what is very important is that the CRO is together in a team of investment counselors, wealth planners, and asset class specialists to build the possible team in order to deliver the best possible service and content to our clients.
Obviously, our values that you can see on the right-hand side drive the conduct and the behavior of our people across the organization and across geographies. Now, the CROs, I'm now on page 35, are at the epicenter of our model, and they connect our clients with our offering. Andre later will deep dive on the dedicated offering. The only key point that I would like here is that we do not believe in one size fits all. We do not believe that all clients should get the same product or the same service. We give choice to our clients. Obviously, we want to ensure that our clients get the most relevant service and product for their needs. You can see on the right-hand side, and you can see that actually, I would say almost 90% of our clients are high-net worth individuals and ultra-high-net worth individuals.
Now, the key point that I made earlier is that to continue this growth trajectory, we have to do two things. We need to continue to hire high-quality CROs and make sure that they deliver. Second, we need to improve the productivity of existing CROs. In this slide, slide 36, which is a bit busy, we try to show that we have been doing this year in, year out through the last cycles. Clearly, for us, hiring high-level quality CROs is extremely important, and we have been doing this consistently over the last seven years. I know that some people talk always about the dislocation in the market of 2023 and that allegedly we have benefited from that. That might be the case, but again, we have been hiring much before the dislocation of 2023, and we will continue to hire in the years to come.
Now, what is extremely important, as I said, is to ensure that the CROs that join us can deliver fast and be successful with us. You can see in the middle that the business case delivery has significantly improved. Clearly, the growth is not predicated only on new CROs, but is also predicated on existing CROs becoming more productive. I would say that on the right-hand side, you can see that our productivity in terms of AUM per CROs has increased more than 50% from CHF 230 million to almost CHF 360 million. Very often we get the question, again, very often referring to the dislocation in 2023, "Are you sure that you can grow your number of CROs? And where do you find the CRO? And how do you recruit?" We have put a page.
I don't plan to go in detail on every single point, but I would say that our focus on hiring top talent CRO is continuous. It's not that we say, "Oh, today we have a campaign, and for this season we start hiring, and then we don't hire for another nine months." I always say that the hiring is driven by the executive management involvement. Obviously, HR is always involved. We have a very strong strategic recruitment team that I think is also here with us today, but it is essential that the executive management team is involved. We have a very systematic hiring process. As I said, we leverage the strategic recruitment team, and we have also a proprietary predictive performance model that allows us to try to predict the probability for the new CROs to be successful within EFG.
We have a structured onboarding process, and also we have a diligent and transparent performance management process. I think this is extremely important. Again, at the end of the day, this, I always say, for us is extremely important. The CROs are for us our partners. The CROs are the partners that will help, obviously, together with the whole team to drive the firm further. There is no point to come together if we are not able to deliver and the CROs are not able to deliver. It is a mutual partnership. It is a mutual agreement, and therefore, this is why we are so focused on ensuring that we can predict how the performance is going to be.
This, I would say, predictor, as we call it here, allows us to improve the decision-making process, which is not only based to, let's say, interpersonal, I would say, valuations or assessment, but with a very sophisticated model. Now, going forward, very often people say that the CRO model at EFG is simply the comp model. I hope that by now you have realized that the CRO model of EFG is much more than only the comp model. Having said that, a transparent and attractive compensation framework is important, is good. Again, for us, it is very meritocratic and transparent. Again, here, the philosophy of this comp model has not changed in the last 30 years. Obviously, we have adjusted over the cycles, but the approach is always the same. We are uncompromising, focusing on risk and conduct assessment with a very dedicated CRO risk scorecard.
Clearly, there is also a next-gen CRO succession program with a three-year endover. Now, again, we believe that the CRO model has been very successful in catering for entrepreneurs that generate wealth, and we grow with them across generations. As I mentioned earlier, one of the key features that we are going to have in the next cycle and beyond is going to be the wealth transfer. Therefore, for us, it is now important not only to hire and develop seasoned CROs and experienced CROs, but also to develop next-gen CROs in order to capture the ongoing wealth transfer. We are developing, and we are in the process of finalizing, I would say, a quite holistic and comprehensive approach for the next gen, starting, obviously, as you can see on the left-hand side, I am on page 39, on the next-gen clients.
There are several elements, including the wealth planning, the sustainable investing, the client experience, improving our branding. For sure, one key element to be able to serve and to attract the next gen, the next generation of clients is the next-gen CRO. In the future, we will not only hire experienced and seasoned CROs, but we will also attract either from our firm internally, but also from the market, the next-gen CROs. This, we believe, is going to improve our ability, as I said, to serve our clients across generations. As I said, I could speak for hours about our CRO model. I am very passionate, but I think that the best is actually that you hear them out. We are going to have a video in a few seconds, and you will see our CROs, new CROs, existing CROs, CROs coming from acquisition, and next-gen CROs. Enjoy the video.
Since we founded EFG in Zurich in 1995, working in partnership has always been one of our guiding principles. The loyalty and the bond between our clients and our client relationship officers, or CROs, as we call them, is the most valuable asset our bank has. I joined EFG as a result of the acquisition of BSI. There is a spirit of partnership. We benefit from our access to a global network of experts, as well as an open product architecture, while operating within a robust and centralized compliance and risk management framework. I really felt the entrepreneurial spirit of EFG from day one. The bank has the right values, approach, and offering to unlock the full potential of me and my team.
In the Greater China region, we serve many entrepreneurs and their families and are able to support these clients in time of strong wealth creation in the region. When I first joined EFG in 2002, after moving from Cyprus to London, I started out managing a small book all by myself. Today, I have built a team of more than 10 colleagues. EFG's model allowed me to build exactly the team I need to best serve my clients. We have been successfully hiring talents for EFG in the Asia-Pacific region for 25 years. In my view, EFG's CRO model is a game changer in attracting top talents. After spending 22 years with large banking corporations, I joined EFG in 2023 because here I can deliver the best service to my clients and benefit from lean structures.
We have a very compelling offering of investment and client solutions, and we are able to offer truly impartial advice. In 2024, my team and I joined EFG to build EFG's presence in Gstaad. Our clients are global citizens, and many of them are entrepreneurs. For them, it is key to have a bank that understands their family values and individual wealth planning needs, be it in Gstaad or elsewhere. As I used to say, from little Gstaad to the big world. I joined EFG in 2015 as a client service officer. Today, I manage a team and the book, which is successfully growing year after year. Today, I also develop young talents as part of my team. With the next-gen CRO program, EFG provides a framework that makes this collaboration personally rewarding, but also commercially attractive for me.
Our CRO model ensures partnership and aligns interests between our clients, our CROs, and our bank. Our aim is that clients are better off with EFG than with any other institution.
I hope you had some color. You have seen a good variety of CROs and regional business heads and GBC colleagues. Now, the key question is how we make sure that this CRO model is rolled out across all the geographies where we are. This is for the last cycle. What I am very pleased is to say that we have strong growth in all regions. It is clear from the graph that in regions like Asia-Pacific, continental Europe, and Middle East and Latin America, we were able to grow much faster than the market, while in more mature markets like Switzerland and the U.K., we were growing more in line with the market.
Now, our regional business heads that are here, and we are going to hear them out in a minute, they are quite positive for the next cycle. We believe that our network, our presence across geographies, will support the next chapter of growth. As you can see here, we intend to grow faster or in line with the market. I would like to note about the U.K., where the new management team is particularly ambitious in order to grow and beat the market growth. I think the best again is to hear the regional business heads in the next video.
Our clients are global citizens, and we want to be where they are. We offer tailored advice and solutions to our clients. Our five regional business heads drive our business around the globe. From Switzerland, our home market, we ensure a global perspective and responsiveness to the specific needs of our international clientele. The recent openings of our offices in Gstaad, St. Moritz, Tel Aviv, and Istanbul were key milestones. In addition, we recently expanded our presence in our home market, Switzerland, with the acquisition of Cité Gestion Private Bank in Geneva. At EFG, we are proud to serve the fast-growing and dynamic Latin American market from our regional hub in Miami, a leading wealth management center for international clients. Our clients can benefit from the strength of our integrated platforms in the US, Switzerland, and the rest of the world. We will continue to hire talent and expand in our core markets, particularly in Brazil and Central America, and we'll focus on capturing the high-net-worth individual relocation trend to the United States.
In recent years, we have successfully built our franchise in the Middle East. Key to this success is our client proximity, combining first a strong local franchise based in Dubai with an established offshore setup out of Switzerland, and second, CROs who are familiar with the local market and client needs. We also capitalize on our key hubs in Luxembourg and Monaco and our presence in Portugal and Greece to further grow our European business. We have come a long way in building our business in Asia over the last 25 years, achieving strong net asset growth across all locations. We have recently expanded our footprint by entering the New Zealand market with the acquisition of the Investment Services Group through our subsidiary, Shaw & Partners in Australia.
Most of our clients are entrepreneurs, which goes hand in hand with our own entrepreneurial spirit, and we give them the freedom to select products and services best tailored to their needs. In the U.K. region, we have significantly accelerated our growth. Thanks to our strong presence in London, one of the world's leading financial centers, and our unique positioning in the U.K., we attract global wealth. We do so by leveraging our full banking license and comprehensive range of offerings for both international and domestic clients.
Thank you. I hope you have now gained a better regional perspective about our strategy and how we want to tackle the next cycle. Now, summarizing the priorities for the next strategic cycle as far as our CRO model is concerned, we will continue to do what we are doing already very well, which is to hire top talent CROs, increase the success rate of new CROs, and increase the productivity of existing CROs. Furthermore, we will roll out the next-gen CRO program. This is in order to achieve our ambitions and our targets of 4%-6% NNA growth. Again, we have an ambition to hire 50-70 CROs every single year. Let us now go in the next five minutes or so to the client and commercial excellence.
Here, the point that I'm trying to make is that, as you have seen, we have been quite successful in terms of commercial performance, but we believe we can do even better and we can go to the level of commercial excellence. When we were looking at this, and we went back and tried to distill which were the levers, the success levers that allowed us to have this strong performance over the last seven years, we came down to basically three main levers. The first one was the introduction of the systematic pipeline management in 2019. We then introduced the top deal team and strategic client management soon thereafter. We were able, in the last few years, to activate our investment counselor, wealth planners, and asset class specialists to support the CROs and the clients to deliver better service and better content to our clients.
The question, again, if you look in isolation, all these three points, there is nothing particularly special, but putting together and delivering well, actually, as you can see, the performance is quite strong. The question for the next cycle is, what are the next key levers of success to bring our strong commercial performance to commercial excellence? Actually, we have identified three untapped opportunities. I am now on page 47 for the next cycle. They relate mainly to the existing clients and to the existing CROs. We believe that existing CROs can do more in client acquisitions. You already see that this is already happening. If you compare our performance in 2023 and today, we believe that we can do even better. We believe that all the actions that we are putting in place will allow CROs to tap this opportunity.
The second is we can do more in client engagement. We are now tracking how clients are engaging with our products and services. What is very interesting from the middle of the page is that actually the ultra high net worth individuals are engaging more than the high net worth individual and PB entry and asset and affluent clients. We believe that we can do more in this respect. Furthermore, we can increase the share of wallet and retention of our clients. The majority of our clients have two, three, four private banks or banking relationships. We want to climb the ladder of the rankings and become among the top two private banks that our clients have. How to do this? We like to introduce the concept of the augmented CRO, and we believe that the augmented CRO will be ready to capture these augmented opportunities. What is the augmentation?
The augmentation is through themes. First of all, I already said in the last cycle, we introduced or we had a much better interplay between CROs and investment counselors, wealth planners, and asset class specialists. We believe we can do much more in this respect, and this will drive better service, better performance, better engagement, and share of wallet. We also believe, and Demis and André will talk about that, we will be able to augment our CROs through digital tools. We have announced yesterday the adoption of Aladdin Wealth in our platform, in our advisory platform. As you can see on these slides, we are introducing several digital tools that will make the life of our CROs easier, faster, better. Obviously, we are going to invest, as we are going to hear from Alain, more on branding to elevate our client experience.
This, again, should allow our CROs to attract more clients and to engage better with clients. We also believe that if we introduce all these digital tools and we introduce this augmentation through our teams, we will be able to improve our processes that are mentioned here, the pipeline management process, pricing, performance management, strategic client management, and advisory. As you can see in the next slide, page 49, all the tools that we want to introduce or we have already introduced, they have a clear function and they serve the possibility to improve our client acquisition, client engagement, and share of wallet and retention. Now, an additional benefit of the augmented CRO model is that the augmented CROs will be able to target our clients in a better way and in a more customized way.
We do not believe in traditional segmentation that some of our competitors use because, as I said earlier, and André is going to elaborate, we believe in giving the choice to the clients. We do not segment our clients, but we segment our offering. We have a relationship-based pricing depending on the needs of the clients. Obviously, we adjust the coverage model depending on the segment of the clients. This will allow us to be much more focused and targeting in delivering our products and services, ultimately improving the client satisfaction and ultimately also improving the returns for the firm and the shareholders.
To conclude, the priorities for the next strategic cycles in terms of commercial excellence are to be much better in client acquisition, to be much better in share of wallet and retention, to increase the client engagement, and to roll out and introduce the augmented CROs. If we are able to do this, clearly, we are going to meet and probably beat our ambition and targets in terms of NNA growth, mandate penetration, and return on AUM on our margin. Now, given that my voice is leaving, I am very pleased to pause here and to invite to the stage André, who is going to talk about client advice and solutions. Thank you, André. The floor is yours.
Thanks. Thank you, Giorgio. Good morning, everyone. It's a pleasure to share how our investment franchise is not just evolving, but thriving as we enter the next chapter of growth, sophistication, and client excellence. At EFG, commercial excellence isn't a slogan. It's our starting point. Insightful, timely, and actionable investment guidance is what drives client trust in our franchise. Every day, our teams deliver high-quality insights and forward-looking perspectives across markets and asset classes, helping clients navigate an increasingly complex world. By placing investment content at the core of our value proposition, clients benefit from the full depth of our expertise and our global perspective. Over a recent business cycle, our transformation has followed a clear and deliberate path. In the previous cycle, we focused on getting the basics right, strengthening foundations, aligning governance, and ensuring consistent execution.
In the current cycle, we shifted focal to scale, innovation, and our content and expanding reach and embedding a disciplined operating rhythm. That work has culminated in what we call our advisory target operating model, which deepens collaborations between CROs and investment counselors and, most importantly, makes that partnership the norm rather than the exception. This next phase, which we are about to enter, is about moving to the next level of content delivery and sophistication, uniting advice, content, and execution into one seamless client experience. We are now seeing the power of compounding, deeper collaboration, driving higher productivity and mandate growth, reinforcing our investment business as a core engine of scalable, profitable growth for the group. As you can see from the slide, we have intentionally structured our offering across four pillars with clients focused on geopolitical and market risk ever more so.
Giving them choice is an overarching principle of our impartial advice, and the four-pillar structure allows for this. These pillars consist of wealth solution, guiding clients in structuring, safeguarding, and transferring wealth to empower the next generation. Second, investment solutions, tailoring opportunities to each client's goals and risk profile to preserve and grow wealth through changing markets. Global markets, providing direct access to worldwide markets backed by expert execution and timely credit. Last but not least, credit solutions, offering structured and flexible lending that helps clients seize opportunities and also manage liquidity. As Giorgio mentioned, we deliver our offering to our CROs who are at the epicenter of our model. They connect clients seamlessly to the four pillars, turning our broad capabilities to one cohesive advisory experience.
These pillars effectively augment the CRO, giving them richer, more relevant content to drive prospecting with new clients and to deepen share of wallet with existing ones. CROs are empowered with insight, solutions, and specialist collaborations, enabling advice that is more connected, more informed, and more impactful at every stage of the client journey. Most importantly, as you can see in our numbers, this model is delivering consistent results. We have strengthened client engagement and mandate adoption. In wealth solutions, closer alignment between wealth planners and CROs ensures every discussion links advice to long-term client objectives. In investment solutions, we have harmonized our global offering and steered clients towards discretionary and advisory mandates. We have scaled our structured products offering, contributing to record revenues. In credit solutions, we have broadened financing options.
In global markets, we've launched our FX advisory offering, providing timely guidance and enhanced execution as FX markets have become more relevant to the investment outcome. An overarching goal of this, we've invested in talent across all four pillars, selectively hiring specialists to deepen expertise and strengthen regional delivery capacity. The end result is what you see on the right-hand side of the slide. Mandate penetration has risen to 67%, and commission margin has risen to 45 basis points. In both cases, we are ending the cycle in a position of strength. These gains reflect deeper, more sophisticated client relationships, proof that our focus on engagement, content, and talent is translating into sustained commercial performance and a stronger platform for the next phase of growth. When we bring an investment counselor alongside the CRO, the quality of the advisory relationship improves materially, and that translates directly into economics.
On average, our experience is that portfolios managed with IC involvement, so where our investment counselors are connected, generate more than 40 basis points in incremental commission margin. Looking ahead, technology will improve our ability to deliver. It allows us to bring a broader range of products to our private banking, entry, and affluent clients quickly, consistently, and at scale. Through stronger collaboration, smarter use of technology, and more focused deployment of IC expertise, we continue to lift advisory quality and commission margins across the franchise. I would like to return to the slide that Giorgio just mentioned. In the next cycle, our focus is on delivering value through differentiated solutions. As you know, we do not segment the CRO, but we do segment the offering. As client sophistication increases, the proposition becomes richer and more tailored.
At the affluent and PB entry levels, advice is digitally enabled and efficiently delivered through system-supported tools. For high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth clients, the proposition intensifies, combining the CRO with investment counselors and specialists to deliver multi-asset and cross-border solutions. This approach also broadens our reach within the existing franchise, enabling CROs to engage more effectively with clients. By becoming more tech-enabled, our CROs can extend high-quality advice to a larger share of their portfolios, driving higher client penetration and greater share of worth. As Giorgio mentioned, the integration of BlackRock's Aladdin Wealth platform, which my colleague Demis Stucki will touch on later, will bring greatest scalability, transparency, and insight in what is a transformational way for us and in the way we cover our clients. To summarize, we have four priorities that will drive this next phase.
First, we'll expand wealth planning, capturing opportunities from the great wealth transfer and building a dedicated next-gen proposition. Second, we'll strengthen our fund solutions, adding more depth in private markets through new proprietary products and selected third-party partnerships. Third, we'll upgrade our credit offering, embedding lending into regular advisory discussions and broadening customized structured lending. Last but not least, as I mentioned, we'll extend our global markets advisory with a stronger focus on FX advisory, an area where clients see more relevance and demand is high. Together, these initiatives will underpin our 2028 ambitions: mandate penetration between 70%-75% and ROA of 85 basis points or better. The next cycle is about scaling what works, combining stronger advice, richer content, and greater productivity across the franchise.
To conclude, our focus for the next strategic cycle is clear: to build on the progress we've made and unlock further value through deeper client-centric solutions, strategic hires and specialists, and product sophistication to deliver consistent client and shareholder value. I will now hand over to Alain Zimmerman, our Global Marketing and Branding Officer, to speak about how branding and client experience helps us to deliver better content outreach. Thank you.
Thank you, André. Good morning, everyone. In private banking, our brand, EFG, is one of our most important assets. While it shapes how clients perceive us and why they decided to grow with us, for me, branding and client experience are key levers that directly support our business strategy. We've asked some colleagues from across our organization to share why branding matters for them and, obviously, for our clients. Let's hear their perspective.
A strong brand elevates our visibility, builds trust, and positions EFG as the private bank of choice for clients worldwide. This is especially important when initiating conversation with prospects, but I see even more potential for growing the EFG brand. To me, branding is much more than a logo. It is how our clients and partners experience EFG. Wealth is on the move, not just geographically, but also now we are witnessing the largest wealth transfer in history. Over the next two decades, around $83 trillion will be inherited, mainly by the Generation X and the Millennials. In this process, many families will reevaluate their banking relationships, and we are committed to seizing the opportunities this presents. We ought to do so not only just through our client-centric CRO model, but also delivering relevant insights, tailored content, and solutions to our clients.
This is also part of the EFG brand proposition. We want to build relationships of trust across generations. The next generation of clients expects us to cater for their evolving needs. Our EFG brand needs to be aligned with their needs and expectations. In a competitive market, brand is our edge. It attracts clients, secures loyalties, and signals premium value. A trusted brand is the first step towards like-law partnership. Today, over 3,000 colleagues work at EFG. Every one of them is a brand ambassador. Private banking is a people business, and attracting top-tier talent is key for us. Our people are at the heart of EFG's success. Motivated, inspired teams deliver the expertise, the partnership, and innovation our clients expect. A strong brand attracts top professionals to join us, knowing they are part of a forward-thinking entrepreneurial private bank.
Over the past years, ladies and gentlemen, we relaunched and elevated the brand. We strengthened our positioning, which is quite important, and we started also to scale our visibility across all markets. Now, looking ahead, our strategy will focus on three priorities, as shown on the slide. First, brand visibility. Secondly, client experience, as mentioned by Giorgio already. Without surprise, I think digital marketing. Now, let me just tell you a little anecdote, very relevant, speaking about the power of digital. We had recently, believe it or not, our very first, it was three weeks ago, our first walking prospect who asked ChatGPT, when landing in Zurich Airport, what are the five best Swiss private banks? EFG was on the list, and it was written very close to Parade Platz. The client came to visit us, asked to meet a CRO.
Obviously, he had a very good discussion because he decided to open the account. True story, just to speak about the power of digital. Now, coming back on the priorities, brand visibility, client experience, and digital marketing, they will allow us to scale what we've built, but obviously also to move closer to a true what I call top position in the industry. We are entering now the next stage of a plan that is already delivering and now ready to, and I think that's important, to accelerate. In private banking, branding is strategic because our entire business is built on the most important person, the client. Our clients are demanding. They expect true personalized and top service, flawless execution, and obviously distinctive experiences. In fact, this is very similar to the expectation these clients have from what I call top luxury brands.
In many ways, I truly believe that the luxury sector is a fantastic benchmark for us, just because this sector has mastered the art of building trust, but also emotional connections through disciplined brand execution. You see on the slide what I call the codes of luxury. I think they are directly relevant to us. The codes are exclusivity. Our business is about exclusivity. Distinctiveness. We have to be different. Emotional resonance. It's a people's business and consistency across every single touchpoint. Applying these principles, ladies and gentlemen, at EFG, this will directly impact our business performance. On the right side, sorry, of the slide, you see what I call the four dimensions where we will drive measurable results. First, and without surprise, and you mentioned it, Giorgio, client acquisition. In the next cycle, client acquisition will be key.
A strong brand helps us attract new clients, but also, very importantly, the next generation. Second, share of wallet. And you also mentioned it, Giorgio, because I think this is an opportunity and a big priority. By the way, we just conducted the biggest and first global client survey, and it confirmed that 2/3 of our clients have two or more, let's say, banking relationships. So becoming their primary choice will definitely have a significant growth potential on our business. Third, pricing power. A recognized brand and trusted brand supports value-based pricing. Here again, if you look at some top brands in the luxury industry, you know how it works very well and how it protects margin. Finally, talent attraction.
A strong brand, as mentioned by my colleague Ioanna, our Chief People Officer in the intro video, helps us to attract top CROs and professionals who want to join a bank with a clear identity and, very important, a strong reputation. Where do we stand today? Maybe this chart is a bit unexpected. It is a so-called funnel chart, which shows how prospects move from first-stage awareness, do I know EFG, to consideration, do I understand what they make at EFG, to consideration, is this part of one option I would consider, to finally, so-called usage, I will become a client. The first point is very clear. Our conversion rate, from awareness to become a client, is higher than the competitors, which is fantastic news. This means that when people know the EFG brand, they often choose us, and that is the 14% conversion rate you see on the slide.
There is a second point, which took all our attention, I would say, because it is equally important. The first stage, the awareness, remains too low. Now, you can say, well, that is a weakness. I believe this is a fantastic opportunity. Now, too few potential clients know EFG today compared to the peers, but that is clearly one of the targets for the future because it represents this amazing opportunity to build the brand. Because the people, the moment, sorry, people know EFG and enter in contact, the brand performs very well. Increasing our brand awareness, ladies and gentlemen, will further support the conversion, as we just saw, but it will also impact what I call the brand value. That is not our own calculation. This is from Brand Finance. According to Brand Finance's latest results, EFG ranks fourth in Switzerland, just one step from the podium.
On the right, you can see the clear ambitions we've set for the next business cycle. Number one, without surprise, when you're just one step from the podium, you want to be on the podium. I think it's just to leverage on the momentum we've built. Number two, it's not just about Switzerland. It's global. We are a global brand. It's to enter the 250 global brand finance, which, by the way, since you, I think, like also some numbers, this would significantly increase our brand value to approximately CHF 700 million within the next cycle. Third, it's to increase our brand strength index from 61 to 70. Maybe you are not familiar with the brand strength index, but it's one of the most powerful indicators because it tells you the substance of the brand.
It calculates exactly what I meant before, the awareness, the familiarity, and very important, the client satisfaction, because we are a referral business, and if people are not satisfied, they don't stay. These three ambitions require one thing above all, clients who trust and recommend us. Let's look on the next slide, how clients rate the experience with EFG. I think, Giorgio, you already showed two numbers. This year, we conducted successfully, as I mentioned, the first global survey across all regions, including e-banking, by the way, and the results are very encouraging. I don't know if you're familiar with the Net Promoter Score. That's not specific to our business. This is across all industries. I think the results are super encouraging. Our NPS, measuring the client satisfaction, stands out at 50.2, which is already very strong.
What is even stronger is the 85% of our clients who told us, "I'm willing to recommend you." If you do not, let's say, feel convinced by something, you do not recommend. With a score of 90%, ladies and gentlemen, clients consistently highlight two areas where EFG stands out. Number one, the trust and personal relationship with the CRO, and we know the importance of the CRO. I think that's very good news. Secondly, the quality of service across the entire bank. There is a but, and I think the but is also the way to improve. They also told us that in the digital space, they expect more from us in terms of digital journey. The two points of, let's say, critic are a smoother and more intuitive e-banking and app. That is clearly a message we got and we will take very seriously.
Now, if you look at the ambition, being already at 50, I think we should not stop there. If we fix exactly e-banking and app and the digital, we should target, and we will target, an NPS of 60. By the way, 60 comes very close to what you could see on the very top-end luxury brands. You know the names from cars or some watches, and that's exactly because our clients compare not just banks to bank, but the experience they have across, let's say, many hotels, service, cruise. I think this is exactly how we should behave, and that's the mindset we will bring in terms of client experience. There's one reason why it matters especially on top, because we would say this existing client. There's a McKinsey survey which shows that coming back on the next gen, because the battle is about the next gen.
Next gen consider that client service is 1.6 x more important than their parents. Now the very good news, they're willing to pay a premium. It's not just because we have to do it, it's just because it will also help the entire, let's say, business model. Entering our next cycle, we have a very, I would say, good understanding of how to further drive our performance along the four funnel metrics, awareness, consideration, up to usage. We will concentrate, and without, I think, big surprise, on three priorities. Very focused. Increasing visibility to impact awareness and familiarity. This will clearly lead to acquisition, but also share of wallet. Secondly, elevate the digital client experience and even the overall experience, because upgrading what I call the end-to-end journey through every single touchpoint will reinforce satisfaction, but also loyalty and the overall brand performance and perception.
Obviously, identifying and engaging with future clients, the so-called next generation of wealth owners. You might ask the question, okay, what about investment? We will invest more. We will invest 50% more than in the previous cycle, also allowing us, sorry, to close the gap to peers. I think Dimitris, you will show some of the figures. It will be 1.5% from revenues compared to 1% today. What is very important, it will be a very targeted way to invest. I, or we as a team, will be very diligent on the return tracking. We will measure it. Have you seen? I like figures. For me, it's not just about logo and pictures, it's also to make sure we have a plan and we measure it. To sum up, the message is very clear, ladies and gentlemen.
We know what to do, and we have a great opportunity ahead of us. For me, branding and client experience are absolutely not nice to have. They are strategic growth engines, and they will substantially support our augmented CRO model and approach as just presented before. I thank you for your attention. I'm open to questions a bit later, and I will now hand over to my colleague Demis Stucki, our Global Chief Operating Officer, who will cover the topic of technology and simplicity. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Alain. Yes, e-banking is on the roadmap. Good morning and welcome from my side as well. I feel privileged to share how we will support the business growth and how compounding results can be achieved from a CEO perspective. Let me briefly reflect on our recent journey.
As you might remember, 2016 and 2018, we were busy with the acquisition and the integration of BSI. The following cycle was about streamlining operation, decommissioning legacy systems, and harmonizing our architecture. In our current cycle, we have focused on strengthening the platform, pursuing simplicity, and enhancing our data governance as a foundation for AI. Today, we are perfectly positioned to leverage our resilient platform and further accelerate our scale. Looking ahead, we will combine our successful simplicity framework with the power of technology to deliver on our augmented CRO promise. Simplicity, technology, and augmented CROs. I will come back on this later in the presentation, showing you that we have great opportunities ahead of us, and we are very well positioned to seize them.
Before we get to simplicity and technology, the two core themes of my presentation, I would like to highlight the three pillars of our smart execution strategy. Priorities that I set when I took over the role of the CEO a year ago, and by the way, I'm convinced of their importance for the next cycle as well. What are these three priorities? First, operational resilience. Having a stable, robust, and secure operation platform is our top priority and a prerequisite to sustaining our business model. Protecting clients' assets and data remains at the heart of what we do. We have strengthened our teams by hiring strong specialists, and we will continue doing so. Second, operational excellence and efficiency. I will deep dive on this in the simplicity section, sharing how this program is embedded in our DNA. Third, client experience.
We want the high quality of service that clients already receive today from our CROs to be consistently replicated across all channels. We're also committed to enhancing our CRO with technology that will make their life easier and give them time to focus on what really matters, building lasting relationships. Let me now dive into our first topic, simplicity. I'm particularly excited to share important achievements we have delivered this cycle. To start with the financial result, we have delivered CHF 66 million in cost saving over the last three years. In the next cycle, we plan to achieve even more. As you will hear later from Dimitris Politis, our CFO and Deputy CEO, simplicity will remain one of the key contributors to achieve our cost income ratio target.
Simplicity has driven us to rethink our core processes, striving for quality and efficiency, seeking every opportunity to challenge the way we operate. We have focused on 14 core processes, and while there is more to come in the last three years, we have absorbed a volume increase of 30% in yearly trade transactions through higher automation without compromising on quality or risk control. How did we achieve this? At EFG, we like to say that simplicity is now part of our DNA. It's not just a project. It's embedded in our culture and day-to-day operation. Everything starts with structured and centrally led governance. With clear accountability across regions, we have established a committee that we call OGA, the Operational Governance Authority. This is to ensure oversight, prioritization, and consistent global implementation. Next, simplicity is about generating and implementing ideas for improvement across processes, including our risk and control framework.
Every core product and service is reviewed. Ideas are developed into business cases with timelines and targets regularly reviewed, and roadblocks are escalated with clear action assigned. We're proud of the work that our team has done in reviewing end-to-end processes. We have established clear KPIs to monitor progress and also celebrate successes. Let me tell you, by now, all our colleagues are aware of our focus on simplicity. You have seen the overall achievements, yet I would like to share a concrete example. Asia. Our teams in both Singapore and Hong Kong, under the leadership of Albert Chiu, the Regional Business Head, have reviewed operating models to find opportunities for regionalization and centralization, while the group transformation team ensured global alignment across functions. We have leveraged lessons learned, having one clear target in mind: process automation and harmonization.
As a result, we have increased straight-through processing rate in our main markets from below 50% to 90%. We have also achieved a 12% compound annual growth rate in account opening, all this while reducing our direct cost and support function by 15%. Good. As we look ahead to our 2028 ambition, we are taking our simplicity agenda to the next level. Our new target is to deliver efficiency gains up to 7%, which will result in total savings of CHF 70 million-80 million. Going forward, we will focus on these three areas. First, operational model and operating model and optimization. We will continue to look for efficiency on the frontline while making sure our control and support functions are properly sized. We know there is more to achieve in this area, and we're very keen to leverage our past successes to help us reach these new targets.
Second, we want to put even greater emphasis on process and technology. This is about streamlining our core banking platform, accelerating our end-to-end processes, and further increasing automation and digitalization. Selective adoption of artificial intelligence is also part of the plan, always under strong governance to ensure responsible use. Finally, we will continue to foster transformation and optimize our footprint. This involves further regionalizing and centralizing key support functions to build a scalable center of excellence. We will also look at optimizing our real estate usage and legal entity structure to reduce complexity and avoid unnecessary overhead. With the high level of automation we have already achieved in our main center, we are very confident that we can absorb higher volumes and continue driving efficiency.
Ultimately, as you can see at the right side of the slide, our ambition is to improve operating leverage and reduce marginal costs for new business. After reviewing our successes, our approach to simplicity, and the 2028 ambition, I'd like now to move to the next section, technology. Over the past strategic cycle, we have consistently delivered on our five digital pillars. Starting from the foundation at the bottom of the slide, we have significantly invested in cybersecurity and defense, recognizing operational resilience as a key industry challenge. We have completed a global upgrade and alignment of our core banking platform, Deminos, strengthening the resilience and scalability of our backend. As already highlighted in the simplicity chapter, we have been using technology to improve our process, leveraging automation and harmonization. We have strengthened our data governance framework and architecture also by hiring very strong professionals.
These investments have allowed us, for example, to deliver a number of digital interactive cockpits, improving our client insight and benchmarking capabilities. Recently, we have also launched our new internal generative AI platform to support colleagues in a safe environment. We call it LI. What else? We continue to invest in the augmented CRO concept, and later on, you'll see a short video on some of the topics we have on our agenda. Before I move on, and as I did in the simplicity chapter, allow me to share a concrete example. I'd like to tell you how value from data is concretely helping us strengthen our support and control function. Recently, Enrico Piotto, our Chief Risk Officer, together with his team and in collaboration with IT, have launched what we call the DIRC, Digital Interactive Risk Cockpit.
This is not just a report that you read; it's one that you can touch and interact with, allowing you to drill down into any metric and access the right level of data for meaningful insight. The DIRC is not only used by the risk department; it is a report that goes regularly to our executive and board committees, with very positive feedback and a very high level of adoption. We're also proud to mention that this tool has been awarded as Best In-House Risk Data Initiative by Risk.net, a leading and worldwide recognized digital platform specializing in risk management. Bravo, Enrico. This is just one example of how we do extract value from data, and we will continue to increase our investment in this area in the next cycle. Okay, let's now take a step back and look at our technology architecture.
To start with, I'd like to share with you the key principle guiding all our investments: ensuring we remain efficient, globally competitive, but also cost discipline. I've said it multiple times: we believe in simplicity, not only in our operation, but also in our technology landscape. That is why we have a single global core banking platform at the heart of our architecture. This core system is complemented by best-in-class third-party applications, all seamlessly integrated through a standardized connectivity layer. This approach allows us to deliver broader functionality and faster innovation while maintaining flexibility and keeping costs under control. When it comes to emerging technologies such as generative AI, we're very selective and intentional in our adoption. We focus on areas where this technology can deliver real measurable value and align with our strategic objectives.
Our investments are targeted at capabilities that directly enhance the experience and effectiveness of our colleagues and clients. As a result, I think we are very well positioned to further expand our technology investment and take us to the next level. Whilst we have retained the essence of the five pillars from the previous cycle, we have refreshed them to reflect our priorities going forward. We recognize the need to keep investing in technology to further support and drive business growth and efficient scalability. The new five pillars are starting again from the bottom of the slide, ensuring that we have effective cybersecurity and operational resilience to protect our clients' assets and data, our bank, and ultimately our reputation. Next-gen core architecture. This is about a strong, globally consistent foundation.
Continue to invest in the core to enhance our scalable platform, which can support growth in AUM, number of clients, and transaction volumes. Simplicity at scale. We want to roll out the simplicity achievement we have delivered in Asia on a global level, ensuring we have harmonized and streamlined processes across all locations. Value from data and AI. It refers to our continuous effort, striving for high-quality data that can be used across functions and processes for additional insight and timely actions. Our goal is to offer a first-class client experience through all channels, so clients feel they have a consistent, seamless technology experience. Looking ahead, technology will be a key focus area in our mission to enable our next cycle of continuous growth. Our strategy is clear, and our execution is on track. At this point of the presentation, it should not come as a surprise.
Yes, we are increasing our investment in technology. We do so responsibly and remain well within industry benchmarks. In the past, our technology investments were lower as we have prioritized other growth opportunities. We are now getting back on track, and I'm convinced that this is the right time to accelerate our investment to unlock new opportunities. As you can see on the right side of the slide, our investment focus is in line with the five pillars I just described and ultimately with our three key priorities: resilience, simplicity, and experience. As I already mentioned, one of the key objectives for the next cycle is to use technology to transform the role of the CRO. Let's not forget, private banking is a people business.
In fact, all our new tools are designed to empower CROs with actionable knowledge and advanced analytics, enabling them to be more effective and bring the management of portfolio to a new standard. We aim to minimize administrative tasks, ensuring more time is available to CROs to focus on what truly matters: building stronger client relationships. I will pause here and show you how the augmented CRO capabilities look in real terms with Besar Amza, our global PB COO.
Our client relationship officers are the key to delivering outstanding service to our clients. Through technology, we are enhancing their capabilities to even better serve and identify client needs. We continue to invest in empowering our CROs and augmenting the technology landscape to achieve an enhanced client experience, operational excellence, and security. Meet Aladdin Wealth, the ultimate tool created by BlackRock.
It makes investment advice more instant and allows for seamless execution. The tool provides portfolio analytics, risk assessment, and proposal generation, all in one seamless experience. This drives decisions based on sharper, clearer, and better data. Next, CRO Atlas. Think of it as X-ray vision for client relationships, turning data into actionable insights. Our CROs see portfolio penetration and share of wallet, and they can identify new opportunities instantly. Our client lifecycle management system, the Private Bankers Command Center, manages key client lifecycle workflows such as account opening, maintenance, and periodic reviews. This frees up more time for real conversations. We run one global platform from front to back. Pricing and analytics. This tool ensures that our pricing is attractive for clients and competitive for us. It is transparent and balanced. Our CROs offer premium service, and the tool supports in ensuring that adequate pricing is applied.
We do not stop at the frontline. Our middle and back offices are also powered by technology. Credit Engine is the technology behind our Lombard lending. It performs stress tests, auto calculations, and risk assessment, providing the facts to support every credit decision. We are also investing in our order management system to ensure seamless flows from front to back. This means that orders are executed in a faster, more reliable, and smarter way. Last but not least, we have started increasing productivity with the first artificial intelligence use cases and have defined a clear strategy and roadmap. We believe in simplifying complexity and empowering our people through technology.
Thank you, Besar. In the next slide, you will see a short overview and summary of the tools and use cases that you have seen in the video. I will not go through them again, but I will be more than happy to answer any question during the Q&A session. I'm coming now to the conclusion of my presentation. I open my session with the three priorities, and I would like to close it with the three key initiatives for the next cycle. Number one, we are committed to operational resilience. With disciplined execution and strong risk management, we ensure stable, sustainable operation, enabling us to support and drive business growth with confidence. Number two, we're focused on operational excellence and efficiency. Through process improvement, alignment, and simplification, we're building a streamlined organization that is ready to adapt and succeed in a competitive environment. Finally, client experience. Client experience remains central to everything we do.
By delivering value that empowers both our internal and external clients, we continue to build strong relationships and provide excellent, exceptional service. These three pillars are the foundation of our COO execution plan, and together, they position us to deliver sustainable growth and long-term value for all our stakeholders. Thank you very much for the attention. I'll now hand over back to Giorgio Pradelli, our CEO, for the section on core foundation. Thank you.
Thank you, Demis. Let us now go back to the core foundations. Let me recap where we are in terms of our strategic framework so that we don't lose sight, let's say, of where we're trying to go. We have basically covered all our value drivers, so basically all the areas in the middle of the page in bronze.
We want now to focus on the foundation, which is the, as the foundation is at the bottom of the page. We have always said that EFG, strong compliance culture, and product risk management are the prerequisite of profitable and sustainable growth. We are committed to reinforcing our strong compliance culture and product risk management. Both functions are centrally managed and are increasingly enhanced by digital tools, as you just heard. Again, let's hear from the colleagues across the various lines of defense directly in a short video.
In our three lines of defense model, our CROs and our private banking COO function act as the first line of defense. In our capacity as risk owners, we apply global standards and compliance frameworks to ensure that the risk appetite defined by the Board of directors is adhered to.
A strong regulatory compliance culture is a prerequisite to sustainable and profitable growth. Our model allows tailored solutions and services while compliance is managed centrally to ensure responsible business conduct and adherence to all applicable policies, laws, and regulations. At EFG, we maintain a prudent risk profile and adopt a diligent approach to risk management. Our centralized global risk control framework ensures risks are systematically and effectively identified, measured, monitored, and mitigated. This helps us to safeguard our clients' interests and also EFG's reputation. Our next-generation digital platform for risk intelligence control and reporting has earned us the Risk Technology Award for the best in-house risk data initiative. In the digital age, resilience is also about data security. This topic is of the utmost importance to EFG and is a core part of our operational resilience.
As a Swiss private bank, financial resilience and a solid balance sheet are key to maintaining trust, specifically in volatile markets. We manage our balance sheet conservatively and maintain strong liquidity and capital metrics, exceeding regulatory requirements while getting assigned sound ratings by Moody's and Fitch. Our corporate culture defines who we are. It's built on strong values and responsible conduct. Every day, we expect our people to act with the highest level of professionalism, sound judgment, and integrity. That's how we earn and maintain the trust of our clients, our shareholders, and all our stakeholders, and ensure the long-term success of our business.
Now, let me hand over to Dimitris to present the 2028 financial plan. Dimitris, the floor is yours.
Thank you very much. This is the point of the presentation where we take all the actions that you first described earlier, and we try to put them together to show you the strong financial performance that we can generate through this action plan. Before I do that, I'd like to start with a short update for the 10-month results, which was released earlier this morning. The highlights of the 10-month results are that we had strong NNA momentum. We generated CHF 9.3 billion of net new assets for the first 10 months of the year. This is a 6.8% annualized growth rate, which is a slight uptick from the 6.5% that we put out in the June financials. The profits came in at a record level, headline CHF 320 million of bottom-line results for the 10 months. It includes a contribution from our insurance recovery of about CHF 45 million.
Even without that one-off, the results would have been record results for a 10-month for 2025. During the course of the year, we have made progress in de-risking. It's been mostly in the life insurance space. I'll come back to that later. Clearly, during the course of the year, because of our high level of profitability, we have added quite a bit of organic capital. At the same time, we've taken the opportunity to deploy some of our excess capital into two new acquisitions, which now have been closed and are fully reflected in the capital positions as at the end of October 2025. These two acquisitions added about CHF 12 billion of AUM to our overall business. Moving on to page 102, you'll see the evolution of the AUM throughout the year. Clearly, the CHF 9.3 billion of net new assets that I mentioned earlier.
Markets were favorable with CHF 9.2 billion positive. Just as a comparison, this is about CHF 6 billion higher than the same figure when we presented our half-year results. We all know that currencies were against us this year. We have a CHF 11.6 billion negative movement in our nominal AUM. That figure is flat for the last four months of the year. Clearly, we also have the acquisitions. That leads us to a total figure of CHF 184 billion of AUM as at the end of October. It is the highest figure we've had in terms of nominal AUM. More importantly, I think the figures on the right show the momentum of the business because the NNA are now a lot more equally divided between existing CROs and new CROs.
In the past, it were more driven by new CROs, but now the existing CROs are coming back, and the mix is about 60/40 in favor of the new CROs. The final part of the overview of the 10 months is the usual table with figures for the 10 months. I think that I'm not going to repeat many of these figures because we've seen them before. I'd highlight that the revenue margin is at 99 basis points or 95, excluding the insurance recovery. The cost-to-income ratio is at 69% or 71.8%, again, excluding the recovery. That is one percentage point down compared to full year 2024. The trajectory in becoming more efficient is there. The capital ratios are very strong: 15.6% core, 19.1% total capital ratio. Again, these fully reflect the two acquisitions, so you shouldn't expect an additional reduction because of those acquisitions.
Now, to give a little bit of color around the 10 months or the last four months, I would say that from an NNA delivery, the four months have been pretty much equally strong. We did not have a summer lull, which usually happens sometimes with the NNA. In terms of the profitability, we had the typically slower summer months, July and August, but it has really picked up in terms of revenue generation in September and October. Also, the other final element is that in terms of the contribution that we have in the revenues from our legacy life insurance portfolio, it is very muted in the second half of this year. It also comes because we have actively de-risked that position in the first half of the year. This is pretty much as expected.
Now, moving on to describe a bit how we are closing the 2023-2025 cycle, just highlight the trajectory on the profits. It is, I shouldn't hide that this is my favorite slide, both internally and externally. The reason it is my favorite slide is not just because the profits have been going up every single year for the last seven years. It's also because the progress in this profitability has been, the expression is by design or not by accident. What you will see on the right-hand side is the key highlights for the last two cycles. One is the last cycle clearly marked by significant improvement in revenues. Revenues are about 30% up since 2022. In the same time period, we have improved on our efficiency. We are now at 71.8% cost-to-income ratio. In the end, this leads to what we really track, which is EPS growth.
Our 10-month EPS is already beating the EPS of last year, and we still have two months to go. In terms of achieving the growth and profitability targets, I will not dwell a lot on it. Giorgio has already covered it. You look at all the targets. We are clearly delivering against the 2025 targets. Actually, we are delivering a higher bottom line than what we were expecting initially, which is showing our strong momentum at this point and also our ability to deliver irrespective of the market conditions. Now, the key question that we're trying to answer today is, how do you manage to do this? The second question is, will you manage to do that again for the next three years? Let's start with the first question, which is, how did you manage to do it? Clearly, the first element has been growth.
We've been consistently delivering NNA growth. If you look at the last three years, so 2023, 2024, 2025, you're looking at an average of 6% growth. It is at the top end of our 4%-6% guidance. What we also have done is, in 2023 and early 2024, we've made a significant investment in hiring new CROs, quality new CROs, as it has proven because of the delivery of their business case. We've had two regions which have been growing in double digits. Latin America and Asia-Pacific, thank you, gentlemen, have been growing at double digits for the last three years. We've added also the two acquisitions. If you look, we've had, now we show the acquisitions at the right. These acquisitions are the equivalent of accelerating our performance by about a year. By the way, we've just closed those.
These are not included in our performance to date. These will start delivering performance in 2026. The second point is operating leverage. Giorgio explained earlier, operating leverage is growing your revenues faster than your costs with a golden rule of growing your revenues at double the rate that you're growing your costs. Now, have we met this golden rule every single year? I think if you look at the numbers, we have about a 50% hit rate when it comes to meeting the golden rule, which is not bad. We can improve, but it's not bad. What is important is that every single year in this plan, we have delivered operating leverage. Every single year, the cost-to-income ratio has gone down. I realized I didn't put the 2018 cost-to-income ratio as a starting point, which was 92%.
We started from 92%, and over the last seven years, we are down to about 72%, excluding the one-offs. The only time, if you look at this time series, the only time where we allowed costs to really grow was in 2013, with a carryover in 2014 because you do not do everything in one year in terms of how you account for these things, where you see that we had a higher growth rate because we are investing into securing top-quality frontline back-office resources because the hiring at the time was not limited to just frontline. It included a lot of hiring in support functions as well.
I think what the message for me here is that what we've managed to do well is that we've managed to calibrate our investments to a level that matches our revenues, but also to time them in a way that we continue growing the P&L every single year. Now, one general, a bit more general question is, how will you continue delivering? Because, okay, this is history. The question is, what are the values or what are the skills that you have that allow you to continue moving forward? Going a bit off-script from the financials, I would say that there's a couple of things that actually work for us. One is that as an organization, I find that we are extremely data-driven. I'm sure that you've noticed that by now.
I'm sorry to say, but you had the Chief Branding Officer putting so many numbers to you this morning that for me, it's heaven. No, but we are very much data-driven, which means that this allows us to make objective decisions when we want to achieve something. The second very strong skill that we actually have is that we run this business. There are many terms in how you call this. I'm used to a term that was coined probably 30 years ago, which is management by objectives. What we do is we set targets, we figure the actions required to get these targets, and each one of us commits to a plan. All the people that you see today on the podium have a three-year plan for each one of us in terms of delivering revenues, growth, costs, cost savings.
Each one of us is committed to the plan that I'm going to be describing later. The final point is, and I'm sure that you'll get the opportunity to explore that after the meeting, but also through Q&A, this is a very strong team. It's a very committed team. It's a team that shares the same values, and it's a team which is, it's very easy to communicate between us. All these things give me the comfort that what I'm going to be presenting a bit later about 2028 is actually very much achievable. One last point on the financials of the past is, as you've noticed before, a lot of our success in the last few years has been driven on increasing revenues.
You look at the chart on the left, it's very clear that driving revenues up has been a strong priority for us. What I think is more important now, or equally important now, is assessing the quality of our revenue mix. The quality means how much of this revenue performance is actually dependent on markets and how much is not. I think if you look at the top right, this is very clear. The top right shows the total interest-related margin. It is what we publish as net interest margin plus what we have as swap income in our other income line. You'll see that in total now we're running at 29 basis points of interest-related margin for the 10 months. It is the same figure as in 2022. It is practically the same figure as 2019.
By the way, the average of the last 10 years is 29 basis points. That just to show that the performance, the margin that we have today is based pretty much on an average performance when it comes to interest-related factors. It is not based on a bloated or inflated number. It is not the 42 basis points that we had two years ago. At the same time, if you look at the bottom of the page, you'll see that overall our commission margin has increased over the last few years. Also, the final point is if you look at the top block on the left chart, which is other income, primarily consisting of income from clients because of which is generated on currency transactions, you'll also see that that has been expanding.
I think this gives you a better feeling of a breakdown of the revenues and should give you more confidence about our ability to generate that level of revenues going forward. Curt mentioned it in his video, but clearly performance does hinge on a solid balance sheet. Our balance sheet has been solid throughout the last seven years. We have about CHF 20 billion of liquid assets. If you look at the on the asset side, our capital ratios are 15.6% core and over 90% total capital ratio. I think that there is no reason for us to even further strengthen. We make sure that we maintain the strength as we move along. You'll see that we also have used up 130 basis points of our capital to absorb the two acquisitions.
Clearly, having this strong balance sheet gives us all the resources to be able to grow the business as we move forward. Final part, a bit on the risking of the balance sheet. On the left-hand side, you'll see the actions on life insurance portfolio that we took this year. Again, this is whatever I mentioned on this page is legacy and is at least 14 years old. We have significantly reduced the exposure to life insurance. We've had some divestments. Actually, the carrying value is now at about CHF 260 million. I had to go back and look at what was the exposure I took over as CFO. It was at least 3x that, close to CHF 1 billion carrying value at the time.
On the litigation cases, we have had three legacy litigation cases related to life insurance, which have been resolved in the last few years. This year, clearly, the insurance recovery on a loss which was accounted for back in 2022 is very significant. It is CHF 45 million. We are supporting some higher legal and litigation expenses for the legacy cases throughout the year of 2025. To close on the past performance, a quick note on the two acquisitions that we have concluded this year. There is not any new information on the slide compared to what we have shown in previous presentations. Clearly, the idea with this acquisition is that we take high-quality organizations, we add our product capabilities, we add our platform capabilities, depending clearly on each configuration and what the organization needs. Through that, we can create additional value. We can drive business faster.
We can create cost synergies because our platforms are already more mature than the platforms that these organizations operate. Through that, we aim to enhance our profitability and create synergies in the next three years in the 2026-2028 business plan. Now, let's move to the 2028 ambition. As Giorgio described earlier, we are keeping two financial targets the same. The 4%-6% NNA growth is the same. The management for it is the same, but we are increasing or we are improving on four financial targets. What is more important is what are the operational drivers that we have in mind when we are talking about these targets. What we're looking to achieve is continue with the sustainable, high-quality, organic NNA growth. This is parameter or driver number one. We also want to continue growing the top line.
We have no reason to believe why we should not be continuing to grow the top line as we move along. At the same time, we are looking to improve efficiencies. We've been successful in the last few years. We see again scope to improve on that. The final part is thinking a bit more deeply into our capital management. We are proposing an enhanced capital management, which includes a higher dividend payout. Now we are moving to 60% payout, 60% of annual profits as guidance for payouts on dividends compared to 50% earlier. The last driver, and maybe I should have put it as four plus one, because the top four are clearly things that we control and we can drive organically.
The bottom one is something that we are scanning for, like we're scanning to figure out if there are additional acquisitions that actually meet our criteria and we can execute on. Clearly, adding some more AUM through acquisition will definitely accelerate our performance. Now, clearly, whenever you have a plan, you need to figure out what is the backdrop of your plan. Giorgio was very good in describing the very strong fundamental underlying support elements that we have. Growth in global wealth by 6%, 9% if you include transfer wealth. Clearly, that is a very good backdrop to have in any business if you want to grow. There are some elements that might affect the short term. We know that the cycle on the interest rates has turned, although apparently it's a bit stabilizing at this point.
This year, we had some more accentuated weakness on the dollar, but if you look at the chart, the dollar has been weakening throughout the last five years or even longer for that matter. I think that overall, we are well positioned on a macro level. I would like to start on page 116 to take the targets on one by one. The first one is NNA growth. Clearly, one of the questions is, can you sustain your current performance? The beauty of this performance is what you see on the top right. This is very well diversified between regions. It does not mean that every region has been performing at the top level every single semester. We had times when some were overperforming, some were a bit underperforming.
Overall, over the course of the last years, we've seen a very strong diversification in the performance between regions. The other element, which is what you see on the left, is that at this point, we are back in a, I would call it a healthier mix between new and existing CROs. We had a time for 2022, 2023, 2024 where the new CROs have been the ones driving NNA growth. The reason for that is what you see at the bottom right. The bottom right shows that in those years where existing CROs did not deliver, one key reason that they did not deliver was that our clients were deleveraging. Clearly, when the clients are deleveraging, this affects the existing CROs, does not affect the new CROs who are bringing in new clients. It affects the existing CROs.
Now, what we're seeing with rates dropping and also, more importantly, with an upward sloping curve on the rates, we see our clients releveraging. The indication we have for the data we have for 2025 is that they are back into releveraging mode. I think that will also allow our existing CROs to contribute, which takes me to page 117, which is how do we view the world going forward on the NNA? For the existing CROs, we believe that there is more scope. We believe that there is more scope. You've heard all the bullets that are listed here. You've heard before. It is new client acquisition. It is about share of wallet. It's what André described for content innovation, what you heard from Alain for brand awareness, what you heard from Demis on augmented CRO capabilities.
All these things will add to the ability of our CROs for them to be able to deliver more NNA going forward. Now, on the new CROs, Giorgio described that we clearly will continue hiring. The guidance is the same as it was before, between 50-70 new CROs hired on a gross basis. We have been significantly improving our ability to predict, and our hit rates are getting better when we hire CROs. Clearly, what is also important is that the pool of CROs coming our way is becoming even of higher quality and also getting some more from brand awareness is going to be helpful in terms of getting that top talent through the door. Moving on to page 118, and this is about margin. The question here is, we are operating at 95 basis points today.
On average, the revenue margin has been 85 basis points for the last 10 years. Clearly, we are guiding at this point on a margin which is higher than 85 basis points. We do believe that because of our current capabilities, because of the investments that we will be making, also because of what we see in the markets at this point, those all point to a margin which is higher than 85 basis points in 2028. On the interest-related income, I have made the comments a bit earlier. Over the last couple of years, we have seen a reduction on that margin because of the rate cuts. We see it stabilizing now. We do not expect too much impact going forward. On the commission margin, André explained all the actions that we are going to be taking. We have been building on the commission margin over the last few years.
We do expect a good performance on that going forward. In terms of other income, we have expanded in our capabilities in currency trading over the last three years. There are more projects coming in that are in that area from court side. I do believe that we have scope also to expand on the other income side. In a nutshell, on page 119, how do we expect these to play out? Again, I'll take the point that this is an illustrative chart and you should not try to measure and figure out exactly what the numbers are because you'll not be able to do that. Our current run rate, and I'm talking about the last four months, is the average revenue margin for the last four months of 2025 is 92 basis points.
From that level, we expect limited impact from the interest rate cuts. We include here the sensitivity from the rate cuts. The chart that you see within the block A shows -CHF 34 million. - CHF 34 million is the annual P&L impact of 100 basis points reduction across all major currencies. The number simply for the dollar is about half of that. It's about $15 million on that chart. I think if you take the forward estimates from now on, they are pointing to less than 100, clearly less than 100 basis points. If you do the math, the possible negative impact from interest rates should be really, really marginal and clearly less than a basis point given CHF 180 billion of AUM that we currently run. Our biggest effort is going to be in block B, which is the commission side.
These are the areas that we actually control. It doesn't depend so much on the market. It's about product. It's about the commercial excellence plan, and we plan to expand our commission margin going forward. The third part, although we will try to increase our ability to do other products or more FX products, there is the possibility of lower market volatility that might reduce a bit that activity. Clearly, we are walking away from the life insurance portfolio at this point as it is in one wind down. Overall, we feel very confident that we can maintain a revenue margin which is above 85 basis points in the medium term. Clearly, the starting point of 92 basis points of today is also a strong starting point for us to defend from. Moving on to cost-to-income ratio.
Here, I think if you look at the last two cycles, it's a tale of two stories. If you look at the one on the left, clearly, the cost-to-income ratio went dramatically down. We started from over 90%. We closed the cycle at 76%. A lot of actions which had to do with closing down businesses, selling businesses, making sure that we streamline as much as we can. I've heard some criticism that we have not been moving as fast on the cost-to-income ratio in the last couple of years. If you look at the numbers, from 2022 to 2023, we actually reduced about 3 percentage points, but then it's been not moving as fast as some people would have liked. I think that relates one to one with the first bullet point under achieving scale. That was about investing at the right time.
What we actually did was that we very consciously sacrificed a bit of cost-to-income ratio in order to get a bigger bank, more AUM, and in the end, more bottom line profit out of this equation. By the way, that investment takes two to three years to actually become fully profitable. We're looking at about the time where that investment is going to be coming fully profitable. Now, going forward, you've heard the priorities. It's about branding, client experience, commercial excellence, technology. I think all these things will play a role in driving the cost-to-income ratio. We are updating and improving our target to 68% compared to the 69% that we had previously. Page 121, a brief overview of the action points in the last few years. The first block, 2019 to 2022, you see the list. We actually managed to do nine transactions in that time period.
2023 to 2025, predominantly focusing our improvements or our cost and efficiency actions into the simplicity program, which is a very rigorous, very detailed, very well-monitored program. We started with a target of CHF 40 million, expanded it to CHF 60 million, actually expecting to achieve CHF 66 million by the end of the year. Since we believe that this has been successful, we now know how to do it, and we found more scope around it. We are now embarking into simplicity 2.0. Simplicity 2.0 is a bit larger in scope, so CHF 70- CHF 80 million, about 7% of our cost base. This is going to be delivered in the three-year period ending in 2028. You heard about investment, and clearly, investment is nice, but we always hope that we get actually a financial return out of that investment.
Demis focused on the figures on the left, so this is about increasing investment to support growth and scalability. Alain was timid. He did not put the chart on in terms of the money that he would need, which is another 0.5% of our annual revenues, which brings us pretty much now in line with our peer group. For me, there are only two comments on these numbers. The first thing is, as you see, it's measured. Increasing your technology spend from 30 to 43 while you're growing at this pace is very reasonable, and we should clearly be doing it. Clearly, Alain at adding 0.5% of your revenues on that is clearly a very good investment.
The second point is, I do believe that these two investments are the investments that create the highest return on investment that we have from all the possible portfolio of investment that we can actually make. I think that the fact that we are here and we can actually discuss this is very important because they will definitely help us in improving our performance going forward. I'll move to page 123, which tries to describe how we think about the evolution of cost-to-income ratio. Our starting point now is 71.8%. Block A, which is the simplicity and efficiency side of it, is the biggest driver in terms of the achievement of the 68%. Simply put it, if you take the 70 million-80 million of efficiency improvements that we are putting forward and you apply it to our current numbers, you end up at 68%.
The self-help element, the ability for us to deliver that 68% is predicated on delivering on simplicity version 2.0 after a strong delivery on the first round of simplicity. The investments are going to be focused, so I don't expect any significant impact when it comes to the cost-to-income ratio. In block C, we're talking about revenue improvements. Clearly, we expect to grow the revenue as we move forward. Essentially, what we're saying in block C is that our marginal cost-to-income ratio is lower than an average cost-to-income ratio. As we move along, we'll be improving also our cost-to-income ratio. The last bit is a bit of carryover effect in 2026 from what we've seen in terms of interest rate drops and the currency fluctuations in 2025. Next page, 124, is on return on tangible equity. We had a 30% growth in profitability in the first cycle.
We arrived at about 13% return on tangible equity. We added almost another 20% per annum growth, getting us to 19%. Now, what we're looking forward to is also another three-year cycle where we can grow profits at around 50% per annum and hit at least 20% as our return on tangible equity in 2028. We believe that we can maintain that 15% per annum even beyond 2028. Even if we're looking at a five-year horizon, we should be able to deliver that 15%. If you look at the highlights, I'm not going to repeat them all.
It's more about our delivery in NNA, in defending the margin, in making sure that we improve our cost-to-income ratio, maybe a bit of headwinds early on in 2026, but also a bit of capital optionality because with the capital surplus that we actually have, we have the ability to add more and accelerate through acquisitions. Now, moving on to a bit of the capital management framework because this is also important. The capital management framework that we are putting forward is very similar to the one that we had put forward three years ago. You'll see that our minimum capital ratio is about 8%. We maintain a management floor of 12%, which means that as management, we would not like to drop below 12%.
If our Q1 is above 15%, subject to market conditions, to availability of M&A, and also to regulatory developments, the Board might consider delivering some of that excess capital back to shareholders. In reality, what this means is that we have a corridor between 12%-15% of Q1, where we need that to support organic growth, but also maintain it as optionality for additional M&A. Now, what is very supporting at this point when it comes to the capital ratios is that we are going into another step change into our profitability. Through that, we generate quite a bit of organic capital. At the same time, our business is a low capital consumption business. It's a capital-light business.
We do not need a lot of that capital that we generate every year to make sure that we maintain a very solid balance sheet and very solid capital ratios. In that respect, we believe that along with the next level of profitability, we need to improve on our payout ratio. The guidance for the payout is now 60% of annual profit compared to 50% previously. Just to remind you, the dividend yield has been 4.5% for the last three years. On top of that, we will maintain our buyback program, which added 2.9% of so-called yield in the last three years. Now, moving on a bit to discuss acquisitions. Clearly, we have been active in the last 10 years. The chart on the left is a compilation of all the transactions over CHF 5 billion of AUM by Swiss private banks. EFG is number two.
We've done BSI, Shaw & Partners, and Cité Gestion. We've actually also done Investment Services Group, but it is less than CHF 5 billion, so it's below the line. What it shows is that clearly we have a track record. We have the team who can actually manage this. We have delivered quite a bit of value in the past from doing M&A, and we're actively scanning the market. For us, M&A, as I said earlier, is an accelerator to our ability to deliver these profits. Just to be very clear, none of the targets that we've put forward includes the impact from any additional acquisition that we have clearly not announced yet. In terms of the assessment of the criteria, these remain exactly the same as we had before, so there is no change. Clearly, it needs to be a bolt-on acquisition.
We need to be able to create value through the synergies. The cultural fit is a given. If you do not have a cultural fit, we should not be embarking. To avoid any value dilution, we have also several internal financial metrics that we need to meet. The one that we disclose publicly is our return on investment in excess of 10% in year three of the operation, after some restructuring costs might be borne. These are pretty much the same. They are exactly the same as the one that we communicated back in 2022. Just to close with the financial targets, you see the ones that we had in 2025. You see the enhanced financial targets for 2028. I think the very strong element or the very strong parameter that we have now is that we are closing this cycle with a lot of momentum.
Closing this cycle with a lot of momentum has a value because clearly we are meeting the targets. The other very positive element is that you use the same momentum to carry you over into the beginning of the next cycle. That is very important because in every cycle, starting on the right foot is very, very important. On this basis, we believe that the targets that we have are, on one hand, ambitious. On the other hand, I believe that they are very much grounded to reality. By that, I mean that the reason that I believe that we can deliver them is clearly we have a very strong track record in delivering the targets before, but also we have a very high-quality team which is already committed to deliver these targets.
Clearly, for the shareholders, what is very important is that through the delivery of these targets, we will be compounding returns, compounding EPS, clearly adding more confidence to the one that investors already have to EFG. Through that, we can create even additional value. On this point, I would like to thank you for your attention. I saw several people taking notes, so I am expecting a fruitful Q&A session after all. On that note, I pass it on to Giorgio for his closing remarks. Thank you.
Thank you, Dimitris. We are now coming to the close of the presentation. I will try in the next few minutes to summarize what you have heard in the last two and a half hours. First of all, as you can see on these slides, our performance of the past years has been strong and consistent.
Over the last two cycles, we have made investments in our talent and into transforming the bank for the future. We can now start the new cycle on a position of strength, and we are confident to continue delivering double-digit profit growth of around 15%. As we mentioned earlier, we are confident that we can continue this journey of value creation for the long term. We have a sound strategic plan, and we have the right levers to implement it. I'm sure you have noticed by now that our performance mindset is very strong. The team is very strong. Our confidence comes also from the fact that we have a very strong track record in executing our past plans. As I mentioned earlier, I believe we are pretty good in navigating the short-term market conditions, but we have a very clear strategic direction.
We also believe that the underlying long-term trends for our industry, for private banking and wealth management, are actually very positive. We are particularly convinced that EFG is very well positioned to benefit from the value that will be created by entrepreneurs globally and by the move of the wealth that will go across geographies and generations. I will not repeat one by one the targets. I am sure you have seen this slide a few times already. Again, I reconfirm that out of the six, we are upgrading four of the targets, and we are maintaining two. We are committed in creating sustainable value for all our stakeholders, for our clients, for our shareholders, for our people, for our regulators, and for our communities.
I will try to leave you with three points that are, in my view, if you want, what we distilled out of these two and a half hours. Consistent performance, we have delivered against our plans. Further potential, we have identified untapped opportunities to maintain the growth momentum in the next cycle. Attractive returns, we are committed to delivering financial targets and attractive returns to our shareholders. With this, I would like to close the presentation and thank you for your attention. I now hand back to Jens in order to open the Q&A session.
Thank you, Giorgio. Thank you, obviously, for all the presenters for the very insightful presentations. As we said, we will now start with the Q&A session. Obviously, I think we have a couple of people in the room where I would expect there will be some questions. If you maybe want to raise your hand. Also, it would be nice to state your firm that we, I mean, many people obviously know you, but that would be great. Thank you. Let's start there, and then we move on.
Yes, good afternoon. This is Martin Amesh from UBS. Thank you for the presentation. I have quite a few questions, but I'll limit myself to perhaps to give my colleagues a chance as well. The first question would be on the gross margin, the minimum 85 basis points. Dimitris, you showed 92 basis points for July-October. I think you've been pretty clear that the decline in interest rates should not have much impact, maybe one basis point based on forward curves. It seems like the recurring margin has been also edging higher.
At the moment, you have somewhat higher contribution from activity-driven margin, but it's not outlandish. I'm just wondering, what does the minimum 85 basis point level assume? Is that basically going back to zero or negative interest rates in key jurisdictions in the U.S. and perhaps from the ECB? It seems like there's quite some buffer for unforeseen events. Also, if you could just confirm, what sort of assumptions do you have for macro conditions? That's the first one. The second question would be on page 47, where you're showing 40% contribution to M&A from existing CROs. Quite a high level and a huge jump from the previous years as well. You mentioned that you also, I think Giorgio mentioned that you also see an upside, further upside to that.
Can I just ask, what exactly do you have in mind for that and how sustainable that can be? Also, how do I reconcile that with the 68% cost-income ratio? Let's say an operating mode where roughly half the M&A comes from existing CROs, so productivity is really high, half comes from new hiring. How do I reconcile that with the 3 percentage point-4 percentage point improvement in the cost-income ratio? I would probably expect somewhat more ambitious outcome in this case, which suggests there's some buffer also in that metric. If you could elaborate, that would be helpful.
Take the first one. Let me take the first one on the gross margin because, Matthew, you're right. We're clearly starting with 92 basis points. This is on page 119, I think, is where we show what we expect to be happening. We do not expect a lot from the reduction on the interest rates, mostly the dollar. Anybody can decide how many cuts going forward. Even with four cuts, you are talking about less than one basis point of impact. The commission income has been higher the last couple of years. We expect to move it even higher. Maybe there is some negative effect on the other income. In terms of the target, what I would like to stress is that the target is not 85 basis points. The target is specifically higher than 85 basis points. You should not be reading it the same way you read the 68%, which is something which is a bit more specific.
We do expect, with the visibility that we have now, that the revenue margin is going to be, how should I put it, significantly higher than the 85 basis points that you actually see. Look, I've been blamed so many times about the revenue margin, and I've had it wrong so many times, me being more on the pessimistic side than what has come out, that I'm not going to argue. Look, given the visibility that we have now, we do not expect a significant erosion over the next three years.
Maybe, if I may complement, Matthew, I think I recall when we were in an environment of low interest rates or negative interest rates in some markets, we had a return on AUM on the 70, and people were saying 85. You will never see 85 again.
Now, then we are over 90, and now people say, "Oh, 85 is low." I think, as I said earlier, we are pretty good in navigating, I think, the short-term market environment. Clearly, there is no CRO, and you have many top CROs in this room, by the way. There is no CRO that if he has an opportunity to deliver more, will not deliver more. I believe that, as Dimitris said, I think the current environment at the moment is pretty constructive. We will be higher for sure in the 85. Again, this is something that it is more, how should I say, an exogenous factor that has an impact not on EFG. This has an impact on the industry. Traditionally, we have been better than the industry in terms of top-line resilience.
In a way, to keep the 85, we have kept the 85 basically since 2019 when we started, is to say, "Look, across the cycle, this is the 10-year average. We believe that this is by now a floor. Obviously, we'll fight tooth and nail to make sure that we keep the highest margin as possible." Maybe I take the second question, which was on page 47. I think that the question was about the right-hand side of the slide, correct? It's about the contribution of existing CROs to the total M&A and how we see this. How should I put this? In the years, let's say, before COVID or before 2022, to be fair.
In the earlier years, when we were delivering, when we started to ignite growth and we were delivering, maybe you can put that slide, Besar, with the timeline and the NNA over the timeline. We were growing around CHF 8 billion a year in absolute terms. Out of the CHF 8 billion a year, about 50% was existing CROs and about 50% were the new CROs. Oh, not this slide. This slide. Bravo. This slide. You can see here in the middle years, we were running around CHF 8 billion. This was four and four. Now, we have about, excluding now the new acquisitions and excluding shareholder partners, we have about, let's call it, 500 CROs. I recall that when we did the IPO, this was 20 years ago, the expectation was that every CRO would deliver CHF 30 million net new assets every single year. Now, things have changed.
There are deleveraging, etc., etc. If you take 10, you are more or less at around five. This is more or less 50% of what we are delivering at the moment. As I said, we already crossed CHF 10 billion today. Hopefully, this year is going to be higher than that. This is how we think about that. This is how our Regional Business Heads and Anthony, they speak to the CROs and to the heads of private banking, some heads of private banking in this room. This is something which we believe is achievable, obviously, in an environment where releveraging is positive, or at least there is not deleveraging. With all the new initiatives that we want to implement in terms of content innovation, in terms of the augmented CROs, we believe that this should be feasible. Again, it's not a guarantee.
Sometimes the new CROs are much more relevant in a specific period, and other quarters maybe it's the other way around. This is how we think about it. The third question, you take it, Dimitris.
I think it was combined with the second one.
Oh, okay.
I don't know, Matthew, is there anything else that you'd like to cover?
No, no, no. Look, there was a related one to the NNA contribution from existing CROs. I was just wondering if you can sustainably generate really a 40% plus share from existing CROs. Presumably, that would allow you also to open up the operating jaws to a much larger extent. In this context, I was asking about buffers in the cost-income ratio. Yeah.
If you go to the page of the untapped opportunities, let me just also give you a bit of our thinking and why we feel that some of these untapped opportunities are really attractive. In particular, the share of wallet, coming back to your point. At the end of the day, the cheapest form of net new assets is increasing the share of wallet. Why? Because I do not need to hire anybody, because usually these are existing CROs. I do not need to open a new account and have all the process that, as everybody knows, in private banking, it can be quite cumbersome because the accounts are already open. Everything you heard before from marketing to content innovation to digital will allow us to improve the share of wallet.
Again, I would like to emphasize, I think Alain did it very well, but just to complement, I think the ability for us to increase our brand profile is extremely important because if today we are number four bank, we want to become number three. If we're number three, we want to become number two. If we manage to increase the ranking, as you know very well, it's not that it's linear, right? The top guys get from the clients the bigger part of the portfolio, and this is where we want to position ourselves.
Okay, I think we take a question from Nick here, the white shirt. Thank you.
Yes, hi, it's Nicholas Herman from Citi . Thank you for the presentation. Three for me, please. Actually, thank you for that answer on the NNA from existing. My first question is on growth and particularly on slide 42. I was taking a look at the equivalent slide back in 2022 and kind of putting together those numbers. That kind of implied an overall NNA at the top end of your target range. Just eyeballing this slide here, it seems to put you considerably above that target range. I acknowledge you're trying to be conservative in setting your targets, but it does imply quite the target does imply quite a large margin of safety there. For avoidance of doubt, are there any puts we need to be mindful of when we're thinking about that medium-term growth profile? The second question coming back on cost-income question, I guess, was from Dimitris. It's clear that your targets are conservative. They're set with conservative assumptions.
I guess, broadly speaking, and let's say there is not another exceptional hiring window like there was in this plan, how should we think about the marginal cost-income on revenues over and above your plan? The final question, please. Your balance sheet and capital position is clearly strong, but equally, your annual report outlines a large number of legal cases outstanding, not only related to the legacy cases that you outlined on, I think it was page 111. How do you think about your contingent legal liabilities, and how does that feed into the amount of capital that you're keeping aside over and above the 12% and what is genuinely available for M&A? Thank you.
Maybe I take the first question, which is on page 42. I was smiling when Nick, thank you for the question, when you asked the question because this is something that actually, indeed, we thought you might ask. Indeed, I think that, and all the regional business heads are here, I think that the prospects that we see in the various regions are quite good. Clearly, if we are going to achieve in the next three years all the targets that you see on this, we are going to be at the top end of the range, if not like this year, beating the range. I would like to go back to what Dimitris said in his presentation. Clearly, we are very pleased that we have a very resilient and diversified business.
For us, it's extremely important that we can make the plan that we have presented to you, even if not all the five engines are running at the top end. Therefore, again, I wouldn't say that there is a, I don't know how you express it, a buffer or a margin of error, but I think it is also important to assume that when you have a portfolio of businesses, not all will manage to achieve 100% of their targets. I think it's a prudent, how should I say, planning. You are right. I think that today, all my colleagues, all the regional business heads are quite positive about their markets. The second is on cost-income and marginal cost to income.
On the marginal cost to income, which is a fair question. When it comes to marginal cost to income, it depends which of the businesses that we run you look at. I would say that depending on the case and depending on the business, we are looking at something between 30%-45%, 50%. Again, it depends on the business case. There is one large business case that we are discussing now on the investment side, the Nandres field. It's at 20% incrementally. Usually, you're looking at something which is better than 50% cost to income on a marginal basis.
Maybe just to complement, I hope it came out from my presentation earlier, but our "obsession" with operating leverage is the flip side is the marginal cost to income. On this, as I was saying, we are really focused not only at group level, but at single initiative level, as Dimitris has just said. Obviously, when we hire CROs, this is exactly also what we look at. As Dimitris was saying, also hiring CROs is below 50% on a three-year basis.
Now, your last question about legacy cases, and clearly, you're correct. We do disclose in our contingent liabilities some legacy legal cases. In terms of how we think of it from a capital perspective, when we set our management floor of 12%, we take into account the risk profile of EFG. We take everything into account. Clearly, it's not just the legal cases. It's risk profile, it's a credit profile. It's all the risks. This is how we came up with the 12%.
Thank you.
Okay, we move on. You have the microphone already, then please go ahead.
Okay, great. Thanks a lot. This is Daniel Regli from ZKB. I have a follow-up question on the gross margin question from Matte, obviously. I still struggle a bit to see the 85. Obviously, you're coming from 95, I know. Still, when you're looking at the net interest margin part, obviously, the mix will be different in 2028, and particularly, it will be more coming from the traditional net interest margin part and less from the treasury swap part. Can you maybe help me understand where exactly you see this increase in the traditional net interest income part from 19 basis points to 24 basis points? Secondly, also on the gross margin, today, it's about 20 basis points coming from other operating income. You have it 13 basis points in 2028, I think, if I remember the slide correctly. Can you maybe help me a little bit on the dynamics in this part? Last but not least, obviously, historically, we have always been talking about fee margin pressure in wealth management and asset management. Can you maybe elaborate a bit where we stand here today?
I think what is going to be useful is maybe we move to page 118, the page before that, before this one that we show now, because that gives you a bit of the history. I understand, Daniel, your comment is that you find the 85 basis points too optimistic. Yes, to be honest. Which is the opposite from Matthew's view, which probably taking—we have a market. That is why we are—the 85 is probably a good number. Now, if you look at this chart, if you look at the left, I will come back to your point about the mix between NII and swap because they are completely interchangeable.
The reason I create the swap income is because I have dollars, I swap them into Swissie, and because of that, the accounting has to be split into different lines. I could have kept them in dollars, and it would have been net interest income. The two are completely in one bucket that are exactly the same thing. We are now at 29 basis points. The average for the last 10 years has been 29 basis points. A couple of years ago, in 2022, it was again 29. I feel that that is a solid number. Now, both the number for commission and the number for other income, excluding the swap, which is now 21, are higher than what we have had in the past. Why? Because we are doing more things, and we are doing things better. That's the reason why I believe that overall, we will be more than 85.
Can I make a comment? I think the last question was about pricing power. Yep. Exactly, yeah. Now, on that, I think it has been mentioned by Alain and André, and they'll give you a word in a second, but just to frame the point how we see it, we agree with you. There is for sure a huge pricing pressure for plain vanilla business and for plain vanilla service and products. On the contrary, and maybe we can go briefly, and André, maybe you want to comment on page 58, if we are able to move from the plain vanilla products and services and to go and to give add value to the clients with more sophisticated, is both pages 57 and 58 to our clients, I think there we have pricing power. Maybe, André, you want to comment?
Yeah, most definitely. I think if you look at my shop, so to speak, I would say I have three types of asset management businesses by and large. One is an institutionally facing one, which is Afghan, which is the smallest component. There you have had margin erosion because you're competing in the institutional space. I don't think that's a surprise. When I look at advisory and discretionary specifically, we have not really seen it. The reason for that is that markets have become a lot more complex, and clients are more than willing to pay you the right price if you're giving them the right advice and managing the money appropriately according to SAA and TAA. Clients are still willing to pay for that.
I think where we've become much more selective for a client outcome that works for them is the product we put in, making sure it's the best on the market. As you know, we're open architecture. Also, the use of passive versus active in terms of how we build our SAA and TAA. Clients are still very happy to pay for that. I think the other metric, which is on slide 58, which to me is very key in terms of how we look at the next cycle, is as you align an IC with an advisory relationship, the margin increase is really material. That to me is a proof of the pricing power, if there's anything else. That's how I would look at it.
Okay, thank you so much.
Have you put the microphone next to Andreas? Okay, that's fine.
Thank you very much, Andreas Venditti from Vont obel. Maybe one question for you guys and one question to open up also to the regional heads. On the CRO, you showed the strong improvement in the performance of the business cases, the targets that were reached. Maybe you can explain a bit, in your view, what was the main driver of this and how far can we go? I mean, is there a limit to what the achievement rate could reach? Maybe on the regional heads, a few questions. Maybe the optimism from the U.K. team. We've seen the two slides, and it suggests a very strong improvement going forward.
Similarly, not in that range, let's say, from the Swiss team, where also from below market growth over the last three years, the expectation now is to beat market growth. Maybe if we could add some flavor here. Finally, from Asia, I mean, very big topic. We've seen some competitors with very, very high numbers. You have also produced, obviously, very impressive results over the last few years. What can we expect from Asia? Thank you.
Let us start with, let's say, improved business case delivery. This is the middle of the current page that you see here on the slides, which is page 36. I think you refer to the fact that obviously our success rate was below 50% in the early years of the last two cycles.
We had a great year in 2021 with three quarters, and now we're running at 2/3. If we go to the next slide, this is what gives us confidence. I believe that, in particular, on the right-hand side, we have developed internally this, we call it the predictor. I think that this will allow us to do better, to make better decisions. This is the last point. Decision-making is actually to drive the decision-making using this model. To be fair, we have been using this model for quite some time, but to the frustration of some colleagues, then it was overridden. People were saying, "No, but the model is not perfect. Actually, I know better. I've met the person. I have a great vibe.
This time it's going to be different, right? When you backtest the models after several years, at the end, the results are always consistent. The way we do it, we have eight different predictive indicators. By the way, among the eight, there are a couple that are actually the killers that already, if there, you don't, the score is bad, you know that the delivery is not going to happen. We have done this backtesting, and we went back, and this gives you different buckets of probability from the outstanding candidates to the, we call them orange, because obviously red, we would not even consider them, but the dark oranges actually we call them. You see the probability.
You see that the outstanding, the probability of success is 80%-90%, and you see that in the lower buckets, the probability of success is significantly less than 50%. As I said, as actually is mentioned here, there is a strong executive management involvement during the process, but ultimately, all the CROs that we hire are approved by the regional business heads, by Dimitris and myself. With Dimitris, we have agreed that we are not going to override anymore the predictor, and I believe that we can improve significantly the 67%. Now, where can it go? Obviously, our ambition is that every new CRO that comes in is going to be successful. We think we are better. We are becoming better. I think also a key point which you have here in the page is the due diligence.
I think we're becoming better in the due diligence phase, but the due diligence phase is two ways. A is the firm, obviously, assessing the capabilities and the prospects of success of the candidate, but conversely, we always want the candidates to assess our capabilities because at the end of the day, for whatever reason, he says, "Oh, let me pick on them." If the technology is not sufficient or the product offering is not sufficient or, in Enrico, the credit risk appetite is not in line, then there is no point to start. Now, where can we go? I don't know. Obviously, let's say we are at 67. Ideally, we should go. The top lines of the predictor are at 85%, 90%. If we only, if we do not onboard anybody that is on the lower part of the board and we only consider the top part of the board, yeah, we should go to in excess of 80%. Sorry for the long explanation.
May I just add to the selection process, which Giorgio has just been talking about, the due diligence is clearly very important, but then what happens after the CRO joins us is also very important to how far they get in realizing their business case. It may seem obvious, but we have a performance culture. CROs do not join us to have a quiet life. They come because they want to do the best they can for their clients. When they arrive, they need the organization to help them to bring on the clients. That is the second part of this.
It's the, once they're on board, how do we deliver? If we just go to slide 46, which we've obviously seen before, what they find when they arrive is that we have a systematic pipeline management process. We have a top deal team. If they have a very big deal, they have people who are ready to talk to them to assess the deal. That may be that we assess the deal, the client, and we think, actually, this doesn't meet our risk appetite. Don't spend any more time on that. Move on. If they do move on, essentially, one way to think about it is it's not so much that these processes are driving the new CRO. They're actually also driving the organization to support the new CRO with their business at a very early stage.
This is what we've been trying to improve. In terms of can we go further, I think those of us who are involved in this know that we have not optimized this yet. There's lots more we can do, especially with all the things that we were talking about with technology, with data, and with the offering in investment solutions. There's a long way further to go.
For the reference, Anthony leads the pipeline management process. He's in the chair of the top deal team. Thank you, Anthony. Now let's go, Christian, to the U.K.
Yes. Can you hear me? Clearly, I've now been here two years, and what we've seen over the last 18 months is a strong demonstration of NNA growth, actually. We have done that by focusing on both international and domestic clients that, independent of residency, still have a strong connection to the U.K. It has really been done by a strong focus on business development. We touched on commercial excellence as well as a real optimization of our overall service offering. André touched on the advisory business. We made a significant investment in our advisory business in 2023, and we are now really starting to see the fruits of that by becoming one of the advisors of choice in what is a very sophisticated financial market.
Albert.
Franco. I think Franco Poloni is speaking. I apologize for my voice. Coming to Switzerland, maybe first on the improved business case delivery. As Giorgio knows, I believe in discipline and not in coincidence. For this reason, we have been learning in the last years that we are very much effective when we go for the team acquiring rather than to go for the single client advisor. We have been able in Switzerland to deploy in that way so that you have seen also the business case delivery improvement are really effective. This is the reason why, at least in my region, but I believe my colleagues are doing the same. We are more focusing on teams, and we are also very effective. Anthony mentioned when it comes to onboard the teams, we have experience, and we are also able to bring all the groups successful to the target that we agree at the beginning.
In terms of your comment about the growth in Switzerland during this cycle, I would like to recall that in the previous cycle, and Giorgio mentioned it on page 24, turnaround of Switzerland in 2019, 2022, including the phase during the COVID. At the end of 2022, we understood that for the next cycle, we would have focused on existing CROs. It has been mentioned for us, it is paramount to make sure the existing CROs are delivering. This is part of a strategic plan, of a consistent plan, which is also happening in Switzerland. At the same time, we also declared to invest in Switzerland, which is our home country. The third pillar of this cycle was, let's focus on international markets where we have internal experience. This we deployed in 2023, 2024, and this year.
Basically, what happened in 2023, I think we were able to start to acquire the team in Gstaad. At the same time, we were able to deploy the team in St. Moritz and eventually also being able to open the FSO in Tel Aviv. 2022 has been a year of transition. It has been the year we have been planning. We have been taking the decision, and the execution came basically this year in 2024 and this year. If I go back to the numbers and also projecting the numbers, the region for 2024 and in 2025, thank you to the support of this initiative, is at the moment performing 2024 and 2025 above the average that we've been setting. 2023, having said, was the year we have taken the, basically, we implemented the decision.
Going forward, we believe, and I believe in basically keeping the same what we've been doing, that is very disciplined. We will continue with the existing CROs. We have been successful in managing their growth. In the next cycle, we will continue to make sure that with teams and making sure that the existing business cases will be developed, we will grow in farther. I believe, I'm convinced that we'll be able to be above the average, which has been set, which is what you see as a representation page 43. Thank you.
Hi. I'm Albert Chiu. I'm the Regional Business Head for the Asia-Pacific region. First, I would like to thank you for your very kind comment about the business performance of the region for this cycle. Indeed, we have delivered very good growth in NNA revenue as well as profitability in this cycle.
I think the key of this success is because of our effort to focus on four key markets, which is Greater China, Southeast Asia, IAM, as well as NRI. We managed to equip very, very good experience and quality CRO from our peers. We work very closely with our colleagues from Investment Solution, Global Market, and Credit to help them to be successful. Because of the success, we believe that we have built a very good momentum into the business, and we become a very attractive place for good CROs. Therefore, we are constantly going into the next cycle to repeat the success. I think Giorgio has also mentioned a few times that the Asia-Pacific market will be a region that has very, very good wealth creation in the next five years.
I think he also mentioned that by 2030, 33% of the ultra-high net worth individual will be in my region. I think we are also in the right region. If we continue to be close to our client, to actively deliver good services to our client, I believe that our growth, even though it's quite ambitious, that we're able to deliver. I think you asked about a question about the success delivery. I think in our region, because of the partnership, all the other colleagues, other support functions, we are able to deliver wealth above average success case for our new recruitment CROs. We are very confident going into the next cycle. Thank you very much.
Thank you. I think there's a question. Yeah, exactly. You have a microphone already. Yeah. Thank you.
Yes, hi. This is Daniele Scilingo from Mirabaud Asset Management. First of all, congratulations that you discovered the magic of compounding, but also delivering it. Speaking about this, your 300 basis points of buffer in the capital will be the compounder of the compounder if you can find M&A. If we are here in 2028, we look back to your M&A strategy, will that have moved the needle in your assets under management, or is that a marginal endeavor?
You want to take that? Can you put the slide with our track record on M&A?
Yeah. I think that in order to be able to move the needle, you need two things. One is you need to have the capacity to do it. The second one is you need to have the capability to actually extract value. I think in terms of the track record in being able to deliver value, I think what you have here is very important. The BSI transaction should be reviewed by one of the large business school reviews at some point because knowing the numbers and I've been doing M&A or involved in M&A for the last 30 years now, the level of value extraction from that transaction, I have not seen in any other transaction in Europe in the last 20 years. I think in terms of capability, I think we've proven that we can do it. Now, the other question is, do you have the resources? If you can turn a couple of pages earlier where we show our capital ratios, we are at 15.6%, and we have set the management floor of 12%.
That means we have CHF 400 million of capital that we could possibly use. That is without going into a transaction where we might issue some shares and not just use cash, which gives us even further ability in terms of our capacity to do transactions. Even in the Cité Gestion transaction that we did, that we closed a couple of months ago, there was an element which was in shares. I think in terms of financial capacity, we also have quite a bit of financial capacity in terms of doing deals that could move the needle.
The last element that is missing is, are there other objects around? BSI was once in a century, but how do you see the market and the opportunity in the next three years to deliver on M&A?
Look, it takes two to tango. We are ready to tango.
If you can go to page 15, maybe let me try to answer the question. As I mentioned earlier, we had clearly a dry season. For sure, during COVID and 2022, I do not think we have assessed any dossier that came our way or there were no transactions that were not just us. In 2023 and 2024, there were a couple, but very few. Today, to be fair, there are several dossiers that are coming our way. Some are not in the right market and so on and so forth. Today, what we see is that the velocity in terms of activity has increased. I believe, but we are saying this for the last 10 years, I believe that the consolidation of the market will accelerate. For sure, we are ready.
Now, how fast this consolidation will take place, where this is to be seen. For sure, I think if I had to foresee, I believe that the next cycle is going to be more interesting in terms of M&A than the last cycle.
Great. Any other? Nick hasn't. Maybe we take Caspar first and then Nick afterwards. Here on the blue shirt, please. Thank you.
Thanks. Caspar Kendall, Capital. Maybe again, as we have some of the CROs or regional heads here, first, Christian, just to follow up regarding the U.K. and your optimism. You don't really see much of an impact from the non-dom status change, I assume you kind of pointed out. Second point is, and whoever feels makes sense to answer this, is there a limit when we talk about CRO productivity, a limit in terms of how much CROs can actually manage?
We've increased the AUM per CRO of 56% over the last, what is it, 10 years or so. Of course, this depends mostly on the size of your client and the number of the limit is the number of families or the number of individuals one can actually manage. Is there something different behind the 56%? Is it that you target different clients? You have different kind of client segmentation or what's behind that? Maybe somebody can comment on that. The third element would be maybe for whoever feels this is relevant in his region, this next-gen CRO development or program, can you maybe give an example, talk us through this a little bit, how this really works and how you want to have these next-gen CROs then take over and manage the wealth transfer, the big wealth transfer?
Christian, you want to take the first question?
Yes, I want to start with the first one. While we've obviously seen people leave as it relates to residents, we've been actually able to retain a very large percentage of the assets that are still being booked in the U.K. At the same time, a lot of international investors are actually really liking the U.K. for its legal system, for all of the connectivity. That is, we are doing a joint venture with our Asian colleagues. There are a number of international jurisdictions that are very actively looking at the U.K. in order to book there. It is something that we've gotten some really good traction in.
Maybe I take the second question, which is about the limit of the AUM per CRO in terms of productivity. If you could go briefly to page 36, I think this is the page you are referring to. Clearly, there has been a very good performance over the last seven years. Let me go back one page, and this is the page that depicts also the stratification of our clients. I mentioned it earlier on Passant that actually 90% of our clients are basically high net worth individual and ultra. The ultra, this is 53%. These are clients that have with us more than CHF 30 million. Typically, every client has about two or three banks. Let's call it that liquid financial assets is in excess of CHF 100 million. Obviously, if you look at the same, and I believe that in 2022, we had a similar chart. At the time, the percentage of the ultra was below 50%. We have been growing almost five percentage points.
It is quite significant over the last three years in increasing the relevance of the ultra clients, while we have been decreasing the relevance of the affluent and the PB entry per client. I believe that actually the limit in terms of capacity is not so much the AUM, but it's the number of relationships that a CRO manages. Now, here, there is another point that I think Dimitris Politis mentioned in the video. He started as one single CRO, and by now, he has a team of 10. We have the ability to create teams. I would like to answer also maybe the following question, which is about the next-gen CRO. In the past, we always said next-gen CRO. I think in the video, Michael, who was the last CRO that spoke, he started as a CSO, which is Client Service Officer.
He became a junior CRO. Then when the senior CRO retired, he took over, and now he runs the team. This ability to complement the seasoned CROs with the next-gen CROs is what increases scalability. I'm not going to give you a number or a target where we expect the AUM per CRO to go. I don't know if it's going to be 56% in the next seven, eight years, but I believe that there is still significant potential. As you know, there are some players that we consider our direct competitors that have a significantly bigger number of AUM per CRO. It is feasible. Maybe Ioanna, do you want to mention quickly the rollout of the next-gen CROs?
Sure. As Giorgio mentioned, it's a mentorship development program. It's a 36-month program. We pair senior CROs with younger talent that we can source either internally or externally. The idea is really to nurture the future CROs. We want to release, obviously, eventually capacity, free up capacity from our senior top performers, many of them also in this room, but develop the next gens that will also match the major wealth transfer that we're seeing, really meet and talk the language of our next-gen clients. It's interesting to say that we already have a good pipeline. The idea is that the senior CROs will allocate some assets that they will guide the next gen how to build those and how to develop the traits necessary to be as successful as they are.
Great. I think Nicholas was waiting. Yeah, exactly. If we take, yeah, microphone is coming from the behind. Don't worry.
Thank you. I couldn't resist another bite to the cherry. Just I did have a couple of follow-ups, please, or just additional questions. First one on your investment budget in CapEx. So the CHF 45 million of our annual tech investment, it's about 2%-2.5% of revenues. I guess firstly, that doesn't strike me as a particularly large number. I could be wrong, but my impression is that peers are investing proportionately more than that. I guess the question here is twofold. With these investments, can you deliver what your clients are asking for today in terms of digital offering and banking app that Alain outlined? Also, presumably, expectations will continue to rise. Peers will continue to invest more. The bar will rise. What gives you confidence that you won't fall further behind just to hit your 2x golden rule?
The other two questions I had were just around your clients and so the average AUM, I was interested actually, what is the average AUM per CRO for mature teams versus for individuals? Just kind of, again, thinking about how that AUM per CRO could trend over time. The final question was, how does the average gross margin compare between ultra-high and high-net-worth clients? I guess both overall, but especially on a recurring basis, please. Thank you.
Maybe the first question, Demis, do you want to take it?
Yeah. The first question is about the level of investment that we expect for the next three years. During the presentation, I mentioned about the OGA, what I did not mention, the Operational Governance Authority. I did not mention about the DGA, which is the Digital Governance Authority.
It works on a demand management process where all the colleagues can submit requests for future enhancement. At that committee, we review constantly all the projects that we have. As Dimitris said more than once, we love data. Every request is submitted with a business case. The number that you have seen that, as I mentioned in the presentation, are well within industry benchmark will allow us to deliver on what we have committed in the presen tation.
The second question, if I noted correctly, was about the average AUM per CRO and the difference between mature teams and individual CROs. Was that the question? I do not have the data with me. I can come back. I would say that in my view, what I've seen, and maybe the regional business heads and Anthony can step in, the major difference that I've seen is not if an individual CRO is successful, it can achieve very good targets. In terms of the probability of success, what we have seen in recent years is that when we hire teams, the ability to succeed is much higher than when we have single CROs joining. There are very simple reasons for that. If you come as a team, the ability to defend on the other side is lower. If you come as a team, there is already a separation on level, the people that go out, the people that do the investment, the people that prepare the files, and so people can hit the ground running. Now, I can come back to you on the AUM per CRO in particular. I did not note down the last question.
The last question is the difference in revenue margin that we have from an ultra-high net worth client versus a high net worth client. The difference between the bands. Yeah.
We do not disclose that. Obviously, there is a difference, and clearly, the ultra in basis points terms is lower than the high net worth. Obviously, some people ask, why do you basically cut the tail and reduce the PB entry and affluent, which is 11%? The reality is that in terms of return on AUM, that is quite attractive, and this is why we continue to serve them.
As we mentioned in the context, if you go to the augmented CROs, one of the issues is that we will keep this slide. We want to improve the cost to serve for the clients, the PB entry, and the affluent using technology to complement junior CROs and CSOs and CROs. Because today, as you have seen in the other slide, the number of products and services per ultra is higher than with the PB entry and affluent. This is because the attention is different. If we can increase via technology the engagement with these clients, we will be able to increase the number of products and most probably even increase the return on AUM.
The key point is that there is also a natural headwind to your commission margin expansion because of that, assuming that makeshift continues. This is with a bit of key point, but that's fine. Thank you.
Can I just ask if we have any question on the telephone lines? I think before there was none, but maybe just checking before we forget them because obviously we have quite a few people in the room. If not.
Gentlemen, so far there are no questions from the phone.
Okay. Thank you. The question is, is there any final question from? Or I would hand back to you, Giorgio. Thank you.
First of all, thank you very much, and thank you very much really for coming in person to this presentation and bearing with us for three hours. This is really very much appreciated. Just to give you three messages, we have delivered consistently, and we have achieved our 2025 targets. We see additional strong potential for further growth. With this new strategic plan, we as management team are enforcing our commitment to long-term value creation for our stakeholders, for our clients, our shareholders, and our employees. Thank you very much.