Good
morning, ladies and gentlemen, and cordial welcome from, Ester Campos. Ester Group is the leading bank in Central And Eastern Europe, the largest Austrian bank. My name is Peter Thier. I'm head of corporate communications working for this bank. It's my pleasure to welcome you to our press conference twenty twenty.
On the balance sheet, Stefan Doffler, our chief financial officer, will present the 2020 details to you. And then mister Spalt, our CEO, well, he's going to talk about the prospects of 2021. Following that, the two gentlemen will be at your disposal should you have any questions. The journalists among you will see a query field in the webcast. So just type in your question, and I will retrieve those questions on my iPad, and I will then pass on those questions to the speakers.
Stefan Doerfle, CFO, you have the floor. Thank you, Peter. Ladies and gentlemen, thanks for taking the time to be here with us to talk about ERT As regards 2020, and my colleague will then present the 2021 details to you before talking about the numbers, let me briefly talk about what ERT Group did back in 2020. We did what we're here for even though the year was very, very challenging, a time during which many of our customers all over the region were themselves facing numerous challenges, and they're still around those challenges. We wanted to support those customers in terms of financing, providing consulting services, and other services.
We're here for the people living in this region. That's our primordial task, and that's what we did. And, we were able to do this because we were strong. If we're solid, if we're in a solid foundation, if we're able to furnish results, we'll be able to do this in the future as well. So it's great to see that despite the, crisis that was with us last year, we have been able to come up, with a solid operating income.
In 2020, this was not certain far from it. And I'm very, proud of the fact that our colleagues did a sterling job last year, making sure that this result could be achieved. In the left of this slide, you've got the changes on 2019, so the twenty nineteen-twenty twenty changes. Now, as far as operating revenue is concerned, our core areas, meaning interest and the fees, the fee result. Well, in total, they remain stable.
The interest was a bit better than 2019. The fee result is a bit lower, but, the bottom line is it's flat, which is a great result. The difference of about €100,000,000 comes from the trading and fair value result. That's the term that we use. That's the result from our trading book and the valuation of assets.
And you might know or financial assets now, back in 2020, there were periods during which numbers were much lower. So this is quite a solid result, if I may say so. Overall, in 2020, we have achieved €7,150,000 in terms of operating revenue or income. And what about costs? Now this is here displayed in the right part of your slide.
Well, the COVID effects meant that, we have seen a decline in costs. Now we spend less money than before because we traveled less, because we had fewer events involving our customers, and many of the things that we normally do were not done. It's a result or this is a result of our efficiency campaigns. And in the next few years, we're going to show even more cost discipline to support this even further. Now in 2020, everything revolves around risk.
We've talked about this on multiple occasions. So how will the crisis impact our business? Now in the very left, you've got the risk costs back in 2019. Basically, there was no risk. But, what's very important, to point out when you talk about risk related costs in 2020 is the following.
Now the this is credit risk provisioning. It's not default. In 2020, across the entire region, we had no defaults because our customers basically were very strong initially during the crisis, but then, of course, a lot of support measures were taken by a number of countries, and the result is quite clear. Now what's decisive for us is what will the future hold in store for us? How will those developments evolve?
Now as far as credit provisioning is concerned, well, we've got €1,300,000,000 and I think that we're well braced for this. Alexander Havlatt Trapek, our colleague in the investors' call, talked about the guidance for '21. The risk related costs will be lower in '21. Now in the NPL, ratio, by the way, had 2.7% in 2020. What do we expect?
We expect an increase in 2021, but a very moderate increase, three to 4% if you compare this to the previous years. Now, all of this, of course, can be translated into the net profit. That's the so called waterfall. So to put it very simply, you've got the operative result. Now if you look at the entire image, it didn't really impact the net result.
It's a bit lower, than 2019. The main driver, of course, is significantly higher impact of risk cost. The bottom line is €783,000,000 for 2020. Now another decisive factor, and, I've touched on this on numerous occasions, that's our capital position. It's great to see that even in the crisis year 2020, our capital position, our common equity Tier one, well, we've been able to increase this further: 14.2% Basel III fully loaded, for the specialists among you.
And that's, of course, quite important. So the growth in our region will be supported by this. The recovery following the crisis will be buttressed by this even further as far as customers go. For this, of course, we need strong capitalization. Now Bernsbald has already touched on this in the investors call before.
What's very important is that we are in a position to consolidate if there is a potential out there in the region by going in for acquisitions, if this makes sense economically speaking. And that's what we're going for. So we'll drive this actively and come out stronger following the crisis. And that, of course, will have a major impact on the region and our position of strength in the region. Last but not least, let me talk about dividends.
This is a hotly debated subject in financial circles and beyond. And we have to understand one thing: investors, those that provide capital for us, that we need for our work, well, they expect a return. We've fully understood this. In times of crisis, dividend payments or capital payments or distributions, well, that needs to be in line with regulators, a 100% in line with regulators. And, of course, we need to strike a balance also in terms of public perception.
And that's why we've come up with the suggestion, and when we have our AGM in May, we'll come out with this. We want to be 100% in line with ECB recommendations and 100% in line with the requirements fulfilled by the regulators, zero five zero per share. So that's what we're aiming for. Now as to the results, we have made provisions. Now if the ECB and it has, sent out these signals, well, after the 09/30/2021, and the economy is set to recover and the pandemic is set to come to, an end, well, those restrictions may well be lifted, and then it will be possible for us to actually have payments up to €1.
So that's what we've made provisions for. But but then, of course, we need to cross that bridge when we get there, meaning when the ECB will have made its decision. And with this, I'd like to hand over to Bernsfaard. Thank you. Well, thank you very much, Stefan, and welcome to our press conference dealing with the 2021 figures.
Let me briefly, look back at the situation prevailing last year. Now, of course, we never expect this year to unfold the way it has. A global pandemic, of course, wreaks havoc with the economy. This results in, shocks also with regards to supply and demand. This, of course, is something that we had never seen before.
This was unprecedented. We didn't really know how to do business when everything is shut down. We didn't know how to continue working. If 95% of our people or people out there also work in home offices when we just don't know what the consequences of the lockdown will be and when we also don't know when we've overcome these challenges. I'm talking about vaccinations.
I'm talking about overcoming the crisis. So last year was a very, very difficult year for us. Well, we often complain about many things, and we have done a lot of suffering. But we've also learned our lessons, And there are some positive learnings. There's a great deal of solidarity that I see.
People are willing to help and to provide assistance. People are willing to do things together. And people are also willing to embrace change, and this applies to all of us. 95% of, activities can be also done remotely. Well, we didn't expect this in the past.
This was unprecedented, as I said before. Many of the things that we saw had not been forecast. But this also shows to us that we're able to handle difficult situations. One year later, we can take stock, and we can also start interpreting things a little bit more. Just think about and look at this slide.
Yes. The global business was undergoing profound change, and we were also affected by this. There was a general shutdown, so major cuts occurred. And that, of course, meant that our economic growth would also suffer and had already suffered. So there was a shutdown.
Production came to an end. People had to stay at home. But we should also add something else. And I'm talking about early summer twenty twenty when, things opened up a little bit. Very quickly, people felt a need to go outside, to go to restaurants, to bars, and to start investing things again.
So what we saw in this region is that as soon as people were confident, as soon as it was possible for people to revert to normalcy that business would actually pick up again. So there's an intrinsic strength in our region that we saw quite clearly, a potential that needs to be harbored. And, of course, there's also a great deal of resilience involved. So the question now is how can we become resilient together? How can we embark on new and novel path back to growth?
Last year, our business suffered tremendously in Austria, Croatia more so than in other countries. Austria and Croatia, of course. Well, both of these countries depend very much on tourism. The winter season, if you like to call it that way, didn't actually happen. So our numbers went down tremendously.
But, of course, fiscal programs were also initiated, meaning how can the government try to support this? How can they fill the liquidity gaps? Well, these programs have been quite efficient. What will the future hold in Storhus? We'll see.
Things, of course, were quite expensive, and we've run up debt. But this has helped us overcome the first part of the crisis, the first period of this crisis. So what's our 2021 outlook? Well, we are very optimistic about the future. What we believe is this: 2021 will be a year the year of the rebound, and this applies to the entire region.
Everything hinges on the fact whether vaccines will be made available and whether these vaccines can actually be administered in an efficacious manner. Because we don't want to have a fall and winter season that will be accompanied by lockdowns. I think this is feasible. I think this is realistic, and this is the, scenario that we expect to happen. By the summer, a major part of the population will have already gotten their vaccine, and that's the way out of our health crisis.
I'm quite sure about this. And then we'll realize that people will want to go back to normalcy. They want to start consuming. They want to start investing. They want to start traveling again and meeting other people, and that will then result in real growth.
What we should also point at quite clearly is that we can also contribute to this, all of us. We should think about how we can overcome this crisis and this major economic lull that we've seen, this depression almost, how can we tap into growth potentials? And I've said this several times. I think that we can be quite hopeful. Now the EU, of course, came up with the EU Next Generation Fund amounting to 750,000,000,000.
Major investments will be made in future growth areas such as green energies as well as digital transformation as well as structural reforms. Now these are opportunities that we should never pass up. Austria, of course, will, pick up about €3,000,000,000, and this will allow us to invest in future competitiveness. And this is what this is all about. It's about embarking on the path towards the future to make sure that growth can be supported.
Last year, of course, we had a major decline, logically. For this year, we're forecasting a reasonable uptick in all of our countries. Signals are becoming more positive now. But, of course, everything with the proviso that the vaccination strategy actually works, and this is what we expect to happen. So let's look at 2021.
As was really pointed out by Stefan, we're in for new developments. We're often questioned, well, do we expect this year to result in insolvencies? Many insolvencies are crashed. No. 2019, we experienced a record low as far as insolvencies go.
2020, fewer insolvencies, of course, because of government support programs. Yes, there will be more insolvencies, more bankruptcies, because these effects will then be more pronounced and business areas will change. But we're not in for a major crash, because I believe that our economy is robust enough to rediscover and redefine many things and make adjustments. So yes, I believe that the number of, insolvencies will increase, but there won't be a major crash. In our region, unemployment figures, the unemployment figures that we had, well, they were very low at the beginning of the crisis.
And then in most of our countries where we're active, we still had rather low unemployment figures. In Austria, unemployment has picked up substantially, which is due to the way our economy is structured. Everything revolves around tourism. Tourism, of course, has suffered a lot. And it will depend on whether in the next few months and years we'll revert back to normalcy.
Will the hotels, will the restaurants be able to start operating again? Everything depends on that. Now the risk costs as far as this year goes, well, that's what our forecasts are saying, will be lower than last year. Because last year, we anticipated many developments, 1,300,000,000.0 that Stefan Dorfler talked about. Well, we actually already accommodated for this in terms of what may actually happen.
So we made provisions, if you like. This year, things will pick up again, so our situation will be more upbeat. So generally speaking, our operating income has been quite solid, and I think we can even argue that it's been more than solid with view to this crisis. So risk costs will go down, and this will also mean that we can be quite upbeat about the future. Our 2021 outlook is actually quite promising, and I think that our profits will reflect this.
Well, nothing will be easy. It won't be plain sailing. We have to realize this. Yes, there will be setbacks along the way in terms of overcoming this health and economic crisis. But it's more than that.
It's not just a health and economic crisis that we're facing. It's also a psychosocial crisis. It's an education crisis. It's a social crisis that we're talking about. Possibly, this is also an ecological opportunity.
This is what we should also talk about. I think that growth is not just made up of, digital transformation. It cannot be fed by it alone. No. Growth will also be driven by climate transformation and improving the planet ecologically speaking, and this will be a main growth factor.
Jobs will be created. Competitiveness will be enhanced in a global context. So the future will be more European. It will be greener and more digital. And I think that we see a lot of potential there, potential that needs to be tapped.
So we're quite optimistic, and we are quite confident that 2021 will be a better year than 2020. Well, with this, I would like to close, and I'm very much looking forward to your questions. Thank you. Thank you very much, Bern Spal. Thank you very much, Stefan Doerfler.
Well, the first questions are now coming in as we speak. The first question is put by Ingrid Kabrik from Burziana. She puts the following question to the speakers about provisions or reserves rather in Romania and Czech Republic. Last year, the 2019 balance sheet provided for reserves for the 2019 results, as you mentioned. Now as far as 2020 is concerned, will this be booked again?
Will this be included in the books again? Well, what, this reminds me of is the other operating result in those two countries that were mentioned. The question is this will not repeat itself. Let me briefly recall the following. In Slovakia, well, Slovakia, because of political decisions that were made, while the bank tax was increased and decreased, and then it was abolished altogether.
That's why we, valued Slovinska's Bozhetelna by the end of the year. A depreciation of goodwill well, that was the result. So this happened once. That's a one off, and this will not change in Romania. And sorry, the question referred to Slovakian Romania.
Well, in Romania, after the 2019, I can sort of remember this, we had a depreciation, a write off, if you like, as far as the Bauchsbergasten Building Society subsidiary is concerned. And these two effects, and I'm quite sure that the colleague, the journalist, refers to them. Well, in 2020, they did not repeat themselves, and this will not repeat itself in the future. So that was a one off referring to 2019. OFF, Stefan Haftel, Austrian Broadcasting Corporation, put to Mr.
Spalt. So, Mr. Spalt, what about credit deferrals and support measures? Once they come to an end or when will they come to an end? That's the first question.
And then how many creditors actually deferred those? Well, now after six months, nine months, or twelve months, what if payments need to be picked up again? So how many defaults do you actually register? Well, speculations talked about 10%, 20%, 30%, 50%. No one really knew.
But now, of course, what we've seen in some countries is after the end of the moratorium in The Czech Republic, for example, while we've had four months of experiences now following the moratorium, well, what we see is single digit numbers or percentage rates, and, people get into trouble, in terms of repayments, and we observed this during the moratorium as well. So what we're seeing is that people and here I'm talking about the money that they did not spend on loans. Well, they put that money aside to have a nest egg, so to speak, to keep it for a rainy day. So after the moratorium comes to an end, the situation is actually quite positive. Well, we're still not at the end of the process.
We don't know what the future will look like. It will depend on how fast the reopening process will be. But after the moratorium, after the lapse of the moratorium, what we're seeing is quite positive developments. Would you like to also refer to the second question? What about the level of credit deferrals?
Stefan Hartel. I will provide you with these figures at a later point in time once this press conference is over. Next question put by Manfred Schulme, Kronenzeitung, Austrian Daily. Two questions as well. First, the savings ratio.
Can you make forecasts? How will the savings behavior develop after 2020? Will people start saving money even more? And then second question, what about so called penalty interest for corporate clients? When will they be considered, or from what level will they be considered?
Well, let's talk about saving. The savings rate is very high in our countries, higher than previously. What we see in savings accounts is, well, no interest payment. But what we're also seeing in some of our countries is something else. So the money that's saved is now being invested.
People want to make provisions. They want to invest in funds, for example. Return levels there, of course, are quite different from other options. So over the past few years, we've seen that saving volumes increase. In times of crisis, when people don't know how to predict the future, they tend to put aside money to keep it for a rainy day, as I said before.
So we need to convince people that it is possible for them to go in for long term investment strategies as well and to also achieve better returns in the process. Thank you. Would you like to come in here? Yes. I'd like to briefly touch on this issue.
Well, naturally, as far as deposits go, the situation has been impacted heavily by the crisis. There's no question about that. So if you look at the entire financial markets, you'll realize that central banks, rightly so, injected a lot of liquidity in order to bring about stabilization. Liquidity goes somewhere, of course, and that's why many of our customers, thankfully, are actually well placed, as was already pointed out by Bernschpalt. People want to make provisions.
People are concerned, especially in times of crisis. And a lot of private individuals, of course, find it difficult to spend money because they can't travel. So consumption patterns have changed and have been restricted. And as far as the corporate sector is concerned, and this brings me back to the second part of the question, I'm fully convinced of the following: As soon as there's optimism again, as soon as there is greater confidence in business circles, as soon as vaccination campaigns are rolled out, investment patterns will change for the better. And this means that the liquidity that's set aside, and this applies to corporate customers, will actually go towards investments.
And this will go hand in hand with financing. As far as interest goes, well, the amount of liquidity that's out there in the market compels banks to levy fees and to charge fees when you talk about large volumes. And in other countries, this actually happened earlier than here. Now, of course, we interact closely with our customers, and we're looking for solutions, and often we find those solutions. If you talk about large volumes, levies will be charged in times of negative interest.
This cannot be avoided. Thank you, Stefan Doerfle. Another question: €2,300,000,000. Well, that's the overall assets in terms of deferrals in Austria, Erste Bank, Erste Holding and Sparkhassen. And then Jakob Stietzen from the Austrian daily Diepresse.
Now what about risk costs? What will the level of risk costs be? A €100,000,000? Could you come close to to to this amount, to this estimate? Well, I don't have a crystal ball, so I can't really come up with a precise figure.
77 basis points or 78 basis points in terms of our volume, that's the figure. Yeah. It might be actually lower. So if we are right, it will be about 75. But everything depends very much, of course, on whether the health crisis will come to an end.
And once the lockdown is over, things may actually change. So 78 basis points, 65 sorry, 65, it that's the upper range for what we're seeing. So 65 if things will actually develop. So I can't come up with an estimate down to 100,000,000. But what are the volumes that we talk about in 2020?
The basis points, well, that was DKK 1,300,000,000.0, and the cap that we are now seeing is DKK 150,000,000 less. And will things go down even further? Well, we don't have a crystal ball to predict this. Okay. We now come to the next question.
Maybe Jakob Zhen will get information. NPL, the nonperforming loan ratio for this year as well as for the following years. What are your expectations?
Well, I believe the NPL rate is still very low. We started the year at 2.4% or 2.5% and at 2.7%. And for the coming year, the outlook is that we're going to be somewhere between 3% or 4% for the NPL rate. So it's always like that. The risk position of a bank will, of course, be reflected with a certain delay as far as the economic development is concerned.
So we're going to have about 3% to 4% NPL ratios this year. And if we believe that this will be the first year of the economic upswing, next year could be a year where we'll see a stabilization of the NPL rates. I think this year, it will be anywhere between three percent and four percent. And next year, there will be a stabilization based on the circumstances that we referred to previously. So Mr.
Zhen had asked a total of four questions. So the dividend, a question for the CFO, does this mean that maybe we could get up to 1.5 per share or maybe a maximum of EUR 1 in total? And the second question for the CEO, maybe how did individual countries and the regions do when compared to about, for example, a comparison between Austria and The Czech Republic. And the best optimum case, there will be a total of 1.5 dividend, EUR $0.05 0 now. That's a proposal that's going to be made to the Energy General Meeting, will be paid out in May and maybe up to EUR 1 in addition to that.
So a total of EUR 1.5 in total potentially. As to the state support measures in the various countries, I think on the whole, we can say that most Eastern European countries have copied more or less what Austria did in terms of a moratorium for loans and setting up state guaranteed loans, furlough schemes, investment premiums and maybe also support for lost revenue. But the fact is, in reality, Austria implemented all of these measures and most other countries focused very much on a moratorium and helping people with their liquidity. So I think that we use more instruments here in Austria, all were designed more or less the same. But in reality, in Austria, all these programs were implemented, and they also were used by companies and had an impact on the economy.
To what extent this has actually helped, well, in the future, we'll be able to tell. So we will see what was really helpful, what was efficient, what was really targeted. So that's an analysis that we can perform in maybe two or three years' time. I have a total of 10 questions. I will read them in chronological order.
Austria Press Agency, Barbara Lengauer, is asking, can you provide us with an idea about the net profit for 2021? No, I can't really tell you. We're not going to make such a forecast at this point of time. I think that what we can say with some element of certainty is that our operating income will be good. We're going to keep a grip on costs and the risk provisions will be lower than for the last year.
We have a net profit of DKK783 million for 2020. For next year, we're going to well, actually, this year, we're going to make more than last year, but how much will depend on the health situation. As Mr. Garendraud from Bloomberg had surmised the answer, he asks a similar question. Analysts believe that the net result for 2021 will be at approximately €1,000,000,000 In the ESTE Group, we talked about meaningful sums.
So is this an amount that you could feel okay with, EUR 1,000,000,000? Well, how should I put this? It's irrelevant whether I like this figure or not. I think there's nothing that can be added to what I've said already. We're going to have a better operating income than this year.
We're going to have lower costs for risk provisions if everything happens the way we have intended in terms of the development of the health crisis. And I would like to ask for your understanding. We are living in a time when such forecasts have become incredibly hard. In the past, we managed to keep grip on unemployment rates and growth rates, GDP rates. We made good forecasts for the interest curve development, but we haven't really made any good experiences in terms of the development of infection rates or economic support schemes of governments or how mutations might play out and how the vaccination capacities can be distributed.
So all these parameters that will, of course, be reflected in our balance sheet in the final analysis. So I'd like to ask you for your kind understanding that we cannot really claim to have any precision in terms of our forecast. This can only be falsified. So I think the big picture is We're going to overcome this health crisis, and this will lead to better results.
And on this journey, there is a lot of ifs. And I think we need to ask the question, are we confident? Yes, we are confident. We're optimistic. We're looking forward to a good year 2021.
That's all I can say for the time being. Okay. I'm not going to harp on this. I think that Ms. Lenglauer well, back at 2020, we are here presenting the figures for 2020.
And the analysts, we really hold in high esteem, and they have extremely good expertise. They have known our bank for many years. And in 2020, talking about the operating result, This was a real rollercoaster in terms of the forecasts. They were close to DKK 3,000,000,000, which was where we wound up at, then down to DKK 2,500,000,000.0. That was the consensus in the summer, then back up to DKK €2,900,000,000 So this confirms what Bert Spaed said.
It is difficult to make a good, serious, robust forecast. We are trying to make forecasts to the best of our abilities month after month, quarter after quarter based on what's possible this year. And I agree with what our CEO said. It's way too soon to make a concrete forecast for our net results. Okay.
Let us move on to Mr. Pastari from Bergen Kuria. He asked the question in November when the Q3 results were presented, a SME fund was announced. So has there been any progress? Well, we're still sticking to this plan of the SME fund.
We're still negotiating this with the Ministry of Finance that will have to create the legal framework. We still think it's highly relevant, and I'm still optimistic since this is also part of the governmental program that it will become a reality. Unfortunately, we're not there yet. Thank you. The list of questions is still long.
I'll take the questions in chronological order. The next question comes from Boris Grunthal from Bloomberg NMA. So is there anything in terms of mergers and acquisitions, Anything on our purchase list, on our shopping list? Well, as to M and A, as to an organic growth, well, we are in a position of strength, and we are firmly convinced that there will be a possibility for further consolidation in the countries where we're active. There are already some opportunities out there.
And I believe that this year, there will be some concrete opportunities. There will be no major transformational shifts, but there will be some attractive buying opportunities out there that we will examine. And if it's in line with our strategy and if it's in line with our capital and profitability expectations, we are going to use these opportunities out of a position of strength. We are seeing this in Hungary, The Czech Republic, Slovakia and maybe even in Austria. There will be some opportunities that we might look into.
And as soon as we're there, we will report on it. Thank you from M and A. Let's move on to the vaccination strategy. A question for Mr. Spalt.
Will ESSE Group buy vaccines directly abroad in order to vaccinate the employees? We are part of a European concept. We are part of the European Union, and there's a clear process of distribution and procurement, and we will follow this process. So we are not going to do opportunistic buying of vaccines. Next question from Klein Zeitung.
Claudia Hase, asks two questions. The first one, where could there be a very long recovery phase as a consequence of the crisis? The second question, what's the potential of private assets? How can we use the big potential of private wealth for the years of the recovery? Well, let me start with the second part of the question that links up with the question of the SME fund that was asked previously.
If you believe, and we do believe it, that there will be an upswing in Austria and in the countries where we're active, This upswing will be supported by SMEs, by small and medium sized enterprises. And private wealth can best be used for targeted investments in SMEs. So investments can be made in the form of SME funds. And I think this is an essential lever that the money should go where it is most needed so that we use the growth potential to the max. I think this is the most efficient way in which we can use private equity in a time when there will be a recovery from this crisis.
And the second question? Well, if I had properly understood the question, it was about in which countries the recovery might take longer and where it might happen faster. As Ben Speidt said previously, owing to the structure of the economy, there are different prerequisites in the various countries. And well, it will depend on how quickly tourism can come back in countries such as Croatia. The current forecast of our analysts seem to point to the fact that most of the countries in our region in 2022 will have recovered the situation as it was before in 2019.
Of course, depending on the structure of the economy, well, things look better for Slovakia and for Croatia. But of course, the dynamics might change during the crisis. There will be differences between the countries. That's a clear answer. Thank you, Stefan Devler.
The next question from Kronenzeitung, Manfred Schumi. His question is, are there any figures about the changes in investment behavior? How much is still in the savings accounts? A few days ago, was a survey from Christian Romotka with figures, but maybe the gentleman would like to add to this. Well, I don't have anything to add.
I still believe that we have a lot of money in the savings accounts, and people also want to invest in monthly installment fund plans. And I think that we are in a low interest environment, and people will invest in real estate funds and mixed funds. Barbara Lenger from APA has another question on the ecology and the ecological transition and climate change, and she refers to what a NGO yesterday said about financing the coal industry. So are you going to revise your coal policy? When are you going to change your lending guidelines?
And are there concrete plans? When you're going to phase out financing coal projects? Well, the new policy will be available in a couple of weeks, and we'll present it then. And this direction is quite clear, and we're going to also give you a clear statement on that with clear targets. I have another two questions.
Many companies have survived the crisis thanks to bridging loans, but they have to pay back these loans at some point. Many companies will not find that easy to do. Can borrowed capital be at least temporarily be changed into equity by, for example, you investing in such a fund? Well, the question addresses a very important point. Well, doesn't help to just inject loans.
We need to inject equity. Whether you get this equity by changing borrowed capital or by injecting new capital, it's just a matter of technique. Converting borrowed capital into equity, well, there are major valuation problems concerning that. So I think what helps is that the equity base of temporarily weakened companies could be strengthened to bring them back on a growth path. And anything that can achieve that is helpful.
So I believe debt to equity swaps are a possibility, but there are also many other possibilities of strengthening the equity position of companies. Okay, thank you. I have come to the end of the list of questions. There was a question on recovery from Claudia Hase. That was a political question, but I think Benz Beit referred to that already and answered it when he talked about equity.
But I will call Claudia in a minute, and we can follow-up on that question. So thank you very much for listening. Thank you for asking questions. And I would like to thank Stefan Derfleur, the Group CFO and Benz Beit, the Group CEO, for the presentation and the many answers. Thank you very much, and have a successful day and a pleasant weekend.