Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to everyone. Welcome to Bank Millennium first Q23 results call. With us we have Mr. João Brás Jorge , our CEO, and Mr. Fernando Bicho, our CFO. The structure of the call will be as per usual. We'll start with approximately 25, maybe 30-minute presentation, and then we will be available for questions. Thank you very much. Over to you, Fernando.
Thank you. Good afternoon. Thank you very much for, again, attending our quarterly results presentation. We start with a snapshot of the main key profit and loss items and balance sheet items on pages five and six of the presentation, where it is visible the strong improvement in the recurrent results of the bank, supported by significant increase of net interest income year-over-year, and also the resilience of this net interest income that, without the impact of the credit holidays, still grew 1% in quarter-over-quarter. On the other side, costs are growing, but still below inflation. Also we had a first quarter that was marked by two important events. One was the conclusion of the insurance transaction, about which we reported several weeks ago. That translated into a significant capital gain.
On the other side, also significant provisions for FX markets legal risk, including one extraordinary adjustment. All in all, this allows us to reach a net profit in the first quarter of PLN 252 million, this marks already the second consecutive quarter of positive results. Excluding extraordinary items, we also see the resilience and the capacity to originate organic results by the bank, with the net profit, excluding extraordinary items, reaching PLN 672 million in the first quarter at a similar level of the previous quarter. As a consequence of these movements, we have the continuation of significant improvement in the cost to income ratio. The cost of risk stays within the range guidance that we had provided previously.
On an adjusted basis, of course, return on equity was already double digit, even above 20% on an adjusted basis. On the business line front, we would highlight the significant and sustainable increase of acquisition of customers and where we are approaching the 3 million mark for active retail customers, which is being followed even at a higher speed by the increase of the digital and mobile customers. Deposits continue to grow, especially driven by deposits from individuals, while total loans decreased mainly due to the significant decrease of the FX markets loan portfolio, also because of the deduction of the provisions that are being created. Without this impact, the loan portfolio would have been flat. Finally, to highlight is also the resilience of the capital base of the bank.
There was a minor decrease of the capital ratios in the first quarter, but they stood still comfortably above the minimum regulatory requirements. The page seven is just again a highlight of what I have just mentioned. I will go directly to page eight, where we can see the evolution of the quarterly results of Bank Millennium in recent periods, where it is visible this gradual increase of the net profit without extraordinary items, which stabilized at PLN 672 million when compared with the fourth quarter of 2022, but is 37% above one year ago. Moving to page nine, the revenue improvement continues to be driven by net interest income, which grew 31% year-over-year and 1% quarter-over-quarter.
As it is visible on the top right graph, we still had an increase in the average remuneration of loans in the first quarter of the year, but also, still an increase, although at a slower pace of the average cost of the deposits. This happened already in a context where although the reference rate from NBP stayed at the same level, we saw already some decrease in the level of the main reference rates, mainly the level of the reverse is already lower than what it was in previous two quarters. The combination of these factors translated into a net interest margin of 4.58%, only slightly down by five basis points versus the fourth quarter of 2022. Regarding net fee and commission income, here the picture is stable.
The level of fees and commissions were at the same level of the previous quarter, although 9% lower than one year ago, mainly due to lower fees that were temporarily in force during the pandemic times and are no longer being charged regarding part of the accounts. We see some positive developments in several other lines of fee and commission income, namely, payment cards. Also we see rebound already in investment funds balances that sooner or later will translate also into some increase of fee and commission income. Moving now to the cost side. The total costs are growing clearly below inflation, 7% growth year on year.
Of course, the first quarter is inflated by the initial preliminary booking of the contribution to the resolution fund that we created at a level similar to last year. As we disclosed yesterday afternoon, based on the communication received yesterday, actually the number, the figure is lower. This correction, which in fact is a reduction of cost, will be reflected already in the second quarter. Anyway, looking at the concrete drivers, we continue to have more pressure in terms of staff costs, which we believe is something that is common to the market and this translated into a growth of personnel costs by 12% year-on-year, while other admin costs grew 10%.
At the same time, we have continued the fine-tuning of the branch network, as we have been doing in recent periods. Moving to asset quality on page 11. We kept a strong quality of the loan portfolio NPL ratio at 4.7%, slightly up versus the previous quarter. Also, we cannot forget that actually the loan outstanding balance was lower versus previous periods. Looking at the cost of risk, it stood at 63 basis points over total loans, exclusively driven by retail loans. Still, this is exactly within the range guidance that we have mentioned during the previous conference. Additionally, also, we should highlight that in this quarter, the cost of risk was not supported by sales of NPLs.
Regarding liquidity and capital on page 12, liquidity remains very solid with a loan to deposit ratio at 75%, LCR at 228%. Regarding capital ratios, as I mentioned in the introduction, we have a resilient capital position, a minor drop during this quarter, but still comfortably above the minimum regulatory requirements, more than 80 basis points above the minimum regulatory Tier 1 requirement, and clearly more than one percentage point above in terms of the total capital ratios. Of course, just for clarity, these capital ratios do not include the net profit generated in the first quarter of the year. If such net profit would be considered as part of the own funds of the bank, the capital ratios would improve by approximately 50 basis points.
Moving to the FX mortgage portfolio, on pages 13 and 14. First of all, we had the continuation of the efforts that has been done already for a long time of significantly decreasing the FX mortgage portfolio. As it is shown here in the quarter, we had a reduction in Swiss franc terms of 4% of the gross portfolio, so without deduction of the legal risk provisions and year-over-year of 16%. As a consequence, the percentage of the FX mortgage of the total gross loan book continues to decrease, and it's already around 7%. At the same time, we continue to increase the provisions against legal risk.
We disclosed already three weeks ago, in a specific current report, we created PLN 821 million with P&L impact for the Bank Millennium originated FX mortgage portfolio, including one extraordinary adjustment of PLN 337 million, in anticipation of some deterioration of some parameters connected with the FX mortgage legal risk. The combination of the creation of these provisions and the decrease of the loan book brought the ratio of total provisions against legal risk versus the gross FX mortgage book to close to 56%. During the quarter, we continued the efforts to reach amicable settlements with our clients. This quarter, the total number was 806, so lower than previous quarters.
By the way, we were somehow expecting because of the significant number of settlements that were done during the previous three years. As a total, in the last three years and one quarter, we have done close to 18,600 amicable settlements with the customers. The lower number of settlements in this specific quarter, of course, also brought lower costs of such settlements through the P&L. Moving now to the second part of the presentation regarding the business development. The main highlights are on page 16. A solid growth of retail deposits by 9%, and overall deposits by 4%. A strong quarter in terms of cash loan sales that grew 10% quarter-on-quarter. Also significant growth in the number of payment cards by 214,000 year-on-year.
This permanent growth in the number of active retail customers and active digital customers where we are approaching the 3 million threshold. More details can be seen on page 17. The loan portfolio on a net basis, so after deduction of all the provisions, decreased by 4% year-on-year. This is to a large extent due to the additional provisions for the legal risk that have been created, because if we would exclude the FX mortgage portfolio, the loan portfolio on a net basis would have remained flat. Customer deposits, as I mentioned, growing solidly by 9% year-on-year in terms of the retail deposits. The structure of the loan portfolio continues to change with the dilution of the FX mortgage portfolio.
In investment funds, some positive signs already in the quarter with the growth of the assets under management, but still with a decrease of the outstanding by 13% year on year. More details on the retail performance on page 18. I already mentioned the strong quarter of cash loan sales, which when compared with one year ago, grew by 35%, while mortgage production remained at a lower level as it is, let's say, the common to the market with total disbursements at PLN 925 million at similar level of the previous quarter. When we look at the evolution of the retail portfolio on a gross basis, it is visible that the consumer loans still grew by 1% and PLN mortgage by 2%, while the FX mortgage has a significant decrease.
The solid business performance of retail is also illustrated on page 19. A growth of 36,000 active customers in retail in the first quarter at 183,000 more versus one year ago. Also, an increase in the growth of microbusiness clients versus in the last 12 months, and followed by significant increase of the number of current accounts by 200,000 and the number of debit and credit cards by 200 or more than 200,000. The digital journey continues to gain traction.
On page 20, we once again illustrate very strong numbers in terms of usage of digital channels, with 2.6 million active digital users, 2.32 million active mobile users, with a significant share of online sales, 80% share in the sales of cash loans in the first quarter 2023, 96% in the sales of term deposits, and also 43% share in current accounts acquisition. Page 21 also additional figures, which we would particularly highlight the significant number and growth in BLIK users and BLIK transactions. We continue to support this growth with a permanent effort to assure convenience and security every day to our digital users. Illustration of this effort is shown on page 22.
Also with the pilot phase of the buy now, pay later payments, new services with payment cards, and on page 23 with a number of other features that provide convenience to customers that are running their own business. On page 24, the continuation of the development of our goodie smart shopping platform, in which we have an increase of 50% year-on-year of the number of active cashback users. Moving to page 25, the corporate business activity has been conditioned by also the strict management of the capital consumption, especially so it means strict management of risk-weighted assets. This as a consequence limited the growth of the corporate loan portfolio.
When we compare with the previous quarter on a gross basis, loans to companies only grew 1%, while when compared with one year ago, they fell 2%. This includes, of course, not only loans to companies, but also leasing and factoring. On the other side, we had year-over-year some contraction of the deposits due to high base of one year ago, with a rebound of 5% quarter-over-quarter, with a good mix between current accounts and time deposits. We also continue to focus on gradual improvement in transactional activity, which is illustrated by the growth of 6% in FX transactions.
Regarding also the lending activity, the focus on utilization of BGK guarantees to the highest level ever in our case of, at PLN 3.9 billion, including our leasing company, that is the only one in the market for now with active sales of BGK guarantees. On page 26, regarding leasing and factoring, we had a decrease of sales, leasing sales by 9% year-on-year. Although the portfolio, as it was shown before on a gross basis year-on-year still grew by 2%. In factoring, a marginal drop in factoring turnover by 2% year-on-year, and in FX transactions, a growth by 6% year-on-year.
The effort to provide innovation and convenience for our corporate banking customers is also illustrated on page 27, where we have been keeping the expansion of the offer for corporate clients, including loans for photovoltaic installation and technological loan, and also biggest, bigger availability of CDMs throughout the country. In summary, these are the results of the Bank Millennium Group in the first quarter of 2023. Now we are available for your questions. Thank you.
Thank you very much for your questions that have arrived meanwhile. Let's start from those that specifically relate to our results. There's a handful of questions relating to NII. Let me read these out. Is it reasonable to expect NII to go down from Q1 levels as deposit rates increase? Are you planning to increase your bond portfolio further? This is the first question. There's similar questions about the output from NII and NIM in the following months. Yes, I think these are main questions. There's also a level of deposit beta in the first quarter. What level of deposits pricing do you expect in 2023? How do you see the competition evolving in the segment? The other question is about pretty much the same.
It's output from NII, NIM, deposit pricing, competition, and deposit beta sensitivity of it.
I will start and then maybe Fernando can complement. At the moment, of course, the deposit business is profitable and this means that we would keep increasing the volumes on time deposits and savings accounts and then all the total deposits volumes as much as possible. The production of mortgage in Poland, due to the very unstable and unpredictable legal structure that we have at the moment, not only in Swiss francs, but also the way that the change from WIBOR to WIRON is going to happen and future legal risks that we can have in this product, made that all the banks are selling mortgage in a very prudent way. Today, we are having a production that is 50% of the previous year, and it's very difficult to forecast any development in this area.
It means that we will keep growing in deposits and of course we will allocate these deposits between bonds, securities, National Bank of Poland bills and all of these kinds of instruments. There was the worst part in terms of pricing of time deposits, I would say it was the last year, the end of last year, when there was the normal, I would say, work for deposits of the end of the year and already some expectations.
Of the decrease of the interest rates embedded in the yield curve. Now we are already in a situation of some slowdown. We see that today the top offers are already below the levels of the end of last year, and we are forecasting a calm down. We saw some window dressing and some competition in the beginning of April with of course, some banks trying to increase their volumes for the quarter presentations. We believe that now we are in a more stable environment, and we are not forecasting a bigger competition on this market. Of course, also the rising of improving the net interest income based on the increase of the interest rates is over.
Today, and going forward, the net interest income will improve mainly based by volumes and proper pricing of these instruments. It's also important to understand that there was a change of the mix. When we were in the environments of interest rates zero, there was a huge increase of the current accounts, and the customers were not placing their liquidity in any instrument, savings accounts or time deposits. As we said, the movement of the increase of the interest rates, there was the change of the mix. It was not just the cost of the deposits, but also very important, the change of the mix. We believe that the mix now is stabilized. Mix is very close to what used to be before the rate cuts of COVID times.
We, as I said, we are forecasting stable environment, stable prices and future growth of NII based on volumes.
To complement, as you see on page nine of the presentation, in terms of the dynamics of the average remuneration from loans and average cost of the deposits, it is visible that in the first quarter, the increase on the average remuneration of the deposits was already much smaller than between the third and the fourth quarter and between the second and the third. There is a clear sign of this stabilization. Also, the cost of the deposits in a specific quarter depends on the pricing decisions taken on the previous period. It's sometimes there's always a lag between what we are actually doing and how it is translated into the NII and margin of the Bank Millennium.
This, this, already end of the peak, let's say, of these, offers in the market also later tends to translate into some decrease in the average cost of the deposits. We, we, in terms of expectations, we tend, we will tend to be marginally up or down, in terms of NIM in the nearest future. Still, the picture for now is a little bit better than even we had anticipated, three months ago, we must say, in terms of the NII and the, and the NIM. Regarding I think there was another question also regarding.
Yeah.
If we have plans to increase the bond portfolio further. We have a significant bond portfolio, which in fact has been increasing during the recent quarters due to the excess of the liquidity. The portfolio is, we have one part that is decreasing, which is in this hold to collect and sell. This part is going to continue to decrease and another part in hold to collect portfolio. The increase or decrease of the bond portfolio is more a consequence of the bigger or smaller excess of liquidity of the bank.
Thank you. We have one, I would say, unusual question or specific about other operating income. I'll probably handle that very quickly. The question is, other operating expenses to that PLN 72 million double year-on-year, what is included in that? What is the guidance for future quarters? I mean, in this position, we chiefly book legal expenses. I think this is the main reason simply. There was also a handful of questions relating to our capital. First of all, there was specific questions about the impact of IFRS 9 on CET1. There was also questions in terms of our capital path for the rest of the year. Let's start with this. What's the first one?
Regarding the capital ratios during the quarter, just to, because I did not explain this in detail during the presentation. In the quarter, of course, we knew that we were going to have the negative impact of the end of this transition period of treatment of the losses on the-One portfolio in the portfolio of hold to collect and sell, which on the 1st of January started to be treated with a 100% impact instead of 60% impact before. However, this negative impact was significantly offset by the improvement of the valuation of this portfolio during this first quarter, this impact turned out to be much smaller.
On the other side, we had the impact of this IFRS transition was in terms of amount, because it is the question, was close to PLN 90 million. Regarding the capital position of the bank, and what we are for, let's say, planning for the next, for the remaining of the year. We stick to the statement that we have done already in previous reports and meetings, which is we continue to manage actively the capital base of the bank in order to, through a combination of generation of organic results that later will be translated into the increase of own funds of the bank. Second, continuation of the optimization of risk-weighted assets, which includes this careful management of exposure, especially in the corporate area.
Also the continuing to explore additional possibilities of securitisation of assets. As we disclosed last year, in the report of last year, last year we made two securitisation transactions of SME loans. This year we are planning to continue. The most likely portfolio to follow will be leasing, but this is still under preparation, so we cannot say yet when this will be concluded. The plan is to continue to generate additional capital also by using this possibility of doing securitisation transactions of the loan portfolio.
Because you answered at the same time, a couple of questions about our securitisation plans and capital. There was also a question about the path for capital that you have answered that already.
Our target is again to continue to improve the capital ratios and to further increase the surplus over the minimum regulatory requirements and this is what we plan to continue to do throughout the year.
While we are in capital related is subject, it's obviously questions about MREL. Are we plan to be compliant by end of the year? How would we get to the MREL target at the end of the year? Whether we plan to issue domestically, internationally, and so on and so forth.
As we also wrote in our reports, of course, we have the clear objective of fulfilling the MREL requirements until the end of this year. This is a combination of several factors. One is the level of MREL requirements by themselves, which we are expecting to be lower when we will receive the update of such requirements from the Bank Guarantee Fund. This new update should reflect the lower Pillar two buffer, P2R, that was communicated by KNF in the end of 2022. We still did not receive this update, this is the expectation that we have that will decrease the interim and ultimate level of MREL to be fulfilled.
The second contributing factor will be the improvement of the own funds of the bank, obviously, which will be hopefully done through the generation of positive results. The third is the issuance of bonds, where we will be permanently assessing the market conditions in order to try to make one or more issues. This will depend exactly on what will be the ultimate amounts that will be needed. We will be contemplating both domestic and international issuance, and the plan is to do such issue or issues until the year end.
There's a handful of questions relating to cost of risk. One was whether we confirm our earlier 60 to 70 basis points guidance. The other one is, what is our expectation for the cost of risk for the full year? That's pretty much the same question. There was also a question whether we, in which segments do we see cost of risk increasing and whether we see increase of overdue loans in the retail segment?
First of all, as I mentioned during the presentation, the, for now, the cost of risk is very close to the level that we guided in the previous in the previous meeting. As it is visible on page 11, first quarter, 63 basis points over total loans when we had guided for something between 60 to 70. We are there. The second, in this quarter, the cost of risk was driven by retail loans, while corporate was at virtually zero.
We have two relevant, three relevant portfolios in retail. One of them is not generating, let's say, cost of credit risk. It's generating another type of risk, which is the FX mortgage. We have the PLN mortgages and consumer loans. We, let's say we have the combination of both in terms of the cost of risk of the quarter. We, as we have expressed already in previous meetings, the higher level of interest rates would always potentially imply some additional levels of delinquency in NPLs. Which of course is gradually happening, but it's still within what we would expect.
According to the information that we have and that we see, and the data that we see, we do not see any reason to change this outlook regarding the cost of risk for the year 2022. We stick to this range of 60-70 basis points over total loans.
There is a very interesting question from a gentleman named Marek, is why did Bank Millennium sell for almost PLN half a billion its interest in insurance company, which is not true, and whether this was related to any liquidity problems at the bank? I think it basically boils down to our reasons for the bank assurance transaction.
Maybe we can take the opportunity because there is other questions as well. We were one of the, or the bank that was still without exclusivity agreement in terms of insurance. The possibility of establish this joint venture and making this transaction will allows the bank to extract more value of this bank, of bank assurance that we have. Liquidity part is, of course, is irrelevant. In terms of the gain, the capital gain, it's relevant for the bank, especially in this time of Swiss franc mortgage. There is a question about the, if we would do the extraordinary provisions without this capital gain. I would say that we join convenience with the moment.
It's not we didn't do the provisions because of that, but it was a good opportunity that we were allowed with this capital gains to make this adjustment, because one way or another, there was an opinion of the General Council of the Court of Justice of the European Union, and the opinion is negative for the banks. We are making these adjustments. It's clear that we have a very simplified methodology, let's call it like that. It was the results of the court decisions that will translate in a probability. The new court cases that we are having as time goes by, we have more negative decisions on the bank sides. It means that also the probability to lose is getting much higher. We have more cases.
It means that also the volume of the present cases is bigger. With, for us, with this decision and the good timing, of course, we made a first adjustment preparing the bank to the possibility of a negative decision. That can happen up to summer, we don't, we never can be sure, but we are pointing between June, July to have the decision of European Court of Justice. The process of the decisions in considering invalid these long-term credits and even stating that the usage of the capital is without any compensation is being so surprising that today we could not forecast or predict any kind of decision. We are preparing ourselves for the worst.
This is what we have been doing up to now. Of course, there is always these kind of questions. If the bank with a negative decision will have impact, of course there is always impact. It's every time that we make provisions forecasting a negative situation, when a negative situation occurs, we need to do much less. It's obvious that the materialization of a negative decision would require an adjustment of our model. There is two adjustments to be done. One is adjusting in the model of the probability of having remuneration, that today is becoming smaller and smaller.
Another one is future cases that we need to have also evidence of the changes of the behavior that for the time being, it's still difficult to assess if there will be a change or not. This is something that also needs to occur with the timing because this is an area that it's very difficult to make immediately assessment since the beginning, what is the level of provisions that we need to do for this legal risk. If we would do in the beginning of all of this saga, of course, it would be a small percentage of the provisions that today the banks have. I think it's the same way that we are not forecasting a dramatic movement.
Also it's difficult to say when it will stop because it's a process of we need also to have a slowdown of cases or from another side also to finish the cases that we have or the life contracts that we have. Or we are able to convert and early repay everything, or we will go to a minimal number, which is the customers that decide not to do anything and just to pay the installments that are of course very low due to the interest rates and the even the maturity of the loan. For this, we need to wait.
We are not forecasting a dramatic increase, but also we are not forecasting a dramatic decrease of the effort of the provisioning for the legal risk of Swiss francs.
Because there are some additional questions related to the same topic. We still cannot, we still are not able to establish a connection between the opinion of the General Council of the Court of Justice of the European Union and the inflow of the court cases during the first quarter. The opinion was published on the sixteenth of February, the dynamic of a court case is not compatible, you know. It's not possible that a person hears the opinion on sixteenth of February, puts a motion to the court on seventeenth of February. In real life, it does not happen like this. We are not making a link. It's true that we have a more inflow of court cases in this quarter than in previous quarters. It was not a record quarter as well.
We still will need to continue to track and to see if there is any change of behavior, which until now we cannot say that it's happened.
You were highlighting that the increase of court cases against us is a systemic thing because other banks have seen exactly the same case and the same increase.
Yes, also it's important to give here a wrong, a wrong, I would say, a guidance because if we are talking about a negative trend, a couple of hundreds, this would be a very positive scenario in terms of the decision. It's also important because sometimes people are very fast to take assessments but also do not understand that we are talking about a couple of hundreds. It's not a negative trend if of the opinion of the general counsel or even if of the decision cannot be expected or there is no trend, or if there is a trend, it's not going to be just a couple of hundreds.
It will be bigger, of course, across time, but I think we need also to be prudent in terms of this to not give here a too mild assessment. It's. We need to be open to be prepared for the worst, and this is more or less what we are doing with this extra effort of provisioning.
There was actually a couple of questions relating to proportion, the number of cases from already repaid loans, whether we can quantify the impact or proportion of these.
We can say that the proportion has been relatively stable, and it's between 10%-12% of the overall stock. Of the overall stock of court cases.
Unless you find other questions relating to FX mortgages that you want to answer. I think they more or less have the same...
No, I think there's also a question. I think it's a question about what is the level that we expect for the next quarters in terms of provision. I think it's more or less the sense of the question that I think I saw here. When we look at the graph on page 13, on the bottom right, we are showing the time series of the last three years, where in red you can see the quarterly P&L charge. There is a somehow some kind of range, right? Excluding this quarter, the first quarter, where we made this extraordinary provision. Of course, we don't give any guidance for future quarters because actually, as it was already said.
As we wrote in our financial report today, the major driver is going to be the flow of the court cases and to which extent it matches or not our own expectations. This is going to be the crucial element that we will need to be regularly assessing if there is any change of pattern in terms of the inflow of the court cases. At least looking at this picture on the bottom right, you can see what has been done in previous quarters. It's not a forecast at all, but it shows that if there would be not a significant change in the drivers, then obviously there should be not a significant change in the outcome.
Just probably needs to highlight or requires highlighting that we already have a very high probability of loss in our models.
Yes.
This parameter will not change at all.
Yes, exactly.
Moving aside from FX saga, there was a question about mortgage origination. According to the participants, the new volume dynamics in mortgages were relatively weaker than on the market, which I think is not true, because we maintain market share. Was it a consequence of the way we report the results, or was it a consequence of a different approach or policy to give out mortgages?
We are maintaining the market share. The mortgage market in Poland is very, very weak. Our forecast is that it's going to stay extremely weak until we have a bigger legal assurance in our abilities to make a long-term contract or a long-term credit contract, let's say, like that in Poland.
Do we plan to take part in the 2% mortgage subsidy program?
Our position is that we are studying it and analyzing, but the probability of take part is very low.
There was a bit of a cross-checking question. Whether we have any comments on the envisaged exit from the Capital Protection Plan and Recovery Plan? Pablo.
Thank you for this question because in fact we did not mention this. We have been executing thoroughly the plans. We have been implementing everything that we have somehow included in those plans that were submitted to regulators. And though, in fact, the actual results are better than our original estimates. Regarding the recovery... Regarding the exit of the Recovery Plan, because I think the question is more about the potential exit of the Recovery Plan. We will... This is a process. We already are above the minimum regulatory capital ratios already for the second consecutive quarter. Still comfortably above, as we showed here on the presentation. Of course, we want to ensure that this is going to be sustainable and resilient.
This is point number one. Point number two that also, additionally, we will be taking the steps to fulfill the MREL requirements. These are two things to be continuing to be done in 2023. We do not have any guidance regarding the exact moment of exiting the Recovery Plan. What is for us crucial is to demonstrate the capacity of the bank to generate organic results, organic capital, and to increase the safety buffers over the minimum regulatory requirements.
Fernando, do you see any questions that we omitted or. I think we largely answered all of them. Thank you very much for your questions. In case we haven't answered any of them or we haven't answered them fully, obviously you're more than welcome to approach us and ask us for a more detailed explanation. João, any closing remarks that you would like to share with the audience?
Um-
We became a boring bank, right? I mean.
Yes. Yes.
Repeatable numbers.
Yes. Yes. No, we are is a little bit what Fernando said. We are executing in a very disciplined way our Capital Protection Plan and Recovery Plan. This is with the securitizations, with the transactions that you saw, and of course, with the intention to issue MREL also to fulfill our requirements. Also, this is very important, through having a solid business model that allow us to have the profitability to generate capital in an organic way. This is what we are doing. At the same time, we are completely focused in our strategy, so we have been being very focused in customer acquisition. That was visible in terms of number of customers.
As you know, we track, and we are just interested in customers that bank in a regular way with us, so they are active customers. With the digitalizations, we have this vision about having 3 million customers that up to summer. I don't know what summer means, if it is August or if it is July. For sure, it's not September. We'll reach these 3 million customers. These 3 million customers was a target that we had for the end of 2024. We will also reach the digitalization levels that we wanted, which is also extremely important to have the efficiency and levels that we want to be a bank to serve these 3 million customers.
In the corporate side, it's a pity that we do not have the capital to make growths in market share that we could do at the moment. It is what it is, so we are using more guarantees. We are trying to make the lending in a process that consumes less capital. Also oblige all of our sales teams to focus more in SME and to forget the transactions where we would need to allocate a lot of capital and the profitability would not be so, so good. Also in corporate, we are going through digitalization.
This is also always things that are more difficult for our analysts to see because a lot of our analysts are also our customers, so they witness the digital capabilities as a customers in their apps, in their products that they use. In corporate, it's more difficult unless they have a parallel business to see what we are doing. But the numbers are extremely good in terms of usage of the digital means, which in leasing means eBOK of our leasing customers. The usage of the internet platforms for our corporate customers in terms of analysis, exchange of documents, everything. Now we are also after this MyUCA, we already trained the network, we already made the test and everything.
We will have a very important launch of our mobile app for corporate. That also we believe that will be distinctive in terms of our corporate offer. We are very positive for the business side. We also believe that this business part will be crucial also for the Capital Protection Plan. The Capital Protection Plan, we already are done, but it's a question of finishing all the cycle. On the Recovery Plan, let's call it like that, to address all the challenges that we still have. Also we need to hope that the authorities will not put additional challenges up to December. You never know.
I think the banking industry in Poland already have challenges enough, to make, our role, which is financing the Polish economy and helping the prosperity of the Polish people.
Thank you very much, João. Thank you very much, gentlemen. Thank you all the viewers and participants. Thank you for your time, your interest in Bank Millennium. To remind, our next data point is 27th of July when we report first half results. Have a long weekend. Have been good long weekend, and enjoy whatever amount of sun and good weather you can get. Thank you very much.