As you can see, at Bank Millennium, anyone can have a small moment of fame. So this is me. Good afternoon and thank you very much for joining. This is a very important day or event for us because not only are we presenting our 3Q results which continue to show the resilience of our franchise but also today we're presenting details of our new full year strategy which you will find very interesting challenging and I think will be in a very different time in four years time. Today's event begins with Mr. Fernando Bicho , deputy chairman of the board and CFO. He will guide you through the details of our financial results and or business achievements in 3Q.
Then a Q&A session will f ollow we intend to focus on relatively short-term issues. Afterwards, we will have our presentational strategy by our chairman of the board and our CEO Mr. João Bras Jorge who will guide you through our strategic session and the key enablers and challenges that we think we will face in the next four years. After that, another Q&A session will follow and then we intend to focus on strategic issues. Without further ado, I would like to invite Mr. Fernando Bicho to the stage. The floor is yours literary speaking.
Good morning, Good afternoon[Foreign language] . Thank you very much for attending presentational for our third quarter results. results As you can see at Bank Millennium, anyone can have a small moment of fame. So this is me. Thank you. Credit holidays in the second and third quarter, we show a very strong increase of NII by 5% quarter on quarter, and by 5% in the first nine months of the year against last year. The recent performance has been supported by relatively stable average yield on the loan portfolio, while during the third quarter, we had a decrease of nine basis points in the average cost of deposits.
Also, it should be mentioned that the performance of NII would be even stronger, if not for the additional costs that we have incurred during the last twelve months. First, with the issue of senior non-preferred bonds in September last year, and second, with the several securitization transactions that supported the improvement of the capital ratios. So if we would exclude these additional costs during the last twelve months, actually, the NII would have grown by 9%. Regarding net fee and commission income, it was relatively stable on a yearly basis, just 1% down, but growing 4% versus the previous quarter. On the cost side, the trends are basically the same from previous quarters, so total operating costs are still growing double digit, 13% year-on-year.
The cost to income on an adjusted basis at 31%, which is a relatively stable low level for the last two years. And we have minor changes in terms of the number of staff and number of branches in recent periods. In terms of credit quality, it continues to be resilient. The NPL ratio stood at 4.6%, with some pickup in the NPL ratio of companies, but at the same time, a decrease in the NPL ratio of consumer loans. So the cost of risk year to date, at 53 basis points over total loans. So of course, a little bit higher than one year ago, as we had already expected when we announced the full year results of 2023, but still within the expected levels.
Also, to add, in the third quarter, we did not have any contribution to the level of provisions from the sale of NPLs. In terms of capital ratios, we continued to show improvement. So after the inclusion of the first half results in the own funds, the Tier 1 ratio is now again above 15%, at 15.3%, and the total capital ratio at 17.9%. And this means a significant surplus of 5.5 percentage points over the minimum regulatory requirement for Tier one, and 5.7 percentage points over the minimum requirement for the total capital ratio. Moreover, I already mentioned as a consequence of the new issue in September, but also of the inclusion of the net profit of the first half in the own funds.
On the liquidity side, very strong liquidity indicators, loan to deposit ratio at 66%, which also creates a strong liquidity cushion that puts us in a very comfortable situation for the new strategy cycle in terms of the lending growth. Very strong ratios in terms of LCR and NSFR and also the liquidity profile translated into a share of liquid assets of 34% over total assets. Regarding the FX mortgage legal risk, the provisions in the third quarter were slightly below previous quarters, at PLN 470 million for the portfolio originated by Bank Millennium, bringing the total outstanding amount of provisions to PLN 7.7 billion, and this represents 111% of the total gross loan outstanding. The portfolio continues to shrink at a quite fast pace.
So when we compare with one year ago and excluding effects impacts, we have a decrease of the portfolio by 22% to CHF 1.5 billion. And if we deduct the legal risk provisions, actually, the share of FX mortgage is now very low, already at 2.5%. We continued the effort to reach amicable settlements with the clients. Another successful quarter with more than 1,000, specifically 1,081 amicable settlements signed with clients, both out of the court and during court proceedings. The inflow of court cases was a little bit lower than previous quarters, at 1,487.
And in terms of main assumptions regarding the provisioning, there were no material changes versus the picture that we have shown during the after the first half of the year. Moving now to the second part of the presentation regarding the business development. So first of all, we will highlight the high growth of the deposits on a yearly basis, the solid pace of customer acquisition, and also of the growth of the retail lending and of leasing origination. So in the end of September, we reached 3,120,000 active customers in retail, of which 91% digitally active.
In terms of sales, strong sales of cash loans, which have grown by 12% year-on-year, and mortgage loans that grew by 50% year-on-year, and leasing origination that grew 26% versus one year ago. This translated into an overall growth of the total deposits by 7% year-on-year, consumer loans by 9%, mortgage in PLN by 5%, and last but not least, a significant growth of investment funds portfolio by 41%. Looking now in more details to the components of loans and deposits growth. On a net basis, the loan portfolio of the group grew by 2% year-on-year. But if we would exclude the FX mortgage portfolio, actually the growth was 5%.
Main drivers: consumer lending and PLN mortgage, but also already the first signs of revival in terms of corporate lending, already growing by 1% year-on-year. The structure of the loan portfolio with no major changes, still with a bigger share of PLN mortgage at 49% and consumer loans almost at 22%. On the customer deposits, an overall growth of 7%, driven by a 14% growth of retail deposits, while at the same time we had some drop in corporate deposits by 8% year-on-year due to tighter price management, and also, as you may understand, also driven by the huge excess of liquidity that we have now.
Investment products have very solid growth by 41% year-on-year, also benefiting from a positive market environment, and of which our Millennium TFI grew by 50%. In terms of origination, the main focus goes, of course, for the origination of cash loans, that during the last two quarters was especially strong, above PLN 1.9 billion, bringing an overall year-to-date growth of 12% and a market share of around 10.5% in new origination. In mortgage, the growth year-to-date is still significant, 50%, although with some downward trend in origination in the last in the third quarter. In retail customer funds, also again, the growth of overall by 16%, so also fueled by the growth of the investment funds.
The solid pace of business development continues to be proven by the solid pace of customer acquisition. We have a net growth of active customers in retail by 139 ,000 during the last twelve months, of which 38 ,000 net growth just in the third quarter. Also followed by solid pace of growth in microbusiness segment, with 18 ,000 new customers net growth during the last twelve months. This is followed, of course, by the significant growth in the number of current accounts by more than 100 ,000 during the last twelve months.
Our competencies in digital banking continue to be extremely appreciated by our customer base, with the redesigned mobile app really appreciated, and we see this translating into a solid pace of growth with 2.86 million active digital users, 2.6 million active mobile app users, translating into a 7% growth year-on-year, and 1.98 million BLIK users in the third quarter, a growth of 15% year-on-year. The share of digital channels is getting more and more relevance in the overall sales, responsible for 84% of cash loan sales, 43% in terms of current account acquisition, 95% of time deposits, and 52% of junior accounts, and also, it should be highlighted, the high double-digit pace of growth of BLIK transactions.
The convenience of our digital solutions is translating into a high number of applications done by our customers in different government programs, including the benefit for parents. And also a number of simple functionalities that are also, like recently, the charity transfers in the mobile app after the recent floods and mobile signature continue to show the capacity of the bank to stay in the leadership in terms of digital solutions. And in terms of Goodie, the continuation of a high double-digit growth in terms of number of transactions and in terms of purchases by cashback. Moving now to the corporate side-...
As I mentioned, we already show signs of some rebound after a period of almost two years, where we had to apply some temporary restrictions due to the active management of the risk-weighted assets. We had a growth of 1% year-on-year of total loans to companies, including leasing and factoring, and 1% just in the third quarter. On the corporate deposits, we had a decrease in the third quarter due to what I mentioned, this tighter management of time deposits, because as you can see, in terms of current accounts, the growth year-on-year is still high at 7%.
We maintained the growth of transactionality with our corporate customers, which translated into a significant growth of treasury transactions, FX transactions, by 35% year-on-year, and the growth of domestic transfers by 4% year-on-year. As I already mentioned, a strong growth of origination of new leasing contracts by 26% year-on-year. We continue to expand the offer to our corporate banking customers, namely through development of the cooperation with KUKE and BGK. Also interesting to say that 75% of our FX transactions are already done through our Millennium Forex Trader platform. The developments in digital, of course, also cover the developments in corporate banking, with further developments in the mobile app for companies, especially in the third quarter, with new functionalities connected with the cards management, conversion.
This concludes the third quarter results presentation, and now we will go through the Q&A of the results. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Fernando. I suggest we start with questions from the room. If you have any questions and you want to ask, please raise your hand.
If anybody wants to ask a question in Polish, we'll naturally have them interpreted, so you may ask in Polish, too.
Question?
Hi, Jaromir Szortyka, PKO BP. First question: Did you book any impact on the floods in the third quarter, or do you see any of such events in the future?
From the floods, yes? We performed an analysis of our loan portfolio, both on the retail and corporate side, and we have not detected any material impact in our customer base coming from this unfortunate event. Of course, there are always in specific situations that may be addressed, but for the time being, the impact is not material, so there was no impact in terms of level of provision in the third quarter.
Another question on your capital position. The quarter-over-quarter improvement, was it driven only by profit inclusion, or was it something else happening in the quarter as well?
The main driver was the incorporation of the first half results in the own funds, but by increasing the own funds, also, we had some side positive effects, namely the fact that the DTA excess over 10% of own funds became smaller. As a consequence, this also triggered some additional benefit, not just directly from the inclusion of the own funds, but also indirectly through this fact. The variation of risk-weighted assets was mixed, because we had some areas where there was an increase against others that had a decrease. Overall, really, the major driver was the incorporation of the net profit.
Any further questions from the room? We have a few online, but Marta? Thank you.
Good afternoon. I may have a question about the NPL ratio in the corporate segment, because it spiked in the third quarter. Was that a very isolated situation, or we are fearing that it may sort of continue towards 2025?
It was very isolated situation. It was one or two cases, actually, which did not happen in previous quarters, so we were living already for quite a long period of time without any situations. Two of them happened now in the third quarter, but completely isolated, completely unrelated, and so we don't see these. We don't treat these as a trend of the deterioration. It just happened.
And maybe a traditional question, hopefully one of the last times, and let's keep it to the third quarter results rather than the strategy. So a classic FX mortgage saga. Okay, maybe let me ask this way: What is the level of model assumptions that you have placed against your active and prepaid portfolio, and provided for in the current provision balance? That's the first question, and I'll have one follow-up.
Mm-hmm.
Just so we stop discussing the active gross portfolio coverage, et cetera, but for how much more challenges to come you already are prepared?
Yeah, so we have a page,
[Foreign language].
Yes.
Okay.
The page number 15.
I think you have to click down to page fifteen. Sorry.
Page fifteen. So the assumptions, as I said, they were not materially changed versus the previous quarter. So we are assuming that 86% of currently active loan agreements are already or will be in the future in the court. So this is the first point. We have currently alive around 26,700 loans at the end of September. So actually, we are leaving outside a quite small number of active loans. So this is the first thing. And the second, we are assuming that 24% of already closed loans, closed means repaid or but excluding amicably settled loans, are already or will be in the future in the court. Of course, in the recent months, the inflow of court cases slightly dropped.
Of course, the share of repaid has increased, but still, in absolute terms, it's still relatively low. So that's why when we look at the recent history of inflow and we project for the future years, we are reaching these estimations regarding the percentage of the customers. At the same time, as I said, of course, we are continuing the effort of settling with the clients, both out of the court and during the court proceedings. So but these are the assumptions that we are using right now.
And as much as you have created already provisions for those percentages of clients from different groups already, you also seem to be booking legal costs separately as an ongoing cost. My question is of a different nature, because one thing is a provision to be put forward, and we know that a lot has already been provisioned, but those court cases will probably last for another five to... let's not put a upper limit. Will you create provisions for those legal costs at some point to end the saga, or should we assume that those legal costs will be with you for at least another five years until the active court cases will just-
Mm-hmm
... phase out?
We have different types of legal costs. We have the services of the legal offices that support us in each court case, which of course will depend on further inflow, essentially. We have the court-related costs connected with appeals, connected with counterclaims, and these numbers can change also depending on how the settlements will be done through time, so for the time being we are not planning to create an upfront provision for such costs because also it's difficult to forecast which part of them will be actually incurred. As I said, we are achieving relevant number of settlements during the court proceedings. If this trend will continue, this contributes to the decrease of the future legal costs. Just as an example.
So there are different actions that we are taking that will potentially make these costs starting to go down in one or two years' time. But for the time being, we are not planning to make any upfront. Of course, out of the question is the point that we will submit counterclaims in order to protect our rights to the original capital that was disbursed whenever it is necessary to submit such counterclaims, and those counterclaims have a court cost.
Kamil Stolarski from Santander. I have one question about NII in the third quarter. Could you please comment on what was the source of the improvement quarter on quarter? It was quite visible. Do you see some room for further improvement of net interest margin in the short term?
So in the third quarter, first of all, of course, interest rates were stable. So this helped to maintain for longer, let's say, relatively high level of NII. In our case, even it was a record level, actually, even if we take out the impact of the credit holidays. The driver of the improvement, excluding the credit holidays, was a combination of the average yield on loans was quite stable, and so with some increase of the loan portfolio, we had more contribution coming from the loan portfolio. This average drop of cost of the deposits just imply that the cost of the deposits actually remained quite stable, although we.
But this was beneficial because it shows that we have capacity to gradually reduce the average cost of the deposits, but essentially, this came from on one side, some reduction of time deposits in corporate, but also some adjustments of pricing in retail. And then we have the continuation of the contribution coming from the bond portfolio, which is also relevant because as we are sitting on a huge excess of liquidity. This excess of liquidity is redeployed between bonds and NBP bills, and as long as interest rates have stayed quite high, of course, this is also supporting our NII. But basically on a quarterly basis, just looking at the quarter, the contribution from the remuneration from the loans plays the main role.
Thank you.
Any more questions from the room? I take it as a no. Thank you very much. We have questions from the online participants, and as a reminder, if you want to ask a question, please use the webcast page on the website that you're watching us at, and ask your question. We have a very specific question, which goes: What is your long-term funding ratio at the end of 3Q?
So we disclosed this in our third quarter report. It was slightly above 27%, already including the senior non-preferred bonds that we have done in September. In October, we completed the next issue of covered bonds, so PLN 500 million for five years. This will add another 1.5 percentage points to the long-term funding ratio, so we will be somewhere between 28% and 29% during the fourth quarter. The target to be achieved is 40% on the 31st of December 2026. So we still have a lot of time to fulfill that ratio, and I think that the steps that we have taken recently show the capacity of the bank to fulfill that ratio in a normal way.
So, we have our plan, and the ratio is going to be achieved. But at the same time, of course, as you could see, there is some, let's say, lower origination of mortgage, so we will not have so much pressure from the denominator to achieve this target.
Thank you. Let's get the FX-related questions out of the way, especially as there are not that many of them. What do you expect in terms of FX provisions in the remainder of the year in 2025, and do you see them lingering beyond 2026? It's a bit of a strategic planning horizon, but as I said, let's get it out of the way.
Mm-hmm. So I think we have the expectation that sooner or later, the level of provisions will start to go down. Actually, it's already going down because if we see the slides that where we show the evolution of the provisioning quarter by quarter, after the peak that we had last year for specific reasons that all of us know, actually, we for the first time since the fourth quarter of 2022 , we had a quarterly charge of provisions of less than PLN 500 million . Also, when we look on a year-to-date basis, the level of provisioning is, of course, already clearly lower than last year. Although, on the other side, we have some increase of other costs related to FX mortgage, which...
But still, the picture looks favorable in terms that overall costs this year are lower than in the previous year. So we have some expectations that overall costs will trend down, but still will remain relevant in the nearest quarters. So, for now, what we are anticipating is that next year should continue to show improvement, but still impacts may be relevant together with the related costs. From 2026, if nothing else extraordinary will happen, then of course, we would expect the provisions to clearly decrease versus the recent years.
We're doing very well in terms of time, so maybe three more questions. One is about the cost of risk. What do you expect on a steady state until the rest of the year in 2025?
For this year, this, let's say, expectation of having a cost of risk around fifty, fifty-something basis points is still achievable, I would say. Going forward, the evolution of the cost of risk in the future will also reflect the gradual change of the structure of the balance sheet and structure of the loan portfolio of the bank. As you will see from the strategy, and as we will materialize this strategy in concrete numbers, this will mean a higher share of corporate lending.
Of course, it's natural that with a lower share of mortgage and a higher share of corporate and related exposures, there will be some increase in the average cost of risk, which probably will be around 60 or 60s, in the area of 60 basis points level. Of course, it will not be a let's say a jump from one moment to the other because the portfolio will be gradually built. Looking at the four-year cycle that we have in front of us, it's natural that the cost of risk will tend to gradually increase, but reflecting the change of the structure of the portfolio.
There is also a question about cost of deposit. Do you see room to decrease the cost of deposits closer to the sector average? What will be the time horizon for that?
... of course, when we are at levels where we are currently, of course, there is always space to decrease. But, for us, it's not a matter of just looking at the price. We look at everything, right? We look at the volumes, we look at the relationship with the customers, we look at the price, we look at the possibilities to redeploy this liquidity in assets that will provide positive results to the bank. So taking into consideration that we expect interest rates to go down next year, obviously, we also expect that our average cost of the deposits will trend down. If it will converge to the average of the sector or not, this is not exactly our objective.
I think we need to take into consideration that our structure of the deposits is different than the average of the system. We have much more retail deposits, we have much less current accounts from companies, and this makes a difference when we compare the average cost of the deposits between the different banks. When we forget about the structure, we are not so far from several other competitors in terms of average cost of the deposits. But the answer is, it will trend down also in line with the decrease of market rates.
Two more, two more questions, I promise. As I said, there were three, and there's already fourth. Could you guide us through the rate-interest rate sensitivity of your NII in 2025 and in the longer term? Could loan growth offset lower NIM already in 2025 ?
I think first, we already explained in previous meetings that in the short term, we have a relatively high protection against the cuts of the interest rates due to the structure of the loan portfolio that we have today and the structure of the bond portfolio that also we have created through time. We expect that the first cuts of interest rates will have a relatively mild impact in terms of the NII. If you look at our financial reports, we are disclosing the sensitivity of NII to changes of a hundred basis points in the yield curve, and it was never so low. It's somehow between around 1% or more or less. So it's really low.
So I think that in the short term, short term means in the next 12-24 months, we have a relatively high level of protection, because even when interest rates will go down, there will be, at the same time, some low-yielding assets or hedges from the past that will expire, and that when disappearing or renewed, will provide a compensation for some compression, for example, in the margin of the current accounts, which will inevitably take place. For the next year, we are quite optimistic about the evolution of NII. I think that the only thing that could jeopardize this would be a much faster than expected cuts of interest rates during the next year.
If we will keep the scenario that we are betting in, which is a cut of 100-125 basis points of interest rates until the end of the next year, this should be achievable.
And the final question, as promised: What is the scale of claims against your bank questioning WIBOR and the interest-free loan, and how many claims have you received, and what are the outcomes or the verdicts so far? We're not avoiding difficult questions, as you see.
We are also disclosing in the chapter nine of our financial report that we issued today the statistics about both situations. In terms of PLN WIBOR cases, the numbers are quite small. Only one final verdict that was won by the bank. So we don't see, for the time being, any relevant inflow of claims and of court cases. Regarding the free credit sanction, the numbers have increased in recent months. The large majority of the cases has been still won by the bank. But of course, it's something that we... The concrete numbers are in the report. I don't have them now in here in front of me, so I don't. It's almost 1 ,000 court cases, as far as I remember.
And it's of course a topic that we are paying special attention. But as I said, the large majority of the court decisions until now have been favored in favor of the bank.
Thank you very much, Fernando, for your, as usual, very insightful answers. There were more questions coming, but we intentionally decided to move them to the strategic part because they are a bit of a long-term and strategic in nature. So now the time has come for the strategy. So I'd like to welcome and invite Mr. João Bras Jorge, Chairman of the Board and our CEO, to the stage, to share with us the strategic vision.
Thank you very much for coming. It's a pleasure to be here today, talking about strategy.... It looks like we exit the recovery plan a long, long time ago, but truly it was just before the summer, and now after the summer, we are here talking about the future. See, in the middle of April, we start working the new strategy. We involved the more than one hundred top managers of the bank, and it's a privilege to be in organization and to serve in an organization that we are, from one side, handling the legacy and solving the problems, at the same time addressing the customer needs, and with that producing results, but also thinking about the future and planning what we are going to do in the next cycle of four years.
By the way, this photo, I think it was in the two strategic cycles ago. If we would put in one slide our strategy, this would be the slide. So, we are committing ourselves to keep embracing innovation and with digitally delivering top quality of services to be the primary bank to individuals and companies. We are committing ourselves in these key strategic targets to maintain leadership in terms of quality of service performed by top three NPS, to keep a very strong growth, organic growth in terms of customer acquisition. Please remember that we track this as net active customers, and we aim to achieve 3.7 million active customers.
We have the goal to achieve 70% primary customers, which means customers that are considering and operating with Bank Millennium as the main bank. Maintain our digital roadmap with more than 95% digital active customers, to double the corporate lending volumes. At the same time, to have a very ambitious target in terms of quality of assets, being below the 4%, the NPL ratio. To maintain a highly capitalized bank with high around 14%-15% Tier 1, high level of efficiency with around 37% cost to income, highly profitable with around 18% return on equity.
Going back to the dividends, of course, constrained with the regulatory environment, but it's our intention to go back to dividends in 2027 and to maintain the Top Employer status. In terms of individuals, mass individual, we will keep our activity of customer acquisition based on daily banking services with high quality of services and achieving the primacy. We will keep upselling from the mass market to the affluent business with a digital offer and with remote advisories. And we will also maintain one activity that have been very successful in the recent two years to acquiring more customers and developing higher relations in terms of sole business. So self-employed, the sole traders, not full accounting, micro business.
Today, we are already producing very significant credits and with a very high coverage, around 93% of guarantees. So it means a very interesting success that we want to keep in this segment. In terms of corporate, we want to launch a new initiative in terms of small business, to acquiring and building primary relationship with the smaller companies, based also in a digitally offer, and improving the value proposition, and also supported by remote ARMs. And in terms of mid-corporate, we want to leverage our already good relationships and good performance in terms of NPS to increase significantly our credit portfolio. In terms of enablers, it's the people and the people development, technology and resilience, the digital and efficiency, the compliance and risk management, and sustainability.
Taking a moment to looking back in terms of our bank and year in perspective of five years. So the bank is known by the strong quality of services. This is seen not only by the number of the awards that the bank won, but also in terms of Net Promoter Score in terms of retail and in terms of corporate. This differentiation and quality of services in the last three, five years, the bank have the capacity to put it in terms of organic growth and in terms of development of the business. 10%, the compound annual growth rate of number of customers moving from 1.8 million-3 million customers, active customers, and in terms of total assets, 9%, moving from 80- 126.
Also, it's extremely important is that this growth was also visible in terms of profitability, and this is extremely visible in terms of net banking income that we move from PLN 2.7 billion to PLN 7 billion ... and also improvement in terms of cost to income, of course, and adjusted return on equity. The position of the bank, that, of course, these slides are very important because only when we know where we are, we understand to where we want to go. It's very important to analyze that in terms of retail, the bank is already a very strong position in terms of lending, 9% in terms of mortgage PLN, and 9% in terms of consumer lending, and 9% in terms of corporate, and already 7% in terms of total deposits of individuals.
In terms of corporate, the bank presented 4% in terms of total deposits of companies, 2% in terms of corporate lending, and 5% in leasing, and 6% in factoring. So it's visible already a very interesting position in terms of asset financing and a lot of the potential in terms of poor lending, pure lending in corporate. When we go back and see our previous cycles, it's also very important to understand the capacity and the track record that the bank have presented in terms of growth. So it's in all of these cycles, and particularly when we look for 2015-2023 so this is only eight years, and in these eight years, the bank doubled the size.
So we moved from 66 billion zlotys to 126 billion zlotys, and we moved from 1.4 million active customers to 3 million active customers at the end of 2023. Moreover, if we have a screenshot of the last strategy, we can see that despite all the headwinds that we had this time, the Swiss franc saga, the turbulence in terms of EU funds and in terms of some challenging legal and regulatory environments, the credit holidays, for example, and even the war in Ukraine, we can see that the bank have the capacity to deliver all of the long-term strategic targets that propose itself for the year of 2022- 2024.
In terms of growth of customers, in terms of digital roadmap, but also in terms of the profitability of the business model and in terms of the unwinding of the FX position. It's very important to understand also that during this cycle of three years, two years was passed in a recovery plan. The bank have the capacity to present this performance, mainly due to the capabilities that the bank has today. We have a proven model of customer acquisition that is a differentiation done by the bank through quality of service and this obsession of the client service, with a very strong digitalization, with the industry-leading governance, not only in the transparency, but also in regulatory compliance.
The bank have a DNA in terms of technology is very well known, the capabilities, so our bank have truly a very talented and skilled software house inside of our bank, and the bank is known by attracting and developing good talented people. Our view for the market, it's probably the main basis for the strategy that we are proposing and that we are presenting today. We forecast for Poland a very stable and a very profitable or interesting for banking business economy environment. From one side, a very strong GDP, so always around 3%, low unemployment, increase of disposable income, and although a decrease of interest rates, a stabilization at a level that is still very interesting for the bank activity.
The banking sector, as you are very well known, have a very good financial shape, strong capital ratios, good portfolio quality, and also high liquidity. And our view for the market is very positive in terms of the volumes development. However, when we put together the scenario of interest rates, we can see that we have some movement from the deposit pool or deposit revenue pools for the assets' revenue pools, particularly the corporate lending.... We go for this strategy, and this is very important because although the banking activity is interesting and profitable in Poland, is also an activity with some risk environment and turbulence. So we go to this strategy also with our competencies to manage and to navigate under this environment.
In terms of legal and compliance risk, we can say that this is a challenging environment in the banking sector in Poland. As already we were talking during the period of the results presentation, the risks from remaining FX portfolio disputes exists, but it's seen as a moment that they will be or at least the cost of this saga will decrease. There is still the challenges in terms of WIBOR, in terms of the WIBOR reform. Not only can be challenges in terms of cost, but also legal risks, and there is still an environment of increased consumer protections, not only driven by the local authorities, but also by the European environment.
In terms of capital, Fernando already addressed the topic of the long-term funding, but in terms of capital also, there is a environment that of increasing of capital requirements that is also challenging for the bank. Our strategy is from one side in retail, to be very ambitious in terms of customer acquisition, but in terms also of the share of primary retail customers. Not only do we want to grow from the 3.1 million customers that we had in the first semester to 3.7, this means 150,000 net active customers per year, which is extremely high in the banking activity. But besides that, we want to move from the 60% level of primary relations to 70% of primary relations.
Of course, the primary relations, for the ones that are in the industries, this means a lot of additional business and a lot of not only cross-selling, but also upselling opportunities for the bank. In terms of corporate, we want to move from PLN 30 billion to more than PLN 25 billion , and also in terms of customers, for 30,000 customers in corporate to 50,000. In this environment also, we want to have a 37% cost-to-income level and an 18% return on equity, with a very solid and risk position, maintaining to achieve below 4% in NPLs and to have around 50% in terms of Tier 1. Two slides on corporate and then two slides in retail.
In corporate, we want to reach 10,000-17 ,000 mid-sized corporate clients, leveraging the high NPS that we have in the segment. We want to double the corporate loans, as I said, so the total portfolio, and to increase the market share over 5%. We want to increase the investment loans to over 25%, and we want to accelerate the growth of leasing to have growth on the portfolio for more than 70% to PLN 12 billion in 2028. In terms of the small business, we want to have 7% of market share in terms of credit production. This, of course, produces very high annual increases in terms of the deposits and in terms of corporate, in terms of lending. In terms of lending is 14% per annual growth.
In terms of deposits is 10% per annual growth. Of course, in terms of deposits, a lot of here is also the additional business and the transactionality that comes with the credits. For corporate, we have five strategic initiatives. So one, concrete initiatives connected with the target customer base that we want to grow and that we want to deep our relationships. We have also a target, a strategic initiative connected with growth of the portfolio. This initiative have two major investments. One is in terms of infrastructure, so it's a new digital credit process, a new workflow of credit, a new CRM tool.
So a big investment in terms of IT competence and digital competencies, but also, big reinforcement of the team in terms of relationship managers and business analysts that will use the relationships that we have and the ones that we will acquire to be able to have this growth of the portfolio. In terms of investment loans, we want to have a specific guidance and fast track to specific loans. In terms of targets, some industries and also some opportunities of the usage of EU funds and support the energy transition, sorry. In terms of leasing, we want to leverage the capability that we already have, and then not only through cross-selling, but also by direct sales, to have the growth of the portfolio.
In terms of small business, we think that there is a big opportunity now that small business, it's less physical relationship-based, but more digitally value proposition-based. We have a big opportunity here, and we want to have a differentiated digital-first service model that can make us to have a 7% of the small business credit production. Two slides on retail. In terms of retail, we want to increase the customer base to 3.7 million customers, active customers, with a primacy to increase to 70%. We want to grow in terms of saving and investment products, to have 1% more in terms of total customer funds. We want to grow in terms of affluent.
We have an opportunity in terms of affluent, and we want to grow this customer database in 50%. We want to double the credit that we are doing in SOHO, and we want to maintain our position in terms of customer experience and in terms of quality of service. It's obvious that when we look for the retail loan volumes, there is here a 2% per annum growth. Here there is a clear decision of having some slowdown in terms of mortgage. We believe that we need to give time to see clarifications in terms of WIBOR risks and in terms of more clarification what is going to be the final conclusions in terms of potential legal disputes.
We have still very ambitious targets in terms of consumer credit and in terms of credit cards. In terms of deposits, we have 6% per annum. In terms of strategic initiatives, we have six strategic initiatives for retail: Keep the leadership in terms of customer acquisition. Build the primacy on existing customer base, and of course, having a lot of impact in terms of volume of products and services provided to customers. Growth in terms of customer funds. This big increase in terms of affluent customers that we want to have in our database and our customer base. Become the first bank for SOHO. Strengthen the leadership in customer experience. And orchestration of the distribution model.
The orchestration of the distribution model, of course, not only provide us to keep offering a good digital service to customers, but also... Sorry, I was in this slide. I have in iPad a different presentation, the same slides, but I need to go with both. With a 95% digital service for the retail, but also can be an opportunity to have some consolidation of our physical presences. We identify the key success enablers in terms of people, technology, digital, compliance, and risk, and sustainability. And I will go fast per enabler.
So in terms of HR, of course, the main core is to acquire the talent and develop the talent that allow us to make the new strategy, namely this new investment in corporate areas. We want to maintain the Top Employer certification and also maintain the high level of satisfaction of employees, because this, combined with the point number three, that is, maintain the competitiveness and the compliance in terms of remuneration policy, is the two main conditions to have a low attrition rate. And only with high capacity to attract talent, high also competence in developing talent, but also to have capacity to retain this talent, is what is crucial for allow us to have this capacity to deliver the strategy.
In terms of evaluate also the culture, it's I think the most important point is this last point, continuous to build a lifelong learning culture. This is also all the need of reskilling that the bank needs to do to these people, especially in front of the changes that we will have in the future, and of course improving the HR services and the experience that we provide to our employees. In terms of digital, some highlights, the first point is re-enhancing the corporate teams. So it means that if we want to commit to have this special attention to corporate, we need to commit also our HR, our IT resources for that, namely with the introduction of the new credit workflow and the corporate CRM.
In terms of cognitive banking, promote the democratization of the usage AI, and also start to integrate it or continue to integrate it, AI components in our front-end and back-end processes. In terms of resilient and cybersecurity, this is of course a core concern of all the financial entities at the moment. A constant reinforcing of our capabilities, and not only by the technical capabilities, but also the governance of these areas. We will keep also our cloud migration, and we will take a look and analyze the legacy systems that we have to be ensured that never mature or legacy technologies will be a blockage of our development. Keep being a data-driven organization, and keep introducing new solutions and new innovations that define us so well. We will keep also our digital roadmap.
I'm still on the time that the digital tool was used to find ATMs and branches. Then it was the time that was to check balances, then was the time to make some transfers, then starting to buy some products, and looks like the time today is to do all the life there. We had a lot of awards, that is known, but it's more important than that, is these numbers in terms of digital customers, but also digital sales. To have a strategy without operational efficiency is a nonsense, so we will keep ensuring the business digitalization. Business digitalization not only provide a better customer service, but allow us to serve much more customers, much more interactions, much more transactions, and with the same infrastructure.
Of course, as is already said, with the digitalization, with deployment of remote experts and with the usage of bot of voice and the chatbots, also we can go through some optimization of the physical network. In terms of operationally, I would say that we will keep our analysis of processes, always looking for simplification, standardization, and automation. This can be seen as processes that we interact with the customers, but also in terms of optimizations of the central functions. Almost at the end. In terms of risk, we will keep mitigation and analysis in terms of the legal risks in the Polish banking system. All of us, we know that the major risk of the Polish banking activity, unfortunately, is not the credit risk, but it is legal risk.
And also, we will mitigate, analyze to be able to change as soon as possible or any potential changes in terms of consumer protection. State-of-the-art and full compliance in terms of regulatory compliance, Know Your Custome r, and Anti-Money Laundering . Strong credit risk management. We will keep the discipline on underwriting, and we will continue to have a robust recovery process. Mitigations and high priority for cybersecurity, but also digital frauds, and mitigation in terms of capital management risks, particularly the implementation of CRR3. In terms of ESG, carbon footprint, carbon neutrality one and two in 2030 , and net zero in 2050 . Also, we commit PLN 5 billion for new sustainable finance projects.
The social, the Top Employer I already spoke, so maybe the inclusivity and the effort that in a constant way we do to have accessible banking, particularly some cooperations that we do for external institutions and associations of handicaps that also help us how to build solutions that have particular attention to these type of clients. And of course, supporting the local communities where we are, centrally or even by branches and corporate centers.
In terms of governance, a big attention in terms of ESG governance and the contribution for the transition plan, but also to have a corporate governance that is state-of-the-art and that is fully in the new standards. In the second page, I would only like to highlight, first of all, because this is well known, at least for the colleagues from the press, we have a very strong dedication on financial education projects, with the bank and the foundation. Also, we have a lot of initiatives from our colleagues in terms of volunteering, that they have interaction in the local communities, improving the conditions of these communities.
Maybe two additional points: our role in terms of the family business, that we go through across Poland, particularly on these family business or mid-sized companies, helping them to understand what is going to be the ESG targets and is going to be the migration or the transition challenges. Also our contribution for the Eco-Innovation Index in terms of the regions and in terms of the needs that need to be that we need to do for to adapt to, so we have Poland fulfilling all of the targets in terms of climate environment. Just a couple of closing remarks. From one side, the bank have a long-standing track record of growth. The last cycle with the strong headwinds was a very good example on that.
We have outperformed competitors mainly by these capabilities of the customer experience and the technology innovation. We have a very positive view for the Polish economy, and that's why we are proposing this strategy, because we have the competencies and we have the opportunity to take this advantage. In terms of the corporate, the big message is, of course, doubling the scale of our business, but also this new value proposition that we are going to do for the small business. In terms of retail banking, is to maintain this very fast and solid growth that we have been presenting in the recent years.
We present not only very strong business volumes, but also profitability volumes, or profitability targets, with 37% cost to income, below 4% NPL, 15% Tier 1, and, of course, the 18% return on equity. And I think I already went through this slide, more or less. Thank you very much.
No, you stay, you stay, stay. Yes.
I'm going to get that-
Ah, okay
... the questions.
Thank you very much, João, for an impactful and concise presentation, also for sharing with the audience how we're going to drive sustainable growth by either seizing new opportunities or leveraging on our strengths. For those who are in the room, see that the stage is being slightly rearranged. We are now approaching the final part, which is the strategic Q&A session. Fernando, I'd like to invite you to the stage. Gentlemen. Thank you very much. As previously, questions from the room will be somewhat privileged or will come first, please.
As we said earlier, you can ask questions in English. These will be interpreted.
A question on your ROE target. So you aim for 18% ROE in the environment of 3.5% interest rates. What would be your goal if interest rates in Poland went lower, let's say to 2.5%?
We never model like that, I must confess. It's of course depend also. We had a big discussion about this, about what would be an adverse scenario. And of course, so this also depend when it will be. So if it is going to be exactly the same track, if it will be at the end or not. But we never had the-
But I think I would say for sure, double digit-
Yes
... ROE.
Clearly.
For sure. Of course, probably not 18%. But still, also clearly above the cost of capital, right? So still quite decent level. And still allowing the generation of capital, most likely, that would allow us to achieve this target of coming back to dividend distribution from 2027. So, but this is just a rough estimation. Of course, if the interest rates will go down, there would be different implications at the level of lending growth, savings, and so on. So that also would have to be taken into consideration. So it's. That's. It's much more complex, but clearly, even in a more adverse scenario, we would still generate a double-digit ROE.
So maybe a follow-up on capital generation. What kind of payments did you put in into your target for Tier 1? And maybe also on dividend. Is an earlier dividend out of the question, like from 2025 profits, for example? And maybe what other inorganic impact on your capital did you include in the 15% target? Because it doesn't seem to be that high, given the fact that you are already exceeding it, as of 3Q 2024.
The dividend policy has been clear, so we want to go back. We used to explain that it was between 30%-50%.
35%-50% .
35%-50%, so we want to go back. It's not realistic to be much, much, much earlier than this. So to believe that in 2026, on results of 2025, we don't believe that is realistic. Even so, we need to see how is going to be the regulatory environment. So we are confident about what we are writing at the moment. And, of course, it will be subject still to the regulatory environment, but we don't think that is realistic to expect it, to anticipate this target.
And-
And of course, we can consider other instruments.
Yes.
I think-
So on one side, we are also anticipating the increase in the regulatory requirements. For example, the introduction of the countercyclical capital buffer of 2%. That will come during the next two years, partially offset by the further decrease of our P2R buffer. So in our case, the impact should be lower than for some other competitors. But still, we are anticipating some trend of increase of the regulatory requirements. And then we have also the option to use or not further securitizations in the future to continue to manage the level of the risk-weighted assets. So we have different instruments at our disposal that will allow us to manage to achieve that level.
And depend the cost level of
Yes
... each instrument as well.
Yes. And also, at the same time, we also have still before us the implementation of CRR3, that also will have some impacts. So we are also anticipating that we need to have some caution against some regulatory developments that will protect us. But this 15% creates, let's say, the perception of staying very much above the minimum capital requirements.
Last question on capital from me. AT1, is it an option for you? I mean, some of your competitors suggest that they could consider issuing this.
That, that's why I said depend on the cost. So, it's sometimes if the instruments appear, if it is a reasonable cost, if it start to be used, why not?
Thank you for your questions. There's one...
Łukasz Jańczak, Erste Securities. Thank you very much for the presentation. One question from my side on volumes. Looking at the dynamics you show, it seems that in the future you will shift more towards corporate lending, so it will balance your current asset structure. But it seems that your competitors will do actually the same, so they will also focus more on corporate side. And you are actually already commented on several initiatives in the corporate business, but I still wonder, what do you think will be the key to succeed in this race for the corporate clients, to gain market share, to onboard clients? Thank you.
Mm-hmm. Each bank has. Although we sometimes talk about corporate, and not always the corporate is the same corporate. So some banks are very focused in very large companies with very large tickets. As you know well, we are more a mid-size corporate SME. So this is. We have a network of relationship managers across all Poland, and this is where we feel more comfortable, where we believe we have competencies. It's also where the NPS of our relationship managers make the difference. So in our case, we still had good relations even during this period, due to capital constraints, we had the corporate portfolio reduction.
We didn't reduce so much the profitability of the segment, and also we didn't reduce the relationships that we had and the business relationships that we had with the clients. What we had is an intentional review, reduction of the portfolio. Now, with more capital, we can go particular to some transactions that are long-term. So it's we are going to use our capacities that we have today. We are, we are going to use the know-how that we have been, development in terms of the usage of European funds and the usage, also, or the investments that are needed to energy transition. So it's we are going to use the capabilities that we have. We are going to reinforce it, but we will not have a magic word now.
I think that all the banks are in the sector understanding that we are going to have investment cycle in terms of companies in the Polish economy, and everybody wants to take an advantage of that. Because the recent drivers have been in the Polish economy, have been the consumption, and even the investment part have been, I would say, almost everything in real estate, so it was not entrepreneurial normal investment cycle.
Any more questions from the room? Marta? Yeah. Marta, yeah. Okay. Mm, in this case, I'd like to move to the questions that we had received, from, online participants.
... Shall we do the let's do the straightforward and, let's say, the quant ones. There's a very direct question: How do you see your profits evolving over the next years? What kind of profits should we expect in twenty twenty-eight, given the 18% ROE?
So we-
We don't do this.
Yes, we cannot enter into such level of detail. Of course, I would like to say that it should start with a two, but still, we cannot enter into this level of detail. I think it's relatively easy to derive what more or less levels of results, especially I would say in a different way. If you look at our recurrent results, excluding extraordinaries, you see where we are today, right? If you will assume that the extraordinary costs will go down, but also at the same time, there will be some impacts from lower interest rates, you may end up guessing which type of net profit would be implied in a lower interest rate environment on one side, but also with much lower extraordinary costs on the other.
Okay. I say you managed to answer very intelligently. That's a difficult. It was a difficult question. There's no growth without cost, so we also have a cost related question: Could you please update on cost dynamics? How do you see wage inflation evolving in the coming years? Do you see net cost-cutting potential in G&As, or would they be offset by investments?
It's very difficult to have a cost management in a country that have inflation plus a strong salary dynamics, especially in the banking activity, that 50% of the costs are personnel costs. However, we are trying to combine this with some reduction of presence and some reallocations. From our experience, the most important is to keep investing in terms of process management, because it's the only way that we are not obliged to increase the costs when we do more business. If we have strong processes and if we have efficiency on that part, then it's okay. Otherwise, if you make more mortgage, you need to have more people. If you have more cash loans, you need to have more underwriters. If you have more. And then it's a very difficult game.
So we will keep investing in digitalization, but also in process management, and that's all. But what we need to make sure is that the costs will grow lower than the revenues.
Okay, thank you. There's a bit of a follow-up. Can you provide more color on the cost management, which we just answered, branch network targets and FTEs?
We are not disclosing any target at the moment. We always say that we will do this not so much by the cost bias, but by a change of the behavior of the consumers. We are seeing this change of the behaviors of the consumers. We have already our ideas, so we are going to execute it. But we would not like to disclose the number that-
... will excite people. Even because the cost dynamics is we need to remember that every time that we cut a plain vanilla sales function, but we hire an IT person, sometimes the cost increase instead of decrease. So it's also...
Thank you. There are many questions, and we have to pick the ones that repeat most often. There's a very specific question: Does retail loan growth outlook of 2% per annum include the rundown of the CHF loan book?
Yes. Yes, of course.
Of course.
That's why it seems relatively low, but of course, it's depressed by the almost disappearance of the FX mortgage portfolio on a net basis.
Mm-hmm. There's another tricky question: Why don't you show revenue KPIs for the bank, but you do for the sector for 2028? What is the assumption behind the expected falling flattish sector revenues until 2028, despite quite a bullish loan growth going forward? You partly addressed that during the presentation, right?
It's the dynamic of the interest rate is very relevant. So it's when you put in combination in the model, so you need to have two parts first. First of all, you have current accounts that are not remunerated. Then you have a lot of consumer credits, and then credit card credits, overdraft credits, that have a dynamic of pricing, especially these last two that I said, more connected with maximum interest rates than a normal market rate. Cash loans, it's more a market rate. So when you decrease the interest rates, we are also decreasing some of the ceilings, let's call it like that. That's why the impact in terms of lending of retail is bigger.
In terms of corporate, of course, you have a commercial spread that is on the top of WIBOR, so it. You don't have this impact. In terms of deposits, it's also the combination of current accounts in corporate. As some banks remunerate or not, others in retail, no, nobody remunerates. So all of these dynamics together make these changes. Listen, we didn't say that the revenue pool of deposits disappear. We not even dare to say that they will not stay as the main revenue pool of banking. We didn't say that. We just said that reduces somehow the importance, but I think the only thing that somehow confuse people is the decrease, or no, the slowdown of increase of credits in retail.
But, but we need to understand also that this is the impact of the mortgage, because the mortgage, the production is very high and the amortization is very low. But this does not mean that the activity in terms of consumer lending, for example, somehow would slow down. Not at all. Not at all.
A little bit on the same subject: How do you see trade-off between a significant loan growth aimed at gaining market and margins? Do you expect to retain the deposits gathered thus far and redeploy them into loans once bonds expire? Are you assuming you should be paying deposits more than peers? Oh, we sort of talked about it, but.
Each one have their own strategy.
One by one, then.
I think Fernando was very clear when he explained that the average price per bank, it's also the mix that each bank has. So if I have a mix of high current accounts in corporate, for example, this mix is completely different than ours. Also, if you have more affluent time deposits, it's also a different mix. So for us, the model have been very successful because allow us to grow. And for example, this year we were almost offsetting... Not almost, no, we offset the decrease of interest rates with the growth of the deposits volumes. So it's not... What is important is what is your value proposition and your capability to grow.
Okay.
We should not limit it, the deposit growth, to the credit growth. The only thing that you need to do is invest in bonds.
Mm-hmm. Questions also are coming with regards to our Tier 1 15, 15% Tier 1 target. How much to be generated by earnings, and how much by absorbed organic growth, dividends, and other external, extraordinary effects? At least roughly, if possible. There's also a question about CRR and CRD impact-
Mm
... which ties into this subject.
So, what we can say is that the growth of risk-weighted assets will accelerate through time, so it's not a straight line from-
... today until the end of 2028 . So the especially driven by the growth of the corporate loan portfolio, that also is going to accelerate through time. It's not going to jump from, necessarily from one quarter to the other. It's not that it cannot be possible, but it's just not. It's not our plan. It's going to accelerate through time. So the, in terms of generation of, of capital, the base scenario, the base scenario is that it will be organic generation of capital through, retention of the net profit of twenty-four and twenty-five, and then the possibility of distributing, from the results to be generated in 2026 . This is the base plan.
It can be adjusted with more or less needs of securitization of assets, because in the meantime, the transactions that we have done will start to expire. We can renew them or not, depending on the way we want to manage the Tier I. We have these alternatives also in the market, in terms of other solutions also for the Tier I, which also can be contemplated, although we have currently no concrete plans regarding this. And so this is what we can say for now. We cannot be now very precise in saying what is exactly the growth of RWA that we are going to have on a yearly basis. Regarding CRR3, something that is still being prepared.
There are still some doubts about concrete aspects of the implementation of CRR3, so the regulatory environment is still not fully clear. There will be some downward impact. This is what we can have to say now in the first quarter of next year, but which again will be gradually offset by the organic generation of capital that we will have and by the management of the RWA. This is what we can say for now.
Okay. I think we're slowly running to the end of the list, but we have two more interesting questions. How does Bank Millennium plan to balance growth in corporate loans while maintaining risk cost discipline?
Good underwriting and good collateralization and effective recovery. So it's. We had a very good experience in the recent years when we had to reduce our portfolio. So when you reduce a portfolio, usually, of course, you sell the good credits the clients that are in the good situation early repay, and you stay with the more risky portfolio.
Yeah.
This didn't happen with us. We are quite confident that we have strong risk underwriting capabilities. We pretend to execute exactly this. It's obvious that it is a challenge, and a strategy is not especially in our bank something that we will just do when the results will come in 2028. We will execute the results, and we will execute the strategy at the same time that we are achieving results. This also will help us to manage if the situation of the 2% interest rates will appear.
Okay. Well, this is an interesting question, totally different. What is Millennium's take on inorganic growth?
We are not planning anything. So, if there is an opportunity, we are obliged to analyze it. But also we know that every time, even in a transaction as we did in Eurobank, that we were able to condense the legal merger and the operational merger in just one year. At the end of the day, you have two years that you block innovation. So during two years, you are blocked any innovation and new ideas and growth and everything. So the opportunity needs to be big enough to have two years of non-organic growth. So if there is a bank that is big enough, cheap enough, and it's a good opportunity-
We are obliged to see it, but I'm not foreseeing anything.
Okay. I think final question will be: You have provided a list of main challenges, but which three you consider as key challenges for the successful execution of your strategy?
We don't have a major. I think it's our presentation, maybe it looks a little bit strange why we have so many slides in enablers instead of targets. Because this is what really make the success of execution. So it's difficult to say what is going to be more difficult. But it's obvious that the shift in corporate, it will require a big involvement of all the organization. And that's why we explain that we will ring-fence some IT resources, that we will have a special HR attention to attract talent. That's where we-- that's probably the biggest challenge that we are having as an organization.
Even because we know that keep doing something that we are already doing, for example, in retail growth, it's easier than it to have a rebound in terms of portfolio growth that just one year ago we were decreasing. So we maybe this is the biggest challenge.
But there is also another challenge that all of us that are living in Poland we have, which is also the legal regulatory environment that is challenging.
Full stop.
Yes.
Thank you very much, Fernando. Any question you think we omitted? No, I think we covered. In case the audience or the participants feel that we omitted or neglected some of the questions, we're obviously happy to answer them after the event. I'll diligently go through these, and if we missed any, I will try to contact you directly. Otherwise, thank you, gentlemen, and maybe it's time for closing, another set of closing remarks.
No, just-
Final this time.
No, I will not abuse of your patience. Just to say that we are very happy to present this strategy. This strategy have been the work of a large group, as I explained, more than one hundred people of top managers of the bank. We had a lot of time to mature about the strategy to discuss about the strategy, to see the alternatives of the strategy, and this is our ambition, and we are quite confident about the execution that we are going to provide during the next four years.
Thank you very much, gentlemen. Thank you very much all for participating, especially for coming. Some in not super shape or health. Yes, Kamil, thank you very much. Special thanks or kudos for Kamil. Otherwise, as I said, we, meaning IR, at your service, and if you have any questions, doubts, or desire to speak, obviously do contact us. Thank you very much, gentlemen.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
For those in the room, there are refreshments served in the back, so please.
... do come and join us.