Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. We would like to give you a warm welcome at the meeting on the financial results of Bank Pekao after the second quarter and the first half of 2023. I will present our speakers, CEO Leszek Skiba, Paweł Strączyński, responsible for finances, Wojciech Werochowski , responsible for retail banking, and Ernest Pytlarczyk, chief economist of the bank. Over to the CEO.
Thank you very much. A very warm welcome to everyone. We start with a slide showing what is essential from the perspective of the quarter that has just ended. That was a time of sales development and development of our offer to the customers. We are satisfied with the good sales results in retail banking. The sales dynamics, mortgages, growing clearly faster in the second quarter than it did in the first.
We can also see an improvement in cash loans. What constitutes a challenge to us at the moment is the First Flat , that is the government program of 2% housing loans. We see a lot of interest, and we find it slightly difficult to manage this great demand. It is simply a new program, and we hope that it will bring significant increases in volumes because it responds, you know, to the previous needs and unsatisfied demand from the past. Our retail offer is also more attractive in terms of new functionalities for the youth. We also have a new product for farmers. It is also important to us that our digital transformation is progressing at a good pace.
You know, we see growth in sales in digital channels, new customers in our banking and improvements in our apps. We are happy that the cost of risk remains low in spite of the current macroeconomic situation and the slowdown we are witnessing. Paweł will talk us through the situation, showing that we are a leader in the European tests of banks. We are the most resistant bank in Europe, resistant to negative scenario and stress testing. Key achievement in this quarter include a clear increase of net profit to almost PLN 1.7 billion . That results obviously from growth in interest margin. We have very well-functioning increased interest rates, that is, they function very well because they translate in greater income of the bank from interest.
At the same time, i f we compare ourselves to competitors, we can see that we have fewer customers. The money that we have from those customers and deposits, these are greater deposits. A greater part of our customers see a safe haven in the bank. They choose to keep their money on a non-interest bearing current account. That is a clearly positive factor which boosts our net interest margin. That is up to the customers, even if we offer them high interest rate. Now, it is 10% on interest-bearing accounts. They prefer to keep the money on non-interest bearing current account. Additionally, our results are good in terms of keeping cost of risk at low levels.
We have sufficient reserves for loans in Swiss francs. The elements related to this type of risk did not have any negative effect on the results of the second quarter. Additionally, we have managed to keep our costs under control, and Paweł will probably be able to tell you more. Even though we had an increase in personal costs, a significant portion of those costs came from pay rises and a new bonus system, which supports our revenue from sales. Let me remind you the pillars of our strategy. What is very important to us is that we are on track towards the objective. This quarter, we have 3 million active customers in mobile banking. That was ROE 26% growth quarterly. Quarterly cumulatively, that was almost 15%.
Resistance to risk in the range between 50 and 60 points, we are at 51, efficiency cost-to-income at 31% or 37% in this cumulative calculation. Digital transformation, that is, above all, an increase in mortgage sales. We sold almost twice as much mortgage loans in the second quarter than the first one. We also saw a significant increase in cash loans. We are happy that the volume of funding and SME continues to grow strongly at 17% in 2021, 2022. We also had very good results in this respect, clearly better than the market. Active customers in retail mobile banking are 3 million people, which is 15% more digitization rate.
That is a parameter which we find important, and that is also a specific target in our strategy. It represents a percentage of the processes that can be completed by the customers in mobile channels. At the end of 2024, this should be 100%, and we are selling more and more loans in digital channels. Over to Wojciech. Thank you very much.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I'm very pleased to be able to tell you about retail banking today on behalf of about 6,000 people who are working towards those results. I will tell you about the goals that were set for me some time ago, and those goals focused around two very important elements. The first was transformation of retail banking, and the second was the result.
Leszek already talked about the results, and I will focus on the transformation. First of all, we are focusing on our PLP app and PeoPay app, so that is internet and mobile banking. We are already at the stage where, where we feel comfortable because we're at the final stages of fine-tuning those two channels to make them work in an optimum manner. We have a very important functionality. The customer, in a dialogue with our consultant, be that in a branch or be that by telephone, may request some services and. When they click on this link, they can find out more information, be that a loan process or be that some service-related process. We have put in quite a lot of work and have been quite consistent in that.
We want to offer to customers whatever they need in mobile channels. That makes it easier for the customers because they do not have to do any research on our ecosystem. They get a link and can go straight to the information needed.
We have been transforming for our clients and the electronic channel, channels. We added a range of functionalities which we deliver to our clients. Please, let me emphasize something that we communicated a couple of quarters ago at a results conference. We are busy personalizing a PeoPay application to allow the clients to configure that application according to their needs, to make it as a pleasurable experience as possible. To allow them to use our application as frequently as possible. Quite recently, there was a talk about security and trust to the bank in the contact with consultants. We have implemented a service which allows the clients who are called by the consultants to confirm the consultant's identity, to give another extra feel of security for the clients.
The client would have a look at the mobile mobile application and give the authorization for the call to proceed to avoid scam and fraud in the contact with the bank. These are just two selected functionalities that we added to our contact channels. In a moment, I will continue to tell you what we did for the youngsters and kids, because here we follow the rule, the less, the better. Now, before we move to the next part of the story about the electronic channels for the youth and the kids, let me talk you through our mortgage loans and our Safe Loan 2% as part of the First Apartment program. We have embarked on this program with high intensity, and we have been providing service to our clients from the very beginning.
Clients who are, the clients who are interested in the 2% interest rate mortgage, we have accounted for 60% of this program being implemented. We have collected numerous applications, and the total amount is PLN 4 billion worth, in about PLN 5 billion worth in the mortgage loans. We have 490,000 such loans or such agreements signed. This confirms our involvement in the program. This translated to our mortgage credit action. We are gearing up for the revival of the mortgage loan market. This market is very important for us because we acquired young clients in this way, mainly. For a year or two, several quarters, we've been involved in the Pekao strategy for the young people.
This is how we acquire young people, who we take aboard of our banking services, and we start offering products that go well beyond the 2% interest rate mortgage loan, which attracted them to our bank, and they start their journey with our bank, Pekao SA. This is not only about mortgage loans. There is also an apartmental, first apartment, account that we offer to our clients, which is very important for us from the perspective of covering and working with young clients, gearing our banking offer towards young people. We are happy to see an increased, an increase in the population of our young clients. Let me go beyond the second quarter until end of July, we have opened 790 such accounts, which amount to more than PLN 1 billion.
Now, let me revisit the POP and our kids program. We have been present at the universities for many years, and in the past quarters, we started implementing the strategy for the younger customers. There is this logo, the program as well. You can see it on screen. We have established a brand new communication line to the kids under the banner of, If Not Now, Then When? When Else. We are also present in the social media, implementing a marketing campaign on that platform. We have also adjusted our application to the young clients. Also, that includes the youngest group, and here I'd like to revisit the idea of the less is better.
This is why we have removed many functionalities, making the application more streamlined, because youngsters do not need to, let's say, transfer money to ZUS and to various public authorities. It's not only about the streamlining of our application, but also we have dramatically reengineered the visuals of applications, which is now much different than the standard one. We have added many interesting functionalities, such as visuals related to gaming. Soon, we're going to launch things like piggy banks, where we want to encourage young people and kids to save money. We have about 1 million young children, and the increase rate is 10% per PA. We have attracted, we have 100,000 accounts for the young people, plus 11% year-on-year.
We have won the Golden Bank Award for the best account for children. Children are very important group for us. We are very happy that the strategy for the young people is not only available in PowerPoint, but it also works in the field, and I believe that we have achieved quite a good growth rate. In the retail sector, we are the bank which is present in the micro business area, which is actually about sole traders. We have a full scope of products for those clients. We focus on the segment that we have ruled before, but we have abandoned it for many reasons. I mean here, the farmers sector and agricultural producer sector. In August, we're going to make our credit offer more attractive.
We want to make available to farmers a loan up to PLN 400,000 to settle financial liabilities related to agricultural activity and purchase of selected materials and livestock, which is very important in our opinion, especially in the times where harvest is approaching, and harvest always combined with expenditures, and also farmers start to plan for the next season. This PLN 400,000 worth in loans will be encumbered with an interest well, of interest, the rest will be paid by the Agency for Restructuring and Modernization of Agriculture. We're going to be more active in the agricultural cycle.
That's it on my part, and now I give the floor to Leszek, and I am very happy to have told you a story about our activities in the retail sector and to speak on behalf of those six thousand people who work for my story to be told. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Thank you, Wojciech. One more slide which shows corporate segment. It signals our presence among major customers, issuance of an investment loan, PLN 8 billion, over PLN 8 billion, with Cyfrowy Polsat, Polski Światłowód Otwarty, Pepco Group, also our issuance, and also Polenergia and Herod. We are a very active bank, corporate leader, and that was recognized in the form of the award granted to us as the best bank in Poland in sustainable funding from Global Finance. That was a sign of recognition from Global Finance, and we are extremely satisfied that our position in this segment is noticed and appreciated. To sum up the strategy, the financial parameters that I mentioned at the beginning confirm that the ambitious goals identified in our strategy are being achieved.
ROE, cost-to-income ratio, and non-financial parameters regarding digital transformation, the number of active customers in mobile banking are, are close to our target levels. Digitization rate is also very important to us. It is should aim at 100%. ESG strategy is being implemented in terms of expanding our portfolios, green portfolios, that includes green bond issues. Payment of dividend in this horizon envisaged in our strategy, 50%-70%. Recently, the general shareholders' meeting resolved to pay the dividend for that at close to 75% for this year, and this confirms that, as always, we have been a dividend paying bank. That's why it's very important for us to stay our policy within the ranges, including the strategy.
Over to Paweł now.
Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon, also from me. Bank Pekao SA is extremely pleased to announce that in the stress tests conducted by the European Banking Authority, ranked in the first position among 70 banks that underwent the test. Probably you are all familiar with the stress test methodology. That is the difference between the CET1 ratio and compared between the base year and the test scenario. At this time, we looked at 2022 versus test scenario in 2025. We're one of two banks which in the stress test had no decrease in CET1. What is more, we had an improvement at 0.4 points.
The tests show that even in the stress test scenario, all capital ratios of Pekao SA remained above the ones set by the regulator and the target, capital parameters that we set for ourselves. I leave it up to you to analyze the details. In our assessment, the results are due to the confluence of two factors. On the one hand, we have favorable market conditions, which I think we are able to utilize to our benefit. On the other hand, I think this is also the effect of the policy pursued by the management of the bank, policy of prudent management of the bank. Our major asset are our customers, and the security of the deposits in our bank is our primary objective.
As I have already mentioned, this place, number one, in the results of stress testing, is something we consider as a major success. This is the effect of work of the entire bank. It is not just the management board, but a concerted effort of all employees. I would like to thank all our employees and congratulate them on this. Ernest, now. Then I will resume the financials.
Good afternoon. Probably in the second quarter, we reached the lowest point in the business cycle. Now we are in for a certain acceleration in the growth. Why have we reached this lowest point? Well, there were a few internal factors: weakness of the consumers, certain concerns that the consumers had in the winter season.
There was energy crisis, high inflation, increase in energy sources, increase in food prices, and so on. Then pickup was expected in spring, and we see the increasing intensity of the market, but there are some other difficulties. Our major business partner, Germany, is, for example, now facing major problems with the business cycle, some of these are structural nature, that is mainly in industry, and I think we will revisit this topic over and over again. Now, if we consider where Polish economy is going to find itself in the upcoming quarters, we will we expect to see a certain revival of the market, but we expect the economy not to grow that dynamically as in the past.
If we look at imbalances, these were internal imbalances, demand pressure, certain overheating of our economy, again, that was something that happened in other economies. Now we can even call it a desirable phenomenon. Our forecasts for the upcoming weeks are lower than those of our colleagues and competitors, and this is also in the context of inflation. For some time now, we have been talking about de-inflation, and I think we were right, because if you look at the numbers and the graphs, you see this deep inflation. This is what is happening in the market. The market expects a 300 basis point decrease. The reductions in interest rates are expected to start in autumn.
There seems to be a certain agreement concerning the mechanism underlying the decreases. Strengthening of the Polish zloty might be an element which contributes to the general picture of the inflation and weaker economic growth. All those things start balancing off. We have interest rates that are calculated by ex ante method already negative, and they will lead to cooling down of the business cycle if we want to have growth in future quarters. That is our macroeconomic scenario, and I think this is also a scenario which will start being reflected in valuations of the bank and in the forecast for the bank. We know that there is a certain delay in those things being reflected in analyses.
Reduction of interest rates is probably something very most, very important.
Ladies and gentlemen, the result of the second quarter is about PLN 1.7 million net, and the drivers are the same. Interest-related, non-interest related income. We have, however, noticed two additional drivers that were negative in the previous periods, the second quarter being an exception here. We have increased the provision for the foreign currency mortgage loans, and the current recalculation led to the spending of the reserve at PLN 277 million. Now, the coverage of the CHF portfolio by the reserve is very close to 100%. Only 0.2 percentage points were missing, so we have covered this 100%.
Let me tell you also that PKP, as I was, the only bank or one of the few that have not make use of the capital, so the Court of Justice verdicts did not, did not lead to increase in the provisions, as we have built our provisions at the level of 80% of our loan portfolio. This was a very high level at that time, which have not been seen in the market elsewhere or anywhere. Now, our competitors are slowly reaching this level that we used to deem the most realistic one. The second thing is payment moratoria in 2023. This moratorium draws to an end. It makes it for us much easier to, you know, reevaluate the provision, and after the second quarter, we will have dissolved the reserve at PLN 80 million.
What led to those PLN 80 million dissolution is the update of the participation coefficient from 85% that we assumed originally, we've been going down as the payment moratoria claims were coming. Now the participation level is a little bit above the assumed level, namely 70%+. Here's where we do not expect any significant changes in the future going forward. The graphs that you are very familiar with, a comparison of the net profit over, which over double, which more than doubles compared to the first half of the last year, quarter to quarter, saw a 17% growth and more than 262% between the quarters, the second quarters of 2022 and 2023. Almost 30% higher return on profit and operation expenses, 20% higher with similar growth rate.
Operating profit, operating expenses went up by 12.5% cumulatively. They're very much correlated with inflation rate, I will talk you through this in more detail in a moment. The net interest income went up by more than 20% with a smaller growth rate vis-à-vis the previous years. Net interest margin, also at a very high level as well, more than 400 points. The Q&A session, you are apt to tell, to ask me those, those questions, indeed, we are expecting the net interest margin going down. We don't know, though, to what level. The net interest margin that we saw in the reporting period, we deem this to have peaked, we expect it to go down.
It stayed at the unchanged level a couple of times, so it is independent on our activities, on our actions, and the behaviors of our clients impact it very heftily. It is up to our clients solely how they go about their deposits. Do they change in products with interest rates or without? These are the individual decisions of our clients, and these decisions are reflected in the net interest margin. Expectations on the decline or the net interest margin have not changed, and I still maintain that we're going to see the decline of it going forward as it is due, sorry, it is combined with the planned reductions of the interest rate, although, what I would say, out of sync with other changes. Now, the retail loan volume, compared to the previous year, went down by more than 6%.
This drop rate results from the decrease in the mortgage loans. Cash loan volume stayed very similar to the previous year. Corporate loan volumes maintained, we maintained at the same level, at about PLN 100 million. Our deposits in the retail sector went up by 16% and 4% in the corporate segment. The result of the growth in deposits and the credit portfolio is something that you can see when you analyze our liquidity, which is record high, one of the highest readings, more than PLN 76 billion. The results that we are showing indicate that the cost of that liquidity is not out of sync, that we can manage this liquidity at a cost optimized in a cost-optimized way.
We have met fee and commission income at a very similar level as last year. The drivers behind those, slow reduction by PLN 22 million, indeed, due to the reduction in fees for accounts and smaller margin on foreign currency operations, but we see the managing fees for assets management and brokerage services going up, which we have been showing as reductions or declines over the past quarter, several quarters. Now, the operating costs are very much correlated with inflation, with +12.5% year-on-year, with the two main drivers being the maintenance of our properties, such as energy costs. Another driver, if we speak about assets, there are, or property, there are many, let's say, cost factors that go up when the minimum wage goes up as well.
The other driver are the personal costs. Here we have two very important factors. One, in the second quarter, we signed a deal with the majority of the trade unions concerning the pay rises in 2023. These pay rises have been implemented. There is also a second factor to that. We have implemented a new bonus system, incentive system, for our sales force. This new incentive and bonus system for our sales force, at the journalist conference, I said that this is what we see as a classic investment into our sales network, and the growth rates that Wojciech covered before, especially in terms of express loans and also mortgage loans, demonstrate that the system has been working very well.
We see the growth, growth in the products where we have not been leading or vice leading the charts, but still we can see high growth rates, and this is a proof for us that the new incentive system works very well.
Leaving aside the quite natural fact that the benefits of this system cover much greater portion of our employees than the number of employees included in the old bonus system. Capital ratios all at very safe levels, both above the regulatory requirements and above the criteria necessary for dividend payment. The dividend payment at 75% of profit from the previous year, in accordance with the resolution of the general shareholders meeting, did not cause any fluctuations in these numbers. Another topic related to this, our issue of bonds related to the fulfillment of MREL requirements. We are after two such issues, and the bids that we received were very attractive in terms of pricing.
We, as the management board, can say with full responsibility that by the end of the year, as regards fulfillment of MREL requirements, can feel comfortable. We do not feel hostages of the market. We know that we are forced to have another emission, another issue. We do not exclude the possibility of PLN or euro issues later this year, but such decisions will be made above all, based on market conditions. In our assessment, MREL requirements are fulfilled, so we do not feel any pressure that would force us to issue additional bonds in the future. I think our shareholders will also appreciate this, because that will be seen in results of future periods. We do not change the planned levels of MREL issuances. I have also talked about that before.
Those MREL issuances are not intended only to meet the requirement levels. We want to treat them as a buffer for future funding in credit products. Cost of risks at a very satisfactory level, both in terms of the cost itself and the NPL ratio, as well as NPL coverage ratio. These are very stable parameters in our banks. Once again, I'm able to say that we can expect a moderate growth in the cost of risk in the upcoming quarters, but we do not see any risk of this cost exceeding the range that we included in the strategy, that is between 50% and 60%. I also think that the cost of risk that we present to you every quarter with a very similar justification is something obvious to you. You are familiar with our credit policy.
You know that Bank Pekao tends not to engage in very risky projects. We are not looking at any extraordinary profits, and we tend to weigh up the pros and cons. We look at potential profits weighed up against the risks. A very brief summary now. Sales results at very good level. Our participation in this safe loan program, First Apartment Program, in our assessment, will build a customer base for the future. This is, again, something we have managed that we expect to be one of the drivers of our strategy completion. A high rate of growth in digital channels, which is, again, a very important parameter in our strategy.
Cost of risk at a low level and maintained at this low level, kept under control, and our first place in EBA tests, stress tests. We are the most resilient bank, the most resilient to negative scenarios throughout Europe. Thank you very much.
We can move on to our Q&A session. Those who are here in the room are invited to ask questions now. I have also a long list of questions asked online. Andrzej?
I will start with the online questions. There are a few questions regarding interest rate margin. We benefit from the reaction of our customers. We have quite significant income from interest.
When interest rates were growing, our sensitivity to 100%-- 100 basis points change in interest rates was about 30-35 basis points change in the margin. If the rates go down, probably the best dev-- the best tracking of the developments will be by following our quarterly reports. Last quarter, we presented our information slightly later, because here, the repricing was slower than our securities portfolio. But this process is rapid. The cost of is low. The entire aggregated cost of that is at almost 2%. So the decisions of customers that Paweł referred to is still something that will happen in the future.
There was a question about the plans for mobile and online development for corporate customers. Internet and mobile for corporate customers.
Okay. Generally, in this area of corporate banking, what we are doing right now is based on two things. It is a strength of our bank to have very good relations. Obviously, there are some changes in the nature of our relationship between the company and the bank, and we tend to be very cautious about migrating customers or centralizing them very quickly. We see a lot of interest, and we can see that in the growing volumes and in migration of new customers. A good relationship in small and medium enterprises. Here, we see very good service provided to the clients by our representatives.
We have to remember that those SME companies are not only those located in Warsaw. We are aware that we invest in self-service solutions, that is, we add an additional layer to this flexibility by expanding the range of services customers can expect. On the one hand, we have consultants who work on this relationship level, and then we have self-service. Some procedures can be completed by our customers, and those more painstaking are handled by our consultants.
We have a question related to our expectations to the potential payment moratoria for mortgage loans expansion. Paweł said, this is about what the market has been hearing. A potential decision can be made that these moratoria will be extended by 6 months, and they would include income more income criteria. What is important is not only the share of our clients, but also how much of the moratorium, or saved settlements by the moratorium are put aside to repay the loans later. Cost-related question, why the costs went up so vehemently in the 2Q compared with Q1, and what you expect in terms of operating costs with regard to this inflation?
As I said before, we've been seeing very strong correlation of the growth rate of our operating cost, costs with inflation. I cover the reasons for the increase in personal cost quite widely. These include the drivers include the new deal with our trade unions and the new incentive system. These costs, in our opinion, will have a growth rate strictly correlated with inflation. Naturally, we expect the decrease in the operating cost in step with inflation. When it comes to personal costs, one of the items that we negotiated about with the social parties is the inflationary parameter as read at the end of the previous year.
It is the first parameter that we negotiate about, when we try to determine the coefficient for the pay rises, and the second parameter is what we can read in, our internal regulations, namely the inflation pre-program in the state budget. Those two give us a certain leeway, a room for negotiations. Between, between these boundaries is that we conduct negotiations. Of the growth rate of operation costs correlated with inflation will stay at the same level, so or the same strength, so as the inflation goes down, our operating costs will also decrease.
Another question is about dividend for this year. Well, this may be a premature question as of August, but can we expect a similar, similarly high dividend, as the previous year, with the, income or profits, have gone down, very significantly?
The board determined the dividend at between 70% and 75%, so there are no signs for this policy to change. What the future brings us, we have wait and see, but our objective as the management is to keep our bank as a dividend-yielding bank and to disperse the dividends every year to our shareholders. Let me also point out that of the board's, sorry, the management's proposal, proposals have been endorsed by our shareholders, as happened last year. Before the general meeting, one of the shareholders put forward a claim to increase the dividend. We have analyzed it and concluded that paying out a dividend of 75% would not endanger the stability of the bank. Please also note that there is a temporal shift.
Once we decided to pay out 50% dividend, we were before the first issuance, and the macroeconomic parameters or situation was different. This time shift in paying out the dividend led us to a change of opinion about the bank, bank's ability to pay out 75%. As management, we have given out our second endorsement to, of this claim, this request. A mortgage bank question, which saw another, yet another loss. Are there any activities in the pipeline to restructure this business unit? In general terms, the main problem of the mortgage bank is that it has CHFs, so Swiss francs, and sometimes regulatory activities affect us, such as payment moratorium. One of the solutions that is still on the table is to remove the Swiss franc portfolio away from the mortgage bank.
As soon as this, and all such type of event happens, such as payment moratorium, a mortgage bank would eventually encounter liquidity problem. We can dissolve most of the mortgage settlements, but not all of them.
Another question, are we interested in the VeloBank or the retail unit of the Crédit Agricole Bank Polska, or are they too small for us?
I kept saying that organic growth in our strategy is what we hold most dear and closest to our hearts. We have a project of taking over Idea Bank, that proved our competencies in M&A projects, but as so far, we have seen no reasons to do such things, and we've been growing organic way, which is our preference. We've been praised for our phenomenal 60% market share in the apartment credit program.
What is the reason for such a great result, especially in the view of other banks opening the, the retail sections also in Saturdays?
We are very happy with our share in the market, which we expect to be about 60%. What happened and what caused our success? We entered, we embarked on the program in a great moment in time. We observed an expectation mounting vis-a-vis this program. Since we were prepared on time, the clients who are waiting for their applications to be accepted, sent those applications out. We have been in touch with our brokers, and we've been training them. We've also communicated the, actually, the foundations of the program before it arrived. Training content that we passed on our brokers was right on time.
We've been waiting for one missing key indicator that have been announced on Sunday. That announcement triggered the avalanche of those claims. We saw a 40% share in MdM. We decided that we are absolutely capable of dealing with the matter. As Leszek said, we kind of are able to handle this PLN 4 billion, and most of the mortgage applications are those that relate to the program. Being asked if we can handle those, we can say that we've been selling PLN 10 billion worth in mortgage loans PA. Now we devoted a large chunk of our capabilities to actually handle the backlog and processing those requests, and the number of this signed deals is a proof of that.
When it comes to our perspective, when I look at the stock of those requests, PLN 4.8 billion worth, I'm going beyond the second quarter now. If I analyze all the conversion rates which relate to the percentage of the deals, I believe that we are able to sell 5,000 such loans in our program.
I think that now we are at the apogee of this program, then the number of applications filed will decrease. Let me just remind you that this program is going to continue not only this year, but also next year. We want to remain an active player in the entire program, and I expect the scale of interest in it will decrease over time. Now, we are satisfied with this stream of customers that is flowing into the bank, and we are taking care of them with great intensity. There is also the question whether we see any risk related to exposure to leasing receivables from Idea Bank. No, that is transferred to Belgium, so we do not see any risk here.
One more question to Ernest about IT.
What is the area of our greatest interest in terms of investment of our IT in transformation projects? What is the most important thing for us at the moment?
As regards transformation projects, I believe that, for example, this youth program is a transformation project very high on our agenda. Another transformation project is the mortgage process. We want to streamline the mortgage granting procedure. We automate loan procedures. We have a few automated processes that are related to loan granting. As a product that is developed in this product mode, we can mention state-of-the-art technology. That is the technology that is the definitely the most developed in the market. We are not talking about what customers see.
Customers see similar things in different banks, but what happens on the side of the bank, the, this internal arrangement of individual elements probably is the best here. AI, and it is not just an empty slogan. We are looking at AI differently from the perspective that the banks had at big data. We look at use cases. We want to have implementations as soon as possible, and we have a few principles that we are following. It's a pity that Błażej is not with us, but for example, cloud, using a cloud. Our bank has certain strengths. This discussion has been going on for years. Is a bank an IT company or not?
Well, a bank is basically a company that grants loans, takes care of relations, looks after customers' data, but there are some activities that are done better by purely IT companies. We want to use those IT technologies effectively and wisely. Leszek, would you like to add anything to this?
In general, we can say that we have this bottom-up approach. Wojciech might give you more details because this is his area of specialization. We have managed to bridge some gaps that we had. We want to accelerate our process. We want to sell loans faster, where it is important to improve some steps. Then once we sell loans, it becomes important to use the data with increasing efficiency.
The bank must be a place where data are used to earn income. CRM is important to us. That is a very important project run by Wojciech, which is very promising. That is not a project that is closed yet. It is still developing. Yes, I think we... We have provided a big part of answers to this question. We, as the bank, stated in our strategy, said that we would revolutionize CRM. We are now at 60% advancement of this. We are now using state-of-the-art analytical CRM.
Very soon, we will go to operational CRM, and strategically speaking, that is one of those elements that we treat as important strategic projects that are already bringing benefits, and in the future, those benefits will even increase.
Andrzej Powierża, Brokerage House of Bank Handlowy. I have two questions, and the first one, I would like to come back to the topic of dividend. I understand that this year, the uncertainty around MREL spoke in favor of a more prudent approach to management board recommendations.
Looking forward, next year, taking into account the significant surplus of capital, stability, and your good results and stress that's showing that your capital standing is sustainable, what could be the factors against offering dividend at the upper range of your scale that is close to 75%?
I think that we should not forget one very important element. It seems that next year, major infrastructural investment projects will start in Poland, and I mean development of offshore wind farms and maybe some nuclear projects, possibly minor ones. There is some media coverage on those topics, and in fact, there is more media coverage than specifics.
According to my knowledge, next year, some of those things might start, and this is one of the parameters which we will take into consideration while recommending the level of dividend for 2023 to be paid in 2024. I agree that, unless, negative events occur, and if the bank has the appropriate surplus of capital for its credit action, there should be no obstacles at all. That is, as things stand now, but we still have a few months ahead before we make this recommendation, and those months are going to be very interesting to all of us. Let's treat this as a rather theoretical, academic discussion, and next year, hopefully, we will be able to talk about more specific things.
The second question: sometime, Puls Biznesu, so reported that another major bank was asked by the Ministry of State Assets to employ over 100 people. Have you also been requested by the Ministry of State Assets or some other entity? A more general question about changes, in your headcount, do you have any changes there or not?
We have not seen such things like you saw, like you said. The churn rate is quite natural, which results from various transfers, and people who come in and go out. This is due to the fact that remunerations in our bank are slightly above the average in the banking sector. This is why we successfully employ people coming from other banks. Of course, we don't see any reason for the Ministry of State Assets to approach us with their request, and the recruitment process that naturally continue, include mainly the competencies and experience in the bank sector, which we prefer to actually use the most of the talents in people.
Let me also comment on that, you know, our financial department directors, and you might have seen that these faces remain the same for many years.
The management change, but the most important directors, who basically vouch for the stability of the bank, remain the same for the wholly two or five years, but these are people who, who, have been in the bank for more than 10 years. On the one hand, we have our statements and declarations, but on the other hand, you can clearly see a sample of the personnel, which has not changed for many, many years. These are the directors who, who are evaluated very highly, in high esteem by, and held in high esteem by subsequent management boards. We have no reason to change something that works better, and sometimes the new things are the enemy of, of the, the word better is the enemy of the good. Our colleague is here, an example of the transfer from another bank.
Any further questions?
If not, well, excuse me. Let me pass on one piece of information that I need to drill down concerning the Swiss francs provision. This quarter, I thought we have dissolved this reserve. My memory sent me served me ill. We had an extra PLN 400 million, which amounted to PLN 400 million in the provisions. Those PLN 270 million look well, but unfortunately, my memory served me ill. We saw not a dissolution of the provision, but an increase in the provision. Thank you for those numerous questions. I will revert, revisit those technical, smaller questions later. We are going to report the results for Q3 early in November. Thank you very much for being with us, for the participations. Goodbye.