Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, S.A. (BBVA) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon. Welcome back. One of the things that makes our conference so interesting is we got so many nice stories within European banks, so many interesting projects. One of them is of course, BBVA. We're humbled and privileged to have Onur Genc. Onur, thank you very much for taking the time to join us today. I know you really wanted to be here. So particularly happy that you've been able to do so. Thanks.

Thank you to you.

As always, we'll go through some questions, and we'll try to leave enough time for the audience to ask some questions as well. And I think Onur, if you agree, maybe we can start with a bit of a big picture question. Of course, one of the key debates around European banks is the multiples at which they continue to trade on. And these multiples suggest the market is still questioning the sustainability of the earnings. You posted a 20% return on tangible equity in the first half of this year, and you anticipated this metric to remain in the high teens for the full year. Maybe we can start with your views on the outlook for the group and also on those points of strength that in Europe and the market might still be dismissing.

The market doesn't miss anything. I also complained about this from time to time in the quarterly calls, but the market is the market. It's only a matter of time. So I don't think they are missing anything. But I mean, the bank is doing really well, as you said, 20% return on tangible equity. We have this wonderful matrix that we sometimes put into our quarterly presentations as well, Y-axis being the growth and X-axis being the profitability, which is measured by in that case, ROE, return on tangible equity or return on equity. And then the growth, growth in the lending book and so on. In those 2 metrics -- and we have a very competitive focused bank, very competitive focus as compared to the 15 largest European banks out there. We are #1 in growth. Our lending book has grown in current euros, 6.3% as of June, 6.3%. When the average of these 14 banks besides BBVA is basically very little but negative. So the sector is not growing, we are growing 6%. And on the X-axis profitability, as you said, we are 20% on return on tangible equity. On return on equity, we also became #1 in this group of 15 in terms of profitability. So on this wonderful map of profitability and growth, doing really well. I mentioned profitability and return on equity, return on tangible equity, there is 1 metric for a bank like us. It is very important to also look into tangible book value growth because we do have banks in different emerging economies, what happens to the currency, what happens to the mark-to-market of our securities book is important. So we also put a lot of focus on tangible book value growth. And 20% growth there as well, which is again a unique number. So despite this, as you said, what is the market not getting? Or what are they missing? As I said, it's not missing, but maybe it takes time. Maybe the structural drivers behind this that makes us optimistic also going forward. I will say only 2 things. There are multiple things, but 2 very important topics. Number one, to start with, the franchises that we have in different parts of the world are unique franchises. And I'm not subjective on this, I'm a very numbers oriented person. When you look into the, again, return on equity of our bank in a respective country and compare that with the average ROE of the sector, we have a very meaningful, very positive gap. And we are doing this. We have been doing this consistently for many years. So we do have this unique franchises. And on that one, why is that the case? In our view, scale matters. So we are always double-digit market share, #1, #2, maybe #3, but always #1, #2, #3, #3 and #6, #1 and #4, it makes a difference in banking, in our view, because scale gives you that additional competitive advantage. So one of the things, maybe the market might be, again, not capturing at the moment is the fact that we do have these unique franchises. It's very important in our view. And then the second topic is digitalization. We put a lot of focus on to this much earlier than others. We put much more money into this. And there are different phases of digitalization. The only thing I would tell you is that in new customer acquisition, 67% of the new customers that we acquired to BBVA, they are coming from digital, end to end digital. They become customers, they become customers without going to a branch, without calling anyone, end-to-end digital. This is also, in my view, very important. We have been acquiring a lot of new clients in the past few years. And going forward, those clients will be generating revenues that will bring the sustainability. To cut the long story short, we are doing well. In our conviction, we will continue to do well. The market might not be capturing this at the moment, a 20% return on tangible equity bank in the U.S. I mean, oh my God, the premiums that they have. I'm like, what are we missing? Maybe we are missing to explain this properly. But our job is not to complain. I mean, my team always tells me also, how come this is the case? It's fine. Our job is to deliver. Because if we deliver, earnings per share will be very high. Dividends per share will be very high, independent of the valuation. We don't control the valuation, but we control the delivery, and we control the cash flow back to the shareholders. And on that one, we will continue to deliver. I'm very confident.

Well, Europe has been a show-me story for some time. I've got to say. Well, one of your own disputed franchises that you've talked about is, of course, of high quality is Mexico and that accounts for about 60% of your profits. Now how do you see the outlook and the key moving parts affecting your business in the country from here?

Well, there is short-term volatility. I mean this happens all the time. It's not new, but after every single election, in every single part of the geographies that we are present in, especially if there is kind of a relative surprise and in this case, there was a surprise in terms of the majority of the super majority of the government and so on, some volatility kicks in, in all the markets, we see that. And we have seen that in Mexico 6 years ago. It's -- the short-term volatility is there in terms of the Mexican peso, in terms of the curve and so on. But in these stages and in other environments, I came out and I was very positive on Mexico, and I will continue to be. I will continue -- because I'm, again, a bit of a numbers-oriented person. We are very positive on Mexico for a few very structural reasons for the long term. Again, there are so many of them, but I will count only a few. One is the structural cost advantage of Mexico and its proximity to the U.S. and nobody knows this, but the manufacturing cost in Mexico versus U.S., it changes by sector and how skilled the labor requirement is for that specific industry. It is 1/5 to 1/10. So if you have EUR 100 million, Antonio, EUR 100 million manufacturing cost as a manufacturer in the U.S., if you move to Mexico, you can take that EUR 100 million to EUR 10 million to EUR 20 million. It's amazing. The cost, the capital flows where there is a structural advantage. And this structural cost advantage of Mexico is immense. And again, nobody knows this, but with these numbers, Mexico is now the lower cost manufacturer than China. It has better numbers than China. You cannot deny this. Capital will flow. That's why last year, Mexico after so many decades have passed first Canada, then China to become the #1 exporter to the U.S. You just cannot deny this. That's one structural factor. The second very important structural factor, in our view, is the leverage in the country. And we talk about it from time to time as well in the quarterly calls. But given the 80s, 90s, the Tequila crisis, then there were multiple of them, you might remember. The banking debt over GDP is 35% in Mexico, 35%. In Brazil, it's 70%. In Chile, it's 110%. In developed economies, it's more than 200%. In other emerging economies, Colombia, Peru, wherever we are also, it is lower than any of those geographies. It is one of the lowest in the emerging markets landscape, which tells you that you can have leverage, you can have more debt in the country without creating too much cost of risk. In that context, they are saying now the country -- the growth of Mexico is going to come down and might be and hopefully not because we also do think that this new government, the new President, will continue to -- I mean, she's just recently elected. When you look into her 100 -- she has a manifesto or what she wants to do. And she has clear speeches after what she wants to do. We listened to her. She says private investment, growth of Mexico, near-shoring, all the things that she needs to say is coming out. If that government -- and she has a very good track record because she was the Governor of Mexico City before. When you combine that governance, even a certain percentage of that is being realized, combining that with the structural factors that we just talked about, we are positive on Mexico. And I mean, in the last few months, there is a lot of volatility. But we are doing really well. We are very happy on what we are seeing in Mexico in our business. So we are positive, and we will continue to be unless those structural drivers get shifted away.

No. No, it's interesting because, of course, the market shift in sentiment has been quite remarkable since the election, so.

It's always the case. After the election, then there will be U.S. elections, I'm sure there will be impact. But the structural underlying the drivers are more important than that in my view.

Indeed. Now earlier, you've talked about one of your points of strength being, of course, early on in the digital infrastructure, which, of course, you don't build overnight. And I wonder sticking to Mexico, how has competition changed here? And how does your lead market position compared to other online and digital offerings, which we've seen pick up at least in LatAm from banks and fintechs?

So the digital attackers that we see in Mexico. You see them in Mexico and other Latin American countries as well. And also in Europe, I mean we do see the digital attackers everywhere. And actually, we are doing ourselves digital attacker in Italy. And now we're going to take it to Germany and so on. So -- but going back to Mexico, specifically on Mexico, they are very credible players in general. We respect, every single competitor we respect, but we also respect them as a competitor. But we are very confident that we will continue to super deliver in Mexico for a few reasons. There are certain things that, in my view, that are hard to replicate for others that we have built over years in Mexico as BBVA, which is not easy to match. And again, I would count a few little things there, but infrastructure, we have 15,000 ATMs in Mexico. Those digital attackers, they can use them, obviously, but their customers have to pay, for example. That infrastructure buildup, it's not day and night. It takes time. It takes effort and so on. We have 1,700 branches and Mexico is still a cash economy, but infrastructure. But more important than that, because infrastructure, again, overtime can be built. The second topic that I would really put on the table regarding our franchise in Mexico is transactionality, which is something that we pay a lot of attention in BBVA because transactionality, being in the cash flow of your clients, that's banking. Giving a loan, no, no, you have to be in the cash flow. Because if you're in the cash flow, that customer is really working with you. Attrition comes down, the data capability of BBVA to help that client goes up, transactionality. We have 32% market share in credit cards. We have 38% market share in POS machines acquiring. We have 42% market share in payroll. Can you imagine 42% of the money that employers, public-private, the salaries that they pay, it goes through BBVA. It goes through BBVA. You are in the cash flow. This transactionality is not easy to match in the very, very short term, not easy to match. And then what I would say also is that the things that they cannot match, the things that they have, I do think we can match in price, which is an intention, we can also match that. But in price, maybe we don't choose to. But in many others, we can match that. And we do think we are the largest fintech in Mexico. We acquired on average in the last few years, every year, 5 million new customers in Mexico, 5 million, that's 67% I quoted for group in Mexico, it's higher, 85%. All that 5 million was acquired as a client through digital, which is what the fintechs do, which is what the digital banks do. Acquiring 5 million, 85% digitally, having an NPS customer satisfaction of more than 70%. So ultimate customer satisfaction. We don't see that in any part of our -- even within BBVA, it doesn't exist. It's just an amazing asset that we have in Mexico. So we respect them all, but we will compete. We are ready to compete. And the customer will decide at the end, the customer will decide.

And it's a scale business, as you mentioned. And talking about scale, maybe we should move on to talk about Spain and pursuit for additional scale with the bid for Sabadell. Let's take the opportunity to go through the strategic rationale of the deal and why you think it can be a win-win for both your shareholders and Sabadell shareholders.

We discussed this multiple times in different calls and interactions and so on, but for some of you who might not have been there, this is a very straightforward tax book. This is the kind of deal that everyone should do kind of a transaction, at least in my personal view. Why? Because our business is becoming every single day more and more and more of a scale business. And this is not like a general conception that like it's a subjective missing. It's founded based on numbers. When you look into the cost structure of our bank, it is changing. How that cost is evolving is very important, and I would encourage everyone to look into that. The cost of that -- it's a transformation, actually. In the old days, 60% of the costs of a retail bank was branches and the people in the branches. It was variable distribution. If you wanted to grow, you opened new branches, you put new people into those branches and so on. That's how you grew. That 60% is coming down. Now it's 45%. What is going up? Technology. Technology. Because the interface with the customer is moving to these digital channels, technology. It's now 26% for us. 26% of our costs are technology. It used to be 25 years ago. Every single day, it's going up. In Spain, it's 30%, 30%. So it's technology. And a big part of this is what we call software development, which is a fixed cost. I keep giving the same example because it's very simple in my view, if you have 100 customers or 1,000 customers, you develop the same feature for your mobile app, the same cost. But if you have 100 customers versus 100, if you have 1,000, you can distribute this cost to a larger revenue base because we have more customers. That's why you need to have scale. So strategically, it makes a lot of sense because scale is the name of game. And looking forward, I mean, cybersecurity, DORA, do you know this new regulation on the resiliency of the banking system and all the technological infrastructure? You have blockchain and this and data and AI. It's becoming more and more and more fixed cost business. That's why you need scale. So strategically, it makes very much sense because we are becoming a scale business. And also in this specific case, in Spain, we are very good in retail. We are very good in companies, midsized and large big ticket, grandes corporaciones, as we call them, big corporates. And they are very good in PMS. They also have an amazing franchise. We respect them so much as a competitor. So it's a good complementarity. So you put things together to grow even better. Given this, it makes a lot of strategic sense. Given the strategic sense, it makes a lot of financial sense. Because if you have -- again, the scale topic is an important topic, then you come up with a lot of synergies out of this. The largest IT vendor spenders in Spain, IT vendors who help us to develop applications and so on, our name is at the top. Guess who else is in that same list? Because we have 2 different systems serving the same market. We have 2 different brands serving the same market. So there are a lot of synergies also in this transaction. A lot of synergies. We calculated as EUR 850 million per year, EUR 850 million per year. When the profit of Sabadell last year was EUR 1.3 billion. It's not a small amount, the amount of synergies that we are putting in. So it makes sense strategically, financially. Given this, is it a win-win or how do we measure the win-win? It's a win for our shareholders because we do think it's a good return on capital. Then we look into the incremental capital that we will deploy into this transaction. It gives us a very good return compared to better -- the other alternatives. Capital is a scarce resource for BBVA. We have to optimize the use. It's a good return for our shareholders. And for their shareholders or Sabadell's shareholders, it's even a better deal. It's a wonderful deal. It's extraordinarily priced in my view. Again, let's look into the numbers. Based on the undisturbed price, 30% premium. Based on the 3-month average price before that, 50% premium. When you take this 30% and 50% and you put them in a table of other transactions, similar transactions in Europe and beyond, it's a wonderful premium and an extraordinary premium. More importantly, the -- again, we should look into delivery and cash flow, cash flow. The shareholder looks toward the cash flow. They -- he or she puts their capital once the cash flow back. The consensus figures, our numbers are even better, but forget our numbers, what the market, you and your colleagues are saying how much earnings Sabadell will have stand-alone and BBVA will have stand-alone independent consensus figures. When you take that, given those premiums, we are giving 16% of BBVA to the shareholders of Sabadell. So when you look into the EPS, earnings per share based on consensus, it goes up 27% for a Sabadell shareholder. So there will be more earnings for the Sabadell shareholder. If there are more earnings, there are more cash flow -- more dividends, more cash flow to the Sabadell shareholders. We do think it's extraordinarily attractive for Sabadell. We do think it's a good deal for our shareholders. We do think it makes sense if we just cannot get these deals done in Europe, I don't know what we are talking about. So it makes sense.

Very clear. And maybe sticking to the offer, there's been considerable noise or discussion about the process, mainly regarding the Spanish CNMC, the competition authority, in terms of approval and the timing of the transaction. I think it would be very helpful if you could update us on where the process is and the next steps and the expected time line.

The process is actually relatively straightforward. There are 3 macro, as we call them, stages, three. The first stage is what we call authorization stage, is authorization from a lot of different institutions, more than 20 actually. The second stage is what we call the tender stage, which is the Sabadell shareholders will be asked and they will decide or not to tender their shares and the stage. The third stage is what we call the merger stage after that process of tender. If more than 50% of Sabadell shareholders say, yes, then we merge the 2 banks. The third stage is the merger stage. We are in the first stage. We are in the authorization stage. As we have originally said that it will take 5 to 6 months. We are still there. We basically have received practically all the authorizations. The key 2 ones or the key 1 missing at the moment is the competition authority, competition authority. So we are in that first stage of authorizations. Once we receive the CNMC approval as well, then CNME, the markets authority in Spain, will be then opening up and creating the process and we'll be managing the process for the tender stage. So we are in this critical stage of competition board based on what we originally said, the process will be. So it's completely moving according to the plan that we outlined 4 months ago, 5 months ago. Might be helpful for everyone to understand because there are many things being written on these topics. To understand -- to respond to 2 questions. The government involvement in our base case scenario, the government involvement is in the third stage, not in the authorization, not in the tender, but in the third merger stage, the government can choose to say no to the merger. In that scenario, BBVA, having more than 50% of Sabadell. We cannot merge, but we can keep it as a separate entity controlled, managed by BBVA. And we do think it's a very unlikely scenario that the government says no to this because at that point, everyone else would have said yes, we would put a clear technical assessment on the table. And those technical assessments, in our view, would help the situation. And as we said many times before, we are very much open, very much open to work with the government to alleviate any concerns that they might have. We have done it multiple times in the past on different topics. If we can find out those key concern areas, we are ready to, again, alleviate those concerns. But that's the government involvement, which comes at the third stage. Where we are today, again, is in the authorization stage. And we are with the competition authority, CNMC, is now continuing on its deliberations on the topic. On that one, I should say, very clearly because it's also something being written very, very extensively, especially in the Spanish media. We clearly -- our clear conviction on this is that there is no competition issue at all. For 2 -- again, there are many, many, many technical details here. But we have been studying this obviously before and during and after, and we don't see any competition issue at all. Obviously, there is an independent institution and the institutional strength in Spain, in our view, is very high. Spain has very good institutions. And for sure, CNMC is 1 of them, as has been proven in the past. But again, from outside in, our analysis tells us for 2 -- again, there are technical details, but 2 straightforward relatively clear reasons that CNMC would also see no competition issue in this. And those 2 reasons are, number one, not too long ago, you might remember this 3 years ago, there was a merger in Spain, Caixa-Bankia. And in that merger, the product -- the yielding entity, the final entity was much larger than what this new merger, BBVA-Sabadell, is contemplating. Much larger, much larger. And then I see, again, in the Spanish press, different segments in a different region, and so on. I can tell you that in this precedent of Caixa-Bankia, whatever metric that you look into, that resulting entity was much larger than the resulting entity of this transaction. So there is a clear precedent on the table, very clear precedent on the table. And again, this has been analyzed and CNMC has been saying that they will apply the same methodology. If same methodology is being used, what we are seeing is the precedent, which was yielding whatever dimension that you pick, a larger entity, that should not be an issue on this one as well. The second topic on this one is that in the EU, European Union guidances and regulations, there are certain triggers that when you pull them, it triggers further review and so on. And those triggers are basically 2. When the resulting entity passes 25% market share in deposits, in credits, in branches, in whatever you pick, we don't pass 25% in this transaction. Or the added market share as they call it, is more than 10%. In the combination, the one that's coming new, if it's more than 10%, again, the trigger is pulled. And in this case, again, the added market share is not larger than 10% -- by the way, in the precedent, in Caixa-Bankia, those triggers were pulled. Those triggers were pulled in that scenario. So if you have a clear precedent, if we are not pulling any of the triggers and then there are so many other technical analysis that our teams and our advisers have been doing, we don't see a competition issue. Related to this as a process, there is also a lot of discussion, which is something called Phase 1 and Phase 2. If CNMC sees no competition issue, they approve it in Phase 1. If they see a competition issue, not because it's complicated, if they see a competition issue, there is also an additional time line, which we call Phase 2. Our clear conviction once again is that there is no competition problems in this case, some of the reasons that I explained, but more than that as well. And our clear conviction is that it should be approved in Phase 1. And Phase 1 typically takes 5 to 6 months, which is the original time line that we shared with the market. I said many things about this, but this process is important for everyone to understand. Basically, we are in the authorization stage. We are at the stage of CNMC. And in the CNMC process, I'm repeating it for the third time, but our clear conviction is that there is no competition issue, and it should be approved, in our view, in Phase 1. Having said all of this, again, we are very much respectable of what will come of CNMC.

I think you've laid that out quite clearly for everyone in the audience. Maybe just closing the circle before we open up for questions from the audience is, of course, Turkey, which comes for you with significant optionality and monetary policies turned more orthodox, inflation started to come down to a monthly pace of around 2%. What are your latest thoughts on the current environment in Turkey and your expectations in terms of contribution from Garanti BBVA?

We said it again in this conference last year, I said it's an option value, and that option value is more and more in the money in our view, every single day. Turkey is on the right path. So we want to reserve at least 10 minutes for the audience. So I'll do it very quickly. Turkey is on the right path on multiple dimensions. We have to watch a few very critical metrics. One of them is inflation, obviously. Last year, August, the inflation was 9% monthly. This year, it was 2.5% in August. And for the coming months, we are expecting it to be, on average, less than 2%. So the curve is clearly there. You might have seen the Central Bank reserves, which is a very important number for a bank like us, which has turned positive, the net-net reserves, excluding the swaps and so on, CDS is down, ratings are up and so on. So they are clearly on the right path. But again, you have heard me in these forums in the past to be relatively critical about the macro parameters. And what I can tell you now is we are quite positive on what we are seeing. But it's a process. It's not done yet. It has to continue. It's easy to take inflation to a very high level. It's not that easy to take it down. And I think they are clearly doing the right things, and we have to give time to the new economic team and management to be able to manage this well. We are quite positive. In this context, our bank, as I mentioned upfront, is 1 of the -- in our view, the best bank of Turkey, again, proven by ROE, or our bank, ROE of the banking industry in Turkey. As in other countries, there's a meaningful very positive gap. Actually in Turkey, this gap is very nice. So we do have the best bank in the country. If things come back to normal, it's an amazing option value. We are making -- because we have hyperinflationary accounting, we are making around EUR 500 million -- last year, we did EUR 550 million, around EUR 550 million of profits. It's a $1 trillion economy, Turkey. And if you have the best bank, double-digit market share, best bank in the country, a $1 trillion economy should at least, in our view, give you EUR 2 billion of profits rather than EUR 500 million. And if they continue on this path, the economic team, we do think in not so long later, in a few years, we would be able to talk about these EUR 2 billion and more. So we are quite confident at the moment, quite positive at the moment, but it depends on the path, and they have to continue on this path.

Direction of travel, of course. All right. Super helpful. Thank you for the insight. We are ready for questions from the audience. If any of you have a question for Onur, I see a hand up there here, please. The microphone is coming.

I have a question on the Sabadell bit. At the end of it, you can't get to 50.1%, what will you do? Will you walk away about it? Or will you try to bring it over the line and decrease the offer?

Well, there are 3 conditions for the deal to continue, and this 50% is 1 of the conditions. So if 50% is not met, we drop the deal. Very simple.

Yes. Another question back there. I think with the light I can't.

A lot of light so.

I'm going blind after a full day off.

Can I please ask what are your plans for TSB?

As you know, this deal or transaction, the Sabadell transaction is an unsolicited bid. So we don't have inside and all the details of all the franchises that Sabadell has. We do have some perspective from outside in and from public information, but not inside. So regarding TSB, we have to first get the transaction done and then understand them better. So at the moment, we don't know the clear strategy around it because we don't know the asset. So we will -- once the deal completes, we will get them better and then you'll define our strategy, and we'll share the strategy then with you.

I think I'd seen a hand up somewhere, at the back maybe. There you go.

I was just wondering, since you've been mentioning the underlying strength of Mexico, I just want you to touch a bit on a comparison in terms of underlying strengths between Mexico and Turkey. Do you see these 2 markets as sort of pretty similar in being emerging markets? Or there are some similarities, which allow you to play differently like BBVA in Mexico, and BBVA in Turkey?

They are both emerging economies. But even -- because we do have a major also South American footprint. Beyond Mexico, we have banks in Colombia, Peru, Uruguay, Argentina and so on. And they say, South America is a bundle. Every single country has its own dynamics. Let me say that first. So I have to give that disclaimer. But the original, I wasn't there, then. But the original investment case for Turkey be it from the BBVA perspective was exactly the same as Mexico. Mexico is the manufacturing hub for a very large market, which is the U.S. And the tailwind of a large market will help the lower developed areas around, and that will help also the banking sector to develop and so on. That was the original investment case for Mexico. And then the original investment in 2010-2011, when the investment decision was taken for Turkey, it was the same story. The logic was it's a manufacturing hub for a large market, Europe. It's less developed in terms of GDP per capita and so on as compared to Europe. There will be tailwinds coming from this large market and will be helping Turkey. That was the key thing. But in terms of the dynamics of the 2 geographies, it's very, very different. I'm Turkish. I know the Turkish environment really well, and I know Mexico very well it's so important for us. And they are very different in terms of certain dynamics in terms of the sectoral base and so on. But there are also a lot of similarities. This leverage, low leverage is common for both, common for both. Banking debt or GDP in Mexico is 35% is relatively higher in Turkey, but still very, very low, even in the emerging markets landscape. The public debt situation is very well in both countries, 47% in Mexico, less than even 30% in Turkey and so on. Big consumer economy, big export economy and so on. So there are differences. There are similarities. The original investment case was the same, but intention wise, we want to develop our bank in Turkey to a level which delivers as good of a return and as good of a profit as the Mexican franchise as well. That's what I can say. There are many details, but that did not take too much time. But similarities are more than differences in my view. But still, we have technology that every single one of these markets has their own peculiarities.

Any more questions? If not, I'll ask -- there you go.

How do you see the competitive environment in Mexico, not regarding the digital attackers, as you said, but the increments over there? Banamex is doing good. Santander is also doing good results over there. But on the other hand, Banamex is struggling on profitability and also market share. How do you see this environment over there?

As I said, they are all very credible competitors. We all see them as very credible players, all of them, all of them without the exception. And you mentioned Banamex, Banamex has a very strong franchise in deposits and credit cards and so on. They used to be the market leader actually many, many years ago in credit cards and so on. So a very competitive environment as well because they are all very aggressive, ambitious players. But I go back to the other thing that I mentioned before. They are all great players, but we are better for multiple very structural reasons, but we are better. And the best reflection is, again, ROE of our bank versus the average of the industry. You were asking me for the thing about Europe and the consolidation and how does our transaction fit into -- maybe I close with at least a little thing. We did this little chart. Very interesting, the top 20 banks in the world by market capitalization. Have you seen the chart? You've seen it. Okay. Maybe you know it, but for the rest, 20 largest banks in the world, many of them American, but what countries are represented in that chart? Obviously, America, United States, China, Japan, Canada, Australia, India. Guess how many European Union banks were in that list of the top 20? 0, 0. And now that we are discussing some consolidations and the need for scale in Europe, I would encourage all of us to look for that. And it might be that, yes, in the top 20, there is no European Union bank. It's fine. In the context of banking, which we just discussed, where you need more scale, not being in the chart, in our view, is a problem. It's a problem for Europe where banking system finances the economy, not the capital markets, not this and that. In that context, I think Andrea was also here this morning.

He was.

I hope that chart is a visible chart going forward.

Well, it's been definitely a topic for this year's conference. So -- well, Onur, thank you very much for your insights. It's always interesting to talk to you. So thanks for making the conference. And thank you, everyone, for attending.