Bank Muscat SAOG ($BKMB)

Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you very much for joining us today for -- to talk about the results of the 31st of December, 2025 for the bank. And also those who are present with you today are myself, Waleed Al Hashar, the Chief Executive Officer; and Ahmed Al Balushi, Deputy CEO for Banking; and T. Ganesh, who is the Deputy CEO for Finance and Investment Banking. In terms of the first slide is the regular disclaimer that we all know about. [Foreign Language] So in terms of the structure of the presentation, I will first talk about the operating environment. Then I will talk about the banking sector in general and then move into Bank Muscat's strategy and business lines. And then I will also talk about the key financial highlights for 2025. [Foreign Language] In terms of the operating environment, of course, the year 2025 has concluded. And in fact, the macroeconomic environment in Oman remained constructive. It remained quite resilient despite challenging global and regional environment during last year or even the years before that. In fact, over the past 4 years, the country has moved beyond its fiscal stabilization phases into a phase of institutionalized financial and structured discipline. Sovereign debt has reduced from the pandemic [ phase ] to its peaks. Fiscal management has become also quite strong and robust and the overall policy predictability has strengthened. Real GDP growth also remained positive through the third quarter at 2.2%. And what is actually more important here in that the progress has not been only oil-driven, but actually quite diversified. And we're seeing this diversification quite visibly in the non-hydrocarbon sector, specifically in logistics, manufacturing, renewable energy and tourism, and they are contributing more actually strongly now to the economic growth. And this is the mandate under the Vision 2040 and all the initiatives and plans are translating into tangible activity and also good private sector participation. This positive trajectory was also reflected in the Oman sovereign rating, which was restored to investment grade by all the major international rating agencies. And this, in and of itself, obviously enhances investor confidence and reinforces the sultanate's attractiveness as an investment destination. And now that we move into 2026, also the budget announced at the beginning of the year continues to reflect prudence. It's also anchored on conservative oil price assumptions and with disciplined spending and continuing with the debt management. The energy transition initiatives, especially in renewables and green hydrogen are continuing to ensure that the export diversification is maintained and economic resilience is maintained. So overall, Oman entered 2026 with stronger fiscal buffers and a broader growth base. And we understand and, of course, we appreciate that while the macro backdrop is supportive, we will always have to remain mindful of the external variables, specifically the geopolitical developments in the region as of late, the oil price volatility and the global interest rate dynamics, inflation and so on. All of these warrant from us a close monitoring and prudent navigation, obviously. That being said, we believe that the 11th 5-year development plan, '26 to '30, does provide good opportunities to strengthen this resilience that was built, which is sustained on non-hydrocarbon growth and accelerated diversification. [Foreign Language] In terms of the banking sector, the Omani banking sector does continue to expand and play a central role in supporting the real economy. The resilience of the sector obviously reflects strong regulatory oversight as well as prudent risk management and disciplined capital framework. There has been external volatility that I have spoken about, and the sector had remained stable and well capitalized and liquid. In 2025, the growth momentum did strengthen alongside the broader economic recovery. Total sector credit increased to approximately OMR 35 billion, a growth of about 8.7% year-on-year. And this expansion was broad-based, actually, in different sector and very much aligned to the country's diversification strategy. Deposits have also demonstrated a healthy momentum, rising to about OMR 34 billion with an annual growth of about 7%. And this does continue to support the balance sheets of banks, the stability and, of course, the lending capacity. Islamic banking remains an important contributor to the sector. It's now accounting for around 22% of total banking assets and strong growth in both financing and deposits during the year. This expansion has occurred alongside also a stable asset quality with robust capital adequacy ratios, underscoring, of course, the disciplined approach that the banking sector handles growth. Looking ahead, the 2026 budget, it has a focus on infrastructure, strategic investments and private sector participation. It does provide a supportive platform for continued sectoral growth, combined with ongoing execution of plans for economic diversification. We do expect the banking sector to remain well positioned to support all of these different activities. [Foreign Language] These slides now highlight the steady resilient performance over the last 5 years. So it gives us a 5-year picture and the trend over the 5 years. Despite the pandemic-related disruption during the early part of this period, the sector did deliver consistent growth. Sector credit recorded compounded annual growth of about 5.8% over the last 5 years. Customer deposits also grew stronger, registering a 7% annual growth over the same period, which does underscore continued confidence in the banking system and the stable funding base. Profitability has also demonstrated a clear recovery, rebounding to pre-pandemic levels and higher. Now looking ahead, we expect the sector to continue expanding at mid-single-digit levels in both credits and deposits. And this is broadly aligned with the economic growth aspirations. Short-term volatility in global rates and geopolitical developments, obviously may influence asset quality trends and provisioning and inflationary pressures globally. But the system does remain well capitalized and prudently managed. Overall, the banking sector growth trajectory remains stable, supported by a strong macroeconomic framework and the ongoing momentum. [Foreign Language] In terms of Bank Muscat, as we have shared in the past, the bank is focused on key strategic pillars, which are customer centricity, market leadership, efficiency, productivity and innovation. And these are very much focused. We continue to focus on leverage on the strong branch value, our financial position and HR strength to deliver the best possible value to our stakeholders. [Foreign Language] This slide provides an overview of the bank's diversified model and the contribution of our key operating segments. As you all know, Bank Muscat operates through a well-established set of business lines, spanning corporate banking, personal banking, wholesale, Islamic and international operations. Our corporate banking franchise remains a core pillar of the bank, contributing approximately 1/3 of our total assets and maintaining a similar share of overall profitability. This segment continues to leverage strong capabilities in project finance and large corporate relationships. Personal banking is also another major contributor. It accounts for close to 28% of the bank's asset base and generates over 30% of total profits. As the largest retail distribution networks in Oman and a strong customer franchise, this particular segment does continue to be a key driver of profitability for us. Wholesale banking contributes about 23% to 25% of both assets and profit, providing us a very good and resilient balance and diversification -- diversified portfolio. Our Islamic banking segment does also continues to have the highest market share and has shown a healthy growth since its inception. International operations segment is doing well and has actually contributed 10% to our net profit during the year. This shows that the bank does have a well-diversified loan portfolio, as you can see in the graph on the top right. The deposit portfolio is quite strong as well, driven by retail, diversified deposits and supported by government and private sector deposits. [Foreign Language] We move to the financial highlights for the year. This slide summarizes the bank's financial performance for the year ending 2025. You can see that the bank's top line performance was strong. And overall, the bank delivered a strong performance, net profit increasing by about 13% to OMR 255 million, reflecting a healthy business growth and disciplined credit management. Revenue growth remained steady. It's supported by net interest and Islamic financing income growing by around 4% and noninterest income also recorded a strong growth of over 20% during the year. Operating expenses increased by 6.7% relative to the growth in business. And the bank's loan portfolio expanded by close to 5% on a year-on-year basis. The deposit portfolio also witnessed a growth of 6.7%. In terms of asset quality, the provisions stand at about 174% of the nonperforming loans, which reflects quite a healthy provision level maintained by the bank. Overall, the bank's agile approach in balance sheet management and strong funding dynamics and the growing contribution from diversified income streams have enabled us to deliver these strong results for 2025. [Foreign Language] This slide provides a quick snapshot of the operating performance over the last few years. As you can see, the bank has maintained a stable net interest margin over the past 5 years. It's very much supported by active balance sheet management and disciplined funding strategies. The operating income has also continued to grow steadily with nonfunded income contribution to total income improving from 28% to 30%. While we still maintain a good cost discipline with the cost-to-income ratio at 38%, ROE of the bank has also witnessed significant improvement from the lower levels of 10% in 2021 to reach 13.6% in '25. Bank's ROA also continued on a positive trajectory, the highest, in fact, at 1.76% compared to the last 5 years. [Foreign Language] This slide provides an overview of the bank's asset quality trends over the past few years. You can see that the bank has been able to maintain an NPL ratio of about 3% to 4%. The coverage ratio continues to grow along with that from 145% to 174% and this reflects the bank's prudent policies in this area. As I have mentioned before, the bank's loan portfolio is quite well diversified and well managed with prudent credit policy, the bank was able to grow the gross loan portfolio by 4.5% in 2025. And it's continuing its prudent credit policy to make sure that the performance does remain robust. [Foreign Language] In this slide, we talk about the funding and liquidity of the bank. The bank is well balanced, has a funding mix of around 70% to 72% coming from customer deposits and the balance through interbank borrowings. And this has been stable, as you can see, over the past few years. High liquid assets over the last 5 years, these assets are in the form of high quality -- very high-quality liquid assets. As I mentioned earlier, the bank's capital position is one of the highest among Omani peers and one of the strongest amongst GCC peers as well. [Foreign Language] That was the final slide and now we move to the Q&A session. [Operator Instructions] Thank you very much for your participation with us.

[indiscernible] Vision Capital, if we can start with that.

Okay. YFM, please state your name. Vision Capital, please go ahead.

Congratulations on a very good set of numbers. I just had a couple of questions, starting with your investment income as you alluded to in your presentation as well that there has been a good surge, a good increase in the investment income this year compared to last year. And a significant portion of it can be attributed to changes in fair value investments of financial assets. So could you just briefly explain what these assets are? And how stable is this number? Should we expect similar incomes or similar changes, I expect not in the changes in fair value of financial assets going forward?

Okay. First, I think in general, our nonfunded income comes from a number of different sources in all the different business lines, whether it's in corporate banking, retail business, investment -- and investment income is one part of it. But it's not the -- over -- the entire set of growth contributor to that piece. But obviously, your focus on the question, so in general, it is well diversified, and we expect it to be reasonably robust in terms of sustainability over the coming period because of its diversification. Now when it comes to investment income, in particular, I will ask Ganesh to just maybe add a point on that.

Sure. Thank you, Waleed. Thank you for your question. In terms of fair value changes in the P&L, what we have seen, it's largely driven by our strategic investment portfolio. which we had set up in 2024. And this mandate is a long-term mandate to invest in top-tier GCC banks. And that portfolio is doing well. And it had a contribution in terms of dividend as well as gains from the book.

Okay, YFM. Please go ahead, Yousef. Yousef, we can't hear you, if you are talking.

[Foreign Language]

[Foreign Language] To cut it short, we are open to any different strategic direction that will actually be of value to the shareholder. [Foreign Language]

It's a text from [ Aldawa ].

Are you in the process to increase your authorized capital? [ If then, yes ]. Yes, we are. Actually, it's in the EGM, Extraordinary General Meeting. It is a part of our -- the agenda for that is to increase the authorized capital from OMR 800 million to OMR 1.2 billion. This is increasing the authorized capital. So we can have flexibility in terms of the capital structure of the bank. There are no immediate plans at the current pace. But we -- as you have seen, we have almost reached our authorized capital just recently and through our last capital restructuring. So this is more of a move to actually give the bank the agility and the flexibility for the future to consider if it sees fit in the interest of the shareholder, any capital, any aspect that it needs to take into account or do. Let's take a verbal question.

Abbas.

Abbas, please go ahead.

I have a few questions. I don't know -- I can ask a few now and then maybe I'll come back in queue. The first question right off the bat is what do you think the impact of this sort of regional crisis will be on specifically Bank Muscat's performance if this were to go on for another couple of months, what kind of impact are you foreseeing? And that's the first question.

Okay. Can I have all your questions, better, please?

Okay. Yes. And then generally, the way I look at your income statement, I'm going to sort of try and make sense of how do we look at Bank Muscat, not just for '26, but going forward as well. So questions around what sort of loan growth are you expecting over the next year to 3 years? As a follow-through of that, when it comes to fee income to overall income, you're at 30%. So what's the sort of KPI that you set for yourself and your team? What's the sort of fee income to total income sort of percentage that you're looking at? Again, if I just go down and focus on your spreads, last year was a bit of spread contraction. How do you expect spreads to behave going forward, given what we know of global sort of interest rates. Cost-to-income ratio, you -- obviously, you've got a good story there, 38%. Is there an aspirational number in your mind, knowing everything you know about the sort of structure -- cost structure that you work in the Omani context? Is expecting 35% in the next 3 to 5 years too aggressive? Cost of risk has been a fantastic story for the bank. Do you see any further moderation going forward, given that your provisioning coverage is close to 170%, 175%. Do you feel that cost of risk moderation is going to continue or it's going to come down further? So I just wanted to make sense about the building blocks effectively of your long-term sort of ROE, and that's where my focus is, sir.

Okay. So that's it, Abbas?

Yes. That's it for now.

Okay. Fine. So in terms of the current situation and the impact, we have to take this situation in terms of the impact on overall Oman and the overall banking sector and the overall -- because we are not removed, obviously, from what is surrounding us. Obviously, it's an area of concern. First and foremost is the safety and the well-being in terms of country itself and the people of the country itself and the residents and so on. And that we hope and pray that it deescalates and ends sooner rather than later. And that's the hope of everybody. Currently, the banking sector and the financial sector is well capitalized with ample liquidity. And in the short term, we see the situation is quite stable. The key concern here is obviously, for the short term, the safety and security of the country. From a financial sector perspective, it's quite strong and quite robust. The question comes is if it continues and if it does prolong. And there are many theories and trajectories that can take shape on that. Obviously, the banking sector in Oman has been quite resilient in the past in the face of COVID, which was also quite a significant event. And the country has been quite strong and resilient. And what I believe is that if it does continue over 2 months, by that time, we would have also had, as a sector, as a country, certain contingency measures in place to address any adversities that we expect that we have to navigate through. That's talking about worst-case scenario. Now we need to also look at the other side of the coin. While it is a tragic and unfortunate and unwanted development in the region, there are -- Oman is proving to be a location of geopolitical diplomacy as well as geopolitical channel for economic diversification and economic support for the region. The ports in Oman are providing good opportunity also for the region to have an access for the sustainability of logistics and transportation to the region. And a number of different -- the oil price is also shifting towards higher levels, which could also support the country's economic agenda. So there are also some positive aspects that leads us to believe that this situation could actually be navigated through quite well, both in terms of the positive aspects that are enabling Oman to support the GCC and as well as the ability and its resilience in terms of its financial sector. And Bank Muscat is not different from any of that when you ask me about how does it specifically impact Bank Muscat. Bank Muscat will continue to navigate in the same way. It has prudent liquidity measures in place, prudent credit measures in place. But in my view, if oil prices continue in the same trajectory they are, the risk of inflation globally might be heightened. But then again, we have to navigate through that the same way we have been navigating in the last 2 to 3 years. And so it's not something new on the markets, and we hope that it's not going to last long. In terms of the income statement and your different questions on it, we've always said that we don't really give forward-looking statements, but I will give you some sort of -- what I feel, some insights into that. You've seen us, we're quite stable in terms of our growth trajectory. We have delivered sustainable growth percentages in the mid-single digits, and we expect that to continue over the coming period, both in terms of loans, loan growth, profitability growth and income growth as well. Spreads, while we have seen contraction there, I think that's more in terms of a tactical move at the time because we did go out and borrow for our upcoming EMTN maturity. So that did increase 6 months before we needed it. And so that did increase the cost of funds for us at the time. But also at the same time, competition is stronger in the country, and we recognize that. And we need to make sure that our market share is also protected. We don't see this as -- like I said, it was tactical rather than something that is going to be a feature for the future. But yes, some margin contraction is always inevitable, given the global interest rate scenario, and that will be within the norms that are expected in alignment with the global interest rate scenario. Cost-to-income ratio, it is one of the best. And I think a major factor of that is the top line actually. But we have to recognize that we do have to continue to invest and the digital aspect and the technology and innovation and AI will demand of us that we continue to invest in these areas to remain and continue to be not only relevant, but also competitive enough in this sector. So investment is going to continue. I think 38% is something that is quite a good percentage. I don't see it going below that, frankly. In fact, if it goes up to 40%, we are still happy with it, given the investments that we still continue -- we have to make for the future. The cost of risk, yes, barring any, God forbid, significant deterioration in asset quality coming out of this war, I think our [Audio Gap] is that the economic fundamentals of Oman are quite good. And therefore, it is going to help actually what is already there in terms of the portfolio to actually support it come out of that and also help us in the growth of our strong and a robust portfolio for the future. So that, yes, barring, again, any significant deterioration due to this war and its prolongedness, our expectations are that it will -- but if any, it will be moderated and it will continue in the same, not -- we don't expect it to increase. Again, it just depends on how this whole thing is, and we don't know how it changes by the date. So we just continue to pray that it deescalates.

Haya Al Fulaij.

Haya Al Fulaij, please.

[Foreign Language] Congratulations on a good set of results. Just 2 questions from my end. From your perspective, how should we think about the MSCI inclusion story for Oman? Is there a potential time line on this?

The MSCI inclusion?

Yes. And then my other question is we saw a slight decline in CASA in 2025. Could you just elaborate on the drivers? Will you guys be growing CASA?

I'm sorry, your voice, we really cannot hear clearly what...

Is it better like this?

Yes, much better. Thank you.

Okay. So yes, my first question is just about the MSCI inclusion story for Oman. Is there a potential time line? And the second question was just about the slight decline in CASA in 2025. If you could just elaborate on the drivers and whether growing CASA is a priority in 2026?

Okay. Thank you. Yes. Muscat Exchange is working quite hard in getting the market to be included in the MSCI with an emerging market. And we, as a large scrip in the market as well as the other large players in the market are very much working with MSX to achieve that. And of course, we expect some positive results from that when it comes to entry of new investors into the market, new fund managers. And so that's a positive -- that's going to be a positive story for MSX and Bank Muscat and the other scrips in MSX. So we expect it to be positive. And as we have seen, just the steps that were taken already and the sentiment of the possibility of it reaching to that level has actually contributed quite well in the growth of MSX index, and with it, Bank Muscat's share price and others. So that's quite a positive story. And I think there are some milestones that MSX is working on achieving with at least first the FTSE index and then -- so -- and we believe at least the FTSE, maybe by first quarter next year, I think it's going to be something attainable for MSX. In terms of the growing, yes, it is a focus for us. CASA is a significant focus for us to grow. And that's why we continue to grow our franchise in terms of branches and our digital footprint. And we're going to work very hard to make sure that our market share there is protected. We have a number of strategies, not only in terms of branches, but also making sure that we grow our customer base so that -- and a number of different initiatives in that area for retail banking. We have transformed our digital services to make sure that it caters to this growing customer segment. And so CASA is going to be a feature moving forward for us because it's a cheaper funding option for any bank. Anything else anybody wants to add? Thank you. Sundar, please?

[Foreign Language] 3 questions from my end. The first is on the outlook for the Islamic banking because if you look at the Islamic banking contribution, on the asset side, it's 14%. But in a bottom line perspective, it's still lower. Do you see a kind of strategy separate on that? Because we also get the news that there are -- Central Bank is looking at separating the Islamic windows from being a dedicated bank. Did you have any kind of outlook on that? That's my first question. And the second question is on the competition. If you see last year, the Bank Muscat credit growth is lower than the market. The market has grown around 8% to 8.5%, but the credit offtake in Bank Muscat is lower than the market. And deposit is also marginally lower. But do you see this competition is getting impacted and the Bank Muscat is not able to deliver in line with the market? Any kind of views on that? And also, I've seen like your government deposits as a percentage of total has lowered from 32.7% to around 29% levels. This is also showing a bit more competition. And how do you see this being -- because Bank Muscat is always -- we do see some kind of good competition push in other banks. How do you see that? And the last question was on -- maybe for Ganesh. This is -- because there has been a good movement of investments to the FVTPL this year because it has almost like grown up around OMR 178 million, which means the mark-to-market impact could be there significantly if any significant market movements are there. For example, currently, we are seeing some significant market events during this month. Are you sure of this -- this is the impact because we may see some 5% to 10% or more than kind of impact into the market, which is also -- could have been a significant impact to the bottom line of the bank. Can you elaborate on these 3?

Yes. Okay. Thank you, Sundar. For Islamic banking, Meethaq, as we have talked about in the past, has been seeing certain areas where it needed additional focus on, especially when it came to the structure of the balance sheet because, as you know, cost of funding in Islamic banking is quite high. And most Islamic banks rely -- and windows rely on institutional deposits rather than retail deposits, which come cheaper. So that was structurally with most of the banks, but yes they have to also compete for the same credits and the financing and also lower rates. So it was very important for us. And you have seen now Meethaq has turned around quite well in 2025 compared to '23 and '24. And that's intentional because we focused on a number of aspects. One is to reduce the cost of funds in Meethaq and therefore, focus on attracting more retail deposits for Meethaq and making sure that we activate fully our branch -- strong branch network for Meethaq, close to 30 branches. And we rely more on that, shed off some high-cost deposits or reprice them and then also make sure that we have a more sustainable model in terms of credit growth. So we work very hard in making sure that corporate financing is working in alignment with that. And so some of the growth happened there. Now of course, it takes time for the margins to come back to the levels that they used to be. But we believe these are more sustainable for the future. So there were a number of tactical things that were done for Meethaq and now it's coming out of that trajectory. In terms of whether it will go to a window or it will continue as a window or it will go to a full-fledged Islamic bank, like I said before -- I'm sorry, that answer was in Arabic. It all depends on what value this brings to the shareholder. And if it brings better customer experience for the customer and actually, again, better for the shareholders. So either if it is something that is -- that brings good value, we will always -- as management and as Board of Directors, will be very keen to explore it and with an open mind to do it. But it has to bring value to the shareholder. That's on Meethaq. In terms of competition, first, I think what's important is, when it comes to Bank Muscat, as a general rule of thumb, which I'm sure you know very well, much better than me, but I humbly just reiterate it, is that when you look at Bank Muscat, don't just consider the percentage because you're looking at a base that is much bigger than the other banks. So what happens, sometimes it is tactfully done. When it comes to government deposits, it was tactically done to reduce those deposits because they were higher costs on us and therefore, have actually caused some compression in the interest margin. So we believe in being agile to make sure that -- I mean managing our cost of funds. It wasn't out of competition that we lost those deposits. We still have the bandwidth to get them. Those deposits are highly price sensitive. And if you look at our loan-to-deposit ratios, if you look at our liquidity ratios, you will see them as quite strong and quite robust. So our need for deposit is not to the point where we compromise on our cost of funding. So those were tactical. And in terms of credit growth, that's also very prudent because we want to make sure that the assets that we continue to grow in the bank and the loans are also quite strong and quite robust and the structures are helping us maintain an NPA level at the level that we are at today. So aside from the retail segment, which is highly competitive, and we are quite there, and there also, we have different measures to address the competitive environment there when it comes to pricing. The corporate side, which is really the main thrust of lending is more in terms of Bank Muscat's strategy to make sure that we continue our growth in a solid and risk -- with a risk cost that's acceptable to us and within our risk appetite. In terms of investments, he's specifically asking about...

Yes. Sundar, in terms of [ FVPL ] book, which you mentioned about OMR 170 million, this is the strategic investment portfolio, which was announced in 2024, and that book has grown. The size, which was announced was about OMR 150 million. We've pretty much fully invested it by end of last year. And that has -- as we mentioned earlier, investment in top-tier GCC banks. So it has a dividend income, long-term objective of gain as well. So the portfolio has an in-built mechanism for reserve creation to minimize any mark-to-market volatility. That's the way it is designed because it's a long-term book. We are not -- it's not an active trading book. We have that very well in our mind in terms of volatility due to extraordinary market situations. The portfolio has an in-built reserve mechanism. So we won't see directly any market volatility being impacted on our books due to [ FVPL ].

Last question is Waruna.

I have 2 questions. The first one is on the loan book growth. I would like to understand how do you see the personal loan book or like the retail book growing because the growth in '25 was kind of muted. Do you expect this to change in the near term going forward? And my second question is on the margins. So as you said, you took some preemptive measures to cover the funding. So that's why the margins compressed. So how do you see compared to 2025, 2026 net interest margins, would it be like flattish? Or would it contract a bit? I just want to hear your thoughts on that.

Yes. In terms of retail, yes, there has been quite a significant competition, as I have said earlier. And there, I think we will have to actually be cognizant of the fact that pricing is going to be a factor, and therefore, margins may be impacted in that area. In terms of growth, we expect it to be better than last year in this year. And -- but it's going to be faced with -- it's a very good and robust segment of any portfolio, the retail segment. So there's going to be significant competition for it. But what happens is, if overall, the pie grows, then this segment will also grow for us, and we will continue to compete. But yes, we expect some compression in the margin as a result of that, but it only represents about 30% of our entire -- 30% to 40% of our entire lending. But nevertheless, we expect some -- we expected margin compression due to the interest -- global interest rate scenario, and that's only natural. But what's important in all of this is that we believe that the nonfunded income is going to be supporting us for the coming years. And that's why we are trying to diversify our sources. And hence, our international portfolio is also going to be playing a role to augment some of the margin compressions that we see in Oman and the heavy competition that we have in Oman. So that is the answer to that. I think I answered it fully. You didn't have any other questions. Abbas, I will give you only one more question, and then we will close this session, unless your hand risen was wrong.

No, no, it was not wrong. My question is on capital adequacy. When I look at your CET1, it's 15%. And then with [Audio Gap] retain and given the loan book guidance that you've given close to -- in absolute term, that's [ OMR 400 million, OMR 450 million ]. It seems that, that retention is enough for you to sustain this growth that you have in mind. And you also mentioned that, given the size, it's not prudent to expect Bank Muscat to grow at the same clip as some of the other guys. So then my question, Sheikh, is that why don't we look at other avenues to sort of return capital to shareholders? Either -- you guys were at the forefront of this when you did this one-off perpetual from the retained earnings. But the way I look at it as an analyst, as someone who's tracked Bank Muscat from 2008, you have enough capital to grow and at the same time, possibly do the same thing again. Just wanted to hear your views on that.

Thank you, Abbas. Abbas, if you look at the capital adequacy of the regional banks, you will see that they are at our level or higher and capital structures that are quite strong. And I think we need to be really comparing ourselves to that kind of capital structure. We are the largest bank in the country. We are a decent bank. And we represent, as Bank Muscat, a barometer of the economics of Oman. It's very important that in times of adversity, God forbid, such as this and any other times, when we start navigating through different global economic scenarios or geopolitical scenarios, to have the standing and the bandwidth of a bank for Oman like Bank Muscat with those kinds of metrics, carrying those kinds of metrics. And we have seen it help us immensely during the COVID times when we went out and started raising funding for the country, and also becoming a proxy for the country when it came to pricing, when it came to success in raising funds for Oman, not only through the bond route, but also bilateral and in syndication. And I think it's also very important to note that the bank has been paying out quite healthy dividends and cash dividends in the past. So -- and it's very important to note that there are good growth prospects that are coming up, but we need to make sure that the bank also continues to be able to source funds without having to go back to shareholders in the future. That is something that we want to make sure that we are able to create a sustainable model for growth, for stability, for sustainability of profits and for sustainability of capital and risk in that regard. So that's really the view that I can give in that space. And we believe that the dividends that the bank does give are significantly higher than any of our peers, which is quite good. So I think that would be my answer. Right. So we come to our close to our session. Thank you very much, everybody, for your time, and I wish you all a good weekend and also in advance, Eid Mubarak, and all the best of wishes for that. Thank you very much.