BNP Paribas Bank Polska S.A. (BNP) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to our results presentation conference. We will talk about the results of the first quarter of 2025. I would like to welcome all those present in the room and those who have joined us online. Let us start with the agenda. It's a typical one. We start with the key highlights, then we get more into details, and after that, there will be time for questions and answer of course. Key highlights, ladies and gentlemen, it was a good quarter for our bank. I could even say a very good one. We have achieved a record net profit in the history of our institution, over PLN 741 million. This is the result of solid, robust increase in revenues in the past quarter. Quarter-to-quarter, it has grown by 5%. And if we factor out the credit vacations, the growth would be 7%. 9% year-to-year growth. I do believe it is an excellent achievement. If we talk about revenues, let's say a few words about costs. As you see, the nominal increase in costs quarterly of expenses is 16% but you have to remember that in the first quarter we account for BFG costs. If we factor out the BFG, the actual cost would be lower than in quarter 4. And the cost, year-to-year increase in expenses after factoring out one-off would be slightly above 3%, which is less than inflation. So I will take the liberty to say that we manage our costs efficiently going for general improvement in efficiency of our business. We are happy to say that our credit volumes have increased by 1.4% total. This is mostly owed to increase in enterprise loans. That growth was 3.5%. In Personal Finance, we have stopped the decrease in loan volumes. In previous quarters, those volumes were dropping mostly due to low production of mortgage loans. We have returned to the mortgage market in the second half of last year. But we have gained momentum and the decline was stopped, which is, of course, a positive result. The result of those elements and very low cost of risk is that growth in that ROE net ROE was 19%. As for our strategic pillars, you can see them on the slide. I'm not going to discuss all the points, but I would like to highlight a few things. Maybe it is not proper to boast about one's awards, but these awards confirm the correctness of our actions. In the first quarter, we have received a Golden Banker award for the cash loans, and we have also received a Golden Cybersecurity Shield as the only bank. This emphasizes that the bank is very well prepared for those difficult times of ubiquitous cyberattacks and that we can feel safe and calm. We had very good performance of investment loans. We will say a few words about that later. And another thing I would definitely like to mention is that as of January 1, our retail network and personal finance banking works in a model that we call Beyond Agile. It is a novel approach to organization of work, cooperation. This model is often called self-management. Its essence is that our people, our colleagues have much more autonomy and decision power in organizing themselves, distributing work, setting their objectives. So it is not too -- I mean, it is too early to say anything about the performance of this model, but the first key indicators are positive, and we do believe that this model will help us in the coming quarters and years. Let us move on. Further, in spirit of our strategic pillars, a few comments. First, I would like to make it very clear. ESG remains very high on the list of our strategic priorities. We do continue development of our loan base as for sustainable financing, PLN 10.7 billion at the end of the first quarter. So it is yet another growth quarter. So despite a number of discussions going on in the public space, especially across the pond, ESG remains very important to us, critically important. We have a number of important transactions with corporate clients. You can see it on the slide. We keep developing our wealth management operation. We do believe it is the best operation of its kind in a Polish market. And yet again, we have received an award for the best wealth management business in Central and Eastern Europe. What is important for us is technology adoption, artificial intelligence in order to improve the bank's efficiency, both in terms of internal processes and our proposal for the clients. So let me just remind you that we have implemented a solution that we call GENiusz. It helps our employees and makes it easier to navigate internal and external regulations. It helps people in their everyday work. So we have more and more use cases. We are going to focus on that in the coming quarters. So this is it, I think, for this slide. Let me remind you again about Beyond Agile as a breakthrough organizational solution. If we look at digital statistics or technological, if you like, you can see that pretty much everything is growing except for quarter-to-quarter BLIK transactions. But year-to-year growth by 23% is, of course, a positive phenomenon. You can see that our clients accept BLIK solutions like them. And they use the solutions that we made available to them, mostly GOmobile and this solution is increasingly being used. We can see a trend that people use it more rather than Internet banking as it was in the past. Here, you can see an illustration of our sales activity. Our challenge is to attract more retail clients that would work actively with us. It is one of the strategic objectives that we have set for ourselves, attracting clients that will be active, loyal, transactional, and we want more of them. Quarter-on-quarter does not seem all that optimistic, but let's remember that it was a shorter quarter because of the shortness of February. If we look at year-on-year data, you can see that the acquisition has improved. Investment production, investment products, this is a very good quarter, especially in light of dropping interest rates. This makes us happy. Returns are very solid. Year-on-year, we can talk about the base effect, but 23% of growth in mortgage loans plus retail and personal finance growth gives us reasons for optimism. You can also see a few examples of major transactions that we have either organized and provided loans or we were just a lender or arranger and lender. This also gives us some reasons for optimism, although it is not really a time for euphoria quite yet. Our discussions with corporate clients indicate that the uncertainty in terms of geopolitical situation, the trade war, unpredictability of Donald Trump's policy makes many of them hesitant to invest more aggressively. At the same time, we have a huge inflow of EU funds that should become a seed for investment projects. So well, I'm always optimistic, and I hope that in coming quarters, we will see investments grow -- and we hope that we will see a growth that will translate into investment financing. As for volumes, a few words of comment in terms of loans. I already mentioned the growth. I mentioned stopping the decline in the retail part. This is also a reason for joy. As for deposits, we manage our deposits margin very carefully. And as a result, the volumes. So the fact that we have noted a minor decrease quarter-on-quarter is not a reason for concern. What is important is a slight growth in individual customer deposits. As for the number of customers, we have an overall decline here. I would like to stop at that for a moment. We are consciously clearing out our customer database in terms of retail clients. We terminate relationships with those clients who for many months, quarters or years remained dormant inactive despite our attempts to get in touch, convince them to work with the bank more actively, they remain inactive. Keeping such "clients" on the books doesn't make sense. It is costly. It forces us to recertify and so on and so forth. And the bank does not have any tangible benefits from them. So the total number of clients has decreased, but the positive aspect is that we have an increase in the affluent customer segment and in Wealth Management segment. So the customers that are potentially or realistically more profitable and who usually cooperate with us on a much broader scope. Finally, quarterly results with graphical illustration. So I have mentioned a robust increase in revenues. I will not repeat the numbers, but you can see that if we factor out the loan vacation or credit vacation, we could be talking about 7% growth. As it is, we talk about 5%, slightly above 5%. Year-on-year, 9% growth. Expenses, I have already discussed, minus 3.6% quarter-on-quarter, excluding BFG. This is certainly a positive factor, increase. Year-on-year increase 3.1%, once again, excluding BFG. The cost of risk was relatively low. We have only had PLN 65 million encumbering our profit and loss. Now let me be straight. It's not over. The sad Swiss franc story will remain with us for a while. There are some signs that its scale may decrease, but there is a lot of uncertainty here. We know that Swiss franc law is being prepared, but we do not know what it will be, when it will be proceeded by the government, and we don't know when it would be adopted and what would be its final wording. The draft bill is 4 pages, comments and proposals for amendments are 300 pages. So, the final wording of the Swiss franc law is a massive question mark just as many other things in the geoeconomic space, especially worldwide. Net profit, great dynamic year-on-year, even greater quarter-on-quarter. It's a record result in our entire history, which definitely makes all our colleagues happy and of course, the entire Board. Cost-to-income ratio because of the cost of BGF in the first quarter, we have seen the increase of this ratio, but this is still a decent result if we adjust or factor out the C2I of this element, we went down to below 40%, and that's what we will continue to work on both -- on both parts of that and the cost discipline that has been bringing positive results would not only be continued, but in some areas will even be intensified. Net interest margin on the same level basically with slight decline here again because of the dynamics of interest rate, the peak of the margin, interest margin, on assets is probably already behind us. The cost of risk. Here, we are a little bit traditionalists, the lowest on the market, both percentage-wise and in nominal terms, which confirms that we are a bank that manages the risk very, very well, a bank that has managed to build a safe, stable loan portfolio in all its parts resilient to different types of uncertainties and even shock phenomena. ROE, you can see here on the graph. and I've already mentioned about this figure, which is higher than cost of capital. And now we have [ Deboa Hall ] bring us into the world of great economics.

Good morning. The economic and macroeconomic situation in the first quarter of this year was probably lower than the end of 2024, but most of the indicators forecasting the economic situation indicates that the revival of our economy will continue. The main factor, probably the most important one, which I believe will be the key driver of our growth in this year is the gradual and ever so faster use and adoption of EU funding that came to Poland over the last 10 or so months. It will be a real driver for the growth, not only in terms of capital outlays, but generally economic situation in our countries. Risk factors, mainly external. I think that right now, we have -- we don't have the full knowledge what American trade policy is going to look like, what kind of prospects that entails for global trade and also for Polish experts, what the impact of this policy will be on Polish exports. But when we're talking about the external environment, it's also worth mentioning not only negative aspects, but also the aspects that may drive the economic situation upwards. ReArm Europe program, important from the point of view of ensuring cheaper financing for our defense efforts. Another definite -- it is also a definite ease -- easing of fiscal policy in the coming years. Of course, we have to fight budget deficit because -- but the faster you do it, the less beneficial it is for the current economic situation. So again, the In-Plus risk as well as the acceleration of outlays on the development of infrastructure planned by Germany is an important factor and our businesses should also benefit from that. Definitely, inflation is not going to be a factor limiting consumption in this year and in the following year. Here, the data turned out to be lower than expected at the beginning of the year. And after July, we are all sure that inflation will definitely decrease when the effect of the last year's energy and electricity price increases will fade away as well as the impact of the increase of VAT on food products. And therefore, I believe that starting from July, inflation will relatively quickly get closer to the National Bank of Poland goal. So lower inflation, lower interest rates of the process of easing the monetary policy has already started, has already begun. It will be continued in the coming months. And I think -- well, we don't know. We cannot be sure to how mild or systematic gradual this cycle of interest rate lowering will be. We might face some stops in that process, some breaks in that process. But from time to time, the interest rates will go down and will become low, but not low enough to pose a threat to the stability of the exchange rate. And I think that the paradigm that the NBP will follow will be maintaining the real interest rate above 0 and thus stabilizing the exchange rate Polish zloty to euro. Faster economic growth, lower interest rates, that would probably translate into bigger demand for loans in all segments, including those where our most recent data are not as optimistic as mortgage loans or corporate loans. And I'm talking here about the changes in the volume. In the coming months we will probably see an increase here. And let me stop here and hand over to my colleague.

Good morning. We've heard a lot about the results of the first quarter. So I would just like to draw your attention to some elements just to complement the information that you have already received. So if we look at the first quarter and changes in the balance sheet, the first -- it's the next quarter of growth in terms of the balance sum and its main components. So we can see the continuation of the trade that we witnessed last year when the dynamics of client deposits was higher than the growth of loan growth. And that also is in line with what we have been observing in the big macroeconomic flows in the economy where accumulation of clients' funds on bank's accounts did take place, and we believe this will be happening this year as well. What makes us happy is the growth of number of loans. The first quarter is also a quarter where we could see the full strength of AT1 transaction that we concluded in December and therefore, strengthening our capital base. It is also a quarter when decisions have been taken on the division of profit. As you remember, the bank recommended and the company's authorities accepted the division of profit 50 to 50, thus further strengthening the capital base of the bank and making its balance sheet ready to absorb the business growth. If we look at what was happening on the loss and profit results, the first quarter, definitely greater dynamic of income compared to costs, which is also always something that makes us happy, the dynamic of revenues based traditionally on interest. But still in the first quarter, strengthened on net trading -- by net trading income that has grown year-on-year in a significant way. We've already mentioned costs. So I will just focus on the Swiss francs, 65 million was recognized in the accounts of quarter 1. And as we've already heard, it's not the end of the story. And if we look at our history and how the impairment losses related to that portfolio developed. The first quarter is usually the quarter of lowest values in this respect. We must remember that. So just to sum up, the best quarter results in the history of the bank, PLN 740 million net profit. If we look at our loan portfolio, 2 things that makes us happy. Well, certainly, returning to the growth path in corporate banking area and stopping the decline in individual customer banking. The decline that was mainly caused by mortgage loans issue and now that situation has stabilized. Swiss franc's portfolio, the first quarter is the quarter where the ones of the most important elements that we keep monitoring, the number of new claims new that come into the bank. That number decreased compared to quarter 4 of last year. And thus, it gives us some hope that the situation with Swiss franc loans portfolio will stabilize, but we are still here in the sphere of great uncertainty. And again, if we look at the history of Swiss franc loans, whenever there are some discussions in public sphere about certain legal solutions, the activity of law firms with respect to such cases increases, and that may lead to the growth in the interest among customers in such litigations, in such claims. But still, Q1 is the quarter where we have noticed the decrease in the number of new claims. It's also the quarter when we continued the settlement path, which is always better than litigation, court litigation. And here, we had the good result of 6,600 accepted negotiation proposals, a number of settlements reached and the provisions for Swiss francs is now in the amount of PLN 3 billion. As regards clients, customers, deposit, let me just draw your attention to just one element. The main theme we work on apart from the interest -- net interest margin is also working on changing the structure of financing and putting more emphasis on financing acquired from individual customers, which does not mean that we are trying to reduce our activity in corporate sector. We are talking here about our work and efforts on just changing, reshaping this structure. We do it gradually. And what is a good sign is that we continued on that path in quarter 1, and it is visible in our results. When we talk about deposits, a very important element in our offer for customer are investment products, yet another quarter of strong growth in this respect, both quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year. And among our customers -- our customers traditionally are very interested in portfolios linked to debt instruments. Very briefly about net interest income. As regards our interest activity, a good quarter, a good year, year-on-year. But quarter-on-quarter, when we look at the figures, we must remember that December was somehow -- the December results were distorted because of the settlement of credit holidays. If we adjust that impact, the net interest income on core activity were stable and strongly supported by bank deposits activity and the result on hedging transactions. Our net interest margin stable, as we've already heard, taking into account the changes of the interest rate cycle, we are beyond or behind -- beyond the peak of net interest margin. In the net fee and commission income, again, good results, particularly in the card business sector and asset management. In the loan area, it is also related to the stronger development of our loan portfolio, which is not yet at the level we would like it to see. And therefore, the net fee and commission income was at a slightly lower level. And I do believe this is -- we also had a few transactions that were pretty much a one-off. Investment activity. Here, we have very strong results, both quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year. They are focusing in 2 areas of the bank. One of them is ALM treasury. The bank was expecting a change in interest rate policy. So we were hedging those positions. Hence, those positions contribute to our profit and loss in the first quarter. Same goes for the CIB banking. We had a number of one-off transactions, and we have also leveraged the -- used the market situation. We have intensified our trading activity in the first quarter. If we look at transaction activity in this area, you can also see a major growth year-on-year and decent growth quarter-on-quarter. In expenses area, there are 2 most important elements. The first, this is a quarter when we traditionally recognize regulatory costs, which naturally distorts the annual trajectory. And the second, if we factor out regulatory fees, our expenses growth is below inflation. This makes us happy, of course. But of course, we do not remain complacent. We continue a keen interest in that area. Here, I would like to give the floor to Wojciech to discuss credit risk.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Both the cost of risk and impaired loans in the first quarter of 2025 remained very stable and very quiet. What does it mean? It means that we have not noted any major impaired loans, either on corporate side or SME side. In terms of retail loans, those were being repaid very well. As a result, we have [ 12 bp ], PLN 27 million cost of risk and a very stable situation in terms of impaired loans. We still have a nominal value of PLN 3.2 million. And this is the level that should really be a target level. We certainly are not going to try and make it lower. As for individual phases, the situation once again is stable, both Phase 1, 2 and 3. But it's not just before -- because of the stage or phase, but also the loans in individual client segments. The one thing I would like to point out is the bottom right corner. Here, you see that the coverage, NPL coverage was decreased, but this is stemming from the fact that impaired loans or nonperforming loans that we have written off the balance sheet had 100% provisions. So when you look at the numerator and denominator, what remained on the balance sheet simply had less coverage. And this is the only reason why this level has decreased. And I think this is all. Piotr, over to you.

Ladies and gentlemen, as for capital position, like I have mentioned earlier, it is very strong. all the indicators, all the parameters are met with a good buffer. The most important was the decision about the distribution of profit for 2024 and payment of dividends. The dividend was paid on May 9. And this closed the dividend cycle of 2024. The second element that we have already mentioned is that this quarter, we are working under the new rigor of CRR3. In our case, its impact is about PLN 3.3 billion. One element that remains uncertain is the publication if it happens and the potential impact of RTS, which as of today, remains uncertain as both timing and scale. So this is it as far as capital position of the bank is concerned. This brings us to the end of the presentation. Now allow me to offer a few words about what we expect in the future. We talk about uncertainty at every opportunity. The uncertainty, of course, exists, and it will probably remain with us. We have to learn to live with it, anticipate the possible scenario and scenarios and be prepared for any case. Situation in Poland looks more optimistic than it does in many other places in the world. We do believe that the economy is growing rather robustly this year, 3.5% and more. Next quarter should be similar. The inflow of EU funds should stimulate investments that we need. We do see areas where large-scale investments are really needed, starting from energy transition through digitization to, of course, defense. The interest rate decrease cycle has started. From the perspective of the banking sector income, it is a certain challenge, and we feel well prepared for that challenge. What we see is a very strong competition in the market. We all feel it. This translates into margins, especially in SME banking and corporate banking. It also translates into very aggressive structures that we have not seen before and that are not encountered in other EU countries. We have 29 banks and relatively low demand for loans. So as a result, everybody is fighting for their share in this small pie ferociously. I mean that's reality. What is important is further growth of transactional clients, acquisition of transactional clients in every segment, but in particular, individual clients, retail clients, building retail volumes but the ones that are valuable that have a positive impact on our indicators, especially return on equity. We will support sustainable development. We will support energy transition. We do believe it is absolutely necessary for Poland to maintain its growth rate and become a truly competitive economy in Europe and worldwide. We will look for new use cases for AI technology, both generative AI and recently, the increasingly popular in debates and conferences form of AI, which is a Agentic AI. It's difficult to translate into Polish yet. So efficiency is important for us. We want to support it with technology, improve our key ratios, key indicators. This is the final year of the current strategy, the go beyond strategy. We are working on a new strategy, which hopefully, we will be able to announce at the end of this year or at the beginning of the next year. I would like it to be a growth and sustainable development strategy, sustainable, smart and responsible development. This is it. Thank you for this part, and we can move on smoothly to questions and answers. I, of course, always encourage questions from the room because they have like a natural priority.

Good morning. Hubert Bigdowski, WNP.PL. Two questions. First is about the strong market competitions. How could recent ownership changes in the banking market influence it? Will it become even more acute? And how do you assess the new player on the Polish market? And secondly, net profit growth dynamics that was achieved in higher interest rate environment of previous quarters. Will it be possible to maintain in low interest rate in coming quarters?

Let me start with the first question because I will be more happy to answer it. As for the second one, I will be more politically correct. So first, the fact that such a major transaction happens in a Polish market is a very positive sign in terms of perception of our banking market. We have not seen such a situation in many years. I look at it not from the perspective of Santander is leaving, but from the perspective of a new major European player is coming in that is focused on Central and Eastern Europe. For Santander, Poland was not a strategic market. If you look at a map, it's not a bank that is strongly rooted in Central and Eastern Europe. Southern America is a more natural territory for them. So their withdrawal does not stem from their dislike of Polish market because they had very good results in recent quarters. This is exclusively for strategic reasons, focusing on "home markets." On Erste, on the other hand, for that bank, it is filling in a massive gap because that bank was present heavily in Central and Eastern Europe, but it was not present in Poland and now it will be. Frankly speaking, I do not expect much change. I mean, Santander is a well-managed bank, efficient and profitable. So I assume that the new strategic shareholder will simply allow them to continue as they go. They will certainly implement changes that would be closer to their policy in various areas like loans. Erste is known as a very conservative bank. They are also less involved in corporate and institutional banking business as opposed to Santander. I mean, Erste is hardly a global bank. Their presence and geographical scale are smaller. So I would expect less activity here. Which opens some room for growth for the banks for whom corporate and institutional banking, the CIB, is core activity, and we are among those banks. As for competitiveness, well, as we know, Santander will keep Santander Consumer segment, which means that the number of competitors in the area of consumer finance will increase by 1 because Erste will certainly want to operate in this market. And the Santander-owned bank will also remain in place. So time will show how this transaction is going to go, whether it would cause some turbulence in Santander Bank Polska as such, due to systemic change, if nothing else. But it is definitely a positive signal for investors worldwide. And the second question was more forward-looking how the profit, profits and interest rates, how will that work? I'm not sure I can really answer that because, of course, the reduction of interest rates may translate into the reduction of net interest income, which should be compensated both with volumes and maybe noninterest profits as we could see the first quarter was very good in terms of net trading income. But definitely for this sector, lower interest rates pose a challenge in terms of maintaining the growth dynamics and profit growth dynamics. Do we have more questions from the room?

Good morning. Andrzej Powierza, Citi Handlowy Brokerage House. Two questions. One, to continue the subject of what after Erste. And my question would be the following. Do you expect that it might cause a domino effect in the Polish banking sector, leading to similar transactions? And the second question referring -- although I know it may be too early to ask about your new strategy, but maybe I would ask about your reflections, your thoughts about those various strategies recently published by other banks. What was interesting in them, perhaps what you found missing and where BNP would like to be different?

A very interesting question, an avalanche, right? This transaction shows that Polish banking market is attractive for investors who are not present here and that you can actually sell a bank at a very good price. I think there are banks that would like to be in Poland at a certain scale, be present in Poland at a certain scale, but it's difficult to find a bank that would like to be sold. So we can now get into those speculations who could be for sale. We might be thinking about the same banks here, and I would not mention them where either the scale is not there or there are challenges on the part of the leading shareholder. But then again, I'm not in the minds of those shareholders to know to what extent that particular transaction may stimulate them to take -- finally take a decision that they weren't willing to take for many years. But the case of Erste confirms that there would be investors somewhere who would be ready to pay quite a good money for a decent share in the Polish banking market. Polish banking market is doomed to grow. If we look at the ratio of loan to GDP, we are at the very end of the list in European Union. And I can't see the reason why this is so. We don't have the corporate bonds market well developed, and it's really the banks are just -- this is a simplification, but they are the only supplier of loan into the economy. And still, that share is quite low. So one might say poor market because the loan share is low. I would say this market has to grow. So it's a good time for Poland. We are being talked a lot about. We are perceived also thanks to the President. It's a strong country, a strong economy, important economy in Europe. So if the situation behind our Eastern border stabilizes a little, we might witness a great interest in the Polish economy, in Polish businesses, let alone the role that we may play in the reconstruction of Ukraine when that becomes real. And I think that Polish banking sector will grow. It is attractive, and we all hope that certain intervention inclines are now behind us. Well, we can always have a situation when politicians decide to announce another credit holidays or make it difficult for us to finance defense effort. But we do hope that such ideas will not come back. And definitely, Erste believes that they believe that's already behind us. And I think that there are also investors who think along the same lines. But as -- we hear it in the song, it takes 2 to tango. If someone wants to buy, there must be someone who is willing to sell. And the question also is about the PZU strategy vis-a-vis the banks that insurance company controls. As I understand, we are not yet clear about that, but that might create a situation where we could see another such transaction if the decision is taken to sell the bank outside the group. So that's all. And what was your second question, our strategy and what is in those other strategies? Okay. I won't tell you anything about our strategy because, first, it's not ready yet. It has not been approved. It has a certain shape, but definitely, it's not complete. Of course, we are looking at the strategies of other banks that have already been announced. And what we can see there is a very coherent picture. Everybody says ROE 18% cost-to-income ratio 35%. The more efficient banks are even talking about the growth of that indicator and everybody talks about growth of business and growth in the number of customers. So all those strategies point to growth, which also shows that we perceive the Polish market as a market with great growth and development potential. Of course, it's not that simple because if we added up the numbers of customers that all the banks want -- every bank wants to acquire, then we would fall short of the number of citizens. But that shows that the competition will be very strong, but it also shows that we are looking into the future with optimism. No bank has yet entered the market with the strategy of reduction, shrinking, high specialization at the expense of the volume. So it seems that this model of banking just works in the Polish market. So I understand we can now go to questions from online. The first question, "What is the value of zloty NII indicator and the indicator of long-term financing for the bank for Q1?" So let me answer that. At the end of March, zloty NI was 3.95%, and it's again below the 5% requirement. And the level of long-term financing indicator is significantly above the 40% requirement. So both indicators in our case are on a very safe level. "What is the guidance for future quarters for net fee and commission income?" So this forward-looking questions they are always difficult because it depends what life will bring, one can say. Because if we assume that the loan activity, our loan activity will grow because the market will allow that, we may assume that fee and commission income supported with loan activity will be -- continue the positive trend. But to what extent this is certain, we'll see. Normally, the economic growth is conducive to activity of customers to transactionality and also loan activity, and that is something that translates positively into positive net fee and commission income. Another question, guidance. "What is the guidance for cost of risk in future quarters?" So let me hand over to the expert.

If we mean here and when we say the situation in quarter 1 was very stable and that we did not record any one-off huge risk situations, we also have to emphasize that, that means that all the processes related to monitoring early warning restructuring and at the end of the day sometimes debt recovery, that they are all working properly. Now if we look at our portfolios, then on the one hand, it seems that the risk of individual customer portfolios, here, the risk is very, very small, but they might lead to some significant increase in the cost of risk. And it's similar on SME and corporate side, but there are 2 issues I would like to draw your attention to. One, on the corporate side, this may always happen, like a one-off default, which potentially may increase the cost of risk. Today, we can't see anything like that, but it doesn't mean that it is not happening. It doesn't happen. It does happen statistically from time to time. Right now, we are monitoring and studying what may be the potential impact of the trade war that is happening right now. But again, we have been doing that before in terms of sectors and exports of the company -- by the companies that we finance also in retail segment. We also carried out such studies, such monitoring vis-a-vis credit holidays, what may be the impact of NPL loans at the end of credit holidays, once that is concluded, what will happen then. So this is something we will have to take into account. It's still an open issue. So these are all questions. So if there are no more questions from the room, very few questions. But the conclusion is that our explanations and presentations are getting more and more clear. Thank you very much for being here, both here in the room, but also online. And we invite you again to our next meeting when the Q2 results are announced. Thank you very much. [Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]