BNP Paribas SA (BNP) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, everyone. Thank you for being with us this morning. Because of the health crisis, for 2 years, we haven't had the opportunity to meet very often together. And once -- general meeting last October. It's been for 2 years we haven't had a major general meeting face to face, so thanks for coming. It's a real pleasure to see you. And the Board members are here as well as is general management. Members of the [ liaison ] committees with the shareholders are present as well as usual. Thank you for being here as well. So I'm going to proceed with the opening ceremony of the General Meeting of BNP Paribas for 2022. We have met today in the first convening notice. This is a general assembly as usual, which is a public meeting. The discussions, as you know, are recorded under the control of a bailiff, which will be drawing up a detailed report on the proceedings, which will be available on the bank site. And the meeting is also being broadcast on the bank site. I'd like to take advantage of this to give you the date of the next general assembly which will decide on the accounts for 2022 dated as of today, Tuesday, 16th of May here, unless extenuating unforeseen circumstances should we require a different date. We have the financial statements for 2021 on the management report and the council report on the activities of the group is proposed on -- and it's also available if you don't -- if you haven't yet received it. You also have a full report, which is a synthetic document where the global and long-term perspective is provided. As usual, there are 2 types of forms that were handed out to you. One is a pink one for questions having to do with the agenda. Green for questions having to do more individual questions which have to do with the customers of BNP Paribas. I'd like to indicate as well that as was the case previously, Mr. [indiscernible] is here, and he will be responding with members of staff who are present here to questions you may have. And we will obviously be collecting those written questions that you may submit. We need to comprise the bureau. I am presiding over the assembly compliant with Article 18 of the bylaws. The functions of scrutineers are fulfilled by shareholders which represent the biggest number of shares, and they have accepted this. I'd like to thank to this end Mrs. Laurence Bovy, who is Chair of SFPI, who is here and accepted to be 1 of the 2 scrutineers. And the other is Mr. Axel Joly, I would like to thank as well, who is a member of the Supervisory Board of the [ FCPE ], who is also a shareholder. Thank you. I'd like to designate as well Mrs. Guylaine Dyèvre as Secretary of the assembly. Guylaine is here. And the statutory auditors have been duly convened: Deloitte, represented by Laurence Dubois; and PricewaterhouseCoopers, represented by Mr. Patrice Morot; Mazars, represented by Mrs. Virginie Chauvin, who are all present in the first row, ready to take the floor should that be required. The first convening notice establishing the [ present sheet ], which is available to members of the bureau as well as the shareholders voting by mail, which figures is fully respect the quorum, which is 65.01%, representing fully 800,560,626 shares. So the assembly is meeting in a regular fashion. The documents have been deposited on the desk of the assembly. And I'd like to remind you that the order of the day was published, and you have this agenda. And we can now start our work. Thank you for your attention. For a few minutes, the hostess will be picking up written questions. I suggest that the written questions be collected at the same time as we continue, and we're not going to stop for a few minutes just to do that. I think that we can do this as usual. We can do both at the same time. [Operator Instructions] Before we -- I would like to share with you a few comments in the name of the Board of Directors, the works that the Board has undertaken and provided over the previous year. And before I do that, I'd like to say a word about the situation that you're all aware of in Ukraine, subsequent to events which started on the 24th of February 2022 and the military operations that we are all obviously aware of. I'd like to do this by specifically mentioning our 5,000 staff who are in Ukraine. As you know, BNP Paribas has an affiliate, UkrSibbank, which is Ukrainian bank. Their headquarters are in Kiev, and they have branches throughout Ukraine. We have 5,000 staff who are in sometimes very difficult situations from a human point of view. I won't describe them, but you can understand that very easily. I just want to say 2 things. The first thing is that these members of staff have done a remarkable work in bankers in the field. They have done -- maintained the branch offices open insofar as possible to do their work and doing their work in a difficult period, a period of war, might as well call things as they are, to provide banking services to customers. We often talk about proximity services, local services. That's what they're doing, taking special care that the salaries will be paid into the customer accounts and taking care that the customers who wished could access their bank accounts to withdraw cash because in a period of conflict, that's very important, and they've done that. So they maintained the relationship with customers, and they were available -- and they are available, including in the worst possible circumstances. I'd like to pay tribute to them in this respect. It's a hard job. It's an important job. Now some have been refugees with their families. Some in Poland, which is a neighboring country on the west of Ukraine. Others were in the east of Ukraine and moved to the east -- I'm sorry, to the west of Ukraine. And the second comment I'd like to underline to what extent general management and all the general director of the bank who have been very attentive and devoted much time and resources to helping all of these members of staff and all of these families of staff to care of their safety, their transport, to find what was necessary to live. I'd like to say just one thing. Jean-Laurent [ took care ] that the bank at all times where all members of staff are located so that we can help them. And this is a remarkable job that was done by the teams of the bank. It's not a banker's job, but it's an employer's duty that was well done and well run. The bank intervened via various contributions to ensure full solidarity by supporting partner associations and activating the emergency fund and development fund of BNP Paribas, which to contribute to the support of Ukrainians. This being said, from the economic point of view, the previous year was delicate. The conflict had many significant consequences. So these are changes of the deep nature which occurred in 2021, which were marked by many events, marked by the health crisis and the economic crisis. There was a higher growth rate last year, and this rebound can be explained by a pickup in demand following the contraction in demand, supported by the government and central banks and by the role played by the banking industry more generally in financing the economy naturally. You know that BNP Paribas has played its role in the recovery. We helped companies and private individuals in their investment programs, in their funding programs and development with a view to encouraging a more responsible economy. I'd like to talk about 2 points which characterize 2020, a deep commitment as a very solid bank to support the economy and the progress being made towards a more responsible involvement as a bank. Now the Board of Directors shares with general management the conviction that all of the issues linked to the climate and the economic transition and saving biodiversity comprise a priority which are imposed upon everyone, public authorities and citizens and private operators, which have an essential role to play in this transition, and BNP Paribas has every intention of providing its contribution. Now the geopolitical situation illustrates the European Union's vulnerability and to get out of its excessive dependency on fossil fuels. And we have an important role to play as a bank. Financial players must thus accelerate the rhythm of funding. They have supported this massively to reach carbon neutral by 2050. That's what we -- we had a long discussion in the Board about this. The consensus is very strong. Management is well defined in their objectives. BNP Paribas has pursued its mobilization in this direction and has taken some restructuring actions under GTS 2025, which Jean-Laurent Bonnafe is going to be presenting later on. I'd like to just remind you that the Board of Directors has every confidence in the relevance of the strategic orientations which have been decided and in the ability of the Executive Committee under the management of General Director with all of the bank teams to implement these in the coming years despite the uncertainties that do exist, and we will probably get back to that a bit later. But it's very clear the bank knows what they must do, what they need to do even if there are some areas of uncertainty which will require obvious adjustments but the heading is clear. Be that as it may, BNP Paribas will continue its European leadership with the support of its shareholders, with your support, will be all important in an inclusive fashion. Those are the few comments I wanted to make as Chairman of the Board to say things clearly right at the beginning of the meeting. We haven't had this format for quite some time, and it seemed useful to me to remind us of the deep commitments of the Board with respect to these questions. I think that we have a corporate film that we're going to show you so it can serve as an illustration what I just indicated. [Presentation]

Thank you. Let's move on next now to the heart of the matter, so to speak. Lars Machenil, who is our CFO in the group, will now present the 2021 results, which are the focus of our meeting, of course. And then Jean-Laurent Bonnafe will present the new strategic plan for 2025 for the bank. And then Laurence Pessez, who is in charge of CSR in the group, will present the main guidelines going forward. And then at the end, as usual, I will make a presentation on matters to do with governance and compensation for the corporate officers. Lars Machenil, you have the floor.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, it's a great pleasure for me to speak to you today and present to you the results of your bank BNP Paribas for 2021. If you look at the screen before us now, you will see that BNP Paribas has put in a sustained performance. What do we see here? We see 4 tables with bar charts really.

Could you put it in focus? [Asks somebody in the audience.] It's not easy to read from here. If you could bring it into focus, please. Thank you.

Is that clearer for you now, sir? Thank you. Okay. So you can see here the bar charts, in green on the right, the light green color, 2021. In the middle, darker green, you got 2020. And 2020 was, of course, a year that was impacted by the pandemic, so a rather particular year. We also represented 2019. And on the left, you see the revenues; on the right, our costs, our operating expenses; bottom of the left, the balance sheet; and bottom of the right, the net income. So let's start on the top of the left, the revenues. You see that the revenues for 2021 are up compared with 2020, and this was consolidated by the general approach we've been taking to service the needs of our clients and the economy. Now on the top of the right, you see our operating expenses. That shows our ability to invest in the bank, and the jaws effect is positive. These jaws effects, I'll tell you what that means, it means that you've got the revenues up on top going up and going up faster than our operating expenses, and that's because BNP Paribas is servicing its clients out of platforms. If you've got clients in France and you're supporting them in Germany, we're using the same platform. We don't need to set up another platform. These are [ full ] platforms. So if you look at the bottom of the right bar chart, the net income, you see it's up compared with 2020 and 2019. Now if you look at an indicator that is of interest to you, I'm sure, which is the net earnings per share, this one went up quite substantially, as you see here, compared to 2020 and 2019. But also, if you look at the longer term, if you look at the period between 2016 and 2021, it went up also. And if you look at the growth rate annually, the CAGR, the C-A-G-R, from 2016 to 2021, you see it went up by 3.9% every year. So this is indeed a sustained performance on the part of your bank. If we compare your bank with its peers in Europe, Europe in a broad sense, now you see here on this bar chart that BNP Paribas is indeed a European leader. Now on the left-hand side you see the banks in the European area and then BNP Paribas, away on the left, as you see with the high figure. Then the ones based in London, HSBC and Barclays, and those in Switzerland are on the right-hand side of our chart. So BNP Paribas is indeed a leader in Europe year in, year out, year in, year out in Euroland. Now the bar charts for BNP Paribas have been similar over the years. For other banks, there were more ups and downs. It was a bit more random, let's say, in terms of development in Euroland. Now that's a picture of your bank. And now if we look at the 3 main operating divisions in the bank. You see here the revenues. On the right you see the group, and you can see there are 2 main figures each time. The ones on the top in green, these are the trends, the developments we've seen. And in blue, we put in the trend on a like-for-like basis in terms of consolidation scope and foreign exchange. And you see that here, the U.S. dollar has become stronger and so on. So our businesses in the U.S., when we convert to the euro currency because we're a European bank and our figures are in the euro currency, well, it gives us less euros so the figure is lower. So we've put in the like-for-like figures as well. So if you look at Domestic Markets, the Domestic Markets comprising of banks in France, Belgium and Italy, you see sustained growth, strong growth in our revenues because of the increases in the networks here in France and also an increase in the dedicated business lines, the specialized business lines like Arval. Then IFS, that's International Financial Services, in the middle, this comprises, among other things, business lines like asset management, insurance and also our Bank of the West activities in California. And here, when we look at the like-for-like situation given the trend of the dollar I just mentioned, you see an increase in the revenues. And finally, we have CIB, Corporate and Institutional Banking, comprising market-oriented businesses, financing of large corporations and securities services. So here, you see a growth in the revenues at a high level compared to 2020. And as I was saying, 2020 was a particular year because of the COVID pandemic. So if you compare with 2019 then, you see the trend is 17.8% of a difference. So they're our 3 main operating divisions. Progression [ all around ]. Now if I look at then our operating expenses on the other side, you see the trend here is 3% of the difference group-wide. Now to go back to the jaws effect I mentioned earlier, the revenue is going up by 4.4% and the cost by 3%. So that means there's a jaws effect. There is a differential of 1.4% between the 2. So that is the summary of the 3 operating divisions. If we look now at the individual divisions in detail, let's start off with Domestic Markets. When you look at the trend here, it's interesting to have a look at the balance sheet. On the left-hand side, the assets, you've got loans; and on the right-hand side, liabilities, deposits. So loans went up by 4.2%, and deposits went up by 8.6%. So you can see here the support being given by the bank to its clients and the economy. But this is only one metric. Let's look at another one. The upswing in activity can be seen also through the acceleration of the mobile users of banking services in all of the markets -- domestic markets, I mean. So for example, [indiscernible] we have 172 million connections monthly to the mobile apps. That was the figure at the end of 2021. That is a contact more than 25 times a month on average. So to sum up, the net income pretax goes up quite strongly, EUR 4.1 billion, an upswing of 26% compared with 2020. This is the first division. The next division is International Financial Services, IFS. If we look at the economic activity here, we see on the left the strong momentum in the asset management and insurance business lines. What do we see here in detail? If we look at the assets under management, they developed, on the left as you see, quite substantially and ended up at 1,271. This is, of course, a very large figure. We're talking about billions of euro here. So if you look at the commercial activity, this was also sustained in the network activities internationally. And if you take, for example, Personal Finance, PF, you see an upswing in production of 11% compared with 2020. That's good business development. In that division, you also have the business activity of Bank of the West in California. And on the 20th of December 2021, you've seen that we announced the divestment of that business activity to the Bank of Montreal, which should be closed out at the end of this year, the transaction. So if we round off our review of the divisions by Corporate and Institutional Banking, well, here, we see a very sustained level of business activity in all of the fields encompass. So this is continuous development that was further bolstered by 2 strategic operations that were finalized in 2021. Firstly, the integration of Exane at 100%. That was completed in the summertime of 2021. And secondly, the finalization of the transfer of the prime brokerage and electronic execution business activities of Deutsche Bank to BNP Paribas. And if you look at the left-hand bar chart, we're not in the hit parade here up on top, but we are in there. And look at CIB in Europe, in EMEA. You see the 5 largest players. BNP Paribas has a respectable position here. We're the largest European bank because upwards of us and even below us, we have U.S. banks. So we're in there. We're in the league table, and 2021 showed an increase of 36% in the performance compared with the previous year, 2020. Here, we have seen now the revenue and the cost items and the different divisions. But let's look at something else that's important, which is on the screen here, the cost of risk. Now here, you see a lot of bars in the bar charts. There are 3 groups. On the right, light green, you see -- by the way, these bars in the bar charts when we're talking about the cost of risk, we are expressing it in euro terms, cost of risk in euro over outstanding. So it's usually a percentage figure. But as is a percentage of the provision suite set aside for the outstanding [ set ], if it's less than 1%, it's basis points, not just percentage points. So these are the bars here. Now on the right, you've got the 4 light green ones, 2021, each quarter -- each of the 4 quarters. In the middle, darker green, you have each quarter in 2020. And on the left, you have for the year 2021 and the 2020 and 2019, 2018 figures as well. So let's have a look at 2021. Cost of risk at a low level. This is because of the limited number of new defaults and a higher base -- comparative base, of course, because we're comparing with 2020, which was the pandemic year. So you see the cost of risk in 2021, therefore, has come back to the level we had prior to 2020, similar to what we had in 2019 and 2018 in other words. Now if we round it off with the financial structure, let's have a look at this. The financial structure is really robust. It's very sound. If we look at it through the CET1 ratio, it's 12.9%, up from 12.8%, sorry. And our level is higher than what's been notified by the European Central Bank, which is 9.2%. So we're quite a bit above that. Now this figure may not be meaningful by itself. We've got to look at the liquidity reserve as well. Liquidity reserve, that's the headroom, the room for maneuver we have in terms of liquidity reserve. And this reserve for 2021 is EUR 452 billion. These are the reserves we have, in other words, and that is why your bank has a financial structure that we can deem to be really robust. If I round it off with the last item here, this last slide, if we convert this and look at the balance sheet throughout the cycle, the bar chart on the left, first thing. Here, we see the tangible net book value per share, and you have the figures. And then if we divide it by the number of shares, we rounded off 2021 at EUR 78.7, which is up by 7.4% compared to the previous year. And it's not just vis-à-vis the previous year. You see the bars over periods since 2008, the way they've evolved. And on average, the CAGR is 7.2%, the C-A-G-R, as you see here on the screen. So it's gone up year in, year out, and the average is 7.2%. So if you look at around us, at the other European banks, I don't think you'll find the same picture anywhere else. So that is the tangible net book value. Now if we look at the right-hand side of our chart, we'll see the total amount paid out to yourself, EUR 5.4 billion. On the one hand in terms of dividend, if I put it in terms of dividend per share, EUR 3.67 per share in cash, 50% of the income, as we did the previous year, too. So the yield is 7.4%. That's the rate of return. This was supplemented by a share buyback program of EUR 900 million [ we ] executed in Q4 of 2021. So that led us to cancel 15.5 million shares, and that was therefore the equivalent of 10% of our income, the share buyback program, the impact of it. So this, therefore, shows you the ongoing growth pathway throughout the cycle. This rounds off the presentation for 2021 regarding the financials of our bank. Really sound, as I said earlier. So thank you for your attention, and I will give the floor now straightaway to Jean-Laurent Bonnafe, who will detail out the major thrust of our strategic plan, GTS 2025.

[Interpreted] Hello, everybody. This is Jean Bonnafe. I'll focus on the presentation of GTS 2025. G for growth, T for technology and S for sustainability. They're the 3 main thrusts that we cover in our planned growth because our group managed to maintain great diversification and we've grasped lots of opportunities for business development. And we've achieved growth and technology. And we want to do it in the future, too, of course, technology because it's using technology platforms, information systems that we will succeed in the future. They're really important in our arrangements with 190,000 employees. We've a lot of IT people in there, helping us out to achieve our technology targets. And of course, we're talking about human resources, too. And we want to achieve sustainability. That's the S here. So we've got to take care of our clients, our counterparties, the people working for us and everybody. Sustainability is important because the world we're living in and the way the world has developed up to now in the last few years, well, we've seen some disorder, even imbalances, we could say, disequilibrium. And we've got to rectify the situation of the world and banks play a preponderant role. They're not in charge of the ecological transition but we're important players that can help us all to achieve our goals. We deploy certain ambitions. We've got action plans so as to help us to achieve our sustainability goals with a low carbon economy by 2050. That's our aim. It'll take time but we need to have short-term milestones that we can commit to firmly, clearly so as to measure our progress as we go along in this transition pathway. So BNP Paribas has a model that's fairly distinctive. It's weathered a lot of storms, a lot of crisis up to now. And it gets through the different cycles very well. We're really client-focused. We're a service entity after all. We're here to service our clients, service the economy -- to serve the economy. And that's what a bank is all about. You've got to serve your customers and support those who wants to be developed. We've got a model that's integrated to all of our business lines, all our geographies. All of our teams play together as a team. And we're at the service of our customers. We haven't got many people dispersed in different environments, each doing their own thing in their own corner. No, it's an integrated structure. Diversified, too. As I said already, a lot of geographies, lots of business lines. So when the cycles are more difficult, you can at least have some of your portfolio that's functioning better perhaps than others. And that gives us a possibility of weathering storms in the different cycles. It gives us time to adapt at least and then at scale. In the business plans we're involved in, that we've invested heavily in, we are front-ranking players. So growth enables us to -- we can achieve growth at marginal cost. That makes us more efficient. So we can scale up. So we're a leader here in Europe that gives us a unique positioning at the service, as I say, of a customer franchise that is very sound. Here, we have an overview, a snapshot for tour. It's like our ID card, I would say, in the group, CIB, of course, Corporate & Institutional Banking; CPBS, Commercial, Personal Banking & Services; commercial banking for corporates and individuals; private individuals as well in personal banking, that is, and service as well. And then IPS, which is more revolving around savings. CIB is about 1/3 of the whole lot. CPBS is bigger actually, 1/3 for Commercial Banking, sixth for the specialized business lines. And IPS is fixed, the remaining sixth. And if you add up those fractions, it gives you 100%. So it gives you the whole bank. So it's very balanced. Most -- I mean all the business lines also work together hand in hand. When one business line becomes less well performing, it's reviewed. We have a close update. Sometimes we haven't invested enough and that's when we invest more in it. And sometimes we change the organization in the group because the relations may change. Interactions may need to change. And sometimes, we need to give more independence to certain parts of our group. But overall, all told, this is our ID card. This is our gene map of a sort. And this is what was built up at the time of the merger between BNP and Paribas in 2000. And then we, of course, added on other major allies in the meantime, Fortis bank in Belgium, BNL in Italy, Polish bank, Turkish bank. So this model remains valid. It's our DNA in BNP Paribas. Our strategic ambitions, we've seen those. Growth, Technology and Sustainability showed up, of course, by development and engagement of our people. Information system is a technical platform we work with. But obviously, we need people to do all of this. We need our people to service our clients. So these are the 4 bricks, as you are aware, in the 2025 plan. It's been synthetic. These are the main essential items. We talked about the leadership position aligned strategically to serve clients and partners and the full contribution of the operational and integrated model. Technology and industrialization at the heart of the model, the deployment of sustainable finance and CSR on a global scale. I think over the last few years, we've done a great deal in this area. We need to ramp up even further in terms of quantity and quality. And we need to become real industrials in this area. And by the end of the day, so far as the transition is concerned, we need to align all of our portfolios and all of our activities so as to make it possible to reach a low-carbon economy. We're not the only ones involved in this. A lot are working on this. And the development of the potential and commitment of our employees. The objectives are what? That's quite simple. It's the usual. To promote disciplined organic growth, to gain market share at a marginal cost. We are moving forward. And by discovering new environments, new dimensions. But cautiously, we're doing banking. It's an activity that has some risk. So you want a strong organic growth but disciplined. And so we need to gain market share. You don't have organic growth otherwise but at a marginal cost. In other words, when you have powerful new platforms that are well designed, the additional growth is done at a marginal cost that's growing less fast than the top line, the revenue, the income, which makes it possible to invest even more and to accelerate development even more. Creating and developing new opportunities. We are in a very open world where the banking universe is often challenged by new arrivals. And they often have new technologies and new businesses develop -- new business context. And we need to be able to have these good ideas as well. And we do this quite often. But we need to be able to ramp up and do what others are doing and to invest in these types of technologies. We can talk about the Nickel account, which we started 5 years ago, the Online banking, which is a big success. And it is -- we have the right platform to set up fraction payments. We can refer to CIB, which acquired the MDM platform. There are a lot of areas where we are shining and developing our own innovations in many areas. We're aggregating innovations and technologies that come from outside. So we are an open company from that point of view. And we spend a part of our time every day looking at what's going on elsewhere to see what could interest us. And there are many things going on. So we're in a period where every day, there are news to keep watch on and there's more and more competition to generate economies of scale of a substantial stature. It's costly, but in terms of control and supervision and quality of the whole organization, I'm going to talk risk profiles and anti-money laundering and financial security. You could talk about a lot of things and all of that costs more and more money. You can talk about cybersecurity. To invest properly in the right level, you always need to be a bit more competitive. And the future as a company is also keeping our ability to invest in our security -- to invest in security so as we can develop at the lowest possible risk. Now if I start with CPBS, the Commercial, Personal Banking & Services, I'm going to do a very short summary here. So the essential aspect of this that will serve to guide us is the recommendation of our customers and our employees. A few years ago, we could be happy when our customer satisfaction was enough in the industry we're in and the company we're working in. Now a great deal of things are derived from social networking. And we need to be recommended on the social networks. We need to be carried by our customers and our staff to be recommended. That is an absolutely central objective now. To succeed in that, we need an operational model that will be industrialized and resilient. A lot of what is being done in CPBS are platforms. And the platforms need to be fluid, they need to be accessible and they need to respond to just a few clicks to the real questions that are asked in order to provide the service that's required. And we have simplified products and services. That's the eternal quest of a bank. Services is always a time to blow up. And the idea is to keep it simple. It needs change. And we need to be aware of the fact that everybody doesn't change in the same way in the environment today. The relationship of the digital world is not the same, depending on the generation targeted and the sector and the culture and the companies we operate in. And so we need to leave a bank the choice of our customers for private individuals often there's a question of accessibility. It could be physical difficulties or accessibility in the sense of digital or not. Not everybody can manipulate platforms it was -- as much ease. And the less negative aspect of COVID was to force everybody to be at ease working at a distance. But despite the progress that has been realized, we are not all at the same level. And we need to pay attention to that because the bank has to provide a universal service to everyone. And we cannot notably in the private banking and in small SMB bank, we cannot -- we have to adapt to them, to our clients. That's an important dimension of this aspect. So in total, if we do all of that right, we will be able to accelerate the strong and profitable growth in our specialized business. We'll reinforce our leading positions in corporate and private banking segments in Europe. We will be able to little by little, align our arrangements with segments that have better performance. To better understand these businesses and to align the organization means to serve them better, these particular customers. And the efficacy continues to reduce costs and to fund new initiatives. So much for CPBS. And I'm aware that this is really just a summary. There's a lot more. IPS. It's all about savings, Investment & Protection Services. This involves everyone. It involves the whole universe of preparing retirement. In France today, the general assembly is taking in place in French. In this country, as is the case in many countries in Europe, there's a whole question of long-term investments, sustainable investments, which we summarize by talking about retirement, but it's a broad thing. It's a long-term investment. There are universities that have been able to handle this better than Continental Europeans. The bank was ideally positioned to lend a hand, whether it'd be in insurance, in private banking, wealth management, asset managers or real estate services, which is an essential asset in terms of managing one's portfolio. So we need to accelerate our strategic policy because we need to capture growth in private assets, and we need to strengthen our leadership in CSR, whether it'd be BNP products or other products available in private banking. And the way we're investing more generally, in the insurance business or the way we are proposing offers. All of this has to be extremely in line with our CSR policies, notably in the sense of the transition towards a low-carbon world. So the 4 key levers are the same: to make the most of the integrated model; to accelerate on digital data and AI; to continue to adapt to working methods. We're remote working, thanks to COVID and the adjustment to management techniques to that. There are lots of traps as well or pitfalls, possible pitfalls. But obviously we need to follow the -- we need to continue to optimize the operating model. So it's quite a nice menu for IPS, Investment & Protection Services, which is essential in the group. It's not really just banking, but it goes along with what are in BNP Paribas. We're the necessity for accompanying our customers wherever they need us. Now let's go on to Corporate & Institutional Banking, CIB, I'm going to talk about the progress of this platform, which was considerable over the past few years, even over the last 10 years. We have under the leadership of Yann Gerardin, who is a director, who has transformed everything that was found in specialties into a truly integrated platform based on technology that has turned towards customers, customer-centric with a priority for sustainable finance, which is well its past. There's a CIB platform, which has become #1 platform in Europe and one of the first worldwide. And the idea, generally speaking, is to continue to keep on keeping on, to be systematic and to be organized and disciplined to better serve effectively our counterparties, which can be very demanding, we're talking of the biggest corporate clients in the world. Here, we're talking about the biggest financial institutions. So the competition is ripe, it is severe. And American banks have invented these businesses. It's normal that they be amongst the top ones worldwide. We have a good position in Europe. We're #3 in Europe. There are 2 Americans ahead of us in Europe. We could exceed the level of one of those. So there would be only the one that's at the top in Europe, who would be kind of normal just because we know it's going to be very competitive. So that's the ambition of CIB to continue to make progress while controlling our risks. These are very complex platforms. So it has to be properly controlled with the idea of sustainable development. And within these areas, we have created a lot of tools that will make it possible to get our balance sheet to improve and to get it aligned with what in the future will be the low-carbon situation that we wish to accompany. So there we are. That's a summary. Obviously, CIB on one side is something that's hard to do. But philosophically, that's what we do. It is a bank basically that is actually quite close to the customers to serve big counterparts. And you had to have a very intimate knowledge of these corporate clients. And that's what's bringing us closer to all the other banking activities. The bank is, above all, the idea of proximity with a very good knowledge of the customer, whatever customer it is. Now getting back to the technology and industrialization. I've almost said it all. If I want to pull out a few bricks to show them to you. And there's the cloud. We started many years ago on a private cloud for ourselves, we are currently developing with IBM to open that up increasingly, that will give us more industrial efficacy in terms of IT. And it's something that will also give us a lot of security. It's an approach that is a bit different from the so-called public cloud approach, and that's what will prevail over time. It's a huge competitive advantage. It's not only in terms of security and artificial intelligence, data, robotics, usage cases. This is every day at BNP Paribas. And we need to do that a bit better and a bit more, and that's true in all businesses. There's no business that is better positioned or less well positioned out of them all. You need to be strong in AI, in robotics. Another question is the API-zation, use of APIs. The bank speaks to you very often via these applications. They're very different depending on the services provided and the business lines, but they correspond because they're customized depending on business and the counterparties. But you need to be more efficient in this area because, basically, the level of all counterparties, of all our customers have ramped up their expectations. They can consume banking better thanks to apps and so that you can keep more time, I would say, quality time with our staff for having conversations that are intended to concentrate on our value-added activities. And so technology and digital is necessary for that, and the conversation in trust with the counterparty. It's the same thing. One makes it possible to provide what's expected, to make things fluid, effective. It makes it possible to give even more time to the conversations that are singular and important with banking customers, from the bank to the customer. So I'm going to stop there on technology. I've cited one figure, 36,000 out of 190 staff, it's massive in terms of the actual people involved in the global market and the business is one point. It's half the staff are IT people. Now the objectives. Our plan is much more than objectives with figures, it's a trajectory. It's how you get there. And the figures are a measurement of where we stand or that we intend to maintain in a small number of years. We're talking about 4 years by 2025, 4 years. But indeed, we're listed or as a listed company, we have [indiscernible] so the growth, you can have -- when you talk about NBI, net banking income, the ambition is more than 3.5% per year every year. Some might say that, that's modest. And truth, in an economy that is European and the underlying economy is more about 2%, 3% -- 2%. So 3.5% is twice the expected rate for the economy as a whole. And the scissors effect, so basically, that's when your expenses rise less fast than your income. So if NBI goes up 3, we don't want the rest to go up or the cost to go up more than 2 points. So that will make it -- so that we can provide additional capacity to invest in innovations in the middle term and the long term. The cost of risk, we've anticipated on the order of 40 basis points on outstanding amounts, which provides a growth after net income group share of 7%, which is high a level, given the underlying economy and who we are and the basis upon which the 7% is applied. And return on tangible equity greater than 11% by 2025, that's our target. And CET1, 12% once Basel has been fully finalized and a distribution rate of 60% with a minimum of 50% in cash. That will be the usual dividend that's paid out with a complement of 10%, which would correspond to a share buyback program, which we do every year. So these are our basic yardsticks for the 4 upcoming years. And the first quarter in 2022 locates us very much above these measures, but it's only 1 quarter. In the first year, we'd have planned this over 4 years. So there are 16 quarters, so the first quarter is moving forward very, very nicely. And one point about the Bank of the West. This is an asset. For various reasons, it became less strategic. In reality, there's a consolidation that's being done in the U.S. for regional banks -- consolidated regional banks. So we could reinvest massively in the U.S. in a regional bank to grow that activity significantly there or to sell this asset at the best possible time, at the best possible price to be able to reinvest in all of our other activities the results of that sale. So at this session, there'll be $16.3 billion that will be EUR 6.3 billion -- EUR 11 billion of free capital or 170 ratio points, extraordinary share buyback program to compensate for the expected dilution of the EPS in the months following the completion of the transaction. That's a roughly EUR 4 billion, and all the rest of that profit will be kept in the company to accelerate our development in a certain number of areas that we call bolt-on, the organic and very disciplined external growth and businesses that we control the best of the new business model, and the technology and additional organic growth that we could fund with this additional capital that would be available. So the closing is expected by the end of the year. We're working on that because we have to handle the handover from our group to the Bank of Montreal, including switching over IT systems, and that is something that needs to be done carefully. The buyer has got a very good price, also had a good compatibility with the way -- with Bank of the West. So we believe that, that future bank in the U.S. will be a real merger. And for our colleagues that are with us in the BNP Paribas for many years, the future is insured for them in the next platform borne in the U.S. from the Bank of Montreal with the Bank of the West will be a bank -- a regional bank that have great power, in great shape and that, over time, will keep up in the head of the pack with the competitors. We sold a few years ago another bank, which did very well since it was sold. We proceeded with a good sale by APL, but we have to be interested in what the team has become, what becomes of the teams in the bank and once it's sold. And I think for Bank of the West, it will be just as it was for the group, it will be a great opportunity. I'm going to stop now and hand over to Laurence Pessez to present our CSR policy and the transition.

Thank you, Jean-Laurent. Hello, everybody. Yes, we'll continue talking about the plan, and we'll screen the slides -- the slide, yes, that's the one. Thank you. That's the one I wanted to talk about first. We'll look at the S part of the GTS 2025 strategic plan. Now the fact is corporate, social and environmental, responsibility, sustainability in general. These are a key feature in our plan, and that shows how strategic is the importance of these subjects. Your bank is really embracing these topics, has been for the last 10 years and with a leadership position. And the challenge first is to scale up, is to go to industrial scale with all of our efforts. All of these issues must systematically be factored into the decision-making processes of the bank. Right now, there are 400 people working on these topics full time. And I think I can say that absolutely all the business lines, all the subsidiaries, all the corporate functions are involved and are fostering this transformation. Now the objective is to support all of our customers in moving to the transition towards a sustainable economy, and this support is key. Won't be the bank that will do the transition. It's each of our clients, individual, retail customers, personal customers, institutionals, corporates. And we're here to encourage them facilitate things for them, give them the means to achieve this transformation as quickly as possible and to make it a fair and inclusive transition at the same time. So it's a broad-ranging topic, of course, as you can see here. And since 2016, we've decided to actively contribute to the sustainability goals. And you see the multi-colored logo of sustainable development with 17 main focuses, but we've decided to particularly focus on 5 major areas for teams. We have climate transition to 0 carbon, biodiversity, the [indiscernible] exclusion the circular economy the change in consumption patterns and then a cross-cutting area, which is everything we can propose while we have value proposition to our clients in terms of savings and investments that will be sustainable, too. As every year, we want to share with you the win, which were perceived by the people looking at us, especially the nonfinancial rating agencies. You see here, we're always well placed in these rankings. And that's still the case, of course. And we've been going upwards the whole time even though the math are becoming higher as well. So we're part of certain rankings for the last 8 years. We've been in the global 100 most sustainable companies in the world. We also were named Best Bank in the world for Sustainable Finance in 2021. And also we're considered to be the top employer in Europe in 8 countries of the group for the ninth year running. Now among the highlights of the year that I'd like to dwell on a little bit, we see for a start that we're succeeding in exiting from the value chain of coal and thermal energy. We want to be totally out of that in 2030 in Europe and the OECD countries and, 10 years later, all over the world. So we've only got about 8% of coal in the energy mix that we finance as opposed to 10.4% at the end of 2020. And we've confirmed our strong positions in terms of sustainable finance internationally, be it the structuring and distribution of sustainable bonds for our clients or the market of loans indexed to environmental and social criteria. On the bottom of the left of the screen here, you see that we've maintained and bolstered our actions in favor of people who need support and help, be it micro borrowers who were hard hit by the pandemic in 2021, also refugees in Europe. In whose favor, the total amount of our support is EUR 17 million since 2015. And also more recently, of course, in favor of Ukraine, a topic I won't go into further because Jean Lemierre has already talked about this at the start of our meeting. The floor, Laurence Pessez. So I'll resume on the subject of our internal functioning, I will mention 2 achievements. Firstly, the updating of our code of conduct in the group guiding the behavior of our people, our employees of [ enriching ] 2021 with new themes. Secondly, the signature with the social partners of an agreement, sustaining the possibility enduringly, therefore, of working from home, remote working in general in BNP Paribas SA and the subsidiaries in France. And we also created the low carbon transition group, which ultimately will comprise 250 professionals. And in terms of financing of renewable energy sources, we've exceeded our objective. We stand at EUR 18.6 billion at the end of 2021, and our ambition is to achieve EUR 30 billion in 2025. That's an increase of 70% compared with 2020. Also, we're maintaining our position in the top 3 positions worldwide regarding green bonds. Now Sustainable Finance is therefore one of the pillars of our plan, that's GTS 2025. So we've defined 3 priority strands to support our clients in this transition. Firstly, we want to govern our businesses. So as you come to a net zero economy by 2050, in line with the commitment we gave in 2021. In terms of financing, that we extend, but also in terms of managing the savings of our clients. To achieve this, is the second strand, we've got to mobilize all of the skills of the group so as to support our customers, be it the large clients, the SMEs, large corporations or personal investors, help them also achieve a low carbon -- a zero carbon economy ultimately. So we want to be a privileged partner of our clients in this transition. Therefore, we've got to adapt our management tools and our processes, our databases. And especially as a bank, it's all about people, men and women. We've got to reinforce and circulate widely our culture concerning sustainable finance around the world. So I won't go back into the 5 major themes that we have set up as a priority that I mentioned earlier, but I do want to underscore that to measure our progress, we've set ourselves commercial objectives that are ambitious and robust. Between now and 2025, there will be EUR 350 billion worth of sustainable financing. We will be managing the monies of our clients as for the best possible European standards in this area. Now to come into the heart of the matter here regarding the alignment of our portfolio so as to help to finance the net zero economy by 2050. What you see here on the screen sets down clearly, what I meant by managing or lending businesses earlier when I mentioned that. We want to have to finance a zero carbon economy by 2050. Concretely, this means bringing down our greenhouse gas emissions associated with our financing efforts, therefore, in the sectors that make the biggest contribution to global warming, transportation, fossil fuels but also farming and real estate in 2021. And at the start of 2022, we engaged in an exercise on the generation of power, also oil and gas and the automotive industry. We decided to focus particularly on these segments of industry. Even though it's under 10% of our lending, they account for a lot of the greenhouse gas emissions globally. We won't go into the details of the methodology that's enabled us to define the trajectories to bring down the emissions, but you will find all of the explanations in a report that we published on the 3rd of May. So there's a lot of information on the screen here, but there are 3 main things to be borne in mind. Firstly, our aim is to reduce the CO2 intensity of our emissions in our portfolio by 30% for power generation, 10% for oil and gas, including production and refining, and 25% for automotive transportation. Also, we chose to set objectives for 2025, intermediate objectives. 2025, that's around the corner. Most of our peers have opted for 2030 as the time frame. Our intent is to act as of now on this. Secondly, as well as the reduction of the CO2 intensity, we set objectives that are operational objectives in the same areas of activity I've just mentioned. We want to increase the share of renewable energies in the energy mix that we finance. It should be greater than 66% in 2025 and reduce the share of coal in the energy mix that we financed less than 5%. It should be up in 2025. We want to have more than 25% of electric vehicles in the automotive mix that we finance as opposed to 4% right now. We've tightened up our criteria for the financing of nonconventional oil and gas sources, and also, we are restricting...

Sorry, Laurence. Please could you calm down, sir? Please, could you calm down? Remain calm and listen. We won't evacuate you. Let everybody remain calm. Respect the presentation and the dialogue with its shareholders -- between the shareholders and the bank. Your point of view has been expressed. We've heard you. We've heard your point. I would ask everybody to please remain calm.

So overall, what's important, is that our objectives regarding reduction are in line with the most ambitious plans set down in regard to net zero carbon. And this is because we are dynamically managing our portfolio in these areas. We started doing that quite a while back now. And these objectives are ambitious, and we're maintaining them in spite of the crisis, the energy crisis and the geopolitical situation that we're living in right now. I've taken some time to explain our process so as to achieve carbon neutrality. This is our first of priority, and now I present briefly our actions on our 4 main themes, sustainable investments, [indiscernible]. I mentioned EUR 300 billion of assets under management in line with the best standards in Europe. Our ambition is to be the benchmark player in Europe for savings -- sustainable savings and investment with the involvement of all of our specialized business lines in this area, and we're continuing to propose funds to our clients that will help their savings to assume meaning. So sustainable investments should exceed 90% by 2025 in our assets under management. Our natural equity in biodiversity, that's part and parcel of the fight to abate climate change, of course. And we want to devote EUR 4 billion worth of financing to companies who help to contribute to biodiversity. We want to pursue our activities in abating deforestation, especially in the Amazon region. So a conclusion, this is an area where the group is very active in terms of financing social enterprises, EUR 2 billion worth at the end of 2021; female entrepreneurship, EUR 3.3 billion in France in 2021; and corporate philanthropy, EUR 200 million by the end of 2025 is our objective here. We want to reach out to 6 million beneficiaries of the nickel accounts and micro finance accounts. That also is our aim. So another topic of growing interest and main theme for ourselves is the circular economy. There are many people in the group working on this already by a joint venture we set up between 3 Step IT and BNP Paribas Leasing Solutions in terms of recycling of IT hardware. Also, BNP Paribas personal finance is involved in [indiscernible], and BNP Paribas has been involved with back market through Cardif. Thank you for your attention. I will give the floor now to Jean Lemierre.

Thank you, Laurence Pessez, for your presentation, and thank you to everybody for listening. It's very important for us to present what the group wishes to do, what its objectives are. It's important for you to know the details and appreciate the efforts we've been putting in. It's now my turn to present some items concerning corporate governance. I would like to dwell on this for too long. But firstly, the Board, the Board of Directors is made up of 15 members. We have at this AGM to reelect or appoint 4 members of the Board. The first, we have Jean-Laurent Bonnafe. He needs no introduction. He is a Director and Chief Executive Officer, of course, he is our Chief Executive Officer of BNP Paribas group. He's the first person. The second question is Marion Guillou. You should see a picture here on the screen. She's with us too in the room. You know her contribution, the exceptional contribution she's been making to us in terms of risk management in particular, regulations, climate, CSR and technology. And finally, the Board wishes to ask you to reelect Michel Tilmant to our Board. You know him well, too. He's a person with a lot of good experience. And he has made a very important contribution to us in terms of banking, finance, monitoring of regulations, risk management, markets and in general the governance of a large banking group. These are his areas of specialized competency. And the next candidate I will mention in a minute, but I'd like to, first of all, thank a Board member who will be leaving us. It is Wouter De Ploey. I would just like to point out his term of office is now expiring, and we thank you for your contributions. And we will ask you to elect Madam -- Ms. Lieve Logghe to the Board. You see her picture on the screen. Her areas of particular competency are financial measures for a start. She is the CFO of an important group, has been for a long time. She knows all about the business world, of course, internationally too. She's been in charge of change management in terms of CSO and have indeed a lot of skills to bring to the Board if you will elect her to our Board. If you vote these candidates into the Board, the Board will then look like this: 5 nationalities, 9 independent Board members, 7 women, a lady representative of employee shareholders and 2 Board members elected by the employees, whom you know I want to introduce you to them, again you know them, and they're with us here today as well. The team of Board members are extremely competent and complementary in a position compliant with the recommendations in terms of governance. A few indications about the breakdown of the committees. The risk committee is currently presided over by Mr. Tilmant. If you agree, Mr. Tilmant will stay a Board member, but he will no longer chair the risk committee. He's called to be an independent according to the regulations, but he will continue to provide his contribution to the work engaged in by the risk committee. The presidency of the risk committee will be taken over by Monique Cohen, who is currently chair of the governance committee. Monique will take over the risk committee. The chair of the governance committee will be taken by Mr. Jacques Aschenbroich, and the breakdown will be the same as the current composition. I'm insisting on the fact that several members of the Board are members of several committees in order to provide the proper coordination of work between committees. Lastly, Madame [ Leros ], if you will become a member of the accounts committee of the Board. Having proposed the modifications in the breakdown and the makeup of the Board committees, I need to deal with the questions having to do with compensation. You have here the fixed annual compensation for 2022 of the members of the Board. There is no modification with respect to last year, except for Jean-Laurent Bonnafe, but I'm going to explain why. The compensation of Mr. Bonnafe has a fixed compensation and a variable part as is the case for all Boards of directors and directors. The variable is [indiscernible] compliant. The fixed portion of Jean-Laurent's compensation was set according to the way in which we look at the change in compensation, and that was set since 2011 because the total amount is stable since 2011. And formally, the fixed portion had been stable since 2016. Now at the time this mandate is renewed by Jean-Laurent, the compensation committee proceeded to examining the fixed amount of salary for Jean-Laurent compared to the compensation of other directors of comparable banks in Europe, which, as you know, are much higher. The relationship between BNP Paribas and other banks in fixed salaries, it was half or even 1/3 of the pay of the other bank managers. The Board looked at how the compensation had changed for Jean-Laurent over that period compared to the compensation of staff of BNP Paribas SA. The conclusion was clear. We looked at the benchmark to understand what was going on, and we observed that Jean-Laurent's compensation was on the lower end of the benchmark, but he was very much losing ground year to year compared to the compensation of other people in the group. We proposed an increase of 18% to make up for this during the period in question. Be that as it may, after the catch-up, the compensation of Jean-Laurent Bonnafe would still be in the low range of fixed pay for comparable banks. The second item about corporate officer pay is a variable part as well, where we propose to increase the relative portion of the CSR portion by 10%, up to 15% then, and the rest of the structure of the compensation items will stay the same. This is to mark really how attached the group is to questions having to do with CSR. Now about variable annual compensation for 2021, you know the criteria, they're the same as for previous years. We have not modified anything, and you have here the results of the determination of these criteria in 2021. You can see that they reached or even exceeded for 2 of them. The ceilings that are fixed are applied, and the performance of the group are good, and the system is working. You will see that reflected in compensation with the application of the ceilings as provided for. The application of pay in 2021, the strict application of all of the criteria, including the 2 other corporate officers and general director delegate, Yann Gerardin and Thierry Laborde. You see the results quantified of the application of these criteria, and the ceiling of 120% is applied as well. I think that you can read this presentation without many comments on my part given the noise, which provides the results in 2021 for the corporate officers and Jean-Laurent Bonnafe for part of the year only in 2021. He was a corporate officer for part of the year in 2021. And Yann and Thierry Laborde, you can see the results on the screen, the maximum, the ceiling, the maximum attributable of the ceiling and the conditional long-term payment of PR LT, which is much longer term. And you can see the application of the criteria and the way in which in 2021 in the way in which the PR LT will be revalued. And I wanted you to look very carefully without any comment the 2 green points, which give the conditions according to which the long-term plan is attributed. The conditions, as you know, with respect to the past and very strictly and rigorously applied. So no modification in those rules. Here, you have the multiples of remuneration. This is an important point that we're looking at attentively. You can see in the different compensations. There's corporate officers. I just wanted to give 2 quick comments about the multiples of compensation, both in terms of the average and the median. These are constant -- this is constant and moderate. You can see that the group BNP Paribas has a compensation policy for corporate officers that leads to multiples that I would qualify by moderate and, in any case, much more moderate than in other -- most other groups, including banking groups. Here is a table that is of great importance for shareholders, which is the total compensation paid in 2020 and 2021 for each person involved. The light green line and the blue line are very important. They show changes in pay really received, and I'd like to attract your attention to the pay Jean-Laurent for whom it was a huge stability in the actual pay. Lastly, I'd like to conclude with a brief presentation of a resolution that is being submitted to you, which has to do with the remuneration paid to directors, corporate officers for which the Board suggests a change in the envelope, which corresponds to a package of increase since the last increase, which in fact was set in 2016 with one single variation in 2021 due to the appointment of a director representing employee shareholders. So it's an increase in the number of directors during the period, which is reasonable, which makes it possible to change and increase the payment of Board members in compliance with the general evolution and salaries. I'd like to thank you for your attention. I know that you've listened attentively, and thank you for that despite the interference. I'm very happy.

You've expressed yourself very clearly. I'm going to ask you if you have -- can be polite. There's no longer general management here. I'm going to be speaking. I'm a statutory auditor. I'm not a member of the company and the statutory auditor has a very important role to play, and I'm perfectly neutral about whatever it is you're defending. So if you understand what the governance is about, please let me speak -- let the statutory auditor speak. It's a very important role for shareholders and for society as a whole.

[ Mr. Monro ] is our statutory auditor from PwC.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, shareholders. On behalf of the Board of statutory auditors, I'm going to present to you the conclusions of the reports on the consolidated financial statements and the annual financial statements for fiscal year 2021. These accounts were approved by your Board of Directors on February 27, 2022. As a reminder, we perform our procedures throughout the year, in particular by reviewing the quarterly and half yearly financial statements and the annual financial statements. Our work, which took place in the context of the health and economic crises, covered all significant entities included in the group's scope of consolidation, the bank itself and its subsidiaries in France and abroad. The objective of our -- it's harder than that to stop a statutory auditor from speaking. The objective of our audit is to obtain reasonable assurance about the fairness and the regularity of the financial statements and about the fact that they give a true and fair view of the results and the financial situation of the group and are free of material misstatements. Our reports include as required by the regulation since 2017, a description of the areas of risk or materiality that in our professional judgment are most significant to the audit of the financial statements, and you can see that they are currently displayed on screen. There are 5 of these consolidated statements: the assessment of current risk; the evaluation of impairments on customer loan portfolios; valuation of financial assumes impairment of goodwill, general IT controls; and lastly, the estimation of insurance, technical services. For each of these risks, our report describes the risks identified on response provided by the Board of statutory auditors. You were there, you heard it. The scope of our work and our conclusions are presented in a report submitted to the Audit Committee. Based on our audit and the review of these key points, we have issued an unqualified opinion on both the annual financial statements of the bank, [indiscernible] standards and in the consolidated financial statements of the group under IFRS accounting standards. With respect to our special report on regulated agreements, we indicate in the first part of our report that we have not been advised of any new agreement to be submitted through the approval of the shareholders' meeting this year. And the second part, the continuation of the noncompetition agreement entered into between Mr. Jean-Laurent Bonnafe and BNP Paribas and authorized by the shareholders' meeting of May 26, 2016. Lastly, we issued 3 special reports on resolutions 21, 22 and 23 of the extraordinary part of this meeting concerning an authorization to be given to the Board of Directors to issue shares or securities with maintenance and/or cancellation of preferential subscription rights. Resolution 27 of the extraordinary part of this meeting concerns an authorization to be given to the Board of Directors to issue shares or securities reserved for members of a given company savings plan. Lastly, Resolution 28 of the extraordinary part of this meeting concerning an authorization to be given to the Board of Directors to reduce the share capital by up to 10%. We have no comments to make on these reports. Ladies and gentlemen, shareholders, Mr. Chair, thank you very much.

[ Mr. Monro ], thank you for your conclusions and your valiant behavior, and I thank for our colleagues for your work as well. Perhaps now, you'll be listening to what I'm going to be saying about the written questions that were asked. You're not interested in the questions either? You might have asked some of those questions. Don't you want to hear the answers? We're going to try to have a Q&A session and a dialogue, which is extraordinarily important, and I have no doubt that there will be some people frustrated that we will not be able to take all of the questions and that all of the answers will not necessarily be fully audible or properly understood. I'm very sorry for that in advance, but we are doing the best we can to answer your questions given the circumstances.

First of all, there are questions that were asked in writing. You're not interested in the questions? You might have submitted them. There are questions that were asked in writing. I wanted to say -- I'd like to say who wrote -- asked them in the purpose of the question and the responses to these questions because they're asked in writing, and these are on the site of the bank. If you wish to look at them, you can. So the written question were asked by the responsible investment forum having to do with problems of ESG and human resources by [ Mr. Christian Ricci ] for -- to have explanations about certain resolutions and the functioning of the circle of shareholders and nominated initiative for citizen-oriented shareholdership for social policy and environmental policy of the bank. [ Mr. Armando Karanga ] having to do with VML, the banks at BNP Paribas managers in Italy, claim finance for questions of an environmental nature, bank track having to do with human rights and the friends of the earth concerning climate. All of the questions, all of the responses are on the site of BNP Paribas. Thanks to the authors of these questions and thanks for consulting the answers given on the site you can have your answers that way. I'm going to open the floor to questions between ourselves. Several questions that came in, in writing. I'd like to thank those who have sent them in that way. They are very important. There are also some microphones, roving microphones, and those who wish to ask a question may do so. I'd like -- I would give obviously recommendations that the questions we ask is -- with sobriety in terms of the time and the context to enable answers to be made to be able to handle to as many questions as possible. To permit the organization of these questions on the mic, I'd like to raise one question that was written to me or sent to me in writing to start things off. It has to do with a point, which is a question for you, Jean-Laurent, which is, what is the impact of the changes observed and probable of the changes in interest rate both in the banking activity? And also more particularly, there's several questions about this having to do with the real estate loan portfolio that we need to have appropriate resources over the long haul.

As you know, the economic recovery that flanked the second phase of the epidemic led to a form of inflation, marked inflation. The central banks and the Fed foresee then the European Central Bank later on probably started to bring up interest rates. So the rates are going up. They're going up fairly quickly. If you look at the 10-year French OAT, the fungible government bond, it was very negative just a year ago, minus 40 or 50 basis points and now stands at around 150 basis points. So this phenomenon is known to bankers, not the first time that the rates started to go up. We're going to continue supporting our clients. There is no particular issue in the balance sheet. The loans that have been extended at fixed rates in the past are backed very well, you know if you're there. But future mortgage loans will have to reflect this upswing in interest rates, of course. And probably, property prices will be adjusted slowly but surely. Because otherwise, people who want to buy a home won't be able to buy the property they want, the home -- the house or apartment they want to buy. So just to keep it simple on mortgage loans, it's a bit more technical in detail, of course, if you go into all the details. But by and large, these rates that are going up is something that the bank is able to manage. It's something that probably will produce higher revenues for the bank because of the higher valuation of deposits. Conversely, the fact is inflation will inflate cost, too, but the fact is this should not prevent us from achieving the objectives of our plan on the contrary. So we recently reasserted our plan objectives when the first signs of this rapid upswing of rates started to appear. That's what I can say in summary on this point.

Thank you, Jean-Laurent. The consequences of the monetary policy on our fellow citizens I thought might be of interest to everybody in the audience, but apparently, I was too optimistic. Okay. The person at microphone #2. There's a gentleman who has a question at microphone #2. Thank you.

My name is [ Jean Perikly ]. I'm a private individual investor. I've appreciated coming to this turbulent AGM. We are the eighth largest waiting in the CAC40 index. It's a bit bigger for me in my portfolio, but I believe a lot in BNP Paribas, and I've heard positive messages this morning. But I'd like to talk about the quality of service because I'm not just a shareholder, I'm also a client of many of your different brands, BNP Paribas, Hello bank!, Cardif and so on. So regarding quality of service, how do you measure quality of service on the present basis? I'm overall, very satisfied, extremely satisfied right now the quality of service, I obtain. But I know that in the BNP Paribas network, the quality of service can fluctuate quite a lot. It can be excellent, and sometimes it can be bad, even very bad. So the people I talked to you about this like branch managers have said that there are reasons for this, no doubt, but perhaps you will be able to give me something of an answer on this.

Thank you, sir, for your questions. I just -- actually [ Pascal Fischer ] can give you all the information you need. But what I mentioned briefly in my presentation was the way in which we try to factor in customer satisfaction. It's a thing we monitor quite a lot. We measure their recommendation or referral rate. And the indicators we had up to a few years ago weren't very efficient. Now we've adopted the NPS, a Net Promoter Score. That is customers who recommend you as a bank to their friends and family. So we measure the NPS. And by measuring that dynamically, you know you're making progress if it's going up. So you've got to take care of the details essentially. And we're in an area where you've got to provide a free flowing service almost instantaneously. And sometimes the detail is what -- the devil's in the detail, is what irritates people. So your point is really in the center stage of the issues we try to address part of our strategy. It's actually in one of the slides I mentioned for CPBS, that is customer referrals. We mentioned this in all our segments, in all of our geographies to see how we're doing. That is on our client side and on our employee side as well. We measure the employee score as well.

My name is [ Camille Etienne ]. You've mentioned commitments regarding coal-fired plants. But I have a precise question. You're among the frontrunners in Europe supporting companies that utilize fossil fuel. And you're #2 in terms of supporting total energy. So there are members of BNP Paribas -- there are 2 members in BNP Paribas Board of Directors who are also involved in Total Energy (sic) [ TotalEnergies ] and there's an $8 billion loan that's been extended to them in April 2022. So I think fossil fuel should be left in the ground of planet Earth. It's all about our future, your future and my future. And Total Energy (sic) [ TotalEnergies ], you're a shareholder of and -- may I continue asking my questions [ because lately ] somebody has interrupted. Total will be presenting its climate plan, but climate is only in the name. And they have EACOP plan in Uganda and so on in there. So if you want your commitment to be credible, are you going to vote against the climate plan of Total Energy that is continuing to go against the grain in terms of what we should be doing to abate climate change problems? So what will be your vote in Total Energy (sic) [ TotalEnergies ]? That is my question to you here today. Thank you.

Well, I'll try and answer the question. The question that's been asked, I will answer. So 2 points. You mentioned the $8 billion line that was set up for Total recently. This is a line that has nothing to do with financing of any sort of project. This line contributes to the liquidity of the energy market. The upswing in energy prices, be it oil or gas or electricity in the European system that we're living in, there are a lot of margin calls. It's a bit technical, I know. And therefore, companies that are in those markets have to be able to respond regarding those margin calls. And in periods of crisis, when the upswing is very rapid for energy prices, the formula that's been given to guarantee liquidity in the market is to do with making sure that the supply will be guaranteed to all of our citizens in a free-flowing manner. And that line is set up to make sure that system works. It's not a line that is intended to finance a project, no, of at least granted to Total, but in no way does it contribute to producing or setting up or developing or envisaging the development of new projects. Just want to spell that out. It's a general interest line because, along with other lines that were set up for other utilities and energy players, the idea is the banks help the electricity, gas and gas and oil market to function. Now we're not a shareholder in the Total group, and we don't vote on resolutions in the AGM in Total. So that's quite simple. We're not a shareholder of the Total company. I think you're referring perhaps to a security sector house managed by the asset manager of BNP Paribas, that is BNP Paribas Asset Management. The choice of the managers as managers, it's their choice. They've got different ways of doing things in different segments of industry, and we, as BNP Paribas, are not shareholders of Total, and we do not vote at the AGMs of Total on the resolutions put to that -- to their AGMs.

Thank you, Jean Lemierre. We'll give the floor to microphone #4 now.

I think we move on to another question. Perhaps a written one because you're not allowing people in the room to take the floor. There's too much noise. It's not very polite, but it's what you're doing. So Jean-Laurent, here's a question that we came -- we received in writing. It came in, in writing regarding our strategy concerning Ukraine and Russia, a written question.

I didn't hear the question. Seems there's a question, a written question that's come to us on our activities in Russia and Ukraine. Regarding Russia, our activities are of a very modest size for different reasons in the country where we had actually reduced our business activities over the last 10 years. Our exposures are pretty modest about 1 billion worth. And we're adapting those business activities to the count of the new situation. We're kind of discontinuing some businesses, so as to be in line with the different job embargoes and restrictions that are currently imposed on banking activities. That's for Russia, very much on activity, which is kind of muffled. Now for Ukraine, as Jean said, we have about 350 offices, 5,000 people working for us there. We are pursuing our business and what's most essential in terms of retail banking, mainly means of payment, electronic money, ATMs, feeding people's accounts. It's a way of supporting Ukraine and the Ukrainian people, their economy, their families and our people working there, too, in this very difficult situation. We all hope that this unfortunate conflict will end as soon as possible. We can imagine there will be a ceasefire at some stage. As a business there, we're trying to provide the essential services that we can provide means the payments, deposit activities, ATMs, remote payments, payments from abroad for Ukrainians who left their country. And of course, we're supporting the families of our employees and making available to them some way of living outside of their own home, to leave the east of the country to move to the west, for example, leave the country to go to Poland and some of them -- for some of them, we've even found post jobs within the BNP Paribas group around Europe. So we're paying particular attention to the people working for us, our colleagues in Ukraine. And the Ukrainian economy, at the moment, is going through a period of exceedingly serious crisis. And for Russia, our presence there is very modest in the past, which already wound down a lot of our business activities, and we have come into compliance with all of these sanctions and embargoes. So we have essentially, as I say, muffled our business in Russia for the moment.

Number four, microphone #4 now, please.

Sorry, my French isn't great, but I'll do my best as the speaker. I hope I'll be clear enough. This is a question from ShareAction, question the publication of analysis reports regarding the climate by BNP Paribas and the publication of new objectives regarding the reduction of the intensity of CO2 emissions financed in different segments of industry. Now in 2021, the International Energy Agency published a road map to achieve zero emission as an objective for 2050, between now and 2050. This road map shows that it's all feasible, but it's not compatible with the utilization of new oil and gas deposits in the future. And the International Energy Agency has issued encouragements to business players involved in industry, but the encouragement and orientations given by the International Energy Agency do not encompass the banking sector. So regarding ShareAction, BNP Paribas is...

Would you mind coming down here? Madam, have you got a question, a precise question?

Yes. BNP Paribas Bank. Excuse me, can I make my point? May I ask my question? My question then -- well, different questions, is BNP Paribas updating its policy to come to terms with the expansion of oil and gas activities in line with the guidelines set down by the International Energy Agency? And also, are you updating your objectives so as to cover capital markets activities so as to peacefully reflect your financing objectives and align to the best practices in this area?

Laurence Pessez, you have the floor for the answers.

Thank you, madam, for your question. Do apologize for this noise. Usually, the questions can be asked a bit more serenely. Anyway, I have understood what you're driving at. Obviously, you're talking about how wide is our alignment. For the moment, we're just encompassing lending. The thing is, for the moment, there's only one methodology that's been developed, and we have to develop it. It is a PACTA methodology, it covers only loans for the moment. However, there are certain working groups working on this under PCAF and under the Net-Zero Banking Alliance, too, working on this precise topic to try and adapt all of this to the capital market as well. And we do hope that this work will be completed before the end of this year. So as soon as a methodology that's robust and that's commonly shared becomes available for the capital markets, we, of course, have planned to widen the scope of our own alignment exercise to cover lending and capital market activities, too. So that was one part of your question. The other part of your question concerned expansions. Well, we all agree that the International Energy Agency scenario is normative. That is one that says how things should unfold. It's not a projection that takes account of the current situation, economically or geopolitically. So the scenario of the International Energy Agency says, to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, a drop in demand in oil and gas by 20% will be necessary between 2020 and 2025. And in that context, outside of existing oil and gas fields and deposits that will be continued to be financed. Otherwise, the drop in the supply side will be too abrupt. It won't be necessary to exploit new fields. But there is more and more demand. It's going upwards these days. And that makes this exercise more difficult. And energy producers have to do 2 things. They've got to maintain the supply of oil and gas at a level that's sufficient to satisfy the demand that's going up and not create an abrupt economic and social impact. At the same time, they've got to invest very actively in renewable energy sources to decarbonize our economy. So our objective is to support them to flank the records in these 2 dimensions. And as we said, a reduction in our loan exposure of 25% by 2025 is what we're aiming at. That's for exploration and production of oil, [ is 25% ]. That's more ambitious than the net zero scenario that provides for a reduction in the oil offering of 9% by 2025. What we're doing via this commitment is sending out a signal that we've got to reduce production. Therefore, we've got to reduce the new projects. In the same way, when we tighten up our policy on oil and gas as nonconventional, the threshold going from minus 30% to minus 10% was the reserves of future production after all. So this is the process to send out a signal to our clients that you've got to produce less and develop less on the upstream side. But in parallel, we're acting on demand as well on bringing down demand by the creation of the Low-Carbon Transition Group, the aim of which is to have all of our industrial clients to decarbonize their activities and all products and services that we make available to retail customers, for example, will help them to improve the energy efficiency of their homes and consume less energy. The idea is to foster all source of sustainable mobility. So this is a two-pronged approach that we've got to engage in, in the world we're living in right now. Thank you.

Yes, we've heard you. I'll give the floor to microphone #2 now, if you like.

Mr. Chairman, I've got 2 wishes for the next AGM in May of next year. The first one is a visual point. The slides that you presented are not easy to read. So hopefully, they will be in bigger characters the next time. Also, you should change choir because your choir is a bit noisy this time. Anyway, I have a question, if I may. I'd like to thank you for supporting our teams in BNP Paribas in Ukraine. And thank you for pulling down your activities in the aggressor country, that's Russia. And when I came to this AGM, I received a pamphlet that recalls for me that there are other countries that for 70 years are nibbling away parts of their neighbor, Palestine. And in that pamphlet, there were questions raised. And I'd like to have your opinion on that because I don't know what the bank's businesses are in Israel. Here's my question. Not -- what about new financing to companies involved in illegal settlements, what's the bank's stance on that, legal settlement? Did you hear the question well enough?

Yes, I think we managed to hear your question, fortunately. So Laurence will actually answer the question.

This situation is one we're looking at seriously and watchfully. It's a complicated situation, of course. What we're at now is to not finance 150 large international corporations that were active in tourism, transportation, telecommunications. And therefore, we can guarantee you that in these circumstances, just like in other circumstances of the same nature, we enforce strictly our code of conduct and all of our policies concerning the commitments and engagements we've given in the conditions that are required.

Thank you, Laurence. There's another person at microphone #1 with a question.

Hello, Mr. Chairman. I'm a shareholder with a question for our CEO. But I've got, well, 3 questions really, if I may. You didn't ask about -- you didn't talk much about Nickel and FLOA much. Recent acquisitions, Nickel and FLOA, I'd like to hear a bit more about them in detail. And also, are you going to go to the U.S.? So Nickel and FLOA and are you going to go to the U.S. Also, there are lots of people, young people, who complain that they can't find loans these days from their banks to purchase their home, would-be homebuyers. And I'd like to know your stance about helping first-time home buyer. And currently, you signed an agreement regarding forest, the preservation of forest. I'd like to know a bit more about that, please. And also, why did you sell off the bank you sold in the U.S.? Why did you sell it?

Jean-Laurent?

Well, on Nickel and FLOA, well, I talked about them recently when I had an opportunity in public. Nickel, the objective is to achieve a level of 2 million customers. Sorry, there's some noise in the room. We've started off with Nickel setting ourselves an objective of 5 million customers. We have now gone through the 2 million mark. We've gone to Spain, for example. The context of the [ acquisition ] -- and Belgium also -- sorry, there's noise in the room. It's hard for the interpreter to interpret. We have gone to Belgium, too. And of course, the context was the acquisition of the postal bank in Belgium. FLOA is a buy now pay later, split payments. And the acquisition was closed at the very start of the year. So we're going to develop this buy now, pay later proposition in France and elsewhere in Europe. And in a few years, hence, it should be a fine success. Regarding home loans for young people, young homebuyers, our policy is very competitive in the market, okay? Of course, when you buy your home, you need some stable income, of course, to obtain a loan. And recently, the Banque de France changed its criteria a bit. It set up some new restrictions for loans. So we try to help young people, especially students, too, with student loans. We're a rather open-minded bank to help young people in general in that period of their lives. Otherwise, your other question may be Laurence or somebody else could answer your question. What you mentioned was a foundation set up in the U.S. so as to foster the integration of young people and foster inclusion. And it's starting up in Europe and in France, and that's the focus on the partnership we signed with that foundation. Bank of the West and in the United States was very simple. The regional banks in the U.S., for a long time, remained of just intermediate size. And there's consolidation going on in the market there. There are investment needs to be met. So banks are amalgamating or merging for that reason. And we're divesting that asset. If we hadn't divested, we would have had to buy an equivalent asset. And the valuation of the banking what it is, the proceeds we might have obtained from the divestment seem to be better than being part of the consolidation activity going on in the U.S. market. And the bulk of those sums will be plowed back into the group's development, mainly in Europe. That's a quick answer to your question to give you some color about the context, just in summary.

Thank you. I'll take microphone #3 now. There is a question remark for #3.

I'm a client of BNP Paribas for the last half century. I've been a shareholder for a quarter of a century, and I'm happy to be a shareholder. I see there's some dynamic, young shareholders here that are probably happy to be shareholders, too. As a client, I'd like to draw your attention to the fact that you've closed down a lot of local branches. I understand why. But are you aware that the personalized relationship with retail customers, personal customers, has gone downhill quite a bit? When you go to a local branch, often it's trainees or people starting off in their careers who are -- who don't know all of the things that they need to know to answer our questions. And you can't do everything online either. So there are sometimes very individual questions you can't address online and you can't address in the branch because of lack of detailed skills. So even though Mr. Bonnafe said that the customer relationship, local customer relationship, is very important, that has gone down for personal customers. And there are more and more unhappy personal customers out there.

It's a complicated question to answer in more words than one. We can't get a -- derive a general impression from a personal impression. The feedback we're getting doesn't say exactly the same thing. I can only recommend that you get into contact or Pascale will get in contact with you to understand why, over a long period, you consider that your relationship has disintegrated. We try to observe, but it's not infallible. It's a service business, and the balance between what you can do remotely and what needs to be treated, handled face-to-face has to be sought. So I'm not sure what the episodes were that led you to have this lack of quality -- or perception of lack of quality on your part. What I said earlier is really at the heart of our concerns and the relationship in branches, it does exist. It has to be quality, of quality. The objective has never been to get rid of that contact or to make it worse, to push our customers to deal with us remotely. That's not at all the way we work. Our customers consume our banking in the way they want. Sometimes some people are 100% remote. Some of them are 100% in the branch offices. The truth is that we're moving more towards remote. That's a fact. But in the branches, they are more and more handling higher value-added sales connection. It could be funding, savings, more really dealing with daily banking. It's kind of a general comment, but I confirm that we are paying careful care. The indicators that we have don't say the same thing. But I'd be interested in finding out when the time comes to hear back from Pascale Favre about your relationship and the way it can change. Perhaps this evolved in a way that is not up to scratch for you. I understand. I have a question -- or 2 questions that are asked in writing. For respect for the people that asked the question in writing, I think it's good to answer them. Here's a question for you, Laurent, that has to do with CIB revenue income. Saying that the stock market activity made it possible for CIB to produce [indiscernible] income and commission. How will this be compensated for if the stock market doesn't work as well?

Well, the equity market is only a fraction of CIB's activities. It's very diversified activity. There are a lot of different businesses in CIB. And the stock market more generally is -- when it goes down, there is less traffic, there's less transactions or fewer transactions or deals. But at the same time, often that corresponds to a situation where customers and counterparts in the big institutionals or their corporates or even average size or medium-sized companies want to be better protected in terms of interest rates, in terms of currency and raw materials. So there's -- in these circumstances, there are always other services that can be useful and available and made available through the clientele. Even if in our activities together, there's a cyclical kind of thing. But there are snapback reactions where other activities can pick up further. So let's not be concerned about CIB as a whole. But don't be concerned about CIB in close or profit as a whole compared to other businesses, which would -- might work better sometimes than others.

Thank you, Jean-Laurent. I'd like to take question #3.

[ Arnaud Belouis ], shareholder. Mr. Director Bonnafe. I'm going back to FLOA Bank as a customer. In fact, I have 2 concerns with FLOA Bank perhaps you'd be interested that haven't been solved because customer service doesn't answer. So the cash back promised is not respected. The second problem, I did 600 transactions. But by mistake, 1 transaction was a credit. The interest rate taken was higher than the usury rate. I'd like to know whether that's possible.

Is there somebody from FLOA Bank in the room for customers? Pascale Favre will take your details and will deal with your particular situation. Thank you for your question. Pascale Favre will get into contact with you.

I suggest that given we've had a lot of questions already, there are written questions and oral questions, I'd like to thank everyone who asked the questions of our speakers, who answered the questions as well. I hope that it was audible. There are a few questions still. We'll take those and respond to those by -- in writing. I think it's -- the time has come to move on to vote on resolutions. Given the way things are going, I think it's a good idea. I don't see many questions anyway. So thanks again for the questions. We're going to move on to the votes. Guylaine?

Since most of you have already practiced this system many times, I'm going to proceed with the explanation very quickly. In your remote, you have 13 controls. You only use green, yellow and red. So thus, as you can see, the green one corresponds to yes, yellow is abstention, and red is against. For each of these resolutions, you have -- you indicate your choice by pressing strongly on only 1 button: for, abstain or no. The vote will occur after reading each resolution. Mr. Chair will say the vote is open at the right time. So that you have the time -- the countdown, roughly 12 seconds it appears on the time. Once they countdown is finished, Mr. Chair will say the vote is closed and you will not -- no longer be able to vote. The results will be displayed on the screen a few seconds after the vote is closed. So that we can avoid any interferences, I'd like to ask you to turn off your portable telephones during the voting process.

Thank you, Guylaine. Very clear. And as our shareholders are very loyal and the voting system is the same, said before, I think you know how to use the voting remote. Thank you for your attention. The quorum has been attained, 66.03%, and the group is at 842,967 shares. So we may validly deliver it. First resolution, first part, approval of the parent company financial statements for 2021. The vote is open. [Voting]

The vote is closed. 99.99% approval. Thank you. Second resolution, approval of the consolidated financial statements for 2021. The vote is open. [Voting]

The vote is closed. 99.85%. Thank you. Third resolution, appropriation of net income for the year ended 31 December 2021 and dividend distribution. The vote is open. [Voting]

The vote is closed. 99.82%. Thank you. Fourth resolution, special report of the statutory auditors on related party agreements and commitments falling within the scope of articles L.225-38 and subsequent of this French Commercial Code. The vote is open. [Voting]

The vote is closed. 99.98% in favor of this resolution. Authorization for BNP Paribas to buy back its own shares. The vote is open. [Voting]

The vote is closed. 98.29% for. Sixth resolution, reappointment of Mr. Jean-Laurent Bonnafe as a director. The vote is open. [Voting]

The vote is closed. 99.76%. Renewal of a term of office of a director, Mrs. Marie (sic) [ Marion Guillou ] as a Board member. This is resolution #7, and the vote is open. [Voting]

The vote is closed. 99.76%. Marion, congratulations. Eighth resolution, renewal of the term of office of a director, Mr. Michel Tilmant. The vote is open. [Voting]

The vote is closed. 98.62%. Congratulations. Ninth resolution, appointment of a director, Ms. Lieve Logghe as a director. The vote is open. [Voting]

The vote is closed. 99.88%. Congratulations and welcome. Tenth resolution, vote on the components of compensation policy attributed -- attributable to directors. The vote is open. [Voting]

The vote is closed. 99.40%. Thank you. 11th resolution, vote on the components of the remuneration policy attributable to the Chairman of the Board of Directors. The vote is open. [Voting]

The vote is closed. 94.85%. Thank you. 12th, vote on the components of the remuneration policy attributable to the Chief Executive Officers and to the Chief Operating Officers. The vote is open. [Voting]

The vote is closed. 87.63%. Third (sic) [ 13th ] resolution, vote on disclosures relating to compensation paid in 2021 or awarded in respect of the 2021 financial year to all directors and corporate officers. The vote is open. [Voting]

The vote is closed, 97.15%. Thank you. Resolution is adopted. 14th resolution, vote on the components of the compensation paid in 2021 or awarded in respect of the 2021 financial year to Mr. Jean Lemierre, Chairman of the Board of Directors. Vote is open. [Voting]

The vote is closed. 94.88%. Thank you. 15th resolution, vote on the components of the compensation paid in 2021 or awarded in respect of the 2021 financial year to Mr. Jean-Laurent Bonnafe, Chief Executive Officer. The vote is open. [Voting]

The vote is closed. 93.50%. The resolution is passed. Thank you. Resolution 16, vote on the remuneration paid in 2021 or awarded in respect of the 2021 financial year to Mr. Philippe Bordenave, Chief Operating Officer until 18 May 2021. The vote is open. [Voting]

The vote is closed. 92.67%. Thank you. This resolution is adopted. Resolution 17, vote on the components of remuneration paid in 2021 or awarded in respect to the 2021 financial year to Mr. Yann Gerardin, Chief Operating Officer from May 18, 2021. The vote is open. [Voting]

The vote is closed. 93.62%. Thank you. Adopted. 18th, vote on the components of the remuneration paid in 2020 (sic) [ 2021 ] or awarded in respect of '21 financial year to Mr. Thierry Laborde, Chief Operating Officer, starting on 18 May 2021. The vote is open. [Voting]

The vote is closed. 95.31%. Thank you. Resolution is adopted. 19th, advisory note on the overall amount of remuneration of any kind paid during 2021 to executive officers in certain categories of staff. The vote is open. [Voting]

The vote is closed. 99.29% in favor. Thank you. The last resolution in the ordinary meeting is the 21st (sic) [ 20th ] resolution, delegation of authority to the Board of Directors to increase the share capital. The vote is open. Setting of the total annual compensation of members of the Board of Directors. [Voting]

The vote is closed. 99.52%. Thank you. Resolution adopt. Moving on to the extraordinary part. There are a lot of resolutions in this assembly. I'm aware of it, but it's important for the life of the company. 21st resolution, delegation of authority to the Board of Directors to increase the share capital, maintaining preferential subscription rights. Vote is open. [Voting]

The vote is closed. 94.03%. The resolution is carried for 2/3 of the votes. 22nd, delegation of authority of the Board of Directors to increase the share capital with the removal of preferential subscription rights. The vote is open. [Voting]

The vote is closed. 93.22%. Thank you. Resolution is adopted. 23rd resolution, delegation of authority to the Board of Directors to increase the share capital without preferential subscription rights for existing shareholders in the limit of 10% of the share capital. The vote is open. [Voting]

The vote is closed. 95.69% in favor. Thank you. Adopted. 24th resolution, overall limit on authorizations to issue shares with the removal of or without preferential subscription rights for existing shareholders. The vote is open. [Voting]

The vote is closed. 99.67%, the vote is carried. 25th, delegation of authority to the Board of Directors to increase the share capital by capitalization of reserves or earnings shared premiums or additional paid in capital. The vote is open. [Voting]

The vote is closed. 99.61% for. Resolution is adopted. 26th resolution, overall limit on authorizations to issue shares with or without or with the removal of preferential subscription rights for existing shareholders. The vote is open. [Voting]

The vote is closed. 96.29%. The resolution is passed. 27th resolution, delegation of authority to the Board of Directors to conduct transactions reserved for members of the BNP Paribas Group Company Savings Plan with the removal of preferential subscription rights. The vote is open. [Voting]

The vote is closed. 96.80% in favor. The resolution is adopted. The last -- next to last one, 28th resolution, authorization for the Board of Directors to reduce the share capital by canceling shares. The vote is open. [Voting]

The vote is closed. 99.98%. The resolution is adopted. 29th resolution and last, authority to complete legal formalities. The vote is open. [Voting]

The vote is closed. 99.99%. The resolution is passed. Last resolution. This concludes our general meeting. I'd like to thank you for your loyalty, your presence here today. for the dialogue with you. It's very important for the Board of Directors to have that dialogue, and I know it's very important for general management as well. As you've seen the group, BNP Paribas, attaches a great deal of importance to this presentation and explanation of what we are doing, what they wish -- what we wish to do and the reasons behind decisions that are taken, and this is transparently as possible. The dialogue is important, and mutual respect is also important. I'd like to remind you, these are values that we are deeply attached to. I'd like to thank all of the shareholders who are still with us. having accompanied us throughout this general assembly and to have, with a bit of noise, listened to various people the opinions that were expressed. I know it's clear, it was firm that it's important for us to have that opinion. Thank you very much. [Portions of this transcript that are marked [Interpreted] were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]