BNP Paribas SA (BNP) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning. I'm very happy to be with you, to see you for this Annual General Assembly between the Board of Directors and you, the shareholders. I'm going to rapidly go through the opening formalities for this 2025 General Assembly. It's upon a summon. You know this is an open public meeting, some of you are not shareholders in the room. As each year, this meeting is going to be recorded under the control of 3 legal supervisors and our general assembly is going to be put online. In line with legal requirements, this general assembly is going to be transmitted online, and you can find it for the next 2 years online. Consequently, your voice, your words, your presentations, could be broadcast and disseminated. Now we have to give you this piece of information in the beginning of the general assembly. The next assembly is on the 12th of May 2026 at 10:00, on those premises, of course, subject to unpredictable events. The main events have been published universal document, management report for 2024, including the Board of Directors' report concerning the group's activity. It's at your disposal, with the integrated report describing the group's activities and business on the basis of the BNP Paribas purpose on the long-term basis. And there is a digital version, if you wish. As each year, you have printed documents that have been given to you, pink for the agenda items and green documents for items pertaining to individual customers' items and issues and answers are going to be given to your individual question. You also have audiovisual [ helmets ] and you will be in a position to send written questions. There is a space for client relationships, and you have, of course, audiovisual headphones. And you will have information about your banking situation, your wishes and your projects. Finally, and I am speaking very sincerely here, I know that some of you, hope that not too many of you have some problems with reform. It's a new system, a new scheme, which we have introduced last year in order to improve the assembly management based on a partnership. It's a platform. It's a new platform of shareholder services. I know that you have had some difficulties. Some of you have difficulties concerning, for instance, the issuance of access card for this meeting. My associates have made a lot of efforts in order to solve your difficulties. I do hope that all those difficulties have been solved. Anyway, I'm really deeply sorry for those problems, but we will, of course, draw the necessary lessons from those problems and improve the scheme for next year. The circle -- shareholder's circle is here. And if you want to talk about their activities, they are available to you. I am the Chairman of this assembly according to article 18 of the bylaws, the scrutineers are here and a certain number of corporate officers have accepted this mission. Thank you to Mrs. Bovy, she is Chairman of the Investment Company; Mr. Joly, who is the Chairman or member of the Supervisory committee, they have accepted to be scrutineers and be members of the bureau. Thank you for being here. Madame Guylaine Dyèvre is the Secretary, Guylaine Dyèvre, and the auditors of our bank are here, too. The Deloitte company is represented by [ Mr. Daniel Laurent ]. The Ernst & Young company is represented by Mr. Olivier [indiscernible]. They are here in the room on my right-hand side, on your left-hand side, and they are going to take the floor in a little while. The general assembly has to discuss the agenda published to the official journal and in the ballot. So we have an agenda presenting all the items that have to be discussed. I'm going to invite the hostesses to collect your written questions as rapidly as possible, please, in order to be able to get down to brass tacks. I would like to take advantage of this moment in order to give you further information. This -- go ahead, please. You can gather all the questions. I have a few minutes here. And this meeting that we held validly since 71.77% represents the quorum for this assembly, so we can discuss normally -- under normal circumstances, we may have some slight adjustment is often -- as it is often the case. So we can discuss the necessary documents have been filed for this meeting to be held and they are available to you if need be. Questions have been collected and gathered. We can have music, if you want. If you want. Right. So a few shareholders coming in yet, welcome. I think that we can start. Questions been collected. We can start the meeting. So let's get down to brass tacks, as I said, and we have to discuss to -- first of all, we have to welcome the members of the Board of Directors. They are all here present. And so we are going to report their work and the work of the Board members. Thank you for being here. And I would like to welcome as well the members of the liaison committee with the shareholders who are present as well. They play a very important part. It's very helpful to us in smaller committees. Of course, with the contradictory proposals and the ideas, and we try to take that into account. Anyway, the members of the Board and the members of the liaison committee are here. Thank you for your presence today. Before giving the floor to the senior management, CFO, CEO, CSR Manager, I would like to make a few remarks concerning the activities in 2024 and in the beginning of 2025. 2024 has been a year which has been influenced by an economic improvement, particularly for inflation with a recovery and return of growth in France as was in Europe and the sustained growth in the U.S. In a little while, Laurent is going to talk about that -- Jean-Laurent is going to talk about that. Obviously, 2024 has been a very good year from an economic point of view in the U.S.A. And of course, a hopeful year in Europe. 2024, at the same time, has been also marked by sustained political tensions, geopolitical tensions in several parts of the world, particularly in the Middle East and in Ukraine. You know very well that we watch closely, these events, which are very painful for the populations concerned and painful for some of our employees in Ukraine, who apply their trade in difficult conditions. And I have -- I would like to have a thought for them this morning. These geopolitical tensions are sustainable. They are going on this year, and 2025 has been characterized up to now by new trade policies in the U.S., predict new policies in the U.S. We do not know how it is going to be developed all throughout the year. There have been new decisions during the past weekend with opening discussions and negotiations with several other countries. All of those negotiations and new policies create uncertainties and instability in the world. I do hope that on a medium-term basis, there will be a more stabilized, different economic environment. In 2025, we had a lot of uncertainties for the bank, for our bank and particularly for our customers in the U.S., in Europe and elsewhere around the world. Small and medium companies, large companies and individual customers have been impacted by this new situation. Everybody is trying to understand and forecast what is going to happen in the future and take the necessary measures, but we are very close to our customers in order to have them assess correctly this monetary and economic new situation. In this environment, as far as the Board is concerned, we have reviewed the situation very closely. And in Europe, we're trying to understand what is happening. We wanted to showcase economic model and values and also take up the structural organizational challenges. Those are very significant challenges for the Board. We have to take decisions for several states as far as the budget is concerned, an increase in -- some states have to increase their military and defense budget and also upgrade the infrastructure, particularly in Germany. Several European economies are very buoyant. The interest rates are going down in Europe, and there are regulatory simplification commitments that are quite welcome and also simplification of the capital markets. You know that BNP Paribas wanted to do that for a long time. So we're quite ready for these new policies. In 2025, we can see that Europe is discussing a lot about trade policies, and Europe has good reasons to hope for a rebound recovery. We are ready for that, too. BNP Paribas probably one of the better placed bank for this situation. In 2025, this -- the economic situation is a little bit sluggish in view of the uncertainties. But probably, those uncertainties are going to be less obvious than in 2024. And probably in 2026 and 2027, we are going to have a more buoyant activity because Europe financial system is going to be modernized. The business -- BNP Paribas business model is quite appropriate. Jean-Laurent Bonnafe is going to talk about that. We are ready to support our customers in these developments on the short term and long term -- short-term and medium-term basis. As well as in Europe, we are going to support our clients in security and investment efforts, and also we're going to support our customers in their artificial intelligence integration and innovation. Now this is very important concerning our activities, and we keeping in mind, of course, that we want to have a sustainability trajectory. We want to support our customers, companies, institutions and investors in their major transformation investment in order to make our economy more sustainable. And this is also about energy transition and also support of efforts that are made by our companies. Jean-Laurent Bonnafe is going to make a presentation in order to talk about the bank activity in this area. Now our results for 2024 are quite strong, and our group is very solid. The objectives have been reached and also exceeded sometimes. The bank has committed itself to an ambition trajectory for 2025 and 2026. The Board of Directors has decided and supported this course of business, and we hope -- we are hopeful that this will be implemented, thanks to a stable and experienced management team. I'll come back to that later. Thanks to the strength and solidity of our model -- integrated model. Thanks to the senior management action. We have several platforms in order to optimize the services given to various categories of customers. And also thanks to the commitment of all the employees, all the teams in the bank thanks to you, the shareholders, and thanks to the customers' trust. The Board of Directors is also very confident in the bank's ability to deliver value around the investment program that has been defined. You may remember discussions 2 years ago and last year, particularly after the disposal of the West Bank. You remember, we discussed strategic course for the bank. We have a project, which is an acquisition project for AXA IM, and this in order to create more value for the bank now and in the fut0ure. So this bank has solid results, strong projects and a solid senior management in order to remain solid and prosperous and buoyant. I wanted to make this few remarks on behalf of the Board of Directors. And the work of this Board is intense, really an in-depth work based on the dialogue with the senior management. We have ongoing discussions with the senior management team, and I will come back to that later. And I want to thank in front of you, the CEO, because of the relationship with the Board and also the way the bank activities have been conducted. It's very solid, very strong, and it paves the way for the future. Before giving the floor to the senior management representative, I would like to show you a video, an institutional film, which is going to record the salient points for 2024. [Presentation]

Thank you very much for your attention. This short video basically reviews the highlights for fiscal 2024, which is a momentum year after year, which has been consolidating Eurobank. It's very important that you have them in mind. I will now turn over to Lars Machenil, the CFO of the BNP Paribas Group, who will be walking you through the numbers of fiscal 2024.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ladies and gentlemen, good day. I will be reviewing the very fine performance of BNP Paribas, Eurobank in fiscal 2024. You have lots of numbers on this slide. Looking at the middle, net income, you will see that they are round numbers. In 2024, net income was EUR 11.7 billion, up 4.1%. Now looking at the income statement, revenue, number one. Revenue also up 4.1% over 2023, which reflects the fact that your bank has been serving and supporting its clients and the economies. Operating expenses have been increasing by 2.1%. The difference with the increase of revenues is what we call the jaw effect. And this jaw effect reflects the fact that we've been supporting growth and expansion of our clients via the platforms. And these are where the costs are. Looking at the cost of risk of 33 basis points, 1 percentage points above last year's, which is below the 40 bps target that we've factored in through the cycle, which reflects the cautious way your bank has been managing risk. So much for the income statement. Now the balance sheet. The balance sheet is the bottom part of this slide. Let's first look at the net book assets at EUR 93.7 per share, up 7%. If you look at the next row, this is the net profit per share, the number of shares, knowing that last year, we bought shares. So the increase of the net profit per share is 8.9%. Now with respect to shareholder return, dividend in cash was EUR 4.79 per share, and it will be paid out next week on the 21st of May. In addition to this, we have planned for a share buyback program with the clear range from the ECB in the order of EUR 1 billion. In addition to this, this year, we'll be introducing a down payment of dividend payment for the first half year. In September, we'll pay out a dividend that is 50% of dividend, which has been usual for the last few years. So much for the items of income and profit. Now remember that your bank has had a resilient and robust model. Looking to the left of the slide, as I said, your bank has been operating through industrial strength platform. And looking at the chart to the left, you can see the breakdown of revenues across our businesses. And you'll see that no business is dominant over the others. And they also operate across different economic and business levers with a good complementary fit. And this complementary fit, you can see to the right, where you show the cross sell, i.e., when you have a client, 1/3 of the revenue is generated by so-called cross sell across the divisions of the BNP Paribas Group. Now revenue side. We have given you the total BNP Paribas numbers. Now let's look at the revenues for the 3 large divisions. So I told you that the revenue is up 4.1%. As our Chairman said, we beat our target, which was to increase our revenue by 2%. Now looking at the 3 divisions, starting with the CIB, which is the second column from the left, which includes market operations, and with an increase in revenue of 8.4%. So much for CIB. Going far right, which is the insurance and asset management business. Investment & Protection Services, up 4.2%. The business in the middle is commercial, personal banking and services. So in Belgium, Luxembourg, in France, in Italy and in Euro Mediterranean area, as well as specialized businesses, including Arval. Looking at the CPBS, you can see that this division is up 2.3%, which is offset by a negative change in the specialized business, including Arval with the value of used cars going down. So almost stable revenue from CPBS. Now looking at costs and operating efficiency. On the left-hand side, you can see the group view, up 2.1%, which is the jaw effect at the group level. Now looking at the divisions. For CIB, you can see that it is up 4.5% operating efficiency, up 4.5% to support growth. You understood that revenue was up 8%, which gives you a positive jaw effect of 3.9%. Now going all the way to the right, looking at Investment & Protection services. With expenses almost stable, expenses up 0.5%. Remember that the revenues increased by more than 4%, with a jaw effect of 3.7%. Now looking at the middle, looking at the CPBS division. On the one hand, you have a change in cost of 1.9%, increase of 1.9%. Looking at the specialized businesses. Expenses are down on the back of the adapting, we are for personal finance. And looking at the commercial banking, the expenses are up 3.2%, which is mainly due to inflation in Europe and especially in Turkey. So much for the change in the expenses across the 3 divisions. Now looking at the 3 divisions with some more detail. Looking first at CIB. Now CIB, remember, has a business franchise, which is unique across European banks. Remember that CIB has a diversified model which builds upon the 3 business franchises I mentioned: Global Banking, Global Markets and Securities Services, which provides strong accelerating revenues, as you can see in the top chart, we have a growth above the market level. And this is CIB of your bank is the only one in the Eurozone to offer full-fledged integrated services. And this is reflected in the chart, bottom right, where you can see how the banking CIBs position themselves in Europe and Mediterranean area. And you can see that BNP Paribas ranks third in the EMEA zone. Now looking at CPBS, our second division. CPBS in 2024, demonstrated very robust sales business against headwinds. Looking at the bar chart, top left, you can see, in commercial banks, the very strong increase in fees, i.e., services we offer to our clients offer higher margins. Looking at the chart, the top right, showing resilience and showing the revenue for Arval. Now let me give you some explanation. What you can see here is revenue level from 2021 all the way to 2024. Now looking at the dark blue line, this line shows the change from fleet of vehicle of Arval, which is up looking at the bars in dark green. In fact, this shows the financing operations and the services being marketed and sold, which are up as a proportion to the increase of the fleet. We can note that the fleet increases and the revenues associated with the fleet are on the upside as well. And above the dark green bars, you have the light green bars, which is the revenue associated with the second hand cars. Remember, that when a client takes a car, the client keeps the car for 4 years, and then the car is sold after the 4 year period. Usually, the value of the car is quite stable in 4 years down the road, when the client sells or when the Arval sells the car, the price has been programmed and anticipated. And in the 2020, there came the coronavirus pandemic, which has had an impact on the automotive industry, including the OEMs and carmakers with fewer new cars, but people still needed cars. So the price of secondhand cars increased significantly, which meant that when the car was to be sold 4 years after, it was sold at a high level. And these are the light green bars that you can see. This lasted in 2021, 2022 and '23 with higher contribution from the secondhand cars. Now 2024 is back to normal with this contribution going down compared with the previous years, and it will go down to 0 in 2025, 2026 with Arval going back to its intrinsic growth because the fleet as well as the associated services. So much for the substance and the flesh. I wanted to give you on the sound commercial performance and resilience from CPBS. Now looking at the third division, which is IPS, well, IPS registered very strong growth. And first, remember that in IPS, you have protection products, saving products and responsible investment products and solutions. As you can see here on this chart, you can see that assets under management did increase across the 3 divisions. When you look at pretax profit, it increased 8% in this division now. Looking at the cost of risk now. Cost of risk has been well controlled, as I said in my introductory remarks, on the back of very strong quality levels and the diversified way we've managed our portfolio. As you can see in the top bar chart, you can see that from 2019 all the way to now, forgetting 2022, which was impacted by a one-off provision after the pandemic, which was reversed after that. Cost of risk, looking at the basis points, taking the AUMs, the asset under management and factoring in the cost of risk percentage, i.e., 0.3% of the assets under management with a target, which was 40 basis points. So we are much below this target. Another piece of information to show is the chart at the bottom. You can see the cost of risk as a percentage of exposure, which is quite low. Now looking at the cost of risk compared with the gross operating income. The gross operating income, GOI, G-O-I, is revenue minus expenses. Now how we are looking at the percentage which is factored in cost of risk, and you can see that this percentage goes down year after year, which reflects the changes we made in the underlying businesses like personal finance and BNL, which generated a continual improvement of the cost of risk structure. Now looking at another item, which I mentioned. I told you about the P&L statement, I told you about the balance sheet numbers. Now let us look at the financial structure. Now remember that Eurobank, BNP Paribas Group wants to have a capital ratio of 12%. 12% is our capital ratio target. Now looking at the change in the course of 2024. These are -- this is the top bar chart. Far left, on the 1st of January 2023, we stood at 13.2% of the core equity Tier 1 ratio. Then after that, in the course of the year, we generated capital through the upstream of income, 60% being returned to you as shareholders, the other 40% being kept to bolster the growth and expansion of the bank, which has increased our equity, our capital structure. We've kept redeploying the capital on the back of the disposal of Bank of the West, which utilized for 15 bps. There was a change last year in the regulations to anticipate for the Basel IV regime, which kicked in today, which meant that Arval had to be reconsolidated, and the impact of that was 45 basis points. So we started at 13.2% in the 1st of January 2024. With these changes, we ended 2024 at 12.4%. And then something happened over New Year's evening, which was the coming into force of Basel IV, with a utilization of 50 basis points. So as of 31st of December 2024, we stood at 12.9%. And the day after that, because of Basel IV application, we went down to 12.4%. All these was well anticipated. And because there's still some uncertainty about the application of some regulations, knowing that the European Union wants to be aligned with the U.S., we want to stay at 12.3% this year. So much for the equity, so much for the capital. Then there's another series of indicators like the liquidity ratio at 137% liquidity coverage ratio, LCR. But this is not telling so much as an indicator. We also expressed this ratio as a liquidity reserve immediately at hand. And in late 2024, it stood at EUR 480 million. So this accounts for your financial structure of your BNP Paribas Banking Group. Now to conclude this presentation on the 2024 numbers. Remember that there is a shareholder return, you, our shareholders, with this return being attractive, and 60% of the payout ratio for 2024, '25 and '26 will be in the order of EUR 20 billion in total. And this shareholder return has been up continually year after year. Looking at the dividend payout, and you have the bar chart at the bottom. There are many of them. We are showing the change of dividend paid out in cash from 2008, far right -- far left, sorry, all the way to the one we'll be paying next week. And this shows a change, which has increased by a factor of 5, which is the change of the shareholder return that you directly benefit. I would like to thank you for your attention. I will turn over to Jean-Laurent Bonnafe, who will go into some more detail about the outlook for your banking group. Thank you.

Thank you for giving a round of applause to the CFO. It doesn't happen very often. Now, what about the forecast for the group. To close the '24, '25 plan, we have set the threshold at a high level and the objective are quite high for income, more than 5% growth, 2 years in a row. Jaw effect, you know what that means, plus 1.5 points over 2 years. '24, '25, 2 following years, and our costs will -- should not rise -- increase more than the top line, our income minus 5%. In order to reach 5%, we need to invest, and we need to invest all the while, while having a jaw effect, which will guarantee the group performance on a long-term basis. Cost of risk should remain below 40 basis points and this should lead to net income more -- plus 7% and BNPA or earnings per share, plus 8%. And you know that EUR 1 billion of income is devoted to earnings per share. Then the core Tier 1 ratio, CET1 ratio, which represented the bank strength before switch to FRTB should reach 12.3%. It should not be below 12%. At present, it's above this threshold of 12.3%. Growth drivers. CIB platform was a very high added value, very strong growth driver, and it has market share gains every year. So we expect '26 for CPBS, which has suffered from the rate environment over the past few years. We have a strategic plan for BCEF, commercial bank in France. And another one for personal finance, consumer credit, consumer loans. This is a continuation of the first industrial plan, which has been initiated, and is going to be continued up until 2028. IPS organic growth, very buoyant, insurance, wealth management, asset management, wealth management and asset management, external growth, AXA IM, wealth management with the acquisition of the HSBC activities in Germany and also life insurance with various acquisitions have been completed in 2024 or 2023. On the whole, we'll have a ROTE quite good, which is quite good. 2024, 19%. In 2021, 20%. And 8% in '19 '17. So we have a good progression. 2025, 11.5%, 12% next year. And then we'll have various initiatives, which will be launched. BCEF and PF strategic plan represent, by 2028, 1 additional percent in ROTE from '25 to '28. And then we have the Wealth Management and AXA IM project by -- starting in '26 until 2030. And by '28 or '30, we'll have a beginning of an impact from the capital market in Europe in order to increase our efficiency for finance in Europe. So this would lead to a return on equity which will be higher. And we have already started to do that. Between '26 and '28, it will represent 1 additional point in ROTE, and it could lead to even 13 points. So if you look at CIB, more in detail, you know the history of that. It's a platform which used to be focused on the strong points, the highlights. And then it has been improved. CIB platform has been improved. Service quality has been improved in order to make them more competitive, and it is important to services that have to be delivered. And in the beginning of 2021, it has become a comprehensive platform. And leading to services to the European market or even the worldwide market, it's a very competitive market, which can be compared positively to the champions in this area, the American bank. So the income -- CIB income has increased much more than the market, 6.8%. So 3% increase in 2024. The cost income ratio has reached 60%. Now you can see profitability more additional 10 point. You can see that discipline has been complied with concerning the cost of risk and credit risk. Now we are going to continue to progress as far as CIB is concerned. And we are going to have in the future European capital markets that will have very strong specificities, the underlying European specificities. So we will make progress with our CIB platform. And it's very -- we're very hopeful for the future. CPBS has suffered from the rate -- interest rate environment in France as well as in Belgium. You have fixed interest rate loans, particularly the home loans are proposed to the customers based on fixed interest rates, so the customers are protected because they will keep the original basic interest rate in case of increase, which is very different from what is happening in the other countries, where the customers are not so much protected against interest rate increases. So CPBS next month in June is going to initiate a new strategic plan by 2028. And it leverages our best franchisees, private banking and wealth management, where we have market leaders in France. For individual or retail banking, we are going to organize some new approaches, upselling change in the relationship model, adaptation -- operational adaptation to this transformation. For Personal Finance, IPS, we have -- we are going to refocus Personal Finance on the European area, the U.S.. And our income growth should be very strong in 2025, 5% in 2025. We want to increase the customer selectivity to reduce the cost of risk and with absolute value throughout the cycle. It represents half the risk cost -- half the cost of risk of the group. So it's very necessary to be very disciplined in this area. We want to develop partnerships. As far as mobility is concerned, consumer loans are very important in the mobility environment. And everything that concerns the new retail models, major large platforms requires very high-quality services. And this is what we do in Personal Finance. We want to optimize our operational models in order to make them more efficacious. On the whole Personal Finance and CPBS represent 1/4, so 25% of the risks of the group of the capital used by the group and the RONE pretax income is going to increase by 8 points by 2028, a minimum of 17%, and this represents for the whole group after tax. And ROTE increased 12%, which is our objective for 2026, is going to be completed by 2028. And it -- we will have 0.5% that will come from these 2 initiatives between '26 and '28. So we will reach 12%, and the other 0.5% will come from other project, Wealth Management, AXA IM and CIB. Let's come back to the IPS business. IPS, this is a growing division, strong organic growth with a high level of profitability. Before tax income growth 8.4% for RONE, revenue 21.9%. So this represents only 6% of equity consumed or used. This is a disciplined growth. You can see that on the right-hand side of the slide. And the income is growing more than the cost, and we have an external growth with AXA IM, Wealth Management in Germany, buyback of HSBC business partnerships in the insurance business. So this is going to make it possible to roll out IPS more rapidly in the group. This 14% of contribution should increase to 20% and probably 25% in the end. And of course, the other divisions are going to make progress as well. So 14% by [ 2020 ] means that this is going to represent a major progress. So IPS is in good condition, a strong increase of organic growth, strong external growth, 40% of the West Bank have been reinvested in IPS, even though IPS represents 14% of pretax income and 6% of the use of equity. So this is going to lead to very good results in the next few quarters and years. This platform is a continuation of our CIB activities, originate to distribute model and a very strong synergy with the commercial banks and also a very strong synergy with specialized activities in personal finance, consumer loans through the credit insurance business. Now I would like also to talk about industrial and operational efficiency. To end my presentation. Jean has mentioned that. We try to build a group based on efficiency platform with a scale impact in order to increase our efficiency during our development. Above on the left-hand side, you have a representation of this efficiency between '22 and '26. So on the whole, for this period, '22, '26, we will have accumulated EUR 3.3 billion additional efficiency. In 2026, we will have EUR 3.3 billion additional more billion, which represents 3.3% of the EUR 30 billion for the group. Of course, artificial intelligence is going to be used for the savings. In 2024, we had EUR 500 million value increase allocated resulting from AI. By 2026, it will be EUR 750 million attributable to AI, particularly resulting from an increase in operational efficiency. As of now, the objective of EUR 500 million value creation has been achieved. It has been achieved by 2024, as I told you. So it's a reality we have to deal with, and we have to manage this reality. Everything that we are doing has to comply with the supervision -- banking supervision regulations and also other regulations. This, of course, has to be in the interest of our customers. We have to explain everything we do to our customers and to our supervisors. And it's true that AI means that we give a part of our work to platforms. And those platforms are based on a different intelligence AI. And it's not so simple to explain how it works. Probably we will have some applications that could theoretically could be given to artificial intelligence. We will not be given to artificial intelligence because it would be too difficult to explain. And we're not certain to be able to explain to each individual customer why the platform -- AI platform has given the right advice or the right service because some things are relevant for our customers. And each customer is an individual customer, and we can't have a statistical approach in order -- when we talk to our customers. So you have understood that the group is on a very ambitious course. We are continuing with our various lines of business CIB, strategic plan for CPBS and Personal Finance and organic and external growth, both for IPS. All this is based on discipline and cost control and also risk control, which, of course, is very important for the income statement of the bank.

Thank you. Hello, everyone. I will now be reviewing some key aspects in our CSR strategy and to show you some of the key achievements in 2024. Our CSR strategy has been initiated a long time ago, representing one of the pillars of our current strategic plan, which is called growth, technology and sustainability. Now let us start with how our strategy has been perceived by the external actors. And to the far left, you have the rating -- the nonfinancial rating agencies, which are agencies which compare and benchmark banks with other businesses. And across all rankings, we are among the leaders. Including in the environmental rankings, we rank among the best in the world. Well now based on this excellence, we keep improving year after year. And we're extremely satisfied this year by the silver medal awarded by EcoVadis for the first time. It is an award, which is very useful when we respond to call for tenders because companies we serve and support look to such awards. With respect to other awards, the Corporate Knights magazine has ranked us among the Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations for the 11th year in a row. And Euromoney has awarded us the Best Global Bank for Financial Inclusions. In 2024, our CSR strategy remain unchanged, and we continue delivering across the areas that we set for ourselves as key priorities as part of our GTS strategic plan, number one, energy transition, protecting biodiversity, circular economy, financial inclusion and sustainable investment. Now the amount of the support we give to finance the transition to a low-carbon economy, reached EUR 179 billion between 2022 and 2024 across a 3-year period. Our target for 2025 of EUR 200 billion seems to be reachable. Now this amount covers such financing to retail clients to fund the purchase of electric vehicles, home renovation with respect to thermal insulation as well as support to large industrial corporations, where we structure financing to improve their energy efficiencies as well as bond issuance to multilateral operators like the African Development Bank, which will contribute to developing renewables in and across the African continent. Now with respect to biodiversity, with respect to transactions directly contributing to protecting earth and sea biodiversity. We exceeded our goal of EUR 4 billion, which was our goal for 2025, we reached EUR 5.4 billion. As an example of what this number means, a financing project for Elia Transmission in Belgium, which is the manager of the high-voltage power grid, will contribute to a program of reforestation under the high-voltage lines in Belgium with respect to sustainable savings by reaching EUR 285 billion in assets under management in late 2025, considered to be sustainable under the European Taxonomy. BNP Paribas Asset Management has the most diversified sustainable fund portfolio. And BNP Paribas Future Forest Fund, as an example, which was launched in late 2024 is an Article 9 fund, which is dedicated to the sustainable management of forest. This is an example of the products that we offer at BNP Paribas Asset Management. Now with respect to circular economy, BNP Paribas, 3 Step IT, which is a joint venture between BNP Paribas Leasing Solutions and a Finnish company called 3 Step IT, this venture was launched in 2019 and offers services and reconditioning and retrofitting for IT devices, including smartphone and tablets. We have set up a new refurbishing center in the Greater Paris area, which will recycle some 400,000 devices. At the financial inclusion level, we have now 5 million new beneficiaries with some 700,000 beneficiaries of the so-called equal credit that we've been funding. So behind all these numbers, they are great and very tangible accomplishments. We are just a few weeks from a global conference on the sea, which will take place in Nice, Southern France, and we wanted to take this opportunity to share our commitment to protect the seas and oceans, which is of capital importance, which intersects with climate, biodiversity and pollution. We pioneered the way in this respect as early as 2019 by publishing a strategic paper, reviewing all our drivers of action to protect seas and oceans via our funding, financing and investment operations. 5 years down the road, we've achieved many, many tangible actions. We committed to devoting more than EUR 1 billion to fund environmental vessel transition, and this goal was much exceeded. We also dedicated some $2.4 million to finance the management of protected sea and marine areas by structuring blue finance, innovative financing. We also invest in startup, protecting oceans like Bluefin, which is based in Brest in Brittany, which has decarbonized shipping. And Ostrea based in Rennes, which produces materials using a recycled shell. We have savings products to favor biodiversity, thanks to the Global ESG Blue Economy, ETF. And also, we play a key role in our foundation with a call for projects of EUR 7 million to support scientific research on marine and coastal ecosystems, which will come as a supplement to the EUR 9 million which already have been allocated to 13 research projects dedicated to marine biodiversity. As you can see, we can engage a number of drivers to contribute to protecting the marine and coastal ecosystem, making us a recognized player in this respect. Now supporting our employees has been at the core of our strategic plan as well. What we have done in 2024 is that we reached the ambitious goal of gender balance of 39% in the senior management population, in line with our goal of 40% in late 2025. This gender balance target was exceeded, as there are more than 50% of women across all talented managers in the group. Now let us emphasize the fact that we've expanded the number of employees in grassroots organization by exceeding the targets of the number of volunteer and pro bono hours, knowing that the group has supported employees who need it, thanks to listening and psychological support hotlines. And we've trained and developed employees, especially with respect to sustainability, sustainable finance and the sustainability economy contributed to training 130,000 employees ever since it was created in late 2022, more than 75,000 of those in 2024, and we distributed lots of training sessions in new technology and AI. All these have contributed to maintaining a very high level of engagement with our employees on the order of 85%. In late 2024, we signed a new global agreement with UNI Global Union, which makes it possible for the group to strengthen the set of employee benefits, decent compensation, health and safety at work, parental allowances and the fight against marital violence. Now in 2024, with 75% of its sponsorship activities focusing on solidarity and mutual support initiative, the group demonstrated that it was capable of taking action against crisis, but also taking action over the long term to contribute to solving social and societal issues like food precariousness, supporting migrants and supporting disenfranchised areas. Since 2018, our sponsorship activity budget increased by 50%, with close to EUR 1 billion being engaged and channeled, but this also involves the engagement of employees with their donations through the emergency relief fund, which was activated twice in 2024 in the Mayotte Islands and in the Spanish flooding and also by providing pro bono skills and volunteers. In 2024, the foundation celebrated its 40th anniversary and a new foundation was created in the Nordics, which means that there are 12 such BNP Paribas foundations, which have provided sustainable funding to projects in favor of solidarity, culture and the environment. Our sponsorship activity is quite dynamic, tuned into the current times. And in 2024, we started an innovation lab to test and experiment new ways of supporting initiatives and new program to contribute to social cohesion. 2024 was, as you could see, a very rich and buoyant year across all fronts. Thank you for your attention. Mr. Lemierre, our Chairman, will tell us about some governance aspects for our banking group. Thank you.

All right. It is now up to me to review the aspects connected with governance in 3 parts, the Board of Directors, its makeup, it's membership, age limits of directors and compensation of directors. I will start with the membership or makeup of the Board of Directors. And I will start with first, thank you to Board members who are leaving us after serving actively for many years and very intensely to our Board, Michel Tilmant, who was a member of our Board for a bit more than 15 years. Michel, you were a nonvoting member for a little while as well. Michel played a very key role on the Board with his wisdom and experience contributing a lot. And Marion Guillou, who was a Board member for 12 years and who contributed her knowledge her experience, her acumen about CSR issues of business management. And Michel and Marion, on behalf of, and in the name of the shareholders, I would like to warmly thank you for the key role you played at all levels on our Board. Thank you for that. Now there are 2 reappointments and 4 proposals to appoint new Board members in the face of these 2 members leaving us. So 2 reappointments, so we suggest that Jean-Laurent Bonnafe be reappointed as the Chief Executive Officer, whom you know well, right? I don't know whether I can say this in his presence, but he has been a robust and talented CEO, right? I won't go any further. He's been an outstanding CEO for our group. Thank you Jean-Laurent, for continuing on your role and for accepting a new term as a Board member, which is being served to you by the shareholders in meeting. Lieve Logghe in color red. Lieve is here. She is a Belgian citizen. She is the CFO of Boortmalt International. She is a member of our Board and a number of Board committees, playing a key role on our Board as well. And we wish that Lieve Logghe be reappointed by the shareholders in meeting. Now we have 4 proposals for new Board members to be admitted to our Board. 4 new members against the 2 members leaving. This is where the math doesn't add up. We suggest that on a temporary basis, the Board members goes from 14 to 16 members. I will tell you why. There are great personalities, very high-caliber people ready to join our Board, and it seemed to us -- it seemed to the Board members who discussed this point that it would be timely and wise to have them come on board, that they would contribute much to our Board, and that's, by way of anticipation, for upcoming changes that we should go from 14 to 16 members with the goal being rather to be 14 over the longer term. But given the high caliber and high-quality personalities about to join us, it seemed relevant that we went to 16 members. First, Bertrand de Mazières , who is here, who is the former CFO of the European Investment Bank. You know this very large European bank based in Luxembourg, which is the bank serving the European Union. Bertrand de Mazières  has a wide-ranging expertise in the financial services, banking services, very recognizant with international cooperation will contribute a lot to our Board. Madame Valérie  Chort is seating next to Bertrand de Mazières . Madame Chort is a Canadian National. She has had a diversified carrier with very clear skills and expertise in the banking world. Madame Chort acquired lots of skills and expertise at the Royal Bank of Canada, with a very sound and robust Canadian and North American expertise, and you built out very strong expertise with CSR and sustainability in banking and as a private consultant. We are delighted that you contribute your skills, your knowledge and your North American exposure to us, which is very important for BNP Paribas. Then we have Mr. Nicolas Peter, who is sitting next to Valérie Chort. Nicolas is both the French and the German national. I believe I can say with secrecy of this meeting, without unveiling too much, the name of Nicolas Peter will be suggested to be appointed as the Chairman of the Board of BMW. This will be tomorrow. Mr. Peter occupied many roles in BMW, who has been an industrialist and a financier. He will give us the knowledge of Germany of global markets as perceived by a large OEM like BMW of this very important automotive industry at BNP Paribas.

We always saw to it that we had large industrialists on our Board because they are our clients because they have a different understanding of the world. We are finance people. They are industrial people. And with this intersecting of views in the discussions, they are very useful contributions and insights for the Board.

Thank you, Nicolas Peter for accepting to join the Board if the shareholders see this fit. Then we have Guillaume Poupard. Guillaume Poupard is currently Deputy CEO of Docaposte, which is part of the La Poste Groupe. You probably know him better. I knew him better as the former CEO of L'ANSSI, who is the French agency and French authority of IT systems, and he shared this agency, this authority from 2014 to 2022 and he is one of the best French specialists in the field of Cybersecurity of new technology of those modern systems "Jean-Laurent Bonnaf " mentioned, which play a growing key role in our businesses. And your expertise, sir, is quite unique, if I may emphasize this point as well as your outstanding knowledge of the business world because they were your clients for many years. You are cognizant with the relations with new technology companies with its providers, basically all the AI ecosystem. And also, you have a remarkable expertise on risk control, which is always very important in the banking world. I'm delighted that Guillaume Poupard accepted to join our Board if the shareholders so decide. These are the two reappointments and the four names, which are submitted to your vote, four appointments according to me, these are very high-quality names, and they will contribute a lot now. Do you know Board of Directors will be 16 members instead of 14. So 14 directors elected by you and 2 directors as elected by the employees of the bank. I would like to greet them. They are here sitting with the other Board members. So our Board will have 5 nationalities with 11 independent directors in compliance with all diversity criteria, and you saw this briefly with all criteria of skills and competency with the collective group of the new and existing members with outstanding and remarkable basis of skills, knowledge and competency. So if you vote in favor of these new and reappointed directors, you will have the makeup of this Board as is showed up on the screen with the 4 Board committees with some members sitting on different Board committees, knowing that committee work in a bank like BNP Paribas is heavy-duty work and very insightful and useful work so much for the makeup of our Board. Now the second part of my talk is about the age limit of the Chairman, the CEO and the Deputy CEOs. One of the key roles of the Board of Directors, especially that of the CSR and Governance Committee, which is chaired by Mr. [indiscernible] is to pave the way for the succession planning. He's been very active with respect to the succession to the Board and we'll just -- I just floated the proposals a few minutes ago. Of course, succession planning is of key importance for the corporate officers and for the senior management, the senior leadership team. So this is very precise work, very in-depth work, partly confidential work due to its very nature because basically, you work, you monitor people through their careers. It is a key critical importance for a Board of Directors, knowing that it has to be extremely discrete at confidential work. Your Board and including the committee dedicated to governance spends a lot of time on that. In this process, it came the issue of the age limit of the Chairman and the CEO -- and the Governance Committee and the Board in their discussions considered that it would be desirable that Jean-Laurent Bonnaf , who is a young man, isn't he with lots of drive, lots of energy. You heard him. You heard this that he could have the long-term visibility of an additional term after the one which I hope you will be voting for him, which suggests that the age limit be extended by another 3 years, which is the statutory limit for the exercise of the CEO with the age limit set to 68 years of age.

I believe that you understand that this is a very important decision for the group. Thank you, Jean Lemierre, for having presented this decision and discussed it in a very open way. Thank you for having taken the responsibility for this decision. I think that the group requires this type of a prospect. Now concerning the COO, I think the limit should also be increased in the framework of the succession projects to which the Board is thinking about. Moreover, I'm not maybe the best to talk about it, the best one to talk about it, but the Board has asked me whether I would accept to have an additional term of reference in order to guarantee the stability of the group governance in the future. I have accepted this proposition. In order to do that, the statutory AGM has to be increased. So this is a significant important major decision in the life of a group. The successions are prepared. They are well managed by the CEO and the Board and the CGM. And we hope that those decisions will make it possible to continue with the same good governance and we do hope that your group in that way will be better managed in a very efficient way in the next -- during the next few years. Now concerning the resolutions concerning the compensation. First of all, the tokens or the compensation envelope that has been set at EUR 1,850 million. So the number of directors is going to be increased from 14 to 16. So the overall compensation envelope should be increased as well in order to give the right compensation to the directors. So EUR 2 million in the future. Concerning the compensation for corporate officers. You know that -- you have to understand that nothing has been changed in the way the variable compensation is going to be set. All the criteria has remained the same. The objectives have remained the same ones. And concerning the CEO, we have a reminder of the various criteria. And the last column here on your slide, you have the achievement rate. The information that is given here does not concern the organization, which has remained unchanged. It's about the achievements in 2024. You can see that as it has been said earlier, the achievement is quite good. All the management criteria have been achieved or even exceeded. So there is an overperformance compensation, but it has a ceiling to 120% of the fixed compensation. But you can see how good the bank results have been. Concerning the 2 CEOs, you have the same information. The criteria have been adapted to their portfolio, but you can see that there has been an overperformance, additional performance and very good results that have an impact on the variable compensation. Now this table is quite important, Page 35. What is important is the overperformance ratio above 100% due to the good results achieved by the bank. This system is quite conservative, quite precautionary. And this gives variable compensation, which is slightly higher. Here, you have the items of long-term compensation in 2024. Let me recall that the two main criteria for [indiscernible] long-term compensation is the intrinsic performance of the bank and the compared performance with the EURO STOXX Index banks. Those are very stringent criteria in order to align the long-term compensation of the directors with the shareholders' interests and also based on the comparison with the other banks. Now the bank results have been very good, but in comparison, the allocations have been quite tight, some positive, some more negative. As you recall that in 2025, as beforehand, as in the past, all the penalty provisions and the clawback provisions have been applied. Now to be clear, this is a global presentation with the various compensation. My compensation has remained the same since 2014 and also the executive corporate officers comparison between '24 and '23, slight improvement of compensation in 2024. I would like to highlight an important item here on this table [indiscernible] have a positive compensation. Since last year, we have decided to increase that fixed compensation, which, of course, has an impact and need to improvement in 2024, which is not the case of Jean-Laurent Bonnaf , but I'm going to come back to that later. You have the compensation multiples. I'm going to say the same as last year. We have low ratios, if I may say so, multiples are quite low and slightly improved. I don't know whether it's good or bad, but they have improved. They have been tightened. It's an interesting piece of information in order to compare the level of compensation between the various banks and institutions. I would like to talk about Jean-Laurent Bonnaf compensation that we want to review as we do every 3 years when the terms of reference is renewed. Now when you look at the compensation of a bank CEO, we have a regulatory architecture imposed by the ECB. And what is very important is the fixed compensation and the remaining compensation depends on the fixed compensation. So this is the important item. In a nutshell, we can say that BNP Paribas has good results. You've heard about that earlier, very good financial results. Jean-Laurent also talked about the very good strategy and preparation for the future. So these are very important topics. Obviously, BNP Paribas is a very solid pathway. If I look at Jean-Laurent's compensation, the fixed compensation was a bit lower, if you compare it with the other European bank CEOs. You can see that in the preparatory documents. If you take into account the main European banks and sample of the international banks in Europe, well, you can see that Jean-Laurent's compensation is much lower than the other CEOs below 47% compared to the average and in -- it ranks ninth amongst the 11 major banks in Europe, whereas BNP Paribas has very strong results. So the Board of Directors have talked about that for a long time, and we saw that the difference in compensation was too large. So we thought about increasing the Jean-Laurent compensation to put it above the average, but that would be too strong an increase. So we decided that we still wanted to correct that imbalance. And when reviewed the 3 years review of this compensation of Jean-Laurent's compensation, we decided to propose something that will be a significant increase. We have decided also to take into account the rate of inflation during the last 3 years. The compensation has been set 3 years ago. And also, we looked at the average compensation in the banking industry. So we really discussed that at length at the Board of Directors. And we have decided to increase the fixed part of the CEO's compensation by 25%. In this period, we can see that the increase of prices is near 10%. So there is a catch-up effort that we have to make. And we have to be -- we have a duty of loyalty towards our CEO and especially since everything is going smoothly in our bank. So 25% seems to us an unavoidable indispensable increase in compensation. So we want to submit this decision. And the compensation would reach EUR 2.3 million from EUR 1,243,000. So this is our decision that we would like to submit to you. We have published a report about the benchmark in order for everything to be transparent about this decision and in order for you to be able to appreciate the situation in the right way. I'm going to give the floor now to the auditor's representative, Mr. Daniel Laurent, can you come on the stage? Thank you very much.

[Interpreted] Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. On behalf of the auditors, I would like to present the conclusions of our various reports for the 2024 financial year. Consolidated accounts of the group have been closed by your Board of Directors on the 3rd of February 2025. We implement our due diligence all throughout the year. We review the quarterly situations, accounts and annual accounts. Our work concerns all the significant entities of the group, the bank, the subsidiaries in France and abroad. The objective of our work is to have sufficient guarantee on the accounts that have to be sincere and accurate and without any significant anomalies. Our report since the 2017 regulation, our report is a description of the risks, possible risks and according -- which are the most important according to our professional judgment. Concerning the consolidated accounts of the group, the key items -- there are 4 key items: the assessment of the credit risk and the customers' portfolio, the financial risks, the IT general controls, the assessment of the liabilities in the various branches, insurance contracts, savings and retirements. Our report describes the risks that have been identified and the responses brought by our auditors. The conclusions are presented in a report for the account committee. And after the review that we have made this year, we have given an unreserved opinion concerning the consolidated accounts of your group. Concerning the transposition in the French law of the European regulation, the auditors have decided that the sustainability efforts are according to the regulation. Concerning the sustainability report, according to the regulation, we have established a limited insurance report. All our conclusions are without any reserves concerning the compliance with the regulations. We have made three observations concerning the double materiality process, which are annually reviewed and could be changed over time. An observation on the financial assets excluded from the scope of calculation for green gas -- greenhouse emission gases and an observation concerning the main methodological choices, which have been adopted by the group in order to review the alignment for household loans. Finally, concerning other reports that we have published concerning the company's account, our report is what any reserves and there are no new regulated or third-party agreements this year. And there is a continuation of the noncompetition agreement between Jean-Laurent Bonnaf and BNP Paribas adopted on the 26th of May 2016. We also have had specific reports concerning the 23rd resolution and the 24th resolution concerning the employee saving plans and the resolution #25 concerning the capital reduction by cancellation of shares. So I would like to thank you for your attention.

[Foreign Language]

Thank you, Mr. Laurent, for the presentation of the auditor's report. The presentations have been completed, and I would like to propose to switch to the discussions with you.

[Interpreted] I have received some written questions, particularly from two shareholders, forum for sustainable investment. Question concerning ESG, artificial intelligence and human resources and a question from Reclaim Finance concerning environmental issues. The answers have been published yesterday on the bank website. They are available for everybody. And I do hope that the answers are going to be satisfactory. Now let's move over to the questions part. I have received written questions as well that have been put in the beginning of this meeting. And I am going, first of all, to hear the questions that are going to be put orally in this room, and then I'm going to try and answer the written questions. Let's start. #3. I don't know who you are. Could you introduce yourself, please?

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Alexandre, I am working for the [indiscernible] France. Thank you for your welcoming words. Very happy to be here. The chart has been brought against [indiscernible] and BNP has made since announcements concerning fossil, oil energies in 2024, during the general assembly last year, you have said that you would abstain to participate in the conventional emissions of the gas and oil productions -- producers. This abstention, does that mean that in the future, you are going to abstain from financing and supporting gas and oil and fossil energy? Now this support our judicial action. And we would like to repeat our question, are you going to abstain in the future to support and finance fossil energies?

Now for the right organization of our discussion, the quality of our exchanges, I would like to ask to the various shareholders to ask their question in a very specific way and to be short.

Now you refuse to implement that measure against fossil energy, if I have understood you correctly. I would like to ask my questions. First of all, are you going to update your oil and gas policy and commit yourself to stop all your support to oil and gas and fossil energy producers? And are you going also to decide that you are going to stop all your corporate investment in favor of the oil and gas developers or promoters?

Now please be short. Put short questions in order to make it possible for all the shareholders to put questions if they want to.

Thank you for your question, sir. As you have said, we do not structure general purpose bond issues for oil and gas operators. And our asset manager management subsidiaries do not invest into such bond issuance. So this is not part of a policy because not everything is being regulated via policies in any bank. With respect to your second question on general purpose financing activities, we do a minimum amount of them in 2024. There were 152 syndicated loans for oil and gas organizations. And we participated in only 5 of those transactions with very restrictive criteria, especially on the analysis of the share of the business operations in exploration protection, their energy transition policies and their low or decarbonization trajectory. So our market share is 0.47% in this general purpose financing, knowing that we are the ninth ranking, the ninth largest bank. So we are an extremely minority bank in these fundings. Thank you all. Number two.

[Foreign Language]

[Interpreted] Ladies and gentlemen, dear Board members, my name is Jake, and my question is on the recent interactions between BNP Paribas and an organization of Fossil, [indiscernible] finance and all these organizations wrote to BNP Paribas asking for your bank to set an objective for power grid financing and storage transactions. We have had no reaction from your bank on this aspect and the fact that power grids and storage facilities are key ingredients for transitioning. In fact, generation of solar and wind power is more and more affected by restrictions to the European power grid. Very often, due to lack of flexibility. BNP Paribas has stated that power grids and storage facilities are part of the strategy. But we do regret that we do not -- you do not factor in these goals in your policies and strategies. We are happy that BNP Paribas participated in a loan of EUR 7.8 billion in [indiscernible], which is an application which grouped together all low-carbon and investments in 2023.

Can you ask your question, sir? We got the general line of your question. What is your question, sir?

My question is as follows. BNP Paribas -- will BNP Paribas show the leadership and will set an ambitious level of investment for sustainable storage facilities and power grid by building on the [indiscernible] scenarios of the international Atom Energy?

So our answer is no, we have not set any specific target and goal on this market segment, which is of capital importance, as you said, but difficult to quantify. These are diffuse and scattered out financing, which are very often on board other projects when you fund the renewables. You have a part which is dedicated to the hooking up to the power grid and to the power grid there is a EUR 9 billion debt project, 40% of which being specifically dedicated to the transmission part, knowing that the point of generation and the point of distribution are 800 kilometers apart. This was an onshore U.S. project I just mentioned. So this is part of the goal of EUR 40 billion of low-carbon financing by 2030. It can also be directly financed via large power grid operators, the likes of [indiscernible] and you'll find those financing in our goal of supporting our clients in the amount of EUR 200 billion. We did a partial estimate, which is, of course, conservative, and we already see that we have EUR 10 billion of funding out of the EUR 179 billion we mentioned channel to this market segment. And also part of the funding we provide to the large diversified energy players, but we are very -- we are finding it difficult to quantify. So number one, it is difficult to have robust and reliable quantification. And on the battery industry, this industry is a fast-moving industry. The battery industry, we have lots of projects, which are carried out by specialist battery players or independent player, but we are just at the beginning of regulations. The penetration ratios are very different according to countries and the financial and contractual framework doesn't give us sufficient assurance to make projections into the future and to set targets for these two reasons, we cannot establish a target despite the fact that there are significant financing and knowing that it is part of the low carbon transition group mandate we created in 2021, and our bankers are very active in this market segment. Thank you.

In line with the questions, which you have just asked in writing. I have a question which is about the strategic priority to support sustainable growth, which is what Jean-Laurent has explained and another aspect of profitability, and relationship with large clients, basically, do we make money by doing that? Do we lose money? And what are the relations we maintain with large clients? Do we gain or lose business?

So and you will hear the very clear positions by Jean-Laurent. Well, like any other complicated subjects, the equation is quite simple. The world is currently changing, right? And we need to organize the transitioning and transitioning in such field is a process which takes time, which needs to get prepared, possibly in spirit of good understanding and good faith with the public powers and governments agreeing on shared rules, and this can be compared with IT systems. Migrating new systems is complex and complicated, but the most difficult point is to identify the starting point. And very often, the starting point of different parties are very different. And this is true as well in the field of energy. So the transitioning of economies and industries are all very different. There's not one in a single way. It's very important that you understand that. And also, these trajectories need to be supported by efficient and effective technology solutions. It is impossible for an obvious reason to organize transitioning, which would lead to a price of energy, which would be out of reach for the greater number. It is just a no-go. It's fortunate that we have lots of scientists, academics and technologists and great people who have come up with new solutions. Just look at the battery industries, what the industry was 20 years ago and look at what the batteries are becoming to be today and going forward. All this is happening very slowly. Possibly, we are lagging behind, but we shouldn't confuse being speedy with being reckless. We need to walk slowly and steadily. Now when you focus your attention and your efforts on new technology solutions to provide and support such change with the assessment and the balance sheet we have, which is quite robust, but yet it is limited. The balance sheet of a bank remains limited. Slowly, gradually, we deviate from our usual sources of business, and we have a shortfall in revenue. We are shifting from a balance sheet with lots of fossil fuel to a balance sheet with less fossil fuel related projects. Of course, there's a shortfall in revenue. And this is at time. It's right now, and it's in the amount of some thousands of euros. Possibly in the aggregate, it will add up to EUR 1 billion, which will have been removed from the balance sheet of the bank, but it is being replaced by slowly built up expertise and know-how across sources of technology, wind power, solar power, but also nuclear power with these technology solutions, which are better controlled for future deliveries. And these projects all and each have to be profitable because it is the total number of the energy sources, which will have to be renewable in the near future. It would be silly to build up a world when and where the projects we operate are all subsidized by the public powers or are suboptimal or are under profitable. And the same goes with our financing criteria. The projects we finance either directly or indirectly via bond issue should come with a margin for the investors or for the financiers. You can't have any other way. So what's happening basically? What's happening is that what's happening for a carmaker or an OEM, they used to make cars with a combustion engine, there are fewer and fewer combustion engines, which comes with a cost because you renown established expertise and you need to write off this old technology and you shift and switch to new technology, which is costly because you have to develop, you have to research, develop, you have to invest and you have to implement. So it's a shift. And if you take the P&L statement in a simple manner, the P&L statement, which is everything you fund connected with energy and mobility, how things go. Well, what happened was this was very simple, straightforward profitability, very proven, very well established in the future. It will be the same. But in between the two posts, you have to learn. There's a learning curve. We do this slowly and gradually. We have well-established policy. We have road maps and trajectories to structure and organize this transitioning, which are well determined. You know the proportion of our balance sheet, which is dedicated to renewables, 75% of balance sheet, up from some 10%. We are now over 70% of our bank's balance sheet dedicated to renewables. And this is something we can do because project owners do have great projects. We don't own the project. We support projects, which are developed -- designed, developed and implemented by project owners, and we try and understand and analyze these projects. In order to do that, you need to have intelligent people. This is why we developed our platform. We recruited dozens and even hundreds of scientists and engineers who are able to orchestrate and coordinate project because there's no question that the bank on Boards and project's onto its balance sheet project, which would be unsustainable and irrelevant project. So this is a moment of switching. In the past, things were linear, quite straightforward with well-established clear margins with associated risk, which was low and the level of understanding of the entire ecosystem was well known and well defined. In the future, it will be the same, except that it will take some time. It will be 15 or 20 years from now. In between, there's a learning curve. You need to learn. You need to accept that you will be failing. You need to be very open in direct interaction with project owners. You need to support all types of new initiatives, which includes nuclear power, which has been poorly treated and perceived in Europe. People have not fully understood the value of nuclear power, which is a local level source of energy. It will probably be one of the lessons drawn from the Spanish outage that the generation of power should be at the closest level of utilization. I'm an engineer by background. This is very simple. The electron transits swiftly and quickly by way of microseconds, but it's not so quick. It's not so far. So we will be investing. It will come with a cost at the beginning. It comes with passion as well. This is what you do to attract talent. You need to attract new talent. It's a great opportunity to attract new talent across these new fields and these issues and all those criticizing us or suggesting improvements should come on board. We are very happy to take up any positive suggestion and solutions. In any case, a company must be robust. We are a bank. We need to have a robust balance sheet. Profitability should be the call of the day, and we shouldn't be making any trade-offs of sacrificing profitability in favor of innovation and acceleration. It could be possible were incidental, but we are now talking about replacing 100% of our core business of the past into new patterns. And the same goes with plane aircraft and cars. The future projects have to be self-funded. This is part of the complication and complexity. We need to come up with a new world where the next-generation technology and the new ways of doing things should be profitable per se. And it is possible and should possibly be even more profitable than in the previous world. And it is possible on with respect to the impact on the environment that it be simpler, that there are less problems with decommissioning and cleaning and recovering and reclaiming the environment. So this will be a journey of some 20, 30 years. We are among the most advanced compared with our starting point, which was an energy and raw material bank in the conventional sense of the terms. There's some degree of philosophy. Sorry for being a bit lengthy, but we are not operating alone here.

I told you that he will give you a very detailed answer, and he did.

I have a question. Are you really interested in your shareholders? When we come here, we can't take our computer in the annual report, there are 945 pages. So why couldn't we bring computers in this room? Are they really dangerous for the general assembly? Moreover, I'm not very happy about the increase in the age limit of the various members of the Board. this increase is either 68 or less or more. It's not really clear. You're talking a lot about stability, but if you want stability in a company, the age limit is set right from the start and shouldn't be changed. And I think that this is good to have young talents coming into the Board of Directors. Concerning the compensation increases, EUR 1.8 million to EUR 2.3 million. But you're only talking about fixed compensations. I imagine that if we look at our tax return, we will look at the whole compensation that we received over the year. So I think that the Board of Directors should talk about the whole compensation, not only the fixed compensation. I would also like to talk about Hello Bank, you have an increase in the number of customers of 16%. Boursorama is twice your size as increased the number of customers more than you have. Do you think you can catch up or Hello Bank can catch up with Boursorama? So I would like you to give the answers to all of my questions.

Now very briefly, concerning the computers, it's a matter of security for everybody. Everybody is on the same footing. Some objects are forbidding because of security reasons. And so I've given you the answer. You do not agree with my answer, but this is the answer I'm going to give you. It's for collective security purposes. And I don't see whether we could be against that. I have chaired other general assemblies in other circumstances. And let's stay polite. So I'm going to talk about that with Mr. Poupard anyway. So concerning the age limit, yes, your comments are quite relevant. And there have been a lot of discussions at the Board of Directors. The Board of Directors has taken those decisions, and it's not incompatible with your comments. One thing is to guarantee stability and another thing is to prepare for the future to think about the future directors. So it's an important topic. It's all about talents, new talents and reappointments. Well, I think we should increase visibility, and it's not a bad thing. The duty of the Board of Directors is to see to it that there is the right balance between the different objectives. So your concerns are taken into consideration, and our decisions are quite compatible with your concerns. And we want to have a dynamic management for the company. Concerning the compensation, a lot of information about those compensations have been published on the website of the bank. You have all of them, not only fixed compensation. I did not want to talk about variable compensations because I wanted to be brief. But all this is quite well known and has been made available to all of you and the -- also the consultant firms. So you know everything about the fixed compensation and the variable compensation. Let me remind you of the fact that there is a European regulation concerning the directors' compensation. And anyway, it's all about multiples and assuming is well known. I would like to take advantage of your question to answer a written question that has been asked the advice of the firms, consultancy firms, and they have given a positive advice concerning the resolutions about age, the age limit. Now, Hello Bank, this is a very relevant question. Hello Bank have the same IT system as the commercial bank in France. Hello Bank cannot be comparable to Boursorama Bank, which is separate from the Soci t G n rale Commercial Bank. This is going to give rise to a presentation in the framework of the strategic plan of the bank, which is going to be presented at the end of June. I think that we will give you the answers to your questions, but I don't want to give the answer before June.

Thank you. Maybe 3 again.

Can you hear me?

Yes, very well. Now I am -- I would like to put a question on behalf of Reclaim Finance. The power supply is a very important area in order to decrease our carbon emissions. If we want to multiply by 3, the renewable energies, this is a very good project in order to significantly reduce the greenhouse gases. Our dependency on renewable energy has to be increased in order to replace fossil energy and not to add to the consumption of fossil energy, but BNP has made no commitments in order to reduce the consumption of fossil energies. So we expect such commitments from BNP in order to put an end to your support of new gas power plants in Europe, whereas that we don't need. It has been demonstrated that we don't need those new gas plants. We know that BNP continues to financially support the creation of this new power plants, particularly for Enel, which has decided to develop 2,000 new megawatt power plants and other companies which want to set up new gas power plants, particularly in the Netherlands. This is incompatible with what we have committed to in order to reduce the gas -- greenhouse gas emissions. So my question is very simple. And yes, I know I'm a bit long, but other people have been just as long as I am. My question then, are you going to align your practices with your own climatic goals? Are you going to commit yourself to end all your support to new gas power plants?

[Interpreted] No, as I've said before, a transition can take some time. And what is important is to compare to what is existing right now. Are we improving our situation? And of course, the transition means that it's not going to be perfect right away. In Europe, that's the way it is. Whether it leases you or not, obviously, gas is still going in the future to play an important part. And gas will replace coal or other less acceptable energies. So this is a transition pathway we are on. And of course, this is not the endpoint. This is a medium-term point. So our practices are operating modes with our customers. All this is compatible to our -- with our commitments. It doesn't mean that by 2030, we will complete this transition. We will end this transition. We will go beyond 2030. So I'm not telling you that the situation is perfect. I'm telling you that in order to complete this transition, we have to go through a certain number of milestones in order to continue the improvement that we target that we are targeting. This transition is going to become more and more complicated. And this is a matter of regions. It all depends on the local solutions, which can be offered to the various stakeholders in different regions. The right way, the right solution in one location is not necessarily the right way in another location, in another geographical location. So I'm just like you, I'm looking forward to the end of this transition. It's very important to fund and finance all the right solutions. But this transition is not that easy. It's not perfect. This is what I can tell you right now. If you look at what we are doing right now and what we have done since the start of this transition. And if you look at our commitments, minus 10% fossil energies at the end of 2030, how many banks will have done the same, not that many. Moreover, we have to take into consideration our bond issues. So there are these two dimensions, which make it possible to continue with this virtuous transition. One last time, I would like to repeat, this is a very long-term transition. We can't do it overnight. If we do it overnight, it will be overhasty. And in Europe, we still -- we have too many overhasty behaviors and approaches on this type of topics. So I don't want to dwell on that, but we have to act rapidly, but we shouldn't be overhasty.

Thank you. Let me take a question #4, please.

[Interpreted] I'm talking on behalf of the Association of Individual Shareholding. I have two short comments and one question. First of all, I would like to welcome the fact that you propose a down payment on dividends at the end of September. We had asked that last year. You have listened to our request. Second comment, I think you want to increase the age limit and you're timid because [indiscernible] has said that he would like to increase the age limit to 85 years of age. And in view of the quality of the management, I'm not bothered by the fact that you want to increase the age limit. Now another comment. We have seen a platform that has been started at the end of last year, so very well. It started very well. On the whole, it works well. I know that there are further developments for the second half of the year. Have you reviewed your objectives and your synergies for this platform? The second question -- this was my first question. Second question, you have mentioned the transformation of relational or relationship-based model. I think there is a plan for that. Could you come back to that? And also, what is the scheme for the employees? And last year, a lot of things happened in Spain, and you explained that it was not possible to be active in a country when you didn't have a footprint in this country. So you do have a footprint in this country this year. And I think that you have remained very silent concerning this country.

[Interpreted] Thank you very much. Thank you for your first comments. We want to respond to that, of course. Thank you for that. Very clear. Are you answering about [indiscernible]. No, no change with Uptevia, as you know. Uptevia, as you know, is the teaming up of the Cr dit Agricole and BNP Paribas platforms, with the merging of these two platforms to improve them to upgrade their operations. These platforms are complicated ones because you might believe it's a question of serving large corporates. But in fact, we have used it to serve individual retail clients. So this is about serving both large corporates and individual clients. So the technological solutions are complicated, all the more so that the various parties are expecting the most late cut-off dates and optimality. So the project will give us not more efficiencies, it will give us more capabilities. So it's a project which is well underway even though this project is starting off under difficult circumstances because the two platforms were underinvested historically, and the two platforms were lagging behind, despite the fact they were what was the best in the market yet possibly our two groups didn't invest efficiently into these two platforms. So we are pulling forces, which we create, we call, and all synergistic capital is reemployed to improve and upgrade capabilities. And there's lots to be done. The purpose is not to turn it into a hypercompetitive, hyper-profitable platform. The goal is to make it a high-quality platform, which meets the needs and expectations of very diversified, client segments, the large corporates and the retail clients. Now BCF, commerical bank in France. Now we are not the one to decide about the number of branches. The customer base changes and the way they've been utilizing banking services has changed. That's the reality of life. We've all become more agile with online services and applications, digital technology in the broader sense of the term, and so we've been using less the physical locations, the brick-and-mortar branches in their interactions with the banking operators. So there is less of a need for brick-and-mortar branches. When you are a services company and when one of your channels is of lower demand, you have to adjust it downward, but you have to do it slowly and gradually because this, again, is a transition. And this transitioning is different in a highly densely populated area compared with a less densely populated area. So the same as my answer to the previous question, there will be a presentation of the strategy of the commercial banking in France, which will address this question and which will tell you how we are going to go about. Basically, it is the way our customers and clients will be utilizing our services, which will configure the framework of branches. And we saw that during the pandemic. The pandemic accelerated lots of factors and patterns. So we need to support this trajectory to dedicate more means and resources to the most in-demand channels. Now with respect to our employees, well, this plan will be done without any redundancy plan. We are not going to introduce any voluntary departure plans. We'll be using the natural turnover of the workforce of the bank, and we'll be able to recruit the right people as we go. So it's quite a smooth and fluid process, which will make it possible to have employees find a well-balanced model with branches still existing with every employee we deployed depending on their skills and profiles. It won't be easy. It will require a lot of local management skills and support, but it has to be done. We have to go through that with the right pace, with the right efficiencies to allocate the means and resources where our customers and clients require it and adjusting the means and resources downward when the demand is lower and making sure that our employees get redeployed and reskilled and upskilled so that they can serve and support our clients over the longer term. So yes, in the retail banking network. In the Caisse d' pargne and your Banque Populaire type of network, what is highly recommended to successfully carry out a merger is when you merge in one and the same country, when you cross borders and you merge across two different countries. And if you have two different IT systems to exist, you are finding it difficult in retail banking, in the local retail banking, you're find it difficult to identify synergy in cross-border development. Now historically, and I will be talking about Italy, I won't mention the other situations. I don't want to speak about our competitors. But we at BNP Paribas, bought some 20 years ago, 20 years ago will be next year, we bought the National Bank, BNL, which was a bank, which was half a savings bank Neapolitan bank, rather Southern Italy bank and a small SME bank, very much like Banque Populaire in France. We acquired the bank so -- which was slightly at odds with our core strategic model, but we couldn't prevent advancing this bank towards more mid-cap private banking and affluent segment banking services. This is what we've done in order to achieve synergy with CIB, in order to achieve synergy with the asset management operations. Basically, this is what we've done. Well, we didn't get much upside, and we don't want to invest resources into turning it into a Banque Populaire-like bank or Caisse d' pargne project. So every time there's consolidation in a market like the Italian market, there are cards being reshuffled, there are clients who want to switch banks. So this consolidation moves, in fact, generate more efficiencies in the banking system and make you benefit from such dynamics. We did not take part in these consolidation moves. We have been advising some parties in such moves because we have an advisory operation in Italy, and we keep going with our pace on the back of organic growth. We expanded our investments, banking operations compared with where we were 20 years ago, and the same goes in other business lines. And commercial banking in Italy is, first and foremost, a bank, which serves and supports midcaps and private banking and affluent clients. And it is a bit less than a Banque Populaire style or Caisse d' pargne style bank. Why not? Well, it's because we are best at doing that. This is why -- this is what our product line looks like. And in fact, I've learned Italian language, and we explained this very well to the Bank of Italy. I will go to Italy in 2 days' time. I will meet with the Bank of Italy governor. He will ask me the same question. I will give him the same answer. You can't via courses too sharply. You need to be state-of-course and be relevant, and I can mention the many businesses, asset management, security services, insurance services, which are doing well. Cardif did an acquisition in Italy, which did quite well. Security services, the partnership. Consumer loan business is doing very well. And the top line in company, i.e., the total revenue of BNP Paribas is twice that of BNL. It is true that we're only communicating on the BNL revenue. But our revenue in Italy for BNP Paribas is double that of BNL and the profitability of bank of BNP Paribas in Italy is triple that of BNL. This is how we've been developing, growing and expanding. We are happy we are keeping our distance with the others, but we are serving and supporting them all because through our platform, we are serving these banking competitors of ours who are also our clients. So I'll stop here. I believe I answered the question.

#5 in the back of the room.

[indiscernible] I would like to ask a question concerning your climate strategy. It's not only my question but more than 2,000 citizens online have asked you this question during the past 2 weeks concerning the liquefied natural gas, which has an enormous, huge impact on climate. 63 new projects have been initiated concerning LNG. And if those projects are funded today, there will be major consequences concerning greenhouse gases. You know that the present bank decision on commitments over the next decade. You have answered lately several times that your group has no appetite for export project of LNG. But we can be afraid that you will have more appetite in the future. I have two questions. First of all, are you going to put an end to the funding that has already been dedicated to LNG or existing terminal extensions around the world? And second question, are you going to put an end to your overall funding to companies developing this type of infrastructure?

We fund absolutely no project of LNG terminal because it's not in line with our approach, which consists of not supporting the exploration and production -- mining and production area. So we do not fund any project in the world.

Let's come back to #4.

Hello, [ Michelle here], your individual shareholder. Very direct question. National defense, strategic issue. I would like to know whether your bank intend to support not necessarily the CAC 40 major companies like Airbus. But small and medium enterprises, and young startups, which have outstanding projects and which will support bail out the commercial balance -- trade balance. Another question concerning individual shareholders. Don't you think that you should increase the number of individual shareholders with a loyalty program? Just like the Air Liquide group has done. First question, I'll give the floor to Jean, but you have seen a communication made by the bank on this topic and public documents?

Indeed, we have made a communication about that about a month ago. In order to give you a few key figures concerning our commitments in favor of defense industry. Overall, the bank has invested more than USD 20 billion in the defense area or aircraft industry. Let us say, 12 billion to 15 billion, it's an order of magnitude. Probably the first bank in the order of magnitude to finance the defense industry. We have always invested in this industry. We know the advantages and the drawbacks of this industry. Now we have major companies, mid-cap and smaller companies that we invest in. And also, we invest through the insurance of all fund or through asset management projects. And in France, with BNP Paribas Development, we have invested 250 million equity for SMEs or startups, which have very specific ideas, which makes it possible to meet some requirements and solve problems. So we have a very good position in this industry, and it's a continuous project over a long-term basis. We also deal with the export credit guarantees for exports. You know that military contracts are on a long-term basis, we have a contract and maintenance and then spare parts. So it's not only a sale contract, it's a maintenance contract. Some of those contracts have been started more than 20 years ago. We are not only European, but we are also international because we support all the countries, which are native members. We help them find the necessary funds, and we also support companies, which are able to propose technological resources supplements. Now this is a tradition. We've always had this know-how. And I think we have to talk about that a little more when this issue becomes unfortunately more topical. We have to be frank about that. We have to see clearly the situation. And if we should, in the future, have to -- if Europe in the future, should be faced with major problems, then we have to prepare ourselves. For a long time, we had the American umbrella and protection, but it's not -- it has not disappeared. This protection has not disappeared, but for the time being, Europe has to become stronger and work in a more integrated way in order to achieve some kind of independence and sovereignty in this area. It's not so simple. Concerning the armament industry, there's also issues pertaining to access to resources and commodities and it's just our transition into the mobility environment. It's a long transition. And moreover, we need to have the state budget, large enough state budget. So all this has to be very efficacious. We can't manufacture the same number of items at the same -- a large number of items at the same price as small number of items that we used to manufacture in the past. We need to increase the number of armament systems that we manufacture. And this is very costly, very expensive. And we also need to see whether the armament systems of the past are the right ones for the future. So we are going to have a very different system and very powerful system. It's going to be very different. It's not going to be bigger, but it's going to be different and more powerful. So the new entrepreneurs and new stakeholders in this industry are very welcome and there are sources of new ideas. So I have given you a long answer, but it's a major topic. Not long ago, we could discover in some countries that the banks were banned from the military sector, the military industry. And sometimes in some countries, we started with funding the armament industry. This is not an easy area. It's a very challenging environment. A lot of fine-tuning to do and also the destination of weapons is to be taken into consideration. It's not necessarily stable on a long-term basis. It's a complicated issue. But it's very exciting. Very, very interesting. Now, you mentioned shareholding, individual shareholding, which is a very -- it's a major issue for us. I met a lot of shareholders of the bank in the various regions of France. We have another principle, which has been recorded very often in the general assembly, the principle of every shareholder on a equal footing. It's BNP Paribas position that we've had for a long time. We want every shareholder to be on equal footing. And the individual shareholders' interests contribute. Those interests are very important because it contributes to the value of the share, to the share price.

Back of the room, [ Philippe Charlier], individual shareholder.

Good morning, everybody. We had very fine presentations, and we heard that the results are very good. I would like to thank you and congratulate you for this. And contrary to other shareholders, I think that we have a CEO, which is fine and very good physical condition. So I don't see why we should replace him with a young person, with a young graduate without any experience internationally. I think that Mr. Bonnafe deserves more than the compensation increase in order to -- for his compensation to be more comparable to the other European compensation for bank CEOs because he was underpaid, which is absolutely absurd. I have another question concerning the armament industry. There is a major funding problem here. We have heard recently that Europe would like to initiate a group loan of EUR 700 billion. I would like to know whether you have additional information about this European loan. I don't see how it's going to be done in practice and doing -- the BNP is going to be part of that and take a profit from that?

I'm not aware of this scheme. There are two different aspects here. There's one aspect is how the states and governments will be able to support the necessary efforts by way of their own financial capacity and the European Union is introducing a facility to help the states pool resources be it purchasing equipment or solutions together or pooling financial means. And the other thing is how we actually distribute the financial means and resources. In the way of channeling the investment, there are two different aspects. I'm not too worried with respect to the total available resources with Germany, as an example, deciding to channel its investments at a high level. Now it will be a question of where you allocate the money and what you actually finance tangibly with respect to projects. And when you look at the additional need of additional financial resources. If it is a question of investing 3x more than what has to be done, the system needs to be much better than it -- than just a factor of multiplying the existing factor by factor of 3. So you need to change the system. So you need to optimize the system. There will be a pooled means and resources at the European level, will be buying equipment. Now it's a question of deciding what will be bought because the army and military services are very different depending on the country and now what are drones today about why is it so costly in some regions of Europe? And why is it less costly in other regions of Europe? So these are issues connected with the values of equipment, and knowing that we haven't cared for such military issues for a long time. What we have learned with the Ukraine and Russian war is that these issues are reemerging with new questions and new issues with de facto frequency values being challenged and questions with lots of things which seem to be given will have to be discarded. I don't know what the European Union has in mind or I will possibly -- we will possibly be solicited, but my concern is to make sure that the investments are channeled to the right people and towards the right innovation, and that all this is done in an efficient manner because public budgets are not elastic and are not in limited knowing that the there's so much to be done. There is the energy transition, there is the sustainability front, there's education and there's health care. All this, of course, needs to be organized in a very sophisticated manner. I use this phrase of not confusing being speedy and being over-hasty and it works across all fronts. Thank you very much. We still have a few more minutes for questions before we allow you to vote.

I have two questions, very short questions. The first is on the energy efficiency activities and the operating efficiencies. Now you need not confuse efficiency and quality. AI is being used more and more to remedy a number of problems, for example, to help cut the workforce. Yet you still need to have customer-facing human beings with the clients wanting and needing to interact and speak with a real person. When you speak about operating efficiency, as you will be developing AI-based solutions, we do not end up being in a solution when you will have fewer customer-facing employees. And will you be implementing questionnaire to your clients, asking your clients whether they have found a satisfactory answer to their questions or no because they were not able to interact with the human being?

Now to pick up on what you said, I didn't share anything about the Gaza population. Can you expand on why you're not sponsoring any activity in the Gaza Strip. Now on your second question, sir. Unfortunately, we have tried and helped as part of a number of processes, but we were not able to pursue for a very sad reason is that international aid was just blocked and did not reach the Gaza Strip. It's not because we didn't want to or it's not because we didn't try or because we didn't think about it. I'm being very straightforward here in my answer. As to your other question, there are lots of banks in the banking system. They are purely digital banking operators with no human being interfacing with clients, you just have applications and technical interfaces. And then you have banking models, which will be partially converging towards this purely technical and human-less interfaces, and you will have some kind of a hybrid model. But it is silly to engage human advisers to try and remedy process inefficiencies because unfortunately, too often for a number of reasons, instead of being smooth and fluid, our processes stop short if they were to be end-to-end. Well, they are not, they stop short of being end-to-end for a number of reasons including the computers of our clients and customers, which are suboptimal and which do not have the right capacity or capabilities. So talking about operating efficiency, this is what we are talking about, providing end-to-end efficient and smooth service and processes so that we cut the so-called this quality and enabling our employees to have more free time to be customer-facing, knowing that a time which is freed up is very precious time to do different things, but nothing is new in what I'm saying. It's reemerges when the new technology comes in and consumption patterns change. All this will be respecified as we come up with our strategic plan for commercial banking in France. But it's very difficult to keep talent to provide a true advisory service and not to remedy some of the old processes. And this is a challenge for our banking operations, to be capable of digesting the gist of things and to deliver it in a fluid and smooth manner as part of a relationship, which is a human relationship, knowing that we are talking about financial and banking products. So your question is very legitimate. And your question is part of our successive strategic plan. But remember that there are more and more banking operators, which are purely digital players. And there's a growing share of individual and retail clients who ask and request and even require only purely digital and technical interfaces. So if you put customer-facing human beings, this is not what they want. And the banking system is a services system, and there will be more discontinuity of retail banking, with the affluent banking and the private banking will be more segmented and catering for more bespoke, more customized services. And coming back to AI, which so far has not destroyed any job. It helps people to work, to work better, to understand better and to be more specific and more fine-tuned in the way they engage with clients and customers. So artificial intelligence is a way to provide solutions and bring information, which is more bespoke and customized because the machine "when you use the right data, when you have the right databases, identifies profiles more precisely and provides more personalized answers to the clients and the customers in front of you." All this is changing very quickly. But at the end of the day, we'll keep human advisers. We need human advisers and a number of our clients is asking for human advisers and relationship managers to stay. But we need to accept that there are many clients and customers who just want technical apps because they are not available during the day. And they are agile in app so that they are happy with this kind of universe and they'd rather speak with the technical app rather than a human being, but you want to make sure that the technical app is agile enough and it's never sufficiently agile. And it's another problem. So I suggest given time expressing, I know there's a time when you lose shareholders, right, after which you lose them. I'm very aware of this. So I suggest we take a very last question. I apologize for the other questions who couldn't be asked, do ask your question in writing. We'll answer them. I'll take question #2, which is in front of me.

Good morning, everybody. My question is going to be very short, very technical as well. I like to attend the general assemblies, but it's going to be more and more difficult because I use paper, the paper procedure because with a digital procedure, there is a problem with the voting access. It's very difficult to have the digital documents recognized and accepted. I have noticed that the paper procedure is less secure. I have observed that there are two mistakes this year. I have a mandate for a shareholder that I don't even know. So there is an effort to be made on due diligence. I know that the digital procedure is going to be watched by in the future. We won't have a choice anymore. What I would like to have is as simple a procedure as possible. And it's much more simple for the bearers shareholder because he has a link, which is directly on his portfolio. Concerning the managed -- nominative shareholder, couldn't it be possible to have a direct link with the shareholders' portfolio. We do pay custody -- for custody. So I think that it would be nice to have a direct link with a bank that is paid for this custody.

So a very good question anyway. I think that we have staff that could answer you. But of course, there are two different information systems. Digital system and the paper system are not the same systems. And for the two types of the shareholding procedures, there are two systems as well. And when you look at the two systems, sometimes one of the system is better than the others. The best solution, we need have two very good systems. So we have to improve on that. But it's very difficult to improve and change those system. So it's quite complicated. Now concerning the custody, right? I have the feeling that over the past, the custody payments were not enough but I'm not telling you that we're going to increase the custody payments. But it may not be enough. And I tell you, this is a complicated topic but we are going to tackle them in the future. Everything you say, we take note of that. And if you want, you can send us a mail to one of us because what you are describing is probably very representative of other -- of what other people experience, you're not the only victim. So probably other people have not really observed that, noticed that. You may be more observant than others. Now we look exactly at what happened. Now I think that we're going to do that. And we are going to ask the bank staff to do that. I do know that every year, some other shareholders would like to ask questions, but we don't have time anymore. We are behind schedule as it is. But once again, you can ask your questions in writing. You can ask the staff -- the bank staff members questions, and I will see to it that all your questions will be answered. Let's move over to the voting procedure. Quorum is different. And 79%, it's a very good quorum. Thank you very much for all those who have voted online and those who are in the room and are going to vote. Now I'm going to give you explanations on the procedure. You have a box where you have 13 keys. You have to press on the red, yellow and green keys. Red is against. Yellow is abstention. For each resolution, you will have to press one key, only one key. Vote will start after each resolution has been read and the Chairman is going to say the vote is open. You have a clock on the screen and you are -- and it's going to tick about 12 seconds. Then the Chairman is going to say, the vote is closed and you won't have the opportunity to vote anymore, any longer. The results are going to be put on the screen a few seconds after the vote has been closed. In order to avoid interferences, please switch off your telephone during the vote. Is it clear? Can we move over to the voting procedure? The presentation of the regulations, please press only on the green key if you want to vote for. And if you want to vote against, the red key. If you want to abstain, the third key, which is yellow. So approval of accounts of the company financial accounts for 2024. The vote is open. [Voting]

The vote is closed. Thank you. Approved, of course. Second resolution, approval of consolidated financial statement for the 2024 financial year. The vote is open. [Voting]

Vote is closed. 99.47% approval. Appropriation of results for 2024 and payout of dividends, third resolution. [Voting]

Vote is closed. 99.99%. Fourth resolution. So dividend will be paid out. Specific report of auditors on the related party agreements mentioned in Article L.225-38 following articles of the code of commerce. Vote is open. [Voting]

Vote is closed. 99.30%. Thank you. Approved. Fifth resolution, authorization to buy back its own about to BNP Paribas its own shares. Vote is open. [Voting]

Vote is closed. 99.03%. Sixth resolution, reappointment of Mr. Jean-Laurent Bonnafe as a Director. Vote is open. [Voting]

Vote is close. 99.16%. Congratulations to Jean-Laurent. Seventh resolution, reappointment of Mrs. Lieve Logghe as a Director. [Voting]

Vote is closed. 97.45%. Congratulations, Lieve. Very happy to be able to continue working with you. Eighth resolution, reappointment of Mr. Bertrand de Mazi res as a Director. The vote is open. [Voting]

Vote is closed. 99.80%. Congratulations. Welcome. Ninth resolution, appointment of Ms. Vanessa as a Director. The vote is open. [Voting]

Vote is closed. 99.81%. Congratulation. Welcome. 10th resolution, appointment of Mr. Nicolas Peter as a Director. Vote is open. [Voting]

Vote is closed. 95.76%. Congratulations. Welcome, Mr. Peter. 11th resolution appointment of Mr. Guillaume Poupard as a Director. Vote is open. [Voting]

The vote is closed. 99.81%. Congratulation and welcome. 12th resolution, vote on the items of compensation policy allocated to directors. The vote is opened. [Voting]

Vote is closed. 98.88%. 13th resolution, vote on the items of compensation policy allocated to the Chairman of the Board. [Voting]

Vote is closed. 97.18%. Thank you. 14th resolution, vote on the items of compensation policy allocated to the CEO. Vote is open. [Voting]

Vote is closed. 88.65%. Thank you. 15th resolution, vote on the items of the compensation policy allocated to the COOs. Vote is open. [Voting]

Vote is closed. 94.22%. 16th resolution, vote on the information concerning the compensation paid in 2024 or allocated during the same financial year to all the corporate officers. The vote is open. [Voting]

The vote is closed. 96.76%. Thank you. 17th resolution, vote on the items of the compensation paid in 2024 or allocated in the same financial year to Mr. Jean Lemierre, Chairman of the Board. Vote is opened. [Voting]

Vote is closed. 96.52%. Thank you. 18th resolution vote on the items of the compensation paid in 2024 or allocated in the same financial year to Mr. Jean-Laurent Bonnafe, CEO. Vote is open. [Voting]

The vote is closed. 94.08%. Thank you. 19th resolution, voting on the items of the compensation paid out in 2024 or granted for the same financial year to Yann G rardin, Deputy COO. The vote is open. [Voting]

The vote is closed. 94.02%. Approved. 20th resolution, vote on the items for the compensation paid out in 2024 granted for the same fiscal year to Thierry Laborde, Deputy COO. Voting is open. [Voting]

Voting is closed. Approved by 94.69%. Thank you. 21st resolution, setting the annual compensation allocated to the Board members. Voting is open. [Voting]

Voting is closed. Approved by 98.51%. Thank you. 22nd resolution, which is an advisory vote on the general budget for compensation of all clients paid out during fiscal '24 to the people who run the company and some categories of staff. Voting is open. [Voting]

Voting is closed. Approved by 99.53%. Thank you. Now the extraordinary shareholders meeting part, 23rd resolution, increase of capital without preferential subscription right by issue of bonds, which would be converted into shares only if the CET1 ratio became below 5.125%. Voting is open. [Voting]

Voting is closed. Approved by 98.25%. 24th resolution, operation reserved to the members of the employees savings skew without subscription -- preferential subscription rights. Voting is open. [Voting]

Voting is closed. Approved by 99.57%. Thank you. 25th resolution, authorization to reduce capital by cancellation of shares. Voting is open. [Voting]

Voting is closed. Approved by 99.85%. Thank you. 26th resolution, which is about changing the bylaws relative to the age limit of the CEO. Voting is open. [Voting]

Thank you. Voting is closed. Approved by 98.47%. Thank you. 27th resolution about changing the bylaws relative to the age limit of the Chairman of the Board. Voting is open. [Voting]

Voting is closed. Approved by 97.17%. Thank you. 28th resolution about changing the bylaws relative to the age limit of the Deputy Chief Executive Officer. Voting is open. [Voting]

Voting is closed. Approved by 98.63%. Thank you. 29th resolution about changing the provisions of the bylaws relative to the discussions of the Board so as to benefit from the so-called modernization measures introduced by the so-called French law called "Attractivit ." Voting is open. [Voting]

Voting is closed. Approved by 99.87%. Thank you. 30th resolution about changing the bylaws in order to make them and to put them into compliance with the Attractivit law and its application ordinance. Voting is open. [Voting]

Voting is closed. Approved by 99.87%. Thank you. 31st resolution about the powers for carrying out formalities. Voting is open. [Voting]

Voting is closed. Approved by 99.99%. Thank you. This ends the round of resolution. Before you all go, I would like to make two brief announcements. The first is an important one according to me, and it's important for the Board. Board members will be analyzing and reviewing your votes for and against to understand the messages, underlying messages, which go through your votes, and this is important also for the compensation committee members. So we see to that this information is taken on Board. My second comment is with a view to thanking you. Thanking you for being present, for voting, for contributing. It's very important to us. We are working for you, our shareholders, for the employees, for the stakeholders and your personal involvement to this AGM is of great importance and your questions. And I hope the answers we gave to you answers contribute to this sharing or this exchanging. And again, big sincere thank you for being here and enjoy the rest of the day. [Portions of this transcript that are marked [Interpreted] were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]