BNP Paribas SA (BNP) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Well, let's start. Good morning. I'm delighted to see you here for this General Meeting of Shareholders for Fiscal 2026, which is a key moment for all of you for the Board of Directors, for the senior leadership team of the bank. Thank you for being here. I believe that all of you have been able to get seated after due formality. So I will now do what it takes to validly open this General Meeting of Shareholders for 2026. We are gathered here upon first convening. And this meeting is a public meeting, as is the case every year. The discussions and speeches of this meeting are recorded with the three bailiffs of the Paris Court, which will draw up a detailed report in line with the legal requirements with recording posted on the website of the bank, with another recording being saved for a minimum period of 2 years. So please note that anything you say and yourself may be recorded. I would also like to mention the date of the next general meeting on the 11th of May 2027 at 10 a.m. So the universal registration document, including the report of the Board of Directors on the financial statements of the group was circulated to you as well as the integrated report, which gives all the information about BNP Paribas Group in a long-term perspective, and you have a digital format of these documents also as part of the documentation, which was circulated to you. You have 2 forms, as is habitual. The first, pink-colored, for the agenda of the General Meeting questions which were asked in writing. The second green color form is for individual questions, which you may want to have as an individual client interacting with BNP Paribas Group. And you have a dedicated team here in attendance to help answer any questions you may have. And you also have audio headsets so that you'll be able to follow this meeting in good conditions. So we have hostesses around the room who'll take your question in writing, and you also have space in the lobby of customer service and the shareholders circle here and can answer you. The officers of this meeting, I'll be chairing this meeting in line with Article 18 of the bylaws Article of Association, The Scrutineers will be the bearers of shares who are here in attendance who will be two individuals. I thank you for serving our scrutineers for this meeting. Madame Celine Vaessen who is here. Thank you for being here. She is a Chief Investment Officer in charge of the finance pillar at Societe Federale de Participations et d'Investissement, which is a Belgian state-owned company, which holds an interest in BNP Paribas. And Sebastian is the second Scrutineer, who is here as well, who is a member of the Board of Directors of the global shareholding mutual fund. And Madame Guylaine Dyevre, sitting next to me, will be the Secretary to this meeting. And the Statutory Auditors of the group were validly convened and are here in attendance. They sit in the front row over there. There are two of them, Deloitte and Partners represented by [ Daniel Laurent ]; and Ernst & Young firm and others represented by Olivier Drion. Thank you, gentlemen, for being here today. The temporary situation of this meeting given the attendance sheet give us the information that the shareholders in presence as well as those have 847,000,100 shares, i.e., 73% of capital stock, which gives us quorum, knowing that the meeting can be validly constituted. The various regulatory documents to validly hold this meeting in line with the Commercial Code requirements have been filed. You have been informed of the agenda. So without further ado, I suggest that we collect the various written questions that you may have by way of the hostesses. We'll ask the hostesses to go around the rooms and collect your forms with written questions. I can see you better now. Thank you. You were in the dark, but now I can see you better. So we'll have the questions collected. All right. Thank you very much. This is currently being done, collection of questions. I suggest now that we formally open the shareholders' meeting after the legal formalities, which are habitual. Once again, welcome. I'm very happy to see you all this morning. And speaking on behalf of the other directors who are sitting here who are very attentive to anything you will say, and also want to greet the members of the Shareholders Liaison Committee, who are here in attendance today who will contribute to interacting with the bank staff. And I want to thank them on your behalf. And also the general management team under Jean-Laurent Bonnafe is here in attendance. And we'll try together to review the activity of the bank, the activity of the Board of Directors and to answer any questions you may have. Now 2026 is a year of importance, very dense, a busy year, and 2025 was the same. The CEO and the CFO and Laurence Pessez will review in a few minutes the performance, the results, the achievements of development projects, the CSR activity. And before they do that, I want to tell you that -- to set the scene for what the Board did in 2025, knowing that the Board of Directors was especially active in 2025 in a fast changing context to pursue growth opportunities and to control both risks and cost. 2025 was marked by a balance of power between key global powers with a number of conflicts arising in several regions in the world, in Ukraine and in the Middle East. And I want to say this. I want to hail the extraordinary dedication and the commitment of the group staff who made it possible to continue providing service to clients and customers. In the meantime, the multiplicity of barriers including tariffs had a result of upending global trade and interactions between countries businesses with these geopolitical dynamics, which are at the heart of the needs and discussions by each of our clients and customers. And we, as the bank, need to take these into account to better support and serve these clients next to these geopolitical dynamics, which had an impact on decisions by the bank 2025. So the advance of new technology are growing very fast with AI solutions becoming mainstream with all our clients adopting it, generating more efficiency, productivity, yet many doubts, many fears and concerns knowing that the bank was a key player in this process. And we'll discuss these further in this context. The European Union and France have become aware of the need to adapt in order to protect their interest, to protect their values, to protect our model, including our social welfare model, including by deciding to shore up its domestic market energy transitioning. The transitioning of our business model remain key priorities while reconciling social acceptability, responsibility, accountability, which are key values operated by the bank, which will keep promoting. Such transformation involves massive investments, and banking balance sheets are of great importance and will help fuel and finance the economy. But we need to take this one step further, not just by public funding, knowing that public funding has reached its limits. And in addition of the plans announced by Germany, EU should be able to mobilize European savings, which has been abundant to invest into strategic services like payments, defense, technology and energy transitioning in this respect, and Jean-Laurent will discuss this further. The integration of the bank's Asset Management business with that of AXA Asset Management will generate more added value to the group and will contribute to better managing long-term savings and assets for Europe. In this context, BNP Paribas builds up on the diversified, well integrated banking model, leading the pack as a trusted partner and financial intermediary for all of our clients and customers to contribute to the stability and robustness of the economy to serve and support all of our clients, individuals and institutional clients, to meet their financial needs. Under the drive of the CEO and the senior leadership team, whom I would like to warmly thank for their hard work and dedication, in fiscal 2025, the 3 business divisions of the BNP Paribas Group posted great performance in 2025, contributing to growth and expansion of the group and reaching its goals and target. The organizational structure of the group was adapted to optimize investment in technology, to keep developing new products and optimize processes. The bank engaged in a number of initiatives to contribute to the strategic sovereignty of Europe, and we have maintained our course to shore up our leadership position in sustainable finance. Your Board of Directors, in addition to all this, has been on the Board with key projects for the group and for our general community. And among others, your Board of Directors, jointly with the senior management team, has followed and monitored the U.S. litigation related to the Sudanese affairs. So all in all, your Board of Directors has confidence in the relevant strategic direction for the group on the back of well-balanced governance mechanisms with a stable leadership team, which has garnered great experience. We'll continue, thanks to the hard work and dedication of the bank's team to support and serve shareholders the best. Thanks to the trust of clients, we'll remain fully mobilized and engaged to serve a more prosperous, more sustainable economy as well as a more inclusive society. I wanted to say this because these are virtues, principles, but also context and goals which are being pursued by our Board of Directors, in line with and on the back of the group strategy, which Jean-Laurent will be reviewing, the way the group has been organized, the way capital and resources are being allocated with budget decisions and how they are made as well as the general business operations of the BNP Paribas Group. It's of great importance to us. It is the foundation for our action for development work, and I wanted to review this as a foreword before we go into the gist of the meeting. Before I turn over to the CEO, I suggest we watch a short movie, which basically sets the scene, which was prepared by the Corporate Communication department and which reviews a few facts and numbers which will shed light to what you'll be hearing during this meeting. [Presentation]

So that's the stage set. You've seen the essential data and parameters of the strategy and its results. Now to move forward in this analysis, I'm going to hand the floor to Lars Machenil, the group CFO, who will present the group's results and activity in 2025.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. It's my pleasure to present to you the results of 2025 of your bank. You can see them behind me in sum. If you look at the bottom, the net result or net profit, which is up. The results for 2025 was EUR 12.25 billion, an increase of 4.6%. This reflects operating performance that is excellent. And if you look at this performance, looking at the P&L lines, you can look at the top there, and you can see that revenue has increased by nearly 5%. We can see that the costs have risen by 3.9% but with a positive jaws effect. Therefore, costs rose slower, more slowly than our revenue because we operate in places where we operate, where we are present and we can serve clients at a marginal cost. In other words, costs are growing slower at a slower rate than revenue. The cost of risk is also contained is at 36 basis points at 0.36%, in line with our direction with our rule of being below 40 basis points. These are the results you can see. If you look at the bottom, you can find other factors as well. For example, the small box in the middle, you can see the return on results, which is 11.6%, and the CET1 ratio, which is at 12.6%. The two ratios aim to be at 13%. So if you look at capital at 12.6%, we're well on the way. And furthermore, it was at 12.6% at the end of 2025. In the first quarter, it was already at 12.8%, so in other words, on the right track. If you look at the bottom right, you can see the net benefit per share, and you look at this, and at BNPA, it's at EUR 10.29, up by 7.5%. In other words, 60% of that amount is returned to the shareholder, to you. Turning the page and we look at the fact that this is based on a diversified and integrated model, which is resilient across economic cycles. On the left-hand side, you can see the distribution of the -- the breakdown of divisions is diversified. No activity accounts for the lion's share. And on the right-hand side, you can see these activities are very complementary and generate cross-reference sales or cross-selling. One-third of the income, I mentioned on the revenue, comes from cross-selling between divisions. That's our model. If we look in a bit more detail at the P&L. Let's look at revenue. You can see, in fact, the results for 2024 in these columns and how it's moved into or traded at '25, up by 4.9%, as I said. But here, you can see it across the various divisions. The first one is what we call CIB or BFI in French, which improved by 5.6%. It's a very good performance. Even technically, it's a record performance, in fact. And this is in an environment impacted by what had happened on the 1st of April 2025, the U.S. Liberation Day with tariffs that weakened the dollar. And when the dollar is weaker, they buy less or fewer euros. So our results in U.S. dollars are translated into a few euros, in fact, than the previous year. Even despite that, we still have a 5.6% improvement. If we look then at commercial, personal banking and services, there are two factors. There's the commercial banking, so I think with a very fine increase, thanks to that rate scenario, I'll get back to that later. And also, in addition, in specialist activity services, there's a contraction specifically in [indiscernible] because we had a positive effect of the new valuation of second-hand vehicles last year. And then there's IPS, which includes insurance and asset management. That rose by 19.6%, of course, positively impacted, and we'll go back to this, by the integration of the AXA IM business. Now that concerns revenue. Now if we look at costs that reflect operational efficiency, which rose by less than 1% less than the revenue. So we can see that in these columns, you can see the trends described. That's the impact of AXA IM. It was added and increased basis. Furthermore, there was an increase thanks to inflation of EUR 707 million that was offset by optimization and operating efficiency that we continue to deploy. And these two factors canceled each other out. What you can see at the bottom is that jaws effect that I mentioned before can be seen in each division. That's for the trends. If we look now at the 3 divisions, let's start off with CIB. CIB, as I said, is based on 3 franchises that are powerful, that also are, in turn, integrated and diversified. If you look over the last 10 years, you can see in these columns, there's an annual increase of 5.8%. And you can see the trend. And if you look at all 3 divisions, that positive trend of nearly 6% per year is driven by growth in Global Markets and Securities that has almost double-digit growth, slightly attenuated by Global Banking business that had a sound performance but in a less positive context, in a context I've mentioned of the dollar effect and also the tariff effects and uncertainties from geopolitical pressure that have led clients to have a more wait-and-see position. This can be seen, and you're going to see this on the bottom right, we are the #1 bank in CIB in Europe. With that, if we look at CPBS business, our activity in particular because we talked about this last year. I'd like to look at revenue from commercial banking in the Eurozone and also everything to do with personal finance. Why? Because intrinsically, if you look in particular at commercial banking, we're in countries, in France, Belgium, that have fixed rate loans. When rates rise, the time that is reflected in the P&L can take time on average. It's normally the average maturity of a loan, which is usually 7 years. We could have planned that when rates went from 0% to positive rates, we should have seen an improvement over that period. What you can see here in this is the trend over time from 2022 to now, and what you saw at the beginning is there was a contraction in revenue. Why? Because there was inflation, an increase in interest rates that was very sudden and sharp and also commercial activities that ensured that trend. Now we're in a situation where inflation is aiming towards between 2% and 3%. We have a positive effect that is working year after year for us. And now we're aiming at that and for the remainder of the term of this year, at least until the end of the decade, we'll have on average a trend of plus 5% that we could see in the fourth quarter of 2025 and was confirmed in the first quarter of 2026. That's the turnaround you can see in CPBS. And if you look at the third division, IPS, you can see on the bottom left, trends for each activity, insurance, asset management and all these factors. You can see these are variants around the theme of a very sound performance. Another very important factor in this activity is assets under management. And as you can see, these columns, there is an increase. We've risen from just under EUR 1.4 billion to slightly over EUR 2.4 billion. That increase comes from net new business and from the markets, of course, but also the integration of AXA IM. And if we look at AXA IM, that you can see at the bottom there, at EUR 1.6 billion, it's in the top 3 asset managers in Europe and, in fact, even is #1 when we're talking about long-term savings. Now that we've looked at the top parts of the P&L. Let's look at the cost of risk. As you see, if I exclude 2020, which was a year where we had a COVID provision that we've recovered, but every other year, we were in line with our objective of 40 basis points. As I said at the beginning, there is no region, no division that has dominated. So diversification is really working well. On the right, what you can see is what we call private debt or private credit, which is intrinsically, if it's public or private credit, it's intrinsically an approach which is entirely the same. And to give you an idea, it accounts for 3% of our outstanding loans in total. Moving on to the financial structure that we've ended the year at 12.6%. In the first quarter of this year, we're at 12.8%. And our target is 13%. When you look at that dynamic on the left-hand side, the columns, we ended the year at 12.9%. But over the night, from the 31st of December to the 1st of January, there was a new regulation in force. It's called CRR3. It's the translation of the Basel agreements in European law. That took out 40 basis points of our ratios. So we went from 12.9% to 12.5%. That dynamic means that we've got the generation of results, the EUR 12.2 billion. we take account of the fact that the balance sheet will increase, but that will generate the equivalent of 140 basis points on the ratio. And then a 60% of that, which is a return to you. Those are the 90 basis points that you can see in distribution. And then last year, we finalized the acquisition of AXA IM. That took up 40 basis points. With that dynamic, we're 12.6%, and that growth dynamic will take us to 13%. If we also look at the bottom left, you can see the other indicators are doing well. And on the right, just to give you some extra information, we manage capital, on the one hand, but also we manage trends in weighted assets. When we loan, we lend, we increase our balance sheet. And sometimes, we can put some of these things on the market. This is what we do through what we call TSRs. These are transfers of significant risks, and that has an impact of 80 basis points on the ratio. That's the financial structure. And if I conclude with the distribution and the return therefore to you. As I mentioned, the result, 50% is returned in dividend and 10% in share buybacks. If we look for 2025, dividends therefore were EUR 5.16. We've had an interim of EUR 2.59 on the 31st of December of 2025. Balance of EUR 2.57 million will be paid out on the 20th of May this year. And there are also share buybacks amounting to EUR 1.15 billion finalized on the 19th of December 2025. And just to conclude, when you look at the progress, in fact, you can see this in these columns. these are over 20 years where we see dividend per share. And between 2008 and now, it has multiplied by fivefold. That's the returns we're offering. With that said, I'm going to conclude my 2025 presentation, and I'll ask Jean-Laurent to take the floor.

Thank you, Lars. Good morning, everybody. Lars presented to you to the sound results for the financial year 2025. This makes it possible therefore for us to confirm the results and the targets for 2026. You'll recall in 2024, we reset targets for '24-'26: an ROTE of 12%, a net profit or CAGR of at least 7% over the 2 years and 8% of EPS with drivers to achieve this revenue up by 5% per year at least and a jaws effect of at least 1.5% on average with a cost of risk of below 40 basis points. That year, as you know, was a good start for 2026 with the sound results in the last quarters and the first quarter 2026 that make us very confident that we will achieve the results in 2026. '26 is almost over for the company that we are, even though there are many months left and geopolitics and global scenario are not necessarily easy to define, but it's now interesting to look at the remainder of the year. We look at the annual results, and we revised our objectives for 2025. For ROTE, we are into more than 13%. We added -- at 13%, we wanted to be over 30%. The operating margin that we set at 58%, we wanted to be under 56%. And our net profit for 2025 to 2028 with an annual growth of over 10%. And the Tier 1 ratio post FRTB, we know that very probably that will be deferred to 2030. Well, for 2027 and 2028, we want that ratio at 13%. That's how we see 2028. To achieve these objectives, we have launched a number of plans. Somebody have recently announced for commercial banking and for personal finance. Others are known for Belgium, CBC, Arval, Asset Management. These plans will each contribute to a return on equity, in that graph. So BCF, that's Commercial Banking in France, will ensure on its own, so to speak, will improve the ROTE over the period by 2028 by 0.4%; Belgium, by 0.3%; Personal Finance, 2.5%. We can see that the group, in fact, is already on the right footing since 2025 with the announcement of a number of plans concerning 1 or 2 essential business lines. It's already on track for the following [ year ]. Here you have all the details. All we have to do is add CIB and insurance and B&L, all of which will be done progressively. Now for that, going from 11.6% to over 13% on paper looks quite easy. You can imagine that all this requires investment, work and discipline in large quantities and a lot of business development. ROTE, that's revenue and an awful lot of efficiency and cost control and control of the processes to have a more efficient bank. In the past, for 2022 to 2025, that will take effect in 2026, we have, on average, generated EUR 700 million in recurring savings every year. In other words, efficiency has been improved in operating costs and improved by EUR 700 million every year over the previous years. And for 2026, for the entire thing, the entire trend, that will amount to EUR 3.5 billion. Nothing new under the sun. This was announced at the beginning of the plan. But at the beginning of the plan, we planned EUR 600 million. EUR 700 million is a bit more than EUR 600 million. So in total, that objective that was included in the 2022-2026 plan to achieve this operating efficiency approach, all of which has been achieved. Now what is the future? That's a factor that will contribute to the ROTE exceeding 13% by 2028. You can see in the first period, the operating efficiency -- the cost to income ratio had improved by 6 points, in other words, 1.5 points per year. And in the period that's opening, by the end of 2025, that operating cost-to-income ratio will actually drop by 2% from 61.2% to under 56% by 2028, all of which will be done by accelerating the processes in the bank, by pooling and simplifying a number of infrastructures, by aligning a lot of our organizational models within the group and with the intent of using AI more intensively that should be done carefully and in a measured way. It's not a technology that is devoid of risks. We have now to use it and to manipulate it correctly with a certain learning curve and then progress, all of which will be to benefit our clients that will reinforce the quality of service. We'll continue to personalize digital offerings and also for our staff members so we can concentrate the effort of everyone on more added value tasks and also for shareholders because that means a structural contraction in costs, and therefore, greater profitability for the company as a whole.

I gave you some numbers by 2028. So you can see how things are proceeding. '24-'26, a growth of 7% of net income on average per year, 2025-'28, growth of net income is 10% with an accelerated trend. And the same for earnings per share because we go from growth rate of over 8% for '24-'26 to a double-digit growth rate for '25-'28. So the payout policy by 2026, which will remain to be clarified and confirmed in 2027 in the context of the new '27-2030 strategic plan earmarks a minimum of 50% interim, minimum 50% dividend payout with 10% buyback, which is a rate of return of 60% for shareholders. What we know for fiscal '27 is that this minimum 60% return rate will be maintained, and we'll see how this can be improved. Now the core Tier 1 ratio now. You have here our goal, i.e., 13% as at the 31st of December 2027 over the period of growing under the improvement of results, which is partially consumed by the risk-weighted asset, i.e., the development of the bank's balance sheet and the assumption of dividend payout, shareholder return, the FRTB possibly if it is being implemented before 2027, knowing that the conversations at the European Commission level means and shows that it will be postponed. All this gives us 13% of return by 2027, which will be maintained for 2028 and beyond. Since the Q1 results were published, the ratio is already 12.8%, which gives us the possibility and even probability that this 13% is reached even by late 2026, which is a key information because growing the bank's core Tier 1 ratio is not an easy task. And late last year and early this year has made it possible to accelerate this 13% growth trajectory. Now back to the strategic plan 2027-2030. This was already guided when we disclosed our annual number. We've been repeating this regularly. The efficiency of our current programs makes it possible for us to generate some EUR 700 million per year. We are going to bring this EUR 700 million mark to a higher level. And one of these drivers will be on the back of artificial intelligence solutions. You can see how this will sketch out and pan out. Until now, AI was used to grow revenues, not so much with respect to optimizing efficiency. But by 2030, things will balance out with AI contributing to both revenue and efficiency, meaning that the AI solutions will enter second phase with more intensity, more contribution to the optimization of processes. You have here a few examples of use cases for AI. Once again, AI technology has a lot of upside to improve sales development, business development, customer advice, efficiency, revenue. It also holds its risk, and proper implementation will involve and require that we improve and significantly grow all cyber security setup because AI-driven universe is a universe which moves faster, which is more open to the outside world, which has its host of difficulty. So the bank needs to be stronger and more efficient. So much for my presentation. I believe that the BNP Paribas Group is a good marching order. '25 showed this. The early part of 2026 is confirming this. 2026 will be ending very shortly. We already are preparing for the 2027-2030 plan with respect to focusing on operating efficiency with the interest rate scenario favorable. The bank is a global diversified bank, which delves into many fields and areas to keep developing, growing. And on this basis and until we review the 2027-2030 plan in some more granularity shortly, I believe that fiscal 2026 should hold fine promises. Over to Laurence Pessez now.

Thank you, Jean-Laurent. Hello, everyone. I will now be reviewing the highlights of our CSR strategy and walk you through some achievements in 2025. Remember that our CSR strategy was drawn up some years back and support our Growth, Technology and Sustainability strategic plan, which is currently in place. Let's start with how our strategy and achievements are being perceived by those assessing us, i.e., the non-financial rating agencies. These non-financial rating agencies have been benchmarking companies and banks. And this year, again, BNP Paribas Group is ranking above its peers across the various rankings. Tangibly, CDP is ranking us just on climate transitioning with A- versus the B rating for all the banks. MSCI gives us the best possible ranking of AAA, and it is the most used agency by investors to screen companies to invest into. And our best rating, unprecedented rating is with Sustainalytics, which is the only agency to rate non-financial risk for our bank. Now with a rating of 12.3% versus an average of 25%, we rank in the top quartile of this category. Now let me say that for this agency, Sustainalytics, the best rating is 0 because the least risk you have, the better you fare. Thanks to its continuous investment, BNP Paribas ranks first in sustainable finance for the third year in a row with $69 billion invested in 2025. Here again, based on external sources, i.e., Dealogic, where we get our data. This amount covers sustainable, green and social bonds and assets. This leadership position, which has been confirmed over time, is a sense of pride for the teams. Now the Corporate Knights Magazine ranks us and has been ranking us for 12 years in the 100 Most Sustainable Companies. And IFR has been ranking us as 2025 Sustainable Finance House for the third year in a row, so a leadership position, which has yet again been confirmed this year. Now with respect to our CSR strategy, it is unchanged, and we continued delivery across the pillars. We've defined as priorities in the context of the GTI strategic plan: energy transitioning, protecting biodiversity, circular economics, financial inclusion and sustainable investment. So you have here some key facts and numbers which summarize what we've achieved in fiscal '25. First, the amount of the funding of energy transitioning to support our clients transforming to a low-carbon economy, reached EUR 252 billion over 4 years between 2022 and late 2025. And we've exceeded the goal we had set for ourselves, which was EUR 200 billion. We wanted to reach EUR 200 billion by 2025. So this amount covers such financing of individuals for electric vehicles as well as home renovation and energy renovation work in houses as well as large renewable generation projects in Europe and elsewhere in the world as well as sustainable bond issuances by governments and states wanting to implement energy transition infrastructure like in Asia. With respect to transactions, protecting land and marine biodiversity, we set for ourselves a goal to reach EUR 4 billion by late 2025. You can see that we reached EUR 6 billion, which means that we've exceeded this target. And among significant achievements, we've arranged blue bonds, EUR 430 billion, for development banks to protect and restore coastal ecosystems in South America. By reaching EUR 347 billion in assets under management by late 2025, which are characterized as "sustainable" by the European economy, BNP Paribas Asset Management is among the European asset managers which has the most extensive sustainable funds. As an example of funds managed by BNP Paribas Asset Management, the BNP Paribas Solar Impulse Venture Fund has been investing into start-ups, which are innovative and high potential in sustainability, like two French startups: Axioma, which aims at accelerating environmental transitioning or farming with biosolutions; and Fairly Made, which has developed a platform to optimize the tracking and tracing of the supply chain of the textile and garment industry. With respect to generation of energy, by late 2025, 82% of our credit exposure was directed at low-carbon energy sources, mostly renewables as a majority and also nuclear power energy, which ranks us favorably to reach above 90% by 2030. On the social and society level, we reached 5.5 million beneficiaries of products and services, fostering our financial inclusion goal with the Nickel account being operating in 5 European countries with more than 520,000 micro credit clients by way of our micro credit business. So with these very large amounts, you can see that we've done very tangible achievements in fiscal 2025. Now let's review our human capital strategy, the support and service we provide to our people, which is at the heart of our strategic plan. And the people strategy pillar is of great importance to the bank. What needs to be underlined in 2025 is, first, that with 41% of women in the senior management community, we've exceeded the ambitious goal of having 40% women by late 2025 that we had set for ourselves. This was back in early 2022. This gender balance goal has been reached with 53% of women across all the population of hired talents for the group. The employee engagement in NGOs and community organizations has improved in 2024 and 2025 with the goal of volunteer work, which was 1 million hours. And we've exceeded 1.3 million hours, including skills, donation hours for firefighters in the group as well as initiatives to community organizations during work time. And almost all group employees have psychological support and listening mechanisms that can help them in situations of crisis and when they need it. And finally, training and development of employees remain a key challenge and a key goal for the group with almost all employees of the group which have undergone at least 4 training sessions in 2025, including 73,000 having undergone at least 1 of the tech academy training sessions in the field of technology and AI. And again, some 160,000 employees have been trained at least once in sustainable finance by the Sustainability Academy, which was launched in late 2022, i.e., some 71,000 employees were trained in 2025. All this has meant that the engagement index was 81%, which is a very high level. Finally, patronage and sponsorship with close to EUR 180 million. The sponsorship and patronage budget for the group is set at a very high level across its three areas of activity: solidarity, culture and the environment. A bit more than 25% of its budget has been devoted to a so-called skills and expertise patronage. 75% have been devoted to repetitive initiatives, most of them, 75% for solidarity actions, part of it being for France. In 2025, two new foundations were created in Portugal and the Netherlands, meaning that there are 15 foundations and allowance, trust created by Paribas around the world. In the current context of difficulty by the NGO world with declining funding and membership, the BNP Paribas Foundation in France demonstrated it was able to act innovatively while committing to long-term action, combating food, precariousness, helping refugees in the context of a program initiated by the group some 11 years ago. The disenfranchised suburban areas in France, the so-called disenfranchised suburb program was launched 2 years ago, civic-minded initiatives like Community Living, the protection of Republican values combating this information and memorial transmission access to culture with a 5-year program with a middle school students visiting Villa Medicis in Rome, which is a high place for culture, and the support to 60 artist institutions and festivals. Finally, the bank's foundation has been active in the field of environmental protection. This year, it allocated EUR 7 million to 11 research programs over a 3-year period. in the climate and biodiversity initiative program, working on such initiatives like the future of fisheries and marine ecosystems and to promote biodiversity of plankton in North Atlantic and European coastline. 2025 was a very dense and busy year across all fronts with very fine achievements as I have just reviewed. Thank you again for your attention. and I will turn over to our Chair, Mr. Jean Lemierre, who will tell you about the governance mechanisms in place in your bank.

Thank you, Laurence. Now I think that through the figures, the facts, the programs, the commitments of the bank, you can see that in 2025 what your bank has done, has attempted to do and what it intends to do. It's now up to me to talk to you about governance. I'll do it in two parts. The first part concerns the Board of Directors and another part concerning compensation. Firstly, the Board of Directors. Following the AGM last year, the number of members at the Board was risen to 16. We're normally at about 14. Why? Because you accepted it. We hired in advance some Board members. Alas, 2 of those are leaving. It was planned. Monique Cohen and Daniela Schwarzer, having served the Board for 12 years. And in front of you, I'd like to thank them most heartily for their work. 12 Years of work at the Board of Directors of BNP Paribas. For you, it's a wonderful experience. It's a wonderful, very good contribution, both to the Board and in the committees. Monique Cohen has chaired quite a few, the latest one being the Risk Committee, which is a very important committee. So thank you, both of you for the work you have done. With that said, the position of the Board is now to go back to 14 members. There are a few modifications, but there are 2 submitted to you for your approval. It's not arrivals but renewals. The first one, I'll be very brief, is mine, my term of office. I will comment on the context afterwards. The second one is the term of Jacques Aschenbroich who you know. He's in front of me. He's a very experienced Board member, an industrialist with an extensive experience. He chairs the Governance, Ethics and Appointments Committee of the bank, and that's extremely important work. These 2 proposals to renew our terms of office are done in the context of decisions that you approved last year, raising the age limits of the Managing Director and Chairman of the Board with the rationale of preparing for succession plans. This is neither the place now the right way of talking about this in detail. But just to say that what we said last year, we haven't forgotten, Jacques is also very attentive to this, that all of this be very present in the work of the Compensation and Nomination, Appointments Committee and to prepare succession plans. So I wanted to mention this point because it's a continuation of your deliberations from last year. If you approve these 2 renewals, here are some factors about the composition of the Board. It's highly diversified in skill sets, in genders, of course. We're fully comply with legislative requirements. It is highly diversified in skills. Your Board has renewed its skill sets extensively, and I'd like to thank you for that support to extend in a context that I mentioned, that Jean-Laurent mentioned, that is highly diverse in terms of risks, financing and technology. And I believe that the Board of BNP Paribas today is based on a composition that is highly diversified, very broad-based and that can shoulder the responsibility that you have entrusted us with. Once again, if you approve the 2 renewals that I mentioned, this would be the composition of the 4 committees: accounts, risks, governance and compensation with 1 or 2 significant changes. I mentioned them. Monique Cohen will hand over the chair of the Risk Committee to Bertrand de Mazieres. Other than that, the chairs will remain unchanged. I have mentioned this, it's very important on more than one level. We spent a lot of time looking at this in the Board to ensure that the skills and experience and seniority in the Board are there and that people can attend the various committees. The committees of the Board is where the basic work of the Board of Directors is carried out. So that said for the composition part of the Board. Now let's talk about compensation or remuneration. This table basically is the most important one. For 2025, it shows compensation and remuneration for 2025. As per the principles you drew up in approving the ex-ante policies and the comparison with 2024. As concerns me, it's quite stable. The President, the Chair, there is only a fixed rate, not a variable rate. For the Chief Executive and Chief Operating Officers, there are 3 components in their compensation scales, There's a fixed part drawn up last year; a variable annual part, I'll go back to the details of that; and a long-term part, what we call the PRLT. And here, you have an overview of 2025 compared to 2024 for the executive company officers. Now let's look at the details and look at annual variable remuneration for 2025. This presentation gives you the criterion, the weight of each criterion and the results of 2025. You can see that the criteria have all been met or just about or, in some cases, far exceeded. These are unchanging criteria. We apply them consistently. It's EPS. It's EBIT and a criterion worth 15% for CSR factors and the Board's appreciation of the way the strategy have been -- has been implemented by the Chief Executive and Chief Operating Officers. You've got the results for the Chief Executive. And in the following slide, you have the same breakdown for the 2 Deputy Chief Executives or Chief Operating Officers. These have been, in fact, adapted to the ex-ante policies that you voted for their respective responsibilities. There is a cap anyway at 120% of their fixed compensation. They did good results there. There, you can see an overview of the breakdown of the annual bonuses for the Chief Executive and the Deputy Chief Executive and Chief Operating Officers with the ratio awarded against the target, where they all exceeded slightly 100% and very comparable to what was done last year, which shows the good results of the bank, the full application of remuneration criteria and the fact that the criteria had been achieved. A last important slide, which is the slide about the long-term incentive scheme. Now a word about this because the long-term scheme depends on conditional payments done after 5 years that are dependent on two important criteria. The first is the intrinsic performance of the BNP Paribas share price, and the second is a comparison against performance, of course, with the EURO STOXX Banks index, in other words, comparison of the share price with the share price of other banks, to put things simply. These are two criteria that are difficult given the economic context and the fact that economies and banks, in fact, are not done generally in the same way in Europe. So that means these criteria would have been very demanding, very difficult, and they have not been changed. You've got this PRLT that's awarded. You know how it's done for the Chief Executive and the Deputy Chief Executives or Chief Operating Officers. And as you know, all of this is capped in relation to their fixed rate compensation. That's it for the long term. This presentation is important. We do it every year. You know it well. It's done. And we talk about remuneration multiples. It shows how the compensation of company officers, mine and the executive company officers, change in relation to group employees. The gap is tightening as far as I'm concerned. For the Chief Executive, it has slightly widened because the fixed rate part was updated last year. And for the others, a bit more or less the same situation. But for those who are used to these ratios, these figures are low and the gaps are much smaller than in many other companies. For 2026, 1 or 2 amendments submitted to you approval in the resolutions, and there, I will be very brief because I'm concerned by this. I'll be as factual as possible, and any question you may have will be addressed by Marie-Christine Lombard, who chairs the Compensation Committee, sitting of opposite me, and she will answer any questions you may have. The Compensation Committee, with the Board, with me present, considered that my fixed rate having been the same since 2014 when I was appointed Chairman of the bank, it would be legitimate, suitable, decent, I don't know what word I'd like to use, to ensure an increase. If I've understood, the committee looked at two major indicators. Inflation over the period would have led to 24.7% increase. Trends in group employee compensation at the SA entity, the increase would have been 39%. And in total, the committee considered and the Board have decided on a 15% increase, so significantly less than inflation and trends in employee compensation. So I wouldn't say anything else. Any other question you may have will be for Marie-Christine. Now three modifications that I would consider to be technical for the variable part for the company officers, for the CEO and COOs. Three points that are not completely technical, but if I use the word technical, it means it amends the organization over time and in the distribution of the breakdown of the compensation. But it doesn't change the overall amount. All of this falls within to the cap of [ 2:1 ] for -- so as we're not changing that and we're not changing the fixed rate compensation, you can see the characteristics. The general ones are the same. With that said, there are three modifications proposed to you basically to align with market practice and the practice of other banks. The first is to set the annual variable remuneration at 120% of fixed rate remuneration, which raises the ceiling to 144%, a little close to the median of other banks. Secondly, to introduce a backstop, which could apply to the criteria of EBIT. So it goes opposite. It's more strict than the current approach. Currently, we have a linear approach, not 100%. So therefore, 0. Here, we're talking about tranches or sections above 70%, there will be no payment made. All of this is in line with market practice. The third criterion is to take account of the PRLT and the annual variable remuneration to set this at 60%. And to make this simpler or much simple, in fact, is to amend the rule to award the long-term bonus scheme over time and to plan ahead for this. In fact, what we're doing, it's a market practice. You've got an application that's rather strict. So therefore, three technical modifications: a ceiling at 140%, a backstop and a different breakdown of payments of variable compensation over the long term. These three measures will not affect the total. We're talking about a breakdown. We're still in the two-point platform, which is, again, the legal ceiling for compensation of company officers. These 3 amendments, therefore, are proposed to you. And I hope they can improve and implement -- and sometimes it's a bit more favorable, sometimes it's a little less the compensation conditions in relation to other banks. There we have the various amendments that I wish to present to you. You can see that in terms of compensation, there's no major modification which we see every 3 years. When we look at the compensation package for the Chief Executive Officers, these are relatively technical points and they have some importance. So please take them into account. I have presented the questions concerning governance. Of course, I'll answer any questions you may have. But then I'll hand over to the statutory auditors.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ladies and gentlemen, shareholders, on behalf of college of statutory auditors, I'm going to present the findings of our various reports for 2025. The consolidated accounts were drawn up by the Board of Directors on the 4th of February 2026. And to remind you, we put -- we do our work all throughout the year and review the quarterly situations, the half yearly accounts and the annual accounts. Our work concerns the significant entities included in the scope of consolidation of the group, the bank itself, subsidiaries in France and internationally. The objective of our mission is to ensure a fair and sincere and regular view of the accounts and on the fact that there should not be any significant anomalies. Our reports include a description of areas of risk or significant domains, which, in our professional opinion, are more important for the said statements. With regard to consolidated financial statements, the key points of the audit, there are 4 of them. They cover the assessment of the credit risk and the assessment of depreciation, the valuation of financial instruments, general IT controls and assessment of liabilities in pensions and retirement schemes. For each one, we've got identified risks and the reports given by the statutory auditors. The extent of our works and our findings are presented in a report submitted to the accounts committee. During our verifications in these key points, we have without reserve opinion on the financial accounts. In accordance with the transposition into French law of the CSRD European directive, we've had the requisite sustainability reports -- we drew up a limited assurance report on these aspects with 3 separate conclusions. All of us are without reserves about the compliance of the bank with this. We have 3 observations: one on the process of assessment for the dual materiality and its results, which are annually reviewed and may change in future years; an observation on financial assets excluded from the scope of calculations for greenhouse gas calculation emissions and also for third-party appoints and for retail clients. And finally, an observation on the transition plan that exposes the scope of the financial assets and the limits relating to the availability and quality of data as well as the difficulty of projecting trajectories for decarbonization. With regard to our other reports, in the company accounts, we have a certification without reserves with a point that clients about the change in accounting method and the application of new regulations for accounting standards and also on terms of payment information. On regulated agreements, we have no new regulated or commitment to be submitted to the approval of the shareholder meeting this year. And as for the noncompetition agreement between Mr. Jean-Laurent Bonnafe and BNP Paribas, it was authorized by the AGM of 2026 -- 2016, sorry. As for the extraordinary generaly assembly and general meeting, we have specific reports concerning the resolutions 18, 19, 20 and 24 concerning the issue of shares and negotiable securities, also on the realization of operations reserved for corporate savings plans and Resolution 26 concerning the reduction of company capital by the cancellation of shares. We have no observations to make of all these reports. Thank you for your attention.

Thank you, Statutory Auditor. And we now have the highly awaited moment, which is the time for questions. I'm going to mention the fact that there are written questions that we have received and for which a response has been made. They are published on the bank's website. And I ask each and every one of you to read the questions and read the answers. These questions, for your information, were written up by 5 different people: the first series of questions from for ESG ethics, AI and human resources; the second series of questions by Reclaim Finance with 5 questions concerning the environment; a third series of questions forwarded by Mirova, also about environmental issues; a fourth series of questions by [ EPAC ], again, about environmental issues; and the fifth series of questions, by , again, about the environment. Once again, I recommend that you read the questions and the answers. They are important for our discussion. I will now open up the session of questions and answers given that -- thank you, I've received several written questions. And I will take those -- both all the oral questions and those written down. And I will try to ensure that as many questions as possible can be answered in the allotted time with a quick discussion as concerns may be highly varied. To make a speedy discussion possible, we have planned not an indication of the time allowed. But just to remind you, without mentioning the duration, just so that everyone can understand that every speaker is taking up time, all of this not to limit your ability to take the floor, but to ensure as many people as possible can do so. And again, not to limit the questions, but to go to the crux of the matter and try and have a dialogue, you asking us questions or having comments and general management or the Board of Directors with me here can respond to your comments. Once again, it is very important for us to have a sustained and as detailed discussion as possible. I will hand over the floor for question. If there are none, but I'm sure they will be, either have these written ones. I'm going to alternate.

Number three.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm an individual shareholder representing l'APAI, association pour le patrimoine et l'Actionnariat individuel. This year, we probably won't go into substance because this is an ending plan and there will be a new plan next year. So the questions will be relevant but not so much on substance. My first question, knowing that we're here to vote for resolutions, let's speak about 19th resolution. I don't like the wording you've used. Resolution #19 is to suppress the subscription rights. It is said that in the text. And I mentioned the shareholders' meeting delegated the power to the Board the capacity to provide for a priority period for the issuance. Now knowing that BNP Paribas has been a leader, instead of having this very imprecise wording that like that -- like other company that you provide for an obligation of having a subscription period for individual shareholders. Now what prevents you from delisting the participatory share of the BNP Paribas? And also last year, Mr. Bonnafe, you stated that transnational mergers were not generating values. You are not the only one to say that other bank leaders said the same. But I was somewhat surprised when I heard a few days ago in the press that UniCredit launched a hostile takeover bid against Commerzbank. Now what, according to you, is there a new aspect in the banking paradigm, which mean that -- what you said last year is not so relevant anymore? Or would you disagree? Last point, which is more of a comment. I saw the offers and discounts given to us in the [Foreign Language] here for the French Tennis Open. And really, these are not great terms.

Thank you for these very specific questions. We'll try and answer your questions in as specific and as precise a manner. Lars, can you answer the first 2 questions of these gentlemen?

Yes. Now with respect to rights, looking at the concept for preferential subscription rights for existing shareholders. The concepts will be using basically are those which are basically in line with the industry. But we'll take note of your point, and we'll keep exploring options with respect to these preferential subscription rights for existing shareholders.

All right. Are you happy with the answer? Thank you, Lars. So you've basically addressed the 2 questions, right?

Yes, I did that in a summary manner.

So we are considerably improving in being precise. Let's put it in other words. There are lengthy answers, which are a technical nature. I will take note of your 2 questions. The Board of Directors will look into it and we'll answer you, Jean-Laurent?

About UniCredit, there are cross-border transactions and so-called transborder transaction. There's nothing new in this transaction, because the UniCredit Group holds HVB, which is a German domestic bank. The project is to merger it with Commerzbank. So it is a domestic consolidation project with a generation of added value. Now whether this transaction will fly or not is another story. But this is a principle of a domestic merger. The problem with a cross-border mergers with respect to domestic banking operations has a number of issues, IT systems, local payment services, local regulations. And we are well positioned to know that when you own several domestic banks, you need to keep and maintain them, which means that you pile up legacy processes and systems and you find it difficult to generate synergy. So nothing much has happened since last year, really.

And yes, banks are similar, but, yes, different. Let me emphasize one point here. It's not up to us to comment upon transactions carried out by our peers. But in the transactions that you mentioned, sir, the combination is between 2 German banks. Not so much in the holding mechanism, but the physical merger process is being carried out between 2 German domestic bank. [Foreign Language], the shareholder circle. I've taken note of your point. I wasn't aware that there was only 1 day devoted to the French Open. But you're right to ask this and raise this issue. We'll try and do better. Question number 4?

My name is Lucie Pinson. I'm the Founder and Director of Reclaim Finance, an NGO. I'm extremely happy to be here with you today after a few years where I was not able to attend personally. This year, I'm attending your meeting in a very tense context with the risk of an economic and financial crisis, with an energy crisis which is already well entrenched in such a context, BNP Paribas choices are defining choices in the last few years. We hailed the efforts made by BNP retrenching from companies exploring new oil and gas field to us. This retrenchment by BNP Paribas shows the fact that BNP Paribas wants to protect its clients and shareholders as well as societies as large. Having said that, there's a dark spot, i.e., the fact that BNP Paribas has been supporting some gas projects, including LNG, GNL terminal projects and gas-fired power plants now. We know that the energy prices have been skyrocketing with very tangible impact for most of your clients, be their individual clients and businesses. And this impact and the associated risk add up to the impact of gas on climate and general health. 17% of lung cancers in Europe are associated with electricity being generated from gas. In such a context, it seems important that BNP Paribas pursues with its effort by adopting 2 new measures: to terminate its funding of fossil fuel projects and gas projects by taking action now against any new infrastructure. My question is simple. Will you continue in this direction by adopting new measures against the development of new GNL of new LNG terminals and gas-fired power plants?

Thank you for coming back, madam, and thank you for supporting the energy transitioning policies which have been implemented by the BNP Paribas Group. Now with respect to the future, Jean-Laurent, would you answer the question?

Yes, indeed. Thank you for emphasizing the fact that we've made progress and that we've made commitments with respect to energy transitioning, our bank has had an impeccable journey. Nothing is perfect, but we've had a very significant journey as we benchmark favorably against others. We've had precise and robust activity. I won't show -- will tell you about the mix of funding fossil fuel projects versus renewables over the last 15 year period. It's been remarkable. We were at 90% fossil funding versus 10% renewables. We've reversed the trends. Now funding gas projects takes a very special place. Gas is being called the transitioning energy. Transitioning energy means that this energy is not desirable over time, but gas energy can replace more negative types of energy like coal or lignite, gas being preferable. And the situation of Europe does not objectively make it possible, as was the case in the past with a nuclear power generation. I know that number of countries have tried to do away with nuclear power generation, but they didn't do so well because it's a key aspect of European transitioning gas yet is a necessary evil. It can be deployed, but it's a fact. The tensions you're mentioning with respect to the price of gas is connected with the fact that we lack the right infrastructure. Gas is not transmitted so easily. And when you don't have enough infrastructure, you can be trapped with prices which are higher than what would be desirable if transmission was easier, more fluid. We are a European bank for a large part of our operations, for a majority part of our operations. So our aim and desire is to keep supporting the development and expansion of European economies. The recommendations you are fielding, we hear them. But they are not accessible now because it would mean depriving ourselves within the next 10 years from energy -- from an energy source, which so far -- which today is indispensable for the European continent. I'm doing this with some degree of regret, but we have to look at the hard facts. So it's better to have some investments in this field, which will be replacing infrastructure, which is more negative rather than not doing anything and remaining entrenched in the old system, knowing that at the end of the day, electricity will be replacing it all. But Europe was not able to accelerate at the right pace in a uniform, homogeneous and determined manner towards electricity because it got bogged down by the choice between nuclear power and not nuclear power. So we understand your question. We hear your voice. We hear your recommendation. But being the largest Eurozone bank on the European continent, we cannot decide to eliminate investments today which may prove essential. Well, at the time being, they are indispensable investments without doing it a lot. We are doing this on a time-specific basis. And we do not prohibit this because if you prohibit an activity, we have to stick to your guns and you can't revert course strategies in these aspects are strategies which need to stay the course over time, and this is what we try and do. I hope I have addressed this question, which is a tough question because, indeed, if 20 years back, our economies and our politicians had looked at the situations a bit harder, we would have been more advanced towards electrification. But this is the reality. We need to keep advancing. and the European economy is not strong enough today for us to do without a source of energy, which is today indispensable.

Thank you, Jean-Laurent for your answer. In line and to pick up on your question because it's a similar question. I have a question writing on whether BNP Paribas has a specific strategy being prepared for nuclear fusion.

Do I need to answer the question?

Well, yes. You could try.

Well, we are not there yet. There is still work needed for a number of years, whether it is a few years or dozens of years, but it's not immediately accessible as technology, and is not a technology which can be used for the current energy transition. So it's a more long-term technology even though progress is being made every year. Technology in simple terms is less risky and more straightforward and simple than the current nuclear power technology for self-evident reasons with respect to side effects and disposal of waste. So it's a very different type of technology. So when the time comes, if the technology is right, we will prepare and build up procedures and policies to make sure that there are processes in place to do business and not prohibit such business. But this technology, which this technology as it emerges and is sketched out appears simpler in the strict -- in a strictly banking sense rather than nuclear power generation to answer your question. Now, when the technology is more better known at a more granular level, we'll see how we'll build up procedures and processes because sometimes in some situations, when you advance and make progress, things end up being more complicated than at the start of the process.

Yes, questions here.

CEO, Chairman, I have a technical question, which can help one of your subsidiaries, Uptevia, earn more money as an individual shareholder, I noted that it was easier for me to use the digital format for bearer shares than individually registered administered shares. For individually registered administered shares, you have to have a specific account for every company with Uptevia versus bearer shares, I just have to open my digital securities account, I only have to click a button and all the trades and everything can be done very quickly and very easily. My suggestion is that you offer the same technical solutions when you have bearer shares and individually administered registered shares so that you can access the options directly with your securities account. Regulations will force you to go the digital way, but shareholders would interact more with you with digital form. And for bearer shares and for individually registered administered shares, you have the same custody fees. So I do not believe that banks would be reluctant to go this way. I'm sure you won't answer me upfront, but at least, I would ask you to investigate this option.

Lars, you wanted to make a comment?

Yes, I do take note of your comments, sir. As you know, the Uptevia platform will keep changing. So I do take a good note of your suggestions. Thank you. And it will help improve things going forward.

Question number 5 at the back?

My name is [ Alexandre ]. I work with Oxfam France, an NGO which issued a court action in 2023 for climate change. Since then, in 2024, you stated that you wouldn't facilitate new bond issues for companies developing new upstream gas and oil projects. But you've kept helping these companies, supporting these companies by providing loans. You provided a EUR 9 billion revolving credit facility to a major oil company. Why having this double standard in your climate change policy and why not stopping funding to such companies?

Well, my answer will be very straightforward. In banking, you have the drawn loans and credits and financing. And then you have the off balance sheet side of things, which basically cover all trading and market activities, including bond issuance. Basically, we help the company to get funded by lending such companies directly or by supporting them in the bond market, as you said so. And this is not because litigation was commenced against us, but because it was the result of our development and process we de facto stopped the funding of such projects in the areas you mentioned. So this is done. And then you have all the financing being held on the balance sheet of the bank. And we take an interest in the mix of what we're funding. Out of EUR 40 billion of funding energy sources and energy generation projects back in 2012, some 90% of those were to fund lignite coal and fossil fuel, 10% was for renewables, including water hydro and nuclear, We decided to revert the trend and upend the trend by 2030. This is how we guide our balance sheet operations. And this is why we are not working on a case-by-case, bank-by-bank prohibition by prohibition. This is how we've proceeded. There were very few renewables projects, lots of carbon, 90/10. And we now have 10/90, i.e. -- we've upended the situation within less than 20 years, 2010 to 2030, and we are very much advanced in this trajectory currently. This is what we've been doing. And it's quite an easy option. If you close the off balance sheet and if you squeeze out the on-balance sheet transactions, you address your issue over time because, once again, we are talking about transitioning. We are not talking about piling up prohibitions. Transitioning is about supporting companies towards a new universe, which will be better for them tomorrow and better for us all tomorrow. And this company is very much advanced in the nuclear business technology, which will probably be the next-generation business model. And we've invested massively in the U.S.

Thank you, Jean. As a continuation, it's a bit interesting, in fact, it's a written question about deforestation. Perhaps, Laurence, it might be for you. The written question came from [ Ms. Velasquez ]. You have a commitment for Cerrado and Amazonia, but not for other regions where deforestation issues may occur. And the question also mentions Bolivia, Paraguay and Argentina.

Well, yes. In 2021, we took measures that are very serious to counter deforestation in Brazil by asking all our clients present and working in agribusiness in Brazil to have a zero deforestation strategy implemented by the end of 2025. Why Brazil and not Bolivia, Paraguay or others that also have some of the other part of the Amazonian rainforest in their territories? Because we have a presence in Brazil. We have a subsidiary there and clients in agriculture. So we can talk to them. We have influence over them, and therefore, we have an impact. That's what directs our actions. We choose our fights according to the impact we can have. We have no presence in Bolivia or in Paraguay, and we have no clients active in those fields there. Simple answer.

Thank you, Laurence. I'm looking at number right at the end. Okay, number 2. You really found somebody who could help you.

So I am going to talk directly. I came last year. A year ago, I asked the same questions, so I'm going to ask it again. I'd like Mr. to talk about this because he's now joined the Board. You cannot come into the room with a computer. It's a shame. There's an annual report. It's a little shorter. Last year it was 1.8 kilos. It's unreadable. You cannot turn up with your bag. You've got women turning up with large handbags coming into the room. If you're doing this at a low cost and you have -- like a low-cost airline and everyone has the same rules and no discrimination -- gender discrimination. So that's my first question. Can we can answer because, in fact, last year, I was told it was security for PCs. I don't see which one. When I leave my computer in the closed room, I'm more worried that it will be hacked than things here. So that's why I have questions. That's my first one. Why can't I have my PC with me? Why is it so security obsessed? And if I have to carry a 1.8 kilo annual report, I will do so. I won't throw away my computer. I could do, though. Anyway, that's my first question. My second question, what are you doing about financial sovereignty in Europe? You have an action with that consortium of Wero. Are you taking other measures? I have a question about distance remote banking. Are you happy with Hello bank! results and the trend of Hello bank? I didn't see a lot of information about this. Again, it's 916 pages. Without a computer, I can't do a find -- a quick find via Control F. And then I have the thing about stock options on Page 107 of your -- what you call the PRLTs, are these are the equivalent of BNP shares? What's the quantity issued because there's EUR 916 million in an IFRS standard and 2.3 million calculated. And then these performance shares are in relation to the share price of BNP and a basket of other European shares. Can you give us the metrics for this on the basis of 100 all the day when these PRTs will be issued because it's quite nebulous and not very clear? It's on Page 107 of the annual report. I had those 3 questions for you.

Well, at the risk of disappointing you or creating a feeling that there is a communication issue, it's a question of security. It's an object that can be thrown. I'm sorry. So you listen to me, I listen to you, I'd like you to listen to me. We have security services here. They make sure that we have them. There's over 1,000 people in this room. There are rules that are applied, You can dispute them. You can disagree with them. I'm obliged -- as the person responsible for the security of this thing, I have to apply a certain number of rules. You may disagree, but it's -- this issue here is based on that kind of conversation. You made that observation last year. You had an answer. You were fully informed therefore. Now I know that you experienced this as a difficulty, as an inconvenience Others, I hope, will consider it as a means of protection. We could have a long discussion about this, but we'll get out of this fairly quickly. You see that it's not completely abnormal to take measures, ensuring the security of this meeting. That is my point. Hello bank!, Jean-Laurent?

On financial sovereignty, we're not sovereign. We're a company, a trading company, and we have a rationale of an overall economy and starting with the European one, And we are, therefore, if we look at the things that make us stand out the most compared to the European banking sector, we are among the #1 leading banks, investment banks. If you look at CIB, you look at EMEA, Europe, including the U.K., all of Europe and Middle East and Africa, we are in the top 3 investment banks on the market. That's a sovereignty aspect in that we ensure access to a very large number of actors, economic actors. The second and the fourth and fifth are American banks. That gives you a position of the bank on the issues as critical as our access to market financing, which in a global market is very important and in the future will be even more so. That's an example, I will give you. Another example I could give you that the peak of COVID in 2020, therefore, there was a quarter where practically everything had stopped. A bank had EUR 400 billion originations between bond issues and financing. When I say did I meant originate and then distributed and that was BNP Paribas. I think we were 60% of the European market because a lot of banks including the American ones had withdrawn. So having people at home, so to speak, establishments that have that ability to implement and grant financing of all kinds at that level. That's a mark of what we could call our contribution to European financial sovereignty. Again, we are not sovereign. It just gives you an idea of the power of our platform in a good word -- a good sense of the word, not in the sense of trying to dominate somebody. Now Hello bank! was a project that started off many years ago that goes with our domestic banks. If you look at the position of commercial banking in France, most of the assets in the information system, BCEF and Hello bank! is the same. Hello bank!, basically, these are clients that have an exclusive online approach, whereas in commercial banking, you've also got access to advisers and a network of branches. It's not completely a pure digital bank. It is one that is part of an overall system aligned with that commercial bank, that idea of advisers with branches and added value, services. Are we happy with them? Well, Hello bank! is progressing at a regular rate in Europe because it's in multiple countries. We've exceeded 3 million clients. The approach of this approach varies from one country to the others, depending on our position as a domestic bank in Belgium and compared to France, for example. The quality as perceived in the scores awarded by clients looking for this type of banking are high. It's very competitive. A lot of our players turn up, and sometimes they turn up and they offer innovations. So it's not for me to mention their names because they are well known. I'm not going to add more, but there are innovations every day. That competition in digital approaches remains very weak. We have to make sure the iOS and the apps change quickly, fluidly and efficiently. Wero, you asked about this. We often hear that Europe does not control its destiny in terms of payments because the main providers, either and PayPal, are U.S. providers. And there's this idea that all of this should come to an end and be replaced by something that's more European and for, let's say, security reasons. And that's not untrue. There's an issue that European should be aware of at the end of the day, is that whatever the means of payments developed in Europe, very often this technology, in the information system, that is American. So the response of sovereignty, it means a payment is -- that there are information system and the ability to become an important continent or a leader in these issues in information systems. Well, it will start off with artificial intelligence, which is the latest arrival in these families of information systems. So we're in a cycle where there are other projects emerging, European banks, well, some of them in the Netherlands, Belgium, France, tried to develop a European means of payment. It led to -- with a number of episodes, which I will say -- I wouldn't mention here, but it led to something called Wero, which is quite modern, which meant instant payment. I think now it's used by 50 million to 60 million Europeans and is being propagated. All other countries, other banks will be joining. And then in Italy and also in the Iberian Peninsula, there are 2 other schemes, infrastructure, shall we say, that were recently overhold that we're currently working on the interconnection -- or the connection of these different infrastructures. So it's quite probable that by -- within the foreseeable future, 3, 4 years, there'll be a Wero or an equivalent will be taken as a whole. It will be interconnected and will enable the European consumer to pay or do peer-to-peer payments, things that are a genuine alternative to what we could call cards or PayPal. Banks, in particular in France and in Benelux, that hadn't lost sight of the importance of means of payment, that wasn't always the case in every country, have started again. Italian banks, Spanish banks are saying that with all of this, we are collectively taking over that means of payments and also in terms of economy and performance and in price value for money. That's another example. It's not perfect. Wero doesn't do everything. But it is a possibility. It's an innovation. We have not had for a very long time an innovation of that quality and extent, I'd say the last time was some 20 years ago was a contact free card. That was a major development. We went from contact free, that was about 15 years ago. Now we've got something that's even that's different and completely digital. So I'm giving you some examples. I could add the new asset manager that BNP Paribas have created with BNP Paribas and AXA IM, a European leader that will make it possible for many investors to have new high-performance, interesting products that will be able to finance a number of projects. BNP PAM and AXA IM, our platform, are working on how to finance projects that are required for AI, for data centers and so on and so forth. That type of player has a position which is to help not only today's world but tomorrow's world. Those are just a few examples. Now of course, we don't know how to do everything at BNP Paribas, but we all have our limits, but it gives you some examples of our commitment to the European economy as a whole.

Yes, I want to echo what's been said and to stress the importance of the actions and role of BNP Paribas in our European sovereignty, which is normal. It won't be aggressive. But it's very important. And hence, the very important point made by Jean-Laurent with regard to what we call the level playing field, in other words, having positive conditions and in terms -- especially with regard to our transatlantic trends, for states, for companies, for financial infrastructure, in financing, long-term savings, customer service. It's one aspect of European sovereignty. That's absolutely true. A final question, you asked about the PRLT unless Lars wants to answer it, but it's really to do with accounting questions. But there are 2 ways of expressing the PRLT. It's one that's awarded and the accounting rule that wants a fair value. So you've got 2 figures. One is the awarded figure. The other is the fair value, which takes account of the probability the or the likelihood of payment of a specific amount.

No, it's exactly that. You're referring to the annual report, which is a regulated document and where regulations requires us to give the fair value and the nominal.

To be clear about the semantics of this, BNP Paribas does not have a performance or stock option share. We talk about the PRLT, which is a representation of the share. I don't want to go into technical details. But your question was perfectly legitimate. And the difference can be explained by the obligation in accounting terms to provide a fair value. In terms of the themes that have been mentioned, multiple questions have been -- written questions have been submitted, and I'd like to share. One is about cyber risk, fraud, phishing. What are the actions or what are decisions taken by BNP Paribas to limit or even avoid that kind of risk? Everything to do with cyber fraud.

I can see Guillaume Poupard looking at me now with a great interest in this world. This risk, I wouldn't say did not exist 10 years ago, but it was much lower than it is today. So today, there is some EUR 500 million, which year in, year out are allocated to addressing cybersecurity aspect. So cybersecurity has become a part -- a central part of IT systems. You don't have any appropriate IT system without cybersecurity. It is totally intertwined with any and all IT aspects. And the cybersecurity budgets keep increasing because the massive systems and the massive data being processed is skyrocketing, and you have breakthrough technology. You keep hearing about new models emerging like the Anthropic model, which might make it easier to hack IT systems. But the answer is always the same. It is a question of continually investigating and screening your systems, ensuring that you have a rating review, correction, patching mechanisms always in place as soon -- as a leak and as a weakness and vulnerability is identified, then you need to patch it extremely quickly. When vulnerability is identified, you have to patch it extremely quickly. Having said that, there might be many such vulnerabilities because the new devices and technology solutions are far from being perfect. And since they are continually being upgraded and renewed and replaced, you always have a new vulnerability and issues coming up. So cybersecurity involves lots of great talent, efforts, investments, monitoring and discipline. And it also involves being in touch with and in conversation with the best players in this universe. You have lots of pure players, but you have discipline. Discipline must be at the core of our IT systems, the way we develop IT systems and the way you interact with third parties because we don't all build it in-house. So you need to metabolize the devices and systems from the outside. So much for my answer. So EUR 500 million of expenses is quite a high amount, accounting for 8% of IT system expenditures. When you benchmark, it is very comparable with the large American banks budget on cybersecurity, and it is quite higher than the percentage of our European peers. But it's not abnormal given that we are highly exposed to the international arena, to trading systems, which require that you respond in an intraday manner.

Thank you, Jean-Laurent. Now in our conversation, I want to now pick up on some written questions, which I asked about the Sudanese case, the Sudanese litigation. There are different types of questions here. [ Mr. Matrice ] is asking us about the real tangible risk for the bank compared with other situations that we have experienced in the past, which I won't mention, but which you have in mind. What is the real tangible risk that the French court looks into this case? The second question asked by [ Mr. Panotte ] on the same topics. Why didn't you book any provision for that? And the third question is being asked by [ Mr. Mirable ] on where we stand and what is the time line about this Sudan case. Jean Laurent, would you like me to answer? Or will you answer?

Okay. Well, first, these are facts dating back to early 2000, which have nothing to do with what we are today as a bank. It is a civil set of proceedings as Jean mentioned that we are dealing with. We have appealed first ruling, which was very partial because, basically, this ruling was handed down to cover 3 individual situations. In fact, our appeal was accepted very quickly. Some had doubted that, like all appeal proceedings, they are lengthy and complex governance mechanisms and processes. By May, we will file our plea, and we are convinced that our argument is very strong, knowing that there's no causal track between what was mentioned, i.e., operations conducted by Swiss subsidiary and the very egregious event, which took place in Sudan, very egregious because Swiss law is applicable law was recognized by such in the U.S.A. And we've had concurring advice that according to Swiss law, there's no causality. So there can't be any penalty. So our plea argument will be put forward in late May. The plaintiff via their counsels will counter our appeal plea within 91 days, being precise. So this will be in September. The judges will be appointed. There will be hearings. And then ruling will take place. So the proceeding is underway. So it's no longer public, people's popular court who will hand down the decision, but there will be professional judges who will decide knowing that there are principles of secondary liability in the U.S. So we have a strong argument. Some legal journals have commented upon our case, which seem to support our case, a very high level, legal journal. So the proceedings are underway, and we are contributing to them. We haven't booked any provision because we believe we don't need to book a provision given our analysis of the situation and how the events have unfolded. This is my straightforward answer, what can be said now, knowing that this is a complex situation, which obviously didn't do good for facts that we are invoking that -- for which our liabilities being invoked.

Thank you, Jean-Laurent. Let me again repeat something I've said. These are sensitive yet very important cases based on very old facts and events. Since then, the governance mechanisms and the policies of the banks were strengthened. And basically, these mechanisms before that situation are the ones which are being challenged.

I have a forward-looking question. On the competitor, the competition from online banking organizations. I won't mention it because your CEO didn't want me to mention it. So EUR 5.2 billion in revenue last year, [ EUR 1.5 billion ] of net income was posted by this online bank, i.e., a factor of 1 for 10 compared with BNP. But with respect to its growth pace, it grew 45% -- grew its revenue 45% year-on-year, and it grew its net income by 65%. So there's a ratio of 1:4 or 1:5. So this is a bank which wanted to disrupt and liberalize the likes of MoneyGram and Western Union. But they are penetrating now the French market, and they seem to be wanting to disrupt the retail banking operations and possibly even the private banking operations. I know that it is a venture capital firm, which is a different story. I believe the market value was $75 billion last year, possibly reaching $100 billion this year engaging in the secondary market. So what is your take on such threat? I said that my question was a forward-looking question. But I believe that 5 years down the road, it won't be forward-looking anymore, but a very real situation with such an online bank becoming institutionalized 5 years down the road, knowing that these online banks are borderless. You mentioned that Hello bank! and Borse Bank are posting very honorable results. But this is a disruptive start-up which you do not see many of. I would like to know how you perceive this threat and whether you believe that this neo bank -- I remember, WeWork, which was a real estate boutique, which wanted to be perceived as a high-technology bank. It is a bit both. It is putting itself forward as a technology bank.

It's a very valid point and question, sir. We are discussing it at the Board level.

Well, indeed, this is a platform which was really innovative, has been so for many years, has been investing massive capital. This is the situation when you have a venture capitalist backing your firm, with those venture capitalists investing over many years without necessarily aiming at quick returns. So we remember [ Number 26 ] and other platforms. Well, this platform has met with some degree of success. It is a global platform reaching out to many countries with its revenues being generated differently according to countries, some operations that they are conducting we won't or we wouldn't. Lots of payment solutions across currencies and across countries are being carried out, to simplify things, which we will do in markets like France or Belgium or Italy, those markets we operate in. The only possible defense is to be well equipped with our own better performing online bank with a better performing app and portal with very good capabilities for daily retail banking. We need to be on par. We need to be abreast of these banks. And we spend a lot of time, efforts and energy, but it's about massifying the capacity, and it's about the depth of market, which has been quite limited. They don't sell all banking products. They don't sell any products -- any saving products. I wouldn't call that a superficial palette of business, but it has its own narrow breadth and very different from the palette of banking solutions like the ones we are offering in France, Belgium or Italy. Now things may change and it is difficult, I think, to maintain a single platform. You maintain a single platform when you carry out a single type of uniform business. But when you penetrate domestic markets, due to regulations and warranty rights, the specificities and regulations are local. A mortgage loan will -- is a very different product in France and in Belgium. So this possibly is the platform which made its initial project a success. Many failed and many have changed into a smaller object. But it is up to each domestic banks now to offer a fluid, high-quality digital services, which are on the par with those, which pulls competition and innovation forward and driving the entire system to offer higher-quality, cheaper, more fluid, faster products. And all the better for the clients and for the industry, You had low-cost carriers in airlines. You mentioned Uber you have industries where new entrants with novel practices will disrupt the incumbents in existing situations. But the most agile operators will survive such situations well because things tend to balance out because they cannot digest everything everywhere. So we need to be on our toes. We need to keep investing. And the strategic plan by 2030 has lots of digital building blocks. But every day, you need to have high-quality apps and irreproachable service quality standards.

Thank you, Jean-Laurent. I can tell you that the Board of Directors has been very attentive to such issues associated with competitors with the need to adapt, and it's part of our discussions. Lars, I do have a question for you, Lars, which is a very precise question on the liquidity ratio trajectory. So this question basically notes that the liquidity trajectory in fiscal 2025 was somewhat different and special from the other years. The answer (sic) [ question ] is why have you addressed any alerts and how this lowering of the liquidity ratio, dividend policy and share buyback programs intersect.

There are several things here. You've mentioned an indicator called LCR, liquidity coverage ratio, which is 125%, which must be in excess of 100%. But it's not a very telling proxy. I'd rather like -- I'd rather use a proxy called liquidity reserve, and it stands at EUR 464 billion, which is the equivalent in cash at hand of the GDP of 10 million inhabitant country. So yes, it is slightly down compared with the situation by year-end prior year because in the last quarter, we had changes in the economy which was [ upped ] by the bank where the demand for loans was higher than deposits. And in late 2025, with respect to trading operations, is usually a low point in business. So this was the situation. Going back to this LCR ratio standing at 125%, down from 134% by year-end 2025, and I told you about the EUR 470 billion liquidity. The indicator we use is EUR 360 billion, i.e., lower than that. So you have liquidity, which you may release, which is not accounted for in this metric. So basically, this metric accounts for 30 points of LCR. If you crystallize it, it would add an additional 30 points. And also, we do lots of stress tests where we can see that the liquidity level is appropriate and sufficient. And also, every year, we issue securities. We already are in May, and we've already met 60% of demand. So things are going well in this respect now. With respect to the connection with the dividend policy, I told you about the stock of liquidity of EUR 460 billion buying back shares, we are talking about a buyback program of EUR 1 billion. Now in relative terms, it's hard to compare. So there's no impact on liquidity levels.

Thank you, Lars. Next question, question number 6.

Mr. Lemierre, Mr. Bonnafe, I have a question for you. As a grandparent, what would you say to your grandchildren when they ask you, grandad, what did you do with all the power you had in your position to preserve the habitability of the planet for us and our future generations?

You're asking me, I can tell you. I worked at BNP Paribas. The Board is very attentive to that, and we do everything we can. This is one place. It is a location where these questions have an operational meaning in a bank -- it's in the bank and it's in the Board of Directors. We take decisions. Those decisions have consequences, sometimes adverse, sometimes positive. I talk with general management, and I'd like to pay tribute to Jean-Laurent and his staff members for the work they do. We allocate budgets. We hire engineers who know about it, who work with clients that implement transition policies. So yes, yes, money is our concern. Your deposits are our concern. They're yours. It's very important. Now you can say we can go faster. I'm the first to think so. But we're doing it. But make no mistake, I have children who ask me this. I'm used to that question. And I'm used to using that question in my thinking. And very frankly, when you listen to Laurence Pessez and you listen to our reports, it's not perfect. It's not enough. We all agree. But we do something. An action is fundamental. I won't stress this anymore. Energy transition, well, dealing with the climate is a matter of action. It has to be done in concrete operational terms day after day by taking risks. Now I sincerely believe that the bank is doing that. So that's what I would say to my grandchildren. Are you as comfortable as I am, Jean Laurent?

Yes.

Number 8 -- sorry to interrupt you. A bank's figures, it's ratios, it's techniques, it's also commitments and a bit of passion. We believe in what we do. I'm sorry to add this because sometimes a shareholder meeting, there's a lot of figures, a lot of data, and we're not very used to expressing ourselves. But there are some issues, such as the one you mentioned, where we can go beyond the figures. Number 8, please.

Well, as you know, financial institutions are increasingly surveilled concerning their links with the transfers of weapons and zones of conflict. BNP is no exception. Multiple reports as well as a court case highlighting BNP Paribas investments in Israeli economies and in arms manufacturers, providing Israel with weapons since the beginning of the genocide in Gaza. But the opinion of the International Court of Justice in July 2024 forbids any support including financial support for the illegal occupation of Palestinian territories after the genocide and avoid any involvement in the trade of weapons that may undermine international law. However, BNP continues to do this and includes companies such as BAE Systems, Leonardo, Rheinmetall that are all highly involved in the export of weapons to conflict zones that are active such as Gaza. My question is, therefore, how do you guarantee shareholders that the bank is not exposed to a possible court case for being an accomplice to war crimes?

You also asked the written question about the same theme? Okay. [ Ms. Larbie ] asked the same -- more or less the same question. So that's for the answer. And I think that you'll be answering multiple questions. So I'd like to remind you, first of all, that we work in strict compliance with the laws and regulations in effect. Those can be national or international treaties. There's no doubt about that.

There's a big confusion in these discussions. And if I take the alleged investment that we do in occupied territories, in fact, these are analysts that start off with the idea that European companies or non-European companies working in that way to export material that ends up in these territories, these companies somewhere very often globally are financed by BNP Paribas. The analysts add up everything that's financed by BNP Paribas in any company, and then they come up with a figure and they say, okay, that's your investment. None of that is very serious as an approach. These analyses, these "studies", so to speak, we have to put speechmarks around that because there's a lot of communication. There's a lot of publication and I didn't even go as far as saying is calling it propaganda. I'll stop there. We are not committed in these issues. We're not people that would do the things that are not compliant. We work in full compliance with European and international laws and regulations. That's the duty of the bank. And that's the situation. Now there's no doubt that what happens in Gaza is absolutely awful. It's a human crisis. What's going on in the occupied territories is unfortunately, and we are still talking the same pain, the conflict we can see in Lebanon, any conflict, Ukraine, all these situations are awful. It's a human drama. We're talking about families that are destroyed, that disappear. We can question the reasons for that folly the world had known for quite a few years. So such episodes that are so brutal, so violent. We have to ask ourselves about that. But the bank is not responsible for that situation. And it's not because the bank finances a company somewhere in Europe and that company sees at one point or another some of its work or equipment in a specific location that doesn't make us responsible for that. I think we have to be reasonable and have some objectivity in that kind of assertion. I don't think the propagation of that kind of assertion will help the matter. I don't think it's like that, that we should go about things. I'm not a politician. As I said, we are not sovereign. We are a company. And I can tell you that every day, we pay attention significantly, very significantly -- very significant and increasingly so in an increasingly complicated world to avoid any issues for the tomorrow's shareholders, but even today's, things that would be regrettable in the field. That's what I can say globally about these various issues.

Lars, I have a written question for you. And the question is as follows from [ Mr. Messier ]. What is the significance of the upturn in long-term rates for fixed rate real estate? That may look paradoxical since there's no effect on that fixed rates. But perhaps you could explain the effect of long-term rates.

It all depends on which country you are. In a country like France or Belgium, mortgages are at a fixed rate. So when a bank sets a loan at a fixed rate, it doesn't mean they enjoy it but we're required to. So they had to hedge over the duration of that. It's usually for about 20 years. It can be amortized. Sometimes it's reimbursed early, as it is, it's not always 20 years. But just to do things simply for clients of BNP Paribas that have a statistical faculty to reimburse earlier than the average, the average rate, the term is 7 years. So when you give a issue of mortgage, the money has to be available over 7 years, and the bank has been covered for this. When the credit -- when the mortgage was granted, fixed rates rise on the next day, but nothing happens. It's a huge service that we give to families and the economy because, basically, a household or a family gets a service that they know from the beginning with a monthly amount, which is amortization that will reimburse the principal and the interest. It's protection. It's not applied like this in every country. So it's a risk for the bank because in fact sometimes when rates rise, part of the deposits will be invested in other vehicles than what we could call liquid savings. These are longer term, and that makes it harder for the bank to ensure its liquidity at a lower cost. Now when rates rise, for those with mortgages, there's an insurance, which says nothing happens to you. But it's a bit harder for the bank if it hasn't managed its balance sheet. Now for new mortgages, it goes without saying that the cost of money is rising. So in fact, it's quite transparent that anyone can understand. It's different from variable rate interest loans. Now there are markets that are structured like that, you take out a variable rate. You have some flexibility. But if it's -- if it rises, it goes very quickly, upwards. We saw this after Russia invaded Ukraine, the amount paid by a family can be doubled practically. It goes very quickly. And that can be very complicated because we know the purchase of property, it's 30% to 35% of the family's monthly income when that doubles for example, it won't help afterwards, it will relax. It wouldn't be for the whole term of the mortgage, but it is another system for the bank. When we look at the major trend for banks like ours that are very focused on private banking affluent that have financial savings that are more extensive than the average with fixed rates, high fixed rates and long rates rather is more profitable, are more profitable because some of those deposits are transformed over time. So it's more profitable for them. But it has to be said quickly, because it also depends on the trend because if they had actually trended too fast, then there can be other phenomenon in the company's profit segment. What's important to understand, and we saw this in recent times, for example, in Belgium and in France, the fixed rate system in for mortgages is a genuine guarantee for families, for households, for borrowers, but it has a cost for the banking system because it will actually expose the banking system to major drawbacks, but the income of French commercial banks and Belgium ones, 2, 3 years, either they were flat or they were actually contracting, whereas business was actually the same as before. We went from 3%, 4% up to less than 1%. So the bank is paying out. But somewhere, the service made more tendered to the economy, it means other people have some kind of readability and the ability to carry on paying, reimbursing their mortgages because when there is the kind of prices and rates, well, the economy is never normally behaving so well. So it can also mean that maybe other employment, may be rare or whatever. So I'm spending some time on this because there are 2 ways of looking at it. There's the service we offer the client, which is very good quality for the fixed rate system. And customers remember this, on average, as to follow the long-term investment, but sometimes it's a practice that is complex, expensive and heavy for a bank to carry. Managing a fixed rate is difficult for a bank in a world where rates are very often shook up by geopolitical approaches that are external, so to speak, to the country where we operate. For example, potentially, there is tension that has to do with today's geopolitics has nothing to do with the local economic situation. If I can just add something for the shareholder, from that point of view, for the shareholder, if short-term rates remain between 2% and 3%, and the slope is still steep, so going up over time, we can plan to see an increase of 5% each year up to the end of that decade. That's the dynamic, so to speak, of deposits. I have a final written question, a written one, at least as far as I'm concerned. It's a suggestion actually that I will forward to the teams organizing is to offer some coffee at reception and ask a question in a formal suggestion. Why not a quarterly interim payment for the dividend? Well, quite simply, the bank introduced a half-yearly interim payment, some 2 years ago. That's quite recent. We did cautiously for reasons to do with the stock market share. A quarterly interim payment, it does exist. I do know something, they're very rare. It would have consequences that might not be favorable, in terms of the appreciation of the share price, but let's remain, at this point, let's at half-yearly payment. But I've taken note of the idea. Perhaps things will change, the market will change. But thank you, in any case, for that suggestion. I'm looking at the end of the room, is there other questions? I don't see any other speakers at the end either, therefore, we're going to go to the vote. But the discussion, I know it was great that we took your questions and had long and detailed responses. Thank you for your attention and your patience. The quorum is 805,149,430 shares or 73.18% of shares that have voting rights. So we can validly vote. Guylaine, as most of you have already -- you've been in the system. I'll just explain this very briefly. You have a tablet with 13 things. The only thing you should use are the yellow, green and red buttons, as you can see on the keyboard. Green is for, yellow to abstain, and red is the vote against. For each resolution presented to you, you can choose -- you have to press hard on one single key, for, abstain, against, the vote takes place after each resolution has been read out. you'll be asked to vote and say the voting is open. You'll see a timer as well in about 12 seconds, which allows you to do this once the timer has come to an end. The President will say voting is closed, and you will no longer be able to vote. There will be results on the screen a few moments after the accounting has finished. And to avoid any interference please switch off your telephones during the voting process. Thank you, Guylaine. Shall we go? I'll give you the reading of the approval of the parent company for the financial statements of 2025. Voting is open. [Voting]

Voting is closed. At 99.61% voted for. Approved. Second resolution, approval of the consolidated financial statements for 2025. Voting is open. [Voting]

Voting is closed. 99.68% voted for. Approved. Third resolution, appropriation of net income and determination of the dividend for the year ending 31 December 2025. Voting is open. [Voting]

Voting is closed. 99.96% voted for. Approved. Fourth resolution, special report of the statutory auditors on related party agreements and commitments falling within the scope of Articles L225-38 of the French Commercial Code. Voting is open. [Voting]

Voting is closed. 98.98% voted for. Approved. Fifth resolution, authorization for BNP Paribas to buy back its own shares. Voting is open. [Voting]

99.08%, therefore, approved. Sixth resolution, renewal of the term of office of Mr. Jean Lemierre as a Director. Voting is open. [Voting]

Voting has ended. Approved by 94.58%. Thank you. Seventh resolution, renewal of the term of office of Mr. Jacques Aschenbroich as a member of the Board. Voting is open. [Voting]

Voting has ended, 96.96%. Congratulations, Jacques. Approved. Eighth resolution, vote on the components of the compensation policy attributable to directors. Voting is open. [Voting]

Voting is closed. 99.29% adopted. Ninth resolution, vote on the components of the compensation policy attributable to the Chairman of the Board. Voting is open. [Voting]

Voting is closed, 96.08% approved. Thank you. Tenth resolution, vote on the components of the compensation policy attributable to the Chief Executive Officer. Voting is open. [Voting]

Voting is closed, 91.01% approved. Thank you. Eleventh resolution, vote on the components of the compensation policy attributable to the Chief Operating Officers. Voting is open. [Voting]

Voting is closed. 91.01% approved. Thank you. 12th resolution, vote on disclosures relating to compensation paid in 2025 awarded in respect of the same year to all directors and corporate officers. Voting is open. [Voting]

Voting is closed. 97.44% approved. 13th resolution, vote on the components of the compensation paid in 2025 awarded in respect of the same year to Mr. Jean Lemierre, Chairman of the Board. Voting is open. [Voting]

Voting is closed. 97.37% approved. Thank you. 14th resolution, vote on the components of the compensation paid in 2025 awarded in respect of the same year to Jean-Laurent Bonnafe, Chief Executive Officer. Voting is open. [Voting]

Voting is closed. 94.26% approved. Thank you. 15th resolution, vote on the components of the compensation paid in 2025 awarded in respect of the same year. Mr. Yann Gerardin, Chief Operating Officer. Voting is open. [Voting]

Voting is closed. 95.04% approved. 16th resolution, vote on the components of the compensation paid in 2025 awarded in respect of the same year to Mr. Thierry Laborde, Chief Operating Officer. Voting is open. [Voting]

Voting is closed. 95.18% approved. 17th resolution, the advisory vote on the overall amount of compensation of any kind paid during 2025 to executive officers and certain categories of personnel. Voting is open. [Voting]

Voting is closed. 99.26% approved. Moving on to the extraordinary part of the meeting. 18th resolution, share capital increase, maintaining preferential subscription rights. Voting is open. [Voting]

94.57% for the extraordinary part of the meeting, the music is different, right? 19th resolution, share capital increase with the removal of preferential subscription rights. Voting is open. [Voting]

Voting is closed. 96.08% approved. 20th resolution share capital increase without preferential subscription rights for existing shareholders through the issue of ordinary shares up to 10% of the share capital. Voting is open. [Voting]

Voting is closed. 96% approved. 21st resolution, overall limit on authorization to issue shares with the removal of all without preferential subscription rights. Voting is open. [Voting]

Voting is closed, 99.24% approved. Thank you. 22nd resolution, share capital increase by capitalization of reserves or earnings, share premiums or additional paid in capital. The voting is open. [Voting]

Voting is closed. 99.05% -- 99.55% approved. 23rd, approval, limits -- overall limits on authorization to issue shares. Voting is open. [Voting]

Voting is closed. 96.59% approved. 24th resolution, share capital increase with cancellation of preferential subscription rights by issuance of bonds, which would only be converted into shares if the CET1 ratio would fall below a threshold of 5.125%. Voting is open. [Voting]

Voting is closed. 96.71%. 25th resolution, authorization to be granted to the Board to conduct transactions reserved to the members of the company savings plans with the removal of preferential subscription rights. Voting is open. [Voting]

Voting is closed. 99.69%. 26th resolution authorization to be granted to the Board to reduce the share capital by canceling shares. Voting is open. [Voting]

Voting is closed. 99.72% approved. 27th resolution, amendment of the Articles of Association relating to the director representing employee shareholders in order to take into account the legal provisions transposing the Women on Board Directive. Voting is open. [Voting]

Voting is closed. 99.98% approved. 28th resolution authority to complete legal formalities. The voting is open. [Voting]

Voting is closed. 99.99% approved. Thank you. This vote is the last item on the agenda. We'd like to thank you for your attendance. I would like to thank you for being here today and for supporting us throughout the year for your trust and for the trust you put in the Board of Directors. I would like to thank all those who helped organize this meeting and who worked hard. It is very important for all of us, this shareholders' meeting, which is at the core of the life and governance mechanism at the BNP Paribas Group. I would like to warmly thank the senior management team as well as all the employees of the group for their hard, high-quality work, the results and performance being generated and the attention paid to short, medium and long-term issues, strategic challenges and the big changes in society, which impacts us and you need to onboard them as you rightly say so. Thank you for the diversity in our discussion, very important for all of us. Thank you, and enjoy the rest of the day. Goodbye.