City Bank PLC. (CITYBANK) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Citibank PLC's Earnings Disclosure Web event of the third quarter of 2025. I am Syeda Saima Hossain, your host for the event. Welcoming you today. Thank you all very much for joining us. Today, we are honored to have among us Mr. Mohammad Rahman , -- additional Managing Director and Chief Financial Officer, who will preside over the meeting in the absence of our Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Mashrur Arefin, who is unable to attend to this event due to unavoidable circumstances. Moving on to the next member of our distinct panel is the Deputy Managing Director and Head of Wholesale Banking, Mr. Mesbaul Siddiqui; Deputy Managing Director and Head of Internal Control and Compliance, Mr. A.K.M Saif Kowchar; and Chief Risk Officer, Mr. Mohammad Firoz Alam. At Citibank, we take great pride in engaging the investment community in our endeavors. While disclosing our performance and actions, we adhere to a strict code of full transparency and responsibility. Citibank has always measured its success not only in terms of its bottom line numbers, but also in the terms of the goals it has set for itself in order to become one of the finest banks in Bangladesh. Our success is attributed to the continued growth of our business as well as the market's evolution to satisfy the increasingly sophisticated expectations of our respective clients in the areas of liquidity, service, reliability and mobility. We have made it this far with the help of our community, team and stockholders by tenaciously adhering to the motto of service and trust. In light of this, we have gathered here today to discuss the bank's current financial situation and its forward-looking strategies. We shall start with our AMD and CFO, Mr. Mohammad Rahman, presenting the financial performance and conclude the event with an interactive question-and-answer session. Before we proceed, I'd like to inform you all that while scheduling the event, we attempted to choose the most fitting time slot so that we could accommodate most of the participants both foreign and -- both from local and foreign vicinities and time zones. I'd also like to add that we have opened our Q&A portal, which you can see at the bottom right corner of your screens. During our presentation you can login and place any relevant questions in the windows. We shall try our best to address them in our Q&A session depending on the time available for the program. Ladies and gentlemen, I now request our AMD and CFO, Mr. Mohammad Rahman, to start with the financial performance presentation. Over to you, sir.

Thank you, Saima. Hope you can see my presentation.

Yes. The presentation is visible.

Okay. Good afternoon, everyone. Hope everyone is good. So it's really a great pleasure to you to present our financial performance for the third quarter of this year. So again, we have been continuing our growth and profitability even in this challenging environment. So we'll discuss in detail regarding our performance as overall macroeconomic situation and also our strategic development to actually address the opportunity that are available in the market. And also we are also -- we'll also share with you how actually we are actually making all the efforts to actually develop this organization as one of the finest organization in the country. So we are starting with the macroeconomic industry outlook. We all know that the GDP is hovering around 4% at this moment. World Bank, IMF, ADB all are projecting higher GDP growth in next year. So that is a positive sign for us. So that means actually, we are recovering whatever the macroeconomic shock that we have absorbed so far. And one of the major challenge of the economy was inflation. Central Bank has taken a very appropriate strong actual measure by increasing interest rate to contain inflation. And you can see that the main challenge of the economy that is inflation, how actually they have addressed it very successfully. So the inflation when it peaked more than 11% had come down to below 9%. And though in September, there is a little a few basis point increase in inflation. But in total, the overall price situation is under control. And this will definitely help Central Bank to reduce policy rate, which will, again, actually, we hope that propel the more growth in coming years. On the external macroeconomic side, we are doing pretty well, though the growth rate may not look very strong. But despite all the global challenges like tariff-related issues and geopolitical issues, we are still having growth in export around 5% in this 9 months. And also import is growing narrowly with 3% -- but the main contributor for helping our external factor to lead it to the positive area is the remittance. So still remittance is growing with very high rate in this financial year as well. Last financial year, we ended with around 30% growth, and this growth is still continuing. And that helped our FX reserve situation much stronger. 9 months in September last year, the FX reserve was around $20 billion, which has increased to $26.6 billion with almost 34% growth. So now it's covering more than 6 months import. And with this kind of trend, we hope that also Central Bank also is projecting to have around $40 billion FX reserve in next financial year. So -- and also, if you look at the current account balance, it's also -- we have also covered huge deficit in current account balance. So from external balance point of view, we are having actually a much stronger position at this moment. And it is reflected in our FX rates also. If you look at the movement in the FX rate in recent last 6 months, you see that it is very much stable at this moment. And sometimes even is getting stronger. So private credit growth actually as monetary policy -- as per the policy, actually, we are having kind of appropriate credit growth, though it looks lower because Central Bank has actually hiked the interest rate and naturally consequence of that interest rate hike is the slower credit growth. And that we are observing at this moment, the credit growth is around 6.4%. And NPL is the major challenge of the industry, which has increased to 27%. But all you know that a certain number of banks are having actually exceptional problem. And because of that, actually, this NPL ratio has risen. So -- but still the industry are actually industry have many strong banks, their NPL ratios as well as ours actually still remain in a very acceptable level. But unfortunately, we don't have the data actually how much NPL is coming from all those problem banks. So probably after completion of their forensic audit, they will come up with some sort of idea actually. So then we'll come to know that how much this -- how much NPL is coming from these problem banks. So now we are -- we are starting our discussion on our bank. So we have already witnessed that the credit growth for the country is around 6%. But you can see here that our credit growth, our loan advance actually grew by almost 16% actually from the end of 2024 in 9 months. So we have already reached BDT 516 billion. So for the first time, Citibank loan and advance book actually crossed BDT 500 million. So it's another milestone for the Citibank. We are actually trading very strongly in this difficult situation also. And interest rate, on the other hand, actually has increased by 23.7% and reached BDT 40.2 billion compared to last year 9 months. And so -- and because of -- and main reason for higher growth in interest income is basically the yield on advance has also increased actually in line with the increase of policy rate. So along with the higher growth in loan and advance and also higher yield on advance, our interest income actually grew even higher than the growth of the balance sheet. And so here, you can see that a segment-wise analysis, which segments are actually contributing more in our balance sheet growth. Still wholesale banking contributes 65%. Actually, they are growing very strongly. Their growth rate is around 17%. And on the other hand, retail has grown actually significantly in this year with 24%. And small and microfinance, they grew by around 14% -- so all of our actually major segment of our business actually are contributing much higher growth compared to last year. So even in this actually a little bit slow economy, our bank is actually growing very fast in every segment. And in deposit also, you can see that last year, if you remember that last year, our overall growth in deposit is around 30%. This year also, we are enjoying very high growth in deposit in terms of volume. So from the end of 2024, our deposit grew by 23.4% and reached BDT 34.5 million and interest -- interest expense has increased naturally because as the Central Bank has increased their policy rate and also treasury -- so as a result, the treasury bill and bond rates have risen. So naturally, we have to actually -- we had to increase our deposit rate to attract more deposits. And we'll actually show in the later part of the presentation that actually how we have actually addressed this higher cost and actually by having actually very strategic investment and you'll definitely see that this higher interest cost actually was not a problem for us. Rather actually, we took the advantage of the growth of our deposit and we successfully deployed our fund in an alternative investment manner and which has actually yielded a much higher return. And it will actually like actually set very strong footings for us for future growth as well. So we'll discuss actually later on in our presentation. So here, you can see that the cost of deposit has increased from 4.5% to 5.7% because the FDL rate has increased to 8.6% from 7% in line with the increase of the interest rate. And so -- so interest cost has increased quite significantly with 86% growth. And here, you can see the retail, the main contributor of our deposit growth is retail and they contribute 64% then wholesale banking through their strong cash management and other corporate solution, they provide 24% of the deposit. So current and savings, if you look at the port actually contribution actually kind of separation between the term deposit and CASA, which was actually 55%, 44% CASA ratio has actually decreased because we actually had to actually acquire more term deposit because when actually interest rate increase in the market, you cannot expect to have free cost fund. Naturally, customers will shift their funds from current and savings account to term deposit. That actually naturally happened in our case. But if you look at the number of new CASA account opening, here, you can see in the bottom line -- in the bottom of the presentation, we have opened in 9 months around 232,000 new current account, which was -- which is 72% higher compared to the last year 9 months. So the number of account opening in our bank is still actually continuing at a very higher pace. So that means actually we are still attracting a new customer to open account with us. And that is actually -- that shows our -- the confidence about us in the market and the brand image and the service quality of the bank. And we'll also discuss more later on. So because of the higher fees in the cost of deposit, like if you look at the line, red line, here, you can see the cost of deposit has increased from 4.8% to 5.7%. But on the other hand, the interest yield on advance actually increased from 9.8% to 10.4%. So increase of yield is lower than the increase of cost of deposit because of that, the actually spread has come down from 5% to 4.7% -- but again, actually, I'll explain actually later on. Here, actually, you'll get some answer, and I'll also explain more in the next slide that how actually we have deployed this high-cost deposit into more profitable business. Here you can see -- and here you can have the clue that how actually we have done the investment in this year. So as the policy rate actually has been increased by Central Bank and as a result, treasury bill bond rate has increased. So we have actually invested naturally more in treasury bill and bond. And here, you can see you can actually see the growth in investment. The growth is 51%. So from 2024, our growth investment has increased to BDT 212.6 billion from BDT 140.4 billion 51.4% growth -- and because of the increase of interest rate of Treasury billion bond and some capital gain from this portfolio, our income from investment has increased by 172%. So from BDT 10.1 billion, it has increased to BDT 27.7 billion. So -- 2.7x higher actually growth in income. So here, you can see that though actually we have incurred higher cost in deposit, but we have successfully deployed this high-cost deposit to very high-yielding assets, which also contributes much less risk profile for the bank. So risk -- the condition of the risk-weighted asset of the bank has improved rather. Even we have done significant investment in treasury bill and bond that actually attracts much less RWA. So -- so in terms of everything, point of view, in terms of higher return, actually, our that costly deposit has actually contributed more in our profitability. Here also the other line of business, Citibank is also very much strong in trade business, one of the core area. And here, you can see the country's export when actually grew by 5%. Our growth in export is more than 13%, around 13%. So we have handled 2.5 billion worth of export, import also when import of the country is around 3% growth. So -- but our growth in import is 6.4%. So in import, in 9 months, we have handled $2.7 billion worth of import. So commission income, if you look at the commission income and other fee income, here actually is showing very minor growth with 1.7% but commission income from the trade business has grew by significantly. So around -- I think, around 7%, around 10% growth we have experienced in commission income. But because of the stability in the FX, actually, unfortunately, the FX income actually declined. So it's good for the economy, but not very good for the bank. But definitely, it helps our export import -- our clients who are doing export business, more favorable situation. That is actually good -- that is a better situation for the bank and the industry as a whole. So though our FX income has declined, but our commission income has increased, and this will actually continue. So there will be more growth in commission income in coming days. Credit card is another strong pillar of Citibank. Citibank is the #1 credit card service provider in the country. Still, we are holding around 20% of the market share. So our growth in credit card business is in terms of increase of card base is 7.8%. So now we are having around more than 700,000 customer base. And the bill business, which is actually -- which represent the main consumption pattern of our credit card customer, which shows that the business has grew by 18.8%. That means our customer base, they are having actually good confidence about the consumer market. So it's a good sign for the economy and for the bank as well. The credit card income has overall actually increased by 9% and reached BDT 1.6 million. BDT 1.6 billion, sorry. And so revenue as a whole, so though actually we incurred very high cost in deposit, you have already seen our revenue as a whole actually grew by 27.4% from BDT 27.8 billion in last -- third quarter of last year, and it increased to BDT 35.4 billion in this 9 months. And on a consolidated basis also, there is also 26.4% growth. So our subsidiaries actually they -- they are actually small contributors in terms of revenue and profitability. So there is a minor difference between the solo and consolidated revenue. After revenue, now we are showing the operating expense. So in revenue, you have seen that the revenue growth is around 27.4% on a solo basis on a consolidated around 26.4%. But operating expense on a consolidated basis increased by 26.3% from BDT 12.1 billion to BDT 15.3 billion. Main contributor of this increase of operating expense is the staff expense, which increased from 6.6% to 8.9% with 34.6% growth. Actually, and the major reason for the growth is actually we restructured our salary last year actually in line with the inflation and also the performance of the bank. So bank has been performing consistently actually significantly well in the last few years. And also we felt that we needed to actually reward our employees with better salary structure, and we have done that with a very bold step. On an average, we have actually increased the salary of our mid-level employees by 30%. So it's one of the highest ever increment actually that is given by any bank in the recent history. So -- and other operating expense has increased by 16.3% and the cost has increased from 5.4 billion to 6.3 billion. And we are continuing with our effort for more automation, more digital solution. And at the same time, because of the increase of our customer base, we are also expanding our physical presence as well. So though actually we have converted like, for example, our -- more than 80% of our customers use the digital platform to do the transactions either through City Touch or ATM. But even 20% customers who visit our actually our physical distribution channels like branch, sub-branch and agent banking, as the number -- you have seen that the number of accounts has increased by 72% -- so we are -- that's why actually still we have huge crowd in our physical infrastructure. So we need to expand our physical infrastructure as well, though we have converted 80% of our transaction to digital platform. So here actually, we are showing that in last 3 years, we are continuously investing in IT and a wise breakup we are showing you like in 9 months, we have invested BDT 728 million. And last -- whereas in last year, in whole year, the investment was BDT 561 million. So you can see that how much we are investing in IT. So this is for making the bank more digital. And -- but at the same time, the expansion of our physical channel is also going on because the number of footfall is still significantly actually high in our bank as well because country, we are acquiring numerous customers actually quite aggressively. So for infrastructure part, we are also investing here. You can see the figure like in 9 months, BDT 312 million, we have spent for our expansion of physical infrastructure. And here, you can see that each year, how actually we are increasing our branches or subbranches, for example, in 2023, we have expanded our sub-branches by 29 in '24, 12 and this 9 months, 17. Actually, by end of this year, actually, our new subbranch or branch will be around 50. So you can see that how much actually -- how fast we are growing our physical presence as well. In every year also, we are adding ATMs. We have already crossed 500 -- more than 500 ATMs in the country. And also at the same time also our new -- we are continuously hiring new employees actually basically to support our business. Most of the employees are being recruited for branches, sales team and SME segment. So each year, we are actually hiring quite significant number of employees. In 9 months, we have hired 458 employees, whereas it was 266 last year and in 2023, it was 323. So it indicates these figures actually the purpose of showing all these figures that Citibank is expanding very fast, and we are investing quite significantly, and that has also reflected in our increase of operating costs. So here, you can see the summary of whatever actually I've said. So interest income grew by 23%, but interest expense grew by 86%. So because of that net interest income growth was showing negative. But to explain the thing better, I will show in the next slide that actually because we have to follow the format given by Central Bank. So in this format, it shows that we are incurring actually negative growth in net interest income. But to show a better picture, actual picture, you have to actually include the investment income with the interest income. So if you just do that, so you can see that though our net interest income is showing negative trend, but actually, if you add the investment income with the interest income that here, you can see that the income, net interest income, adjusted net interest income, which includes the investment income, which has grown from BDT 21.9 billion to BDT 29.2 billion with 33% growth. So actually, the fund that we have deployed for the investment actually has given much higher return. So the net interest income under the format of Bangladesh Bank actually showing negative trend in our revenue, but actually, our revenue has grown by 33%. So that's the purpose of showing this slide. So because of higher revenue growth, you can see that our operating profit has grew by 26.4% and operating profit was BDT 16.5 billion in 9 months of last year, which has grown to BDT 20.8 billion with 26.4% growth. So from this operating profit, now actually, we definitely deduct the debt charge or provision. Here, actually, we also made a significant provision this 9 months, which has increased from BDT 6.4 billion to BDT 8.8 billion. So increase in provision charge by 38.1% because the NPL actually has increased from 3.7% to 4.7%. And in volume, NPL was BDT 16.5 billion, which has increased to BDT 24.3 billion. And also overall NPL situation of the country actually has deteriorated. And definitely, because of the political change, global political scenario and also the inflation and also FX crisis that we actually faced in the last 2 years actually has a lot of toll on our customers. So because of that, actually, the NPL has increased. So -- and also one good thing is that Central Bank has tightened up their NPL regulation -- so now we are actually considering classification after 90 days DPD. So now actually, even when the country overall NPL situation deteriorated, Central Bank has actually rather actually opted for very high standard NPL regulation, tighter regulation. So because of that also NPL has increased in our case. But our case, for example, around 20 to 30 basis -- our CRO will actually explain it later, around 20 basis points NPL actually has increased because of that. And -- but we are maintaining higher provision coverage. So that is the main cushion that we are building for our -- for managing the risk, credit risk. So here, you can see that NPL is BDT 24.3 billion, but our total provision is BDT 25.5 billion. So the coverage ratio is 104%. So NPL provision coverage is higher than the NPL. So this is the contribution of our subsidiaries. We have [indiscernible] -- have Citi Bank Capital, which is a merchant bank. We have a company in Hong Kong, the name is Citi Hong Kong Limited. And we have exchange house in Malaysia CBN Money Transfer. Their contribution is not that big. So that's why you are not actually basically giving a detailed explanation on that. So their contribution is minor compared to the overall size of the bank. So after considering the subsidiaries result and deducting provision cost that charge from the operating profit, our profit has actually stood at BDT 7.2 billion at the end of 9 months, which was BDT 4.5 billion. The growth rate is 60.2%. So again, actually, we are actually presenting you actually one of the highest ever profit growth in the Citybank history. So we are really happy to produce this kind of result, considering all the macroeconomic and international situation. So also even after incurring huge cost in deposit and also overall other challenges, you can see that our profit growth even after considering higher provision cost with higher NPL, our net profit growth is significantly higher. So with this profitability, our return on equity has also increased from 15.26% to 18.47% -- our return on assets has increased from 9.7% to 1.2% in 9 months. So definitely, we are very much hopeful when we have ending this ratio will show you much better result. Earnings per share for 9 months is BDT 4.7, which was BDT 3.3 one year back. Book value also increased from BDT 29.9 to BDT 8.909. So significant increase we are having in NAV because of the very high growth in asset our NPL CRAR has actually on a basis declined from 16% to 15%. And on a consol basis, it declined from 15.3% to 14.8%. We are actually working on issuing a new Tier 2 bond. So I hope after issuing Tier 2 bond, this ratio will also improve. This is actually credit rating of the bank. We are being rated by Moody's. The country's rating is B2, so we cannot have more than B2 rating, unfortunately. But one of the top rating company in Bangladesh, which is CRA, they have rated us a AAA bank of the country. So we have graduated to AAA last year. And so these are all about the financial position of the bank and performance of the bank. So I will also actually basically share with you some digital initiative of the bank. You already know that Citibank is the fast Google pay launch of the country. So within just a few months, we have added 60,000 customers and already handle 120 million transaction. So it has become a very trendy and popular product among the young stars of the country, and we are targeting those actually basically young group. And they are actually basically grabbing this product quite happily. And also, there are some other digital initiatives that we have been actually doing very successfully. Citytouch, we believe that is one of the top mobile banking app in the country. And here, you can see that the transaction volume is in 9 months is BDT 908 billion and with 37% year-on-year growth. So and number of transaction is 25 million in 9 months and growth is 30%, and we have already added 906,000 customers. So in digital loan, so it's another success of the digital initiative of the bank. So we have already disbursed BDT 39.8 billion and the growth rate is 39%. So it's a fully digital loan without any human intervention. We are actually distributing this loan through Vikash, the largest mobile financial solution of the country, probably also in the world. So -- and we have already added 1.3 million customers. number of loan is more than, I think, BDT 10 million. And we are also actually giving a very smart solution for our customer through IVR. So it's basically self-service kind of solution. So also here, we are actually like in 9 months, we have serviced actually, we have given 4.8 million service. Citi Corp is another actually Internet banking solution for our corporate customer for their deposit and collection. So here, you can see that in 9 months, our transaction volume is BDT 618 billion, so with 45% growth. So we are also giving a solution for our corporate customer. So number of transaction is 23 million, 44% growth -- and also as actually we are targeting to launch more digital solutions. So we are actually engaging with our customers through social media as well. So if you look at our interaction with the customer through social media, you can see that there is also tremendous growth. In Instagram, 532% growth in Facebook, 33% growth. So we have very active social media engagement with our customer and prospective customer and especially the young generation. And here, actually, we are actually again showing you the success story of Nano lending. And here, you can see the average ticket size is BDT 4,128, around less than actually BDT 40. So this is actually huge success. Actually, I told you that we have actually already actually in number of account wise, we have already given 10 million actually so we are expecting to have much higher growth in lending. The NPL ratio is around 3%. So still within our appetite and interest rate is around 17%. So it's going very, very strongly. So now actually, I'll end my first part here. I'll come back again. So now actually, our CRO, who will explain about our sustain our initiative about the sustainable finance. So I'm now handing over my presentation to Firos. Firoz...

Thank you, -- good afternoon, everyone. Citibank awarded by the Central Bank as #1 sustainable bank. And you also know that this award actually Bangladesh Bank rated based on the environmental sustainability as well as the core banking sustainability. This emphasis actually both of the criteria, bank strength as well as the environmental initiatives. At the environmental sustainability side, they consider the green and sustainable finance, green financing, CSR and green office or in-house green banking activities. At the same time, for the core banking sustainability is focusing on the capital adequacy NPL position, liquidity, profitability and bank financial side. This is the highlights of the -- related with the green and sustainable finance and the green initiatives regarding our liability product also. Our 9 months total green finance disbursement was more than INR 5,000 crores against the Central Bank target of INR 1,500 crores. And we achieved actually more than the Central Bank target within the 9 months. And our year-to-year 9 months growth is more than 32%. And for sustainable disbursement, we disbursed in 9 months -- last 9 months disbursed more than INR 42,000 crores and against the Central Bank target of INR 12,000 crores. And if we consider year-to-year target, this year-to-year target in the sustainable finance disbursement was more than 42% -- as I already mentioned that we are not only focusing on the actual asset product, we're also focusing on the liability product. And we -- as a part of our initiatives, we launched the innovative green savings account in last year. And till date already green savings account opened that means till September, more than the 27,000 account. And the main features of this account, we're using this savings fund investing in the green and sustainable finance project and also another, I think, the criteria another of this plant for every account. And almost we till date planted more than the 19,000. -- green financing disbursement, Citibank focusing on the new revenue. And as a part of that, we are focusing already mentioned of the CFO, we finance and the green and digital lending, refinancing focusing on the home financing and also we're focusing on the renewable energy, energy efficiency and green factories. Last year -- last 9 months, our disbursement was in the renewable energy. That means in solar power as well as the wind, our total disbursement was BDT 220 crores. And energy and resource efficiency financing was more than BDT 1,100 crores. And we also funded in the LED [indiscernible] more than BDT 200 crore. And also, we're taking more initiatives on the green banking initiative that in-house ESG. As part of that, we're focusing on the install of the rooftop solar. We installed rooftop solar in our branch, 45 branches and 33 RTMs and also 28 outlets. We continue focusing on the green initiatives as well as its reporting to focusing on the reporting side, compliance with global standard as well as the Bangladesh Bank standard. This year, in the first time, we published the ESG report, complying with global standard already GRI, IFRS S1 and S -- you know Citibank is the first bank in Bangladesh joining Net Zero Banking Alliance of UNEP FI. And as part of this, we already taken initiatives to reduce our carbon emission, and we already published in our website in net zero emission reduction journey. We actually Citybank as part of our initiatives, we always recognized by the locally and internationally. Already mentioned that this year, we are awarded by the Central Bank at top #1 sustainable bank. And also we are the top sustainable bank for the last 5 years in a row by the Central Bank. We also awarded by the SDG Band Forum as the most sustainable financial institution and Bank category. And also, we recognized by the -- as the Climate Focus Bank by USA Greentech Foundation and the Institute of Energy of Dhaka University. And we also awarded by the as the Global Climate Partnership Award. And also we awarded as top 10 Sustainable Bank by the Sustainable Magazine of England and also sustainable finance top Sustainable Finance Bank in Bangladesh by the Global Finance -- Global Finance. This year, we also Citybank has been featured in the Bloomberg ESG rating of 2024. Actually, this is our major achievement only since the list is the actual just focusing on the few major achievement. This is our first time ESG report that's already in our website. You can scan this QR code via mobile device and also you can download from our website. That's all from my side. Over to Mahi.

Okay. Thank you. Hope actually who are interested to have this report -- have already scanned this QR code or you can also download it from our website also. I'll just actually going to show just a few more slides. We are almost end of our presentation. Citybank, just you have seen that not only just actually focus on the business, we are very much actually passionate about ESG and sustainable banking. And also at the same time, we think that in order to actually ensure the sustainability of the bank, we must actually invest in our main resource that is our employees. So we have already shown this thing actually in our earlier disclosure, but we are giving update that we are through this pillar actually, we are taking -- we are continuously adding more actually initiative so that we can develop very quality human resource and leaders who will actually take this bank to even higher level than now. So City Care actually, we are actually ensuring the health and safety of the employee, we are supporting them through health insurance. And also, we have developed emergency support fund for the low-income employee whose actually medical expense is not fully covered by insurance. So we actually ensure additional support for them. For example, last year, so far in 9 months, we have supported around 1,200 employees with additional support for their -- for themselves as well as for their family. Citybank -- in actually, we -- by that, actually, we actually motivate our employees for more innovation. It is -- now it is just become part of the KPI so that they contribute to the innovation and process development. And City leads actually, we are creating new leaders for the bank so that they can carry on actually the development and leadership position of the bank in the next generation. So we have launched talent management and we name it Future Fit. So we have already identified future talents, and we are investing quite heavily for them for the development of the leadership. The city carrier, City NCS, all are actually basically under all this pillar, we are continuously actually working with our employees and by giving them more actually training. For example, in 2023, our average employee training hour is 20 hours. So it has increased to more than 30 hours this year. So target is to actually take it up to 40-hour training hour for the employee. So -- and now we are showing some of the major accolades that we received this year, especially the Daily Star Award. Daily Star is the leading newspaper of the country, and this award is known as the best corporate award of the country. So Daily Star actually recognized Citybank as the best financial institution for 2024. So it's, I think, one of the -- actually -- it is the best actually corporate award in our country. And already our CRO has shared with you, but here actually as it is, again, recognition from Central Bank. So we must -- that's why actually I'm showing it. Again, we are now actually the #1 sustainable bank of the country, which consists of actually both financial and sustainable actually marking. And not only just this year, we have been continuously getting top position for the last 5 years under sustainable banking criteria. And also, we have won 3 awards from ABB for -- as the leading trade partner. And also -- so this is also -- this shows that in trade area also, we are actually going very strong and being recognized by the major actually development partner of the country. And this year also, we have won very prestigious award of Financial Alliance from Financial Alliance for women. So they have recognized our initiative in women banking. So also, this is another business segment where actually we are progressing very fast. So Islamic banking also, we have got as a -- one of the best Islamic banking by one of the -- our asset AAA. And also Visa recognized us because of our successful launching of Google Wallet and Tap and Best Harvest. Mastercard also recognized us and also Finance Asia also recognized us as the Best Bank of the country. So with this actually, I'm ending my presentation. So now I'm handing over to Saima again for carrying out the question and answers -- Q&A session. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] Thank you very much, Mr. Mohammad Rahman and Mr. Firoz for your insightful presentation on the financial performance. Ladies and gentlemen, we now welcome your questions as we begin our Q&A session. The first question is what is your view on bancassurance business? How many policies have you sold so far? When do you think it can be...?

So I can actually give -- I'll give you the number. But at this moment, we know that more than 50% of the market share is owned by Citybank. Again, Citybank actually is holding a leading position in the bancassurance market by far. So -- but I'll give you the precise number actually how many policies we have sold. But definitely, it's also another subsidy Bank actually -- we are going to be a very big in bancassurance and that will contribute to the noncurrent income to the bank.

Moving on to the next question. What is the bank's view in entering to MFS and digital bank business?

Actually, we are not targeting to enter into MFS business, but digital banking as a bank, actually, we are converting -- we are not just going to launch a digital bank actually like other digital bank in the world, but we are continuously digitizing our existing product. So digital will be actually kind of new avenue or actually distribution channel for us. So for example, Nano is one example, then our loan acquisition and disbursement process from micro credit segment will be more digitized. Account opening for a retail customer will be more digitized. So in this way, credit card issuance of credit card will be more digitized. So in this way, actually, we are going to actually basically actually offering all of our service to digital platform. So it's a natural because -- and I think we are one of the few banks in the country who is actually infrastructure-wise and conceptual-wise, fully ready.

Moving on to the next question. What is the update on BinCo zero coupon bond? Are you getting coupon payments timely? Have you started making provisions for it?

We are getting provision. We are getting coupon payment on timely.

Moving on to the next question. Any plan for portfolio diversification, like focusing more on to avoid current scenario like negative NIM as in quarter 2025 scenario and lowering loan repricing risk.

I think actually -- as can also give us more idea that what is the actually interest rate situation. So I request to answer this question. question. Can you repeat... Yes, yes.

The question was any plan for portfolio diversification like focusing more on retail and SME for long-term stability to avoid current scenario like negative NIM as in quarter 3, 2025 scenario and lowering the loan repricing?

[Technical difficulty] So regarding the interest rate, it depends on the market situation. Interest rate is double digit in terms of lending.

Yes, absolutely. And regarding the actually doing more business in other segment, we are continuously doing it. And I think we have already achieved a very nice mix in our portfolio. So -- and we are very much comfortable with the current mix. And gradually, every segment will grow and we have built a very strong position. Now actually, we can pick and choose the best customers. So wholesale bank is having this advantage. And we have built a good very strong engine to grow more in retail and other segment, SME segment.

Yes. The mix is very unique so far if I add we have 60% in the wholesale side and rest is in medium SME. In other, I think most of the banks is having around 80% loans. So this mix will continue.

Okay. Moving on to the next question. How does the bank view the headwinds and sector-specific risks in Bangladesh...

Firoz can answer...

Thank you. Actually, you know the last year, from the last year, Central Bank more focusing on the -- to adopt the international standard as part of that, they already changes our classification regulation and class rules. And as part of this, this is already implemented and fully from the April of this month. That means the bank are already adopted this. And regarding -- considering this in our presentation, we already showed that the overall sector NPL is goes up to 27%. And I think that this is already reached in the top level. The overall outlook of the -- now the scenario we improving. You know the overall business condition improving because of the Central Bank reserve improving, our capital account also improving and the overall business environment improving, but still there is concern of the election. But we are expected that the -- another side, the government -- Central Bank already take initiative by giving policy support as also to regularize the customers who have suffered during the political situation as the dollar situation. Considering this and overall macroeconomic improvement, I think that this will be improved and the classification status classification ratio will be goes down. And economic perspective, if we consider that still our growing sector is the export as well as if overall political condition improve, I think that the infrastructure sector and other sector also will be improved and overall NPL position, we expect it to improve.

Thank you, sir. I'll move on to the last question of today's event. What is the bank's approach to green finance or sustainable finance or ESG, given that Bangladesh regulators and development finance ecosystem are adding focus on this...

[indiscernible] Also can add something also.

I'm adding we are already to increase our green and sustainable finance in line with the local and international standard. We're also planning to issue -- we already, I think, introduced the green savings account, and we also plan to issue the green bond as a liability source of the fund. And also, we already as we give our road map for the net zero banking alliance as well as we already introduced our carbon account as well as to implement the climate risk rating. At this moment, Citybank, actually, this is the already in the assessment as the assessment tool, we introduced the environmental social risk rating. And also, we are calculating the carbon emission of our portfolio as well as the customers. And we already almost 50% of our customers' carbon emission calculation covered. Going forward, we also increase to our carbon emission calculation, and we published our climate-related disclosure as so as to separately.

Thank you all for your insightful answers. In the question-and-answer session. We have reached the end of today's earnings disclosure. Thank you all for your participation and patience. Before concluding, let me inform you that the recorded version of the entire event will be made available in the same web link as for the live program very shortly. Those of you who missed the live event or want to sit through it at a later time, you'll find the whole event documented there. The financial presentation will also be available in Citybank's website under the Investor Relations section. We appreciate your participation and patience. Thank you again for your interest in Citybank plc. Goodbye. Stay safe and stay well. Thank you.

Thank you all.