FinecoBank Banca Fineco S.p.A. (FBK) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Okay. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us. Established to Disrupt is summing up today agenda, where we will focus on our company mindset and culture that are the key elements that allow us to unlock Fineco growth opportunities. Today, it will be a very customer-centric CMD. We will focus on the upgrade on our platform to improve the overall experience of both customers and personal financial advisers. As you can see from the agenda, first section will cover Fineco unique positioning, the disruptor advantage that we have been building over years, thanks to efficiency, transparency and convenience. This will allow us to benefit from the structural trends that are reshaping the financial industry. Section 2, our colleagues will guide us through the growth initiatives. This will shape Fineco next growth cycle with AI, it is going to further amplify our competitive edge. After a 20-minute break, we will then dive into our platform, IT platform that is the key engine of the bank -- of the bank's scalability. Section 3, financial and guidance up to '29. Here, we will sum up all the structural trends and how this is pushing stronger growth. And this growth is going to further accelerate, thanks to the initiatives that we have been -- we will be disclosing today. There will then be a 45-minute Q&A session. And for those attending digitally, you'll have the opportunity to submit questions through the platform. Now I'll cut the story short and just introduce the speakers. They are going to be our CEO, Alessandro Foti, Deputy General Manager, Paolo Di Grazia; the CFO, Lorena Pelliciari; CEO at Fineco Asset Management, Fabio Milanesi; Chief Information Officer, Gianluca Martinuz; Head of Products, Romualdo Guidi; Fabrizio Lingesso, Head of Marketing. I'll stop here and ask Alessandro to join me on stage. Thank you.

Good morning, everybody, and thank you for being here today. Now we enter the first chapter of our agenda where we define what is an established disruptor. You know very well Fineco a quality story of growth, execution and consistency, an outperformance of 6.7 points versus the system and a 25% ROE in 2025, clearly demonstrate our ability to generate growth and value. And most important element is the way we achieved those results by winning client trust, leveraging on our core values of efficiency, transparency and convenience. It means we grew and delivered with no compromise on the quality of our revenues without shortcuts and with a full alignment with all stakeholders' interest of our clients, of our employees and financial planners and of course, of our shareholders. This is why Fineco stands as one of the strongest long-term success story in the Italian financial services, delivering efficiently priced products to clients and quality returns to shareholders. Let me now to go deeper in what we mean by established disruptor and why we enjoy unique positioning in Europe. Every market has several layers of players. In Italy, like in the most of the EU countries, we have 4. First, traditional banks. They control most of the total financial assets, and they are structurally losing market share due to overpriced and inefficient services. Second, classic traditional asset gatherers, not positioned for long-term trends due to whole commercial logic, high fees and questionable practice like performance fees or large upfront. Third, neo-banks and neo-brokers. They grow big in number of clients, but lack the trust to attract big assets. Finally, the fourth layer, the one of established disruptors. In Italy, there is just one Fineco. We are the only big financial institution that is combining in one platform, the trust of a big significant bank together with the mindset, the user experience and pricing of a challenger. Thanks to this combination, we can grow strongly, both in private banking clients and in the younger generations. This is what is making us a winner in long-term game. This is what means being an established disruptor. Let me now share you the picture of the opportunity. Our addressable market in Italy is in excess of $4 trillion in household financial assets. Fineco accounts for only 3.7% market share. As you can see on the right-hand side, we have a long story of growth, but 2025 is marking a clear change in the magnitude of our growth. And here, we come to the next question, why in Capital Market Day now? The reason is pretty simple. The most recent data tell us that the structural trends are clearly accelerating strong and Fineco growth trajectory is going throughout an inflection point. Three big forces are reshaping the industry, and everything is happening at the same time. First, AI disruption. AI is changing how people work, how they invest, how they bank. It will drive for both higher transparency in financial services and productivity. Second, we are seeing a massive generational wealth transfer. This will completely change client needs and expectations. Third, the consolidation in the banking industry with traditional banks trapped in a oligopoly game where customer experience is not a focus. So these forces are reshaping the landscape and Fineco is at the crossroad of this big structural change. Today, we are setting the foundations for the next cycle of our growth. Let's watch a quick video to transfer you how our company culture and mindset in a quickly evolving context. [Presentation]

Now we step into one of the main topics of this Capital Market Day, one which has been discussed heavily in the last few weeks, AI. Let me take 1 minute to explain why Fineco is structured in an AI win. AI creates value if you have the right foundations and Fineco has all of them. Thanks to our strategic decision to internalize IT, we have a large proprietary data on a unified architecture, a deep internal know-how, allowing us to innovate and build our tech in-house. All of this is channeled through one integrated platform across our businesses. This means that we can scale fast and scale cost effectively. And we can do this as a trusted player by both clients and regulators and ultimately play the efficiency, transparency and convenience game. Thanks to this setup, AI becomes a real amplifier of our competitive edge. In banking, where it boosts customer experience and accelerates clients growth, which in turn brings valuable transactional liquidity. In investing, it increased PFA productivity, allowing for a better quality service to clients, improving retention and net sales. In brokerage, it refines the quality of our platform, making it the natural home for self-directed investors, improving clients' engagement and revenues. In Fineco, overall efficiency as we are going to reshape our internal processes. Given all this, AI is the enabler that will allow Fineco to capture even more market share. Now we step into one of the most transformative force reshaping our industry, AI as a driver of transparency and disruption. For years, financial products relied on complexity. But today, AI makes opacity much harder and financial products are becoming transparent by definition. Thanks to increasingly accessible analytical tools, clients can compare costs and returns with a single click. You can easily understand what this implies in a country where 65% of the domestic mutual funds are charging performance fees on top of priced products, together with a huge amount of upfront fees. While in the past, many traditional players have benefited from information asymmetry, today is much more difficult game to play and tomorrow will prove to be even harder. Fineco stands on the other side of the story, non-performance fees, low upfront fees and a value proposition built on fair and transparent pricing. Now let's move to one of the biggest financial transformation of our time, the generational transfer of wealth. This is going to be really huge and unprecedented. For some research in Italy, more than 2 trillion of wealth is on the move over the next 2 decades. And this is part of a broader global trend that is true also for Europe. Within private banking, up to 24% of financial assets will be transferred by 2033. And here is the key point. 77% of the next-generation clients choose a different private bank compared to their families one. Fineco is perfectly positioned to capture this flow. We are a safe, highly regulated bank. We have a full range of products aligned with efficiency, transparency and convenience, all backed by capable tech-enabled financial advisers. And our user experience is what younger generation are looking for. To sum up, Fineco is the best place to deliver value for money. Let's shift to what is happening within traditional banks. They are keeping consolidating and playing more and more in oligopoly game that ultimately let them lose sight of customer and innovation. This leaves plenty of room for quality players like Fineco. In the end, consolidation is creating an average low-quality service offering in traditional banks. A player like Fineco consistently delivering superior experience becomes a natural alternative. Fineco is perfectly positioned at the crossroad of these structural trends. The way we are growing in both young and private banking clients tells you more than any statement. Let's start with the younger generation. In 2025, clients out of 35 represented over half of our new accounts, an extraordinary shift compared to only a few years ago. At the same time, our presence in private banking is strengthening clearly from 2.9% to 5.7% market share in just a few years. This is not coming by chance. It's the result of a platform that delivers value for money, efficiency and transparency. Together with these 2 segments, put Fineco exactly where the future of wealth will be. Today's plan sets the foundation for improving our quality offer, boost our growth potential and deliver shareholders' value. I will now leave the floor to Paolo for giving you a little bit more in-depth color and description of all the initiatives that we have -- we are preparing on the market. Thank you.

Thank you, Alessandro. Welcome to the Capital Market Day. I want to start with a video that showcases a classic Fineco journey. And, yes, let's play video. [Presentation]

So, the video shows quite clearly the power of the Fineco model, combining banking, investing and brokerage, all 100% digital and with a physical touch when you need it with more than 3,000 financial advisers and more than 400 Fineco centers. So the feeling of clarity and speed of the video you've just seen is exactly what we are scaling. So before we enter the plan, one important note, you will see today many previews, videos, you will see demos of our services and the Fineco people who build and use them every day. So -- this is not theory. It's what client and adviser actually use and we use in real life. So from now on, we will talk about the growth initiatives. Our plan stands in 3 pillars, 3 main pillars. The first one is more client acquisition. The second one is higher productivity with AI. And the third one is more value for advisory and brokerage. So let me clarify that these initiatives accelerate a path that is already very strong. So now we're adding new tools to amplify that momentum. So what is it in practice? In practice, we acquire more faster with less friction. We use AI to simplify and make client life even easier than today. And we extract more value from what we already do very well, especially assets under custody, and you will see exactly this in the demos during the day. So let's now move to the growth initiatives in the banking area. And let's start with the onboarding, the new onboarding. It's a crucial point, the entry point of our client. Opening account must be simple, fast and smooth. And that's why our new AI-powered onboarding reduces drop-offs and speeds up the very first important steps of our clients. So in short, less friction, more conversion, better experience from minute 1. So at the same time, the new AI onboarding is -- comes with a new AI chatbot and is transforming the prospect engagement. So since launch, the chat volumes have increased fourfold, while the intervention, the human intervention has dramatically dropped. So AI now handles most conversation, giving faster answers and freeing our operators, human operators to focus on higher-value tasks. And this means more meaningful interactions with clients, better qualified clients and clients who really use the platform. This is very important. And even more important, they stay in the platform. They remain in the platform. They're sticky. They use the platform every day during the lifetime. So let's watch the first demo of the day on the new onboarding powered by AI, please. [Presentation]

So the onboarding -- the new onboarding doesn't just improve the experience, but also dramatically accelerate the speed of acquisition. So increase operational efficiency. We are much more efficient on our operations and ensures that every client and every prospect actually enters the platform with a clear intent and higher chance of becoming an active and most of all, long-term client of the platform. Let's now move to the -- now to the new account offering. It's a key step to better segment our proposition and unlock the full potential of the bank actually. We make it clear and flexible with simple plans with competitive pricing. Including 0 fees where it makes sense, of course. And we speak to the younger generations, of course, with one account. And they're looking for clarity and convenience for sure. And at the same time, we speak to smart investors and private banking clients who wants either simplicity, transparency and fair pricing. So I ask Romualdo to join me to see together some more details on the new plan. Please, Romualdo.

Thank you, Paolo, and good morning, everyone. As mentioned, the trend in acquisition is already very strong, and our goal is to push it even further. So just a few weeks ago, we decided to launch a new offering on account designed around 2 main objectives. First one is removing friction. So this allow us to attract clients with the free solutions and then leverage on our outstanding platform and our financial planner network. Second, giving the right value to the services we offer with a clear pricing differentiation. So today, we have a comprehensive offering, including 3 accounts. Fineco One is the free solution with a digital-only customer support aligned with a fully online experience. The second is Fineco Classic is a paid account with full customer support. And then Fineco Max represents our high-end proposition, including priority assistance, premium cards and transactional conditions. It becomes free for clients who has more than 500,000 in assets. So this reinforce our value proposition to private clients and in particular, create a strong lever for our financial planner. Across all 3 accounts, we also waived fees on foreign currency transaction by debit card. Following our analysis, this is a key factor influencing customers' decision when they have to open an account, in particular, young people and travelers. Alongside this solution remain active, the brokerage account, which has been very successful in these first few years with more than 50,000 clients acquired. It's a dedicated solution to self-directed investors with the main point is the immediate access to the market. Overall, clients basically now can decide regarding their needs. They can choose depending on their needs. And then we think this is the best way to have a full acceleration and to push again this strong momentum we are seeing.

Thank you, Romualdo. Please stay with me. Let's talk about the new application. We start with our application, we started from a strong rating on the app stores. So for sure, we want to raise the bar. And the new app will be AI native and mobile first. data-driven personalization means each person sees what matters and the application is dynamic. Clients choose what they want to see and AI adapts content. design is clean, navigation is straight. It's fully aligned with the Fineco DNA of clarity and simplicity.

Absolutely. Absolutely. But the results we are aiming for are clear, increased engagement, higher satisfaction and deeper client relationships. So the app is a key branch of our client experience. It must perform reliably and keeping the user experience intuitive and friction-free. Here on the screen, you can see just the first -- the very first concept reviews of the new app. that is a complete rebuilding we are currently working on. But to give you a better sense of how this redesign is coming together, we recorded a short video that combines the first animated preview of the app with a commentary from one of our colleagues, one team members, the design team who work on it every day and so bringing this vision to life. [Presentation]

Watching this demo, seeing this demo, the advantage is quite clear. So our new app is going to be AI native which is going to be a huge advantage for us and for our clients. And this can be possible, thanks to the fact that our data and technology were born AI-ready, and Gianluca later on will talk a lot about this. So we're not adapting systems. We're just accelerating what we already have. So let's now move to investing -- growth initiatives in investing. So as Alessandro mentioned before, markets asked for more transparency for sure. Clients want to know what they pay and why they pay. And this favors exactly our advanced advisory fee-based model, which is growing and getting quite stronger. So as you can see from the figures. And over time, we've seen AUM rising and larger share of explicit fee solution coming out strong. And for sure, AI rates and the ETF wave is pushing this, of course, this model, the fee-based model. Fineco is uniquely positioned to capture the trends that are coming out very strong. So we answer with our fee-based model simple tools and digital processes that bring speeds and quality to our platform, to our client and to our financial adviser. So our network, our financial adviser is widely active on this kind of tools and using this fee-based model. And AI becomes just a multiplier of everything. So more transparency, more trust, better long-term growth. And now let's watch some interviews among our financial plan that are already using the fee-based model. They're going to explain us how they use it, please. [Presentation]

So what you've just seen is the new application for our financial planner, new design with the CRM embedded in the application. We will see the -- their interviews later on. And -- but just seeing -- watching this demo, can you imagine the impact of all this. This level of AI support will dramatically boost the quality of our advice and the speed of execution and the productivity of our PFA. For sure, we will have sharper decision, faster actions and more time for what really matters. So stay with the clients. Let's now move to another chapter of AI for financial planner. Now I want to show you another powerful capability available on X-Net. X-Net is the platform that our financial planner are using to manage their clients every day. And the tool is the AI portfolio rebalancing. What it does, flags portfolio off target, prioritize actions, generates proposal, move from proposal to execution in a single step. So why it matters? More time for the relationship, less manual screening, more client time, explainable rebalancing and commercial lift. So turning rebalancing into concrete commercial opportunities. So let's see it in action. [Presentation]

So what you've just seen is just -- it's a real breakthrough. So this tool allows personal financial -- financial adviser to run dozens of high-quality simulations in just a few minutes. So generate tailored content instantly and move from analysis to execution in seconds, turns complexity into clarity and for sure, boost productivity and sharpen advice and giving our PFA, our financial adviser, a level of speed and precision that simply didn't exist before. Let's move to the -- let's go deeper into our advisory model. Before we continue, one thing is clear, quite clear to everybody. Today, the ETF world is gaining strong traction. So both among our clients, followed by a financial adviser and among our direct clients, self-directed clients. So ETFs together with active funds and the broader assets under custody are becoming a fundamental components of our advisory model. And clients want, again, transparency, efficiency and clarity and our fee-based model deliver exactly that. So to capture this trend, we are upgrading the entire ETF experience for our financial adviser, a better selection, a clearer visibility of automated plans, transparent cost -- and again, we are among the very few players who can fully capture this opportunity and the impact is clear. So a new revenue engine that strengthens advisory and push the whole value chain. And now this is not just theory. So now let's watch the interviews of our financial planner showing how they work with the model I just talked about. [Presentation]

So this is how the majority of our financial adviser works every day with this model. And they can do it because they have the right ingredients. They have a solid fee-based model. They have an advanced technology, and they have fair pricing for clients. So this combination elevates advice, strengthens relationships and set the stage for the next wave of quality growth. Let's now move to ETF. But as asset under custody. So coming from advisory where PFAs financial adviser play a key role, here, the focus shifts to direct clients and assets under custody. And also here, the trend is very strong. So we're well positioned to capture the rising ETF demand for self-directed clients. And the ETF stock within AOC is growing fast year-on-year. And this is not just a buy-and-hold story anymore. So we see more activity, more turnover and significantly more revenues from that. So -- and to fully monetize this exploding market, we are deploying the key levers. So the first one, the platform fee, platform fee agreements with selected ETF issuers, our own systematic internalization of the flow that is supported by higher volumes, the additional push from Fineco Asset Management, Fabio will talk about that later on, which has begun issuing both passive and active ETF. And then the securities lending, our platform of securities lending, we will talk about that a lot. So -- and finally, ETFs are becoming one of the most powerful client acquisition engine in our model. So it's a structural path for the next years. So -- and we are among the few, again, players fully equipped to capture this trend. And now let's deep dive into our Fineco Asset Management, and I'll hand over to Fabio. Please, Fabio, join us.

Thanks, Paolo, and good morning, everybody. I think that the first key message that I would like to address to all of you is we are ready. Fineco Asset Management is now well established, perfectly positioned with full internal capabilities able to fuel the next chapter of Fineco Bank growth. We reach our results, thanks to fierce competition inside the Fineco Bank platform. We are competing with the global brands since the beginning, we were born to compete. And then we are providing an effective time to market. We are providing solution investment strategies in less than 5 weeks. 5 weeks. Think about that. We are listening customer, involving financial planners and delivering what they really want in this time horizon. On top of that, we are used to provide a superior risk control that is able to increase, of course, transparencies and consolidate relationship between financial planners and customers as well. And finally, convenience. We are spread in our offer range, convenience, better price for customer, better quality and of course, better margin for the group. EUR 42 billion. EUR 42 billion in less than 8 years. Over 30 investment strategies that we have realized in our catalog. It's a fairly young asset management company that already shown is able to scale up fast. Then today, we have presenting -- we are presenting some important actions inside the Fineco Bank slide, considering the big event, we are now representing not just new strategies for enriching the catalog, but actions that can create impacts on our stock or extending our customer base or talking about private equity solution that we just released. Let's have a quick overview about these actions. Global Defense. Global Defense is a time-to-market product that we release in the market. We reinvent the formula funds and we created a successful story. Now we are able to sustain additionally the important bulk of assets moving gradually, but mechanically, the asset allocation of these funds supporting customer and financial planners in a better asset allocation. We can include also a sleeve of equity only when products are close to the end, and we can roll the products creating a very effective asset allocation. On ETF, Paolo mentioned, I think that we are quite fast-evolving player in the Italian ETF industry. We released in 2022 a good portion of our passive ETF from 2024 and 2025, we step into active ETF and now we have just released wrappers of ETF that can maintain the asset allocation accordingly with the risk profile of customers always in the efficient frontier. I think that is really supportive for productivity of the financial planners, but also better quality for customers as well. And for a pure entry points ETF. You can consider [ MC award ], S&P 500, Euro Stoxx, where a new segment of customer can start with. Now we are able to create a cooperation with one of the most important global issuer, ETF issuer in the market, and we can enter also in this arena. We would like to enter in this arena, and it's very important for us because we can extend the customer base on which we can deal with. At the moment, we love to stay with the customer of financial planner, but thanks to this initiative in the ETF, we can deal with a broader customer base. And finally, we have -- probably we have released a private market solution first private equity strategy, very promising in terms of results, very effective in terms of time to market. We prefer entering the time to market in the market when we have concern, when we have cautiousness in evaluating the quality and the dimension of our liquidity and the multiples that we would like to put in our portfolio. We started with the co-investment solution. The results are important. We would like to move ahead the catalog and move the catalog further. In closing, I would say that our journey, the possibility to extend, as I said, the actions in the market. Our crowded pipeline can support FinecoBank expectation of growth, but keeping margins in-house. Thank you.

Thank you, Fabio. Fabio and his team, they are doing a tremendous job in pushing the Fineco model. And we expect actually a contribution of Fineco Asset Management in our stock of AUM to move from current 39% up to 45%, 50% by 2029. So it's going to be a massive improvement. So let's now move to another topic on our agenda, our brokerage business. In today's market, being fully integrated and owning the entire technology stack is unique. And it's one of the strongest advantage that we have actually. So our brokerage is vertically integrated. We have our own proprietary platform, our own products, our own systematic internalizer, our own securities lending platform and our own integrated CRM. And all this gives us full control over the quality, the reliability and the service continuity. And this integrated architecture is not just a technical detail. It becomes the backbone that powers everything. So greater system stability again, more flexibility on pricing, higher client satisfaction and most of all, stronger economy of scale. So everything we've just covered converge in one place, our trading platform, the FX, let's watch a demo of our trading platform. [Presentation]

And so this is truly distinctive. So a platform with the depth and precision of a professional trading platform, combined with an immediacy and usability of a consumer-grade interface is quite unique. So the combination simply doesn't exist elsewhere. So it's a true market unicorn and delivering power without complexity and raising the bar for the entire industry. So let's now move to -- again, let's talk again and move to another section of brokerage. With our integrated brokerage in place, let's look at the structural growth ahead. So retail engagement in equities is still at the beginning. And there is room to grow, big room to grow. And we are in the right position, just in the right position. We have a large and growing amount of assets under custody base, and we are ready to extract full potential from our huge asset under custody base with clear levers also here. So first one, more efficient internalization, securities lending platform, again, the Auto-FX, the new Auto-FX service in the platform, the ETF for self-directed clients. The crypto business, actually, we're in talk with the regulators. So we are still waiting for the green light. And the pan-European platform, we will talk about later. So to talk about -- go to a bit in the details, I'll ask Romualdo to join me in...

Okay. Yes, Paolo, thank you. As we have seen, the asset under custody we have is large and is growing faster. So in this slide, we will see how we think to give a very big boost to maximize the value of this asset under custody. First of all, the first initiative is the security lending platform. We are already active on this service, but just for a small amount. We just -- we are lending just a small amount of what we have. So we are working with -- for a new lending platform that will be launched in June that will allow us to extract more value. We have a very highly granular retail-driven asset under custody with ETF with a good part of Hard to Borrow that adds significant value in the lending market. Additionally, more than 40% of our volumes are already opted in. So the clients has already signed the authorization to use their assets. That's a very important point. And these numbers, 40% that I said, continue to growing year after year. So historically, it's continued to grow. Finally, a portion of the revenues generated by the lending is shared directly with clients. So at the same time, they -- we enhance the service also versus them. Second point, Auto-FX. From effective March 6, so on Friday, 1 million multicurrency clients will have the option to use Auto-FX. At the order entry, they will have this option. Auto-FX allows clients to buy or sell securities in foreign currencies without taking FX risk on their cash balance. This help to reduce friction, delivers a smoother experience and simplify access to the foreign markets. So we expect also more execution from them, thanks to this function. Obviously, clients who want to continue the multicurrency clients who want to continue using the multicurrency option obviously to do so. Finally, flows management. We have a systematic internalizer. We are enhancing it to extend the growing share of client flows. Also here, we are internalizing part of the flows. This announcement will help us to capturing stronger and more sustainable revenues together with more liquidity for the clients. So also here a win-win solution. Together, all these 3 pillars levers our assets under custody IT growth engine, driving additional revenues for Fineco and delivering an improved service to clients. This, we can say, positions the bank ahead of Europe shift toward a quote-driven markets.

Thank you, Romualdo. We definitely expect big contribution from all these growing initiatives. Let's now move to -- same to the brokerage, but let's introduce our AI for the direct clients. So I want to show you our trading copilot for brokerage account client. And it's going to be an AI platform that helps clients to find ideas, understand portfolios and follow the news that matters. And it's going to have 3 simple functions since the start, screening securities, analysis on existing portfolios, on relevant news, natural conversation that takes clients from question to action. And the beauty is that everything is fully integrated into the execution engine. So fewer steps, more fluidity, more engagement. It's a totally new way to use the platform in a simple -- very simple way. And just to be clear, this first release will soon be available only for our full brokerage account clients. Let's watch a demo on this. [Presentation]

So this goes far beyond a simple feature. It's having AI fully embedded in the execution engine creates a new level of engagement for clients. So clients discover ideas faster. They understand their choices better and act with more confidence. So it's the power, again, of a professional grade platform with the ease of an everyday tool. So a unique combination that elevates awareness, strengthens the loyalty of the client and pushes our already high satisfaction rate even higher. So let's close the brokerage, the AI on brokerage, let's talk about our pan-European expansion. Our pan-European expansion, our pan-European platform actually rests on clear pillars. So the first one, very strong, the operating leverage. The second, low fixed costs, the reuse of our Italian IT infrastructure, the reuse of our EU banking license, the we're going to use the EU passporting and a distinctive, very distinctive offer on pricing and experience. So we are fully convinced that this is a powerful mix. Again, aggressive pricing, high-quality service, being a significant bank, we can enter with focus and scale where we see traction. So -- and at the same time, control risk with variable costs tied to results. For sure, this is a growth option and with an attractive ROE, Lorena will talk about it later on. So let's look at the number at the environment. So in the Continental Europe -- Continental Europe, we see pretty much the same drivers as in Italy. We see a large generational wealth transfer coming. We see a big share of wealth still actually, the majority is still in the traditional banking system, very inefficient, and there is a big room for efficient platforms. So our target is clear. So quality clients segmented by real needs and value potential. We offer, again, solidity, fair pricing, very simple usability. And we plan selective entries, so country by country, where product and rules fit our own model. So -- and to give you more insight on the go-to-market strategy, I'll ask again Romualdo to join me.

Yes. A simple idea to close. Our strategy is based on these 3 pillars. Solid trust, we are a significant bank, premium services, as we have seen and the challenge of pricing, enabled by the integration of the value chain. On top of that, I want to add a deep financial expertise, a knowledge, very strong knowledge of retail clients, retail markets and proven marketing capabilities. Altogether, this address us to serve demanding clients who seek for a convenient and top-tier digital experience. The idea is that pan-European strategy fills the gap between the low-cost fintechs and the traditional banks. There are only these few place today. We think to be positioned in the middle to be attractive for both for the clients who want low cost and very user-friendly platforms and the one who want the solidity of a brand of a traditional bank. So I close saying that the launch is expected by the end of this year, early '27.

Yes. Thank you, Romualdo. We will give you much more details closer to the launch date and some more with Lorena later on. Now let's move to the last part of this section to marketing, which is a core engine of our growth. We have been working for years to strengthen our brand, very important, with consistency, discipline and a clear long-term vision. We built a marketing machine that optimizes client acquisition, maximizes returns on every single campaign and reinforces Fineco brand day after day. So today, we will show you how these engines evolve. And I'll ask Fabrizio to join us. Please, Fabrizio, give you the floor.

Thank you, Paolo. Good morning. Let me start with a simple observation. Today's financial services market is overwhelmed with noise. You can see it everywhere. Every player is shouting promotions, offers, cash backs, short-term incentives. The result that advertising clutter keeps rising. At the same time, customer attention is shrinking. Now most banks respond to this by shouting even louder, more messages, more promotions, more discounts. At Fineco, we don't compete on noise. We compete on clarity, trust and memorability. In a market where products and services often look the same, brand is our primary scalable differentiator. It's not just a nice-to-have. It's a structural advantage. And let me please explain you why it works. A strong brand does something that most marketing cannot. It makes acquisition self-reinforcing. About 50% of our entire customer base was directly influenced by word of mouth, 1 in 2, no by promotion, no by discount, by someone they trust. And 75% of our clients saw Fineco advertising before opening their account. So now these 2 forces, word of mouth and brand, they are not alternatives. They work together. Word of mouth delivers trust and advertising delivers reach. Together, they make our acquisition engine, both very powerful and remarkably efficient. How do we make this happen? Before walking you through the 4 pillars of our marketing strategy, let me be clear about something. Marketing at Fineco is not a set of campaigns. It's one single system designed to optimize the full customer life cycle. The first pillar is brand. Our NPS, our Net Promoter Score is 44. This compares to an industry average of 19. Customer satisfaction sits at 96%. These are not vanity metrics. They translate directly into lower acquisition costs and higher retention rates. Second pillar is acquisition. We combine internal and external data with AI to reach the right audience at the right time at the right cost. This is the power of a value-based bidding. Third pillar, customer development. We use a fully integrated CRM and marketing platform to deliver personalized journeys across each client segment. This way, we turn value into a better understanding of the client and at the end, a higher lifetime value. Fourth, the human factor. Our advisers run roughly 1,400 events every year all over Italy, reaching more than 70,000 participants. And this is a marketing you cannot buy because it's based on relationships. So now the question becomes, this model actually improves over time or is it a one-off? The answer is clear, and you can see it in the numbers. Our digital cost per acquisition has dropped 64% since 2022. Minus 64% is still is not a one-off. It's operating leverage that builds over time. We're basically transforming scale into advantage and not into costs. And this is a fundamentally different equation from what you see in most financial institutions today. Coming to the bottom line, what all of this mean in economic terms? Every euro we invest in acquisition pays for itself in less than 12 months, and the value keeps growing from there. So this is why our growth model is structural, scalable, defensible. And ultimately, this is the return of building a brand instead of just running campaigns. Thank you. And Paolo, please join me back.

Yes. So let me -- first of all, thank you, Fabrizio. And let me reinforce one point. Marketing has been a fundamental part of Fineco since the very beginning. So it's not just a side function. It's not, as Fabrizio just told you, a set of tactics. It's one of the structural engines that shapes how this bank grows, communicates and build trust. And with that legacy behind, I think it's a perfect moment to launch our new TV campaign. Let's watch it. [Presentation]

So thank you all. This concludes our session. We will now have a coffee break, and then we will start again with Information Technology. Thank you very much. [Break]

Good morning, and welcome back. I'm going to walk you through the technology platform that underpins Fineco's multiyear plan and more importantly, the platform that will deliver it. So we have built over the years a platform that is one of the most efficient and effective in European banking. Well over 99.9% availability, a tiny fraction of 1 basis point for adverse events coming from fraud, cyber events, technology events, adverse events, I mean, 1.8 million customers served, over 400 million digital accesses per year and an IT cost to revenue ratio of just 6%. We'll come back later to that figure, quite important for us. This is the foundation. Of course, the next phase demands more. Artificial intelligence at enterprise scale, keeping our total cost of ownership for technology low under control, having the option to open our platform to European markets. And this challenge is real. We think we believe that we have the architecture, the capability and the credible plan to execute it. Here, you have an outside view or some figures regarding our platform. So 4 data centers between on-premises and cloud, over 1,800 servers under management, over 1,000 applications and so on. We have around 250 tech professionals in our department, managing all of this and with a low turnover, by the way. So the department is stable in that respect. We control -- we have a high level of control on our infrastructure and application landscape, close to 100%. And this is unusual in banking if you take a look at other banks. So I want to focus on this slide on the total cost of ownership for technology. So we like to do benchmarks, okay? So on the bottom left of the slide, you can see Fineco Bank total cost of ownership versus the Italian market. This data are related to midsized banks in Italy. So banking for Italy, midsized banks. And as you can see, in all categories, we have a clear advantage. Take IT cost to revenue ratio, for example, or even IT cash out over revenue. IT cash out means that we operating expenses, capital expenses, salaries and so on. So as you can see, we are 49% or 50% more cheaper than our competitors in this segment. This is for Italy, okay? But take a look at the bottom right side of the slide. This is a Gartner IT spending benchmark. Gartner is a renowned IT research company, as you all know, I guess. And basically, they score financial institutions using a kind of metrics in which they score with 2 indexes, the cost index and the value index, financial institutions all over the world, okay? So the panel we are comparing against here is a global one. hundreds of institutions coming from North America, for example, Canada, United States, South America, Europe, Asia and so on. Now as you can see from the data, let me comment on cost index. Cost index is basically how much you spend in technology, how much a financial institution spends in technology. Divided in categories like hardware, software applications, cloud outsourcing, whatever, departments, technology professionals, wages and so on. The value index on the Y-axis is basically how much business value you create by spending $1 in technology, okay? So as Gartner does every single time, they divide the world in 4 quadrants, okay, meaning that if you are here, for example, revenue efficient, basically, you are creating business value, but spending a bit too much in technology, okay? So you are spending much in technology, you are creating business value. That's fine in some context. If you are cost efficient, then you are spending in a good way, you are spending less than others, but you're not creating business value, okay? If you -- go back, please. Okay. If you go to the data here, you can see that we are placed here value for money quadrant, meaning that we cost less and we deliver more, okay? So if you take a direct look to the data, 2.36 for us in cost and 1.94 compared to the best peer of the panel. The panel is made up, as I said, by hundreds of financial institutions all over the world. So basically, this means that we are achieving business value by spending the money in the right way, okay? This is not -- by the way, this is the fourth year in a row that we achieved this kind of result from Gartner, okay? Next. Artificial intelligence. Well, this is a cornerstone of our multiyear plan. We see impact on 2 main dimensions here, revenue and client experience, of course. My colleagues before told you much about this. So tailored advisory, for example, AI-powered insights, intelligent onboarding, frictionless onboarding, for example, client life cycle and so on. Also, on the efficiency side and operating leverage, we are investing much in this. So process automation, of course, AI-assisted software development. I'm sure you -- lately, you have heard many, many things on this, okay? Announced the risk management process like fraud detection, like cybersecurity risk and so on can benefit from artificial intelligence, okay? And intelligent platform operations, of course. So our artificial intelligence program for the multiyear plan is structured in phases. We call those phases gates, okay? Gate 1 is the foundation. This is already complete. So we have now, as we speak, an internal AI team, a strong one, very skilled. The hybrid architecture, I'll come to that later, a governance framework in place, very important. And the literacy program for AI across the board for the bank, for the organization. So to spread knowledge, know-how, awareness, not just in technical people, but in all the bank, the organization. Gate 2, largely underway. We complete this before this year results. Regarding more technical stuff, machine learning pipelines, first agentic solution. We have, as we speak, agentic solutions in place and more will come in shortly in the next weeks or months. AI assisted development, I mentioned before. And then from 2027 and onwards, AI first operations and scale. Basically, from 2027, our aim is to scale artificial intelligence across the bank, okay? So not just a bunch of use cases here and there, but across the banks. So operations, compliance, risk management, technology and so on, okay? So very important, we measure artificial intelligence value with KPIs, okay? So those dimensions, cost saving or avoidance, of course, revenue impact and speed. So shortening time to market, for example, for the delivery of services. And the KPIs will help us in understanding if we are moving in the right direction or we need to adjust something, okay? This is our approach to artificial intelligence. Of course, artificial intelligence doesn't work without data. We all know that. So our position here is a good one because we have 1.8 million customers. And we collected data over the years for them, behavioral data, transaction data and so on. So as we are not using integrators or we are not using outsourcing, we can have a ready access to those data. We can collect, we can analyze, we can reach those data and build on top of those data, our artificial intelligence models internally, by the way, using, for example, open source models and then fine-tuning them on-prem, okay, with our own personnel. More important, we have what we call a kind of client data set model across all the business lines. So brokerage, investing, banking, of course, and others can benefit of the same data model, okay? So we can access data here and there independently from the business line, okay? This is not discounted in other banks where maybe they have silos, okay, with the silos here and there. Of course, this is quite important because the data basically represent the fuel for proprietary AI models, proprietary in terms that we are managing them. Hyperpersonalization, of course, next-generation fraud and risk intelligence, I mentioned before. So you can use artificial intelligence with the data you have to announce your models, for example. So you can combine a market solution for cybersecurity, combined with your own artificial intelligence model internally. And then the combination works very well, okay? We are just doing that in this period, for example, for fraud management. And then crucially, when we launch a new market, this is an option. Those AI models will be ready. We are not starting from scratch, from 0. So we will use the artificial intelligence model we have built with Italian customer data. We'll fine-tune those models to open new markets, having hopefully the same outcome we are having in Italy. Last but not least, in Europe, regulations are strong. So GDPR, data residency and so on are managed from scratch. They are built in as we are doing that in Italy right now. So in the future, for European markets, we won't have to start again over to put the GDPR requirements or data residency or ECB regulations on those markets because we are ready for that, okay? Hybrid architecture, I mentioned before. When much of the industry pursued cloud first years ago, we chose to have a hybrid model. What is a hybrid model? Hybrid model is a model for technology platform that works at the same time on-premises and in the cloud. So we have cloud. We do have cloud and our footprint will increase in the future, but we have a strong on-premises technology infrastructure. So let me do an example to clarify my point. Take trading engine. Trading engine, also called matching engine is at the heart of our internalization market, for example, brokerage, okay? This kind of solution requires at the same time, very low latency. And a predictable latency at the same time. So you need to be very fast, but also to predictable latency, meaning that this latency must move in a narrow range, okay? You can achieve, with difficulties sometimes, the first requirement, very low latency in the cloud. But you can't achieve in public cloud, a predictable latency. That's why we are running that engine on-prem in our own data centers. Go to the other side, elastic workloads. We have applications or solutions that benefit from having a large computing power available, but for, I don't know, a few hours a day, a few days a month, something like that. That's a perfect place in the cloud to put those applications on. Why? Because we can increase and shrinking the computing power we have in the cloud at will on a short notice, okay? So those kind of workloads we run in the cloud. So -- and then we have development and test environment in the cloud. We have a standard software as application service and the like. So the idea here is to say, okay, we have many workloads. Workloads are application basically. imagine take whatever you want, databases, final applications, applications for customers for internal use and so on. And then we can choose basically where to run those applications. And the best idea is to have the optionality to move those applications from on-prem to cloud and the other way around that we based on the market condition. Imagine next month, last example, Microsoft or Amazon or Google just raises the bill for their cloud infrastructure. If you are stuck in that kind of public service cloud, then you have to pay. We could move some of our workloads back to on-prem, even the elastic ones, okay? Next one. Okay. On resilience and trust. Basically, for a branchless digital bank like us, resilience and trust, cybersecurity are not just requirements, but our commercial assets we can sell basically, okay? So we are investing in -- on 3 main fronts. You can see on the slide, technology resilience. So making basically our technology more robust and secure. next-generation security operations, so adapting to new threats and malicious factors out there is a jungle, by the way, and post-quantum cryptography, post-quantum technology. Imagine quantum computing is an emerging technology. We all know that. But in a few years, that technology will break a bunch of traditional cybersecurity measures we have today, cryptography, first of all. Of course, this allows us to do what. We have low operational losses. So this means that our earnings are more predictable because if you have operational losses, basically, we have to pay customers or funds from the regulators, whatever, this will impact your, of course, earnings and proven resilience. So lower risk, of course, operational risk and client trust. So client trust can help in putting your churn rate for customers lower, of course, because a customer usually stays -- stays on a platform that he perceives like being reliable and secure, okay? Scaling for Europe. European expansion, as my colleagues told before, is a strategic option for us, okay? It's not a mandate, strategic option. Our platform is designed to unlock that option. So as you know, launching banking services across Europe is really complex. It's complex. You have different regulatory regime, local compliance, data sovereignty issues and the like, okay? Those challenges are not trivial. But this is what our architecture was designed for. First of all, our platform supports pan-European expansion natively. We don't need to rebuild it. We don't need a parallel technology stack to open new markets. And this new market then adds revenues faster than it adds cost. Our current regulatory readiness. As you know, Fineco is a bank regulated by ECB and because it's a significant bank. So ECB, Bank of Italy and the likes are already regulating us. So basically, we have a current regulatory readiness that will make things easier to be DORA-compliant, to be aligned to ECB requirements. We have already a robust cyber framework in place. So this will be a competitive advantage for us, okay, because we are ready in Italy, so we can be ready at the same time in Germany, say, or in France, just to give you an idea, the road map. In end of 2026, we'll have our infrastructure ready. We are planning to have a family and friends kind of testing. And then we should be ready to open in early 2027 in the market if the bank decides to do so. I'm talking to you from the technology standpoint, okay? Then I'm not talking about the business side. Alessandro can confirm this. Then from 2028 onwards, we'll have hopefully a proven playbook. And so the operational leverage here will accelerate, okay? Next one. This is an important slide, technology position, where we stand. Let me put in context all I said before. If you map European banks on a chart on 2 axis. So you have an axis about cost efficiency, X-axis. I think of the revenue, for example, you can take whatever ratio you want. And on the Y-axis, the full stack ownership. Full stack ownership in this context means how much of the technology chain a financial institution controls end to end, okay? So basically, it's a level of control of your own technology. We can usually place traditional midsized banks in the bottom right quadrant, meaning that they are expensive. Their cost, they are not efficient in technology costs, okay? And at the same time, they have a low control on their own technology because they are starting to vendors, for example, outsourcing for the infrastructure and also, in many cases, also for applications. And so they are there, okay? If you take large universal banks, they are, believe it or not, more efficient than midsized banks. So because they have economies of scale, they have -- basically, they have large revenues, okay? So if you take a ratio like that, you are spending technology, but your revenues are high. So they are more efficient in terms of cost compared to traditional midsize. However, their level of control on technology is low. Why? First, because they have complex infrastructure and applications landscape environment, okay? It's a mess, first of all. Second, they are damaged, if you like, somehow by a massive amount of legacy systems they are trying to transform, okay? This is a problem for them. So level of control, not so good. Then we have digital challengers. They control much of their technology, more than you expect, but they are expensive. They are really expensive. So they spend more than us, no question about this. Then we have Fineco Bank. We are in the bottom left in our opinion, because we -- basically, on the cost efficiency, I told you before, the data are there. So you can just check them out. IT cost to revenues and so on. But also, we control a large part of our technological stack, close to 100% for infrastructure, for example. And most core applications are managed or even built in-house, okay? So this is a happy combination. It's a powerful quadrant to operate from because you can choose what you will do in the future. So we are required to give artificial intelligence at scale and operating leverage and a solid rock solid, hopefully, resilience. And let me tell this. If you don't own your stock, technological stack, you can't move fast. No question. If your cost base is already high now, then you can't promise that cost base will stay flat in the future with higher volumes. We can make both promises on this. Last slide. Over the plan, we have a plan, 4 main things will happen in parallel. First of all, AI moving from foundation to integration and then to scale, okay? In the slide for AI, I told you our approach in multiphase approach, okay? Operating leverage. Operating leverage means that our cost base for technology stays flat. Why? Volumes go up. Third, Resiliency & Cyber. Our resilience must stay high. We are working on that. Even if, as I told you before, our current operational losses for adverse events in cyber or fraud or technology events is just a small fraction of 1 basis point, okay? So it's very low, among the best in Europe. But we are investing on that because the threat landscape is an ever-changing place. And also you have also new kind of threats coming from artificial intelligence, for example, are emerging and so on. So we're investing in that. And then European expansion, of course, I mentioned our aim is to be ready to open new markets when the bank decides to do so. okay. So what we have in 2029 at the end of the plan. First, an AI first across the bank, first approach across the bank. So we will design not processes to be more efficient using AI, but we design processes to use AI first and then use human if needed, okay? So this is an approach -- a strong approach on this. Agentic solutions at scale, of course. We hope our TCO will stay flat, flat or increasing at a moderate rate compared to revenues, for example, with higher volumes. Post-quantum ready, I mentioned this before, and then be open to entering new markets if needed. So this is the last slide, and we have a claim over there, more clients, more markets, same cost engine, smarter every day. But I leave you -- telling you that we are starting from a good position, okay? That's a fact. Starting from a good position is better than starting behind, okay? So if you are a delay to recover, it's even more difficult, but we are starting from a good position. So this is -- this makes our plan more credible, if you like. So this is a technology engine behind our multiyear plan. Thank you. Now I leave the floor to Lorena Pelliciari, our beloved Chief Financial Officer.

Good morning, and thank you again for being here today. In this section, my aim is to give you a clear view of Fineco, looking at where we come from, the key strengths of our business and most importantly, where we are heading. Before going any further, we would like to show you a short video highlighting Fineco results since the IPO. Please. [Presentation]

As we have just seen, Fineco has constantly delivered robust growth confirming operating leverage. And the plan we are presenting today is firmly built on the same foundation with a clear focus on accelerating client acquisition and asset growth. Let's start from Slide 52 and focus on the key strength of Fineco business model. A distinguishing factor in the quality of our -- is the quality of our balance sheet, leading to sustainable and resilient revenues. Our liabilities are almost entirely represented by customer deposits with the cost of funding close to 0 to the nature of transactional liquidity. This is reflected in a net stable funding ratio above 400%, which is the highest in Europe. And this is why our deposits are intrinsically stable as they are led by the quality of our business proposition and not by tactical short-term aggressive offers on rates. This implies that when market conditions change, clients do not move away from the bank. They simply reallocate within the Fineco platform across asset under management or asset under custody products, confirming their engagement with our proposition. On the asset side, lending activity remains intentionally limited with a conservative risk profile because it is focused on our well-known clients. The vast majority of customer deposits are invested in low-risk assets, mainly European govies and supernational bonds. Looking ahead, we expect our balance sheet to grow driven by higher deposit net sales. We also expect an increase in Lombard lending, which is a very low risk and low collateralized business, closely connected with our brokerage and investing activities. Considering that more than 70% of our assets are invested in financial instruments, let me now move to our investment policy, which is built on 3 principles: First, diversification across European government bonds, supranational bonds and agencies. Second, safety with no use of speculative derivatives. And furthermore, our new investments are going to be mostly at a fixed rate, allowing us to decrease even more our interest rate sensitivity. Thirdly, shorter duration with new investments typically around a 3-year maturity, progressively reducing the average duration going forward below 2 years. These pillars sustain an industrially driven NII, resulting in a less volatile and more predictable interest income profile. In the annex, you can find the usual details about the existing portfolio. This will allow you to assess the opportunity we have from reinvestment yields as our existing portfolio progressively rolls off. So we have seen our investment strategy and our solid balance sheet. And these 2 elements translate into net interest income structurally different from that of a traditional banking system. Fineco benefits from highly sticky deposits with cost of funding close to 0, as already said, making even small banking clients profitable. In addition, low-risk financial assets -- the absence of corporate lending and limited credit exposure made our NII free from the credit charges that weigh on traditional lending-based models. Finally, NII growth is driven by client acquisition and deposits and not by increased risk taking. These features define the structurally higher quality and value profile of Fineco NII. With this framework in mind, let me now clarify why all our business areas are well positioned to sustain revenue growth through 2029. By integrating banking, brokerage and investing, all in one platform, Fineco benefits from a natural diversification that stabilizes results across market cycles. When market challenge one area of business, another tends to accelerate, thanks to the natural hedge that is embedded in our business model. This is clearly visible in the quarterly net profit trend, which shows steadily increasing profitability with limited volatility across different market environments. Starting from banking, we have just discussed how NII guarantees a high quality and resilient contribution to revenues. In investing, our revenue mix is increasingly recurring and transparent. Management fees are supported by very low upfront fees, no performance fees and the growing share of advisory solutions with explicit fees. This model is fully aligned with long-term structural trends and with client demand for transparency and value for money. This approach leaves us in a better position to deal with the industry pressure on margins. In addition, we have still a lot of room to improve from Fineco Asset Management penetration into our value chain. Finally, brokerage. Brokerage continues to strengthen, driven by the increase of assets under custody. Over time, revenues are expected to naturally rise due to the correlation within assets under custody volumes. In addition to extract more value from the existing stock, we are launching all the initiatives that have been presented earlier by my colleagues. And now we'll turn to 2026, 2029 plan. Let me first focus on the key macro assumptions behind our outlook. For the purposes of our guidance, we have based our modeling on Moody's outlook for the European rates market. 3-year bond yields and Euribor 3 months are the key macro variables which impact our revenues, together with assets under management market performance. Of course, we don't control market, and that's why we are strongly focused on the execution of our initiatives and on what we can control, which are clients and net sales growth and our operating efficiency. Let's now move to our concrete guidance. As a preliminary comment, we will guide separately on pan-European platform because this is a greenfield development. Let's start with 2026, where we expect growth across all business areas. As you can see from the slide in detail, we expect net financial income to grow driven by more deposits. On investing, we expect a solid year-on-year increase of asset under management net sales. Brokerage should deliver another record year. Banking fees are predicted to be stable. Operating costs are expected to grow by approximately 6% in 2026, excluding around EUR 10 million of additional costs for our growth initiatives. The cost income is expected to remain comfortably below 30%. The cost of risk should be low between 5 and 10 basis points. Our payment ratio is expected in a range between 70% to 80% and our leverage ratio target will remain above 4.5%. Now I will move to 2029 guidance. Between 2021 and 2025, our net sales grew by a 6% compounded rate. Looking ahead and excluding the European platform, we expect net sales to grow at a low double-digit compound annual growth rate to 2029, also due to the growth initiatives explained earlier today. Total clients are also expected to accelerate from around 6% year-on-year to a low double-digit CAGR. This represents a clear acceleration of our growth trajectory, building on a client and asset base that has already expanded significantly over Fineco's evolution. As Alessandro said at the start, we believe we are at an inflection point, and these expectations reflect that confidence. Let's now move on to another key feature of our business model for the future, our operating leverage. Operating leverage has always been a structural advantage for Fineco. In the coming years, this advantage will expand further, supported by technology, particularly artificial intelligence. AI will reshape, we have seen before by Gianluca. AI will reshape the way the bank operates and streamline our internal processes. It will enhance service efficiency and automation across the organization, supporting the strong growth of our client base. As a result, we expect the increase of structural operating costs to gradually slow down from around 6% growth in 2026 to around 4% growth by 2029. The cost increase for growth initiatives excluding the European platform will peak in 2026 with around EUR 10 million, mainly related to AI, marketing, Fineco Asset Management. The cost for growth are then expected to increase by approximately EUR 5 million per year for the rest of the plan as our efficiency-related initiatives are progressively deployed. I will now focus on pan-European platform, a very promising growth option. We have projected to enter Europe with a proposition focused on brokerage and smart investing, a model that is even more capital-light than the one we have in Italy. We will address our expansion abroad with our usual pragmatic cost approach. First of all, we will leverage on our existing Italian infrastructure. Secondly, we will have limited additional fixed cost with direct setup cost of EUR 5 million in 2026. In the following years, we expect fixed cost in a range between EUR 5 million to EUR 10 million per year. Thirdly, variable costs are mainly represented by marketing expenses. And here, our approach will be progressive and pragmatic based on business results. The pan-European platform represents a valuable option with a limited capital requirement and the gradual buildup of profitability, leading to strong ROE over the medium term. broader business overview will be provided at launch as for commercial reasons, specific terms, pricing and the implementation plan cannot be disclosed in advance. Based on the macro assumption and the guidance which we have disclosed so far in our 2029 plan, we expect a clear step-up in growth driven by higher net sales, higher client acquisition and new revenue opportunities, and we expect improved operating efficiency supported by technology and scale. If we combine all our initiatives with the macro assumption outlined earlier, we expect to achieve a low double-digit EPS CAGR over the plan horizon. Low double-digit earnings per share is confirmed even including the fixed cost for the pan-European platform. Let me close with a few words on capital allocation. Our priorities remain unchanged. First, to maintain -- the first priority is to maintain the necessary levels of regulatory requirement and especially leverage ratio. I want to spend a few words on the leverage ratio because it is the key KPI on our capital management. The reason is simple. We have a very low risk profile and our risk-weighted assets are low relative to the size of our business. This explains why we have a CET1 ratio far exceeding regulatory requirements. In order to keep the leverage ratio above 4.5%, which is our management target, we operate with a structurally high CET1 ratio. The second priority in our capital allocation framework is to invest in accelerating the long-term profitable growth of our business. Much of today's presentation is focused on how we will do this. Thirdly, our strong organic capital generation allows us to target a regular and generous dividend with a payout ratio in the range of 70% to 80% throughout the plan. And finally, if we have excess capital, we will evaluate the best way to return it to our shareholders. As a final point, I would like to leave you with 3 messages. First, Fineco's financial profile is defined by quality with a natural hedged business model, delivering recurring, capital-light and industrially driven revenues. Second, we combine this growth profile with one of the strongest balance sheet and one of the strongest capital and liquidity position in the banking industry, ensuring resilience across market cycles. Thirdly, our plan to 2029 is focused on growth, execution and scalability while preserving a low-risk profile and delivering sustainable long-term value to our shareholders. This closes the financial section. Thank you for your attention. And now I leave the floor to Alessandro for his closing remarks.

Thank you, Lorena. So today, I think that we have been able to show how Fineco is perfectly aligned with the major forces reshaping our industry, AI disruption, generational wealth transfer and the consolidation of the traditional banking. Our model is built to capture these trends AI-powered banking, a future-proof investing platform, a brokerage engine that keeps gaining momentum and a more efficient cost base. All of this, combined with our unique positioning as an established disruptor is what moves Fineco confidently into its next cycle of growth. Fineco 29 is the bank of the future built today. Thank you for your attention. And now we can open the floor for the Q&A.

Everybody. I hope you found the morning a useful one. We are just now giving time a few seconds to our colleagues to arrange and set the stage for the Q&A session. As a reminder, people attending in person will have the opportunity to ask questions live, of course. And for those attending virtually, you will be able to write questions directly through the platform. So let me ask Alessandro, Lorena, Paolo, Fabio and Gianluca to join me on stage, please.

It's Enrico Bolzoni from JPMorgan. Thank you for the very useful event. I think the technological DNA of Fineco was clearer than ever. Just a few questions from me, please. So starting from the expansion abroad. You mentioned this fixed cost of between EUR 10 million and EUR 5 million every year. Can you maybe break down for us a bit what are these costs for in terms of is it setting up premises there? Or it would be just interesting to know what actually are you going to spend this money for? And also related to the expansion abroad, can you please clarify, will you launch simultaneously across the 3 countries or it's going to be country by country? Then I had a question on the adviser and AI, I guess. You showed these amazing tools that are quite impressive that should make the life of adviser much easier. Can you please clarify, number one, if these tools are already available to the adviser? And second, you mentioned the targeted improvement in productivity. But can you -- what are you doing to proactively stimulate this increase in productivity? Are you thinking about poking the adviser a bit and making sure that the time they save is then not spent for the personal time, but actually used to onboard more clients? And then just finally, a technical question on AI. It's great to know that you are vertically integrated and you can do most things in-house. Just my understanding, which is quite limited on AI is that these are very complex models. And you told us that wherever you are using in-house solution. And I think at some point, you mentioned open source models. Can you please elaborate a bit? I'm just curious to understand whether you are at all relying on third-party vendors for AI and how this relationship might change over time?

I think Paolo, if you want, you can start with the -- giving a little bit more of color on the cost breakdown on the expansion abroad and what we plan to do in terms of regions to target. So...

Yes. Basically, the costs are very low. They're related to the upgrade of the platform. So that's the biggest part that we have to do, we're working on. But it's -- again, it's a few money actually to evolve the platform and be ready to go abroad and in multiple countries. I go to the second question, if we launch simultaneously or not. The platform is going to be ready simultaneously at the pan-European level. So the structure is going to be ready since the startup at the pan-European level. But we are going to launch gradually. So we decided to launch first in Germany, which is the country we believe there is the biggest opportunity in terms of total assets and again, generational transfer, but also the fact that the banking system is not very, let's say, very efficient. And yes, so basically, I don't know if Lorena has a breakdown -- exact breakdown of the cost abroad, but is...

So the costs abroad are related partially to people that is dedicated to the business, to the development of the platform. And partially to the development to the improvement of the current platform that we have. And so they are disconnected by the volume -- for sure, by the volume and the number of customers.

Now jump through advisory productivity. So the answer is, yes, AI is already available in the hands of financial planners and more is expected to come mostly on the CRM side in order to make their interaction with their agenda, their clients even more efficient. And you're raising a very good point, how to make -- because typically, as I like to say, financial planners are not different by the human beings. So clearly. So typically -- so every human being tends to be a little bit lazy. So trying to achieve the highest possible results with the lowest possible effort. And so this is not going to -- AI is not going to change dramatically this approach. What is AI is changing that practically is what the bank is going to is to do more and more on their behalf, many of these, let me say, time-consuming, labor-intensive activity. And so making for them easier to achieve better results without changing their lifestyle, so what I mean. And so this is the way -- and clearly, the way to make them more engaged is throughout making them familiar. So the more clearly, they are going to keep on using, they are going to become -- they are realizing that it's a great -- is a great step forward. Probably, Paolo, you can confirm that the highest...

Yes on the -- also the -- which one is already live and which one is going to be live. Where are you? I don't see where -- I don't know where to look at. Okay. Sorry. And so the portfolio builder is already live. We launched the portfolio builder now 6 months ago, pretty much. And just to share with you, the adoption rate is quite impressive. So just after the launch, 90% after a few weeks, 90% of the financial adviser were using the portfolio builder to be faster and more precise and to hire the quality of their output for the clients. So this is the reality. This is today. What you've seen today is, one, the portfolio rebalancing, which is going to be live in April. So we're there. So pretty much almost online. The application, the CRM for the adviser, April, we target April also for this. And it will probably -- we need more time for the application, the first demo I showed you, probably we target the end of the year or a few months -- the first few months of the 2027. And -- but again, what we see now in terms of adoption and also the productivity that this kind of users are having, it's quite huge. I mean we are very happy with that. We monitor for the productivity, the number of proposals they do every day on their clients. And this is -- we have very good signals on this. And then we monitor also the opening account, and we monitor the -- all the operation they do on creating content, analyzing portfolio. And this also shows very good signs on those that are using this kind of tools. So it's pretty much -- we see very good signs and everything is going to be online in a few weeks. Almost everything, not everything.

Gianluca?

That was a good question. First of all, let me say that artificial intelligence is just not strictly related to GenAI, okay? So we are using machine learning models internally that are not using, say, ChatGPT or Anthropic or Claude or whatever. If we stay on GenAI models, our approach is this. First of all, we are using -- starting the use case, for example, for PFA or for prospect as I showed you before, using the reference for the market, say, an OpenAI model, say, ChatGPT or Google Gemini, okay, the best of the market. Then we start collecting data when the use case is in production, okay? So we are collecting data for financial advisers or for prospect. And those data are basically analyzed with key performance indicators and the like metrics, the level of satisfaction of the customers, if the model is reliable, if the model is precise in what is selling to customers and so on -- and the customers. So when we have the statistics and the model, then in parallel, we use an open source model. There are plenty, okay? There are multiple models. So this is a really dynamic environment out there. And then we feed the data to the open source model. And then we're fine-tuning that model, quite more manageable. Of course, we don't want to replace OpenAI or Anthropic. This would be ridiculous in those terms. But we are using not just a large language model, just to give you an idea, but also a small language model, okay, specific model. So they are smaller, faster, and we can run those models on our own servers. We acquired in 2025 servers with powered by GPUs from NVIDIA, for example, so we can run inference and training on those open source model on our own infrastructure, okay? When the performance of the open source model is comparable to the performance we obtained from OpenAI model, for example, then we switch, okay? That's the approach.

It's Andy Lowe from Citi. I wanted to ask on -- a little bit more color on 2 of the initiatives that you talked about in the slides. The first is securities lending. Could you just quantify your expectations for the utilization of that and also the yields that you could achieve on those balances? And then the second question is to do with the recurring fees from ETFs where you note that you've negotiated some fees from some providers. So again, if you could just quantify that, that would be really helpful. And you've mentioned fees with some providers. So should we expect that you should roll that out to other providers going forward?

Let me make a preliminary consideration on the enhancing initiatives. So first of all, clearly, we -- so the assumptions we made in embedding the impact of these initiatives in the guidance we gave, clearly has been characterized by a good sense level of cautiousness. So we -- because we don't want to sell a book of dreams. And so clearly, there is -- and so we -- by definition, when we are entering in a new dimension in a new landscape, the definition, you have to keep a little bit of cautiousness in what we are doing. So this is a preliminary considerations that I think that it's important. And on securities lending, I think, Paolo, that you can try to give clearly some boundaries or some indications on some metrics that we can expect by securities lending, yes.

So the securities lending is something that we didn't exploit yet. So it's -- we started the securities lending many years ago, but just on a small part of our clients. So now we have $64 billion of assets under custody. And we have roughly 40% of the client they opted in to let us use their assets to -- for the securities lending. So considering that the clients are growing in a fast way and the assets under custody in the same way, they are growing very much. And the fact that we completely modernize the infrastructure that we use to operate the stock lending. So this will give us the possibility to use external counterparty in a very efficient way. So we can use our 40% of this EUR 64 billion, a part of this, not everything is available for -- is in demand in the market for stock lending, but a good part of that, we can use them to lend it to external counterparty, mainly institutional player. And this is something that is going to give us a quite interesting yield on the assets. So just to give you an idea, so there is a strong demand on -- also on ETF for stock lending. And we had some offer from counterparties lately offering us for some ETF. Of course, I'm talking about some ETF, not every ETF, but they're offering us -- they were offering us up to 75 basis points, which is -- it's a good -- very good number. So the more we grow, the more we have assets under custody, the more we have external counterparties to deal with and to do agreements with, now that we have the platform, the more we will generate revenues on this kind of business. Besides that, we still continue to lend money to our own clients because they -- we also operate stock lending for clients. They want to use the short selling services on the margin trading. So -- and this is, of course, is a business it's even higher in terms of revenues and margin. So internal margin with clients are higher, but volume is smaller. With external counterparties, volumes are much bigger, but margin a little bit smaller. So this is pretty much...

Probably it's worth the case to mention also that, for example, if we make a comparison with the German world, clearly, it's the process of onboarding clients in entering in because you have to get the permission by your clients in order to in order to lend their stock, the process of getting the permission by the clients, for example, is much easier than in Germany because it can be managed purely in a digital way, so not using paper like in Germany. So this means that also we expect also an adoption rate that is going to keep on building up and growing. So it's -- and so yes, it's a great deal. On recurring fees on ETFs, just as a reminder, so in order to going throughout the -- why the ETFs it's a great word in terms of generating revenues because, number one, ETFs clearly are not characterized by a pure buy and hold strategy by clients, but clients are actively managing their ETFs position. So this means that the more ETFs you are building up on the platform and the more you can expect that this is going to fuel growing revenues generated by brokerage. This is the reason why we are so positive on the evolution on the revenues on the brokerage side. Second, there is the platform fees. I think Paolo, [indiscernible] how everything has been finalized.

Yes. We're going to be finalized and ready by half of this year, so by June. We selected the preferred partners. And it's going to be -- there are going to be agreements with a short in time. I mean, probably every 2 years, every year or every 2 years, we will renegotiate. And this is something that is going to help us to exploit a part of the value that we see in the ETF world. As I showed in the presentation, there are multiple source of revenues on ETFs. This one is just one of them and very promising, but it's just one. Then the fact that ETFs are, as a matter of fact, are also a trading product. So people, they use ETF to trade. They move a lot. They go in and out. So we -- it's a very good source of commission on brokerage. Then we internalize ETF -- so the more ETFs we execute, the more revenues we will generate with our systematic internalization. And then there is the Auto-FX, of course, ETFs that are denominated in U.S. dollar or some other currencies. This is another source of revenues. And yes, there is a very promising asset class.

And without mentioning that it is a gigantic as we explained during the presentation, is gigantic entrance gate in the platform because this is what is making -- because what is very important to underlining is the unique positioning because what we mean -- so because if you want to get an efficient, convenient service on ETFs world provided by a large credible and trusted organization, in Italy, there is just one place in which you can move that is Fineco. We are in control more or less of nearly 70% of the retail flows on ETFs. And so this means that thanks to the nature of our platform when the clients are entering and usually, they tend to do also something else, just for example, the banking activities and so on. So it's incredibly important. So ETF is an incredibly huge opportunity for us and it is a very rich product.

And then it's an fantastic entry product, both for clients that are using directly the platform or client using -- they have a relationship with the financial plan because in the video, in the interviews that we saw today, we watched today, the majority of our financial plan use fee-based model, so the transparent fee. And so they can use either ETF or under custody or active funds or bonds, govies, whatever they think is the best asset allocation possible for the risk profile of their clients. And ETFs are playing a big role also in this because it's -- they use ETF as an entry product.

Which is the reason why the traditional players are shy in promoting ETFs for a very simple reason because if you don't have the right infrastructure, clearly, you cannot exploit all the values attached. But more importantly, ETFs clearly can be a gigantic line of you also on the investing, assuming that you have a business model characterized by an advisory platform where the client is paying an advisory fee, very transparent. So clearly, in this case, ETFs are working in a synergic way. But if you are just purely relying on a model based on inducement, clearly, ETFs is like [indiscernible] cannot stay there. And so this is the reason why traditional banks, traditional asset gatherers are absolutely against -- they are just giving these solutions to clients if they are really asked by the clients. And so this is, again, considering what's going on there, the gigantic opportunity, and we have the privilege to be the only one because it probably is the only region in Europe with there is just one that is positioned that way is great.

Elena Perini from Intesa Sanpaolo. I've got 3 questions. The first one is on margins for investing. So you are mentioning the fact that FUM weight will increase in comparison from now. And so I would like you to add a bit more color on the trend in margins because on the other hand, you also have the increase of the weight of ETFs, which can be dilutive in terms of margins, but also in this, you have FM on this product. The second question is more on how to model your costs because I was wondering which starting point shall we take for the 6% year-on-year growth and then down to 4%. So the starting point is, in my view, the EUR 350 million that you had in 2025, excluding the one-off costs, okay? And then -- well, finally, I was wondering about your business trends in February about investing and brokerage. And now how have you opened this new months with its new challenges?

So let me start by the investing margins. As we are always explaining. I think that we -- I'm not telling to you anything strange and brand new. So the investing world is expected to keep on facing pressure on margins. I think that we are in the same boat with many of you. And -- but having said that, clearly, Fineco is in a much better position than the industry for several reasons. The first one, clearly that considering that Fineco has been always characterized by being positioned as an efficient, transparent and convenient player. Clearly, we are -- our starting point is more manageable than the starting point of some other players. So clearly, if you have -- I'm going throughout some of the plans presented recently by traditional banks that as a cornerstone insurance wrappers that are, for example, unit-linked. On average in Italy, they are charging 350 basis points of running cost per year. It's clear that the more -- it's going to be a little bit more difficult to convince the clients that is the right pricing. So our starting point clearly is much better. Second, there is for sure, as you were mentioning, Fineco Asset Management is going to keep on giving a great contribution because as Fabio has very clearly underlined, we don't have a model in which we are forcing financial plan asset clients in moving in Fineco Asset Management. Fineco Asset Management has to fight in order to get the attention. And Fineco Asset Management is -- which are the main point of strength of Fineco Asset Management. Number one, incredibly fast and reactive in supporting emerging needs and the interest by financial planners and clients. And then as Fabio was saying, the time to market is incredible because just 5 weeks from an idea to a living product, it's -- and so this means that they are able to be always and step ahead of the market. So they are able to bring to the financial planners and clients something that is not available yet on the market. And so this means that we can, at the same time, remaining an open architecture, the broadest open architecture operating in Italy. But at the same time, with Fineco Asset Management, keeping on increasing the penetration of the market share. So we think that probably reaching a penetration of close in the region of 50% makes sense without changing our approach. And this is going to help in sustaining the margins because clearly, not because we are making clients paying more, but because we are in better control of the value chain. So this more or less is the picture. But in any case, the ETFs are not necessarily dilutive because the most part of the ETFs used by our financial planners are used in the advisory platforms. So at the end of the story, it's not such as dilutive. And in any case -- so the pressure on margins is there. We cannot -- nobody can deny that it's there. Fineco is in a much better position than the market. And finally, in any case, when we are -- for us, what is important is the trajectory of the growth of the revenues generated by investing. So that is a combination of volumes and margins. So it's on the -- yes, on the cost, I think, Lorena, you can confirm that.

Yes, it's correct. So for the modeling, you can start from the cost -- 2025 cost, EUR 356 million to add the 6% growth related to the structural operating cost and add the increase in the cost related to the growth initiatives.

Regarding the February trends, I'm sure that Lorena, she's not going to be happy because I'm giving a little bit more in anticipation...

You can't, you can't.

I can't. But yes, I can give some color, please. So the numbers are really, really great. We are on the border. I'm not saying the precise number. They are great numbers. And regarding -- so also the point was on what's going on. So as you can imagine, clearly, if you put together, the continuous growth of the base of clients, the traction of the brokerage platform and so on, clearly, the this volatility the brokerage numbers in this moment are absolutely really great as well. Yes, I can confirm.

This is Christiana Holstein from Bank of America. I have 3 of them. So my first one is on the multiyear guidance. So from my understanding, you have included the costs for Germany, but not revenue. So I just wanted to see from your perspective, how much upside potential that could be? And then how do you also think of the timing for such a substantial uplift in guidance as well? Do you think it will be more back-ended when that growth will come through? My second question is just on the Germany expansion. So you highlighted previously that marketing and word of mouth are also both very important for the business. I assume you won't have such strong word-of-mouth benefits for Germany given it's a new market. And your costs are quite low for Germany and doesn't seem like you have a whole lot associated for marketing. So just wondering how you're thinking about growing your share there in customer acquisition? And then my third question was on AI. So you mentioned that it will improve price transparency and also expose or highlight that a lot of the other funds charge higher fees and performance fees. Do you expect across Italy then that it will create some margin pressure or fee pressure and competitors will lower fees? And do you think that could also flow through to Fineco?

So let me start then Paolo will leave you the -- so -- but on the cost on Germany, just in order to clarify. So the message that we want to transfer on Germany that is a kind of free option that we have on the table. Everything is there. Then clearly, the approach in terms of what we want to -- we are going to spend in terms of marketing and so on is going to be completely in our hands and it's going to be related by the progressively feedback we are going to receive by the market. So -- and on the lack of word of mouth and how we think that we can be effective despite that clearly, we are completely unknown in German. So Paolo, if you want to.

Yes, you're right. I mean we can count on word of mouth since day 1. I mean you need a critical mass to kick in the word of mouth. But we think that for sure, we will have a unique proposition. So it's going to be a very peculiar commercial offering. I can reveal right now what it's going to be. It's going to be -- we're going to be not a neo-bank or neo-broker, a significant bank. We're going to have a level of service very, very high. And the combination of all these 3 things, we think will accelerate the critical mass from where we can use the word of mouth. Besides that, of course, we will spend some money on marketing for sure. But we're not talking about $100 million of expenditure in marketing. So it's a mix. Some marketing done in a very, I would say, in an intelligent way, the way Fabrizio explained it before. So I was very -- I tried to transfer you that marketing is very important because we have a very strong knowledge in marketing. We know how to do marketing, digital marketing. We already have the platform in Italy, and we can use it pretty much everywhere. I mean the marketing is pretty much the same in terms of logic, in terms of digital marketing. So the combination of this, very strong on knowledge and marketing, using the very unique proposition, the combination of the 3 pieces I just mentioned, I think we can reach the critical mass pretty -- in a very fast mode. And then from there, of course, we will have another engine to adapt to the growth.

So the more distinctive is the proposition and the easier is going to be the process. And clearly, as we explained, we think that clearly offering to clients kind of the holy grail that is to give an absolutely amazing level of convenience similar to what is offered by the challengers with an absolutely amazing quality of services is a very good starting point, and this is going to make our life much easier. And on the transparency, we mentioned before that this is going to be one of the main impact that AI is going to cause in the market because clearly, AI now is pervasive. So everyone is -- nobody is now anymore using the search engines in using the AI for everything so on. And so clearly, this is going to put -- we don't need to be genius. It's going to be put and continuously growing accelerating pressure on business model based on clearly completely unfair and unsustainable practices and pricing. So personally speaking, I'm convinced that the market is completely -- is making a huge mistake. It's using the same metrics of the past. So the typical [indiscernible] that I'm listening by some of my colleagues is, come on, the clients have been keeping on behaving this way over the last 20 years for which reason they have to change now. But now I think that we are talking about that we are living in a completely different world. So this -- and so we think it's going to happen much more rapidly. And in any case, the evidence we have because the numbers that we are experiencing in terms of commercial results are really confirming this because our numbers have been absolutely amazing, not just by February, but several months and so on. So clearly, this -- and Italy is characterized by a situation that it's a little bit out of scale in terms of what is proposed to clients because clearly, it's among -- probably is among the 3, 4 most expensive markets in the world. We have market practices that we know. We have commercial banks that now they have nearly 40% of their investing revenues that are driven by upfront fees, totally unsustainable, clearly. So it's -- and so clearly, AI is going to make a mess of this. And for us, it's the best possible news.

If I can add, it's also just to give you more color on AI. Our financial planners are already using massively AI and building portfolios, but most of all to compare portfolios of clients they have maybe outside in the traditional banking system or in other banks, it's very easy to compare portfolios and or to analyze portfolios and create a commercial pitch to say, look, you pay this, these are your performances. And it's very easy to highlight what are the weak points of the portfolio, and this is already happening. So this is something that is live. One of the most used services in the platform is exactly this one, so the comparison. So they drop in portfolios from other banks and they just -- they're very efficient in explaining the client why maybe their allocation is not efficient 100% in terms of costs or performances. So it's a reality.

Because, again, the typical narrative is, okay, the clients are paying 350 basis points of total expense ratio because they are so happy of the service are receiving by the others that they are paying, they are happy to pay. But this is not true. The clients are paying 350 basis points because they don't know how much they are paying. And so AI is going to be -- it's just right now, it's incredibly easy for our financial planners to approach and prospect clients or also clients we have in the bank because we are increasing the share of wallet. And so it's the easiest way to get attention of clients that come on to that.

Alberto Villa, Intermonte. I have 3 questions. One is on the -- something that I asked many times during the results maybe in the Capital Market Day, there will be more time to deep dive that is the impact of the advanced advisory fees on the model. There was a slide, Slide #21 that was explaining how fast you are growing in this business. So how should we model it looking at your plan to 2029 in terms of contribution coming from advanced advisory fees, how much you are charging? How does it work basically? If you can give us some color on that, it would be very useful. The second question is on capital remuneration. We have the cart of the excess capital being distributed that is probably postponed. Is it fair to assume that this is not going to happen before the end of the plan due to the fact that you are growing so fast in terms of total financial assets. And so you prefer, as usual, to keep the buffer of capital to sustain your growth going forward? And finally, on -- I would think about the growth in total financial assets. How should we look at the composition of this? Is it mostly coming from existing clients, new clients, a mix of the 2, 50-50 or something like that?

So let me start on the impact of advanced advisory fees. So first of all, if the point is which kind of impact we can expect in terms of on margins, we don't expect any significant impact because clearly what we are offering is pretty much aligned with the -- what we are doing in using other solutions. So clearly, the biggest impact of the advisory fees model is going to accelerate probably the speed at which we are going to gain market share because clearly, it's a model that is transferring to clients transparency. And clearly, again, AI is clearly moving more and more the clients in that kind of landscape. And so clearly, this is going to be there. So in terms of margins, honestly speaking, we don't see any significant difference between what we are doing there, we are doing. And what is important on the advisory model, the advisory model is important because it can play a big role in accelerating our gain of market share because, again, the system is still stuck in approach in which transparency is not there because again, the pure inducement approach is an approach that is clearly the aim of this approach is to hide the highs of the clients exactly what is paying. So this is there. On the capital remuneration, the point is -- so Fineco is a growth story. So I want to be very clear on this point. So it's not a dividend stock, something like that because if someone is interested in picking up the stock with the possible highest possible dividend yields, clearly, this is not the stock to buy because it's a growth stock that at the same time is distributing very generous dividend, generating -- keeping on generating a significant amount of organic capital. And clearly, being a growth stock means that you have to be, let me say, cautious because clearly -- and now I'm going to make another consideration that I'm sure that is not going to make my CFO happy. Because clearly, because if you ask me to meet personally, this is not -- now it's not the point of view of the company. This is my very personal point of view. Clearly, I'm much more positive. So I think that considering the positioning and what is the landscape, the opportunity we have, clearly, I'm going to be -- let me put it this way, I would be very disappointed if we are not going to do more than we are presenting because clearly, the opportunity is so incredible, huge and so on, clearly. And in what we are presenting, there is just -- I was making calculation just a modest increase of our market share of an additional 1%. I have difficulties in thinking that with this kind of position, this is just -- but when we are presenting a plan, clearly, you have to keep your feet on earth. Otherwise, the market thinks that you are selling a book of dreams, and we don't -- we want to do that. But clearly, it's -- and so clearly, it's -- we don't need to rush in giving back capital when the opportunity for growing is so enormous. So clearly, it would be absolutely crazy. So the rush in distributing capital is fine if you are a traditional bank that is not growing, keeping on losing market share, keeping on squeezing clients. So this makes sense, but not for us. And regarding the growth, at the moment, the growth is more or less 65% that is the growth in terms of total financial assets is driven by the existing clients -- by the new clients and the remaining part of the existing clients because clearly, we are keeping on gaining steam in getting -- in increasing the share of wallet of the existing clients because particularly in the upper end, because when you have in front of you a rich client, typically is a client that has more banks, is banking with more banks. And clearly, the more they are realizing the difference between us and the system, clearly, this is making us gaining additional share of wallet. Sometimes the share of wallet is just happening throughout the generation of transfer. Because the new generation that is taking the helm of the portfolio is, but probably it's better I move everything there. So 65, new clients and the remaining part of the existing clients.

New clients considering the client acquired in the current year and also in the previous year considered clients after 1 year of life.

It's Ian White from Autonomous. Two questions, please, both on AI. Firstly, thank you for the detail in the presentations around functionality that you intend to introduce or are introducing. Can you help us to think about the degree to which these are really idiosyncratic innovations that will help to differentiate Fineco even more from competitors over the coming years as opposed to reflective of general industry trends towards more technology, more sophisticated solutions, I guess, sort of table stakes for want of a better term, that the whole industry will roll out. So that's question one. Question two, can you comment a bit about the stability and stickiness of your deposit base in an AI world? Will we see a lot more optimization from clients on the cash deposit side?

So before leaving the floor to Gianluca, just -- I make a preliminary comment on the first question. And please, Gianluca, if I'm going to say something that is horrendously wrong, please jump in. So it's clear that for sure, we are not here for presenting -- we are not presenting the case of making something that is strange. We are not -- our aim is not to get a novel price for innovation in what we are doing. What is a very important element that we are in an absolutely great position because everybody is talking about AI. But for example, as Gianluca has shown very clearly the possibility to get easily high-quality data is the preconditions. The same story if you can work on this data and so on. And so this, in my opinion, is much more a matter of who is going to be really in the position to make things and to transform this is something that makes sense and who is not. But Gianluca, you are in a much better position than me for elaborating.

If we stick on our AI program, for example, we start in a good position, as I said before, okay? So we have full access to data. We don't have any major outsourcer. And this means that we can implement our AI program in a faster and cheaper way, okay? So first of all. Second, our ambition for 2029, for example, but in an incremental way, so not just in 2021, but also in 2028, part in 2027 is to fully redesign processes inside the bank. So I'm not talking to you about our use cases for customers or for financial advisers. This is a topic for my colleagues here. But what we are doing is just basically rethinking on how Fineco works from the internal, okay? So this is ambitious, but we are not here to say, okay, we just implement, I don't know, a bunch of use cases, very visible, maybe on the market or whatever and to lay off people somehow. No. We are redesigning the bank, okay, with a view that is AI-centric, okay? We are already starting that roadmap. It will be not this year, maybe we'll see in 2027, some of this effect. And then in 2028 and 2029, we'll be much more there, okay? So the idea is not to use AI to be more efficient, say, but to think the bank in terms of AI. okay? That's very ambitious, I know. But our position is a good one because as I told before, we don't need to ask anybody to do that, okay? So we have the data, we have the internal infrastructure. We have skilled people internally. So we can go to, of course, to some vendors, integrators, whatever, but we'll have a full control on our AI program, okay? So we'll focus on high-impact use cases, for example, in terms of efficiency or in terms of revenues, okay? I don't know if I...

On stability and stickiness of the deposit base, this is quite -- is a recurring topic. So first of all, let me start by -- first of all, let me start by a more general comment on this point. So it's AI so it's -- using AI for optimizing the way clients are using deposits, honestly speaking, I think that is a little bit misplaced activity because it's something that is done by many years. So it's many years that are existing engines that they are trying to explain to clients where he is the best place to put that money and so on. So it's not a particularly sophisticated topic. So we -- I don't think that AI is going to add much more. So this generally speaking. Second, and now coming back more directly to the specific case of Fineco. Fineco as we explained, as a business model that is based on the idea that we are not attracting clients using shortcuts, strange offers and something like that. The clients are opening accounts with us because they want to use our platform. And when a client is using a platform, technically speaking, is leaving on the platform, what we call the transactional liquidity is the liquidity that everybody of us we have on the current account we are using for the day-by-day life. Nobody -- it's impossible to keep a current account perfectly at 0 is the transactional liquidity that is kept by the brokerage clients on the platform because they need to have immediately available liquidity for taking the marketing opportunities. And clearly, this liquidity is not chasing the rates because, first of all, it's small. The median -- and so just some numbers. Because in our world, it's just a matter of numbers. So we can -- so the median deposits of our clients is EUR 4,500. It's clear that -- so for which reason someone has to try and see. It's clear that theoretically, you can say I keep my current account, not EUR 4,500, but EUR 2,000 because I can get more. Come on, who is doing that. So it's impossible. Second, the expected stability of the deposits, we are really -- we have the privilege of being under the supervision on an extremely efficient central bank. So what the ratio that Lorena was mentioning, the net stable funding ratio in a bank like us that we have our liabilities are just represented our deposits is practically measuring that is the expected stability of deposits. And the fact that Fineco has the highest net stable funding ratio among the European banks is telling the full story. So it's -- so this is -- so it's clear that if you are sit on a base of deposits that is deposit that has been built throughout offering of term deposits and competing with the market, trying to offer rates, this clearly, by definition, completely unstable. And so we think that artificial intelligence is not going to change anything from that point of view. Our -- the stability of our deposits are going to remain rock solid and the base of our financial income.

Transactional liquidity from banking and from brokerage. Both.

Yes. Just to tell you, I'm also very interested in looking to the -- when there are the presentation of results of the other brokerage platforms, particularly U.S. because U.S., they are. And at the end of the story, I went through the numbers of, for example, Robinhood, their plans. So the plans of Robinhood, everything is based on what they expect to grow in terms of transactional liquidity to their clients. This is great. So it's -- for sure, you're right. Same story when they're looking to interact with brokers. 65% of their revenues are represented by financial income, again, and the market is right in considering this valuable. Probably where he is a little bit wrong when he's considering our liquidity as a poor business because when I'm going throughout some numbers on the sales side, usually, this financial income is treated with a very low multiple, the same multiple of the traditional banks, but Lorena has been quite effective in explaining the difference. But yes, our deposit base is incredibly value and really, really incredibly rock solid.

It's Marco Nicolai from Jefferies. It's a -- first question is just a follow-up on the international expansion. I'm here. So I just wanted to make sure like what do you include in terms of revenues in this business plan from the international expansion. My understanding is that you don't include revenues of it, but you do include the costs. And so the follow-up on this is essentially, when do you expect this to be EPS accretive to your business? Like when do you expect this -- the revenues from this to go above this EUR 5 million to EUR 10 million fixed cost? So is it going to be within this business plan?

Usual? For sure, yes. for sure, yes, this is the case. And clearly, when we are measuring what's going on in a business like that, for us, what is typically is important when you have the moment in which the revenues are exceeding the operational industrial margins. And clearly, this can -- considering the -- this is the reason why we are continuously stressing the point that the huge operational leverage, the fixed cost we have for running the platform are so small that to reach a positive industrial marginal positive contribution is going to be extremely easy. So because we are talking about really very few money. So it's -- yes, this is the great advantage we have. So it's something that can achieve very easily and gross operating margins positive relatively in a short period of time.

And then perhaps another question on the crypto. Mr. Di Grazia mentioned quickly the initiative -- also this initiative before. Any updates there? I understand now perhaps speaking about crypto is not appealing given that Bitcoin is under pressure. But I guess these things move in cycle, right? So you've got to be ready for the next up cycle. And so perhaps this is the right moment kind of to prepare your infrastructure. What you're doing on that front?

Yes, you're totally right. I mean it's a gap that we have right now, but not because we want it, it's because we cannot do it until we have the green light from our regulators. So we're in talks. We have a clear idea of the infrastructure. We have a clear idea of the commercial proposition. We have everything in place. So -- and I think the day we will have -- if we will have the green light, we will be very, very fast in implementing it. But for sure, in the future, I see this world in the platform. I mean it's something that is evolving. Maybe it's going to become something also different from now. But for sure, you will see tokens, maybe not crypto tokens, but tokens on -- for sure, on equities or bonds. So we need to be ready on the technological point of view. And we're studying how to evolve, how to create an ecosystem for the tokens -- so this is a very important point. And it's going to be -- at least on the token side, it's going to be mandatory or you in or you out. I mean it's -- the world is going in that direction for sure, 100%.

Paola Sabbione, Barclays. I have a couple of questions. One is on your new client segmentation. It seems that there is obviously a new offer, for example, on the current account for the younger generation. And I wanted to ask if you have a specific marketing campaign or marketing tool, maybe digital tool that you're using for this cluster of clients with clearly a long-term ambition to capture them more and more. And then another set of questions on the financial advisers. I wanted to ask if you think your AI-powered tool for financial planners can be a distinctive factor, maybe helping you even in hiring them versus the competitors. And still on the competition, we have seen the banks, so not necessarily asset gathers, but really the banks planning, targeting new network of financial advisers, they want to hire more, even the 2 main largest Italian banks. So do you see this as a threat or maybe as an opportunity creating more professionals to hire yourself?

Yes. On the new client segmentation, we just started the new offering. We launched a new offering a few weeks ago. And you can already see how the new clients are positioning. So for sure, the biggest part is on the free account, the one, and then we will have a split from the classic one, the 395 per month and the max one. But this is crucial for us because it helps us to better segment the clients in the sense that we are very strong in acquiring both private banking clients and on the other side, let's say, mass affluent or also mass clients, so very young clients. So they both want the same thing. They both want a platform that works. They want to pay the right amount of money. They want efficiency, they want transparency, but they're totally different. One is the a few money and the other one, the big amount of money. But we think it's very important for us because the youngest one is the future. So without the youngster, the future -- there is no future. So it's better to think about it now. And so we want to be very aggressive on this. And we will have in this segment many, many headcounts, but fewer assets in terms of probably cash. We will have benefits on brokerage, a huge benefit on brokerage. And on the other side, private banking clients, I mean, it's quite clear where you have the advantages. So I think the new offering is going to work very well. The combination of a mass market account that is going to compete with the new banks. Actually, if you do like a comparison now, our account fee with a new bank account, I mean, there's no match. I mean, we are so much better. So we are a significant bank. We are very solid and then all the other things. And on the private banking side, it's very difficult to match our offer because, again, we are 100% digital, but with a physical touch, if you want to have a physical touch. And if you have money, you want to have a physical touch. And I don't think it's going to change in the future. So I see a future where financial adviser, they use AI massively for clients, they have money for private banking clients. So just to say that the new offering is just the right balance to get every single segment of the client we aim for, we go for, for the next -- not 3 years, but probably 5, 10 years from now. In terms of marketing campaign, we do a lot of marketing campaign. Again, we have a fantastic marketing platform, 100% proprietary. So we have the know-how in-house, and we are very good at targeting and performing digital campaigns, performer marketing. Usually, we pay what we get. So we don't just say we spend $1 million, and we don't know what is going to come back. So if we spend $1 million, we know we spend because we gather our cash or brokerage activities. Anyway, we pay for what we get. So this is very smart and very efficient. And with the platform campaign, we target all different targets. So from -- again, from a private client to mass and mass affluent. And private banking clients are very interesting right now because the majority of the private clients are going to -- are connected to a financial planner. But we have a significant number that is growing of clients, private banking clients that start using by themselves the platform. And eventually, they will use them the financial adviser. And it's something that is all combined, it's a very bright future in our opinion.

A quick comment on the -- what's going on in the financial planners world, AI tools. For sure, the AI tools we have in place, we are implementing on our network are going to make clearly, for sure, much more productive in the network, but it's going to make, for example, easier to take on board new financial plan -- the financial plan of the new generation. So because now -- and this is a very important topic because the industry has been until so far and still it is very shortsighted because it has been an industry that not investing on the young generation and talking about financial planners is an industry characterizing a significant high level and high age. And because for a very simple reason because the industry has been much preferred to take the shortcut hiring seasoned financial planners, overpaying them. Clearly, this has made easier to get immediately the impact in terms of total financial assets because they are just paying and so on. But clearly, this is creating a significant problem ahead because the more you have your network hedging and the more it's going to become difficult to stay on the market. And clearly, Fineco has been characterized by many years, have been extremely active there in investing on the new generation. And the new generation clearly are thinking and acting -- during the video, there was the young guys. They are just thinking and acting using this new approach based on technology, artificial intelligence, combining together efficient assets and so on. And so clearly, this -- on the other side, unfortunately, the industry is keeping on reiterating the hold in my opinion, bad habits of keeping on playing the game of overpaying seasonal financial planners for convincing them in joining them, but this clearly is a losing game because it's a vicious cycle because clearly, when a financial planning is hired through a huge payment, clearly, this at the end of the story is paid by the clients because we are not talking about charitable organizations. So the more they pay and the more they are asking for their clients to pay. So and this clearly is not working in this kind of world. And we are not playing that kind of game clearly. But our numbers are very clear. If we look to the net sales of our financial planners network, more than 90% is generated organically by the existing financial planners and just less than 10% by financial planners recruited over the last 24 months. We have an organization in which the weight of the recruiting is in excess of 50% and clear is. But this is a word that we don't want to have anything in common with that.

On the hiring, using AI for the hiring of the financial planner, it's a huge advantage, just a huge advantage. We don't have to show you also a demo, a live demo of the Met, the platform that are using our financial planner, but it's something that doesn't exist in the market. So we use the technology to hire, especially young financial planners. So a young financial planner wants to use the technology. The old-fashioned financial planner, I mean, it's totally different from what we have here, especially the new hire. So they want the technology. They want everything digital. They don't want to see paper, of course, we don't either. And this is already a big boost in hiring, but it's going to be better and better, and we're going to use it more and more as we release the new AI services. So it's -- again, it's a huge service, and it's a unique platform in Italy right now.

On banks targeting network financial planners, we have to make a kind of distinction because we have banks, but they are many years ago. They moved in the direction of offering to their employees a kind of a hybrid contract. So making them half an employee and half a financial planner. But this is not only speaking, is not efficient because if an employee has the commercial traction is someone that is perceived that is in the condition to get great results for which reason I have to stay by half. Who is remaining there is are the people that are not characterized by any significant commercial traction. In this case, it's not worth it. And then we have the other situation which we have some banks that have started an aggressive hiring of financial planners, but it's to say repeating all the old mistakes made in the past, overpaying them for making them. And so I'm not -- I don't want to repeat myself on this point, considering underestimating that it's not enough having financial planners on board, but you need to have a platform. You need to have an ecosystem in order to make them working because if they don't have the platform, it's completely -- it's a waste of money to hire a financial plan. And third mistake is to put together financial planners with branches. If you want to have the best way for experiencing a booming level of fraud and wrongdoings, put together financial planners with branches. So this is because you put the payment system together with who is in control of the relationship with clients is the [indiscernible].

Gian Ferrari, Mediobanca. Still on the network, if you can remind us how many new additions you are expecting per year from now to 2029. I think you're giving a base salary as a remuneration at the beginning. When is the switch from a salaried person to fully commission based? The second is on life insurance. I think we discussed in some calls the make or buy decision if to keep distributing third-party products of its time to leverage on FUM to manufacture yourself life insurance. There is nothing in the plan. I was wondering why you still go for the buy decision. Third is on protection, so P&C insurance. Don't you think a platform like yours is also probably useful or in the need of offering also this kind of products?

So in the plans, what...

[indiscernible] New senior and 120, 130 billion...

In case it is not a cornerstone of the plan. So just -- so we are not -- it's not a big driver of the numbers. Regarding the beginners and so on, I'm seeing there is our Head of HR. Marco, do you want to jump here to give some color in how does it work in terms of salary and so on? So excuse me for the short notice, Marco, but I know that you are extremely flexible. So...

First of all, we are hiring more or less 100 new personal financial adviser per year. That's more or less the number, and we will increase in the next year based on the multiyear plan. Regarding the payout...

Begin so how does it work? So the fixed salary...

Yes. In the first 2 years, they are receiving a fixed salary, and they are participating to the incentive plan. Starting from the third year, they are full financial adviser, so they are receiving the fees for what they are producing.

How much we are paying as a fixed salary in the new plan?

EUR 1,200 for the first year and EUR 1,000 for the second year.

Excuse me. Marco, on the insurance side, we know we are not planning to internalize anything because our volumes are not justifying such a kind of a move. We are not planning any kind of involvement of Fineco Asset Management there. And on the other side, we think that we have still some room for making what we are doing there more efficient. But clearly, in any case -- and on the -- I think on the latest point, insurance power because...

Yes, it's something that makes totally sense. And we always -- it's one of the points in our road map that never reaches the top 5 or top 4. And so -- but it's something that it has sense. So in the future, maybe we will add also this kind of products, insurance...

Antonio Gianfrancesco, Intermonte. Just one from my side on the pan-European platform because I think it's an important test for your business model. So it would be interesting to better understand the competitive environment for that platform because you explained the positioning, but I'm curious about where do you expect strong competition from existing or other new entrants players in that new geographies on technology, on pricing, a mix of this, something like that.

So this is a very competitive landscape. There is no doubt. So usually, the players acting there are extremely efficient. So they are not -- at the same time, we have -- on the other hand, still the journey is just at the beginning because also Germany that is a country which probably the acceleration is the fastest. still the vast majority of clients assets is still in the hands of really inefficient traditional banks. So clearly, the room for growing there. So my suggestion is not just looking to the -- starting immediately making a direct comparison among the different players assuming that is a kind of limited world. So it's -- we are just beginning. So what is going to be very important is the effectiveness of what we are proposing because when we are saying that we are going to bring on the market something that is combining together an absolutely amazing level of convenience and an absolutely amazing level of quality, it's not such as easy. So usually, it's quite impossible to find that kind. So we think that -- but in all the industry, if you are able to do that, there is no doubt that you are going to make your way through. And in any case, consider that it's not a limited world. It's a world in which this process -- this transformation is just at the beginning because we are in front of a gigantic and secular transformation, which you can expect that a growing -- continuously growing direct interaction of clients with the market. And so this is going to increase the market because when you are meeting some numbers of some of the fastest-growing players, for example, in Germany, but they are just scratching the surface of that. I don't know, Paolo, what do you think...

Yes, you're totally right. I mean we're talking about a market that is huge and still concentrated in traditional banking system. But it's pretty much the same everywhere in pan-Europe. So it's pretty much the same probably. Yes, I don't want to go far away, but it's...

Yes, for sure, yes. So probably only the Nordics are probably the most advanced.

There is -- yes. And then where do you compete? We compete mainly on trust and efficiency. So this is our territory. And then, of course, pricing is helping for sure. So we -- that's why we have in mind something very innovative. And I cannot tell you more now, but it's a mix of competing on trust and efficiency. And here, we compete with the traditional banking system because the trust, you find trust in the traditional banking system, not in the neo-banks and neo-brokers.

And this is just a pure technical point. Consider that usually a client that is using actively a brokerage platform is not just using one platform. They have more for many reasons. So just for example, the reliability and the resilience of the platform. And so the more you are emerging as a high-quality platform, something that I would be very interested in recently, for sure, in the last few days, there has been days of absolutely incredible numbers and volumes, but I'm sure that there are going to be also days of malfunctioning and downtime by many platforms. And this clearly is that if you are consistent doing that, okay, fine is a significant bank. I can trust them, incredibly competitive pricing, very efficient, great services, very reliable, for which reason I don't have to open an account with them.

If you also add the fact, we were talking about the new generational transfer. So younger generation, they will look for a model like our model. So I would say in Germany, but everywhere, there is no space just for Fineco. There is space probably for 3, 4, 5 Finecos. So it's just the right moment to be there with what we have. So that's...

I don't want to be boring, but it's amazing that in Italy, there is just one Fineco.

Yes, right. This is what is incredible.

[indiscernible].

Adele Palama. Can you provide a guidance on the expected average asset under management per annum in 2026 to 2029? We don't enter in such precise guidance because clearly, it's very difficult to give precise numbers there for a very simple reason because there is a trade-off because between -- depends also by what's going on in the market. What we can say that we have a steady, progressive continuously rising growth of asset under management net inflows per year. So this is something that is going to keep on building up that. So this deposit flows per annum. Deposits is so -- when I was answering to the point of the capital, I was explaining that clearly, we had to be cautious on not rushing in trying to give back to the market as soon as possible the theoretical potential remaining capital we have because we are a growth company. The probability of growing even more than we expect is not -- can be material. And clearly, this means that clearly, you can have an even higher growth in the deposits and so on. And we are a developing story. We -- I don't know if we have been able to transfer to you the concept that we are entering in a kind of unchartered waters. Very positive unchartered waters. With incredibly huge opportunities. We try to build up a plan that for us, the main objective was to give the flavor of the opportunity to give a base of rock solid numbers without selling a book of dreams. But clearly, as I was saying before, if we put together everything, clearly, have difficulties in seeing for which reason we cannot grow more. For this reason, in my opinion, it's difficult to give you such a kind of a number. So it's in 2026, 30% -- 36% cost income is not a target. So in the 2026, 30% cost income target, including the cost of the pan-European platform, no. So what we are saying, we are going to stay comfortably below the 30% level. So it's not a target. So clearly otherwise, it will be insane as a target. So it's -- and can you provide the guidance for tax rate in the business plan?

Yes. So the tax rate in the business plan is expected around 33% due to the new legislation, including the 2% additional and also the nondeductibility of interest expenses in Europe. So we expect a tax rate in that region, 33%.

Guidance on possible banking levies expected in the business plan horizon.

No, we don't expect what we have included is that is the additional Europe already started -- that will start in 2026. Exactly. Who knows? We have included what we already know.

And very interesting questions. And as usual, every one of you that has interest in deep diving in getting more details and numbers and so on, please make us a call. We can arrange a follow-up anytime. Thank you again.

Thank you very much.