MONETA Money Bank, a.s. (MONET.PR) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Dear ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Conference Call of MONETA Money Bank regarding Full Year 2025 Financial Results. Please note that this conference call will be recorded. [Operator Instructions] Today's speakers are Mr. Carl Normann Vokt, Mr. Jan Fricek, Mr. Jan Novotny and Mr. Andrew Gerber. May I now hand over to Mr. Vokt, who will lead you through the conference call. Sir, please go ahead.

All right. Thank you very much. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I have the pleasure to present to you MONETA Money Bank's 2025 financial results. Before we start with the presentation, I would like to apologize on behalf of our CEO, Tomas Spurny, who cannot attend this call this morning since he contracted the flu and for that reason, had to stay at home. So that said, we start on Page 2 with the key highlights of our last year's financial performance. Let me start with the operating income, which came in at CZK 13.9 billion, which is an increase of almost 8% year-over-year, both driven by a strong growth in the net interest income and the net fee and commission income in both segments. If you look at the operating expenses, this remained a challenge throughout the year, but I think the fact that it grew by only 2% shows that we kept costs pretty much under control. And as a result of that, the cost of income -- cost-to-income ratio even further improved by 2.4 percentage points to a tick below 42%. This allowed us to generate a net profit of CZK 6.5 billion. And this also means we outperformed the initial guidance we published in January last year by CZK 0.5 billion, and this constitutes an increase of almost 12%. Looking at the balance sheet. Here, we saw a growth of almost 2%, reaching a level of CZK 505 billion. The contribution of the growth came both from lending and also increases in the funding base. The loan portfolio reached a level of CZK 292 billion or almost 6% expansion, and the funding base showed an increase of 2.5%. If we go to the next page, here, on Page 3, we have capital -- the capital ratios and information on the returns. So let me start on the top left, the CAR, the capital adequacy ratio reached a level of 18.7%, which constitutes an excess of 3.4 percentage points above the relevant capital management targets, which we have in place. The Tier 1 ratio of 14.1% and the MREL ratio of 27.5%, which is an excess of 5.2 percentage points. In terms of dividends, so on the back of the net profit and the strong capital ratios, which we display here, we intend to propose a dividend of CZK 11.5 per share or in absolute amount, it's CZK 5.9 billion. If you look at the total shareholder return, constituting the appreciation of the share price and the net profit, then we generated a total shareholder return of in excess of 70% in '25 compared to 48% we recorded in '24. And in terms of the return on tangible equity ratio, here, we saw a significant decrease of 3 percentage points, reaching a level of 23.4%. If we move to the next page, this shall illustrate the variances of our actual results versus the initial guidance back in January '25. Obviously, the most important is the overdelivery of the net profit or 8.4% from CZK 6 billion to CZK 6.5 billion. If you look at the individual lines on the P&L, the key driver, obviously, was the total operating income, which came in better by CZK 300 million or 2.4%. OpEx, we kept very much under control, and we overperformed as such, contributing CZK 100 million to the results. And cost of risk ultimately came in on the bottom of the provided updated guidance of 15 to 35 basis points since the cost of risk only amounted to 16 bps, and in absolute amounts, meant CZK 300 million on top, supporting the net profit. And the last one, obviously, earnings per share, CZK 11.7 in the guidance, CZK 12.7 now based on the actual results, which means CZK 1 more or 8.4%. And the return on tangible equity also outperformed our guidance by 15% or 3 percentage points and then ended up with 23%. Now to put the result a little bit into perspective, what was the environment we were operating in last year, looking at the macro. To start with, obviously, the most important thing is the GDP, which came in quite a bit better than initially assumed and much better than what we had in '24. So 3Q forecast is 2.5% for last year compared to 1.2% in '24. Unemployment rate, a very important variable for our retail unsecured lending franchise. We always look very careful at these numbers. Yes, they have been increasing steadily but from a very, very low level. And the 2.9%, this is the latest data which we have available, is still a very moderate number. And also, you will see it on the later pages, we do not expect the rate to significantly go beyond that level in future periods. In terms of government debt, that also has been on the rise, steadily. The latest number, 43.3%, government debt as a percentage of GDP, but still well below the average of the 20 countries within the euro area, which show a value of 87%. And the state budget deficit had been increasing year-over-year from CZK 271 billion to CZK 291 billion. The latest number we are aware of for 2026 is a state budget deficit of CZK 310 billion. So this would mean another increase by around CZK 20 billion year-over-year. And on the second page of the macro, here, we show a bit -- a few more details on the inflation since this is a key driver of -- obviously, for the Czech National Bank to consider -- for their considerations on the interest rate level. So either you look at inflation or CPI, both levels still are above the Czech National Bank's target, so at the level of 2.1% and 2.5%, respectively. The key contributors for the inflation net numbers or the values in December continue to be food and beverage, F&B, housing, energy and anything what people do in their free time, related to recreation, restaurants or hotels. So these were the main drivers of the latest inflation numbers. The 2-week repo rate is very important. I mean, it has been flat since May last year. As a matter of fact, the Monetary Policy Council will meet this week on Thursday to decide on the new rates. And the current expectation is that the rate remains unchanged. Yes, I think that would include my short introduction. And with that, I would hand over to Andrew to share with you the latest on the operating platform.

Thank you, Normann, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. So moving to Page 9, we look at the overall operating platform of the bank, which consists of our digital channels, our branch network, the contact center and, of course, the ATM network. Overall, the bank served at the end of 2025, 1.6 million clients, which was broadly flat year-over-year. Our branch network stood at 122 units. This is down 2 year-over-year as we continue to rationalize the locations that we operate. The shared ATM network that we operate with 3 other banks stood at 1,942 machines, which is broadly stable and is the second largest network in the country. In terms of the employment base of the bank, we had 2,469 FTE. On average during 2025, this is 1.9% lower year-over-year. And looking specifically at the front office employees, we had 1,313 FTE, down 4.7% year-over-year, and this reflects our continued focus on the efficiency of deployment of resources, specifically in the front office. And you see the number of employees in other positions, non-front office employees, 1,155 FTE, up 1.6% year-over-year. Moving to Page 10, we look specifically at the digital platform of the bank. This really consists of 4 key assets. One is the primary website, moneta.cz. A dedicated mortgage lending website, hypoteka.cz. And then the 2 digital banking applications, Smart Banka for mobile and Internet Banka for desktop users. Overall, the digital platform users by the end of the year stood at 1.6 million. This is up 8.3% and brings us very close to our target of 100% penetration of the client base with digital channels. We had 720,000 daily visits on average during 2025. This is 5.3% higher year-over-year. And in terms of payment transactions, we saw 79.3 million, up 8.4%. We granted CZK 28 billion of new loans through the digital platform, up 43.3% year-over-year. And this reflects both general improvement in demand for lending, which you will see later on in the presentation, but also increased penetration of digital -- increased share of digital in lending that we're granting. In terms of sales transactions, we made 483,000 sales transactions, 2% higher and servicing transactions, 23.4 million, 1.5% higher. Moving to Page 10 (sic) [ 11 ], we look at the branch network. As I said, we had 122 branches, 1,054 FTE deployed in the branch network. We continue to achieve very high levels of client satisfaction with NPS standing at 90, up 9.8% year-over-year. We continue to see decreasing branch visits, down 15.4% year-over-year as clients continue to shift much of their daily banking activity into the digital banking applications. In terms of third-party product distribution, we sold 167,000 units. This is down 10.4% year-over-year with the decline driven by -- primarily by 2 insurance products, which was a function of the focus we put on the network in order to achieve the broader set of targets, and you will see some detail on this later in the presentation. We granted CZK 48.2 billion in lending via the branch network, up 12.1% year-over-year. Moving now to Page 12, we look at the contact center. The contact center deals with 5 main types of communication: telephony, email, web, chats and social media. We handled 774,000 inbound calls. This is 2.1% lower year-over-year. In terms of numbers of staff, we had 221 staff members. This is 9.4% year-over-year as we increased the staffing in some areas to focus on improving customer service. And again, we achieved very high level of customer satisfaction with NPS standing at 80, up 14.3% year-over-year. We answered 94.8% of calls. This is 1.3% (sic) [ 1.3 percentage points ] higher year-over-year. And we handled 136,000 pieces of email communication, which was down 18.3% year-over-year. And finally, in terms of insurance sales, we generated CZK 164 million in lifetime income, which is 6.4% up year-over-year. And finally, on Page 13, we look at the ATM network. As I said, the network stood at 1,942 machines, of which 812 are now deposit ATMs, roughly 41% of the network. And our owned ATM network stood at 561 units, which is stable. In terms of usage of the network, we see a decline, 7.5% year-over-year decline in withdrawal transactions as the market continues to move away from cash. At the same time, the expanded deposit capability led to 22.1% growth in deposit transactions on the network as we continue to move deposit transactions away from cash desks and onto the machines. And finally, in terms of service transactions, we saw 3.2 million, which is a growth of 7%, again, encouraging clients to move away from the physical branches for these types of transactions. So that concludes the operating model section. And with that, I will hand over to Jan, who will take you through the profit and loss development.

Thank you, Andrew. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'm now on Page 15, and it's my pleasure to walk you through the net profit and loss statement section. Let me repeat the key financials. In 2025, MONETA delivered net profit of CZK 6.5 billion, representing year-on-year growth of 11.9%. Earnings per share reached CZK 12.7 and return on tangible equity of 23.4%, representing 3 percentage points improvement year-on-year. Operating income stood at CZK 13.9 billion, which represents year-on-year growth of 7.8%. And this was delivered on a basis of net interest income growth of 8.8%, stemming from higher lending income and the reduced cost of funding. And also net fee and commission income line shows a year-on-year improvement of 11.1%, driven by ongoing solid performance in distribution of wealth management products and lower fee expense. On the other hand, other income line shows a decline, which is attributable to a lower result of FX derivatives. On the cost base, we report a marginal growth of 2%. Predominantly higher costs were incurred in personnel area and IT area. However, 2% operating expenses growth together with operating income growth of 7.8% resulted in a significant improvement of the cost-to-income ratio to 41.9%. On the cost of risk line, we report a benign result of CZK 444 million or 16 basis points of the average loan portfolio. Moving forward on Page 16, we provide a detailed analysis of the net interest income development. In the fourth quarter, we delivered year-on-year growth of 1.4% despite a marginal decline by 1% against the third quarter, which is attributable to intense competition on the deposit market. If we look at the drivers of the year-on-year growth, let me start on the top. We achieved lending interest income growth of CZK 195 million, supported by loan portfolio expansion of 5.8%. And also a lower interest rate environment enabled us to gradually reprice our deposit base down, which resulted in a cost of funds that decreased by CZK 250 million. On the other hand, lower interest rate environment resulted in a drop of treasury income by CZK 412. On Page 17, we can continue with a similar analysis of net fee and commission income. In the fourth quarter, we delivered a year-on-year growth of 7.5% and also 1.9% improvement against the third quarter. If you look at the individual categories. Third-party commission income remained broadly stable year-on-year. However, we improved performance in distribution of wealth management. This was compensated by a decline in distribution of insurance. Fee income went up marginally, predominantly supported by higher penalties. And fee expense decreased since the beginning of 2025, resulted from renegotiated commercial terms with Visa. On Page 18, we provide a detailed view on our performance in distribution of wealth management. As you can see in the top left corner, in 2025, we delivered nearly CZK 900 million of commission income, up by 21% year-on-year. And this was predominantly supported by higher trail fee, by 31%, somewhat resulted from the significant 33% expansion of the outstanding amount of distributed wealth management products. Also opening fee went up by 6.7%, reaching CZK 318 million despite a 5% -- nearly 5% decline of distributed volume. I'd like also to point it out that in 2025, we successfully expanded the network of investment specialists from 48 to 67 investment bankers in order to strengthen our distribution capacity on the market where we project a significant growth potential in the future. On Page 19, we can comment on development in the insurance product distribution. In 2025, we delivered a commission income of CZK 1,146 million, which represents a marginal 2.2% decline year-on-year on a recurrent basis. And this is attributable to lower number of sold insurance products by 3.3%. If you look at the performance in the individual product categories, first of all, we improved the performance in distribution of payment protection insurance by 6.6%, and we maintained a stable slightly improving performance in the life insurance product distribution. However, the commission income from the life insurance was negatively impacted by elevated amount of commission clawbacks due to higher number of contract -- canceled contracts. In terms of the pension insurance, we distributed by 13% less contracts in 2025 than in 2024 despite improved performance in the second half of the year. On Page 20, we can continue with the cost base analysis. As mentioned before, the cost base increased marginally by 2% year-on-year, reaching CZK 5.8 billion. This is below our original budget of CZK 5.9 billion. And if we look at the individual categories. Regulatory charges went down by 9.7%. And also depreciation, amortization -- and amortization charge decreased by 5.1%. On the other hand, admin costs increased by 6% or by CZK 100 million, predominantly due to incremental costs incurred in the IT area. And personnel cost is the second increasing category, up by about CZK 100 million or 3.9%, due to higher sales incentives paid to the front line resulting from improved sales performance and also increase of the average salary, only partially mitigated by a reduction in the number of employees by 1.9% expressed in the FTEs number. On Page 21, we added a new slide, analyzing our cost performance over last 5. If I start with the personnel costs on the left, personnel cost grew by 2% annually in average. And this is a function of a persisting pressure on wages, on the wage inflation, only partially mitigated by a gradual reduction of number of employees from more than 3,000 in 2021 to less than 2,500 in 2025. If we look at the admin cost category on the right, this category grew by 2.2%, where the vast majority of incremental costs were incurred in IT, on migration to cloud, on strengthening our cyber risk protection and also on digital platform development. On Page 22, we conclude this section with the depreciation and amortization category. There, we achieved 0.7% annual reduction, which is a function of -- or this is in line with broadly stable development of fixed assets position. Out of that, intangible assets went down due to ongoing investments into the digital platform development and also IT infrastructure. On the other hand, tangible assets went down in line with our gradual reduction of number of branch units. And now that's all for the profit and loss statement section, and I will now hand over to Andrew, who will continue with the balance sheet development. Thank you.

Thank you, Jan. So moving to Page 24, we take a high-level look at the development of the loan portfolio and the funding base of the bank. Overall, the loan portfolio grew 5.8% year-over-year, 1.4% in the fourth quarter, reaching CZK 291.8 billion, driven by a strong rebound in new lending performance. At the same time, the loan portfolio yield decreased 5 basis points year-over-year, reaching 485 basis points. This is driven by gradual repricing of the floating rate part of the commercial portfolio, partially offset by upward repricing of the mortgage portfolio as that moves through refixation. Looking at the funding base, we grew 2.5% year-over-year, 1.2% in the fourth quarter, reaching CZK 463.7 billion. And at the same time, we saw the cost of funding decrease 83 basis points to 216 basis points as we gradually reprice the deposit portfolio in response to the lower repo rates in the market. Moving to Page 25, we take a look at the balance sheet overall, which expanded by CZK 9.5 billion due to expansion in the deposit base. On the left-hand side, on the asset side, you can see that the growth predominantly went into net customer loans, up 5.7%, and investment securities up 3% year-over-year. And on the liability side, as I said, you can see that the growth is driven by growth in customer deposits, up 2.5% year-over-year. Moving to Page 26, we look at the new lending performance. New lending volumes were up 22% year-over-year due to improved demand in both the retail and the commercial segments. Retail new lending was up 20.6% year-over-year, driven by strong performance in mortgages, up 22% and consumer loans up 19.7% year-over-year. The commercial segment showed slightly faster growth, up 23.8% year-over-year, with small business growing particularly strongly at 31.4% and SME, up 21.2%, also very strong performance. On Page 27, we see that the new lending volume translated into 5.8% growth in the loan portfolio. And looking at the segmental split, you see retail up 2.4%, while small business growing very strongly at 26.1%, and the SME portfolio up also strongly at 9.5%. On Page 28, we look more closely at the retail loan portfolio, where we see that the mortgage portfolio was up 2.8%, whilst the consumer loan portfolio is growing more strongly at 6.6% as we saw a rebound in demand for consumer loans. Again, the other loans category down 12.8%. This is driven primarily by the runoff of the bridging loans portfolio, which is a legacy portfolio that we're no longer originating to. On Page 29, we take a similar view of the commercial portfolio, where you can see the growth was strongly supported by investment loans, up 14.3% and small business loans, up 26.1%, again, as we saw more demand for these products across the market. And finally, moving to Page 30, we take a look at the development of the yield of the loan portfolio. The yield overall was stable at 4.9% year-over-year with the improvement in retail to 4.4%, driven predominantly by gradual repricing of the mortgage portfolio as it moves through refixation, whilst the commercial portfolio decreased to 5.7%, driven by repricing of the floating rate part of that portfolio. So overall, I'd say a solid year for lending. We, of course, would have liked to have grown a bit faster, but we continue to see relatively intense competition in a number of segments, and we continue to carefully balance our growth ambitions against the type of profitability that we think is appropriate in these business lines. And that concludes the asset side, and I'll now hand over to Jan, who will take you through the liability side of the balance sheet.

Thank you very much, Andrew, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Please let me continue with the overview of our deposit position and its development. On the Page 31, we are showing the evolution of the overall customer deposits and wholesale funding. We have reached almost CZK 464 billion at the end of Q4, which represents a solid growth of 2.5%. You can see also the split per segment, with 2.2% growth in retail, 3.3% in commercial and 3.2% in wholesale. On the next page, Page 32, we are showing the evolution of the customer deposits and funding cost by each month of 2025. What is visible here is that successful management of the deposit repricing enabled significant improvement of the net interest margin. This is depicted in the bottom chart on this page. Now moving to even better story, on the Page 33, we are showing the evolution of the combined deposits and asset under management position. And you can see that the combined value has reached CZK 410 billion, meaning that on the top of the solid deposit growth, we have added almost 33% of wealth management products, resulting in overall growth of the combined category by excellent rate of 7%. On the next 2 pages, Pages 34 and 35, we are splitting the customer deposits by product. On the Page 34 is the retail deposits with overall 2.2% year-on-year growth. And on the Page 35, the commercial deposits with year-on-year overall growth on a rate of 3.3%. Now let's move to the last page of this section, Page 36, where we have prepared sort of DuPont tree for the evolution of the cost of funds. In the last 12 months, we have decreased the average cost of funds by 25 basis points, which is driven by customer deposits down by 0.29%, as shown in the chart in the middle of the page. And on the right side, you can see the evolution per segment, with retail ending up at the level of 2.11% and commercial at 1.52% at the end of 2025. And that was the last page of the balance sheet development section of the presentation. Thank you very much for your attention. And please let me hand over back to Normann.

All right. Thank you, Jan. This takes us to the risk section on Page 38 with an overview of key risk metrics for '25 compared to '24. Let me start on the top left. So cost of risk came in at 16 basis points last year, which is a 2 basis points increase year-over-year. Loan loss provision coverage dropped from 1.45% to 1.24%. The key driver for the drop are the NPL sales and also releases on the management overlays. And the total NPL loan coverage stood at a solid 122.1%. And the NPL ratio dropped from 1.3% by 30 bps to 1%, which is an all-time low we have recorded at MONETA. Moving to Page 39. Here, we have a more granular view on cost of risk. So in absolute numbers, the 16 basis points translate to CZK 444 million compared to CZK 386 million back in '24. Now last year's result was supported by various elements. One is the NPLs where we disposed around CZK 1.3 billion of NPLs, generating a pretax gain of CZK 115 million. Moreover, we did releases of the management overlay throughout the year, adding another CZK 246 million. And last but not least, we also did some adjustments within our IFRS 9 model in the year, which supported the cost of risk line. On the next page, Page 40. Here, we have 5 data points each for the loan portfolio, provisions, coverages and NPLs. Again, let me start on the top left. The gross loan receivables increased by more than CZK 15 billion year-over-year or 5.5%. At the same time, loan loss provisions dropped from CZK 4 billion to CZK 3.65 billion, which is a drop by around CZK 400 million. The ending balance of CZK 3.65 billion still includes management overlays of CZK 148 million, which dropped from almost CZK 400 million to the current level. The loan loss provision coverage I touched upon before. And the stock of NPLs decreased year-over-year by CZK 570 million with an ending balance a tick shy of CZK 3 billion. Then we can move to the next page, Page 41. Here, we have an overview of NPL in and outflows since December '24. Let me just concentrate on the far right of the page, Q4 of '25. Basically, what we see here, we saw a drop of NPLs by CZK 200 million quarter-over-quarter. And this was basically driven by a lower amount of NPL formation and the debt sales, which we conducted. This takes us to the last page of the risk section, the page on delinquencies, 30, 60 and 90 plus. I think the chart is self-explanatory and simply shows that we remain to be on a very low level and oscillate within a certain corridor up and down since -- more than 3 basically. So summarizing the risk section, I think we can say credit performance with a cost of risk of 16 basis points was solid and was not only well within the guidance, but it was on the bottom end of the provided guidance of 15 to 35 basis points. With the management releases we have conducted last year and the ending balance of CZK 148 million, these are earmarked for potential risks stemming from the refixation of residential retail mortgages. So should these risks not materialize throughout the year, then the assumption is that we would gradually release those overlays and supporting the cost of risk line overall, obviously, assuming that no other material risks materialize, be it on the commercial front or any changes on the macro. And that would conclude the risk part, and I think this takes us to liquidity.

Yes. Thank you, Normann. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm now on Page 44, and we'll continue with the liquidity management. During the whole 2025, MONETA maintained a robust and stable liquidity position, which is demonstrated across all our ratios on the page, namely loan-to-deposit ratio in the top left corner showing 66%, broadly stable year-on-year and share of high-quality liquid assets on customer deposits also remained stable at 40% at the end of 2025. Below that, we report the regulatory ratios, liquidity coverage ratio and the net stable funding ratio. Both are significantly above the 100% regulatory limit. Moving forward, on Page 45, we report the development of high-quality liquid assets position. Year-on-year, we report a decline of 6.7%, while still the CZK 174 billion of high-quality liquid assets at the end of 2025 represents a significant excess of liquidity. The decline is visible in the category balances at the Central Bank, and this has 3 drivers. First of all, CZK 8 billion of liquidity were reallocated to cover higher mandatory reserves since beginning of 2025. Secondly, second portion of liquidity was utilized in loan portfolio expansion. And thirdly, the remaining portion was invested in government bonds, which is visible in the increase of the position in government bonds. Now let me move forward to capital management section, starting on Page 47. Also, capital position remained solid and robust, demonstrated by capital adequacy ratio of 18.7% against the management target of 15.25%. And also Tier 1 capital adequacy stood at 14.13% against the management target of 12.5%. In absolute amount, the excess capital stood at CZK 5.7 billion, which is up by 2.5% year-on-year. And out of that, the distributable portion of Tier 1 capital, stood at CZK 2.7 billion, which represents more than CZK 5 per share. And if we look at the chart in the bottom left corner, you can see that the expected dividend stream, which includes the expected dividend of CZK 11.5 per share or CZK 5.9 billion, is up by 19% if compared to the dividend stream relating to 2024. Moving forward on Page 48, we provide more detail to the capital position on consolidated level. The total capital in absolute amount stood at CZK 30.8 billion, broadly stable year-on-year, while risk-weighted assets density significantly improved from 35% to 32.6%, resulting from successful implementation of the CRR3 at the beginning of 2025. This also resulted in the risk-weighted assets decrease from CZK 173.5 billion to CZK 164.8 billion despite loan portfolio expansion by 5.8%. And below that, the excess capital development or the chart, with the excess capital development clearly shows that on the top of the excess amount, we hold the accrual for the dividend distribution of CZK 5.9 billion. And we conclude this section on Page 49, with the capital position on the individual level. The capital position in absolute amount stood at CZK 44.4 billion, again, broadly stable versus 2024. And the similar trend, as I commented on a consolidated level, is visible on risk-weighted assets and density development. More importantly, MREL adequacy ratio stood at 27.5% at the end of December 2025, which is by 5.17% above the MREL management target. So that's all from the capital management section, and I will now hand over to Normann for the market guidance and the final remarks. Thank you very much.

All right, Jan, and thank you very much. This takes us to Page 51, I guess. So on that page, we show you the updated guidance compared to what we have provided for you back in January '25, providing the period '26 to 2030. In a nutshell, what we aim to deliver here is a cumulative earnings per share of north of CZK 72, which translates into a growth of 5.9%. If we look at the individual lines of the P&L, starting with total operating income. So for '26, we expect total operating income of CZK 14.6 billion and then moving up to CZK 17.5 billion, which translates into a CAGR of 4.6%. Total operating expenses, CZK 6 billion in '26 and then moving up to CZK 6.5 billion or a CAGR of 2%, which I consider as fairly moderate. So this is certainly aspirational, and we are confident to be in the position to deliver under that. Cost of risk, the outer years here, we have not changed the guidance. We left the corridor of 25 to 45 basis points, but we narrowed the corridor for '26 and here, anticipate a guidance of 20 to 35 basis points. Now all that together will translate into a net profit of CZK 6.6 billion this year and then going up to CZK 8.3 billion in 2030, which constitutes the 5.9% increase I mentioned before. In terms of earnings, dividend per share, obviously, the growth rate remained the same, but the earnings per share, CZK 12.9 and dividend per share, CZK 11.6 in '26 and then moving up to CZK 16.2 and CZK 14.6 per share. And RoTE, here, we would expect a further increase by 2 percentage points over the period from 23% in '26 to 25% in 2030. Moving to Page 52. Here, what we try to do is to show what was the aggregate of net profit based on the previous market guidance, which we published in January '25 and today's guidance. So the last one anticipated the CZK 27.3 billion net profit. The current one, CZK 28.8 billion, which constitutes a 5.5% increase. Likewise, the RoTE, if you just compare the base year '26 from the previous guidance of 20%, now we would move up to 24% in the year '29. And then more importantly, on the next page, I think this illustrates the net profit generation capacity and the variance compared to the last 5 years period, comprising the years '21 to '25. So based on the actual numbers, we generated a net profit of a tick shy of CZK 27 billion. For the future 5 years, '26 to 2030, we anticipate based on the guidance, a net profit of CZK 37 billion or almost 40% increase which is the equivalent of almost CZK 10.5 billion. If we look at a couple of assumptions, which I think is very important to understand we have made to get to this new guidance. And let me go now to Page 54 on key macroeconomic assumptions for this plan. Obviously, we anticipate solid GDP growth, more or less similar to what we expect to have seen in '25, so somewhere in the corridor, anywhere between 2.4%, 2.5%. Unemployment rate, as I said earlier, a very important ingredient to anticipate the loss potential on our credit portfolio in the retail space. Also here, we believe no further increase beyond what we have seen. Just in '26, it would peak at 3% and then stay flat on the level of 2.9%. Inflation, 2.2% in '26, 2.5%, '27 and then down the road, 2%. And the repo rate, I think, is one of the most important assumptions we have made here, would remain flat throughout the period of guidance, and the exchange rate would also remain unchanged to the levels we are currently seeing. If we move to the next page, Page 55, just to give one more level of details on the assumptions on the loan portfolio. So overall, gross performing loans are expected to grow by a CAGR of 6.1%. This means around CZK 100 billion increase during the period. The key growth driver is here commercial, which will contribute around 2/3 of the growth during that period or a CAGR of 10.2%, while the retail franchise lending will support the growth by around 1/3 or 3.5%. On the other hand side, the customer deposits, here, we have a reverse sort of expected development on the -- between retail and commercial. So here, retail should be the growth driver with a 3.9% CAGR and increasing deposits by CZK 70 billion during the period. And in commercial, we expect a 2.4% growth from CZK 109 billion to CZK 123 billion. So I think this guidance, I think, is both aspirational and to some extent, also conservative, in particular in the year '26. Since in '26, we are facing a couple of uncertainties. We are confident we are going to manage, but I think it's important to highlight them. One is the degree of retention of residential mortgages during the refixation period. We're having around CZK 37 billion of such mortgages to be refixed. Obviously, we try to retain as many as possible, and we have bespoke retention tools for that, but there's always a degree of uncertainty, and I think it's important to highlight that. Number two, equally important is the view and the decisions to be made by the Czech National Bank on the 2-week repo rate as we assume flat rates throughout the year. So should there be any change, obviously, this would have an impact at least on the short term before we are in a position to fully reprice everything on the liability and asset side going forward. So that's something which we are going to observe very carefully. OpEx, I said before, challenging as in previous years. But I think we have the tools available to address that. And last but not least, on the cost of risk front, yes, we assume a benign environment based on the macro variables, which we have shared with you. What we cannot tell yet is how the refixed mortgages will behave on the credit performance. That's why we still have this overlay in place. But assuming these risks will not crystallize, obviously, they would support the cost of risk line. In terms of revenue generation capacity, needless to say, we want and we strive to maintain the momentum on the new originations, in particular, in the retail unsecured space and also the small business space, which we have observed in particular in the second half of last year. The first numbers of '26 make me confident that we are on a good track, but this requires constant attention. And the second pillar of our income, obviously, is our distribution capabilities in the wealth management but also on the insurance front to ensure that we maintain the same momentum. And hopefully, markets will allow us to distribute the wealth management products like we did in '25. So that would conclude our presentation. Maybe 2 more housekeeping things, on 2 events. One is obviously the AGM, which we are going to have in April, on the 21st of April, where we intend to propose the dividend, as was highlighted before. And number two, a few days later on the 24th of April, we're going to have the Q1 earnings release. So that would conclude our presentation, and I will hand over back to you for a Q&A session. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Thomas Unger.

I hope you can hear me well. Congratulations on the results. Thank you for the presentation. I'd like to ask you about your -- you just were talking about the assumptions underlying your midterm guidance, and I'd like to go in somewhat more detail, if that's okay. The main change in the guidance that I see is on the total operating income, which was raised. I assume that this was a result of higher projections for the net interest income. And I'd like to ask you what caused these changes. Was it mainly the repo rate assumption that you lifted from 3.0% to 3.5%, stable throughout the whole time horizon? Was it a change in the composition of the loan portfolio or loan growth or any other reasons? That would be my first question. My second question would be on the net interest margin near term. Where do you see it developing for the coming quarters? Was Q3 the bottom for the funding cost for the interest expenses? And yes, just in general, where do you see it developing? And then just one detailed question on the P&L in Q4. The results from financial operations, maybe I've missed it, but it's been strong in Q4. What was the reason? What was the driver for that in this quarter in particular?

All right. Thank you for the question, Thomas. I will take the first one and the other 2 will be taken by Jan. Now look, as I mentioned during the guidance, the growth shall be driven by the loan growth. And when we said we have a CAGR of 6.1% during the reporting period and the key products here are clearly in commercial, more precisely is the small business loans, which we want to grow, continue the growth path, which we have seen over the last couple of years, and we see continued strong potential in that segment. Obviously, customer deposit repricing, this will not end. But as you have seen from the numbers, it got more difficult towards the end of Q3 and Q4. Competition is there and customers are more price sensitive and also more savvy in reallocating their funds in case you make premature steps and adjust this. So that's why we couldn't significantly further reduce. Actually, we slightly increased the cost of funding in the last quarter. But we are confident that we can manage this going forward. The second pillar, obviously, fee income, wealth management being the #1. Now here, obviously, we depend on the markets. So this we cannot influence. But currently, we assume markets will support our ambition to grow the segment further. You have seen it in the number of advisers, which we have added in our franchise. So we have much more distribution capacity in that area, allowing us to reach our customers. And so right now, we are confident that this is possible that we can deliver on the targets. Insurance, here, the results in '25 have been mixed. As you have seen, PPI is still very strong. We will pay more attention on life insurance and pension and obviously, also what we can do to reduce cancellation rates to support the income line on the fees. And so I would say it's a mix of all driving to grow. So it's not -- it cannot be reduced to a single item. So it's the combination of all these aspects. And I will hand over to Jan on the other 2.

Yes. So your second question was about the net interest margin projection. We ended up with 200 basis points net interest margin, and we project improvement to 215 or between 215 to 220 in the next 3 years, gradual improvement. This will be driven by 2 main sources. First of all, repricing of mortgages, as was mentioned, about 45% of our mortgage book will go to the fixation point this year and next year. And from that, we expect to improve the yield on these mortgages next year by about 150 basis points -- this year by about 150 basis points. Next year, it will be less. It will be about 50 to 70 basis points. So that's the first main reason, main driver. The second one is ongoing strong growth of the small business loan portfolio, specifically the secured part, where the position now is at CZK 20 billion, and we project to double the position in the next 2 to 3 years. And then your specific question was about the net income from financial operations development or actually the increase in the fourth quarter against the third quarter. We reported a decrease of about CZK 90 million. And this has 2 main drivers. The biggest one is the bond sale gain. We realized a small disposal of our bond portfolio of about CZK 2.5 billion exposure, and we disposed with a gain of CZK 50 million. And besides that, we also realized one-off gain on FX. We realized FX margin of CZK 27 million or CZK 30 million around it. So these 2 drivers were rather one-off, shouldn't be projected as a new normal realized in 2024.

Understood. Can I just follow up with a question on your loan portfolio composition now moving more towards small business? Retail growth has been weaker in Q4, mortgage balances going back slightly. Can you talk a bit about the development on your mortgage portfolio?

Yes. The development on mortgage portfolio is this. We project a mortgage book growth between 3% to 4% in the next 5 years. This is a relatively conservative growth potential. Our aspiration would be certainly higher. However, it is also a function of margin that will be available to realize on the market. Currently, the competition intensified in 2025, but quite significantly, margins narrowed down from 100, 110 basis points to a corridor of 50 to 60 basis points at the year-end. And with this profitability -- taking this profitability into consideration, we are more aspirational on the loan portfolio growth in commercial segment than in retail. Therefore, the composition of the loan portfolio over the next 5 years will be gradually changing where the share of commercial exposures will slightly or gradually go up while the share of retail portfolio will be going down. In total, loan portfolio is expected to grow at north of 5%, as you saw in the guidance.

As you've seen, this is also reflected that the growth on lending comes by 2/3 from the commercial segment. So we are trying to really harvest the opportunities which we see out there, in particular on the secured business loans, to grab as much market share as possible.

Our next question comes from [ Timea Bartos ]. Why do you expect conservative growth in 2026 in terms of net income? Also, do you have any estimations as to extra dividend payments in 2026 like you did in 2025?

Yes. As I said when I commented on the guidance, as I said, it's aspirational and conservative at the same time. So conservative, particularly as regards the year '26, for the very reasons I presented to you, which is the mortgage refixation, the CZK 37 billion, which have to be refixed. So we try to retain as many as possible. Should we perform better than what we have in the plan, then obviously, there is an upside. But this is too early to say because this is a very dynamic market. The second one is the repo rate where we assume a flat rates throughout the year. So any change drops -- I mean, change in terms of a drop would be a risk. So we have embedded here some conservatism in the plan. And last but not least, to ensure that we can maintain the momentum on the lending front, we are confident we can do so, but there's always an effect of uncertainty, which we have also factored in. So to that extent, you can say, yes, it's conservative. Why is the growth not more? But the growth is more compared to the last guidance provided back in January. So this would explain the reason why we have the number presented.

An extraordinary dividend, should I take it?

Yes.

Yes. On this topic, I don't want to speculate whether there will be an interim dividend this year as we paid in the last 2 years. However, the fact is we follow our capital management strategy to distribute any excess capital if there is even beyond the 90% dividend payout. At the end of 2025, our distributable excess of Tier 1 capital stood at CZK 2.7 billion, CZK 5 per share, as I mentioned. And we will get to the point to decide about potential dividend at sooner in the third quarter as we did in 2025 and 2024. What I would also mention, we are now in a very early stage in a consideration about the securitization part of our loan portfolio where we see a potential on the capital front to release some capital and strengthen our excess capital position. But again, now it is quite early to speculate, and the fact is that capital position of MONETA remains robust and stable.

[Operator Instructions] It looks like we have no further questions in the queue at this time. So with that, I'll hand over to Mr. Vokt for some closing remarks.

All right. So first of all, thank you very much for joining this call. And just wrapping up the call overall on our results. I think we can look back at a successful 2025. We clearly outperformed on our guidance on net profit by CZK 0.5 billion or 12%. I think we showed that we can reignite the engine on the lending. So lending volumes went up by 22% across all segments. Net fee and commission showed solid growth of 11%, where wealth management was one of the key drivers. And we hope that we can continue that journey also this year. Cost growth was moderate despite all the headwinds we are seeing out there, both on the salary front and suppliers, but we kept it really under tight control, allowing us to deliver a very solid cost/income ratio of 41.9%. Liquidity capital position remains strong. And last but not least, the intention to propose a CZK 11.5 dividend per share, leading to a total shareholder return of north of 70%, I think nicely round up the 2025 results. I would like to thank the management team and of course, our entire staff, not only for delivering results, but outperforming the guidance. And I would like to thank you, the audience, for attending this call, and we're looking forward to reporting out hopefully good results for our Q1 earnings call on the 21st of April. And with that, I wish you a good remaining week. Thank you very much.

Thank you. This concludes today's webinar. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect from the call.