National Bank of Bahrain B.S.C. ($NBB)

[Foreign Language] Dear NBB Group stakeholders and shareholders, welcome to our Investors meeting and is going to demonstrate our financial and nonfinancial results and accomplishments for the first quarter of the year 2026. We are devised to conduct this meeting after we have recently published the group's financial results in addition to the acquired documents that were uploaded onto the Bank of Bahrain's website and published on the media representing Group in this meeting as speakers on the group Chief Executive Officer, Usman Ahmed; the Group Chief Financial Officer, Chief Financial Officer, Group Chief Strategy Zaina Mohamed Zayani. My name is Hisham Alfateh, I'm NBB Chief Corporate Communications Officer. And I hope the meeting is for director. I would like to make the following points before we start. This meeting is conducted in English good. The presentation of this meeting will be published on Mylan's website after the meeting. And all questions are welcome, and they are required to be able to in the question-and-answer session or the chart and all remarks and observations are also local, but they will also be required to be written in the change. We will now start at the investors meeting with NBB's Group Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Usman Ahmed. Usman, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Hisham. Good afternoon, and a very warm welcome to all our investors and shareholders, and thank you so much for dialing in today. I'd like to start by giving an overview of our key initiatives and execution against key strategic initiatives across our main business lines. and illustrate some of the highlights of the quarterly performance for the first quarter of 2026. This quarter was not like any other we experienced before. As you're aware, there was a major disruption to business as a result of the geopolitical developments in traditional conflict. So we have focused extremely hard on doubling down on the customer value proposition, customer service and at your business in the 3 months. What I would like to particularly highlight in this context is that our core strategic focus on customer experience has paid us extremely well. in light of traditional developments. So we continue to make sure that we were available, open and fully operational in a highly liquid as well as in a supportive posture for our customers across retail as well as corporate and business banking. The numbers that you see on the screen are simply a consequence of that customer focus. So 4% growth in retail loans, 5% growth in retail deposits, 10% growth in corporate and business banking loans and 15% growth in corporate and business banking deposits. Now we want the point I've made about resiliency and continue to your business and customer focus. -- we've been looking at certain specific strategic initiatives that enable this growth. On the retail banking side, we remain laser focused on tracking low-cost deposits through our flagship araprice and semi accounts products. We are cross-selling across retail and corporate banking to maximize the potential of a 1 NBB approach towards winning workplace banking and salary managed accounts. This is resulting in a growth in our low-cost and outside deposit base, which is core to our central objective of improving our balance sheet mix as well as ensuring that we are enhancing our debt interest margin in the process. At the same time, another key hallmark of our strategy remains digital adoption. We have witnessed through that digital-first orientation and focus a 31% year-over-year growth in digital transaction volume and a 20% year-over-year growth in new retail accounts that are open digitally. As you know, this will be an area of focus for us now for the last 2, 3 years in particular. And as a result of that, this incremental growth is particularly significant because we are coming from a continuous period of successive quarters approved in terms of digital adoption. And that approach actually greatly facilitated us in terms of execution of our customer relief measures as well. We launched an optional customer relief program that was essentially under the direction of the Government of the Bahrain and the Central Bank of Bahrain to enable impacted customers to opt for 3 market difference on the repayments -- on the retail side, we were able to do that through a fully automated digital platform. And I would say that I was the 1 platform that is perhaps the best class in the market today based on all the overwhelming customer feedback and satisfaction that we registered. On the corporate and business banking customers, we continue with the same focus to execute against our strategy. Our positive momentum continues on the banner and banking market as well as overseas, which I'll talk more about in a minute. We are supporting our key customers through this period of prices. At the same time, we are also prioritizing where we allocate liquidity and how we make sure that we are protecting the balance sheet and maintaining portfolio quality in the process. The growth in deposits is, again, not unique to retail, corporate banking continue to witness got deposits as well. As I mentioned, in fact, a very strong double-digit growth of 15%. And that is an assumption of all the focus attraction that we have of cash value solutions, including our digital corporate online platform, host-to-host solution, Digi-Connect which is all coming together to support a higher volume share from our Open business banking customers. Moving on. I think from a customer satisfaction perspective, we also saw a 16% increase in our Net Promoter Score, which is a measure of customer advocating as you know. Now we launched a new Wealth Management business last year. This business has been extremely successful in the short period that we've seen it in existence so far. And our year-on-year revenue growth in the first quarter of 2.6% was 103% reflecting continued strong momentum even in a period of crisis during the first quarter. Our structured deposits, assets under management have increased very significantly as well on a year-over-year basis by 174%, driven by higher client engagement and a successful migration to digital investment channels. An example of that is what we launched in terms of digital platform for clients to subscribe to treasury bills. And now just in a short period of time since we've launched this, we see 3% of our T-bill subscription is happening through our digital channels. So this wealth offering will continue to expand, and we will continue to add additional asset classes under the wealth management product umbrella at 12 driven by what our clients require and driven by what is more suitable in the current global regional and local macro content outlook. Our focus on diversifying away from Bahrain and deeper into regional markets with strong connectivity to Bahrain. Saudi Arabia witnessed continued execution against our clear board map to sustainable growth and profitability. Our loans increased during the last 12 months in Saudi Arabia by 135% on a year-over-year basis. We are being very selective in the segments and the clients that we bank. We are also ensuring that we are getting adequately rewarded for the risk and for the -- from a risk and return perspective. And the environment colitis around us to price loans better than what we were able to do perhaps a couple of years ago. So we do expect to see a strong delivery and year-over-year improvement from our KSA business. And we continue to invest in the future of this business exactly of that is, again, a digital profit online banking. We are expecting to go live on that latest by the third quarter of this year. And that solution will effectively give us a regional cash management platform because we've already rolled out the same offering in UAE and in are. As you build out these systems as we focus more and more and we've seen our balance sheet investments in the overseas markets, we expect the cargo business and the network effect to fully come in replay for the NBB group. In UAE, we continue to see profitable growth in the first quarter of 2026, with loans and deposits growing by 7% and 40%, respectively of particular notaries the deposit growth, and that dentate as we've talked about earlier, how much focus we're giving at this point in time on maintaining the right liability mix as well as growing our liability book, and at the same time, improving our resiliency in the process. And the numbers that I presented to you demonstrate that we do have the ability and the competitiveness to be able to win as NBB even in very large markets like UAE and Saudi Arabia because we are doing so through new product launches. We do it through investing in our teams in these countries who at does the job as well as and being very focused on the solutions and the segments that we target. And that on such so focus is on new economy deals and cited partnerships in these markets. So overall, our overseas year-over-year performance was supported by an increase in loans and deposits of 10% and 14%, respectively. The BSP delivered year-over-year profitability improvement of approximately 6 ports, excluding the Q1 2025 one-offs. I'm sure you will have observations and comments about this. And I can mention upfront that as you are aware and as we have disclosed every quarter on the various every quarter from a disclosure perspective. Last year, in the first quarter, we did a very important transaction. We sold our legacy real state investment in B.S.C. and realized a very difficult capital gain and profits of that. when we strip out the effect of that from a one-off revenue rent perspective from the last year, the line B.S.C. business has shown strong growth and profitability, and that's really what we're very focused on. We're also very pleased that we did exit that investment in hindsight at the time that we did. We sold the real estate at perhaps the decomarket given recent events. Unfortunately, it seems like we will not have been able to realize that value, but have we take enough decisions to hold on to the property and sell it this year instead of last year. I also see that as a very important derisking event because it was an asset -- a legacy asset that was owned by us along with 3 other joint director partners, and of course, getting aligned with an agreement in a complex ownership structure like that, it's not straightforward. So I think the point here is that we did the right thing, and we look beyond that at the more business. And I think this year is actually a very, very encouraging start in that context. As we look ahead from an execution perspective, we will continue to accelerate our focus on growing share of work with our customers. We will, like I mentioned before, related we continue to focus on improving client experience. And of course, from a financial perspective, we will be reinforcing profitability and name resilience and shorten commercial interest. And what we've seen clearly in this first quarter and what we are witnessing in the second quarter so far is that very, very strong growth on core balance sheet drivers. And you will see in the second quarter the events of that coming through in terms of the trends that we are representing right now on the mix of our business as well as on the margins. So with that, just to focus very briefly on where we are on the potential merger with -- as you know, we've been making regular disclosures on the merger on the marinos. And as per our last disclosure, we did mention that we, NBB, has submitted a proposal to BB on the terms of the merger, including the exchange ratio. And subsequent to that, both parties have been in the negotiations and as a disclosure has also been made by BGK. This follows the completion of the due diligence exercise in the retina. So as makes progress, of course, we will continue to follow our practice of keeping the market informed in line with our practice.

Thank you, Usman. Thank you very much. Now like to welcome NBB's Group Financial Officer to start discussing NBB's group's financial results. Mr. Rahim, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Hisham. Thank you, Usman. We have received questions as well as from our colleagues on the right. So I'm going to make sure that the start to address those over the presentation, which you show clear you are seeing on the screen. So as CEO mentioned that there was a one-off gain that we have booked last year in 2025 related to our subsidiary, B.S.C. have disclosed in our previous last year earnings also. So taking that into account -- on a normalized net profit basis, we are up 2%, which has contributed and positively impacted by our on a year-earlier basis. Our normalized operating income is down 3%, which is primarily due to lower treasury gains, and which have been impacted by the geopolitical situation in the first quarter. Moving along to our normalized end of age. As you see, we have experienced a 6% net interest income growth. We have taken various measures to improve our asset optimization of investment securities. And we also are very sensitive that we have our pricing our deposits appropriately. The other income is down maybe, as I mentioned, due to higher trading gains we reported in the previous years. We expect this to be a timing difference across the quarters this year in 2026. Expense increase is not a surprise as we expand our product offerings and improving our digital capability. And also due to our previous investments, depreciation of peers to impact to some more expenses. Keep in mind that we have always highlighted to be investing in growing the bank, growing the franchise locales. Provisions levels remain adequate as we manage our risk prudently. If you go to next slide. Slide 8 is just the reported income view, and I have mentioned beginning what are the changes and what we are showing on a normalized basis versus the imported basis. If you look on the next slide, which is Slide 9, I just want to highlight that our returns metrics remain strong. Despite macro economic and competitive pressures, A and ROE remain consistent on a year-over-year basis, demonstrating the resilient CEO of Bank's business audit as well as the disciplined balance sheet management approach. The stability in our returns also highlight prudent risk management and utilization of capital in this dynamic market environment. all with respect to the liquid assets, we maintained a spouse momentum. As you can see, we are up 14%. Loans are growing at a healthy rate of 5%. Investments also remain flat as we take ensure that we are managing our balance sheet effectively, and at the end of the slide, you will see our total assets are up 5% and bringing us up to close to BHD 6. 6 billion, which is the record. Customer deposits consistent with our loan growth are up 7%. As I have mentioned, we more focused on the right level as it's to grow the back we have seen deposit growth coming in from our copper segment. Our dear deposits are also up which we attribute as all deposits tributes CASA deposits and time and the core deposits also demonstrated a 7% growth. So this is a continuous focus as our TCO mention or focusing on our customers and may for sorenesiliency established on a on with respect to our cost of risk and coverage ratios. This -- if you see the consistency of our coverage ratios, this highlights that the bank continued its risk management during the recent geopolitical environment very efficiently and effectively. We have always ensured that the bank is well positioned to absorb an shocks. Making that, the balance sheet metrics, both NPL capital and liquidity remain well above our required level. As you can see, we have our LCR is 415%, similar to our previous years as well as our NSFR printing scheme. On that context, I just want to conclude that hand over to my colleague, Zaina.

Thank you, Mohsin. Our group is group -- chief strategist, the floor is yours.

Good afternoon, everyone. And I'd like to give you a date through our key sustainability KPIs, starting with the key initiatives that we have done in Q1. In terms of engagement and development, we have delivered our Bomonti program with CPI to develop our Bahraini talents in the banking sector. We have also delivered our sustained academy to strengthen ESG integration across the different parking units. In terms of our community and social responsibility key ancient we have launched our program will be a to support our young entrepreneurs. We have also delivered our Young Entrepreneurs, we have also delivered our Young Management for the Ministry of Education and just basically let the used segment. We have also delivered our innovation program was behind EnTech focusing on innovation and development and contact area, specifically -- in addition to other community emissions, including collaboration seen education can class and other support to other core trading at -- this has led to recognition in STG and Bloomberg. In terms of our ratings, we are at second across all sectors and as per ISG. And we long at the top 8% of banking services sector in MENA and the top 10% globally in the financial services sector based on. In terms of Bloomberg, we maintain our first taking sector across Bai and of all the crosscut sectors and Bain and also have the total 39% on the banking services across the -- moving to the sustainability Penner, the first vendor mergeco here is the customer centricity and how we reach out to our customers through our digital channels. So the that we want here. We've seen growth in our digital banking transaction volumes by 30% year-on-year and 27% in terms of digital banking transaction value Today, we stand at 91% digital accounts opened as a percentage of the Hinton accounts and the retail digital channel and a 34% growth of new to like customers onboarded in showing more deployment of the digital channels to new to bank customers. And we have also seen our port sales growth from last quarter on the digital register customers. We help in similar growth patterns in the business digits and back in channel with 3% increase in transaction volumes and 13% year-on-year growth on the transaction time that corporate churn was 344% growth on digitally registered versus supply. Moving to the next slide. covering the government as it beaver are not paying our workforce. So we have 17% of our completing our product awareness training of Q1 2026. In terms of the equal and patents, we continue to start at 12% representation of women in senior age representation of pooling and remit management and 30% -- 37% of the additional pound feet workforce. It was not the fees as a total number of employees of determination within our given decent opportunities to all the segments of that. In terms of empowering our ones with group and learning opportunities, we have reported around 6,000 of tools and training hours with an average 17 hours per community, 17% of our please have attempted our sustainability or under -- Moving on to the average sustainability that there is covering responsible banking community investment preserving our national resources. We have seen great growth in our social housing program of 28% year-on-year and a 5% growth in our total supine finance portfolio. In terms of our community investment, we have -- as of Q1 2020 is Milan contributed targets, in terms of donation, and 1,000 hours in valeting actives engaging with the community and the petition. In terms of our direct environmental posted we have seen a very good reduction in our energy consumption, about 7% year-on-year. This is Parts attributed to employees working from bout a large part of also comes from direct initiatives that we have done as we can see a scope GHG emission reduction of 43% year-on-year and also a reduction in the intensity of our Scoop 1 emissions of 46% year-on-year cap. This is resulting from the introduction of our new fleet of electric cars, which have reduced our scope on GHG energy. We have also seen a similar pattern in our Scope 2 GAG intent a reduction of 13% as copper. Our total waste produce for is 32% down year-on-year. We stood at 23% with recycling ratio as of Q1.

Zaina, Thank you very much. So we would like now to move to the questions and answers, as pointed out by Mr. Mohsin. So we have received quite a few questions. So let me take them in terms of order. I'll start with Milaready, question one.

Listen our fee income declined has -- the fee income declined by about less than $0.2 million fees and commission essentially remit flattish. And we experienced some softness in the fee income due to the geopolitical situation in the first quarter.

Maybe if there's a reference to other income as well, and Moyo already covered that point about some of the gains from the sale of investment securities that happened last year versus this quarter? That again, because of geopolitic constitution, obviously, we time whatever portfolio management and treasury activity we do, and is some of the positions that we have, that is essentially a timing consideration, and we still have 3 quarters for rest of day here to focus on that line. I think the second part of the question was been sizable. Have we seen sizable loan deferral applications. Yes. So we have -- on the media side, which is where really, I mean, I think the mass sort of volume has come from. We see about 37% application, right. We ran this program over 2 phases, sort of towards the end of the third week of April as well as in the first week of May for those customers who could not get the April time line because of the dates and the sanitated -- so that's the that's in some defense world, and we're dealing with them as part of our credit committee assessment on a case-by-case Overall, we think that this is something that is helpful for customers without necessarily in any way being negative for the bank. So it does give us a very sort of supportive mutually acceptable magnum to deal with the castration and we take the Central Bank for designing the program. And the reason why I say that is because while it provides relief to the customers, it also is on an interest accruing basis. And there's also a relief provided to the banks with respect to the staging criteria for the on for the 3-month period that the deferrals are implemented. And the banks, if required, have access to a central bank Pedro reforce and there's some relaxation on the reserve requirements as well. Our equity position has been strong. As we mentioned, deposits have actually grown in this period. And I think that is the trust and the strength of the NBB brand as well as balance sheet. And therefore, we can't actually accessed any central bank liquidity window went or window for the firms and 1 day this is going to go to our customers.

Mohsin, this moves me to the next question very strongly. You talked about the growth in deposits, but the questionnaire right now from Jean is related to the loan growth. So the question is, would you be able to sustain the 5% loan growth year-on-year?

If you take our historical view, definitely, we have demonstrated some years more than 5% and any sizable increases. And as of this point, based on our focus in growing the balance sheet. I do not anticipate any issue meeting the .

Thanks very much. Now status has provided us 6 questions altogether. So Ali, thank you very much for your questions, which were to us, and I will read them 1 after the other listening sequence that they were in. So allow me a bit of a lucky questions, and you will find them on the chart for the others. Question number one, on a normalized basis, NBB reported a net profit of BHD 20.6 million in Q1 2026, a modest 2% increase from BHD 20.2 million in Q1 2020. And questions. What were the main positive drivers examples, Carlos sheet growth and NII and many negative offsets, example, treasury income expenses, PSB contribution, this quarter.

Yes. Absolutely. And I think you have -- Mr. At has picked up some of the things. I appreciate his focus on leading our financial -- the main positive drivers were prudent risk management measures that we have taken in the time of stress, allowing the bank to be safeguarding the balance sheet by ensuring the attracted license right level of deposit and also commensurate with extending the correct level and the right risk level on our asset growth the expenses and the other contribution in trade income, definitely, the CEO mentioned, we see softness in the treasury income. Our trade litigants in the first quarter which we assume will be a timing difference. And they were directly not driven by the deal different situations. On the expense side, we continue to focus on prudent expense management and expand cash utilization. We do see expense increase, which is not a run essentially related to our investment PVS and investment coming in as we launch new products as we expand in our digital capabilities to support our customers.

I may just also add to that, Hisham. I think as Mohsin mentioned, the NII growth has been 1 driver of our profitability for the first model. That's extremely important because our net interest income has grown by 6% on a year-over-year basis. And as you know, when rates are coming down, rates have declined significantly over the last 12 months, NII does come under pressure. So the ability to grow net interest income -- in the first quarter, as international repo counterparties as well as interbank counterparties have rationed the amount of liquidity they've allocated to bareback as well as raise the cost of liquidity on account of elevated risk premium. To be able to deliver a growth of NII in that environment, as is particularly, I did know for. The other thing I would emphasize is that this number would have been even higher had we not prioritized for resiliency and maintaining an extra liquid posture during this period. So the opportunity cost of actually maintaining more liquidity in shorter tenors, high overnight positions. All of that has cost us perhaps some profits, but that's just our ability to manage through the crisis and in ads. And therefore, as the situation normalizes, you will see even stronger momentum on net interest edc, which would be reflected in an expansion of our net interest margin. The other thing I would say is that we maintain a very close focus on recoveries. And we have had a strong quarter from our recoveries sector. That's not one quarter's work. It takes several quarters of effort for difficult recoveries to materialize. But our focus on remedial management, our focus on proactive restructuring of exposures where clients are facing challenges, has also translated into a positive outcome from a recovery perspective. So that's something that I just wanted to highlight. And the number that you see from a profitability standpoint is after we have actually taken additional ECL provisions. And the ECL has been increased in the first quarter because we have revised our assumptions for Estee weights in our financials. Typically, there is a best base and most case scenario on expected credit loss assumptions and in alignment with our external auditors, we have revised those notions for best case, 15% down to 5% for base case from 70% down to 50%. And for worst case, we've taken it up from 15% to 45%. This is extremely prudent. It is something that was done during coveytimes as well. And it just basically means that we are reflecting in our financials. The expectation that as a result of the environment, there could be higher credit losses in the future. Now different banks have different levels of rules that they exercise from what we have seen. This is a very good posture. It is actually -- if I look at the details of this, was in the additional expected credit loss as a result of us simply changing our model is about BHD 5.7 million right? Now that 5.7 million BD is something that we have taken at a day in future to that worst-case scenario probability that I described, this could well be potentially adjusted partially or reverse depending on how the situation unfolds.

Customer to BB recorded a net profit of $83.18 million, down from $10 million last year. What was the contribution to NBG's Group's Q1 attributable profit? And how does it impact the normalized group performance?

So lastly, the level was 25%, given the onetime gain that we realized -- and compared to Q1 2026, it's around 13%.

And I think on this, again, we're very pleased to highlight that a big percent cash dividend from BSV. This reflects a turn in the returns that now BSP has started giving to shareholders after a few years after little cleanup and the refocusing of the strategy of the ASV. And as I mentioned last quarter, we have increased our shareholding in BSP, and we continue to double down on our commitment on the Banking and on BSP.

Question number 3, group net interest income grew a solid 6.3% to BHD 35.3 million. How much of this came from volume growth versus margin improvement and how to be BIS Islamic financing income growth contribute to the group results.

The growth is mainly driven by volumes. The rates were adversely impacted as mentioned by our CEO earlier, this is essentially due to the rate cuts that we have over the last 2 years, 175 basis points. And the DIS contributed in growth of about 1.1 million at a starting.

Question, 4. Thank you, Mohsin. Other income dropped significantly to BHD 10.8 million. What was the main reason for this decline, particularly the impact of lower treasury-related gains and how much of it was attributable to NBB standalone versus the IS.

The main driver of the decline as part of the reported profitability is a BHD 9.5 million of exceptional in that we booked last year, BI is being a subsidiary and lower gains on treasury-related activity amounts to about BHD 5.5 million. And the treasury activity is fully attributable to the core. I think we are coming from a backdrop where it so happens that over the last couple of years, we have had exceptional gains booked in the first quarter, whether it's on account of treasury gains or it's account of the one-off transaction we have in PSV last year. This year, of course, we had a geopolitical event in the first quarter. And we did not only have that since, therefore, volume of other income. But 1 quarter does not obviously digging for best of year it call on that front. And we are actually already in a very different every in the second quarter on that particular.

Well, question 5. Total assets grew 5.4% to 6.62 billion, with loans and advances up 5% and customer deposits up 6.5%. And which segments are markets between Brocade drove this growth.

The loan growth was mainly, we experienced in our corporate loan portfolio. And this is across all 3 markets. So Bahrain, UAE and Saudi. As our CEO meters as well as -- and deposit growth was mainly related to street accounts and corporates across all 3 markets.

Then the last question for study. Treasury bills have declined substantially from around BHD 196 million at the end of 2024 to BHD 25.5 million in Q1 2026. I -- so what drove this reduction is this a deliberate shift towards higher-yielding assets, such as loans and back patients and how has it affected the yield on the group's liquid assets.

And we are focused on improving our real NII, we have mentioned earlier in our recalls. But there is a strategic shift I want to use as which typically you see a the overall balance sheet remains at the same level on the investment securities, et cetera. We will continue to see dynamically what is more a growth period to enhance our use at the end of the day.

Thank you, Mohsin. Point related to watching harder you have mentioned that we have side applications for deferrals. Are they from distressed accounts? And what is the risk of those migrate accounts.

No, these are actually not distressed accounts are fundamentally strong businesses, strong risk that have been disrupted as a result of the situation. We amongst some of the large names making it east that you would know of in Bahrain. It's just I already expect Page in...

Good afternoon, and some uncertainties on a good underlying performance, which was in line with our expectation and could that level of growth in terms of is -- so -- and I have this slide are.

So as I mentioned, you think the -- I just wanted to highlight that I did mention this at our investor call last investor call, this question did come up as well in that time. What -- typically, the strong and really capitalized banks will experience that experience cost of got of deposit growth during the time of stress. And given National bank -- yes. I think also the focus has been there for -- it started as a result of our portfolio acquisition or as a result of recording organic transaction. It's core underlying customer franchise growth. I mentioned earlier the focus on workplace banking, we focus on having retail corporate within Bahrain as one well orchestrated NBB targeting customers to meet their needs for both operate as well as operate cash management as well as retail customers for their role days. So we've seen growth in Bahrain on accrual large base. We've seen very strong in like over 70% growth in UAE on a year-over-year basis. And we've seen 25% growth in KSA on our low-cost deposits on a year-over-year basis, and we've seen growth in BC as well. So as was mentioned, in every legal entity in every geography we see and this will come.

Thank you very much. You may stop sharing the First of all, -- thank you very much, Mr. Francois for your questions. And there are several questions from Mr. Raanan in his for these questions. It's very nicely divided into 2 actually prime parts. So I'll start with Part 1, which talks about profitability and earnings performance. And 3 questions are under profitability and earnings performance. Let's start with number one, and then on profit trend. So adjusting MD's results, excluding the ISP's contribution standalone profit appears to be approximately BHD 18 million versus BHD 20.2 million last year, reflecting an 11% decline. Could management comment on the underlying stand-alone performance trend.

Sure. absolutely. And thank you for your good insights, Mr. Pau. As I have mentioned before, this is predominantly attributed to the treasury-related gains, that we were lower by BHD 5.5 million. And as the CEO also mentioned that this is a time difference and due to the geopolitical situation and environment. So essentially, at the decline is related to the lower treasury financial being stable.

Now probably if I was to -- first of all, a thank you very much for the question. But if I was to take -- we only can be stand-alone view on profitability, then we would not be consolidating out the BSP dividend that Perceive, right, as a Bennett. So notwithstanding the timing difference on treasury gains as a sum of the regulated prices. Since your question is about NBB parent stand-alone and NBB parent stand-alone profitability would actually work out to be BHD 22.5 million. And that would be a 7.5% growth over 2025. Because if you look at NBB standalone, we would account for dividend that PA has paid to NBB as well in consolidation that is cancel.

Thank you. And also other income on the next slide. EBT other item dropped by approximately BHD 13 million or 49% year-on-year. even after excluding last year's exceptional gain of BHD 9.7, other entrants still appears lower by around BHD 3.4 million or 20%. Good management elaborate on the key years behind this decline and whether this trend is expected to continue.

So there are 2 components, which offset each other. So relations to about a BHD 3.5 million impact. One is what we already mentioned the BHD 5.5 million of credit in partly BHD 2 million is offset by the strong recovery that we have in the P&L or the net impact as you have eretailing is approximately 30%.

Earnings per share. EPS declined to 9 fils compared to BHD 12 billion on the comparable period last year, a local competitor reported a stronger EPS of BHD 14. Could management elaborates on the main factors behind weaker earnings generation and shareholder returns.

Yes. So the local competitor benefited from higher gains in Q1 as they have disclosed in their financials. And the lower EPS NBB is also driven by a higher number of outstanding share other than the weakened performance.

I think we just start to answer the part of the question about the other income detail, which was whether this trend of the client is expected to continue or not.

We have taken specific measures given the fact that the environment and the geopolitical situation evolves as well as our customer demands and how we book our fee and interest income, but it is coming from corporate banking, retail banking, et cetera. Our objective is to deliver growth. And I think we still have a solid 6 to 7 months available for us to grow our portfolio, especially on the fee.

The other thing is that there is other income there's an offset vitally against net interest ice, because if you monetize warrants or hedges against the launch, which perhaps is more the local pet they have done. We can only secret because we don't know what will be aggressive there specifically. It is -- there's an offset there, right? And I think for us, we always make a decision based on what the end outcome would be and what our view is operates and what our view is on investment securities versus growing global. I think it is fair to suffice that actually, local competitors have not seen a growth in their deposits or assets in the first quarter, notwithstanding higher income that may have been reported in a particular quarter. So again, we look at the fundamental and continuing our organic focus and being able to deliver growth on an organic basis year-over-year. I think there was a question earlier about ability to sustained loan growth of 5%. If I just look back at our 5 years plus 1 quarter track record, our compounded annual growth rate on loans has actually been surplus.

Is net interest margin. NBB's NIM declined to 2.1%, while a local competitor maintained its NIM at 2.3%. On declare the pressure on spreads and whether the bank expects further compressure going forward.

Of course, Hisham, there is a correction. I would like to minis NBB's NIMs stands at 2.5%, okay? We have been taking to ensure the pressure on spreads will always be there to whether how we look at it, we different situation and a different levels. However, I want to highlight that we are taking numerous measures we have already undertaken to ensure that NIM trajectory improves on a quarter-over-quarter basis. I would like to just expand on my comment further that we are managing the interest rate gap from IRRBB perspective, we are also executing different balance sheet management strategies, such as repricing so the lower per spread assets. And looking at our short-term deposits, how we are trending on the liquidity side, we will be what type of deposits we have for whether it's U.S. dollar or a -- we are looking at ensuring adequate irises, interest rate swaps and cross-currency article to ensure the interest rate caps on vanart. And as for not least, hold back your rare group at the net improved. But I think we have to look at cutometer. I mean, perhaps we can look at the last 24 months trend on relative compression of NIM between us and the local competitor, and then I think the answer would be yes.

Okay. Last question, Mr. [indiscernible] is under the heading provisions, credit quality and ECL assumptions provisioning an expected credit loss, ECL assumptions, given the geopolitical environment and the changes in ECL assumptions, specifically reducing the weight of the optimistic scenario by 10%, increasing the base scenario weighting by 20% on and increasing the pessimistic on all weighting by 30%, we would have anticipated a more noticeable rise in provisioning less. Thus, the question here is just the limited impact suggest that the changes were largely cosmetic or where specifically or more specifically can the impact the opposite always specifically can impact be observed within the financial statements.

Sure. As we have mentioned previously, the NBB maintains sufficient level of offers to address any shocks that may come in the future So this is -- we have ensured that we have communicated this and highlighted at our genius calls is at. And I would like to highlight the bank's continued prudent risk management which has always ensured that bank is in a position to absorb any shocks without severity impacting the shareholders. All right. So that is the approach we have taken. And these changes were not cosmetic, but embedded in our model runs. If you see we are disclosed appropriately what we have taken, not necessarily given the fact that we have prudent addressing golfers, we have managed to cover those shocks.

Thank you very much. I have 6 questions from Mr. Ali areas. But before that, there was a comment or the observations that will be made by Mr. [indiscernible] and say good afternoon, everyone. I hope on pronouncing the name correct, Mr. [indiscernible] In P&I, the other income [indiscernible]

I think the cost-to-income ratio is obviously an outcome of the income on a year-over-year basis being lower, relatively speaking. But the focus on cost measures and cost containment continues. And you're absolutely right. I think we're very focused on the ratio, and we will continue to watch in the future and address it on both the new better as a inaugurated.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Raj. Going to Mr. [indiscernible] again, they're tied into certain headings. Earnings performance. Please bear with me. It's quite a lengthy question because there's a analysis before that. So NBB's media announcement highlighted an approximately 2% increase in normalized net BHD 0.4 million of the note-related expenses that we had to relate to 2026 activities and we, therefore, more appropriately be affected in 2026 rather than adjusted against the 2025 comparative figures in addition. Based on the published financial statements without normalization adjustments, net profit appears to have declined by approximately 27% year-on-year while excluding only the one-off gain, would suggest broadly throughout year on started by the reconciliation between the reported normalized and underlying performance figures, including weather equivalent, 2025, merger-related expenses were also normalized for clean systems.

So there are 2 profits that you can take, right? for normalizing. Either you're aligning to 2025 to 2026, we have aligned 2025 to 2026. No one approach is incorrect, both are correct. And the difference is about 0.4%. 2025 was normalized to number one, exclude the BHD 7.5 million of gains after NCI share on the reported profit of BHD 9.5 million associated with the BIS asset sale that we had recorded in 2025 and includes also the difference of your EUR 0.4 million on the merger-related expenses. So the total adjustments are BHD 7.9 billion, Mistry, reducing the reported number of BHD 28.1 billion. In case we thank you for sending us the question and then give us time to adequately prepare your response. So that's the response here.

Profitability ratios and operating efficiency. So there are 2 questions related to profitability ratios and operating efficiency. The first question is return on assets declined to 1.3% compared to 1.4% for full year 2025, and 2.2% in Q1 2024. In Compass, a local rival achieved a higher return on asset despite operating on a smaller balance sheet. Could management comment on the factors impacting NBB's profitability efficiency and asset utilization.

So if you take that into account obviously that is the vest impact that we see lower versus last year. So that also impacted on 1 side NBB's on the other side, on our competitor. These are the major difference at least.

Second question NBB's cost-to-income ratio increased from 52.7% to 56.7%, whereas the local correspondent and cost ratio significantly during the same period. Could management elaborate on the drivers behind the increase in operating costs and the road map to improve efficiency ratio were more competitive levels. I think we have mentioned twice during this call about the cost optimization and the containment. But further elaboration.

I think we -- as we mentioned, we've elaborated on that. This is a 1-quarter measure on cost-to-income ratio based on a timing difference on certain one-offs that we had from a treasury perspective last year as well as based on based on the large one-off that we had last year, which we were normalized for I really don't want to keep commenting on unnamed local correspondents and competitors. It would be speculative. If we want to have an offline one-on-one compensation on any basis, and we're happy to do that annualize quality of earnings.

Thank you very much provisions, credit quality and ECL assumptions. One question over here. NBB Group reported only a 0.1 billion in additional provisions against commitments and no provisions against loans and financing. Despite the ISP reportedly booking BHD 1.5 million in provisions on a stand-alone basis, implying a reversal of approximately BHD 1.4 million at group level. Could management explain the rationale behind this treatment particularly as we observed a similar trend in the 2025 results. Allow you to answer this part because I have 2 questions more, but let's take it biopark, if you don't mind.

Yes. So as I've mentioned previously on the slide on a quarter-over-quarter basis based on the coverage ratios be fairly standard. That's part of that. Number two, we have always -- we've been taking risk management measures and the offers that we have always been focused on prioritizing throughout all the recent years. This reflected in the comp ratios that we have disclosed it. And with model-driven coverage is stages wanted to showing adequate levels compared to the market for it. So that's what the group on applied the model-based approach in determining our coverage ratios. And we have also, as our CEO mentioned earlier, that we have upped our Craps with 45% assigned to the worst case scenario. This indicates that we have sufficient provisions that we continue to maintain at that time of stress.

I think I just want to add that when we do these adjustments on the border, there's certain ECL provision charge that we have generated. Whatever additional buffers we have over and above what the mortality is -- it is basically -- in this case, we have chosen to apply it on a more conservative basis. But we retained sufficient offers to be able to absorb that more conservative period. The financials, the ECL calculations the model assumptions are all, of course, finalized with the approval of the external auditors with the approval of the central bank. And I think with respect to the comment on the press release and all that, I think that was just the final press release that was issued and approved or just to find a version of it that was fleet that were reflected in the discomfort in our financials to not change in any way, we just an editing exercise in the press release right.

So as far you're commenting on the other project per first for the more we noted that the initial press release referred an additional BHD 4.6 million charge which could not lead to be traced to the published financial statements before this quarter was amended.

There was no change in the financial state ment at all. Financial statements remain unchanged from the time that they were approved by central bank.

Thank you very much. Two more questions from Ali. One is under liquidity and Bali position Yes, liquidity and balance sheet position. NBB's net money market position improved to approximately BHD 256 million from BHD 68 million at year-end 2020. However, this still appears relatively modest or national bank for NBB a systematic importance. How does management assess banks can liquidity positioning and funding flexibility. It's worth noting that T-bill portfolio declined from BHD 260 million at end of March 2025 to BHD 26 million as end of March 26.

So three points from my side, the funding continuously improves. As you have seen from our customer deposits, the organic growth, we had same cut none. Number two, when you look at the money market activities, of HQLA holdings, especially related to the liquid assets. We have shifted -- we have mentioned from bills through investment securities. And the last but not least, our objective is to fully optimize and raise and it showed that our recurrence metrics specifically relates to NIM targets that we have, that remains supportive and adequate at all types. So these are the measures we are taking on other activities that I have just explained earlier. And if I just give you the liquidity coverage ratio position that we have currently, we are at about 314% CM, which is way above the regulatory level.

Last question Mr. Ali is related to work in performance and shareholder value. As a market capitalization declined from approximately BHD 1.3 billion in March 2024 to BHD 1.4billion in March. Could comment on factors behind this decline in market value and the strategy, so in shareholder confidence and long-term valuation.

Yes, I think it's a very good question. I believe that despite NBB growing its profitability by 25% over the last 3 years, between 2022 and year-end at '25. We've seen the trend that Ali, you've outlined, as you know, for the better part of those 2 years, we have been disclosed merger discussions with BDK. And as we've seen the trend in other 1 when merger omissions happen, there's a lot of speculated movements in share prices. And fundamentally driven by vis-a-vis financials. So I think this is just really been aware -- that is -- that is a play fundamentally from the viewpoint of the bank's dividend yield or the max profitability from the bank's growth in balance sheet performance of its overall business. There is absolutely no kind of reason to believe that the share price will continue to be reflected some weakness. In fact, we see -- we are seeing interest from -- obviously, we monitor our share exchanges of market, and we've seen this in strong interest at this kind of from some of the investors as well.

With that, thank you very much respond to everyone who asked the question and provided no observations, so to how much NBB is all about is rely -- is it to relative to the actual market. There is 1 question as 1 that will start us, but I'm glad to bring up this topic because the National Bank of Bahrain. Especially during -- that's already the geopolitical situation, but almost -- the region has -- so I think that you would like to elaborate on the resilience part because I know that you talked about it during the first part of your presentation, but I think just to wrap it up at the National Bank of Bahrain, remain closer to those customers and understanding and it's about to serve have got you over here just in the high.

Yes. No, absolutely. I think, look, the resilience was tested to the extreme in first quarter. And I think both at the level of our people as well as our systems as well as just our ability to serve customers at a base level. I think as National Bank, it is inverse when they saw bank and a bank competitors as a result of destruction to cloud services, we continue to operate and investments like our Tier 3 data center that we went last year, belong to Bank of Bahrain, to own a T-sertified data center in our practices were very extremely valuable in circumstances like this. Our retail digital app continued to operate seamlessly. As I mentioned, most importantly, our people who are serving customers with great dedication and national price branches for largely we were the most active going back to 100% network being operational. People were working from disaster recovery centers, people who work for pulps doing the crisis, doing the detail devices, and we were still at office environment. Some people are in office, right, that, I think, just really also tested the resiliency of our tech plasma had ability to pivot from the 0% in the office to 100% of is to your clean on a day basis, we were adapted to change. And similarly, in UAE and in KSA, we adopted a similar approach. Sweetener approaching. And I think the strength of the group functions, whether it's IT or its operations. or its communications or central nation and execution and strength of balance sheet management take rate management by group markets and creation you can really get through. At the same time, we are in the spirit of continuous improvement, we've identified opportunities to further improve our synergy and we overall continue to contribute in the weeks and the years ahead.

Thank you very much. And with that, we conclude the investor's meeting for Q1 2026. I would like to thank everyone for their attendance, for their observation, for their notes, and all the questions [indiscernible] for your continued support. [Foreign Language]

Thank you very much. Thank you for the participation. Much appreciated.