Powszechna Kasa Oszczednosci Bank Polski Spólka Akcyjna ($PKO)
Earnings Call Transcript · March 12, 2026
Earnings Call Speaker Segments
Unknown Executive
ExecutivesGood morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'm happy to meet you and welcome you at the presentation of our bank financial results for 2025. I'm in charge of Investor Relations. We have with us CEO, Szymon Midera; CFO, Krzysztof Dresler; Chief Risk Officer, Piotr Mazur; and our Chief Economist, Piotr Bujak. This is to our CEO. Thank you very much.
Szymon Midera
ExecutivesLadies and gentlemen, undoubtedly, 2025 was for us the strongest year in our history with the strongest, highest result, both for the bank and among other market players. 18 years ago, we set the bar very high with our bold and ambitious goals set in the new strategy. We wanted to deliver. We wanted to consistently pursue our business and financial goals. And we wanted to change the perception of the market as a whole, and we did it. The innovation, the competitiveness of our brand has changed or the perception has changed. Ladies and gentlemen, we will try to go through quickly our presentation. Change in the number of customers, 327,000 more, 20.5 million in total. This translated into business increases, a 14% increase in customers savings, almost PLN 700 billion. Customers financing 11% year-to-year, customers financing amounting to PLN 327 billion. We have a double-digit growth in our loan portfolio, and we would like to sustain this dynamic. I will give you the details later. This translated into a double-digit growth in total assets up to PLN 583 billion with high equity and high CET1 15.57% and large room for dividend and supervision criteria. You see here the net profit, PLN 10.7 billion with provisions for Swiss francs. Loans, ROE, 19.5%; net income margin, 4.76%; cost, 31.1%; cost of risk, 30 basis points, very high results on the Polish market. NPL, 3.34%. NPL is stable, and there is no pressure on the quality of our assets. Let me move to the business activity part. I'd like to stress once again, very strong growth for both savings and financings in both retail and business segments. For savings, we've had -- we've registered a double-digit growth. And for investment fund units, we had PLN 24 billion last year, and there was 45% increase in assets, much higher than the market average, which was as we estimate at 35%. In total, our customers deposited for savings, covered bonds or investment funds, PLN 596 billion. It's a very high market share. Every [ PLN 4 ] is deposited at our bank. For investment fund units, we have got 1.5% of additional market share. Now we have 25%. It's a major result, and congratulations to the whole capital group teams. For retail financing and retail customers, we had 21% for consumer loans. In this business line, we are a true leader, 25% share in consumer finance sale. We want to maintain this share and expand further, 1.5% of new market share. And we grew from around 20% in the late 2024 to 21% in the late 2025. It's a major success of PKO BP, and that's the way we want to go. In new sales, we have around 35% of growth for loans, 50% for mortgage loans and 22% for consumer loans. Let me stop for a moment for mortgage. Loans, 30% last year. We kept this parameter. The data from the 2 last months show even higher results, and we keep the refinancing levels, and we stay positive in terms of customer retention. Last year, 50,000 families, households used our mortgage loan offer. Now we move to corporate customers. And quarterly, we have an increase in our portfolio. 2 quarters ago, it was around 6%, then 7%, and now we are nearly at 9%. In some segments of corporate customers, we have a growth of nearly 20%. We are extremely satisfied with that. We take a general approach. We also consider corporate and municipal bonds, factoring and leasing as well are taken on board. That is why I can say that today, 30 basis points in the market share is retained, its aligned with our strategy, which sets out the goal of 18%. Despite fierce competition in the corporate segment market, we strengthened and increased our market share. The largest transaction with corporate customers included everything that can be named or branded as quality and diversification. We are involved in energy transition. We are involved in defense investments and infrastructure projects. That would be all for me. And now I move on to Piotr.
Piotr Bujak
ExecutivesMacroeconomic outlook for the banking sector and for our bank was not negative. These record financial results were achieved under major uncertainties regarding macroeconomic conditions. We've been bombarded with news about the developments in the Middle East. However, last year, there were some other major risks as well, trade war triggered by the new U.S. administration, some earlier episodes of tensions in the Middle East. The Polish economy fared well and nearly as expected. We had 6.3% GDP growth, and there was a return to investment. After a slide, there was a rebound in 2025. We expect to have a true investment boom in 2026. However, the rebound was registered already in 2025. The financial standing of household improved, and that created the appetite for both consumer and mortgage loans and more appetite in retail segment to the sound financing and also the sound financial situation of corporate customers, a stable macroeconomic environment and resilience of the Polish economy were positive drivers. On the negative side, we had an unpredictable trajectory of failing interest rates. The Monetary Policy Council introduced higher reductions in interest rates, totaling 170 points. We expected 100 points, and that created a major pressure on the net income margin. Considering that, we believe that we need to recognize the level of results achieved so far. Polish economy as any economy around the world is exposed to developments, including the Middle East development as for energy mix, there is a perceptible share of supplies from the Middle East, both for oil and gas. Still, we are diversified, well diversified, and we do not expect that there will be some roadblock to the Polish economy due to that. There may be some price increases caused by the developments in the Middle East. And through interest rate trajectory, that may be of benefit for the banking sector in Poland. Throughout 2026 (sic) [ 2025 ], we had an inflation rate below 2.5%. And this year, in the next months, we will have like 3.5%, so more and still within the range considered as normal by the National Bank of Poland. It may be expected that the Monetary Policy Council will adopt a more cautious approach. As our strategy states, there will be 4.5% reference rate and the next reduction will probably take place in the third quarter. In 2025, there was a major decrease, a quick decrease. And these decreases took place more rapidly than we expected. This year, it will slow down. I don't think -- we don't think that the growth in lending activity will be hampered. There is no signs on the horizon that it will slow down. There will be a single-digit increase in lending activity in 3 key segments. To sum up, the environment is sometimes unpredictable and challenging, but the Polish economy is resilient to any external turmoil. Goldilocks scenario will have a positive impact on the quality of assets, create positive conditions for the development of the banking sector.
Krzysztof Dresler
ExecutivesLadies and gentlemen, as for the financial results, we had a record year, PLN 10.7 billion of net profit with some extraordinary items, legal risks for Swiss franc loans. But these extraordinary items were PLN 0.5 billion less than in 2024. There were some repeated actions in the last quarter, we had to establish provisions for the protection of our customers, PLN 290 million, including sanctions imposed by the President of the Customer Protection Office regarding interest rate modifying clauses. We decided to address these risks ahead, and that is why we established the provisions. In comparable conditions, we had almost 5% growth in profits. This is mainly the result of the increase of operating activity, and that compensated very much a very narrowing interest margin. As we signaled earlier, the bank took actions to stabilize annual interest margin and to replace that decrease to replace it by the new net interest margin by increase in volumes. We had great increases in volumes as regards to credit. So our clients, families, residents use our lending offer. And therefore, the quarterly interest income is at the level almost the same that was the same in quarter 4 and quarter 3, and that is all in this good environment and interest rates. And that is the effect of our precautionary measures like fixed term mortgage loans offered quite actively in '25 and '26. So actions taken as regards to the portfolio of debt bonds, I mean, duration and fixed coupon. And the third thing here important, closing the gap like interest rates from the stability viewpoint and decreasing stability is sensitivity of interest income. Our activity on IRS market is really huge. So as for fees and commissions, we have had acceleration here because you may remember that the first 6 months of last year, especially quarter 1 then were burdened in a positive sense as regards commissions on cards. So we have some elements of historical settlements from '23, '24 included in 2025. Therefore, we are very happy with this dynamics, 0.4 quarter-to-quarter despite the seasonability. Quarter 3 is very good for commissions. That's the effect of increase in transactions, and we are very happy with it. And in this environment of falling interest rates, it is very important for us that customers use more and more our services because the growing share in fees and commissions is something that we would like to have, all of us. Although we are not slowing the speed as regards the interest income, and we would still have the same approach to have this compensation by these volumes. As for the cost efficiency, please note that despite great investments and costs related to kick off of the new strategy and new strategy being implemented, Szymon discussed it as regards to this dynamic, 8% is not different, much different from what our competitors achieved in a more passive model [ last way ]. Quarterly, we are also maintaining the dynamics in these regimes. Quarter 4 has also specific features. So looking at cost to income at the level of 31% as regards to peer group and if you compare it to our banks from the comparative group, this is a satisfactory position of ours. We will continue to have offers as regards to investment and costs for development and also operating costs, we would intend support our activities, optimizing our cost basis we would include there more automation here, including tools based on AI. As for our issuing activity, last year, we had 4 issues in total for EUR 750 million senior preferred, 2 issues; EUR 500 million, each senior loan preferred and 1 issued PLN 2 billion on the local market. This is for bonds of Tier 2. This is a very good year also as regards the ratings because already in February, our rating of our senior loan preferred bonds was increased by 1 notch from Ba3 to Ba2. And in September, rating was even improved further. So now it's Baa1. So we would continue that. We are always one step ahead. So we are secured. We are taking into account the changing conditions. Everybody got used to geopolitics and the people don't regard. But today, placing bonds would be more difficult than in January. Therefore, we have time to issue the next bond when our balance grows. And we will be looking for a convenient date for that, which will be, on average, once a quarter. We should be present on the market once a quarter. And there would be -- some [ bonds ] would be getting closer to maturity. Some bonds could be redeemed earlier. So it is our constant work. We are expanding geography. You know it very well. The share of investors from Asia is growing, and we are very happy with it because here, diversification is growing. Thank you very much. Piotr, the floor is yours.
Piotr Mazur
ExecutivesGood morning. A moment ago, we had a presentation from media, and we mentioned that slides about risks don't contain any kind of extraordinary news. Maybe they are even boring. But from your perspective, I think it's good. But we prepared one slide that we would like you to be interested in. This is not this slide. This is one of the boring ones because it shows that on the one hand, the colleagues show double-digit increases and the cost of risk is just at the same position and even provisions are smaller than a year ago. And that gives us a good basis for thinking about further increases. And I'd like to also complement our colleagues from the marketing division. They did a great job indeed. And thanks to that, we have such effect because new production that the bank is now involved in is even slightly -- has slightly lower risk as compared to what we have now in portfolio. That's because we target good segments. The marketing is visible there, and we can see it on the risk side as well. On the next slide, we see the confirmation of that. So [ it shows us ] in the stage as we are following in Stage 2. So this more risky part of portfolio is going down. And at the same time, we have provisions coverage. And what is more important, all 3 business segments are very good, I mean, as regards to risk. And this is the slide I'd like you to concentrate on. When we say AI, everybody sees that -- well, it very often crops up in publications, investors discuss the topic. And if I ask AI, which expression is most often used now, AI said it is AI. But I ask AI how much Polish banks add thanks to using these various technologies. The answer was very long. But finally, it was mentioned that banks don't give such information, but we do give such information at the moment. We say that last year, we gave loans using machine learning models, very advanced one for over PLN 33 billion. These models enables us to increase acceptability of our decisions with risk unchanged. So we accepted more clients and not changing the risk. And this is PLN 1.5 billion, mainly in the segment of consumer loans. And this is 41,000 additional clients to whom we provide services, thanks to the technology. So PLN 1.5 billion. If you look at the maturity of these products and the margins obtained there, then in this period, the bank would earn, I guess, PLN 1.5 billion. So that's the use of the AI and advanced analytical methods. On this slide, we are also showing you two additional elements. We are talking here about the analysis of graphs and deep learning. Analysis of graphs is the use of the scale of PKO BP. We see various relations between segments, various links. We see whole chains of supplies. And the analysis shows that there is value added from that so that we should not only analyze the company's financial results, but also the environment in which it functions. And therefore, these new technologies enable us to improve the rating or the assessment of our risk. Deep learning, it's a technology which enables us to come from digital analysis to picture analysis in a normal kind of process. We translate various features or events into digits. Digits are subject to algorithms and thus the models are created. In this process, all these events are translated into the pictures and the picture is a subject of modeling. It's just like in medicine. You can examine the patient using simple methods like measurement, temperature or blood, nickel test, et cetera. But you may have also very advanced like magnetic resonance, which shows definitely much more. And that is the technology we are using. And I think the further development will enable us to maintain the low portfolio, good quality and to increase our market shares at the same time. The next slide, because we've already told you that this year, we would like to finish the production of such slides. Next year, you won't see such slides anymore. But we see that the provisions have been created. They are quite a lot of them, although they are characterized by downward trend. We do believe that the downward trend would persist this year and will be even stronger. Why do we think so? Because we are increasing the number of our settlements in various court proceedings and those related to mediation, and we see a fall in the number of court cases. The level of provisions is quite -- is high, but we are convinced that slowly the risk would be getting lower and lower. And we are convinced that this is the last year that we show these slides. And the last slide of ours is our capital surplus. It is still big, although we see some kind of further increase in credit portfolios. And that would require for us more effective approach and maybe some optimization as regards to capital requirements. Our colleagues from the financing section are working hard on that, but we have the first transaction as regards to securitization. And this enables us to some extent to effectively use the capital, and we are opening now the project towards increasing efficiency of our business with a view to the use of capital. And finally, it's worthwhile to say that all our successes that we can boast here is the effect of work of our employees who I think have good relations with customers. They are able to sell things in a safe way. Thank you so much.
Szymon Midera
ExecutivesThank you very much, Piotr. Now a few words about the strategic perspective of the outlook for the current year. So as for our financial objectives, after the full year of implementing the strategy, we see that we are in a very comfortable position above the objectives set. And in the context of return of capital, cost efficiency, cost of risk or capacity to pay dividends -- as for business objectives achievement within 7 pillars, we are on the path. We are growing much faster as regards to acquiring the number of clients, 330,000 new clients last year. We prepared together with Allegro and we launched the so-called ecosystem. And by the end of Q1 this year, it would bring about 150,000, our joint customers. And I may confirm that by the end of the year, we foresee 1 million of our joint clients under the ecosystem. And we show other initiatives in this area. As for our share in savings of households, we are above 25%. We are going towards this strategic 27%. As for accessibility of our branches, we are now involved in deep remodeling and refurbishment of our branches. So we did it in 100 of planned locations last year. And now every week, we are really opening a new refurbished branch. So this year, it's 140 locations to be refurbished. We are increasing our share in the corporate banking. It is a great success in PKO BP because as you know, we are bank more involved in retail activities. So our retail profile is very strong. So our really goal is to have this sustainable development of 2 strong banks. And we are very happy that last year, we increased our share in financing, giving loans to corporate clients by several thousand basis points. So now the level is 17%, and we are getting closer to 18%. So the consequence of that is PLN 12 billion invested in energy transition. So let me remind you that here, our objective is to participate in the level -- to have more -- no less than 20% in such projects on other markets. We opened the branch in Romania last year, 2 agencies in Sweden. And then in Lithuania a week ago. We inaugurated a new agency in Vienna. We would like to have 5 more locations on the most mature and advanced Western European markets. Don't forget that along with strategic initiatives, we've been implementing a deep transformation process in new models. I've mentioned already Allegro. I would like to mention auto market, 60% of increase year-to-year, 9,000 vehicles sold. In terms of transaction and marketplace for vehicles, we have become a leader exceeding the previous market leader. We would like to become a massive open table board of offers. One of the initiatives proposed as part of the ecosystem that we have been implementing with consistency. We've been developing digital upskilling, customer onboarding and shifting PKO BP towards digital services and more advanced processes. I'd like to go further and like to explain you our simple logic, the logic behind our model. Customer is at the heart of it, care, transaction levels, comfort, loyalty. The whole legacy of PKO BP was leveraged to enter the 3 top banks for NPS values. We maintained this position in quarter 3 and quarter 4. We are in the podium, and we do not want to leave it. That's our strategic goal. There is also an in-house staff involvement and staff satisfaction value. And we believe that with that, we will have a double-digit growth in business volumes. We are extremely proud of it in every segment, in every business line, we managed to get some additional market share and PKO BP grows faster than the competitors. This increased value of the company translates into business outcomes and record capitalization, an increase of 43%, twofold more swift increase than in the sector, it's by PLN 32 billion. What are the key objectives for this year? Well, further increase in market shares because the results are very optimistic. We'd like to expand our market share in both retail and corporate segments. And for retail in the midterm horizon, we would like to have 37%, it's flying altitude for us. In new sales, we have 30% for now -- and whether it's for cash loans, for mortgage loans or for investment funds units. So 37%, it shows the potential among retail customers. We would like to further commercialize our ecosystem, mainly the partnership with Allegro. It's building partnerships. It's adding functionalities. It's deepening the integration in the media, the account could be open within this partnership at PKO BP. And this 1 million of customers gained acquired with Allegro should be scalable. We would like to grow in digital acquisition. Depending on line and on segment, we have from several thousand to 700,000 acquisitions, and this is the key element for our strategy and long-term perspective. We believe that with digital acquisitions, we will be able to speed up and build these competence from scratch. Now financial aspirations for this year. Thank you very much.
Krzysztof Dresler
ExecutivesWe have left a very positive year behind. And now we are just in a year, we do hope it will be equally positive, if not better. We stay optimistic. Let's hope that the events will not escalate in an unpredictable way. We would like to leverage increases in market volumes. In loans, it will be higher this year than the previous year, and we would like to be active. In new sales, we have higher share than in outstanding balance, and we would like to sustain this dynamic. We stay flexible to some extent in terms of net income margin, it's overestimated and FRS market shows that there will be no further interest rate decreases on the horizon. So it's not bad news. The growth and the price should be combined, and we believe that the growth and the acceleration in terms of volumes counts more. Fee and commission income. In the midterm, we would like to have an increase in core incomes. The fee and commission income increases that transactionally. The fourth quarter showed that we were able to generate that kind of growth even if the base of quarter 1, quarter 2 was founded on cards. In the third and fourth quarter, our customers would use more capital market instruments, and we will be extremely active here, definitely. Operating costs, we will continue to finance strategic investments. It works well. We are on the trajectory of achieving our strategic goals. Trials are behind us. Commercialization is ahead of us. We've learned our lessons, and we know how to scale up these lessons. The investment spending will be shown in CapEx and in operating costs and the scale itself is bigger. We follow up market tendency and these cost dynamics will be high. However, on the one hand, we will keep the appetite for strategic investment. On the other hand, there will be some operating costs. We will have investment spending because that creates perspectives for the growth in future. Credit risk provision. Provisions, Piotr mentioned that it has stabilized. And for new customers, it's even better. We have also an appetite for exploring some other ecosystems, whether it's retail or merchant segment. This is slightly less chartered waters. So there may be some credit risk provisions. However, the scale and the level will not be that much visible. For legal risk costs of foreign currencies loans, Piotr said it all, we want to have much lower provisions this year. It's calibrated on an ongoing basis. It's evidence-based, and there is some room for adjustments. And these slides will be shown throughout the year, but let's hope that the next year, there will be no legal risk costs slides shown. This is also a new year of new income tax from 19% to 30%, an increase from 19% to 30% for corporate income tax. And in terms of return on equity, that needs to be addressed, and we will do it. We are cautiously optimistic. We will not slow down. Szymon mentioned that we have -- we want to have growth. We have appetite for new sales. We consolidate our business. There are some customers returning to us. It's not that we refinance other customers. We simply keep the new dynamics in sales. And with that, we are able to strengthen our market share. Thank you very much.
Szymon Midera
ExecutivesTo sum up, it was a robust, a very strong year in the history of the PKO BP. That's not a one-off event. It's an acquisition machine that repeats itself every quarter. In corporate segment, there is a quarter-to-quarter systematic growth, phased and systematic growth. We are very happy with this double-digit growth. We are very happy that today, as the largest Polish bank, we have the fastest growth rate that we work at full speed and full swing. We have diagnosed a competence gap, whether it's processes, skills, products, technologies, [ backup ] office, and it has been compensated, and that's why we are ready and calm that this growth will be sustained throughout the year and that we will be able to deliver on our strategic goals. Thank you very much. We are on time, and we are ready to answer your questions if there are any.
Kamil Stolarski
AnalystsSantander Bank Polska. Congratulations about the results for this year and congratulations about your market increases. There are increases in many segments. We could see it first in cash loans, then in mortgage loans and then in corporate segment. So major increases. So my question is why? What are the root causes? Why cash loans grow, while there is less growth in corporate loans? And you have some ambitious goals for retail. And there, you already have a large market share and you still see the opportunity for growth. And what about corporate where you have 16%, 17%? So what are the drivers behind the growth? And why such assumptions regarding market shares?
Szymon Midera
ExecutivesThat depends on the skills in specific segments. We are a retail bank, more than 12 million retail customers. That's easier for us to have quick wins where you can simply speed up this acquisition machine. In corporate loans and in investment funds units, we have a very strong 1.5% increase in market share. This is also about the potential that we have at hand. We have customers with a key account here receiving remuneration on that account. And among this group, this pool of customers, you have some who have decided to use new sources of financing, and we can reach out to them with this corporate products and that will help us to keep the credit risk at bay. So when you work well in terms of products, and in terms of processes, together with the investment funds, together with the deposit savings and loan departments at bank. And this synergy has given us the position of the leading largest bank in Poland. The competence and possibility of generating fast effect determine the situation today. And that means that it's easier for us to acquire more or less 30% of new sales in retail, which doesn't mean, and I would like to emphasize it, that we don't invest in the corporate part. But there, we have stronger competitors and then we have a bigger gap there in terms of products and processes. We are working on elementary things such as CRM so that to better address the needs of our corporate clients. We are deeply reorganizing the sales processes and the networks of sales. So naturally, it would be difficult -- more difficult for us there. But the goal is ambitious because please have a look, today, everybody, all big banks have very ambitious goals in the corporate sector. And we generated this increase at a level of 30 basis percentage points, and we are close to 17% of the market share in financing corporations. And I'm very happy that we have such a segment which -- corporate clients between PLN 30 million and PLN 60 million turnover. We have a 19 percentage growth in credit portfolio. So PKO is dependent on strategic clients. It's not dependent on one big transaction, which may change dynamic quarter-to-quarter, but it develops in a sustainable way in lower corporate segments. And here, we see what's going on, and we invest in people, technology, systems and in marketing as well. Please note that last year, it was for the first time in the history of PKO BP, we launched professional marketing support in the framework of the marketing plan for this particular segment. So we do want [ each ] sector to be part of us, but it's really much more difficult for us to obtain higher increases in corporate sector.
Kamil Stolarski
AnalystsOne more question, if I may. So cooperation with Allegro, so I checked the calendar. So you announced such cooperation 4 months ago. And I know the goal for this year, 1 million. But can you say something more about the success here? What have you achieved so far?
Szymon Midera
ExecutivesSo in real terms, we launched it in mid-January. So from the end of the last year, we've been doing tests, which were scaled on the internal base on our employees, that is PKO BP employees and Allegro employees. So we launched it on the 17th January. We had some minor technical problems related to connecting accounts. Another thing is maturity from the functional way from joint accounts. We achieved that by the end of February. So we've been fully functional for several last weeks. By the end of March, we will have almost 150,000 joint clients. And we see the trajectory is really accelerating. So daily growth is higher and higher. So we are better now doing this funnel and doing this conversion within this funnel. And we are really very certain that we would have this goal that is 1.5 million joint clients. And probably in the beginning of July, we will have full functionality under this partnership. So not leaving the context of Allegro, you can open in a simple way the account with PKO BP. And the other side of cooperation with Allegro is merchant finance. Everything goes according to the plan. We are now within the framework of MVP, which would define the parameters for Allegro merchants. And we are very happy with the first month of cooperation with Allegro and the cooperation started by the end of last year. And now we are working on conversion of applications, which, once again, you can submit in the context of Allegro. We have 3 minutes to take a decision so that the conversion should be as high as possible. And we are very happy here with it. As regards financing that big potential that is thousands of merchants operating on Allegro.
Kamil Stolarski
AnalystsThe last question. So here, CEOs, Mazur and Dresler has said that, well, there will still be slides about Swiss francs. Is there any surprise there?
Krzysztof Dresler
ExecutivesNo, there isn't. No surprise. They will remain. We don't know really when we give up all these slides. We would like, of course, to give up these slides. We don't know if we are able to do that this year. If everything goes well, we will. There are no surprises here. If there are some surprises, there are positive rather than negative.
Unknown Analyst
Analysts[indiscernible] I'd like to ask about increase in loans this year because the last signals from the economy say that from consumers' economy, we are now shifting to the investment part. Then interest rates going down and the third companies did not invest in the development of technology significantly in Poland and a very low indicator. And it seems that all your guidelines like 7% growth in loans this year, which is not a big change compared to '25, but it seems quite low. And don't you see here a risk that, for example, the increase in loans could be even 2-digit growth? And how could it look? Do you see any argument against the stronger increase in loans, especially among corporations?
Piotr Bujak
ExecutivesFor a long time, we've been very cautious as regards the prospects for growth of the corporate market. So I think given the consistence, our forecast for corporate increases were quite conservative. They were below the consensus. Now we are quite sure that corporate loans may be growing stronger together with intensification of investment activities of companies. So definitely, we see here upside. So the balance of risk factors goes up and -- but a stronger growth is possible in the segment despite of what's going on in the external environment, I mean, here, the global economy events, et cetera. As for the retail segment, that is mortgage loans and consumer loans, we were optimistic, and we showed a great potential here. We also said that we could achieve more. And we, all the time, think like that. The Polish economy, as we emphasized many times, is resilient to external turbulences at present. And although there is a bit higher interest rate path that we may expect as compared to the scenario from several weeks ago, but it will be just slightly higher. The cost of financing will remain low, much lower compared to previous years. And with a good economic situation, strong labor market, we even expect some improvement by the end of this year, some positive trends in the retail segment, in our opinion, will retain, especially as regards mortgage loans, we see the potential for a stronger growth. As for consumer loans, we must bear in mind that the Polish market is very much saturated with it. It's very mature out of the 3 major segments. So in that segment, we are the closest to the EU average. So even given the favorable macro environment, it would be hard to get here 2-digit growth on the market. For such years [ as sales ], banks with competence with a strong capital position, good technology are able to grow more, and we have appetite for that. Appetite is much higher as compared to forecast of the market. But there is generally no upside here on the market for us. Generally, we agree that looking from the macro perspective, despite new risk factors, I mean, external, the loan market may behave better than in our basic scenario.
Unknown Analyst
AnalystsNow the second question concerning the guidance for this year, I mean, in terms of results. Because when you look at the strongest things that is -- I mean, volumes. Now would you be able to use volumes against decreases in interest rates? And would increase in results be higher than cost and with the fall in CHF, Swiss francs now, would it offset a higher tax? I doubt about it. But okay, assuming that the volumes would be higher, how would, in your opinion, will be the growth of results? What are your opinion offsetting, et cetera?
Krzysztof Dresler
ExecutivesWe are not focusing on the last line. We are closing our lines. Now, I mean, what I mean, we are concentrating on the speed of providing services to our clients in key segments and the source of strengthening our position that is our market share is new sales. If we maintained our share in new sales at a higher level than the market share, that means that we are doing something well. There is something unknown such as the development of prices, but we see positive tendencies. As you remember, last year, the cash loan was somehow driven by escape from the sanctions of free of charge loan. So a certain fragment of higher increase in new sales was related to the fact that we rolled agreement. We as a sector, but not only that. And that also shaped some prices in some banks, maybe that was too low. But anyhow, we see positive tendencies in loans. And that reflection like that was in the banking sector. So it's not so that there is just pressure on prices from all the sites. Well, it does exist to some extent. We must be honest about it because in the corporate market, nothing has changed. All corporate banks are looking when you read the strategy, they are oriented at growth. Everybody wants to grow. But the issue is how to do it so that everybody would grow using the same, let's say, pie. So the element of price would definitely be important. What is important, we see by reading all the reports that the dynamic in investment loans is higher than in short-term loans, which confirms what Piotr said that the context of long-term investment is accelerating, and it's good news and the duration of portfolio impacts margins. So I presented guidelines in the last but one slide, and we are able to just provide you with such information. But we do our best so that the interest income [ won't replace ] the following margins. And we would like to maintain positive tendencies and dynamics. And as for costs, we have operating costs, we take into account inflation plus some other aspects. And there's also the investment level, which we will not stop. And there is stabilization in the loan cost -- risk costs. So there is also an important issue related to CHF. There is a tax context. So we are cautiously optimistic as regards to this year.
Andrzej Powierza
AnalystsAndrzej Powierza, Citi Handlowy. I would have a kind of 3-level questions about the credit market, maybe going beyond Q4, which is the major topic of this meeting. But well, I would like to ask about the situation today, the structure of your sales starting from mortgage loans, digital, normal, fixed interest rate or variable. Looking at the trends from last months at your own clients and other banks clients, in various dimensions. Could you tell me how mortgage sales look in your situation versus the market?
Szymon Midera
ExecutivesSo well, the situation after January and February is very good. We have more than 30% in new sales. It was published by the NBB, so you can check it. So as for commercialization of the digital process because definitely, we have an advantage here on the market a level of 300%. We have objectives for covering new segments, new clients by the process. We would like to finish with the old process by the end of this year because it is a bit disorientating for our clients. So we have a clear objective. So the digital mortgage, which enable us to scale us in this business without increasing back office costs should be 100 -- introduced by the end of this year. So we are also building the competencies of digital sales so that to use fully the process. So we should not use our traditional network and intermediaries. We are learning how to directly obtain the leads and work with the leads that is a conversion in the digital way by expanding this competence of virtual branch.
Piotr Mazur
ExecutivesFixed term to variable term ratio. Well, here, we have some negative patterns. We would like customers to accept fixed term loans just to avoid interest rate risks. The tendency has reversed until today, fixed terms were less attractive than variable rates. However, met with our reaction after more than 50% of customers accepted variable term loans. We believe that fixed term loans are more safe for customers. We have raised the issues many discussion platforms, and we'll do our best to make the customers safe, and we will encourage the fixed term loan.
Krzysztof Dresler
ExecutivesLast year, we talked about this natural hedging. We were producing our balance sheet and out of balance sheet results. And actually, our net income margin goes down more slowly than the failing interest rates. That is why fixed term mortgage loans play a major role, and that was all about the trajectory variable higher, fixed lower. So the attractiveness was different for fixed term and variable term loans. From the beginning of this year, thanks to a more attractive offer, we've exceeded 50% of fixed term loans. However, we had some moments when this level of fixed term loans went down. It's a safety parameter. It's sort of a pillar. Don't forget that variable term loans are exposed to uncertainty and the net income margin would be exposed to variability as well. In other words, more fixed-term loans means more stability for us and fixed-term bonds also play a role. And to fill in the gap, we will use the IRS transaction as a complement. And this will not change. We will become even more attractive in this respect. As for customer retention, we've introduced a dedicated program. We refinanced the sector and the sector refinances us, and we are in the blue. So if we see that one of our customers moves for refinancing to another bank, we'll try to react. But we're still in the positive result for the refinancing. That is why we have this retention program to keep our customers to make them use or use the refinancing offer of our bank as the first choice. It would not be easy to offer fixed-term loans in the context of geopolitical developments until today. But with what we have right now, we believe that it would be much more stable and safer for customers. And we do hope that with this business case, we will be able to regain the previous market share.
Unknown Analyst
AnalystsFrom the perspective of the financial market and macroeconomic outlooks, how do you see that in the context of the developments in the Middle East, the interest rates published by the National Bank of Poland, unemployment rate, LIBOR and so on.
Piotr Bujak
ExecutivesWell, all these factors impacted the attractiveness of the fixed term loan. And before customers would choose more variable term loans. Right now, they will switch again to fixed term loans.
Unknown Analyst
AnalystsThank you very much. I would like to comment on consumer loans. There have been changes in the average amount of such customer loans. There is a major increase in this lending portfolio. And I'm just wondering what has changed.
Piotr Mazur
ExecutivesWell, we mainly look at the customers' profile to see if we will need more provisions in the future. high business objectives did not translate into higher risks. We have like 80 thermometers to measure the risks for existing and new portfolios. And the new portfolio, I can say it is even safer than the existing one, basically because we sell to people we know to our established customers and simply consolidate what the obligations, the commitments they have with other banks. And we are quite quick and swift in that, and you can see it in the results. And add to that, marketing efforts. I see high correlations between marketing spending and the level of risks. So it works nicely, I believe.
Unknown Analyst
AnalystsAnd corporate loans. You said that there has been a higher growth in medium-sized enterprises. In terms of volume, what's the share for this segment of customers?
Szymon Midera
ExecutivesWe will complement that. We don't have this data at hand. I mean, the volume of loans for medium-sized enterprises. You know that we work with strategic clients, the largest Polish companies. We do have skills and products to do that. What we want to add is more about SMEs. We do a resegmentation of companies and some went to corporate segments, some others would be classified as retail.
Piotr Mazur
ExecutivesIn terms of volumes -- 30 -- that's the categories we have for the largest, medium and small.
Szymon Midera
ExecutivesPLN 30 billion for the largest customer, between PLN 60 million and PLN 500 million for the medium ones.
Krzysztof Dresler
ExecutivesDon't forget that you have PLN 35 billion for the small undertakings, and they do migrate from the retail to the corporate segment.
Szymon Midera
ExecutivesIn SMEs or even in micro undertakings, we managed to achieve an additional 10,000 new customers per month. And this is a major acceleration due to changes in the value proposal in our processes. This value proposal has been equipped to compensate for existing gaps, for instance, in accounting. And there has been a new marketing plan for this segment, even for the retail customers, the micro and smaller companies, and that is why an increase is higher than it used to be.
Unknown Executive
ExecutivesNow we can move on to customers -- sorry, to investors attending online. First question, net interest margin. You said that it's vulnerable and that it's 200 bps. Could you give us a figure for 100?
Krzysztof Dresler
ExecutivesPLN 720 million.
Unknown Executive
ExecutivesTier 1, how much of 2025 is already taken on board?
Krzysztof Dresler
ExecutivesFor consolidated, PLN 1.157 billion. For individual result, [ PLN 1,320 ].
Piotr Mazur
ExecutivesIt's about the number of disputes pending. We have not had major increases. It's -- we want to decrease the level of complaints made by the customers. We believe that we are effective in doing so over the last quarter, the tendency was downwards. We are using new technologies to identify any fraudulent transactions, and we also secure our customers against such fraudulent uses of money, and we see the result.
Unknown Executive
ExecutivesIn 2026, do you see a room for further growth above the market average with the risk below the market average. You've mentioned IVM and cloud computing and graph analysis and practical examples of that.
Piotr Mazur
ExecutivesYes, there is a room for the growth dynamic. For the graph analysis now, we are the largest bank in Poland, and we are present in all the segments. So we have a wider perspective on the market, and we can analyze customer financially. And then we can place that individual customer into a broader, larger market perspective. And we used such modeling in 2025, and we've been testing it. So the results I showed you do not take that into account, IVM and cloud. Well, what are the benefits of using the technologies? You've got cloud-based tools. And with these cloud-based tools, you are able to implement some solutions within weeks or even within days, so much faster. Moreover, new technologies can be used because before we had some computing capabilities restrictions.
Unknown Executive
ExecutivesI see no further questions. Thank you very much. Thank you for your attendance, and please feel invited for the next presentation, which will take place on the 14th of
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