Sberbank of Russia (SBER) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, dear analysts, journalists and investors of Sber. Thank you very much for joining us at this conference call dedicated to the disclosure of Sber financial performance and IFRS in Q1 2024. We have with us today Taras Skvortsov, Vice President, Head of Finance block. He will give a presentation on the financial results, and then we will take your questions. Before we begin, please note that this conference call is being recorded today on April 26, 2024. During the call, the management may announce guidance and expectations, which may deviate from the actual figures later on. For the full text of the disclosure, please visit our website. We have posted it there for your convenience. Let's begin the presentation. Taras, over to you.

Thank you, Anastasia. Good morning, everyone, joining us at the call. Very happy to see you all here. And today, we are disclosing the summarized performance results of Sber Group in Q1 2024. And in addition to the standard disclosure, we have presented all of the key financial indicators of Sber on our BI platform navigator in a very straightforward and user-friendly format. It is an interactive analytics tool that we initially designed for ourselves, for Sber, and we are using it in a far bigger scale than what you see on the website, and we are now offering this tool to the wider market. You can see the QR code with a link to Navigator on the slide or you can find us in our press release. So Sber's net profit in Q1 this year exceeded RUB 397 billion with a 24.2% return on equity. The year-to-date equity increased by 5% to [ RUB 6,904 trillion ]. The group's N20.0 total capital adequacy ratio increased by 10 basis points over the quarter to 13.9%. As you know, this week, Sber Supervisory Board recommended paying out dividends for 2023 in the amount of RUB 752 billion or RUB 33.3 per ordinary and preferred share. The annual meeting will take place on the 21st of June. We invite our shareholders to take part in this online. Each shareholder will be able to vote on each agenda item in their personal account on Sber's website up until June 20. The annual meeting will also be streamed live on our website. But let me return to the presentation and add some color to our quarterly results. The number of active retail customers increased by 300,000 during the quarter and totaled 108.8 million. The number of monthly users of the Sberbank Online app grew to 82.5 million. And the -- down to MAU ratio amounted to almost 53%. Almost every customer of ours, in addition to Sberbank online, is also a member of this placebo loyalty program. The number of the program members was -- grew 4 million over the quarter and totaled 81.2 million. Most customers use their Sber ID for login and identification in various apps, not just Sber apps, now across more than 1,400 various surfaces, 81 million customers to this. And that number had a 6 million bump over the quarter. Speaking of our financial results, in the first quarter, the growth rate of net interest income on Sber was 24.4% year-over-year. And in absolute terms, it reached RUB 700 billion. The interest margin was 5.88%. In general, the economy performed better than we had expected. We recorded a growth of real wages and an increase in household consumption, also spurred by low unemployment. Given the results of Q1, then the updates of Rosstat for the quarter-by-quarter GDP dynamics in 2023, we have revised our GDP growth guidance upwards from 1.7% to 2.8%. At the same time, given the tougher [indiscernible] of the Central Bank, we are changing our key rate forecast. The period of high rates will last a bit longer, we think. And at the end of the year, we expect the key rate of 13%. We see a significant effect of price reduction as a result of the regulatory actions. And therefore, we have reduced our guidance for relation by the year-end to the rate between 4% and 5% from the previous level of 5% to 7%. In terms of lending activity. In Q1, we observed a gradual adaptation of [indiscernible] to the higher rates and a tighter regulatory regime, while as the end of the quarter approached, demand was recovering. The corporate portfolio grew over the quarter by 0.2% to RUB 23.3 trillion. The main disbursements were in the financing of residential real estate, metallurgy and transport. The SME portfolio increased by 5% year-to-date to RUB 5.9 trillion. At the same time, despite higher rates, the quality of the corporate portfolio remains rather stable. The cost of risk for legal entities was 47 basis points. The average yield of the corporate portfolio increased by 95 basis points to 12.2% over the quarter, and the share of the portfolio at floating rates was 56%. As for the dynamics until the year-end, in light of the more positive outlook on GDP, we have maintained our guidance for the growth rate of the corporate loan portfolio in banking industry at 12% to 15%, and we are also targeting the same dynamics for Sber. In retail letting, the tightening of regulatory restrictions since the end of last year, and an increase in macro add-ons for mortgage loans since March of this year, had the greatest impact on the dynamics of disbursements primarily in mortgage lending, the biggest segments of the market. The mortgage portfolio grew 0.8% over the quarter to RUB 10.3 trillion, whereas mortgage applications and the state programs used to be predominant in the structure of disbursements. We are seeing this share decrease to 56% in the first quarter, but they are still at a considerable level. Demand for credit cards and consumer loans remain fairly stable, same for car loans. The credit card portfolio in Q1 increased by 10.2% to RUB 1.8 trillion. Sber's market share reached 50.5%. In consumer lending, Sber accounts for a 40.2% share and that is a 0.8% increase over the quarter. Its portfolio grew -- quarter by 2.4% to RUB 4 trillion. The cost of risk of the retail loan portfolio amounted to 0.65%. In Q1, the bank conducted a regular recalibration of its retail risk assessment models to reflect changes in customer behavior, which had a positive impact on the cost of risk. As for our guidance, we have raised our expectations for the growth rate of the retail loan portfolio in the industry to 9% to 11% over the year, and we plan to increase our share primarily in the high-margin segments. The quality of the entire loan portfolio also shows stable dynamics. The share of Stage 3 loans changed insignificantly and amounted to 3.5%, while the cost of risk across the portfolio in Q1 was 54 basis points. The inflow of funds from individuals over the quarter rounded to 2.4% and increased to RUB 23.5 trillion amid the increased macro add-ons in the loan portfolio. The growth was 2.4%, as I said, which is a great result for the period. Out of the RUB 23.5 trillion, the fixed-term accounts grew by 3.2% and current and savings accounts by 1.6%. The high share of customer funds and current accounts, which exceeds 47% of the total amount of retail funds is one of the factors supporting the net interest margin. The stable demand for fixed term products in the context of higher rates in the market, affects the total cost of retail funds, which increased to 6.1% over the quarter. Given that the key rates will remain high, we have considerably revised our guidance for the growth of retail deposits upwards from the previous range of 17% to 19% to 24% to 26%. Sber will be on par with the industry in terms of dynamics. The inflow of corporate funds in Q1 amounted to 9.6% to RUB 15.1 trillion. The cost of corporate funds over the quarter increased by 1.3 basis points to 10%. High competition for customer funds as well as requirements to comply with the N26 ratio, which every 6 months will be increasing, were the key factors putting pressure on the interest margin. Nonetheless, we maintained the guidance that we announced at the beginning of the year, the guidance for 2024, in terms of the margin at the level of above 5.7%. The supporting factors remain namely loans and securities at floating rates, a considerable portfolio, a decrease in balance sheet FX volumes, acceleration of retail lending and a high share of current accounts. In the first quarter, NCI growth amounted to 7.6% year-over-year to RUB 184 billion. The main deterrent was net income on bank cards, which remains unchanged compared to Q1 2023 due to the growth of fee and commission expenses on Sber's placebo loyalty program. At the same time, in early April, we overhauled our program. We have been migrating our customers with the new program. It is now as straightforward as possible. The customers now decide for themselves what they will be receiving, increased cash back and bonuses for, and they can select categories depending on their preferences. It is important that the loyalty program should be integrated with our SberPrime subscription. Now SberPrime users will get additional categories and privileges. The number of SberPrime users is growing actively. And as of the year-end -- as of the quarter end sorry, is exceeded 10.6 million. Contactless payment methods, such as biometrics, QR pay and SberPay will also be rewarded with cash back points under the new loyalty program. The number of terminals with biometric payments increased by 85% over the quarter, reaching 430,000. Now the number of users of this technology is growing rapidly. The number of transactions grew many -- month on month, almost 1 million transactions in March. The number of customers using QR pay for payments reached 10.8 million. Our customers are constantly protected by fraud monitoring systems. In the first quarter, the effectiveness stood at 99.7%. In just the first quarter, we saved over RUB 100 billion of our customers' money from criminals. This operational efficiency culture remains a priority. The operating expense-to-income ratio was 28.4% at the quarter end. The main drivers of cost growth are investments in high-tech solutions and artificial intelligence to strengthen our competitive edge in the future, as well as expenses for retaining key talents. Risk-weighted assets. Our AI solutions are actively used not just by ourselves, also at Sber, but also our customers. Over 4,000 business customers have already integrated GigaChat into their business processes. It tells a number of users of GigaChat and Kandinsky neural network has grown to 11million to 18 million since the launch of these generative models. This is a new source of traffic for our group. In March, a large Russian open gift repository, GitVerse was launched and it is 1.5 months. It already had 20,000 registered developers. And again, let's look again at our forecast for 2024 in terms of the sector growth rate. We have significantly revised them upwards, as I said in my presentation. Our guidance for the financial performance of Sber over the year remains unchanged. We will be looking into whether it can be improved, depending on the metrics and also depending on the results in Q2. Thank you very much. I'm happy to take your questions.

Thank you, Taras. This is the end of the presentation. We will give you the floor for questions. [Operator Instructions] Elena Tsareva BKS (sic) [ BCS ] is going to ask the first question.

And congratulations on the great results. I have a few questions. I'm going to ask them one by one. The first question is about the...

Sorry, Elena, we cannot hear you.

Hello? Hello? Can you hear me now? Can you hear me? Hello? I hope you can hear me. I'm going to repeat what I just said. So thank you for the presentation and for the call. The first question is about the margin, the net interest margin, 5.7% maintained at that level in the first quarter. The dynamics was stronger in terms of the margin and also your metric is that the high interest rates will persist. Of course, we have the N26 ratio, but what is your outlook on these factors, primarily high interest rates? And what -- why this estimate of the net interest margin? Second question is about the cost of risk. Of the previous 3 quarters, the cost of risk was pretty low. So could you comment on why that is the case and how we should approach the cost of risk? Because it deviates slightly from the RAS results and also the volatility quarter-by-quarter. It also deviates from the guidance somewhat. So what is the correct approach to it in your opinion? And the third question is about the increase in corporate loans. There's been a bit of a lagging behind your petition. What were the reasons for it? And what is your forecast? Will you be able to revert to an accelerating trend?

Thank you very much, Elena, for the questions. Pretty comprehensive ones. So first off, the margin, it is lower than the 5.9%. That was our guidance. I think we can expect 5.7% or higher. Right now, the factors in this are putting pressure on the margins are pretty strong. The main factors I said in my presentation are high competition for liabilities and that the introduction of N26 and it's increased significance with the bank -- for the banks. The banks are trying to accumulate high liquidity assets, acquisition of such assets, and they're also trying to increase the term of such liabilities thus assisting themselves in compliance with the ratio. The second factor is that what we observe is a significant slowing down of lending. In the previous quarter, the growth rate of liabilities these days is way above of the lending growth rate. But that was in answer to your third question. As for the outlook, clearly, we also have this other factor, maybe not so typical for other banks, but it is significant for us, and it will be putting pressure on the margin, the payment of dividends in July. Dividend payment will, of course, be putting pressure on the margin because the -- we are talking about a pretty hefty sum. On the retail -- we are, nevertheless, seeing an acceleration of lending in consumer lending, car loans, mortgages. In March and in April also, what we are seeing is that lending has been growing and disbursements increased versus the previous months. The decrease of FX volumes on the balance sheet is continuing. We are seeing fewer and fewer deposits in foreign currencies. Our balance sheet's getting increasingly skewed toward the ruble and it also is helping the margin. And we also have the portfolio of loans at floating rates now which has increased as the key rate changed. So we forecast an increase in the margin, and we expect that it will stabilize at 5.7% by the year-end or somewhere in that range. We will be able to give a more accurate estimation at the end of Q2 because the level of competition that we see for the liabilities these days is a really important factor that is hard to predict. We will be keeping track of it, monitoring it, actually we're responding it and fighting for customer funds. And if we will -- and if we need to increase the interest rates, we will do it. As for the cost of risk, the situation is stable overall. We think it's not volatile. It reflects the situation that we have with the quality of the portfolio, and it's more or less on the same level. It's a little bit lower than our expectations, yet the current economic situation with the long-term interest rate hikes is not usual for the economy. And I think that no one really knew up until the end, how the customers will behave, but now we see that the corporate as well as retail customers are servicing their loans, much better than we expected before. At the same time, well, I mean, the demand is not going down. By the way, we are revising upwards our expectations for the retail-related liabilities. And that means that the cost of risk might -- is actually planned to be within the range that we planned and -- or even better. So the situation is as follows. We see that the situation is more positive than we expected. It's not a one-off factor. It is the situation dictated by the environments that we've seen in the previous quarters. So we think that this environment and this situation will remain. As for the loans -- retail loans, we increased by 0.2% of the quarter, and we had a decrease in the market share. We saw that a number of competitors and a number of competitors, not the entire market. Because, I mean, across banks, we see the dynamics that is close to ours, but some other banks disbursed any more loans and that growth of the portfolio, the market grew. At the same time, we -- you've seen that in March and April, we saw more than 1% increase of our lending portfolio. So we're going with a pretty good dynamics. I would like to say that in the start of the year, usually, the loans have been repaid because usually, we give out the loans in the second half of the year. So this is a seasonal factor really. But the situation is changing. It's becoming better. We are stepping up the dynamics and our efforts. Given the better rates for the customers, we can give loans to big projects because Sber has enough capital for that. So I think the situation will stabilize here in -- for the corporate loans. And I think that dynamic-wise, we're going to be on the level of the sector. We will offset the lagging behind that we accumulated in the previous year.

Svetlana Aslanova is our next speaker who's going to ask a question.

I have some follow-up questions about the corporate loans. What are the growth points that you see? Are we talking about such corporate customers or SMEs? You have also mentioned about the pressure of N26 on the NIM. As far as I understand, starting from September, there might be some easing for the high liquidity assets from the regulator. How might it pressure and impact the net interest and margin, and the landing overall maybe? And another question, more of a theoretical one, if the Bank of Russia retains the key rate at the level of 16%, which is the current level until the end of the year. How in theory, it might impact the NIM for the bank?

Yes, Svetlana, thank you for the question. As for the corporate lending, I mentioned that even in Q1, we had pretty strong growth for the housing development projects, lending and metallurgy and transport to these other separate industries. SME loans and small business loans are growing with a pretty good pace. So we always try to balance our portfolio. We usually don't have any large drivers and large surprises that we should wait for. And now when we're going to close the gap between us and the market, we're not going to give the loans to separate industries. We're going to give the loans to the best customers, whatever the industry, whatever the economic sector. And this really reflects the diversity of our corporate portfolio. So no insights here. As for N26 and the potential change of the list of the high liquidity assets, we do not expect any major changes, and we do not expect during this period, any additional opportunities or risks for ourselves. We see, overall, the regulator stance. We see their plans to manage these add-ons and the requirements for the banks and we understand the methodology and the values. So we obviously are going to adhere to these standards, but to ensure that it is optimal for their margin. Overall, I would like to say that the overall impact on the margin of the N26 has already been seen in the Q4, that was the largest impact. It might continue, but there will be a spillover effects more than the -- more than we saw in the end of the last year, and we have already readjusted. As for the key rates that might remain the same by the end of the year, this is a multifaceted question really because the larger rate on the market is positive for the banks. But 16%, and the fact that the interest rate curve for the short term is higher than for the long term, is a negative for us as well as for the banking sector. So if the key rate is going to go down and the level of short-term rates is going to go down quicker than the long-term rates, and this is what we expect, it is going to be positive for us. But if the rate is not going to go down and it is -- it will be maintained at the same level, it will likely affect negatively the margin. So in our scenario, we expect the rate to go down 13%. But if the rates remain at the level of 16% then the second scenario, margin-wise, will be worse. Moreover, the demand for the loans in this scenario is going to be more -- is going to be slower because, well, the customers use the floating rates -- loans because they expect the key rate to go down, to decrease the lending-related pressure that they are feeling right now. So this is how I answer your questions. I try to answer your question.

Olga Naydenova is our next speaker, who's going to ask a question.

Now the first question. This quarter, you showed some decrease of the coverage. How can you comment why that happened? Some target levels, some target indicators, first stage NPLs, what are the provision charges there? In terms of the creditor portfolio, quality and the provision quality, what are the benchmarks and what are the expectations? And as for the expenses, I have some questions, maybe you can comment on that or give some guidance. By the end of the year, what can we expect in this regard?

Yes. Thank you, Olga. Now as for the coverage decrease, that's the metallurgical factor really. You see it based on our other indicators, like the cost of risk and the dynamics of the project and the first stage loans, there's provision charges. Basically, I mean, it's a methodology driven factor. One of the loans was given through -- was taken from the portfolio with amortized cost to the portfolio with fair cost. And that means that the coverage ratio went down. So I don't think that this is the reason to make some major conclusions here. As for the other items, on the balance, I would say that we do not really disclose the entire -- all the components of our cost and income. It is a -- the item on the balance that has made many effects. First of all, we're talking about the charges when we change the currency of the loan from dollars or euros to yuan, for example. At the same time, we understand that the dollar and euro loans have very low rates, and the RMB-denominated loans are quite high. So if we have the same rates or if we increase the rates to the level that is lower than the market, we understand that this is a charge, obviously. This is where we lose. And this is where we lose -- this is a onetime P&L decrease. Now the P&L for our partner companies. We spend -- on the financial service loyalty of our customers, but the nonfinancial service loyalty, we need to ensure that we have that loyalty. And there are some other operational expenses that are included here. We are not going to disclose the details. I think that for the analysts, it's more important that the dynamics of the key rates, like the fee and commission income, the provisions NIM, NII, these are the major drivers of the net profit of the bank. And they are very much predictable and within the range of our forecasts, which means that we focus on their forecast and the analytics related to them, and we're ready to discuss them overall.

Antolly [indiscernible] is going to ask the next question.

And great results. Congratulations. One question. Can you give more details -- when RUB 750 billion are going to be taken from the capital?

Well, it's not like given thrown away, as you said. There's some spend that we've given it to our shareholders. The overall capital has decreased for this amount and the assets are decreased as well. We save the high liquidity assets. And as we pay out the dividends, our assets go down obviously. And that means that the source of the funding or the financing that in terms of the interest rate margin, which is basically free is there. And we are increasing the capital, thanks to the profits that we are getting in next month. So I mean in terms of the effect on the balance sheet on the other indicators of the bank, well, there is none really. Obviously, the margin goes down because the assets go down, but otherwise, that's the predictable story.

Questions from the journalists. First question [indiscernible] are from Interfax.

Taras, you said before that you plan to -- that every year, you plan to increase the dividend payout in real terms. So the question is, do you expect that as of the results of 2024, you are going to beat your 2023 record high dividend payout in rubles?

Thank you very much, Anastasia. We haven't really paid the dividends for 2023 yet. So I think it's quite hard to forecast our 2024 dividend payout volume. But last year, we presented our strategy. As part of the strategy, a number of key factors are considered. First, is the high and stable ROE, 22% or higher. Second, the N20, which is more than 13.6, the CIR, and as dividend payout of more than 50% to the shareholders every year. These are the three factors. So if we can ensure this level of ROE, if we do not have any other -- if we do not feel any other regulatory related effects from this bank, like some macro prudential add-on increases that's currently not being discussed, but can be potentially, or some other factors that we cannot really predict because the CAR, capital -- ratio, is affected by many things like the bond rates, the dollar to ruble rate, the ruble to RMB rate. So really saying that we can -- we are going to pay 50% for sure is not the promise I can give. But if we can ensure that level of capital adequacy ratio, we can do that. And as for the constant growth of dividend payout, if we ensure the stable ROE, thanks to the stable CAR, the net profit should increase every year. So the dividend payout should be higher as well, well, given the increased the net profit. So in terms of our promises, we are going to deliver. But as for the decisions for the 2024, we're going to take into account the environment that will unfold in 2024, and we'll make a decision in 2025, therefore.

[ Olga Churakova ] from [ Kommersant ] is the next one.

I would like to ask question about the following. In the quarter, you didn't have the increase of the active corporate customers. What it is related to? As far as I remember in the last 2 or 3 quarters that their number was growing, maybe there is some seasonal factor here or maybe these dynamics was in the previous quarter, like do you see the potential for the growth of the -- for the active corporate customers? Can you expand on that, please?

Thank you, Olga. It's a great Question. you noticed it correctly. We really see the near zero dynamic for the corporate customers. And you are correct, that's a seasonal factor. If you look at our indicators and for the last several years, we have seen that the number of corporate customers in our corporate portfolio does not change that much in the start of the year because some companies close their businesses. Some companies open their businesses, on the other hand, but it's hard to explain why that might happen because it's a seasonal factor really. As for the outlook, we obviously have ambitions to grow our customer base here. One of the biggest -- one of the most important points in our investment strategy is this one, increasing our corporate customer base. And I know that our corporate block is going to deliver or even over-deliver on this topic. So I think that next year, we're going to see the different dynamics, maybe in the next quarters.

Some other questions from the chat. One of the questions is related to the status of the blocked assets through frozen assets. The management was talking about the fact that some of the assets can be repaid. Any updates?

No updates here. We're currently on the preliminary stage, so to speak. We are actively working with the regulator. And when we understand the outline and the deadlines. I mean, it won't happen -- it won't be a one-off reflection on the balance sheet because we have a detailed procedure that's going to be supported by the resolutions of the Supervisory Board and of the shareholder meeting. So you're going to see that all of that in advance. So it won't be an unexpected surprise. We are working on that. That's in our plans. And we are discussing that with the Central Bank, and we see the options on how to do that actually.

Another question from the chats..

Actively invested in AI, launched enhanced models. One is the share of the future income of Sber, thanks to these technologies. So how do you think about monetization of these technologies?

At the moment, I would say we are competing for the customer. We have seen the experience of open AI. They first transitioned to the paid model, subscription model for ChatGPT and then they reversed seeing how it could potentially impact the customer base. So with the GigaChat and Kandinsky, we are pretty much at the same stage. We are actively developing the model, and it is important for us to get customer feedback, of course. We want to increase the number of requests and the number of active usage -- active users. We do not expect any significant monetization effects in this quarter in the near future from these models. But going forward, when -- as these models become essential for certain types of activities for certain businesses, so we do expect to see some economic effect for the bank. But at the moment, it is difficult to estimate it precisely. We will be able to gets a clear understanding of it when we -- as we evolve our products.

Another question from [indiscernible] Interfax.

Yes, I have a question about frozen blocked assets, Taras, you said that you were taking action, but top management previously said he would not be allocating the blocked assets to a separate legal entity. Have you thought about it again? Have you revised the strategy? What is your current strategy about it?

Well, frankly speaking, we never said that we had the issue completely resolved for the blocked assets. We do still have some blocked assets. And within the mandate of the law, or within the opportunity to -- that we have, we are taking action every month. We have been taking action to resolve the -- as a block. It's not hundreds of billions of rubles. But for separate assets, we are doing it. And you have probably seen us in the press that Sber was able to either take legal action to return frozen assets or has resulted in some other way. The blocked assets are at varying stages of accessibility for us. And what we said was that the most problematic block assets, frozen assets -- for them, we did create 100% provisions as soon as we learned about the block. We have been making good progress and getting back the frozen assets. This is a continuous action. And it is yielding results. That was the case in 2022 and 2023, and that will be the case still in 2024.

So it is just one of the options for you to returns such frozen assets for a separately created legal entity, right? When we were discussing this pursuant to the federal law, yes, that was one of the options. One of the options according to that law is allocating these frozen assets, together with the liabilities to a separate legal entity. It's transferred from Sberbank [indiscernible] and that requires certain consents and corporate approvals. But are you doing this or not? Because previously, you said that you were not going to go that way. I'm sorry, we're pestering you about this.

We are considering it, and we are discussing it with the regulator.

Our next question is from [ Yulia Koshkin ] from RBC.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

My question will also concern blocked assets, just to follow up, sorry, but it's important. As far as I know, according to the federal law, banks have the possibility to reorganize by the end of the year, so there's not much time left. So did I understand you correctly, if you are going to go that way and make that decision, you're going to do this before the end of the year?

Yes, Yulia, that's correct. I think we have taken all the questions from the analysts and journalists. I see no questions on the chat other than the congratulations -- on the financial results on the dividends. Thank you very much for your interest. Thank you for spending these 46 minutes with us. Once again, just a reminder, we have this interactive segment on our website, dedicated to our financial performance. We greatly appreciate your feedback about this service. We wanted to make as user friendly to you as possible. Thank you very much, and see you soon in the second quarter. [Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]