Sberbank of Russia (SBER) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning. Good morning to participants of the call, our analysts, our investors, thank you for joining us today. Today we are summing up the results of Sber group's operations in the first half and the second quarter of 2024. I would like to remind you that you can find our key financial indicators on the BI Platform Navigator. Taras Skvortsov, Chief of our financial blog is with us here today. We will give a small presentation as is the custom, and then we can take questions. We look forward to being with you for about an hour. Now before we start, I would like to remind you that our call today, on the 8th of August of 2024 is being recorded, and during this call we might projections and expectations that might fall different from actual performance in the future. And for more detailed information on the risks, please look at a relevant slide in our presentation. Thank you very much. We are beginning and Taras Skvortsov has the floor.

Thank you, Anastasia. Good morning, dear analysts, investors and all the other participants. We are summing up the results of Sber for the first half and the second quarter of 2024. Again I would like to remind you that all our key performance indicators are on the BI Platform Navigator, that's an interactive analytics tool developed by Sber, convenient, graphic. The QR code with a link to it is available on our slides and in our press release. Now Sber's net profit for the second quarter 2024 increased 10% year-on-year and it stands at RUB 418.7 billion, return on equity 25.9%. Over the half year, we earned RUB 816 billion with a return on equity of 25%. Now passing over to the detailed section of the result. Let's talk about our clients, the most important thing. The number of active retail customers increased 0.5 million since the beginning of the year and now exceeds 100 million, 108 -- 109 million. Number of active retail customers increased to 109 million people. The number of monthly users is over 52%. The updated loyalty programs SberSpasibo is very popular, increasing continuously. It is 85.6 million participants, a growth of 4.4 million in the second quarter and 8.4 million since the beginning of the year. The loyalty program is integrated with our SberPrime subscription. The number of users continue to grow as of the end of the second quarter. It is 12.2 million. It now exceeds 13.5 million. Sber ID to log in and identify in various applications, that's 85.5 million customers of growth, plus 4.5 million in the quarter, plus 6 million since the start of the year. We continue to work with our youngest customers. We expanded the functionality of SberKids platform for them. The new version of the mobile app allows you to transfer funds both within Sber and to other partner banks. It now tallies over 1.8 million users aged between 6 and 13. Number of Sber's active corporate clients stands at 3.2 million. Speaking about externalities, the high inflation proved to be the main challenge. The current value for the 12 months, including July, exceeds 9% according to our forecast, it will decrease to 6.5%, maybe 7.5%. The high Q rate will remain longer than we expected and this year we did not expect it to decrease. We are in high rates environment that is not standard for the Russian economy. Businesses and individual customers have generally adapted to the existing conditions and the economy continues to grow. According to the operational data of SberIndex, the analytical service, we see the growth of enterprises turnover to be high. In June, the growth was 16.8% year-on-year, adjusted for seasonality and the entire past period of 2024 we have seen an acceleration of turnover growth. Household income has continued to grow. In June, the total income increased by 16.1% year-on-year, including salary pool, by 18.3% year-on-year; social payments, 17.2% year-on-year; pensions by 6.7%. Against the background of growing household incomes consumption also grow -- shows higher dynamic. Data for July puts the overall growth for expenses for goods and services at 14.2% year-on-year, with services growing at an outstripping rate of 15.8%. Full spending increased 14%, non-full spending 13.2%. With the brisk dynamics of the first half of the year, we increase our GDP forecast for 2024 to 3.8% from 2.8%. Now let's have a closer look at our financial results. In the second quarter, net interest income increased 19.3% year-on-year and reached RUB 713.2 billion, mainly due to the growth and change in the portfolio structure. In the first half, it achieved 21.8% and it exceeded RUB 1.4 trillion. Interest margin 5.84% decreasing by 4 bps over the quarter compared to the first quarter. This allows us, despite the ongoing high competition for customer funds and requirements, to comply with the ratios, maintain the forecast for the margin as a whole of 5.7%. The supporting factors remained as loans and securities of floating rates decreasing balance sheet ForEx volumes, high retail lending rates. As for lending activity at the end of the first quarter, we observed gradual adaptation of customers to the high level of rates. In the second quarter this trend continues. The corporate loan portfolio increased 4.4% in the second quarter, 5.1% without taking into account ForEx revaluation to RUB 24.4 trillion. The market share remained at 31.5%. High disbursements in financing of real estate, retail -- residential real estate, telecoms, metals, transport. We also noted SME portfolio growth 9% in the quarter to RUB 6.4 trillion, while maintaining our market share at 44%. The average return on the corporate portfolio increased 0.5 percentage points to 12.7% for the quarter and the share of the portfolio at floating rates exceeded 60%. The quality of the corporate portfolio has remained fairly stable. The cost of risk over the quarter rate decreased to 0.27% due to several cases of successful settlements. Another factor is the issuance of high quality borrowers over the high rating. According to our estimates, high rates are still putting limited pressure on company's profits. We do not expect the quality of the corporate portfolio to deteriorate. As for the dynamics until the end of the year, we increase our forecast for the growth rates of the corporate loan portfolio from 12% through 15% to 14% through 17%. Retail lending also had exhibited good growth. The portfolio amounted to RUB 17.5 trillion, having increased 6.3% and since beginning of the year, the growth was 8.9%. The Sber's market share grew another 0.3 percentage points to 47.5% over the quarter. The mortgage loan portfolio increased by 85.8% to RUB 10.9 trillion. Mortgage disbursements, especially towards the end of the quarter in June were supported by the expectations of wrap up in the mortgage programs. The share reached -- market share reached 54.4%. The demand for credit cards and consumer loans remained high. At the end of the second quarter Sber has occupied 40.3% of the market in consumer lending and the portfolio grew 4% and since the beginning of the year, the growth is 6.6%. The credit card portfolio grew by 10.6% and double that 21.8% since the start of the year that exceeded RUB 2 trillion. Our share increased to 51% which is 0.5 percentage points, just in the second quarter. Following the increase in rates introduction last year and the subsequent tightening of macro prudential limits this year, the cost of risk in retail loan portfolio increased to [ 01.93% ] while it generally -- it is generally compensated by higher rates. As for the forecast we expect faster growth of the retail loan portfolio in the sector and increase it to 12 point -- 12% to 14% per year. We are planning to further improve our market position. First of all, in more marginal segments. The quality of the entire portfolio shows stable dynamics. The share of the first stage loans remained at 3.5%. The coverage of impaired assets with provisions remained almost unchanged at 127.2%. Against this background, the total cost of risk for the portfolio in the second quarter amounted to 97 basis points. That's in line with our projection. Over the 6 months, the projection was 76 basis points. Given that we have provided a cost of risk forecast of 100 bps to 110 bps and we think we should maintain it at that. Attractive deposit conditions for individuals ensured high demand for Sber from customers. The portfolio grew in the quarter by 10.2% to 25.6% ex-ForEx reprisal and the market share increased to 44.3%. Inflow of funds was almost equally distributed between the current and term accounts. The share of funds due to individual customers on current accounts increased to 47.6% which is -- continues to be one of the factors supporting the net risk interest margin. The overall increase in rates for new borrowings leads to a moderate increase in the cost of liabilities of individuals by 90 basis points over the quarter to 6.9%. Taking into account the key rate, we increase again the forecast for the growth of individuals' funds to 26% through 29% from 26% through 26%. Funds due to corporate customers increased by 0.7% to RUB 15.2 trillion. Sber's market share decreased slightly by 0.6 percentage points to 18.9%. This strategy allowed us to reduce the pressure on funding costs in the segment. We reduced by 35 basis points to 9.8%. We increased the growth rate of corporate customer funds at the end of 2024 to 4.6% from -- to 4%. We expect that Sber is going to be performing better here. Net fee and commission income in the second quarter showed noticeable growth of 12.1% in absolute term, it terms -- income increased to RUB 210 billion. [ SEI ] grew almost 10% in H1 to RUB 394 billion. And [indiscernible] Sber presented updated terminals with payments using biometrics. Now smart terminals have become mobile and accept payments in 5 different ways with cards, stickers, contactless via NFC, QR code and biometrics. A total of over 700,000 such terminals have already been installed throughout the country. In terms of operating efficiency, the OpEx in the second quarter increased by 16.8%. The main growing areas. Aim to strengthen our competitive advantages, that's attracting and retaining highly qualified employees, investment in technological solutions and AI. The operating expense over income was 29.5% and it is 29% for the half year. Yes, the previous figure was for the quarter end. We maintained cost-to-income ratio at 32% for the entire year. Sber has continued to transform the IT landscape with the introduction of latest AI solutions. Sber's tech base should be the most reliable, fast and flexible. For example, the introduction of AI allowed to accelerate the disbursement of project financing to developers from several months to 6 days by the end of the year. We expect that about half of all such transactions will be issued out of the new process. In April, GigaChat and Euro network became a year old. Over 4,000 legal entities have actively used GigaChat and have already integrated it to their business processes with private users exceeding 6 million. In the second quarter, Sber held a tech conference for developers, GigaConf. A large-scale update of the platform was presented to work with the source code [indiscernible]. New developers can estimate their labor costs, analyze the code using GigaCode AI assistant and conduct development in an environment with a built-in GigaCode AI assistant, which allows for coding at least 25% faster. As part of the vendor substitution initiative, SberTech transitions to the use of the domestic Sber Platform V product, which provides security for internal and external traffic, which makes it an ideal solution for protecting critical data. We also presented an updated version of Kandinsky Video 1.1 Euro Network for creating full-fledged videos based on text description and image. The decision to pay record dividends in the amount of RUB 752 billion was made on June 21 and has been reflected in the statements for the second quarter. As a result, the equity decreased to RUB 6.4 trillion. Risk-weighted assets increased 5.8% over the quarter to RUB 50.3 trillion amid growth of the loan portfolio and an increase in regulatory macro add-ons in the retail portfolio. RWA density also increased 1.46 percentage points to 87.5%. All capital adequacy metrics remain much higher than the regulator's requirements, capital adequacy on the N20, which is the main factor of the dividend policy increased to 14.1% at the quarter end. Dividend payment under the Russian standards will be reflected in the third quarter. Therefore, given the higher growth rates of the first half of the year, we increased our forecast for 2024 in terms of GDP, inflation as well as growth rates of the banking sector. The figures you can see on the summary slide, I have had them previously. And following the faster growth of the banking markets and given the continued ambitions to maintain Sber's high performance and control credit risks, we are able to improve our target return on equity for 2024 from 22% to over 23%. Other target financial metrics of Sber for 2024 will remain as previously advised. Thank you for your kind attention. And I'm ready to field questions now.

Thank you very much, Taras. We are passing over to the questions. [Operator Instructions] Elena Tsareva of [indiscernible] was the first one. Elena, please you have the floor. Elena, please turn your mic on. Something apparently goes wrong. Let's try Mikhail Ganelin, Aton.

Yes. Great performance. Now my questions are these. What have you been seeing perhaps over the last month, over the past month after the AGM, the Central Bank has been trying to cool the economy a little bit. Has that had some effect on the economy or the deceleration that we are expecting has not been forthcoming yet? And the second question, would you think that the Central Bank will have to raise the Q rate to 20%? Is there any probability in that? And if that is the case, how will your borrowers feel perhaps small and medium businesses and what are you going to be doing in this case?

Yes, thank you very much, Mikhail, for the questions. Now as for the performance in July, we are going to publish our press release tomorrow, you will be able to actually see our figures. And some of your question will be reflected there. As for the things that we can see today, in July, we have seen a significant deceleration effect, shrinkage in disbursements, that's retail lending and especially mortgage lending. Some effect in the Central Bank we saw from the wrap-up of the state support programs. There were low disbursements in retail borrowing because against the backdrop of higher rates, people borrow less. In the corporate segment, deals are slower. So the response of the market is, by definition, takes longer to materialize. What we have seen is that people who have their own funds accumulated are trying to use them as much as they can to finance investments, if anything else. So is there a probability to see the Q rate reach 20%? Of course. The Central Bank said that the probability is there. It will all depend on inflation. Summer is probably one of the seasons where inflation is the lowest in the year. Once we are out of this season, we can see the regulator actually make the decision at the outset of September. Are we ready for the increase? Yes, we are. We continuously do stress tests. We look at the industries that might exhibit the highest sensitivity and negative sensitivity and we're trying to prepare accordingly. So if there is another increase to 20%, I do not think that we will have to adjust our projections that we have advised.

Also, one more clarification question. We think that the high rates will reach well into the next year. And the borrowers whose cost of borrowing increased and we still see a good quality of your portfolio. There's no material deterioration. Well, the economy is good, it's performing well, strong demand. But if the deceleration starts next year, might that lead to a significant degree -- impairment deterioration in the quality of your portfolio?

Well, there's 2 factors that seem to offset one another. On the one hand, high rates. Then on the other hand, there's a huge turnover, an increase in the spending on the part of the people. If the economy decelerates, it will be attended by the decreasing inflation and decreasing key rate. Both situations are looking difficult. But I would not say that it will be uniformly across the different sectors. Different sectors will respond differently. But we try to maintain the reserves provisions on a level adequate to the potential risks and the current situation. So we think that right now the cost of risk is not that high, especially in the corporate sector. That is explained by our preparations, actually we're prepared for a much worse scenario than we have seen so far. So we're going to see how things jump next year. But right now we project a deceleration of the GDP on the back of the high rates. And then we see the key rate go down if a little bit.

Thank you, Mikhail. Let's try Elena again. Elena?

Yes, Taras and Anastasia. Good call, great performance. Several questions perhaps to continue where Mikhail left off. Your guidance on the corporate lending, you expect an acceleration in the second half, 5% in the first half and 14% for the year. Is that deferred transactions? How would you explain that acceleration? Where do you see this great potential for growth? And as for the quality on the corporate segment, it is probably a diverse quality. How much risk do you see on the part of the developers in construction industry as a whole? And also given the global tendencies, have you factored in the scenario of oil prices going down quite considerably? What kind of a stress test would that be?

Yes. Thank you, Elena. Now on the corporate lending, it would be better to look at the dynamic of the second quarter. In the first quarter -- actually, in the first quarter, we saw a good growth and I think we were more careful in the second -- we were less careful in the second quarter than we were in the first. In real terms, it was 5% in the second quarter. And even if the dynamic slows, it will be around 14%, maybe 15% for the year. Now you can't exclude less, but generally, the second half is a higher season, especially the second quarter, whatever the key rates, that rule was generally an observation. So we think that this is the way it's going to be unfolding. It's going to be the demand. It's going to be the demand to meet. We're going to be picking quality borrowers. As for the quality of the portfolio overall, it's diverse across the industries. You asked about the retail properties. As this industry as a whole, the situation is perhaps not super optimistic as it was last year or in other periods. But it is good in the sense that it is stable. We made a departure from reassessments every quarter. How will determine on the state support programs change, et cetera, et cetera. They were expected to change several times last year, this year. At the end of the day, we got the terms that will be stretching several years of advance and they are generally rather comfortable for both banks, the government and the construction industry. We have seen a decrease in disbursements. You'll see that in the figures that we disclose tomorrow. But this was not theoretical shrinkage that we saw at the outset. So with this shrinkage, the industry can cope quite well, it has a lot of resilience. There's the escrow and the coverage from escrow is about 90% of the debt. The margins with construction companies is healthy. And even based on the decrease in disbursements, we have not seen a decline in the residential property prices. So the stability will probably sustain everyone. It will sustain the customers because there will be no spikes. There will be no rush, there will be no runs. There will be a calm, balanced market. And for the banks, that's an ideal situation actually. This will mean that the market will become pretty much the way the mortgage market should be, predictable, stable, healthy. As for the petroleum prices decrease, we run a stress test here periodically and we look at the full [indiscernible] Sber. Generally we have seen more than a few situations where petroleum prices fell, there will probably be a devaluation of the ruble, a decline of GDP, a decline of consumer demand and probably some decline in borrower quality, but we have actually seen some negative prices and we lived through this. We are trying to learn as many lessons from every crisis as we can. The lessons for working with customers for hedging our risks, et cetera. So right now there appears to be no negative scenario that will be quite dramatic.

Thank you, Elena. Have we answered the question?

Yes. The corporate sector, the cost of risk, the one-offs. What will be the total cost of risk on the corporate in the second quarter?

Well, we had not had recoveries that would be quite different from the previous quarter. The risks, 0.3%, 0.5%, they're pretty much normal. We're going to see how things unfold in the second quarter. We see a gentle growth. On the corporate side is the inverse of the retail. The quality is stable and we might actually see some recoveries. Well, some quality deteriorates, but we make the recoveries and sometimes we make -- we affect turnarounds. So these are almost figures because recoveries are always part of the cost risk.

Okay. Next question, Olga Naydenova.

Several questions perhaps. The first one is about management of the margin of the interest rate risk. If you could disclose your approaches, what are you doing in terms of term structures for the lending, term structures for the borrowing? What's going to happen with the margins as the rates decline? I appreciate that it's not going to be the near future, not today, but what is your take on this part of the business?

Yes, Olga. Thank you. Now the margin is one of the key parameters for us in terms of performance. On the whole, in the second quarter, we have managed to maintain the margin from declining -- keep it from declining. We have seen declines -- decreases in a lot of major Russian banks. And this is a very difficult task given the fierce competition for funding, maintain the margin. We have generally succeeded in that. In the third quarter, we expect to variously targeted factors, an increase of key rate is one. We are a bit positively sensitive to the interest rate curve. It is about RUB 10 billion given the parallel shift and even the key rate increases and that's not just a problem for Sber, it's a problem for everyone else. For the first couple of months, it is going to be a positive effect because repricing of the loans happens quicker than the repricing of the customer funds. That will be a supporting factor for the first couple of months. And the next factor is certainly going to be the payment of dividends. What we paid at the end of July was a pretty big amount, essentially from the equity. They were essentially 3 funds. Given the current level of funding costs, that's where we see the decrease of the margin coming from. So for the year, we see 5.7%, about that. As for the decrease of rates, now key rates, we just can't tell how quickly it's going to be happening because on the one hand, in 2022 in about 6 weeks the rates went down by several percent at once. And if the rates go down a percentage time, then it's going to be a whole different kettle of fish. Now today, the rates that the customers get from the banks are rather high, very high. And it's going to be difficult for the banks to exist in this environment for a long time because paying depositors the same rates that you are charging for the loans, especially given the provisioning and liquidity ratios, well, all the banks seem to be expecting that, but given the -- given these prospects, the margins will improve slightly, but it all depends on the competition. There's just no telling that Sber will see margins like this or margins like that, the sector will perform like this or like that, we will just need to see how things unfold portfolio-wide GDP-wise. It's obviously important to get the signals from the regulator. How will be -- how will the regulator do things with -- it's not just the key rates, but the [indiscernible] curve, the long end. If it will be negatively slanting, that will continue to pressure negatively. I hope I answered your question.

Yes. And honestly, I would like to touch upon the cost topic. We have seen that the cost has been held in check in the second quarter. But how much of a pressure have you sensed from the sellers from the labor market, how much of a transformation in IT have been maintaining the kind of transformation that made for higher salaries -- exceeding the higher salaries. Are we going to see exceedingly higher salaries given the balance sheet, et cetera?

And so the pressure on the part of salaries, we have seen that, yes. We must be on the market, on the one hand, turnover is lower than last year, which is positive, but we are not relaxing. We are following the level of salaries of the market. We are certainly making appropriate decisions. And if the market responds with higher growth than expected, we will respond accordingly. As for the tech transformation and the spending on it, it is a dual situation. On the one hand, quite a few projects that we had embarked upon, embarked upon a long time ago, migration. We started that in 2022, critical infrastructure. And in this area, spending could have gone down. But on the one hand, we have actively -- on the other hand, we have actively invested in artificial intelligence, the new level of artificial intelligence, large language models and in this sense, the investments definitely had not reached their ceiling. They will continue to grow. I cannot tell you that we're going to increase spending sharply, but operating efficiency is always going to be a priority. And we always target cost to income and we will never allow a situation where increases of spending will exceed increases of funding. We always -- we never lived above our means and we will continue to do so to live within our means. By the end of investors -- by the end of the year, we will give a more detailed breakdown of our spending to investors. We will explain all the rationales. We are not just looking at ourselves. We are looking at our competition, our major banks, international banks. And we have seen expenses grow very high, both on personnel and IT and artificial intelligence. And we are certainly within the trends and we would not like to fall behind. In this sense, the spending will continue to grow.

Passing over to the next analyst Evgeniy Kipnis, Alfa.

I've got 2 questions, actually. One is a traditional question for this year. The booked assets, is there any chance to reach them? Would be interesting to know if something new has come up. And the administration initiatives, the government -- on the part of the government and the Central Bank, active discussion of changes to the subsidies to mortgages. The subsidies apparently are going to be fixed and untied from the key rate because right now the interest rate risk is lifted from the banks and unloaded on the budget. Very interesting to find out what your position is and what the scenarios might be? And what amendments might be given because it appears that the effect on the margins of the banking sector might prove negative?

As for the booked assets, the status is generally this. We sent an official letter to the regulator. We got questions. We handle the questions. And apparently, we are reaching the end of this work until we get an official answer from the regulator. We cannot give any comment. The positive news for us certainly is that the state -- Federation Council have approved the law that extends the Law 292 for another 2 years. So we have not had any tight deadlines. I would like to point out that the projections on the ROE, they do not include any effect from using booked assets. Those are all incomes from our regular business. As for the initiative on changes to the subsidies, as I answer the question, I told you that it's important for the market to be stable. And this initiative, well, so far, it has been pretty raw. And when we heard about it, we definitely jumped into the discussion. We gave our proposals, we gave our ideas. So understandably, on the one hand, it will be a positive for the budget, it will lift to the interest rate risk. But then it will be unloaded on the banks. And then the banks will have to exhibit higher margins to hedge this interest rate risk. So it's always a nuances. What kind of a subsidy is it going to be, how it's going to be calculated, how big it is going to be, what families is it going to affect? Is that going to be a replacement or an alternative? Right now I don't think I'm in a position to discuss that in details. But that would be very difficult because we had pretty much initial shots at the discussion of this initiative. We think the fewer radical changes to the market, the better for all the market for the developers, for the banks, for everyone.

And we have the question from [indiscernible] [ Marachenco ]. And Olga, you still have your hand raised, if you have -- you put it down. Okay.

Congratulations on the great performance. We're very glad to see you perform that well. A question perhaps in keeping with Evgeniy's line of questioning. I think I misheard the answer of Evgeniy on the extension of the Federal Law 292Z. Are you saying that next year, you're going to be using those booked assets? Or are we waiting until the end of the year and we expect some final performance of that law. Now that's the first question. And the second question is acceleration and the changes to the projection on lending. The question is perhaps this, if you look at the changes to the forecast, you're mostly talking retrospectively, the first half proved to be -- did the first half prove dramatically better than your forecast? Or are you saying an improvement in the second half and that perhaps resonates with the CBR fight against inflation? How big would the contribution of the fight against inflation? And the second question is, could you comment on the yuan liquidity and the gaps on the rates, internal and external on yuan, renminbi, what effect would be on the importers, exporters and what effect do you see on perhaps this case? And again, congrats.

Yes, [ Elia ]. Federal Law 292, I told you that the good news is that the law was extended for another 2 years. And this allows us to do something if under the previous version of the law, we had failed to agree the transaction, we would never be able to do anything at all. If we do that under the new question, we will be quite peacefully executing the deal in the second year -- in the next year. On the whole, nothing changes for us, but we see different new opportunities for 2025. As for the lending, then yes, on the whole, it is the first half exhibiting better performance than expected. That prove to be the basis for reviewing our forecast. Also, it was important to see the new terms for the mortgages. We now see those terms. And we expect -- we understand what our clients can expect in terms of government support and we can price those expectations into our portfolio and portfolio of the market as a whole. Now the 2 main inputs, the fact, the actual performance and new clarity on the state support for the second half. As for the yuan, the renminbi, the past 6 to 8 months -- 6 to 8 weeks saw a deterioration of liquidity. The rates shot up in the market. We see the players actively use the swaps that they have been using to hedge the situation. So the situation is pretty grave that has been reflected in the rates. And we have not yet seen any prospects for major improvements without some major externalities. So right now, yes, the situation is pretty difficult for all the banks across the board and the response is the work that we had been doing, unwinding the ForEx positions, euros, dollars. And if that happens, the need for renminbi funding is going to go down right along with those unwindings. Developing the ruble liquidity is the way to go, what we have been doing for the past few years.

Yes. Passing over to the questions of the members of the media. Yulia Koshkina, you have the floor.

In the macro projection, you reviewed the dynamic on GDP and inflation for this year. Have you reviewed the ruble exchange rate after the rules changed? And after the foreign exchange receipts rules were changed? And the second question, the yuan liquidity and keeping -- in continuation of the previous discussion, what do you think is the reason for this acute yuan liquidity shortage?

Now as the macro projection on the dollar exchange rate -- given the most recent strengthening, we had not changed our projections because we think that this is a one-off. Going forward, the dollar exchange rate is going to revert to the previous levels. Our annual average exchange rate projection is about RUB 90 per dollar. We do not -- well, it's pretty difficult to project an exchange rate by the end of the year. There are always all kinds of announce that counter play. As for the reasons for a shortage of yuan liquidity, everything is pretty obvious. I mean, reasons are complexities that Chinese banks face in the Russian markets, sanctions against [indiscernible] impacts problems. Many players prefer to not bring their liquidity into Russia because that complicates things. And that does away with part of the liquidity for the Russian banks and not even Russian banks, Chinese banks that have branches here. On the whole that translates into the deficit that we have seen. The reasons are all external. They're pretty much stemming from the sanctions.

And now we are passing over to [ Anastasia ] [indiscernible] of Interfax.

My question is, have you seen -- have you noted the amount of blocked assets that you would like to transfer to a separate entity, the transfer of those assets to a separate entity, is that the main option? Or are you considering other options for working with those blocked assets? Second question, are you maintaining your plans to grow dividends in absolute terms? And the third question, are you preparing for a discontinuation of exchange trading in yuan?

Well, on the blockage of the assets, well, we always see several strategies for working with the blocked assets. The Federal Law 292 is one of the options. And this mechanism per se provides spinning those assets along with the liabilities into a separate legal entity. And if we pursue this track, then we will legally require to do so, no other options here. Other strategies available here. And we always pursue and we always explore those different tracks. So we can't see anything here. We can't see anything else here. All the participants of the market are trying to do the same thing, limit the fallout, limit the losses from those mortgages. And we will try to stick to our approved dividend policy, 50% of last year's profit to be paid out in dividends. The growth of dividends depends on the situation with the profit. As you can see this year, we expect to overshoot the performance of last year. And if we are comfortable with capital adequacy and we think we will be, our dividend next year might grow versus what we have paid recently. As for yuan trading discontinuing, while new sanctions keep emerging, new interpretations of the old sanctions keep emerging, we have certain scenarios and we have an alternative plan for the situation one way or another, we will do something for our clients even in the grave situation that you described. Yes, we must accelerate. It has always almost been an hour. Let's take 3 more questions.

[Indiscernible].

What are the computations for the mortgage portfolio growth for the market? And the second question on the macro. Where do you expect a decline in the rates on the market?

What I heard, yes, [indiscernible]. As for the rates decrease right now, our projection is the first decrease is going to happen in the second quarter 2025. We do not expect the rates to go down this year. The first decrease no earlier than the second quarter next year. As for the mortgages, in terms of market dynamic, we expect about 6% of growth for the year, but the market is heavily affected by portfolio securitization deals. If you factor those deals out, the actual growth will be actually higher, it will be about 12%. But on the whole, the disbursements of mortgages, monthly -- the monthly disbursements until the end of this year, they will be lower than they were -- than they would be -- than the projection for them in June before the discontinuation of the government support program. So we do see a growth, but it will be a slight growth because right now, besides the family-supported mortgages, all the other programs are frozen one way or another because there are limits on those programs were drawn down within just a couple of days. So the market dynamic is pretty much transparent right now. Without the state-supported mortgages, the market is pretty much in the [indiscernible] right now. Yes. Next question.

I've got several questions on the report. It is seen that your corporate funds have not really grown, although for them, the yields have pretty much doubled. Is that an effect of the dividend payment or taxes or some other factors? And to just close off the funding topic. How are you maintaining the cost of liabilities on retail at 7%? And I will have 2 more questions on lending. I can ask them now or I can defer them.

Well, look, as of the funds due to corporate customers. It was always a balancing segment. We primarily bet on the retail funds because they are more stable, more sustainable. Given the healthy growth on deposits in the second quarter, we had not had a pressing need to fund our growth in loans. We did not have to fund that growth with corporate funds. So we're focused on managing the margin. And it was enough for us, that 1% was pretty much enough for us. This is how we decreased the funds of corporate customers, decreased the cost of funds of corporate customers. How do we maintain the cost? Well, it's pretty obvious, we have different ways to attract funds. We've got current accounts. Sber with very convenient services, Sber Bank online, transfers, acquiring. We've got a lot of funds in balances on accounts. We've got deposits with -- at attractive rates from last year. We've got currency deposits and the average is at the 7% that you have set it in the second quarter. Some funds expensive, 17%, for example, our most attractive offer. But on the whole, the situation is stable for pretty much any bank. And the average rate for retail is lower than the rate on the most attractive deposit because I don't think there are no secrets. That's pretty much a fair one. It's pretty much the same thing for everyone.

Okay. Great. One more question. Do you plan to raise the rates on retail? Well, as recently as last year, we reviewed the rates for our deposits, various deposit products in our lineup. We did not exclude some increase. We think there will be some expectation, we certainly don't factor out that going forward. It's very interesting, whether you're going to be foreshadowing the decision of the Central Bank on increasing the rate because yuan B2B exhibited pretty healthy yields before the previous meeting of the CBR. This time, we have not seen anything like this. And the increase that you showed did not really exceed the increase of the key rate. On lending, you've got very gated dynamics on the cost of risk in retail and in corporates. In part, you mentioned that you saw big repayments and restructurings. Has anything else affected the cost of risk on corporate lending? And why has the cost of lending been increasing in retail?

It's true the key elements are 2 things. First is repayments and also the overall high quality of the portfolio, the new disbursements that we have is where we focus on quality borrowers. So the average cost of risk is improving. As for retail, the situation there is a bit different. We are lending rather actively to borrowers that request car loans, for example, all of those are way ahead of mortgages. We also have -- we are also rather active in house loans. Also the regulator has been contributing as well. The macro prudential limits are limiting the freedom of the bank in terms of choosing their own clients. And so they are sort of making -- forcing banks to lend to those who are in the regulators' pool because that criterion is used as a filter. The leverage metric is not ideal. So this is a new one. This is another criteria. And so the level of risk those clients is higher than it would be without such regulation. So the trend here is objective if the regulations are preserved and we can see that the regulator is getting only tighter, we expect the level of risk to only grow. This is not a one-off effect. This is a long-term trend. And also the level of interest rates, in retail interest rates are higher than with the corporate clients. So because of that, because of the risk and also the bank's appetite in terms of margin, they are higher than in the corporate segment. So with the higher rates, we are facing higher risks. And I think that's the law of nature. You can't really go against it and I think this will persist.

Unfortunately, we have to wrap up this session. A very last question. [ Dmitry Palanski ]. Dmitry, we can see that you have unmated your mic, but there is no sound coming in from you for some reason. Can you try again? Okay. I'll ask the question for him. You mentioned the 30% of nonresidents from [indiscernible] countries. What was the amount of dividend?

The amount of dividends transferred to their accounts, you can, of course, use that share to calculate, but we have not really been tightly monitoring online that particular share. But lately, we can see that the share has been gradually going down. We are getting applications from customers who show their ownership. They are Russian residents or residents from friendly countries. So gradually, by and large, this share is going down, 30% was, I would say, a target not more like 30.0%. That's pretty much the amount that will be transferred to the accounts.

Thank you very much. This concludes the online call on IFRS results in the second quarter. Thank you very much and see you at the next call, where we will report the results for 9 months. Thank you very much and bye-bye. [Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]