United Bank Limited (UBL) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

[Foreign Language] and welcome to UBL's corporate briefing session. We are joined here today by our shareholders and analysts in person at the UBL head office as well as over Zoom video conferencing facility. Today's session is hosted by -- is moderated by Topline Securities. We would like to thank Mr. Mohammed Sohail for being there -- for being here, and we would like to invite him to the stage. Thank you, Sohail. We will begin the session today by a briefing session by our President and CEO, which will be followed by a Q&A session. I would like to request participants over Zoom to please type their questions in the chat window, and they will be duly taken up for answering on the stage. Without further ado, let me invite our President and CEO, Mr. Muhammad Jawaid Iqbal.

Good afternoon, and [ Foreign Language ]. So we'll have a very brief session here. And after that, we'll have a, you can say Q&A. So first, we will start what we said last time. So last time when we met about, I think, 11 months ago, we tried to delay it, but I think some of the PSX wanted us to do it early. And we were not really keen to have it very, very frequent in this conferences. So on October 30, we said a few things that we are working on the -- you can say, building the shareholder values on the base of 3 things that we want to grow as the fastest on core deposits. We want to have optimized capital structure, and we want to have a payout and earnings sustainability. When we met last time, there were a lot of questions whether UBL would be able to maintain its profitability. Whether it would be able to continue its dividends. So these are the questions, and there are a lot of thoughts when you are growing, probably you cannot have higher payout as well. So at that point in time, our view was that we do not see that growth [indiscernible]. We believe that these 2 can coexist. So now this is the situation currently. This time, we are not trying to cover ourselves only with the banking sector. We are looking at the entire listed companies in Pakistan. So total deposit growth over the last 2 years, we have tried to compare with the last 2 years, it's about -- it has almost doubled and it is highest in the industry. Current account deposit growth, 114% in 2 years, again, highest in the industry. [Audio Gap] I was saying, we're starting again, that just for the audience, which has just joined that when we gave a presentation about a year ago that we will work on to the 3 things: optimize capital structure, higher earnings growth, higher deposit growth and sustainability in payouts and earnings because there were a lot of questions about a year ago whether the UBL would be able to maintain its earnings or its payouts. At that point in time, we shared that we believe that both high payouts and growth can continue together. Now in last 2 years, this is the summary. So the total deposit growth of about 100% in last 2 years, which is highest in the industry. Current accounts have grown up by something 114%. Again, it's the highest in the industry. And now at UBL, we do not compare ourselves only with the banks. We are looking -- we are comparing ourselves with the entire listed companies at Pakistan. And we have selected top 20 companies by market capitalization. So all the 20 companies which have the highest market capitalization we are comparing ourselves with them. So our revenue growth has been 131%, which is again highest. Profit before tax growth of 185%, and our tax rate is different than other companies, so we have just restricted ourselves to pretax comparisons. And cumulative dividend of PKR 115 billion in the last 8 quarters. Now what has happened over the last 2 years, our business has grown the fastest among all the major listed companies, the top 20 companies by market capitalization. Our profitability growth has been the highest and our dividends have been highest. So we have achieved all 3 things together. So these are the top 20 companies in terms of highest market capitalization at PSX. So UBL has been #1 in terms of revenues. And it was an outcome of 2 things: our core business growth and our investments into treasuries at right point in time. So these 2 things contributed towards this growth. And these are banks and other companies, I think everything is -- you can see here. So there is a pretax profit, again, top 20 listed companies, which are -- and ranked by the growth. Our growth has been the highest in terms of pre-tax profits. So yes, again, the metric is same. These have been just ranked by growth. So highest growth is top and then the moving forward. So these are the last 8 quarter dividends. We have paid the highest dividends among all the listed companies at Pakistan. And I think probably this does not tell the story. We just stepped up our dividend by 45%. So it was pre-spread, if you equal it, it was 5.5%, it has moved to 8%. So it's our goal to create a value for shareholders. And we have, I think, in the last 2 years, we have succeeded. So this is a statistic from January 23, the return is about 12.47%, but I think the interesting part is the return -- the dividend yield. So anyone who invested 2 years ago, only the dividend yield has been 588%. So if you take all the 20 companies, probably it's 3x more. UBL was a relatively larger player about a decade ago -- rather 2 decades ago. So we had a higher market share. And then in the last decade, we lost a significant market share. Brand was there. Brand is still there. So we have been, you can say, by working on our brand or on the customer service, we have been able to regain market share. So whatever we lost in, you can say, the last 10, 12 years, we have fully regained. Similar in total deposits, we were at 11.5%. We were still at 11.5%, where in between we were not, you can say that much focused onto the total deposits. Now I would tell you, you can see in the latest slides that why suddenly the total deposit has become important. Generally, it is not very important for me. I do not look at this number even though at all. But now it has become important. I will share with you later about this. This is our total deposits. Again, the same thing. The slide is the 11.5% and we have grown much higher [indiscernible]. Our remittances volumes [indiscernible] #1. We have tried to maintain #1, although we lost some money to maintain #1 share. It was a very difficult last quarter in terms of remittances, everyone who wanted to maintain market share lost money, and we were not exception. So that is what -- so it's something like, I think, PKR 3 billion to PKR 4 billion. I hope -- I think every bank would be making losses in the quarter as well. Probably some sanity would prevail from next quarter and maybe the banks do not make any further losses from next quarter. Trade, we were quite low back in '23. We are still low. So last year, I stated that our trade share is very, very low, and we are working hard that our trade share is reflective of our size. So our bank size is much larger than the crunch size. So I think that's the area we are going to focus and that focus will come through, you can say, SME lending that we are doing and focus on all these things. I think this is probably the most important piece of entire presentation. So when we met last time, the one thing which we had done was we had bought 12 months T-bills and the fixed bonds at higher rates because we were expecting the interest rates to go down. In last, you can say 1 year I think we got an opportunity to invest into floaters. So we bought a large quantity of especially tenure floaters. So bought about PKR 5 trillion at an average spread of 138 basis points. And 138 basis points, I mean, today, it is about, I think, half of -- almost half of it. I think that today bidding is starting from 76 or 77 basis points. So maybe 80%, 75% is the current rate. And I think this has cushioned our profitability for a very long term. UBL does not have any plan to sell this. Although we are sitting on the PKR 150 billion market again on to these, but we don't plan -- we have no plan to sell it. Eventually, we will -- you can say, as I said, the total deposit is coming up. Currently, we have borrowed from State Bank of Pakistan and as we collect the deposit, we pay them. So even if you make a 10 basis point spread or 15 basis points spread from that, so we've collected deposit and pay to State Bank. So this is a thing which we have done over the last 12 months. I think, which will -- I mean, again, the rate would vary if I borrow from State Bank, it is 11.30%, if I take from the deposit let's say, 11.20%, 11.10%. So the sum spread is there. But as we move on and we succeed in paying back the entire State Bank, which hopefully we would in 2, 3 years, and this is a -- you can say, our tenor is 9 years. So I think our spread would increase. So we plan to hold these floaters for a very long time. We also have a very shorter tenor floater, but those are small that we will look at based on the opportunities, whether we want to hold it or sell them. On the fixed side, we have about 20% of our book, about PKR 1.6 trillion. And currently, our current accounts are also the same level. So again, our all entire current account is hedged around this. The rate is about 14.9%. Now everything what we've done in investments and whatever returns we have generated is reflected into the comprehensive income. Total comprehensive income, total comprehensive income is after tax basis, so it is made on after-tax basis. So this is our total comprehensive income. So first half, you see it as PKR 125 billion. And compared to what you can say, our profitability, this number is different. The post-tax base is a huge number. And this is really coming up from the floater investments that we have made. So these are the financials which are part of, I think, mandatory regulatory requirement to attach to that so we've attached those. So now we are open to Q&A.

Thank you. Can you hear me? Thank you very much Mr. Jawaid Iqbal, President, UBL. And I once again thank everybody who is here. But just for your information, Mr. President, I haven't seen such a participation in any other analyst meeting we have been conducting this since last many years. So there are more than 120 people on Zoom, including many foreign fund manager, and we have a full house here and there are around 20 people waiting outside. There is an outside area where everybody can listen and look at this presentation. So there has been an extraordinary response to this analyst meeting, which means people were eagerly waiting for this. So the rules are that the people who are sitting here can raise hand and just ask simple straightforward questions, no comments, because we have limited time. And then we have many questions on Zoom also. So I'll take 1 question from the audience and 1 question from the chat box. So please raise your hand so that we can start the Q&A session. Anyone? Shanawaz, please.

[indiscernible].

Actually, on advances and a few other things, we do not have any strategy, no budgets. Absolutely, no budget. So I do not have any strategy. And the strategy is -- I mean, we do not have a plan that we wanted to grow for 50% or 60%. The strategy is we want to invest or we want to lend where we can make money at an acceptable risk. So a lot of times, you can say, our borrowers expect us to lend the money to very thin spreads. So I'll give you an example of floaters, say we have invested a better spread and some of the corporate wants us lesser than that, you can say offered by the government of Pakistan. So I think we are not keen for that kind of lending. We would lend where the rate is competitive, it makes sense, and that you can say -- and the risk is quite acceptable. So no strategy. And we are quite hungry, I would say. I would say quite hungry. If we get the advances, which meets our criteria. So we have a high risk appetite. But I think we, at the same time, we have a criteria that what kind of spreads we would have before we lend. So we are not interested at any lending which doesn't offer you much of a margin. It's just you can say a number getting parked at your balance sheet. We have no interest in that.

Okay. So there's a question on Zoom Chat from [ Murtuza Hassan ]. I'm just clubbing a few questions. He was asking about your deposit growth, current account and ADR target for calendar year 2025.

So no ADR target, I explained by, you can say, our advances. So if we get a lot of advances, we would lend money. We are looking for the opportunities. We have made some lending into SME sector. We would continue to do so. So ADR I'm not honestly speaking, we do not chase any target, number one. Deposit growth, I think we have shown you the number. These numbers have been strong, and hopefully, will be strong in future as well.

Okay. Regarding the branches, any target in mind because we have seen aggressive branch expansion. So what's your objective? What's your target? There is another question on Zoom.

I think one of the -- we've been -- since we acquired Silk, 105 branches came with that. So that's a one major jump, which, you can say, number one. Number two, we again, like advances, we also look for the spaces where we can raise deposits. So it is all dependent on what kind of, you can say, branch opening opportunities we get. And if we find some places where we can get a decent sized deposit, then we will go for it and we'll open the branch.

Okay. Thank you. And any questions from the audience here from the auditorium?

[indiscernible]. So are you planning reduce it a bit because [indiscernible] market spread is around 25, 30 basis points. So on a compounded basis, if you fund it through OMOs or any sort of borrowing or even deposits, you have huge borrowings. So do you have any plans to reduce this because since it is [indiscernible] you are carrying a borrowing risk or a funding risk, I would say.

Yes. So I think I will share with you. So I think here we come up. We have no plan to retire this tenure floater, clear. There's fixed PIBs would mature over a period of, you can say -- the sum of the -- all the weighted average maturity 2 and 2, but some will mature this year and some we have 4 to 5 years we would plan it. Now this is a shorter tenor floaters and then other is 7%, yes, 7% would get retired. Again, we look at a short-term tenor, we're looking at against our opportunity cost. If we are making small money, we'll be investing there or not. And shorter tenor floater PIB eventually would get reduced. Yes, that eventually would get reduced. This PKR 1.1 trillion would get reduced.

Okay. Then there's a question from Waleed Rathore, Maple Leaf. Two questions. Assuming interest rates don't change going forward, what would be the normalized ROE for the bank. And second is target dividend payout going forward?

So again, I do not track ROE because as a general measure is different, but in the banking, ROE is also an outcome of how your Tier 2 moves. So if we have made these investments, these have generated PKR 150 billion, you can say, reserve. So -- and then the ROE will work again differently. So we are not chasing any specific ROE target. And sometime, we retain money that we want to invest in the future. Overall objective is the growth of the balance sheet, number one. Second objective is growth in income. And third is the growth in dividend whenever we can pay. And in dividends, we have just stepped up the dividend. So our plan would be that we will work hard to maintain this dividend for at least 2 years. I mean there's a typical period, I think we do not want to jump -- change the dividend in the quarter in the 2 quarters, even if we make money in between. So we will retain it so that we have a strength in our balance sheet. And tomorrow if the opportunities come up, we are able to invest it. So we are, at this point in time, this year, probably we would be among the banks who would be retaining probably the highest amount in the banking sector, and it will be paying the highest amount in terms of dividend. So this is the balance we would continue to strike.

Okay. So there's a general question which investors have been asking with other banks also that after June till now, there has been a drastic decrease in the overall deposit of the banking sector. So where is UBL standing right now after an impressive current account and savings account deposit growth. Has the deposit fallen? Or it's the same or it has increased?

So as I said, I do not look at total deposits, I'm not aware of the numbers. This is a marginal, you can say, profit-making deposit. So sometimes, you'll have more, sometimes less. So we'd not track that, number one. And current accounts, you can see that on the 30th -- 29th August, or it was 31st August, it was higher than the number what we had on the June 30.

Okay. So end of August, current account was higher than end of June. Any questions from the people sitting here? Yes. Just a second, I'm just coming. Yes, Farhan.

Question is that [indiscernible] whereas most of the liabilities are [indiscernible]. How do you manage the [indiscernible]?

So I think we have 2 kind of, you can say, the mismatch. So the one is the fixed bonds which you have got, where the yield we showed you that 14.9% and others are floated where we have a spread. So if tomorrow, the rate of, for example, the interested goes up, so what would happen is my yield is locked up for 6 months on my floaters, while my cost would go up immediately, right? So that is the 6-month risk we are taking and we are happy with that because the kind of gains we are likely to make over the tenor of the floaters is much higher than the 1 quarter risk, number one. And number two, when the rate goes down, you make same kind of spread as well. But I think over a tenor of floaters, you will -- it will even out. On fixed funds, we bought at a higher price, rates have come down and if now the rates are, say, move up by 100 basis points plus or minus. So it would not significantly alter our financials.

Thank you. Yes, please. [ Foreign Language ].

[indiscernible].

So I think credit cost is likely to be, I think, at this point in time, our belief is that our credit cost is likely to be not very high, not only at UBL but across the banking sector in Pakistan. I think a lot of things have happened in Pakistan. Where in the last 15 years, I think the overall maturity of borrowers have gone up and simultaneously the maturity of the bankers has gone up as well. So in the last cycle when it was 2008, lot of people were not experienced, whether it was the corporate borrowers or SME borrowers or even the banks as well. So I think in the last 15 or 20 years, a lot of people have learned a lot. So overall, I think there is a prudence both at the part of banks and at the part of borrowers.

Okay. So 1 question from [ Naina Lakhani ], is any strategy to grow by acquisition?

I think we will be hungry for any acquisition, but provided if anything comes up great. State Bank probably would not allow merger of large banks, number one. They would like to have a fairly large number of, you can say, large banks. So -- and then on a smaller bank side, you have to see what kind of opportunity exist, whether we should go for after -- I think it will be a case-to-case basis, I would say. And we're surprised of that acquisition.

Understood. So there's 1 other question on the leverage ratio. So what's the status now? Is it within the regulatory limit or it's very close to...

Yes. We are complying with all the regulations, and we plan to consider them. And at this point in time, frankly speaking, if you want to cut down our leverage to significantly we have the option, as you can say, [indiscernible] pointed out, we are sitting on PKR 1.4 million -- PKR 4 trillion of short-term floaters, those can be offloaded whenever we feel appropriate. And so I think we are sitting on a lot more flexibility. Today, the situation is much different, and we made a lot of money and our capital has gone up as well.

[indiscernible] current account number or the local current account number?

When we look at it internally, we look at both, and we'll focus on both, right? We focus on both. So both sides are there. On the foreign side, we get a great lending opportunities. So there is a low return on the foreign currency as such, everyone say that -- benefit is lower on the foreign deposits, but I think the lending spreads are much higher. Much, much higher, right? So we make money on that. And so -- and we are looking at both and we are planning to grow both.

I assume that you are around 4% to 5% on the foreign current account and 11% on local?

Yes, absolutely. That's correct. But the spreads you can get on the foreign currency is much higher.

Yes, the guy in the last row.

My question is that, what percentage of that growth was due to addition of new account holders?

To be honest, I'm not aware of it. And I think we do not pay much attention to it either.

So Shankar, can you just club a few questions from the Zoom? Because there are multiple questions with the same -- they're asking the same thing. So if you can just club a few questions and ask what questions have still not been answered?

So the next set of questions is from the remittances and trade side. So what portion of marketing expenses related to the remittances? And do you expect this number to sustain going forward or decline? You also commented that in your briefing. Another question is, what primarily constitute the banking services charges? And what's your overall view on the cost-to-income side going forward?

So I think, again, I will not go too much into detail of the things, but I will talk about [indiscernible] which some of you can speak to our analysts or, you can say, finance team later. Remittance charges, I think we lost about -- because to maintain market about in the 4%, something 4.5%. I think probably it will cut down to half in this quarter. And hopefully, it will be a breakeven -- close to breakeven next quarter. So the other question was?

Cost-to-income overall outlook.

Cost-to-income, to be honest, again, I do not pay a lot of attention to cost-to-income either. The reason being that when the interest rates are high, everybody would have a low cost-to-income ratio. And when the interest rates are low, so you will have a different answer. So a lot is dependent on the interest rate. Cost of the banks are going up, and that is a concern, especially for me and almost I think every banker as well. So our costs have effectively no relation with the revenues. The interest rate goes up, your revenues are up and if the interest rate go down, your revenues go down, but the cost are going up. Cost of acquiring a branch has gone up steeply, living costs have gone up steeply. So I think it is no longer easy to hire people as it was, say, a few years ago, especially, I think after the COVID, the cost of, you can say, living has gone up substantially. So you have to pay a lot of money to have your stock. So I think costs are going to go up, and that is a serious concern for me and probably the entire banking sector. But as such, honestly, I see it is linkage to the interest rates. So the ratio cannot be, you can say, is not that simple to calculate.

Any more questions?

I'm looking just at the relatively to others.

Okay. So another set of question is on the deposit side. So the deposit growth has impressed in the first half of 2025. However, the tilt is mixed towards the saving accounts and the fixed accounts. And in absolute terms, they have grown by more. In the second half, will the bank be focusing on expanding network or focusing on maximizing the existing branch network?

Again, we are, again, a bank which do not pay attention to mix of the deposits. So every category has its own earnings and its own utility. On the current account, we make more money. So that you can say requires our attention. On the fixed deposits, we make very little money and it's a marginal deposits. So if you can say I can raise a large money and can pay back State Bank that makes the money separate. So we are not focusing on any mix. Will I take money, if I make no spread, I make a negative spread, certainly, I will not take the fixed, you can say those fixed deposits. On the network, we would be, you can say, definitely focusing on the existing branches and the new branches we will try to find if we can get good location.

Okay. One, I think, question which is not related to the local operation. What's your strategy in your businesses in Middle East? So like...

In Middle East, there is a limited opportunity in the Qatar and the Bahrain, right? So that's there. UAE has got relatively better opportunity, and then we are, you can say, focusing on moment.

Okay. Then there was some media reports about 24 hours banking, banking on Sunday. And so there has been new trend being set up by UBL, including the compensation for branch managers. So what's the theory behind this? It's just an effort to enhance current account or there is something else?

No, again, I think we provide a better customer service, we want to provide better customer service. 24 hours branches are very few, and -- but into the less business places where you can say a [Foreign Language], people are working in the night. So you're providing that kind of service to those kind of branches, number one. And a lot of places work on the Sundays in Pakistan. So we wanted to provide them the opportunity to have, you can say, the working environment and their work and branches are opening at the same time. So that is, I think, step towards customer service. And for the branch manager, definitely, we want to pay them well if they're working good for the bank.

Right. And any questions from the audience?

[indiscernible].

Okay. So I think, we made one large investment that was into, first of all, UBL. We acquired something close to 4.9% of the UBL. So that's the one thing which we made investment and that has generated a very decent return for the bank. And then I think we have not invested very heavily into the stock market. We were trying to do a lot of things that we didn't want to lose our focus. So what was happening that if I wanted to invest PKR 1 billion into equity stock, probably it required more time than investing PKR 1 trillion into fixed income. So maybe the return on equity was great on that, but return on effort was not that great. So we -- by having the limited time, we choose to invest where you can say we can understand and invest. So I think at that point in time, our focus went on to bigger bets, which were running into trillions of rupees and then we spent energy over there. And going forward, we will have, you can say, strengthen the team in that area. At this point in time, our treasury does not have a specialized, you can say, desk, which specialize in equity. We plan to invest into that, and we'll look into in the future. But right now, if you ask me, we have no plan. We just made one large -- I think rather I would say 2 investments. We bought Adamjee Insurance about 9.8% or 9.7%, and we bought about 4.9% because of State Bank cap for any single is 5%, so 4.9% or 4.8% of UBL. So these 2 investments which we made in the past.

So you bought UBL, you're saying in some other accounts, right?

Pension, UBL pension...

So yes.

Firstly, congratulations on a phenomenal set of results and market run-up. I have 2 questions. Firstly, the local currency deposit of the State Bank has gone down, while your deposits have gone up. So is there any sort of relaxation on the CRR front? Secondly, there's a PKR 60 billion intangible asset that has formed because of the merger with Silk. So what's the accounting treatment for that going forward? Does that -- is that subject to any sort of impairment annually? Or how does that unwind going forward?

Okay. I think probably you can contact or you can see our finance team later, probably they can give you -- share you the detail. I thought it's a major big strategic presentations, so I did not go in too much detail to understand it.

And any other question? Any more questions, Shankar from Zoom. You can ask here, right? We can hear you.

Okay. So the next set of questions is basically, it seems like UBL in terms of service delivery is improving a lot. Can we also expect such aggression on the consumer portfolio side, especially on side of housing finance and maybe on the car portfolio side, car loans side?

Again, this is an area where UBL is a relative size, quite, I think, behind. And this area we want to focus in the next couple of years. Right now, we are, you can say, hiring more people into our consumer banking, and I think this will be the area of growth for the bank over the next 18 to 36 months.

Okay. The next set of question is on the investment side. So when will the repricing of the floater portfolio will take place? And when is the -- what is the fixed portfolio duration in yield on?

I think there's a presentation, the fixed deal is there. Floater get repriced for 6 months. So our floaters are not set -- all the floaters are same. These are staggered over many months, right? So I think it's not kind of -- I think probably if you ask me, almost all the floaters are fully priced now -- repriced now.

Okay. And another question is, I'm also hearing that the UBL is actively working on investing in the commercial real estate market in the Pakistan. Is there any truth to this?

No. So if I have bought 10 branches or we bought 1 place for head office. We bought 1 very large piece of land at North Nazimabad, 14,000 square yards. We thought we would make ahead of us over there because a lot of our employees come from that place. But we have -- at this point in time, we are busy into other things, we have dropped that idea for the time being. So that was not a purpose of making money on to that of commercial estate, that was just our own personal -- for our own use.

Okay. The question is on the -- yes, the next set of question is basically with regards to the common equity Tier 1. So this has increased by the PKR 90 billion.

That, I talked I have not looked into it, sometime later, I think you can connect with our finance team and, they can probably answer you better on that.

Any last few questions from here? There's 1 question here and 1 question here. So last 2 questions.

[ Foreign Language ] Saqlain from ARN Financials. I came all the way from Lahore just to attend this corporate briefing session. First of all, congratulations on wonderful results. My question is a very general questions regarding crypto currency and digital assets in Pakistan. What are your views being the largest Bank of Pakistan? What are you expecting the government decision would be on digital assets like crypto currency?

First of all, I'm quite ill-informed to be honest, and I know much less than you would know. So I'm not honestly aware of it. So I think it will not be appropriate for me to answer this question. But I think I understand there is a keenness on the part of government to introduce this as an asset class in Pakistan. So globally, I don't know whether it takes a place like a gold or something like that. So either it -- there's a class which you can say it's emerging nowadays. So I really don't know where it would be its future journey and how it would work in Pakistan, I'm not aware of.

Received very excellent results from your side. But your agriculture side, your -- how much, what's your percentage lending in agriculture side? Very small side, I think.

So you are saying where our share is small into agriculture?

Yes.

Yes, it's a small, it's relatively small. I think -- first of all, we have got a associated concern at Khushhali Bank. That does a lot of, you can say, agriculture lending. But unfortunately, in Pakistan and overall, we do not have much system to disburse money and collect it back. And almost everyone who has lend in that area made huge losses. But I think as an institution, we would like to invest into this area, but we need to find a way where it can be done both where you can say, for the bank and for the customers.

So before we finish, any final question? So thank you, yes. There are a few questions on Zoom again.

So last 3 questions from the Zoom. So UBL is converting branches into Islamic but Islamic book is not increasing in that particular manner. So is there any strategy going forward?

I think it takes a little while before you can say we have converted KPK and Balochistan entirely, and that has converted with Islamic, but I think the growth takes time to come up over there. So I think it will take time, but I think it will come up.

Your Islamic being completely and then operating that and independent...

No, no, no.

Another question is we have seen HBL IT cost inflated due to implementation of new core banking system? Is UBL system latest generation, and are there any plans to further upgrade this?

No, I think I'm not looking at investment into the core banking system. We're happy with that, but we would continue to invest into technology to enhance, you can say, our customer experience and to improve our own efficiencies.

Okay. One last question. Can you provide your view on the overall deposit growth the next year? And what percentage growth you are expecting in the future and from where that growth will be coming in?

Sorry, last part?

The earnings growth expectations for next year and from where that growth will be coming in?

Okay. So...

So from here, from this slide. Yes, earnings report will come from this slide.

So I think there are -- first of all, what has happened is that we were earning a lot of money from our fixed, you can say, relatively fixed what I call is the 12-month T-bills or longer duration PIBs. So that was the part which was generating profit and especially in 2024 and some part in 2025. Now what has happened over the period of time, our core deposits have grown up as well. So that core -- growth in core deposit would drive our income. But you have to understand that our earnings have improved quite substantially, and we have to take a time to maintain that earning level. Now it will be, you can say, there are 3 things. We will be earning money from our, you can say, current accounts for which we have got, you can say, fixed portfolio of around PKR 1.6 billion, number one. Still, the maturity is 2.2 years, which means it is quite locked the interest rate for us for 2 years. We have added another stream of earnings through our 10-year floaters at a decent spread. So that will be the second thing. And third is the business growth. And deposit growth, we are working very hard, and we believe that we would be able to grow above industry average for 1 year or 1 year to 2 years. I cannot guarantee for 10 years or 20 years, but I think if you ask me next few quarters, I think we will be able to grow above industry average.

And what percentage growth you are looking for the industry in terms of deposits?

I think this year, we've seen a better results. This year, the numbers or 6-month numbers growth are, you can say, unbelievably, you could say, high numbers. I think it will -- I cannot comment about this year. I think this year growth would be high, everyone has worked very hard, probably from next year it will come down back to normal levels between 10% to 15%.

So any final questions? So again, thank you, everybody. Thank you for joining us and especially 120 people on Zoom, all analysts, investors, shareholders, thank you for coming. And we are proud that UBL is continuing with their record-breaking strategy from PKR 100 billion 2 years back market cap right now is close to PKR 1 trillion. And as Jawaid has mentioned, it's not about the growth in profits, the revenues, the top line, the dividend, everything has grown. So thank you once again for coming. And if you have any questions, we are having tea outside. You can talk to the management, the senior management of UBL is also here. President is also here. Thank you once again for coming. Thank you [ Foreign Language ].