Vietnam Technological and Commercial Joint Stock Bank (TCB) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon. Welcome to Techcombank's First Quarter 2021 Financial Results Presentation. We're pleased to report another record quarter and continued the positive momentum from last year. With us today are Jens Lattner, CEO; and Bang Trinh, CFO, to share more details of the quarter's results with you. Bang and Jens will present in English with live translation also available via the invitation link sent to you. As usual, we will have a separate call in Vietnamese tomorrow for retail investors. We've allotted 2 hours for this presentation, but we'll try to keep it to under 90 minutes to give you back some of your day. With that, I'll turn it over to Jens to begin the presentation.

Thank you, and thanks, everyone, for joining this call. As Edward said, I think we've seen a very strong first quarter. And again, building on the momentum of last quarter in 2020, I think we should be well on our way to achieve the targets and the goals we have set out at last week's AGM. And if you go through the details, and Bang will give us that in a minute, you see actually that performance has been across all areas and pretty well. And so we saw TOI an increase, coming from NIM and expansion as well as from non-NII income. PBT has been pretty strong, and it has been, on the 1 hand, driven very much by the income side, but also cost control and was well in place. We have still in terms of overall return on assets and very strong performance and probably the strongest we had for quite some time with 3.5%. Our CASA is still very, very strong. And as in the last quarters and where we reported that our NIM expansion was very much driven by a lower cost of funds. We have continued that trend. And again, that has helped us on our NIM expansion. And at the same point in time, we have been very prudent. We have increased our coverage ratio. And we also did some measures on the NPL side and reduced -- on the NPLs to now 0.4%, which I think is the lowest in the industry. And our CAR still stands at a very strong roughly 16%. So all of that gives us actually great confidence that we can go from here and continue on the strong trajectory we've shown over the last couple of quarters. And as I said, and we believe actually we're well on our way to hit the targets as described in the AGM. So without further ado, I would give the floor to Bang and to give us a little bit more details on the numbers. Thanks.

Thank you very much, Jens, and good afternoon to all. I'm very pleased to share the financial highlights from our first quarter. Jens has mentioned some of the highlights already. But Again, the momentum we saw towards the back half of 2020 continued as we delivered TOI growth, top line growth of 46.2% year-over-year with double-digit growth in NII at 45.5% and at 0% and non-NII at 47.9% in Q1. All metrics on the revenue and cost side performed well. Importantly, our balance sheet, asset quality, capital levels and liquidity position and liquidity position is actually very well for continued growth as the economy recovers. As Jens mentioned, we've achieved record levels of profitability, 3.5% ROA. We have crossed over 20.1% on ROE. And then there are a few other highlights on this page. Our CASA ratio, as Jens has mentioned, at 44.2%, cost/income ratio, 28.7%, and strong asset quality metrics on coverage, loan loss coverage, NPLs as well as CAR. Really, the earnings came across all categories and contribution from the core business as the last quarter as well. So no one-offs. You can see, again, double-digit growth, and in some case, triple with the recoveries on the revenue side. On the cost side, maintain low cost increase on the OpEx. I'll mention a little bit more about that later in the presentation. Our provision expenses did increase. A lot of that was reflected in the growth of our balance sheet in the first quarter, so general provisions. As you can see, we maintained very strong margins in the business. Profit after tax margins up at the 50% level. And again, as you can see, consistently over the last several quarters, strong growth again on TOI and profit after taxes. When we look at the interest earning -- our NII, I'll just talk a little bit more detail here. A significant amount of our interest-earning assets, again, comes from credit to customers as well as corporate bonds representing 80% of our interest earning mix. You can also see that on the funding side, again, very strong growth from customer deposits, again driving down our funding costs. A lot of that is in the form of CASA, which, again, we'll talk about a little bit later. But as you can see on the yield side, we were flat on yields -- roughly flat from fourth quarter to first quarter, but continue to see a dramatic drop in cost of funds as term deposits continue to decline, and that drove a lot of our NIM expansion. As you can see, at 2.4%, we'll discuss it a little bit more, but these are quite substantially low levels. I don't expect to see a dramatic drop from this point forward. But ultimately, it translates into very strong net interest income growth, as you can see, VND 6.1 trillion for the quarter. Now when we look at the demand in areas of growth for loans, again, strong demand into the first quarter on the back of strong fourth quarter momentum. Most of this credit growth, again occurred mainly in our Wholesale Banking business for the first quarter. And part of this was a reflection of seasonality around the Tet season as well as a COVID outbreak that we had in February, which slowed a little bit of the disbursements to retail and SME segment. But all in all, again healthy growth, double-digit growth year-over-year, slightly more muted again on retail and SME in the first quarter. As you can see, we did see more pickup in short-term borrowings as well, and then that reflects the increased business recovery and activity. So again, seeing healthy growth, just overall on credit demand. On the right-hand side, as you saw on the chart earlier, our loan yields, while remaining flat, we did see increases on the corporate bond yields. It's a reflection of the strength again of our bond underwriting and distribution business. We're still seeing quite a lot of corporates coming to Techcombank to meet their funding needs. Now on segments, we continue to focus growth in our key segments, areas of strength as well as the economic segments that form a part of our strategy. You can see there was healthy growth year-over-year in some of the segments in Recom, FMCG as well as financial services. on the quarter, we did see growth in FMCG, a good healthy uptick there as well as financial services. Again, within the key segments that we're focused on with the key customers within those segments. On the retail side, double-digit growth across all of our key areas for retail lending. If you look at year-over-year, again, as I mentioned earlier, quarter-over-quarter, was a bit slower as a result of both the Tet seasonality as well as the COVID outbreak I mentioned. Now looking at our funding. Funding costs again continue to decline. You can see the deposit rates on the right-hand side. dropped 140 basis points from last year. Again, we would not expect to see this level of decline going forward, but it certainly has helped contribute to very low funding cost for us, which is a great strategic advantage for us. Lower funding costs has been a big driver of financial performance that also gives us an opportunity to continue to expand into other areas of our strategy and customer segments that we're focused on. So you can see, again, a very healthy overall deposit growth of 22% year-over-year. A large part of that was driven by our cost of growth of 68%. We did, however, also see strong growth on the corporate side as well. So let's see here. Now on NFI, very strong growth. Again, we've talked about it in previous quarters. We have multiple drivers of NFI. It was up 48% year-over-year. We had strong performance in Banca, in our IB services as well as our transaction banking business. When you look at the bond underwriting year-over-year, we had a particularly strong quarter, first quarter of last year was a very big pipeline. But when you look at quarter-over-quarter, it's still very healthy in terms of bond underwriting, up 27%. And then on Banca, very, very strong growth year-over-year. This -- Jens will talk a little bit more about this in his remarks later on strategy and areas of strength for Banca. But again, the Banca reset is going well. And the 13% decline, again, is quarter-over-quarter off a very large growth in the fourth quarter and again, a little bit of a slowdown in the first quarter because of the seasonality effect. But overall, very strong growth on total fee income. As the page we've shown a lot, again, reflects the strength of our bond and investment banking services. You can see that there's still very healthy demand for our services, both reflected in the bond underwriting and distribution increases year-over-year. But also just in the demand for -- when you look at it from our TCBS assets under management and market share. So we're at VND 28.6 trillion in assets under management at the end of the quarter. It's the largest in the market. reflects a 65% market share. And likewise, we continue to be dominant in terms of corporate bond brokerage market share on the HoSE. Cards continues to be an area of importance for us, and you can see healthy growth year-over-year. Importantly, this is forms again a part of our -- the shift to cashless and enabling our customers also very important in terms of driving engagement with our customers and forms a key part of driving data engagement and ultimately cross-selling and upselling over time. As I mentioned earlier, Banca is doing well. You've seen that in the financial results, up 76% year-over-year, but also reflected in some of the key drivers when looking at annual premium equivalents and first year premiums, which are the key drivers that correlate to the fee income growth. On cost, again, very well maintained historically low, 28.7%. First quarter again reflected some slowdown in spend, especially on marketing, given that COVID outbreak I'd mentioned earlier. We also expect to see this increase in the course of the year with the recovery in the economy and additional investments in IT, marketing and other areas to support the digitalization of our business. But the point here, probably the key takeaway is that we do have significant headroom for growth and investment to ensure that we can execute on our strategy. Our asset quality metrics continue to improve, credit costs -- and we do continue to take prudent write-offs where possible, although Vietnam has done very well. As we look across at some of the regional markets and our neighbors, we continue to see that there is uncertainty with COVID, and I think we want to make sure we're prepared for anything that might come our way. That said, most of these metrics continue to move in the right direction. Our coverage ratio, again, provides us a very healthy buffer, at 219%, to absorb anything that might come if the economy for whatever reason, takes a turn with a further COVID outbreak. But so far, knock on wood, we're doing okay now. On the provision expense side, you can see that provision expenses in the first quarter was driven -- you can see that it's increasing on general provisions to reflect the loan growth. Again, we took a couple of specific provisions related to writing off some problem loans. But when you look at the overall NPL ratios across the portfolio at 0.4%, again, I would not expect that these low levels will continue, but we're still in a very strong position as we head into the rest of the year. Just a quick note on restructured loans. I know a number of investors have asked about this. Both on an absolute and a relative percentage basis, this continues to decline. Many of our customers are recovering with the economic recovery. So we do expect this to further decline and not really be an issue for us going forward. I think on circular 03, just a quick comment there. I think it is a good measure by the SPV to help banks really work through the COVID relief measures that they introduced. There's a kind of 3-year window to amortize or spread out over provisions, over 3 years. For us, this quarter -- sorry, for this year, roughly mid-30s, about VND 33 billion, VND 34 billion in potential additional provisions, but ultimately not material when we look at the broader book. The capital position, as Jens mentioned earlier, remains very robust. It has declined a little bit, reflecting the growth of our balance sheet, but still very strong at 15.8%. And it does support our growth but also protects against uncertainty as we look ahead in the market. The leverage ratio, again, still allows us plenty of room for growth. We have achieved 12% credit growth limit from the SPV. Hopefully, that can continue to increase as it has in past years, but we're certainly prepared for -- to support that growth. This reflects, again, some of the key metrics we look at as we benchmark ourselves against our peers and think about what is differentiating our business. A lot of this is related to, again, cost of funding, risk costs as well as OpEx. So you can see across kind of these key metrics on CASA, we continue to have a dominant CASA franchise relative to our peer group. Cost of funding continues to decline, again, probably at the low levels at this point. But still a huge advantage for us as we use that to invest in growth and in key target segments. Net interest margin is just a reflection of that CASA funding advantage. Cost income ratio, again, a huge difference between us and our peer group, giving us plenty of room for growth. NPLs, 0.4%. Again, we have a very high quality book at this point and one that, again, allows us to continue to invest in the growth of our business. And likewise coverage ratio allows us to also absorb any future uncertainty. I'll just quickly touch upon the outlook as we look at the remaining 3 quarters of the year. You've seen this page before. GDP growth continues to be very healthy in terms of what the expectations are. I won't go through and read all of this. But suffice to say, the key metrics still point towards a healthy recovery in the market this year, and we are certainly planning for that as we focus on our strategy execution. On the banking sector as a whole, we continue to see very ample liquidity in the market. This is one reason we do expect to see some compression in the course of the year on margins. Certainly, on the lending side, with all this ample liquidity, we certainly are seeing our competitors go out and try to get more customers, and we'll have to compete for those customers. So we expect to see some compression there. But overall, healthy metrics as we look ahead across the key metrics. On outlook, we'll just wrap up here. We provided this outlook at the sorry, at the beginning of the year. And at this point, you can see how the first quarter stacks up against what -- where we ended the year in 2020. I would say, at this point, we would maintain kind of most of this outlook. We run through it very quickly. Cost of funding, again, has dropped, as you can see. Whether it maintains the level of first quarter remains to be seen, but again, lower than where we were at the end of 2020. CASA ratio, again healthy. We do expect that to be kind of at the same levels as we pointed out in the first quarter at the end of last year, sorry. Net interest margins, again, as I mentioned earlier, we do see -- expect to see a bit more competition there. So whether it's on the funding side or on the yield side, I think we're probably at the levels -- at the higher levels at this point. NII growth, clearly, very strong coming out of the blocks in the first quarter. But with that increased competition and ample liquidity, we'd expect to see that decline from where we are at the first quarter. NFI growth, we have seen a strong first quarter and do see some engines for growth there, as I mentioned earlier, whether it's in our Banca business, the convening strength of our bond and IP business and then our transaction banking business. Cost income ratio, again as we invest more, we do expect to see that uptick from the end of last year. And then on asset quality metrics, we are really at the lows, I think on the NPL side. In credit costs, we do expect given the -- where we are on NPLs, we would certainly expect the credit cost to decline from here. So all in all, a very, very strong first quarter. I think we remain, again, cautiously optimistic about the recovery. We do see and continue to pay vigilant attention to what we're seeing in the surrounding markets. The government has done a great job about containing the recent outbreaks. And if there is another one, we're confident they'll be able to manage that and allow us to focus on, again, driving growth and serving the -- our customers as we go forward. So with that, I'm going to hand it over to Jens for a quick update on strategy and business.

Thanks, Bang. So what we are doing right now, we are having 2 main focuses. One is we need to make sure we still deliver a very solid performance. And as you've seen from the numbers, that seems to be rather on track. And making sure we grow across all the key areas we have on the right on kind of basic elements, like capital liquidity in place. And we need to make sure that the assets are worked very well in terms of return on assets, return on equity. At the same point in time, we also said we need to build the foundations. And as Bang also said, we have the means to do that. And obviously our CI ratio is still at the beginning is relatively low. And so as we said, we expect this to go higher as we put some of these foundations and fundamentals in place. And we have talked about it. And a lot of this is around digitization, data, our people where we continue to invest. In terms of digitization, probably just one chart which is, again, showing the whole trend, which is probably true for the whole industry in terms of e-banking, and in terms of customers, but also transaction volumes and also transaction value. You see all these numbers. If you look from a year-on-year perspective, it goes up by 100%. And again, I think that, of course, puts also quite some strain on systems and all the underlying infrastructure, we have to make sure that this actually gets built out to make sure that we actually continue on that current trajectory, and we're not seeing any degrading in terms of uptimes and in terms of providing these kind of services to our customers. But on the other hand, also what you see that the branch has become less and less important from a pure transaction perspective. And so that also is a question of what exactly are we doing in the branches and how do we make sure that we get the most out of these branches and providing the right services. When you -- or if you have followed our presentations, we introduced that framework where we said, okay, what are the key elements of our strategy in simple term, we really want to make sure that we're delivering customer value. And the areas we're focusing on is around digital data and talent and making sure that in orchestration, these things can actually really work and make sure that we get to better results. And instead of going through all these things in a kind of theoretical construct, what we will continue to do is we will just give you examples of where we're putting these things in and how we think about making this work and then how would that translate actually to a real impact and which is driving our business. So this time around and we want to talk a little bit about Banca because that was where also a lot of questions and came up in the past and also where we've seen that compared to, let's say, 2 years ago, we lost a little bit of traction, and we want to make sure that we're actually getting back on track. So if you think about this framework on 3 areas: digital and people and data. So on digital, what we did is -- and we will do more of these kind of things, we teamed up with a fintech company and made sure that within 3 months, we got a new tool in place. And the tool should actually help our RMs and -- but also our customers to go really through a need-based analysis. And we're seeing some of the numbers going up tremendously in the market in terms of bancassurance. And there's always a little bit a risk that and there is some kind of mis-selling happening and just because of the underlying IP products, which are driving a lot of this growth. So we wanted to make sure that this is well controlled. So this tool really ensures that there is a standardized process where we do need-based analysis, we're really trying to identify the right product and then proposing that product to our end customers, explaining exactly what it's doing, what it's not doing and what are the risks associated. And what you can see is from the key metrics which we are following up -- so we got this in markets in March, if you see the satisfaction at the front line. But also and more importantly, customer satisfaction and kind of Net Promoter Scores, these numbers are actually very, very high. And what it just tells us that and by doing this, we are probably doing the right thing to our employees, increase their productivity, but also doing the right thing and to our customers. So that tool is one, an aspect of it. But of course, the question is also how are we interacting with customers, how we understand the need of the customers. So that's where data is coming in. And of course, like a lot of other banks, we're really trying to understand our customers and saying, who do we think we should be talking to because we believe there is a need for insurance. And they are in a situation where they could actually benefit from taking up an insurance offer. And in the past, that prediction rate where we said, okay, we think -- these are the right people was 1%. Now if you look into overall market statistic around the world and all of that, maybe that number should be rather 3% to 4%. And we then put our head to it and given that we also got a lot of new talent coming in on the data side. And we started building machine learning models, relatively advanced machinery models. We try to get much more data into the models. And before, maybe we use 6 to 7 features. Now we're using around 100 features based on roughly 3,000 data. And right now, we are at the conversion rate of 10%. So of 10% means that if we're speaking to 100 people, really 10 are really taking up an offer, which just means together with the digital tool, we are actually much better in understanding our customer. And because these machine learning models -- this model and the prediction is self-learning, so we constantly improve on that area. And what it means is, ultimately, we also translate this to a much higher productivity on the people side. So we also have readjusted our model. And at the high end, we really think the right way to deal with our customers is a model where we have specialists dealing and talking to our customers because these are rather more complex needs. Whereas people at lower income levels, we actually ask our RMs to speak directly on to the end customers. And again, on the basis of the data, on the basis of the tools, we have -- and given to our -- and frontline staff, you see a much higher productivity coming out of it. And you see actually that much more of our salespeople who are actually fully licensed and are much more comfortable to basically have these discussions. If you look into activation rates, so 60% of our frontline people are having these conversations with the customers. And again, that's where then an APE is coming up or increase on year-over-year basis to 80%. So this is not, again, that we are pushing something and just putting the right fundamentals in place and making technology work for us. And again, we are doing this across all the different parts of our business. And so that's a little bit more trying to highlight how this -- how these 3 elements are really working out and how they are then driving ultimately the business results in a sustainable manner so that we are not really just dependent on people or KPIs or something like that, but really sure that we're doing the right thing to our customer. And I think that is basically the end of our presentation, and we will then later go to Q&A.

Thank you, Jens. We'll take a 10-minute break. You can submit some more questions, and we will be back for the Q&A session. Thanks.

Thanks, everyone, and welcome back for our Q&A session. Just a reminder that you can still use the QR code to submit questions to the Investor Relations team, and we'll try to accommodate them as best we can. The first question is from [indiscernible] from AIA Vietnam and I'll ask our CFO, Bang Trinh, to answer this. Vietnam's GDP growth was 2.9%, and -- but the lowest in a decade. Retail sales in real terms even contracted. What is the bank's view about the economic recovery? Given that the COVID situation is still very dynamic in Europe and India and neighboring countries that Vietnam shares like Thailand, Cambodia and Laos, what is your forecast for the Vietnam GDP in 2021 in the worst case? And what -- how does that translate into the 2021 performance for Techcombank?

Thanks for the question. I think in the presentation, we did show our outlook in terms of where we think 2021 will be, GDP growth of around 6.5%. In terms of a worst case, I think we did see that last year at 2.9%. And if anything, we certainly proved that our business model and financial results were still resilient. At this point, it's really -- I think we are being very mindful of what's happening across our neighboring and regional and global markets. But ultimately I'm not the economist. I think they still view given the -- how well the government has contained COVID to date and seeing just the actual metrics of what's been coming out of the economy and output, we are still expecting to see that recovery. I think as we think about what's driving it, we do see retail sales increasing. We do see, again, inflation being under control, employment also declining from where they were last year -- unemployment, sorry. So again, all the drivers of macroeconomic growth and activity remain intact at this point. But at the same time, I think, in our business planning, we are stress testing all the time to ensure that we can still deliver, support our customers, still have capital for growth. So I think at this point, we'll follow what the general consensus views are. But ultimately, if you look back on what probably a worst case, you could look at last year as a proxy for potentially worst-case. And then again, our financial results were still able to deliver despite those challenges.

Thanks, Bang. Following up on that, several people asked this question, Tham from BIDB and Lin from SSI, it's regarding the 2021 PBT growth guidance. what are the drivers for the 25% PBT growth that was discussed at the AGM? And related to that, given that the credit growth target for the SPV, that the SPV has given the bank is only 12%, how do you expect to get there?

Sure. Thanks for the question. As we've shared in previous quarters, we have a number of growth drivers that really drive our business, both on the revenue side but as well as on the cost side. If you look at just coming out of -- and we've obviously had strong tailwinds and momentum coming out of the fourth quarter where we had 23%, 23.3% credit growth. So that -- we get the benefit of a lot of that growth in the fourth quarter for the full year of 2021. So that just on the credit side is a big contributor. We've also seen, again, strong -- on the NII side, the cost of funding advantage and the lowering customer term deposit rates. So that has increased our net interest margin. And we, again, expect to see some strength on that as we head through the year. Although, as I mentioned earlier, we do certainly see some compression there given the ample liquidity in the market. Then on the non-NFI side, net fee income, very strong growth that we've shared with you. Expecting to see that across a number of contributors on fee income, especially in Banca with our reset that's ongoing, the strength of our bond origination and distribution business. As the economic activity picks up, we certainly expect to see more transaction banking fee as well, whether it's in our FX, UPAS L/C and other areas. And then I think, ultimately, PBT does also reflect the cost side of the business. So we talked a little bit about the funding costs, our risk costs again at where it is at this stage is very low given the high quality of our book. Our NPLs are at 0.4%. We do not expect to see credit costs significantly increase from where we were last year, where we took very aggressive measures to manage our book. And then on the OpEx side, as we discussed during the presentation, again still plenty of room to invest while still keeping cost contained. So all of those contribute ultimately to the profit before tax targets that we have shared at our AGM.

Okay. Thanks, Bang. The next question is regarding the circular 03, which replaces circular 01 on loan restructuring and rescheduling. And this question comes from Lin at SSI. How much are the total loans to customers that have been restructured so far? How do you assess the repayment capacity of customers along the restructured time line?

Again, thanks for the question. Again, for the audience, circular 03 again, provides banks with a little bit more clarity and how to restructure loans from the circular 01 that the government provided as relief to support banking -- the banking sector as well as customers last year. So as we highlighted in our presentation, at the first quarter, both our absolute amount is VND 6.7 trillion, which is 2.3% of loans. So both the absolute again and ratios have declined. We expect that to further decline as the year proceeds. We closed out to -- if we have to look at it, close to 70% of the customers we've assessed as we continue to look through this book, are expected to be cured by year-end. And of the balance, again, that's where these additional provisions will come into place under circular 03. We don't expect much more than a VND 30-plus billion for year 1. And if we took it all at once, about VND 100 billion in additional provisions. So again, not a very large or material impact considering the size of our overall credit book, but it's something we continue to pay attention to, continue to manage, but ultimately feel that it's well contained.

Okay. So just to clarify, you said that in 2021, the most won't be only VND 30 billion, right?

Roughly, I'd say, mid-30s at max at this stage based on what we can see Yes. But again, this is -- look, I think everything, please as we look at the market, this assumes that the recovery is ongoing and COVID continues to be contained, clearly, there's more contagious variants that are out there. So again, as it changes, then we'll certainly report in our next quarterly update. But based on what we can see at this point with the assessments we've made, that's the estimate.

Okay. Thanks, Bang. Next question from Kang of KMC and Thanh at Maybank Kim Eng. The bank's NPL further declined to 0.4%, yet the NPL guidance at the AGM was still for a range that is less than 2%. What would be a more narrow range of guidance for fiscal '21 then? And then also, the coverage ratio is now over 200% at the end of Q1. Do you think that, that is too conservative?

Good question. So I think we take the philosophy, we'd rather under promise and over deliver. We approach our financial projections with a conservative bias, particularly given the uncertain environment. So at less than 2% for 2021, which we shared at the AGM, this is, again a level that we would not expect to exceed in a worst-case scenario. So again, we would rather be cautious on that, and that's kind of the basis for that number. And given the uncertain environment, again, we'd rather under promise and over deliver. However, if the macro situation was not to worsen materially from here and recover the way that we would hope it does, we do believe that we probably could keep that -- certainly to keep that under 1% for the year. And on the coverage ratio, Again, we are in uncertain times. And if we look around what's happened in some of the regional markets, I think having the additional buffer to accommodate any uncertainties is healthy and prudent. So we're comfortable with the buffer we've built. And at this point, I wouldn't expect to see that go up materially, just given where our NPL level ratios are at this point.

Okay. Next question from several people from JPMorgan, SSI and Maybank Kim Eng. This relates to the ecosystem, and I'll ask Jens to answer this one. Could you elaborate a bit more about the plan to leverage the ecosystem of major partners such as VinGroup, 1MG and Masan? How much contribution in terms of OI and PBT would you expect for that? And I believe that you addressed some of this in the AGM. The question is also regarding the branch-light partnership that, that Masan spoke about at their AGM.

Yes. Thanks for the question. The we talk about ecosystems, the idea is to really work with partners who have certain assets which are can use synergistically. So what could these assets be? It could be customer base, it could be data. It could be a lot of different things. But mostly, what we're looking for is customer access, and it's actually data. And if you think about Vingroup, if you think about Masan, if you think about on 1MG, they all have 1 or 2 of these assets, right? So let me maybe take the case with Masan. Given the fact that they know own and Vincommerce, there are roughly 3,000 outlets, and they probably have overall 10 million customers, is there a way to provide services to these customers in a way that increases and enhances their convenience, and we can do it actually at a better cost point than what we could and currently do. And if you take an example like what 7-11 is doing in Thailand where they have 20,000 outlets and -- they're actually providing a full range of services, financial services from cash in, cash out, bill payment, micro insurance, which allows a customer to actually get access to these services in a much more convenient way, just given the fact that they have 20,000 outlets, which is probably twice the number of all the outlets banks have in the country. So if you therefore take, like Masan vision of 20,000, 30,000 outlets, I think we would be able to get to customers in a way on using technology as well as the physical footprint, which would be completely impossible for us. And doing that and leveraging that footprint at the same point in time, understanding the customers on the basis of and aggregate data sets across these ecosystem partners, we would be able to provide services at very different cost points in terms of acquisition cost, in terms of operating costs, but also in terms of risk costs, then we would be able to do without these partners. Now -- and especially because people are asking for this branch-light model, and this, of course, is still kind of needs to be cleared with the agent banking framework from SBV. And SBV Has a clear perspective on what they're right now allowing an agent banking. And some of that might not be doable under the current regulation. But we also -- fear is, I think these models have not been really developed and tested in this market. So again, I think there's probably a space to work with SBV, some of our big corporate clients, to really create a solution, which is a win-win for everyone, especially for the consumers. And that's what we're currently exploring. That's what we're trying to do. So it's always the same. We're trying to take assets. We combine this with the financial services capabilities we have, and then think about can we do something for our customers and -- or for the customers of that ecosystem and better, cheaper, faster. And people asking us, how has this been kind of incorporated into our end targets? The answer is actually not a lot, because some of that still is in an R&D stage. And coming back to what Bang said, we rather want to err on the conservative side, and we need to still understand fully these models. We have to make sure that they really work and that they are meaningful enough for us. And then we will start reflecting that in our projections. So all the projections which we have shared at the AGM are not taking any big kind of consideration of potential upside coming out of these joint ventures. So therefore, as I said, it is probably pure upside. And we would still be able to achieve and all our financial goals, even if these ecosystems would not materialize to the fullest extent. And however -- what we believe is it's actually a good thing to do and for customers where participating in the ecosystem and overall for the financial inclusion in the country. So that's why we're working with them and with our partners on it. But again, it's not material at this point in time in any of our financial planning.

Thank you, Jens. Next question is from [ Internet KAS ]. Could you share with us your views on partnerships with fintech companies and e-commerce platforms? And what are the plans to work with these types of companies and expanding in the future?

So a very good question. And as I tried to share in the presentation before and you see that we're using fintechs to accelerate on our delivery in certain aspects. So for example, this tool, well established in other markets, we just really talked to that fintech company. We put it onto our systems. So -- and we're trying to work with partners and especially if they have certain pieces of technology, which can help us to accelerate. There are, of course, different fintechs, right? And there are fintechs, which are really fintechs, really technology. And then there are those who are, what I would rather probably call applied fintech, right, which is they have technology and trying to create new services, like wallets, like payment solution and et cetera. And so 1MG is one example. And we are also having payment solutions for Vinshop, Vin-ID, and we're working very closely with these guys. And then last but not least, we're working with really big, big fintech companies who are -- and I mean, probably people might not think about it immediately along this way. But if you think about the big companies like Visa, Mastercard, they are actually huge fintech players, right, because they're investing massive amounts in data, in technology, payment technology. So we're also working with these guys. So again, we are working with them across the board. And e-commerce -- and that's a little bit of a different question. We are engaging with the Shoppees, the Lazadas of the world. It's the question of what can we deliver in terms of services. And so we're looking very much in what's the best way to incorporate with them. But would we be launching an e-commerce platform as a bank like some other banks? And I don't see that. But for example if Masan, again as a company would start launching such a platform would we team up as an ecosystem partner? Of course, we would. So again, I think this is a very dynamic environment, and we will look into the right opportunities. But at any point in time, we're very open to partnerships. We can't do everything on our own. And what we are really doing is we're trying to make ourselves as accessible as possible through our own technology, through open APIs, through making sure that we have the right scale that we have these things in the cloud, that we have the right data infrastructure, so that we can interact and be open and receptive to all these partners. But again, building some of that on our own, clearly, like e-commerce platform, that's not what it would do.

Okay. Jens, next question is also for you. It's on risk management. Recently, we've heard a lot of more information coming out of the bank in terms of the risk -- risk framework and risk management. What is your assessment of the framework at Techcombank compared to the regional standards and practices? And what is being done to further improve this? And could investors expect credit costs to decline significantly in 2021 to '25 as a result, I guess, from even this low level?

Great question. So let me first start. Of course, we're talking a lot about risk management. I think if there was ever a time to talk about risk management, it's probably COVID and what you see happening, and what you do also see if you are not completely on top of your game when it comes to risk management. And I think the bank right now, we are trying and pushing very hard for making sure we really get all the Basel II elements in place. We are right now putting submission in for an ICAP accreditation. So I think we are probably still behind in certain aspects, if I compare this to other companies or to other jurisdictions in ASEAN. But on the other hand, I think the banks itself are still managing credit risk very tightly. Otherwise, I don't think we would have seen some of the numbers we're currently seeing across the industry. Now can we be better? I think we can be significantly better by using technology and data to really understand the risk of our customers much, much better. And I think that's where we are investing in. So -- and we just implemented one of the leading loan origination systems for institutional clients, from Moody's. And we will put in this year a leading retail loan origination system, hopefully should be in by the third quarter. And together with a decision engine, which is really at world-class levels where we're integrating external data, internal data, to take real-time decisions on customers from a multitude of different data sets in order to make sure that we actually have a good understanding of customers who are asking for credit existing to bank or are also new to bank. Now once you have a better understanding of risk, what you're really doing is then your decision. And I think what we are constantly trying to go for is optimize risk return. And that means unclear if we would use that to bring risk costs down, we might actually even increase risk cost as long as we believe we actually get the right returns for it. So -- and I think what we're really trying to do is that for every given risk acceptance level we find acceptable, that we're bringing down the risk cost as much as possible, or that we -- for every risk budget, we are feeling appropriate that we actually get the maximum return. So therefore, if you would say we're not changing our risk stance, yes, you will probably see that this should still decrease as we get more and more understanding of customers. But as we also said strategically, we want to expand into other areas and we want to go on interest, we want to go into other areas on the retail lending side. And that might actually go together with higher risk as long as this is commensurate with even higher returns, then I think that is okay. So what we're really trying to do is we're trying to use risk management to expand our strategic options. And then we will inform investors accordingly and what are the decisions we are taking. But again, this is not about risk avoidance. It's actually about the optimized risk return profile of the bank, and that's what we're working towards to.

Thanks, Jens. So related to that, there are a number of questions related to IT spending, which I believe you covered partly at the AGM. So the question is, what is the IT spending that's planned for the next 5 years, 2021 to '25? And what are the major items that we'll be focused on?

So as I said, I'm -- the numbers we put out there is that we will invest on the IT side over the next 5 years on north of VND 10 trillion, VND 11 trillion -- sorry, more than USD 500 million. Half of that will probably go into CapEx and the rest will be OpEx, HR related. Some of that might shift actually over time because when we do the strategy, there is still some uncertainty exactly how we will consume some of that IT. Will we consume that as a service or are we really putting down systems? And as we start seeing a shift and over from kind of on-prem solutions much more to cloud-based solutions and software as a service, CapEx might shift into OpEx. But ultimately, you would still see that running through the books and in a similar fashion. It's just a question of cash flow and capital outlay. But roughly, it's USD 500 million, and this is all baked into the overall '21-'25 plan. And if you ask me, that number potentially could be even going higher. It really depends on how we are able to use that technology. But if we see that we are actually really getting a good handle on it, and we see the benefits of it, we might accelerate some of that. But it's a question of sensible investments and sensible kind of ability from our side to handle these investments. So where will it be going in? And a lot of this will be going into infrastructure upgrade and just making sure that we can actually handle this continuously expanding transaction base. A lot of this will go into data, data storage, data and analytics and also giving them that data and back into the decision-making. But then a lot of this will also go into front end and into our ability either that on our RMs are basically able to give better advice and better service, or that we go straight to customers through better mobile platforms and Internet platforms and et cetera. So again, most of that, whenever we are spending it is really the question of how do we make sure that sustainably, we are creating better customer experience, better journeys, better customer value propositions. And as long as we're doing that, I think that's money well spent. But as I said, it could actually be the lower end of what we are -- what we will be doing going forward.

Okay. One more question from New IBS Securities. Could you share your view on the current real estate market in terms of how hot it is? We understand that the SBV has -- from some -- we understand from some banks that the SBV has been discouraging some of the concentration or lending into the sector.

So again, we are -- as you've seen, we are still very much kind of bullish on the sector. And -- is there an increase in prices? And definitely it is. And is it too hot? I would say -- there are probably areas and buckets on where it probably is very hot. But is it -- as a general market from a secular trend, is the market too hot? Are we seeing a complete over pricing. and I don't think so. So that doesn't mean that we are not taking our measures, right? We always have been very prudent, very selective in terms of how we are dealing with that risk. And I believe the fact that we are standing at 0.4%, and NPLs probably tells us that we cannot have done it completely wrong. But again, we -- and we make sure that -- first, overall, we still see that the secular trend is intact, and we believe that's the case. There's still a lot of demand for real estate. And there's a little bit of speculative moment and for the time being because of monetary policy and where are people investing in asset classes and all of that. So probably there's a little bit of a spike up, but we also have to see that probably we were not performing as well in some of these areas in the past. So we think the secular trend is intact. Now what are we doing? First, we still focus very much on high-end developers and where we have a full understanding of the entire and cash flow of the project. And we are focusing very much on affluent customers, mass affluent customers and who are kind of very well able to start an order to serving the mortgages and the commitments they have made. And we're looking into the kind of houses, apartments they are buying in which areas are they? Is this relatively stable in terms of value. Then we look into the collateralization. So we have a high collateralization and for all -- for all our engagements, we look very much into LTVs. And the LTVs, which we're doing are relatively conservative. As prices are going up and loans are being paid back, these LTVs are also constantly increasing. So there are a lot of things we are doing in order to make sure that we keep this under control. So we completely acknowledge and appreciate that SBV is reminding us to be careful, and I think that is exactly what the regulator should be doing. And we have always looked at this and very hard. We did stress test. We tightened the portfolio. So I think that will continue. But again, I think we're still very comfortable with our exposure. And as long as we are as big as we are, even if this is big for us, and in terms of the overall market share, it's still and single digits. And which means that we can still be very, very selective in terms of what we are taking or what we're not taking. So yes, appreciate on SBV's guidance, and we're just making sure that we are complying with any regulation and that we're making sure that in our own interest, and we're keeping a very, very close eye on that portfolio.

Thanks, Jens. Next question is for Bang. Bang, on the -- this is from Daniel [indiscernible] of Overlook. Techcombank's CAR ratio is still amongst the highest in the sector and well above the Basel II requirements but has declined a little bit. What was the reason for it? And what is the comfortable range that the bank aims for?

Daniel, thanks for your question. As I mentioned in my remarks, the CAR ratio declined a little bit in the first quarter just on the back of growth on our balance sheet, still at a very comfortable level for us. In terms of how we think about capital, again, a couple of different dimensions. One, clearly, there's a minimum regulatory amount. I think we certainly want to be very healthy above that. And then the other is just a function of strategy and risk and return, as Jens had mentioned. On the -- as a strategic matter, we do believe a fortress balance sheet is important for us, especially in these uncertain markets. So having the additional capital buffer support any shocks, as Jens mentioned, stress testing, while still having sufficient capital to support our customers is very important to us. The other thing, as we look ahead as well as the economy continues to grow and as the regulators continue to look to increase credit limits to those banks that can support that. Again, we've seen that having the additional capital is important. On the customer side, clearly, as some of our larger corporate customers also grow their demand for credit and capital continues to grow as well. So our ability to support that as we maintain a very strong capital position, essentially translates into, again, higher levels that we can provide to those customers, the key customers that we want to focus on and support them. And then on the other pieces, if we look at being, again, one of the best capitalized banks in Vietnam, that's certainly one metric. But we also look more broadly across the regional markets and look at some of the best-in-class banks there. They obviously have a more mature regulatory frameworks. But the question is, are they being penalized for additional capital? And if you look at the likes of a Kotak or a BCA where they have capital levels above 20% on Tier 1 clearly, again, the markets view that as a strength, both from a business perspective, but also from a valuation perspective. So I think we look at it across multiple dimensions. I think we're happy with where we are now. And going forward from here, I think we'll see how the market continues to evolve. But at this point, these levels are comfortable for us.

Thanks, Bang. The next question is on CASA from Farhan at Credit Suisse. While your CASA ratio was still high 44% at the end of Q1, it was down slightly from the end of the year. Why is this? And then also, what are your cost of targets toward 2021 and the medium term?

Farhan, thanks for that question. CASA, again, remains a strategic priority for us. We want to be a CASA champion in Vietnam, and so we continue to focus heavily on making sure that, one, protecting the franchise value, having customers wanting to transact and engage with us through different offerings. But if we look at CASA, just from a quarter-over-quarter standpoint, there is some seasonality in decline, and we do look at this both on a quarter-to-quarter and year-over-year. So if you look at the year-over-year drop, it's a little bit less than in previous years. So again, I think, indicative of the strength of our deposit franchise and the fact that customers are still coming on board and banking with us. And then ultimately, the CASA levels I think we've shared in a previous presentation, there's a lot more room to increase as we further digitalize the bank and offer more digital services to customers and allowing them to engage with us outside of the branches. So I think we've talked about 46% was where we came out at the end of the year, 44% here. What I'd say is there's room for growth. If you look at some of our regional markets some of the regional markets and look at some like CASA ratios of banks like BCA. How far up we can go again as a function of, again, our ability to digitize, continue to offer customers something that is valuable to them as they further transact. So I think there is more room. It's a focus of ours, and we again are happy with where we are at this point.

Thanks, Bang. Next question is also from Farhan at Credit Suisse, and it's on NIM. The bank's NIM improved to 5.2% on an LTM basis. But if you look at it on a stand-alone Q1, it was higher. Yet the bank is still expecting a flat NIM for the year at 4.9% to 5.0%. That, Trinh says, is that too conservative? So could you explain how the trend in NIM might be for the next few quarters and where what will be driving it down towards that 4.9% level?

Thanks, Farhan, for that question. Again, I think there's a chart in our presentation, which showed where deposit rates have dropped to roughly 140 basis points. And that's really at these levels, again, hard to see that it would drop materially from there. And then certainly, from a cost of funding perspective, that's one of the big drivers. And then on the asset yield side, again, given the ample liquidity in the market, we're certainly seeing competition for customers and to -- for credit growth. So we'd certainly expect to see some pressure there. So again, we enjoyed the benefits of coming out of the fourth quarter in a very strong position, very large credit growth as well at levels that, again, reflected the uncertainty in the market and kind of our risk assessment, as we move into the recovery and there's a lot of banks again, that are growing in this environment as well besides us. we do see some pressure there. So I think that's where we're taking a slightly more cautious and conservative approach. Again, if we're proven wrong, it hopefully will be proven wrong on the upside but that's kind of where things stand at this point.

Bang, the next question is from Ruchir Desai at Asia Frontier. And it's something that may have been covered in the past. But just again on Decree-153, replacing Decree-81, what is the impact on the bond related activities for underwriting, distribution expected in 2021 and then over the next 3 to 5 years?

I think most of the regulations -- frankly, the regulations coming out from the regulators on Decree 153 is ultimately intended to strengthen the bond market and bond market activity. So again, we welcome that as a leading bank in this market. We want to see a healthy developing market with the right regulations to protect both the investors in bonds, but as well as the quality of the origination of bonds as well. So I think we do welcome this. I think it's a healthy development, very natural for a growing market in an area. And so for us, when we look at the secular demand, this has not changed. Companies continue to grow their -- their appetite for credit continues to grow. It cannot all be served by the banking sector. That's why it's very important to have a healthy capital markets. And so I would say, for us, we still see healthy growth, as I shared in our presentation. We still see a healthy pipeline. We are actually also seeing that a number of our large corporate customers continue to have access to different sources of funding. So as we look out the rest of this year, it's more about continuing to build our pipeline, bringing -- on boarding new customers and -- while still maintaining a high-quality pipeline for us as origination, but ultimately distribute as well. A number of these bonds do end up in our wealth management and affluent segment, so very important to maintain high quality for the investors as well.

Okay. Next question is for Jens. There had been some questions recently about margin lending and for stock purchases. How does this impact Techcombank's lending? And what is the exposure for the bank? And this is from [indiscernible] at AIA.

Thanks for the question, [indiscernible]. The start actually, what is our exposure, right? Our exposure to the overall financial services sector is less than 2% of -- or about 2% of our overall book. So it's a relatively small number. And yes, it has increased quite strongly over the last year. But again, we have 6 kind of target sectors. One of them is financial services because we believe actually there is demand and where we can provide solutions. The margin lending -- and I completely again, understand why an SBV is kind of concerned about that. And on the other hand, when we were lending and we were exposing and into that area, we have roughly 99% kind of are all collateralized. And our risk in that area is actually very, very limited. So again, I think from our perspective, it is something on where we start expanding on the range of our services. And if we have the feeling that is completely speculative or it goes to kind of companies which are not at the right level or we would -- from our own risk assessment thing, and that is not the right use of funds, we will actually not do that. But as I said, it's a relatively small portion of our book and around 2%, and we're trading in that area actually very, very carefully. But again, I understand where SBV is coming from.

Thanks, Jen. The next question is for Jens again, and this is on the bancassurance partnership. Given that the -- we saw a rebound in the recent quarter on Banca. Can you just give us an update on your feeling on the relationship, and this is from Alex from Fiera Capita.

Thanks, Alex. The -- and I said this before and because people were asking beforehand, again, we are working with our partner in Manulife. We have a long-term strategic partnership with them. As you can see from the results we're seeing right now when it comes to, and trying to get some of the engines, which were a little bit stuttering in the past, getting this up and running again. And we get a lot of support, and we're working on the right products, on the right solutions and getting the right support for the people in the field, for our 3,700 people who are licensed. And so there's a lot of areas where we're working very, very closely with them. Our interests are completely aligned. And as I said, I mean, right now, we're seeing that through joint effort, we're actually getting back on track. So again, I think it's working as well as it should.

Okay. Jens next question is on the next 5-year product development plans. Techcombank has been very successful in building an operational platform for mortgages. Are you now also building out platforms to other retail products, for instance, household business loans and auto loans over the next few years? This comes from Tang at Maybank Kim Eng.

So the answer is yes, we are diversifying away. We clearly want to go into other product areas. And for that, we need actually the right -- we need the right platforms that comes from origination, collateral management and everything, especially on the unsecured. And credit side, it also comes down to an underwriting decision engines, collection, et cetera. So -- and we're investing as we speak quite significantly into these areas. But as we said also in the past, we're moving in when we are ready and not beforehand because you can also lose a lot of money there. So -- and yes, we're going in, and it's very clear. Credit card is an area we think there's a lot of room. And we think in installment loans, there's a lot of room. Auto, we need to be -- we need to take a hard look at it because -- and it's not an easy market. Again, from our customer-centric strategy, if we believe there is something we can do with certain parts of the segment and we are going and purchase certain autos, whatever, we might be going in there. But again, it's not an easy business. So that will probably be rather more opportunistic where we either have a preferential relationships and an ecosystem or where we really follow our customers. But the other areas, as I said, on the unsecured lending credit card and all of that clearly is an area and we want to expand. And we are in -- as we speak, we are building these platforms. And we're building them exactly along the lines what we did on the mortgage side. We really want to make sure that we have the value proposition sorted out that we might link these systems to ecosystem partners, et cetera, so that the value proposition becomes very, very clear. And we hope that over the next 6 to 12 months, we should be able to get to market with relatively clear propositions and then people will see how we're intending to enter and participate in that market.

Great. Next question is on data and digitalization. You've spoken a lot about digital and data. How do you define or measure your success versus your both for yourself and versus other banks? And then a follow-up -- that's from Do Fam at VPS. And a follow-up related to that is Tang Maybank asked, could you share the actions and progress in terms of organizational investment and capability thus far?

So in terms of -- it's actually relatively hard to measure exactly what digitization brings, I. think you can bring it down to an individual level where you're saying, okay, so is a process faster or slower? And how many FTEs have you saved or repurposed, et cetera. But I think there are a couple of leading indicators we would be looking at, right? So one, clearly, is digital engagement. So we'll see how many people are having on our applications, how many are using that, how often are they using it? And what are they using it for? Are they using it just for transactions or as we put more and more other services on it? Are they seeing a broader set of use cases on this app. But then when it comes to other areas like data, when it comes to kind of things which are a little bit more, kind of, in the process level, we would probably look into areas like how many processes have we really digitized, how many decisions are we taken automatically. So in which areas are we applying machine learning models? And what are the kind of conversion rates, like what I shared on the Life side, what is the kind of Gini coefficient. So there's a couple of things we would be looking at, at the next level down. And then again, we would also look into areas like how many talents have we in certain parts of the bank. So we start looking into what's the percentage of digital talent, data talent. And as part of the overall workforce, are we seeing a shift in the capabilities -- in the capability set and the skill set. So that's kind of leading indicators. Ultimately, it has to come down to kind of dollars, or dongs and cents. And in that case, we would really look into what are the kind of cost savings we see because we're going and providing services digitally. And the other one is how many of our sales are really happening through digital channels because the acquisition cost and also the operating cost would be significantly lower. So there are a couple of these measures, and we are looking at, and some are still at relatively low levels. But again, that's what we're working on. And so what are some of the things we've already done, and I -- so again, different measures you can take. So one is on how much training have you provided last year to our teams in terms of digital data. And so it's probably more than 170,000 hours of online trainings. And when we think about people, we hired a lot of experts in key areas for data and digital. So probably around 40, 50 people who are coming in, some around 10 at the most senior level of the organization to help build up our capabilities. And then again, we're seeing the first products coming out like what I said on TCB Life. And we hope that by the end of the year, we should have 2 new transaction banking platforms in place for institutional customers as well as for individual customers. And we should actually have 2 new credit systems and completely operational and running because that's where we think are the key enablers we need to and have in place in order to maintain our position as a leading transaction bank as well as getting out into other segments and with credit. And then again, what we are also measuring is how much of our systems are we moving to the cloud. And we will build a complete data lake where hopefully, at the end of the year, we will have 50% of our data in a centralized store. So there are a couple of these things we are working on. Again, for me for the first 12 to 18 months, it's really more fundamental in nature and really building the right foundations. And then start deploying it and monetizing it. But as we have showed beforehand, there are these monetization use cases like TCB Life and all of that, where we constantly start going in and trying to see what we can do and actually get value to our customers and employees relatively quickly.

Thanks, Jens. We have time for one more question. So I will combine 2 questions regarding CASA and customer loyalty. The question is, given the current low interest rate environment, what -- do you believe that the CASA -- the good cost ratio that the bank is seeing is sustainable? And then related to that is the 0 fee and cash back that the bank has successfully used to drive CASA and customer loyalty, what is your assessment of competition and customer retention as you compare Techcombank to other banks going forward?

That's me. Okay. Good. Great question. So first one is you would probably say is CASA sustainable in this low interest rate environment? Probably it's more sustainable in a low interest rate environment than it is in a high interest rate environment. Because in the high interest rate environment, and people are taking more effort in managing the liquidity a little bit more careful. And therefore, you would say, if there is such a big difference, let's manage this very tightly and move it to other higher-yielding and accounts. Actually in a lower interest rate environment, you see that people are saying, oh, for 1% or 2% difference, I don't think so much about it. But on a, let's say, on a different, more strategic level, I believe that a lot of CASA -- and the reason why people have CASA and how they are thinking about liquidity, is not so much driven by also all the interest rates and all of that. There is a certain amount of money you always will keep for liquidity reasons. And the question is, who do you keep that with, right? And this usually is not an interest rate decision. This is a lot of convenience on additional services, ease of transaction. Mostly, that's convenience driven, right? And what else are you getting? So of course, 0 fee was a key element of that, cash back is a key element of that. But if everyone has the same, it becomes very much like the great neutralizer. So then it comes down to how easy to transact, right? And what are you getting in terms of inside loyalty? So if you're opening up your app, are you getting valuable insights? Are you getting offers? Are you getting something in addition to normal, just transaction? And I think that's what we're working on. We're putting a lot of effort in making these apps much more intelligent. And using them that we're saying, if you bank with us, we can give you actually additional insights, like how do you spend your money? Can you spend your money more wisely? Are there certain offers given that you already have, let's say, our credit cards where you can actually better get a better deal? And we will work with merchants to see can we give these offers to our customers and use that as a platform for our SME customers, MSME customers to advertise their products. So there's a lot of stuff we can do which creates additional value, and I think that will drive CASA much more than anything else. Our CASA market share is still relatively small, and our reach to customers is still relatively small. So there is ample opportunity to still increase that. And again, I'm -- I really think that if we are ultimately seeing that CASA is really decided on this fact of additional value, then I think we are actually quite okay. Now -- we don't take competition lightly. I think some of the things, like what military bank was doing with your preferred bank account numbers and all of that, I think that's -- these are all great ideas. And we looked actually into it 2 or 3 years ago and for every reason we basically decided not to do it. I think ultimately, it really comes down to providing something sustainably going forward because you can do certain things for a certain period of time, and it can give uncertain incentives. But I think that's the same like with wallets, and you can always get customers if you just put enough marketing dollars into it. But if these marketing dollars are going away, will they still stick with you? And I think that really ultimately comes down just do you have the ability to provide convenient, easy services, reliable and at a fingertip anytime, anywhere. And that's what we're building towards to. And from that perspective, I think also all the customer research, what we are seeing is, we are quite okay in terms of NPS values and loyalty, et cetera. Could we be better? We try every single day. But again, I think it's more than kind of short-term incentives. We need to be more sustainable, and we believe data and technology will lead us there.

Great. Thank you, Jens. Thank you, Bang. And that concludes the Q1 2021 analyst presentation. As a reminder, the replay and the analyst presentation will be made available on the Techcombank Investor Relations website. Thanks, everyone, and see you next quarter.