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

Good afternoon, and welcome to Techcombank's Fourth Quarter Full Year 2021 Financial Results Conference Call. We are pleased to report a strong finish to a difficult year for the country due to the fourth wave of COVID and the Omicron outbreak. With us today are Jens Lottner, CEO; and Alex Macaire, the newly appointed group CFO, to share more details on the financial results and business updates with you. Jens and Alex will present in English, with live Vietnamese translation available via a separate link that was sent with the invitation. As usual, we will have another call in Vietnamese tomorrow for retail investors. We expect today's presentation and Q&A to last around 90 minutes. With that, I'll turn it over to Jens to begin the presentation.

Thanks, Minh, and good afternoon, everyone. Thanks again for joining and also a belated Happy New Year. And last year was, as Minh said, was quite a challenge. And for the country, again, probably some surprises and which happened in second and third quarter. But again, fourth quarter saw first signs of recovery and rebound. Again, still during these very unprecedented times, the bank has still performed very, very strongly and got actually to quite some unprecedented results. So just to give you the highlights, and then Alex will talk you through the details. And overall, TOI actually grew around 35% year-on-year that was driven by NII as well as NFI purely coincidentally, both and grew at the same level of around 42%. And PBT grew even stronger at around 47%, which was just due to the fact, first that OpEx was under control. But in addition to that, and also provisions remained relatively low and manageable compared to last year. Return on assets still very strong at 3.7% probably amongst the highest in the industry just shows that we are very focused on very, very efficient capital allocation and that also then reflects into a very strong return on equity, which is up at around 350 basis points compared to what we had last year. We always focus on CASA, which is one of our core strengths and also our key competitive advantages. We are reporting for the first time on a CASA ratio above 50%, mostly driven out of retail CASA, which again is also giving us some confidence because that's usually much more stickier than if we would get this on out of wholesale funding. And again, which provides us very stable funding for what we want to do. On the asset quality, again, a little bit an uptick in terms of NPLs, but we're still at 0.7%, well below the industry on average and provisionings are still at very, very strong levels. And just reflecting all very conservative and prudent stands on the way how we think about risk management and provisioning for unforeseen events. Capital at 15%, well above the regulatory minimum, probably amongst again, the strongest in the industry, and therefore, low NPLs as well as strong CAR is giving us the headroom we need as the economy bounces back and recover that we can actually help our clients and make sure that they can take a full -- that they can actually take the opportunities in full, which will be coming up as the economy goes back to a normal full spring. So these are just the highlights, as I said, difficult times, but again, we believe actually the bank has managed through these different times very well. And I then leave it now to Alex to give you a little bit more detail in terms of what's behind the numbers, what are the key drivers before we then go back to Q&A. So Alex, over to you.

Thank you, Jens, and good afternoon. I'm delighted to present today the results of Techcombank for the first time as CFO. I will start, as usual, with a quick review of the economic environment. As you can see, 2021 was a tougher year for Vietnam than what was expected. COVID started its hitting hard in Q2. And in Q3, GDP contracted by minus 6%, which was the worst quarterly decline in over 20 years. Fortunately, Q4 was better. COVID came under control and the economy gradually reopened. As a result, GDP for the year rose to above 3% for the second time in a row. Retail sales, which is a positive for domestic consumption contracted further at minus 6.2% and unemployment rate rose above 3%. The positive outcome in last year's macro picture is the exports which increased by 19%, leading to a trade surplus of USD 4 billion. With that context, let me now shed some light on the financial results of Techcombank for the fourth quarter and for the full year 2021. The key message is that the bank has shown momentum and resilience throughout 2021. Compared to the prior year, the performance has improved across most metrics despite obviously a significantly tougher operating environment. TOI, excluding recoveries for 2021 was up 37.7% year-on-year with NII and NFI both growing at an accelerated rate of 42%, as Jens mentioned. NFI in particular, surged plus 81% in the fourth quarter of the year, driven by our Banca business and in line with the strategic focus we communicated earlier. Costs were tightly managed with the cost-income ratio reducing to 30.1% despite increased investment in technology and marketing. Moving to the top right hand corner, customer credit grew by 22.1% on a solo basis, in line with the quota received from the State Bank of Vietnam. Our NIM improved further to 5.6% on the back of a lower cost of funds. We look into that in more detail later. Like in the previous quarters, NIM was a key driver of the improvement in our net interest income and total revenue. Next slide, please. Looking at the full year, our double-digit growth in NII and NFI was the main contributor to the VND 37.1 trillion of TOI. NII was driven both by credit growth and by the improvement in the net interest margin, while NFI saw strong increases in investment banking fees, Banca and other components. Other income, on the other hand, and as you can see, decreased by 22% year-on-year. This is largely due to the contributions made by the bank as part of our VND 400 billion COVID Relief Program. Recoveries were also lower than the prior year, as you could expect, given the higher intensity of the COVID pandemic in 2021. As I mentioned already, we invested significantly in marketing and technology, leading to a 25% growth in operating expenses for the full year. Provision expenses went up by 71% in Q4 but only 2% for the full year. The sharp increase in Q4 is driven by a decision to accelerate the provision required by Circular 14 for restructured loans. Those loans are now fully provisioned in our accounts, in line with the risk profile of the customer in scope. All in all, we were able to end a tough year with a PBT of VND 6.1 trillion for the fourth quarter, which is up 21% year-on-year and VND 23.2 trillion for the whole year, which is up 47% from 2020. This slide gives you some insights into the growth of our NII. As you can see, our interest earning assets grew 28% year-on-year with customer loans growing 25% year-on-year. Asset yields decreased slightly over the period, including a consequence of the Customer Relief Program. However, our cost of funds reduced even more to just above 2%. We benefited first from the ample liquidity in the market but also from the optimization of our funding mix as we will see later. So Jens touched earlier on the sharp improvement in our CASA ratio. We also raised offshore funding from international credit institutions to secure stable and efficient long-term liquidity. All this contributed to the improvement of our net interest margin to 5.6%. Let's look now at lending balances in a bit more detail. As I mentioned, we have seen a healthy credit demand from our customers, particularly during Q4 as the lockdown measures were progressively lifted. Amongst all lending segments, retail loans increased the most at 45% year-on-year, then came the SME segment at 24% year-on-year. So these trends built on the momentum that you've seen in the previous quarter and that Jens commented on earlier, they reflect the priority put on diversifying our credit exposures towards the retail and SME segments. Finally, our loan mix by term remained broadly stable during the year with short-term loans increasing in Q4 for working capital needs in line with the pickup in economic activity. This slide presents a view of our credit exposure by sector. You can see on the left-hand side that ReCoM is still the dominant sector with around 69% of our total corporate loan balances. We continue to see healthy credit demand from our customers in this sector driven by housing demand in Vietnam. Most of these loans are secured with collateral. In parallel, we made progress in growing FMCG, retail and logistics and this sector now represents a material contribution to our corporate portfolios. On retail, we grew, as I mentioned, our mortgage balances by plus 45%, reflecting our strong competitive position at both ends of the real estate value chain. Credit card balances grew by 31% and Other exposures by 90%, driven largely by our margin lending activities. Now a quick focus on deposits. Only two points to highlight here. First, on the left-hand side, the very moderate growth of our term deposit at plus 4% year-on-year. This helped reduce our average deposit rate to only 2% at Q4. And then you can also see the progression within CASA of the retail components. As Jens mentioned, those represent sticky sources of funding and are, therefore, the highest quality of liquidity. It is also worth looking at our NFI in a bit more detail. As you know, we have a strategic objective to grow the proportion of NFI in our total revenue. In 2021, as you know, our NII grew by plus 42% and matching this performance on NFI was a significant challenge. We achieved it, thanks to a balanced contribution of all fee drivers. The most material one is Banca. Our Banca fees nearly doubled at plus 88% year-on-year, including the booking in Q4 of the 2021 annual performance bonus received from our partner, Manulife. Let me also take a bit of time to talk about our Banca business. As you know, we essentially rebooted our Banca strategy in 2021, focusing on three key priorities: the first one was building our proposition and sales journeys around customer needs; the second one was investing into training and digital for efficiency and customer experience; and the last one was creating a long-term partnership with Manulife where the value is jointly created and shared along the way instead of being paid all upfront. As you can see with the chart on the right hand side of the slide, our efforts have started to pay off. We made it to the #2 position in the Banca market and the quality of our sales is also very high, with a persistency ratio after 13 months of 87%. In other terms, we are, therefore, creating significant value for our customers, for Manulife and for the bank. And this is what is reflected in the 88% growth of Banca fees. Turning now to operating expenses. The key message is that 2021 has been another year of intense investment into the transformation of Techcombank. Our staff costs increased by 24% as a result of recruitments made in IT, in data and analytics and in digital. In parallel, we reduced our headcount in back-office operations. Our IT investments also increased with premises and equipment growing by 17% and building and depreciation increasing by 58%. In line with our plan, we have focused on building technology in 3 key areas: data, digital and talent. And clearly, the progress made in the digitalization of our processes is what allowed us to continue to support our customers throughout the pandemic with minimal disruption. Finally, our marketing expenses went up 76% due to volume-driven Banca cash back expenses and the increased investment in our operations, particularly the Banca business. At 30.1% for 2021, our cost to income ratio is obviously quite low by industry standards, which means that it creates ample room for us to continue to ramp up our investments. A quick focus now on asset quality metrics. As you can see, our credit cost remained stable at 0.7% on a rolling 12-month basis. Overall, our retail and SME portfolios continue to show a satisfactory level of resilience in the face of a very tough operating environment. Non-performing loans went up a bit for SMEs in Q3 and Q4, but they remain very low by industry standards and in absolute terms. At this point in the cycle and given the uncertainties which remain, we have opted to maintain a coverage ratio of 163%, which is slightly down versus Q3. Finally, it is worth noting that 92% of our loans are secured with collateral. This obviously mitigates the risk for the bank in the event of an economic downturn. Restructured loan balances declined sharply in Q4 to VND 1.9 trillion or 0.5% of our total loan balances. Many customers were able to exit the COVID support program or to repay the loan. As I mentioned earlier, we took a decision in Q4 to accelerate the provision required by Circular 14, and therefore, these loans are now fully provisioned in our accounts in line with the risk profile of the customers. We already touched on the resilience of our balance sheet. On capital, our 22% return on equity means that we have been able to continue to self-fund the growth of our credit books whilst maintaining a capital adequacy ratio above 15%. On liquidity, you can see that both our regulatory liquidity ratios have improved in 2021 from a very strong base already at the start of the year. We have also continued to diversify our sources of funding. We were able to complete in 2021, the largest ever offshore syndicated loan in Vietnam. We secured USD 800 million at the 5-year maturity at a yield significantly lower than what we could have been able to obtain if we had been limited to the local onshore market. This example shows why we are particularly keen to maintain an industry-leading liquidity and capital ratio. It allows us to optimize our cost of funding and also ensures that we get a proportionally higher share of the credit quota from the State Bank of Vietnam. Whilst not all of our peers have reported their results yet, we can see on this chart that up until Q3, at least, we have benefited from a significant and stable competitive advantage across a number of metrics. Let us now turn to the final section of this presentation, where we will try to give you some insights into our forecast for 2022, starting first with the Vietnamese economy. As you can see, we take a reasonably optimistic outlook on 2022. We expect that the recovery of domestic consumption will combine with robust export market and drive GDP growth comprised between 6% and 7%, also helped by the stimulus package recently announced by the government. We do not anticipate any significant inflation risk, which means that the monetary and fiscal policy should remain accommodating. Another reason to be cautiously optimistic about 2022 is the fact that the vaccination rate of Vietnam has increased. The country has now closed the gap with the most advanced market in this respect in the biggest cities, close to 100% of the population has received that is one dose of vaccine, and about 90% of them have received two doses. The respective ratios for the whole population are 80% and 71%. Thanks to the vaccination, the impact of the new infection has significantly reduced despite the fact that the number of new infections stays at around 15,000 per day. Overall, we are therefore positive about the economic outlook for 2022. We believe that there could be a strong recovery across a number of sectors supported also by the stimulus package recently announced by the government. As for the operating environment for banks in 2022, we believe that it will continue to be supportive. We expect lending to grow at a similar pace as in 2021 and deposits to go even faster than in 2021. As for interest rates, given the moderate inflation, the trade surplus, the amount of FX reserves we expect that they will remain low. This means that overall, this will create a stable and supportive environment for the economy to recover. We'll conclude with some elements of guidance for the year ahead. Credit growth will be in line with the quota we will receive from the State Bank of Vietnam, and it should be in the same ballpark as in 2021. The NIM should reduce a bit as lending growth drives competition on credit rates and could lead banks as well to pay up a bit on their deposits. We will aim to mitigate this risk by continuing to grow our CASA ratio. Our cost income ratio should increase as we continue to ramp up our investment with a key focus on technology and marketing. We will aim, however, to keep our cost income ratio below mid-30 level. NII and NFI growth rate should moderate from what we have seen in 2021. We will no longer expect to see the improvement in the net interest margin that we enjoyed in 2021. And we will focus on diversifying our income sources from NII to NFI. As for NPL and credit costs, we will continue our prudent risk management strategy and therefore, we expect that they will stay broadly flat. This concludes the formal part of this presentation. We hope that we will have allowed you to understand the drivers of our financial results and, more importantly, understand the link between the performance of Techcombank in 2021 and its ongoing transformation at the digital and customer-centric organization. We will take a short break before resuming for the Q&A session. Thank you.

Thank you, Alex. We will take a 10-minute break and then resume at 3:20 for the Q&A session. Thank you.

Welcome back, and we will begin our Q&A session. The first question is for Jens. This is on corporate bonds. Circular 16 has enhanced standards and requirements for bond issuance. Which impacts do you think Techcombank is concerned about the most? And how will the bank mitigate these impacts? Please also elaborate on the two clauses that now prohibit credit institutions from buying back unlisted bonds within 12 months and preventing credit institutions from selling corporate bonds to subsidiaries.

Thanks for the question. Let me probably answer that by starting a little bit of a holistic perspective and then I dive a little bit deeper. So the first one is, I think from what we are seeing is very clear that the demand for funding cannot be fulfilled by just bank credit. And so if you take the overall need for funding and you see the credit quota, which we're expecting for this year, there's a mismatch. So we clearly need in other ways of funding and clearly, corporate bonds are probably one of the most important conduits for that. So from that perspective, I think strengthening the -- and capital markets, the bond markets is absolutely crucial in order to make sure that actually the economy can stay on a 6% to 7% GDP growth path. So we have been very active in this market and to a certain extent, also be on the close cooperation with the regulator on how that market should develop. And I think everyone agrees that as this market becomes more important and more relevant, we need stricter regulation, and we need to make sure that some of the standards, which are very common in other parts of the world will also be established in Vietnam. So from that perspective, kind of Circular 16 Decree 153, which is still under debate, are not really coming as a surprise to us, but we have been very much involved in how that should be shaping up. So if you, therefore, then go through and saying on what really is happening, what is debating, I think what really is at the core of it is that we are basically saying, okay, let's make sure that only a certain quality of papers and corporate bonds are really issued that they issued for the right reason that they're not doing something but should actually be achieved through other means of funding, be it equity and whatever. And that's also in the way how these markets are developed that we're not using this just for replacing loans, but that these are really kind of valid on corporate papers, corporate bonds. So from that perspective, I think we are just on saying, this is all doing and asking the right questions. So can we actually have rating agencies on who should start and rating the bonds so that there is an independent review on the quality of the papers, which are issued. Let's make sure that the disclosure agreements are kind of justified and that especially when we start selling these papers and if we are buying them back, that there's a clear difference between something which is unlisted and those which are actually listed because a lot of the restrictions we are seeing are only going to unlisted and paper. So for example, selling buyback and all of that, if it's a listed bond, it follows very different rules than if this is a kind of unlisted instrument. So from that perspective, we actually say that's great. We believe as a leader in that market, it will actually benefit us because we will make sure that some of the overheating which we have seen recently will kind of being a little bit curtailed and we're making sure that there not will be any unpleasant surprises going forward. At the same point in time, like as we said, if it comes to the ability to buy back as long as we are talking about list of paper, right, this is actually not an issue because it can be just traded. If there are certain other areas where we're basically saying, can we sell to subsidiaries, that's not a big issue for us, frankly, because we are not doing that, the amounts in our overall book is very, very limited. It will not affect what we are doing. Overall, the demand which we are seeing in our books for corporate bond issuance as one of the major players is actually very, very high. So if somebody then ask, will that reduce your business and all of that, I think we are clearly seeing much, much more demand than what we can probably handle. So I think a lot of this will also work that we are sitting together with other participants and think about how can we actually find and also solutions where together, we can provide better liquidity in the market where we can basically think about creating standards, which makes it much easier to take different parts of these bonds into books, and we will need to work with insurance companies, et cetera, to basically create the right forms and the right instruments. So from our perspective, we are not seeing any reduction in our business. We're still expanding, and we have very aspirational targets for this year. Again, it will benefit the strong guys and will benefit over time the market overall. So therefore, we welcome that actually quite a bit. And we believe for somebody like us, strong reputation, strong list of issuers, strong list of corporate clients, good track record in the market. It's rather an opportunity than a challenge. Again, we need to work with counterparts on some of these kind of questions which rightfully, everyone is concerned about like liquidity and all of that, if we cannot buy back certain instruments. But again, I think these are rather short-term adjustments, then it will really massively derail the development of the market. But as I said, most importantly, we need to develop the capital markets, the bond markets because if everything just works its way through the bank balance sheets, and I think we will not be getting to a funding scenario for the overall economy, which allows us to stay on the 6% to 7% GDP growth trajectory, we're all aspiring for.

The next question is for Alex. How do you expect the NPL ratio and provision expenses to trend when the loan rescheduling regulations expire in midyear 2022? Do you think -- what do you think the NPLs will end for the year? And might there be a lag that causes a bump in NPLs? And what would be your provisioning policy to handle that? This comes from [Tang at Viet Dragon]

Yes. Thanks for this opportunity to talk a bit about our credit risk exposures. So as I said during my presentation, our NPL ratio for retail remained broadly stable throughout the year and increased a bit for SME on the back of COVID wave 4 and also the [indiscernible] contract down. That said, we have adjusted our provisioning in line with the risks, including booking 100% provision for restructured loans, which goes beyond the 30% requirement of the regulator. And additionally, the proportion of our credit exposures under watch remains quite low at around 1%. So now to the other part of your question, what the deadline of June 2022 means that banks will no longer be able to restructure any new loans because of COVID after June 30, 2022. This obviously makes sense given that the economy has started to recover. And as I said during my presentation, actually we are not seeing any significant new numbers of loan restructurings because of COVID and the number of customers in our COVID Relief Program has reduced significantly since the beginning. So now when it comes to the last part of your question regarding a possible delay in NPL formation, my answer would be relatively short. We do not see any significant risk of the cost of credit increasing in 2022. So we should operate in a very similar environment as 2021 from the point of view of asset quality and cost of risk.

The next question is for Jens. What are the key Techcombank -- what's Techcombank's key areas of focus for 2022? What is your sector outlook for credit growth, interest rates and NIM trends this year?

Thanks for the question. Let's talk about the overall perspective, which I think Alex already had talked a little bit about. We would expect total credit growth be above like what we've seen this year. I think the governor has come out and somewhere SPV put out a number of 14%. As I said, I believe actually that the -- as I said, the demand for funding is probably beyond that 14%. So there's 14% which will be a bank intermediated to the balance sheet, but then there are other areas like corporate bond growth, which needs to make up for the other pieces. If we believe there is kind of more demand and supply, then you would usually expect in market conditions that prices are staying where they are and we also have still a pretty ample liquidity in the market because I think SPV also rightfully wants to make sure that we are not tapering off, and we're hindering the recovery by too tight monetary policies. So from that perspective, we believe actually NIM will come down a little bit, especially for those areas where we are operating and because we're usually going for very high quality. And there will be, as usual, a kind of a little bit like a flight for quality and then also prices are coming down. And so yields will be somewhat under pressure. But then again, we still probably have some room to improve CASA as we have shown in the past. So again, a little bit coming under pressure. But again, I think still very, very healthy. and which allows the bank still to probably run their business very profitably. In terms of what we will do, I think we'll just continue what we've done in the past, I think we explained that relatively clearly. We are having a 5-year strategy in which we will really focus on digitizing the bank. And so from the investment areas, we go very much into kind of technology. We will create more transaction banking platforms, we will start -- or we will continue actually to work on data and making sure that this really works. And we will strengthen our value proposition to talent to make sure we can hire the best talent in the market. So we will still work on this on what we call an enabling pillar and still for a little bit. And then we will start using some of these new investments we've made in order to expand our reach into different customer segments. We continue to be very, very focused on our existing customers and especially on some of the large corporates. We will also work. And with our affluent customers, we still think that the secular trend for real estate still holds even if there are some maybe short-term operations. But again, we also said we want to be getting stronger in certain other parts like building up our mass affluent proposition, be stronger on the SME segment. So we will continue using some of the investments we've made in terms of technology to actually build scalable business models, which allow then and which allow us to go down market. So to a certain extent, it went actually pretty well last year in terms of what we wanted to do. So a lot of the numbers which you're seeing right now and which Alex described in terms of NFI, NII, et cetera, we will just continue to do more of that and continue to invest in our capabilities in order to make sure that we actually take full advantage of the recovery as and when it happens.

The next question is regarding foreign ownership limit. There have been some press reports that the foreign ownership limit might be raised to 35% for banks or even to 49% for a few banks. And this is quite a new development that many institutional investors have been waiting for. What might this mean for Techcombank and for the banking sector in general in Vietnam?

Good question because, to a certain extent, that has been around for a bit. And on a regular basis, people are asking what happens to foreign ownership limits. So of course, if the foreign ownership limits are opening up, I think overall, it will be good for the -- an overall banking sector because I still believe in terms of capitalization that we would as an industry, probably need more capital. As I said, we are -- we still need to intermediate a lot of demands through bank balance sheets, and therefore, we need strong bank balance sheets. And again, FOL opening up would allow probably more interest of investors coming in and potentially also raise capital. So from that perspective, I think it's a good development. It also shows the willingness of SPV to basically allow new investors in, which usually also brings not just capital, but also an impetus in terms of governance, of business models, et cetera. So again, we are supporting that very much. Now from our side, we're probably a little bit different than some of the other banks because our CAR ratio already is very, very strong, right? So we are basically standing at 15%, whereas I think industry average is somewhere around 11.4%. So as it's also well known, we are not using our full foreign ownership limit at this point in time, we'd rather stand at 22% and then really using the full 30%. So at this point in time, we are very comfortable where we are if there will be changes like things are opening up, and we will take a look. But again, at this point in time, given the fact that we don't see immediate need for even more capital, and we would probably still say that the way how we're handling it right now is pretty good. Now if there are at any point in time, opportunities and especially inorganic opportunities where we will basically be able to accelerate our development, and that would require more capital beyond what we can sell fund, then, of course, that becomes a very interesting perspective. And then also using the full FOL quota potentially also bringing in additional investors might actually change the picture a little bit. But at this point in time, frankly, we just wait and see, as we also said, these rumors have been around quite a bit. Again, we have not seen anything more concrete right now from SPV. So we are watching it. We are, of course, very carefully in close coordination with the regulator. But as I said, at this point in time, given where we are in terms of our business plan, self-funded growth we would really need a new information like a real change in FOL in order to revisit our position.

The next question is for Alex. What are the drivers and initiatives that will drive fee income in the next 2 years?

Thank you. And I agree it is an important area of focus. As you know, our strategy is to increase the proportion of fee income in our total revenue. And given how fast our NII has grown over the last few years, it is clearly a tall order. So how do we do it? As you've seen in the presentation, in 2021, we have had a strong growth of our NFI. And this was contributed by all key fee drivers. So it's not like there is one silver bullet, unfortunately. Instead, what we have to do is to ensure that all components of our business are geared toward providing services, which are unique and distinctive and therefore command higher fees. So that's what we have been able to do until now and that's also what we believe we will be able to do in the future because we will continue to invest in data, in digital, in talent and in marketing. So therefore, we expect that the momentum we have seen in 2021 will continue in the coming years across investment banking fees, Banca fees, settlement, FX, credit cards and so on and so forth. Obviously, the strong expansion in 2020 and 2021, where NFI grew by 31% and 42%, respectively, creates expectations. And it's also a high blaze, which is a pleasant problem to have. So we'll see how far we can go in 2022 and 2023.

As a follow-up to that, there's a question [Ken] from Korean Investment Management. The contribution of bond trading income to profit before tax was quite high recently compared with other peers. Please share your view on the sustainability of this income source and how much growth we can expect to see in upcoming years?

Yes. Another good question. We acknowledge that our bond business is probably more developed than that of our peers, most of our peers. And this is a consequence of our leading position in this market. In other terms, we see this a good problem to have. Going forward, our aim is to leverage our investment in our banking platform, in the Banca business and also a range of new services that we will provide around our new banking app. And we expect that all this will contribute to create additional sources of income, which hopefully will go even faster than the revenue coming from our bond business. So in other terms, we are quite happy that we've been able to grow a bond business, which is such an important contributor to our revenue. And going forward, we will make sure to develop other sources of income, which will grow even faster, hopefully.

The next question is for Jens. What is the biggest risk in the next 1 or 2 years that might make Techcombank lose its leading position amongst Vietnamese private banks? And what will you do to mitigate that risk?

That's a great question. I think probably the biggest risk is if we take anything for granted or if we are feeling complacent with what we have achieved. So as you see on this chart at this point in time, we have been able to create somewhat a gap on some of the key metrics to some of our peers. And the question is we're just thinking that this will continue, as at the same time, I think all our other competitors will actually also start shaping up the business models, et cetera. So from our perspective, I think what we need to do is we just need to basically assume that whatever we have built is just very temporary in terms of giving us a competitive advantage, and we need to continue to differentiate and just being ahead of the competition. So I think we have laid out the strategy relatively clear. We're saying in the end, we have to have the right technology, we have to have the right talent. We need to build the right data and insights in order to create unique value propositions for our customers. As long as we are assuming we can constantly improve on that, and we are working on that. Then again, I think I don't see a lot of risk coming up, right? Again, you never know. But again, I think the mitigant is rather on us staying focused and making sure that we are doing what we are doing then any -- everybody else suddenly catching up from right field. And so I think it's rather fast and to lose the momentum we have built. And in addition, I think also the backing from the shareholders, if you think about the investments we are able to do as long as we are continuing on that revenue trajectory, it also allows us constantly to invest actually more into these critical areas. And again, probably more than anybody else as long as we are kind of working on that profitability level, our CAR already is at relatively high levels. And we just -- we or reinvesting or the shareholders are reinvesting everything into the business. So again, from that perspective, I think we know what we are supposed to do. The only guys who can be getting in the way is basically ourselves that we're not keeping our eye on the ball, and we just -- and forget why we're here. We're here in order to serve customers. And as long as we're trying to do this better than others and we're focused on that, and I think we should be pretty okay. The second one probably is there are always kind of at your -- the risk of your overstretching yourself. So again, I think we are putting at the same point in time, a lot of focus on risk management. We're really making sure that we're stressing our portfolio that we're looking into any scenarios which might actually come up, any stresses we are seeing. And so we are really also investing quite a bit as we start developing our iCAP models in stress test scenarios, our ability to run simulations of our balance sheet, our P&L to just see what can happen. Again, I think you can always have black swan somewhere coming up. But again, I think what we are trying to do is we're basically trying to look as much as possible right now ahead in order to see any upcoming market disturbances so that we can actually react well in advance. So again, focus combined with foresight and making sure we're not overstretching ourselves, we should be actually pretty in good shape. Doesn't mean that we are not kind of respecting on our competition, we are looking at our competition very, very carefully, and we're clearly seeing that they're stepping up. We're also seeing that they are repeating some of the things which we have done in the past. And so we know that just doing the same thing again and again, like, for example, zero fee will not take us anywhere. But again, I think we're in a pretty good spot to maintain some of these differentiations which you see on that slide.

The last question was from Hang from Manulife. The next question is also to Jens from Tang at Maybank KeyBanc. Could you kindly share your progress incorporating ESG into Techcombank's overall growth strategy and operational framework?

Sure, Tang. Thanks for the question. Again, I think in today's world, I think there's probably not a single organization who cannot take ESG very, very seriously. So of course, also, the government has actually put a lot of loss on investment decrease and all of that already out there. And of course, we are complying with all of that. At the same point in time, also the Board of Directors has given very clear guidances on how we should think about investments, how we think about sustainability when it comes to risk limits, credit orientation, which sectors should we be participating in, which sectors should we actually staying outside. You know that one of our focus areas is on utilities. So of course, utilities, there's a lot of question in kind of what kind of power generation, for example, we would be participating in, et cetera. So all these debates are fully integrated into all our credit decisioning, our business model, operating models, the way how we're looking at opportunities. And there are debated just as part of our normal process. Again, we're also working with some of the multilaterals in order to help us revisiting, relooking at our operational frameworks to make sure that we're actually covering that in the right way. And the last thing is that as we start tapping also the international markets, we will get -- if we are getting different investors, some investors from overseas, which are and very, very focused on ESG topics. And therefore, when they start participating in some of our kind of issuance like the syndicated loans, and they are doing a very thorough due diligence in terms of what we are doing, how we're thinking about ESG and all of that. And as they are still, after all that due diligence participating in our fund raising, I think we are probably feeling also somewhat kind of validated in terms of what we are doing is up to the standards. So again, it's integrated. We are constantly reviewing it. And as part of our annual reviews, we're looking into that. As I said, as we start entering certain areas like utilities and all of that, we are constantly asking what kind of projects are we seeing in front of us, is it helping, is it not helping under our ESG guidelines. So it's an important piece of what we are doing. It will increase in importance. But again, I think we already started to put this into our daily operating rhythms and especially on the credit side for quite some time.

The next question is for Alex. Does Techcombank still the main partner of Vinhomes projects? Do you have any [Technical Difficulty] or preferential products [Technical Difficulty]?

Sorry, go ahead, Minh.

[Technical Difficulty] increased competition?

Yes, I don't know whether our [auditors] could hear the question. Yes. Thank you. So let me just recap the question. The question is essentially whether we are a main partner of Vinhome projects, whether we have any preferential or special products offered to the -- for these projects and whether we think our ReCoM portfolio will be impacted by increased competition. So thank you for this question. I think it comes from [Tang]. And it's an interesting question with multiple facets. So first, with regards to our Vinhome projects, so as a matter of principle, we will not comment on our relationship with individual customers. That said, it is public knowledge that the bank has been an important partner of Vinhome projects and other large real estate development projects. I would just say that it is a consequence of being a market leader. On the second question, which is, okay, essentially how we managed to build this position with the large-scale real estate developers. All I can say is that we believe that we understand our customers very well, and we are able to leverage our knowledge of the real estate value chain. And also our customer centricity in order to offer to our customers what they need and not just the products that are available to offer. So on the last part of the question, which is the impact of competition on our ReCoM portfolio, so I think probably agree that the results that we have disclosed for 2021 are strong. And going forward, obviously, we will welcome competition because it's a condition for a healthy market development. but we believe that we will continue to leverage our customer centricity and our expertise in order to secure a leading position in this market.

The next question is from [Kang] from Korean investment. The NPL coverage ratio continued to decline versus previous quarters, even though uncertainties remained in the environment. What are the reasons for that?

Yes. Very good question. And thanks for allowing me to talk a bit again about our credit portfolios. So as a rule, I would not encourage our auditors to draw conclusions from modest quarter-on-quarter movements in our numbers, particularly when it comes to credit provisions. Overall, our coverage ratio, as we saw during the presentation remains above the long-term equilibrium level of 100%. It reflects our prudent stance at this stage in the economic cycle, and we are conscious of the uncertainties which remain as we transition out of the COVID pandemic. So we will continue with our prudent risk management approach. And probably what you will see over the coming quarters is that the coverage ratio will keep going down. This is at least what we can forecast now based on our provisions in terms of the economic environment for 2022 and beyond.

The next question is for Jens. Could you elaborate on Techcombank's wealth management strategy and how this integrates with TCBS Wealth Management business?

Sure. Of course, wealth management is -- I mean it's an absolutely crucial part of our strategy and our focus, right? Because as we said, we are going after the top end of the pyramid. And as an economy develops, clearly, wealth is starting to get created and then wealth management is about creation but also protection. So it's very, very important for us. Now what people understand on the wealth management, how they're creating wealth, of course, is very, very different, right? And some are having a very short term mindsets, and they're really seeing this as participating in the stock market and others are building it over 20 years. So I think for us, the most important part right now is we really need to understand what are really the needs of the customer. And the customer needs might actually be very different. So for some, clearly, we have all the investment products, and we need to create better investment products, and I think we are working on that. And also in that one, TCBS is playing a real and crucial role, but then there are other elements of wealth management, like mortgages, right? How do we start building long-term wealth through either living in your own home or investing into real estate? And then, of course, there's also bancassurance, right? How do you make sure you protect on whatever you have created, but also how can you actually make money through investing in insurance products. So I think we look at the full range of products. How has it been -- how we work with TCBS, how we're working with the bank. At this point in time, TCBS probably has 2 major functions. One is they're, of course, very strong on the securities business really on parts of the investments, which are around investment products. So there is a product function within that. And then the other element is that they are really on their own looking for customer acquisition and have their own customers, those who are really very much focused on creating wealth as a form of investment in investment products. TCB at the same point in time, probably is taking a little bit of a more holistic approach where we're saying, okay, so of course, it's investments, but it's also -- as I said, bancassurance, it's also mortgages. So probably at the bank, we're taking segments or we're working with segments who are probably having a broader approach to creating a wealth across more asset classes. And of course, there is a constant cross reference, right? So there will be people within TCBS who right now, acting mostly on investing in certain investment parts. We're saying, now also want to diversify into other asset classes. So they will be referred over. At the same point in time, you can avail much more products right now actually also through TCB directly. We will also actually continue to distribute products from TCBS. So again, I think as we start sorting out a little bit more and really understanding the needs and the developing needs of our customers, we will start working and very much in tandem with different focus areas for TCBS and then within TCBS, even TCC which is just the fund business and then the bank. But again, the overall idea is really be very customer-centric, look what they are looking for and then start building these capabilities and especially advisory capabilities, either on TCBS or in TCB and making sure that we actually cross synergize these entities.

Next question is also for Jens. The affluent and mass affluent segments have been very good for Techcombank, which has attracted other banks to focus and try to enter this space. Could you share any figures regarding market share and growth and also share your view on how sticky and loyal are these high-profile customers? This comes from [Tang] from [indiscernible].

So good question. I wouldn't say imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. But of course, I mean, you don't need to be kind of a rocket scientist to understand where are the profit pools in the market. So therefore, banks focusing on these profit pools, I think, is very natural. And of course, all our competitors are very much understanding that and offering a better and more comprehensive solutions to these customers. So from that perspective, we should expect a more competition in that area. We should also understand that the relationships people have with different banks are just increasing as we have more wealth, right? So if you look into kind of the affluent segment, you would probably rather expect around three banking relationships. If you go to mass affluent, it would be coming down maybe to two. And if you are rather more a normal retail customer, it might just be one, right? So therefore, also, customers are much more exposed to different banks. And therefore, to a certain extent, loyalty and splitting up and share of wallet across different banks probably becomes much more common, much more pronounced. Now if we see some of our numbers, we see the competition, but if you see actually how we did on investment banking, if you see our growth numbers on banker, if you see our growth numbers on CASA, which is also very much driven by affluent customers. you would probably see that we are still gaining market share. So as I said, we should not be complacent, but at this point in time, as others are entering, I think we can still just see that so far, it seems to be that we're doing okay. But again, of course, needs to keep us on our toes. But at this point in time, when it comes to loyalty, it seems to be that we are not sacrificing or we're not getting competed away. Actually, quite interesting, if you look into the funnel of how you build customer relationships, from creating awareness to the first time that somebody is considering working with you than he's doing and how she's doing his or her first purchase, then they're basically doing more business with you and ultimately, they might even recommend you to somebody else. So if we're going through all these different steps and we're measuring this against the competition, it's actually the fact that when it comes to the area of doing more with us as well as recommending it ultimately to somebody else, we actually leading the market. So at least from the market data we are seeing, if we're comparing this to others. And if we look into Net Promoter Scores, which are also talking to the fact that people are saying, this is really great, I would recommend that a bank to somebody else, actually, our NPS score is the highest in the market. So from a lot of these areas, I think when it comes to loyalty, yes, the higher or the wealthier maybe people become and the more they're looking for opportunities and the more they offered these opportunities because people are really reaching out to them. But at the same point in time, it seems to be at least at this point in time that we're doing okay. It doesn't mean, as I said before, we can rest on our laurels, but it seems to be that -- and we're trying to do something right. Again, we're working a lot and very hard on making this better every single day. But again, I think we're feeling comfortable that as long as we are keeping focused and as long as we're making the right investments, we should actually be able to participate in that segment and capture that opportunity actually in a quite substantial manner.

There is a follow-up question from [indiscernible]. Which customer types corporate versus retail or products, car loans, mortgages, do you see the most competitive pressure?

So I think we -- again, I think on the corporate side, it always comes back to the same thing. If it is good quality, I think that's when competition really starts taking shape, right? I think we all -- and people were referring to like comments on which Alex took up like a mortgage in Vinhomes area be it in kind of coming to very good bond issuance, when it comes to good quality customers in terms of mortgage and mortgage underwriting, I think that's where we see -- that's really where we're seeing competition, right? And the competition is across all segments. I think it doesn't make a difference. If we're talking about cars and if it comes to credit cards, it's always that people rightfully looking at the top end of the pyramid because that's usually where you get not just the best returns, but I think the best risk-adjusted returns at this point in time. So I think that's where we're seeing the competition, and that's where ultimately it will be decided not just by price, but also by quality. When it comes to price, especially on the loan side, I think that's where we are and clearly having an advantage just because of the way how we are handling our cost of funds. Where we are in terms of our cost of funds, and I think there were recent reports in the market, for example, others have to raise the interest rates while we are still bringing down our cost of funds. We can decide where we want to compete. And if we really want to compete in certain segments, we actually have the ability to win these markets just because of the fact where and how we are positioned on the funding side. Now we don't want to give up NIM and just buying our way in. That's why we are focusing a lot on providing superior solutions. So right now, for example, if you think about CASA, which everyone is saying, it's hugely competitive, which I agree, everyone right now has come down on zero fee. But in the end, even with zero fee, we're still able to expand our share because of the way how we're actually structuring our offering, creating added value, et cetera. So again, I think competition is clear where it is. I think you need to be competitive on pricing. But once you're competitive on pricing, it is not decided by this anymore. And again, I think people are not irrational at this point in time. But then it comes down to a lot of other areas, and that is what we want to strengthen. And I think that's where we actually have pretty good value propositions in the market.

The next question is for Alex. What is your view on the credit growth quota for 2022? And what is your expectation for growth in credit by segment?

Yes. Thanks. And I agree that we are talking here of an important driver for the Vietnam banking sector. So actually, the State Bank of Vietnam published a few days ago their guidance for the customer lending growth in 2022. And the good news is that it's largely in line with 2021 and actually even slightly higher at plus 14%. What we don't know yet, however, is the precise allocation of this by credit institution. However, given our liquidity and capital positions, we believe that our own old quota will be largely in the same ballpark as 2021, where we had, as you know, a 22% increase in our credit portfolios. So now when it comes to the allocation by sector, we don't usually provide specific guidance of lending growth by sector. I think it will be curious anyway. What I can say, however, is that we have confidence in our ability to fully utilize our credit quota while maintaining a healthy and diversified lending portfolio.

The next question is for Alex also. It's from several firms, JPMorgan, Viet Cap [Rohatten] and SSIM. Could you share your NIM outlook and possible increase in cost of fund impacting spreads? And then with the -- within the factors for cost of funds, perhaps discuss asset yield also.

Yes. Thank you. I totally appreciate that it is an important driver of our results. So as I said during my presentation, we do not expect that there will be a further improvement in our NIM in 2022. To the contrary, we have reasons to believe that the net interest margin could actually come down a bit in 2022 for several reasons. First, we anticipate that there could be increased competition on credit rates of the banks strive to achieve their credit quotas. And this will drive asset yields down. And then on the liability side, as contained in the question, we also think that some banks may be tempted to pay up on the deposits in order to fund the assets. which will drive the cost of funding up. So overall, clearly, we want to be clear that there is pressure to be expected on the net interest margin in 2022. On our side, we will obviously aim to mitigate this by continuing to optimize our sources of funding, including growing our CASA. As you know, and as Jens mentioned, we have good momentum, and we have reasons to believe that we can further expand the source of funding going forward.

Next question is for Jens. Has the threat of Omicron alter your lending outlook and how you look at risk? Could you also comment on demand for loans outside of real estate? This comes from Halo Capital.

Yes. Thanks for the question. I mean, before we not enter and trying to pretend that I'm an expert in Omicron, right? I think to a certain extent, we are watching very carefully what happens in other parts of the world. what this Omicron now really is, I think we still don't have enough data on it. But I think there is an increasingly a kind of -- or increasing their comments, which basically saying that Omicron might actually really turn the pandemic into an endemic and that with the vaccinations and all of that, we might be getting to a scenario which might look more like the flu and therefore, might actually be really getting us to the new normal we are all looking for. So -- but as this happens, as this Omicron develops and you see this right now in Europe, there's a price to be paid as some of the numbers, which we're seeing right now in terms of productivity are really coming down because as we start going over from the pandemic to the endemic and we're not adjusting all our mitigants. We're still probably behaving like this whole thing is as infectious as it is and therefore, still maintaining a lot of the regimes in terms of quarantine and all of that, while and this thing is so and spreading so fast, which is rather not affecting hospitals, et cetera, but it's actually affecting much more absent ratios, right? People basically just not working, not enough people on logistics chains, et cetera, et cetera. And that will, again, work its way through over a couple of months. Again, I think we've won these scenarios, and we looked at it and what Omicron is doing. Again, I think these working its way through, it depends very much also on how much people are vaccinated and what's the age of the population, et cetera. So we looked at it, but we expect that somewhere the 6% to 7% scenario should be realistic as also the country can benefit from some of the experiences other countries have. So yes, there's a downside scenario, but we don't expect it to have a major impact on some of the credit growth and et cetera. And because, again, I think others are studying these numbers as well. And will that then stop some of the fundamental investments people want to do into manufacturing and you have the stimulus program coming forward, real estate is still building, et cetera. So the second part of the question is then what do we see outside of the real estate sector and what's the demand? I think when we look right now into the numbers, I think we see actually a relatively strong demand across a lot of different sectors. And again, might change a little bit with the Omicron, so there is kind of upper and lower boundaries, but also if you see where the stimulus package and is going to come in and which has to do with manufacturing, wholesale and retail trade. So I think the government also tried to put a little bit of a broader kind of approach on the economy and that it's not just in one area. So again, I think in a lot of areas, we see still strong demand and at least in the first quarter, what we're seeing right now in terms of pipeline and demand coming in, it's actually relatively strong. So we don't see anyone holding back. I think people are rather more on -- there should be a recovery. I would still assume that consumption-driven loans on the retail side, they might still be a little bit behind. And I think what we saw is a little bit a shift in sentiment and which didn't used to be the case before even before all the other crises, I think we had a lot of optimism in the Vietnam population. So a lot of consumers were basically saying, today is great, but tomorrow will be even better. I think that has shifted somewhat. And I think that sentiment has become a little bit more in sync what we saw in some of the other markets. And now usually Vietnam recovers faster, but the dip we saw in that sentiment is probably a little bit more pronounced than what we had in the waves beforehand. So as this comes back up, I think that will take a little bit of time. And so maybe people will be a little bit more cautious. I think we're seeing right now how that sales will look like, and I think that gives us an indication. But I think also from our side, we will probably be a little bit more cautious on that. And you also still saw that some of the unemployment rates were still somewhat higher. So again, I think that's affected. But I believe SME as well as corporate is still actually growing a pretty strong and across all the different sectors. And then mortgages will also be still okay because I think it's less seen as consumption, but also as investment. But maybe some of the consumption-driven areas might be a little bit more challenged in the first half until we really see that momentum has been reestablished and people feeling a little bit more confident again.

Jens, you actually covered part of this next question from Kevin at [Covista] Capital Partners, but maybe you could elaborate a little bit more on real estate and housing demand. There seems to be competing views almost opposite views as to what's going on with the housing demand in the real estate market. Is it impacted by the pandemic? Why are prices still holding or even up during this period? And what is going on with supply shortages that we are hearing about? Basically, are you concerned or optimistic about real estate demand and about your business in this sector?

So indeed, I mean, of course, everyone will have their own perspective on that. So let me share a little bit what I think. So first and foremost, I believe that the secular trend is still unbroken. Secular trend, what I mean with this is a growing kind of growing wealth nation. And we still have a massive undersupply in housing. And there's a lot of young population who starts building their own households and setting up their own households. And again, there is still a request for real estate. At the same point in time, again, deeply ingrained probably in the DNA of the Vietnamese people is that this is something you should have. That's a very reliable form of investment, forget a little bit about stocks and deposits and all of that. But owning land, owning property is actually something which is much more stable and valuable and I think it's very close to the way how kind of consumers think about building wealth over time. So I think that secular trend is completely unbroken. At the same point in time, there are high-end areas where I think we read a lot, right? So there's all these kind of auctions with absurd prices then people are going back and we saw and speculation in some strange movement in some of real estate stocks and all of that. So I think there's clearly some speculation and speculative bubble around it. And where that is driven from, again, probably it's anyone's guess, I think there is a real fundamental perspective, which is that, at this point in time, still a lot of funding available, and there's still ample liquidity. So people are looking for investments and investments in real estate have done very well over the last couple of years, especially in the high-end real estate, so people looking for quality developers and they're looking actually for areas where they believe value is relatively -- or value appreciation is relatively secured. And that usually comes with scarcity and where are you buying it? There are certain plots of land, now be it in Ho Chi Minh, be it in Hanoi, where it's very hard to replicate those, right? And if you have a growing population over time, people still think that even as it's high now and it's going down, but over time, there's an appreciation. And then I think we still also see maybe foreign capital coming in, and I think there is money pouring out of Hong Kong. And then there is money coming out of other parts of Asia, where they would say, yes, it is expensive. But if you believe that Vietnam is a growing economy and then 10, 15, 20 years, Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi will be closer to the Bangkoks, Singapores of the world, and then these prices still seem to be okay. So again, I think there are some underlying elements. I think right now, as always, in a market which is developing, there's probably some regulation, which is not tight enough. There's some speculation going on. And so we are very careful on our side, right? So when we look into why you're doing it, at least on the consumer side, on the mortgage side, are you doing it for your own? Are you for investing? If you're investing, what are your sources of income? What can you kind of -- are you basically leveraging up? And that's why we're saying a lot of the investments we are looking for LTVs are kind of relatively high. So we don't allow a big leverage and we're putting it against secured and collateral. We work only with very limited numbers of developers. So again, I think we are still very much convinced that this is a sector we want to participate in, and we believe that because of our approach, end-to-end in the value chain, we have a pretty good understanding of it. But are there aberrations in there at this point in time, yes, they are, right? And again, like the corporate bond market and all of that, there might be some more of these noises and there might be some corrections. And so, we just need to make sure that we keep our book registry keen. We stress it. We make sure that our collaterals are all well under control. But overall, we are still convinced that this trend and will actually still continue. Again, people will put out some of the money. We will maybe see less excitement as some of that starts normalizing again. But again, fundamentally, this is a country which still needs more housing. And it's still a country which continue to urbanize, so urbanized housing will be in strong demand. And as long as we are and financing, and we have a clear understanding of which developments there are. And as long as the developers are good quality, having the land banks, et cetera, I think that should be working its way through. But again, yes, volatility might increase or might still be at this level before it starts decreasing again.

It looks like we have enough time for about two more questions. Next question is for Alex. If interest rates rise, will there be an impact on CASA balances from retail and corporate customers? And this comes from JPMorgan.

Clearly, a good topic to focus on, given the prospect of rising interest rates in the global economy. So first, it is correct that when interest rate hike, you would expect some shift from CASA to term deposits. However, as we said during the presentation, we do expect interest rates to remain broadly stable in 2022 both for the assets and the deposits. And then beyond that, for CASA, they mainly serve transaction purposes, which means that they are not that sensitive to interest rates. So for all these reasons, we believe that the risk of CASA outflows in a scenario of interest rate increase is limited and that we will be able to continue to grow our CASA ratio in 2022. Now on the question of the overall fees and therefore, the fact that it's no longer a differentiating factor. I think Jens touched on this earlier in the presentation. We clearly were a first mover and this put us on the map, and this helps us grow our market share. It's no longer a differentiating factor. We acknowledge that, and it's good news for the customer. However, we have moved, I would say, past this. And we are instead focusing on continuing to innovate and continuing to put out new tools and new positions which are unique and distinctive. And an example of that is the new banking app that was launched in November 2021 but in a number of areas, it offered features which were not previously available to customers in this market. And then going forward, we believe that our investment in technology and our customer centricity will be far stronger differentiated factors than the pure pricing strategy. So we are definitely optimistic about our ability to continue to grow our CASA irrespective of the interest rate environment next year.

And the final question goes to Jens. Although there -- we will probably have a more in-depth session about digital banking, there's a question that's coming upon digital banking. How can Techcombank learn from new bank and Jago Bank in digital banking? Could you please share some key initiatives that might help Techcombank to stay ahead of other banks in digital banking? And would we see any of these front-end results in 2022 and 2023? Comes from ISSI and [WAY] Partners.

Thanks, so of course, we're studying these cases very thoroughly, right? And I think there are differences and then there are commonalities, right? I think if we look into a new bank Jago Bank, I think they were probably created a little bit differently and with the different customer focus rather more at the lower income area and rather as kind of -- I wouldn't say stand-alone digital banks but very much built and kind of trying to be digital at core. I think our aspiration, so to speak, is I think we are still, I wouldn't say, a traditional bank, but we're probably still a universal bank created as an offline bank. So our aspiration, of course, needs to be -- we need to make sure that we are transforming ourselves at speed to exhibit the same behaviors like these banks, right? So therefore, how do we going to do that? As we said, there are probably three key areas when it really comes to technology and data we will need to do, right? And first one is -- and that's why we're focusing on, we need to replatform our transaction bank. So what we have launched in November and more stuff, which will be coming out, these transaction banking platforms are built on very, very different technology. and that different technology allows us to scale that business in a very different way. And it just not only allows us to scale, but also interact with customers much, much more intensely, not being worried that if you're doing more than one interaction or something like that, that the whole system out actually crush down. But the platform -- the transaction banking platform is actually something which really allows us to interact with customers in a very, very different way. And that's a lot if you think about new bank, Jago, if you look about the super apps and all of this, which are having banking somewhere as an aspiration, that is what's underpinning their value propositions, actually that core transaction banking interaction banking platform. The second one is, I think, compared to some of our peers, everyone is saying we're going to the cloud. we are really making a massive strides to go there. And whatever we're building, whatever kind of technology we're bringing in right now is all going straight into the cloud. It's set up cloud native. And again, it allows us to do certain things at scale, but it also allows us to do certain things faster and also not reinventing the wheel again and again and again. So I think that's the second component, which is also clearly at the core when you look at what new bank and Jago are doing. The third one is I think we are not treating data as an afterthought, but really it's absolutely integral to what we are doing. And so therefore, it's closely integrated, enabled by the cloud, but integrate it into this interaction platform. And I think that is clearly things which we have taken if we're looking to the new banks, the Jago banks, any kind of digital bank buildup. But the difference probably is we're trying to build this right within the core of our existing bank. And if we're able to do that, then again, we probably should be able to do the same like and what these banks are doing. But we should also do it at the scale of what we're having across our affluent customers across our mass affluent customers, where still and most of the profit pool is. So again, I think we're looking at the technology setup. We're looking clearly at the capabilities which are built and that we try to mimic, but we're trying to mimic it not in a kind of stand-alone form, but we actually need to build that in the core of the bank. And we need to transform the bank, so that it actually behaves and according to that. So do we see things like in '22 and '23. What we are looking right now is very much into leading indicators. So how many customers are we able to acquire digitally. And at what cost are we able to acquire these customers digitally, which products can we sell or can make available? What is the percentage of and sales, which is happening through the online platform, how much is happening through and other platforms. And these numbers, again, they are increasing, and they are, of course, also increasing from a percentage perspective at dramatic levels, but are they already meaningful in terms of having taken over. I think in some areas, a, yes, like if you take term deposits, if you take some -- even on the customer acquisition. And so during COVID and probably 60% to 70% of new customer acquisitions all came through the online channels. But have we already seen enough on sales, have we already seen enough on NPS and all of that, probably not yet. So I think 2022, as we said, we still enable but then 2023, and if we're going into this kind of engagement and expansion, that is, I think, when you see more, and we will probably use one either of the presentations here or really doing a separate session where we'll actually talk a little bit more in terms of how are we really thinking about digital, what are the new capabilities and what is in the pipeline, what would be the difference to others because, again, I think it's hard to take this just in one question. But again, we are pretty clear in the end and not too far future, let's say, 1 year, 2 year, 3 years. And you would not probably be "asking" that question because the way how we would behave and would not be different to what you see in some of these kind of start-ups coming up. But again, the difference would be -- it would be at scale with the largest private sector bank.

This concludes the Techcombank 2021 Year-end Earnings Results Conference Call. Well, hearty welcome to Alex, and congratulations on his first earnings call. Everyone else, please have a safe Ted and we'll see you next year and next quarter.