TBC Bank Group PLC

call. My name is Harry and I will be your operator. Today's call will begin with a presentation from the management team followed by an opportunity for questions and answers. To ask a question during Q&A, please use the raised hand button on your Zoom toolbar or dial star one if you're joining us over the phone. Alternatively, you can submit written questions using the Q&A button also found on your Zoom toolbar. I would now like to turn the call over to Andrew Keeley, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead when you're ready.

Thanks very much, Harry, and welcome everybody to our second quarter results call. Thank you very much for joining. As usual, I'm joined on today's call by our CEO, Vaktan Budskirikidze, and our CFO, Georgi Megrelishvili. We'll start with a presentation and then we'll move on to Q&A. And with that, I'll hand over to Vaktan.

Thank you. Thank you, Andrew. Dear all, thank you for joining our second quarter and half-year financial results conference call. I am pleased to announce that the second quarter has been another very successful quarter for our group. On this slide, we see an overview of some of the key highlights for the group. In particular, I'd like to highlight that it was a record quarter of earnings with return of equity exceeding 27%. We continue to grow our digital consumer basis with our digital mass select users now at 5.7 million, while our long growth in both Georgia and Uzbekistan remains very strong, with Uzbekistan now accounting for 7% of the group's earnings. Slide 4 highlights our journey over the past decade as a public company. As you can see, we have stayed very focused on consistently delivering strong growth and profitability. At the same time, our active customer base has grown to nearly 6 million by strengthening our presence in Georgia and by building digital financial services in Uzbekistan's growing market. The next slide provides an overview of our group's second quarter performance. Our group's net profit increased by 12% year-on-year to almost 330 million lari. And we maintained an excellent return of equity of 27.1%. At the same time, our gross loan portfolio grew by 21%. And our digital user base continues to expand with 5.7 million digital monthly active users across the group as already mentioned. Moving to the Georgian business, slide seven summarizes the macro environment, which continues to be very supportive to our business. Economic growth in Georgia remains strong, with real GDP increasing by 9% in the first half of this year. In particular, it has been driven by tourism, remittances, and domestic spending. As a result, we have revised our 2024 real GDP growth forecast to 7.4% from 6.4%. I think you are familiar with our dominant market position in Georgia, which is outlined on slide number 8. One thing I'd like to flag here is the recognition we have received in terms of awards for the best digital bank in Georgia and the best corporate bank. Following on the digital theme, slide 9 shows that our retail customer base continues to become more digitally engaged. This is highlighted by the consistent long-term growth in both the share of consumer loans issued fully digitally and the share of online retail transactions. The next slide provides an update on Inet, our digital lifestyle ecosystem. As you can see, GMV is down slightly year-on-year in the first half of this year, but this is primarily due to a very strong second quarter 2023, which was driven by exclusive ticket sales for several major events in Georgia. Moving to our Uzbekistan business, I'd like to provide you with a brief update on Uzbek economy. The Uzbekistan economy continues to grow strongly, with 6.4% real GDP growth in the first half, and the economy continues to open up and attract new investments. Next slide outlines the key elements of our digital ecosystem in Uzbekistan. I'd like to highlight here that we remain focused and on track in terms of both scaling up the Uzbek business and rolling out new products and services. We have added a new set of features in PayMe in the first half and we plan to roll out a transactional daily banking card as well as a credit card in TBCU in the second half of this year. On the next slide, you can see how our Uzbek business continues to perform very well. We now have close to 16 million unique registered users, with almost 5 million monthly active users. Our loan book more than doubled year-on-year to $400 million, while our deposits stood at around $260 million. Importantly, both our revenues and profitability continue to show very positive dynamics, and we earned $9 million in net profits and $33 million in total operating income in the second quarter. Finally, on the next slide, the next slide shows the increasing contribution to the group that is coming from Uzbekistan. It accounts for 44% in total consumer loans, 8% of the retail deposits portfolio, 13% of the total operating income, and 7% of the net profit. And we continue to gain market share with almost 16% shares of the microloan market in May of this year. Now I'd like to hand over to Georgi.