Credicorp Ltd.

Good morning, everyone. I would like to welcome all of you to the Credit Corp Limited first quarter 2023 conference call. A slide presentation will accompany today's webcast, which is available in the investor section of Credit Corp website. Today's conference call is being recorded. As a reminder, all participants will be in listen-only mode. There will be an opportunity for you to ask questions at the end of today's presentation. If you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star 1 on your telephone keypad. If you have connected to the call using the HD web phone on your computer, please use the keypad on your computer screen. If you are using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Now, it is my pleasure to turn the conference over to Credit Corp's IRO, Milagros Cengüenas. You may begin.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Speaking on today's call will be Gianfranco Ferrari, our Chief Executive Officer, and Cesar Rios, our Chief Financial Officer. Participating in the Q&A session will also be Francesca Rajo, Chief Innovation Officer, Reinaldo Llosa, Chief Risk Officer, Cesar Rivera, Head of Insurance and Pensions, and Carlos Sotelo, CFO at MiBanco. Before we proceed, I would like to make the following safe harbor statement. Today's call will contain forward-looking statements which are based on management's current expectations and beliefs and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. And I refer you to the forward-looking statements section of our earnings release and recent filings with the SEC. We assume no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect new or changed events or circumstances. Gianfranco Ferrari will start the call discussing our strategic initiatives, followed by Cesar Rios, who will comment on the macro environment in which we work, our financial performance, and provide an update on our outlook for 2023. Gianfranco, please go ahead.

Thank you, Milagros. Good morning, everyone, and good afternoon to those in Europe. Thank you for joining us on today's earning call. As you all know, the first quarter of the year presented significant challenges for Peru's economy. The social unrest at the beginning of the year, coupled with the damage and disruption of Cyclone Yaku in the north and central parts of Peru, impacted GDP growth in the first quarter. We now expect GDP to grow by 1.8% in 2023. Today, we will discuss the impact that these events had on our business, the actions we took in response, as well as our outlook for the full year. Before going to our results, I would like to take a moment to comment on important progress related to our commitment to drive long-term stakeholder value and to taking a leadership role in corporate governance in Latin America. We recently held our annual general meeting where our shareholders voted to strengthen our governance structure through the election of two new board members. increasing their knowledge on traditional banking, open finance, and digital initiatives, and the representation of women on our board to one-third. This move not only underscores our commitment to diversity and inclusion, but also our conviction to the importance of balanced representation in decision-making. Our shareholders also ratified maintaining a majority of independent board members, ensuring objective and unbiased guidance. 2022 was also a year of significant progress towards integrating sustainability at the core of our business strategy. As outlined in our recently published 2022 Annual and Sustainability Report. This reporting process began with implementation of new materiality analysis, which confirmed that our 2020-2025 strategic goals and initiatives continue to coincide with what our stakeholders consider relevant. The report not only presents our consolidated results, but also emphasizes Credit Corp's role as a catalyst for change within the countries where we operate. Finally, we're happy to share that we finished the formulation of our corporate environmental strategy, whose implementation will start this quarter. The strategy covers the generation of capacities for the measurement of the carbon footprint of our portfolio, the promotion of transition financing, and its management of environmental risk, among others. As we move forward, our commitment to sustainable growth and responsible business practices will remain at the center of all we do. Now, moving on to the next slide, I will provide an overview of our financial and operating results before Cesar goes into more detail. Our results for the quarter demonstrate the resilience of our businesses and the expertise of our management teams as we navigated a very challenging environment. Additionally, we were pleased to have recently announced a dividend of 25 soles per share after prioritizing the needs of each of our subsidiaries and taking into consideration our plans for continued sustainable growth. Our net income grew 18.1% and ROE was 18.7%, driven by strong income in universal banking and insurance. Our balance sheet is strong and our liability management practices are prudent, which positions us well to navigate the current economic environment and pursue initiatives that align with our value creation goals. However, due to the challenging environment in the first quarters, and the shift in our loan mix towards higher-risk retail customers, we've seen provisions and the cost of risk increase as we anticipated, returning to pre-pandemic levels. We've tightened origination standards in specific retail segments and adjusted our risk appetite accordingly at MiBanco. While the microfinance business faces some near-term challenges, it remains an important long-term opportunity for us. Despite recent events, Peru's macroeconomic fundamentals remain robust. The country's debt-to-GDP ratio is low, and international reserves are at an important level. As we move forward, we remain committed to managing risks and leveraging our strengths to drive sustainable growth and profitability. Last quarter, I noted that we will be giving you an update after the strategic assessment for the investment banking and wealth management businesses was completed. After a 2022 characterized by political uncertainty in the region, deteriorating global macroeconomic dynamics, and new industry trends, we've made some important adjustments to the investment banking and wealth management business strategy. Moving forward, our strategy will be focused on profitable and sustainable growth. We have designed a three-year program that comprises income-generating plans, the reorganization of our main lines of business, and a rigorous governance methodology to monitor results and make timely adjustments. We will focus our growth on the more stable fee-generating businesses, such as wealth and asset management, along with capital markets' transactional capabilities for our clients, as opposed to volatile investment banking and trading business. Eduardo Montero, head of investment banking and wealth management, will go into more detail on these strategic adjustments at our investor day. Now, I'll hand the call to Cesar, who will go into more detail on our operating and financial results, as well as the current output.