Intercorp Financial Services Inc. Common Shares

Thank you for holding for IFS's fourth quarter conference call. The conference will begin in a few minutes. We appreciate your patience. In the meantime, please refresh your screens in order to update the webcast presentation. Thank you. THE END Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for holding for ISS's fourth quarter conference call. The conference will begin in a few minutes. We appreciate your patience. In the meantime, please refresh your screens in order to update the webcast presentation. Thank you. THE END Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. THE END THE END Thank you. Good morning and welcome to Intercorp Financial Services' fourth quarter 2021 conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. After the presentation, we will open the floor for questions. At that time, instructions will be given as to the procedure to follow if you would like to ask a question. Also, you can submit online questions at any time today using the window on your webcast. and they will be answered after the presentation during the Q&A session. Simply type your question in the box and click Submit Question. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Rafael Borja of Inspire Group. Sir, you may begin.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. On today's call, Intercorp Financial Services will discuss its four-quarter 2021 earnings forecast. We are very pleased to have with us Mr. Luis Felipe Castellanos, Chief Executive Officer of Intercorp Financial Services, Mrs. Miquela Casasa, Chief Financial Officer of Intercorp Financial Services, Mr. Juan Pablo Segura, Chief Financial Officer of Interseguro, and Mr. Bruno Ferrecho, Chief Executive Officer of Inteligo. They will be discussing the results that were distributed by the company yesterday. There is also a webcast video presentation to accompany discussion during this call. If you didn't receive a copy of the presentation or the earnings report, they are now available on the company's website, ifs.com.be, to download a copy. Otherwise, for any reason, if you need any assistance today, please call Inspire Group in New York at 212-710-9686. I would like to remind you that today's call is for investors and analysts only. Therefore, questions from the media will not be taken. Please be advised that forward-looking statements may be made during this conference call. These do not account for future economic circumstances, industry conditions, the company's future performance, or financial results. As such, statements may are based on several assumptions and factors that could change causing actual results to materially differ from the current expectations. For a complete note on forward-looking statements, please refer to the earnings presentation and report issued yesterday. Pleasure to turn the call over to Mrs. Michaela Casasa, Chief Financial Officer of Intercall Financial Services. who will begin her presentation. Mrs. Casasa, please go ahead.

Good morning and welcome everyone to Intercom Financial Services' fourth quarter and year-end 2021 results. This time, we will focus on three items on the agenda, which include financial highlights, key messages, and takeaways. I will start with a brief summary of financial highlights on slides three to eight. The main highlights are For Interbank, profitability recovers on higher revenues and lower provisions, full year ROE at 21%, and fourth quarter 21% at 27.8% ROE. Consumer loans grew 15% year over year, gaining 60 basis points in market share. We've had a 10% growth in retail deposits with a market share at 15%, risk-adjusted NIM recovering, contribution of consumer loans still below pre-COVID levels, healthy asset quality, 0.9% cost of risk or 1.6% when excluding the reversal of provisions, expense growth driven by the recovery of activity and digital investments, customer base growing around 20% in 2021. For Interseguro, strong full-year results, full-year ROE at 28%. Premiums grew more than 70% year over year, with a strong performance across all business lines. Investment portfolio increased 2.4% in the quarter, with a return on the investment portfolio at 4.7%. Net insurance and the writing loss decreased more than 70% on the quarter and on the year. And Interseguro continues to be the market leader in annuities with a 31% share in 2021. For Intelligo, full-year profits grew 16.6% with a full-year ROE of 23%, with strong revenues in the year driven by fee income and positive mark-to-market during the year, a 20% increase in fee income during the year and 14% increase in asset under management plus deposits. The fourth quarter results were affected by negative mark to market on the investment portfolio. At IFS, record earnings of 1,800 million soles in 2021 and a return on adjusted equity of 19.3%. There has been a strong recovery in core indicators driving the top line growth. This recovery in operating activity has resulted in an 8% year-over-year growth in revenues with efficiency at 35%. The fourth quarter results were impacted by the negative mark-to-market or investments. We've seen a strong progress in our digital indicators thanks to the two-tier digital strategy we have been implementing to foster growth. We have solid capital ratios at all IFS segments and sustainability as a future competitive advantage. Among the key performance indicators on slide number five, I would like to highlight the recovery in the quarterly and yearly NIM of both Interbank and Intercom Financial Services. There has been a 20 basis points improvement in the quarterly NIM of IFS, driving the NIM for the year to 4.1% within our guidance. On the other hand, at Interbank, the increasing NIM in the quarter is 40 basis points, driving the quarterly NIM to 4.4% and the full-year NIM up to 4%. Moreover, the efficiency ratio of IFS, despite slightly increasing in the quarter, has remained at healthy levels of 34.7% in the low range of our guidance. On slide six, you can see the comparison of our year-end results with our original and revised guidance. As you can see, we continue to have sound capital levels with a total capital ratio of 15.9% and a core equity tier one ratio of 12.5%. ROE ended up at 19.3%. above our original guidance and slightly above the revised guidance of 18%. Moreover, retail loans register a strong pickup in the fourth quarter, driving the year-end growth to double-digit levels of 13% and surpassing the guidance, while commercial loans continue to have a negative trend, mainly due to the reactiva prepayments and amortizations, but grew almost 8% when excluding reactiva loans. Revenues have started to recover, reaching an 8% yearly growth, with NIM closing the year at 4.5%. Cost of risk continues to be below pre-COVID levels as anticipated and close the year at 0.9% or 1.6% when excluding the reversal of COVID provisions done in the fourth quarter. On slide seven, we are showing the relevant net income for dividend distribution, which has reached 1,657 million soles in 2021, close to the levels registered in 2019. On slide eight, we continue to have a solid capital position as evidenced by the ratios of Interbank previously commented, but also in Interseguro and Inteligo. Now I will focus on the key messages we would like you to take home from this call on slide First, we have experienced a strong recovery in our core indicators across our three businesses, which has driven top-line growth in 2021. Second, we have a healthy risk profile, which closes 2021 still below pre-COVID levels, both reported and excluding the effect of the releasing provisions due to the better payment behavior of the retail portfolio. Third, we continue to work on our two-tier strategy in order to foster growth at IFS. And fourth, we are foreseeing a continued recovery of IFS in 2022 in a context of political uncertainty, higher rates, and low GDP growth. On slide 12, monthly operating trends have closed the year with a very strong fourth quarter. At Interbank, credit cards and debit cards turnover have increased substantially, or 20% for credit cards and two times for debit cards when compared to pre-COVID levels. This growth has allowed us to increase market shares 200 basis points in the past two years for the combined turnover, mainly thanks to our Interbank Benefits Program, our increased focus on e-commerce and high-growth product categories, and finally, also thanks to our upselling strategy. Moreover, credit card sales have increased twofold in 2021, getting close to 2019 levels. New disbursements of retail loans have also increased substantially. Consumer loans disbursement have increased almost 50% when compared to 2019, Mortgages disbursements more than 30% and payroll deductible loans to the public sector employees more than 20%. On slide 13, moving to growth in loans, we have very good news in this quarter as there has been an acceleration in growth of credit cards and other personal loans, which has reached 21.8% year over year and 13.6% in the quarter. This has allowed us to gain 60 basis points market share in total consumer loans during the year. As for commercial loans is concerned, the quarterly growth has been 4.6% when excluding reactiva and the yearly growth almost 8%. As a result, total loans grew 5% in the quarter and 11% in the year when excluding reactiva loans. On slide 14, we have been able to continue to gain market share in retail deposits, reaching 15% this year, thanks to a 10% growth in retail deposits. Cost of funds has started to increase as a result of the rising rates, impacting 10 basis points this quarter up to 1.6%. On slide 15, Interseguro continues to grow in a substantial way, with premiums growing 24% in the quarter and more than 70% in the year, with strong performances in all business lines. Annuities grew two times in 2021, private annuities 87%, individual life 31%, and retail insurance 7%. On slide 16, Inteligo has had a very good year in terms of growth, also thanks to the political uncertainty experience. Asset under management plus deposits grew 14% year over year, and a very positive development has been the growth in the offshore client base of almost 30% this year. The diversification of IFS businesses continue to play an important role in the yearly recovery of revenues. The banking business continues to recover in a more gradual way, mainly due to the pressure in net interest income and NIMH coming from low yield reactive loans, excess cash and portfolio mix with a smaller contribution of credit cards. On slide 18, the efficiency ratio of IFS was 34.7% in 2021, in the low range of the 31 to 37 guidance given at the beginning of the year. This quarter, we have continued to see a recovery of expenses driven by banking activity when compared to previous year. It is important to remember that during 2020, IFS was one of the few financial institutions in the region which was able to execute an aggressive cost reduction program, which ended up reducing the total cost base 5% for the full year and improving the efficiency ratio in such a challenging environment. At Interbank, Efficiency ratio is at 42.7% in the year, above the 38.6% registered last year, as expenses have increased 16.6% in line with our expectation and as reflected in our guidance. The increase in costs at Interbank is mainly due to three reasons. A 16% increase in technology costs and new ventures, which include the technology expenses for our digital transformation, as well as new investments in payments and our venture with Rapid. A 4% increase in personnel costs, which is mainly coming from the increase in mandatory employee profit sharing in line with improvement of the local gap earnings. And finally, an 82% increase in variable costs related mainly to credit cards and in line with the percentage increase in credit and debit cards turnover, which generates fees and financing volumes. Moreover, we have continued with our branch optimization initiative, reaching a total reduction of number of branches of 35% from the peak in 2016 or around 100 branches. Moving on to the second key message on slides 20 to 23, we have a healthy risk profile, which is still below pre-COVID levels. On slide 20, cost of risk in the quarter includes a release of COVID-related provisions of 297 million soles, mainly linked to the retail consumer portfolio. Excluding such reversion of provision, the cost of risk of the quarter would be 1.9%. The cost of risk was 0.9% in the full year and 1.6% when excluding the releasing provisions in line with our revised guidance of around 1.6% updated in the third quarter and well below our original guidance of around 2%. One important thing is that the NPL coverage of 131% at the bank level is still well above the 118% that we used to have pre-COVID. And this is mainly related to the coverage ratio of retail loans, which closes the year at an abnormally high 190%, which is well above the 135% that we used to have in 2019. On slide 21, we are showing the recovery of yields of the loan book of Interbank as well as in the risk-adjusted NIEM. Yield on loans reached 8.3% in the quarter, up 40 basis points versus the premium quarter. In the same way, NIEM is improving 40 basis points in the quarter. Yields and NIM are still below 2019 levels, as the portfolio mix of the bank is still recovering for the sharp decrease in credit card volumes experienced during 2020, as evidenced by the trend in the share of consumer loans, which decreased from 34% in 2019 to 26% in 2020, and has reached now 30%, still a way to go for the full recovery, especially in the high-yield portion of the consumer loan book. We expect these trends to continue improving in the following month thanks to a better portfolio mix, the increase in rates, and lower reactiva loans. On slides 22 and 23, two positive news are, first, the reduction of 50% from the peak of June of the rescheduled portfolio, and second, the reduction of 26% of reactiva balances. Now let's move to the third key message of this presentation. In slides 21 to 31, sorry, 25 to 31, we will share with you a little bit more of our overall digital strategy, which is driving most of our efforts in supporting our strong core results and growth in our client base. Slide 25 is a summary of our two-tier digital strategy. On one hand, we have the digitalization of our core activities with the main goal of allowing clients to be able to interact with IFS companies and fulfill their needs 100% digitally with a high NPS. And this is being evidenced by the 26 additional points in NPS of our 100% digital clients when compared to non-digital retail customers. On the second front, we have new growth initiatives which aim at increasing the client base and to create new sources of revenues and profitability. On the digitalization front, some examples of our digital solutions include Piggy Bank, a 100% digital solution for savings, which allows clients to have specific pockets of savings for specific purposes and helps clients to save with just one swipe. my finances another solution in the interbank app which helps retail clients to control their expenses and manage their budget and which now incorporates also a credit scoring solution and gives them suggestions on how to improve their credit worthiness interbank benefit our 100 digital rewards program platform linked to credit cards pling the p2p and qr code payment solution Dividelo, our buy now, pay later solution linked to digital purchases. Interbank.pe for businesses, which allow commercial clients to open business accounts 100% digitally and fulfill their cash management needs. Soat Digital, the first 100% digital insurance product. And finally, Ernie, our mutual funds investment platform. On the second front of our digital strategy, we have a number of initiatives which we have been working on in the past years that are at different stages. On the consolidating growth phases, we are including, first, Interbank 100% digital accounts for retail and commercial clients, which today constitute the most important part of growth of our client base for both retail and commercial clients. Second, TUNKI, our digital wallet. And third, PLIN, our P2P and QR code payment solution, which enables interoperability with multiple financial institutions and is a bridge between the bank and the unbanked. We are also working on two additional initiatives, which are currently at early stages of development, which include Rappi Bank, our alliance with Rappi to create a new way of banking or neobank, and ShopStar, our marketplace aiming to become the preferred e-commerce option for IFS customers and a sandbox to test our initiatives such as Dividelo and Interbank Benefits. All of these initiatives are being developed with a strong approach in advanced analytics, which allows us to improve our risk management, to increase the level of personalization and contextuality of campaigns, and to increase sale leads and their hit ratios. On slide 26, we continue to see strong progress in our digital indicators. As of December 2021, digital users reached 80% of customers who interact with the bank during the last 30 days, up 17 points in the past two years. 100% digital customers who are clients that do not use branches or contact centers any longer and who use digital channels plus ATM and correspondent agents only for cash in and cash out have reached almost 60%, up 27 points from December 2019. Digital sales have also performed well. At Interbank, retail digital sales reached 56% in December, and Interseguro saw digital sales reach 81%, both increasing sharply in the last two years. It has been a real challenge to maintain and continue to grow some of these indicators, as the initial jump in these indicators was very high given the strong and long lockdown experience in Peru. Moreover, the increase in the level of activity of 2021 has brought an additional channel to these trends. We have continued to see an important number of new digital accounts being open for both individuals and businesses. As of the end of December, 54% of new retail saving accounts were open digitally, while 95% of new business accounts were open digitally. Now, Moving on to our new growth initiatives on page 27, Tunki is our digital wallet and ally to BankDiambank. It was the first digital wallet in Peru to be able to deliver government financial aid in the context of COVID 100% digitally to Peruvians and today has reached 1.7 million users. We have increased 19 times the number of merchants using Tunki during 2021 and seven times the number of transactions compared to last year. On slide 28, Pling has reached 6 million users in two years, out of which 42% use Interbank as main bank. We believe Pling is the most successful launch of a digital solution in Peru, given the high number of users achieved in only two years. It provides P2P and QR code payments within Interbank App in Tunki and allows interoperability with BBVA, Scotiabank, Bambif, Caja Arequipa, Caja Suyana, Caja Municipal de Ica. 2021 has been a year with focus on increasing the number of micro merchants and activity with good results the number of micro merchants tripled during 2021 and was four times higher for the number of transactions moving on to our initiatives currently at early stages of slide 29 rapi bank our alliance with rapid to create a new way of banking has reached more than 200,000 accounts and more than 60,000 credit cards played. Accounts were launched in February 21 and credit cards in May 21. Current MPS is at 65 points, still shy of our objective, reflecting the strong customer-centric approach which is being used to launch the RapidBank solutions and aims at improving it even further. The second initiative, At early stage is ShopStar, our marketplace aiming to become the preferred e-commerce platform for IFS customers. After its initial pilot in the second half of 2020, it was launched in the first month of 2021 and has now almost 70,000 active customers, a number that has grown eight times during 2021. Moreover, the gross merchandise value, or GMV, has grown 10 times during this year and has already become the number one e-commerce platform for IFS clients with more than 10% share of wallet of their e-commerce purchases. All of the different initiatives described before have the purpose of accelerating even further the growth of our client base to increase the level of engagement, satisfaction, and loyalty among those customers. On slide 31, you can see that our client retail base has grown 18% during 2021, reaching 4.6 million customers. 20% when talking about 100% digital customers and 24% when speaking of commercial clients, most of which are being acquired digitally. The last key message refers to the future and to the recovery that we expect to pursue for IFS during 2022. On slide 33, we are showing a snapshot of the underlying trends for 2022. GDP is expected to grow around 3% according to the central bank, but other sources believe GDP growth to be more around 2%. Inflation should go back to the 3% levels after 2021, close to 7%. An exchange rate is expected to remain relatively stable amid political instability. Finally, in the past few months, the solace interest rate has already increased 275 basis points and is expected to increase further during 2022. In fact, the central bank increased their policy rate further yesterday, 50 basis points to 3.5%. With this scenario, let me move to the guidance for 2022. 2022 will be a year in which we will continue to rebuild our consumer loan book and profitability, and we'll continue to focus on our digital transformation. The six operating trends we expect for 2022 are, first, capital ratios to remain at sound levels, with total capital ratio above 15% and core equity tier one ratio above 11%. Second, a continued path to recovery in core profitability with IFS ROE above 16%. Third, high single-digit growth in total loans led by double-digit growth in consumer loans together with the substitution of a portion of reactiva loans in commercial banking. Four, revenues will continue to recover with NIM between 4.2% and 4.6% after closing 2021 at 4.1%. The speed in which we will be able to translate the increase in rates and the speed of reduction of the Reactiva portfolio will have an impact on these numbers. Five, cost of risk will be below 1.8% and still below pre-COVID levels in line with the composition of the portfolio mix. Six, we will continue with our focus on efficiency and expect efficiency ratio again to be between 35 and 37%. Finally, on slide 35, we wanted to share with you our results of the first year of participation in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, which was 53 points, which is 15 points above industry's average. The focus of our ESG initiatives in 2022 will be on three fronts. First, to promote inclusion and bancarization. Second, to focus on environment and sustainable finance, and third, to promote a culture of sustainability in IFS. Moreover, we wanted to share with you that we have been awarded the number one, number three, and number five position in Great Place to Work 2022 for Interbank, Inteligo, and Interseguro, respectively. On slide 37, let me finalize with the four key messages of this presentation. First, strong recovery in our core indicators is driving top-line growth. Second, we have a healthy risk profile. Third, our two-tier digital strategy is fostering our growth. And fourth, we expect IFS recovery to continue in 2022. Thank you very much. Now we welcome any questions you might have.