Intercorp Financial Services Inc. Common Shares

Good morning and welcome to the Intercorp Financial Services second quarter 2022 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, and 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 a question online at any time using the window on the webcast, and they will be answered after the presentation during the Q&A session. Simply type your question into 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, operator, and good morning, everyone. On today's call, Intercore Financial Services will discuss its second quarter 2022 earnings. We are very pleased to have with us Mr. Luis Felipe Castellanos, Chief Executive Officer of Intercore Financial Services and Mrs. Miquela Casasa, Chief Financial Officer of Intercore Financial Services, Mr. Gonzalo Basadre, Chief Executive Officer of Interseguro, Mr. Bruno Ferrecho, Chief Executive Officer of Inteligo, and Mr. Carlos Tori, Executive Vice President of Payments at Intercore Financial Services. They will be discussing the results that were distributed by the company yesterday, August 15th. There is also a webcast video presentation to accompany the 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.pe, 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 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. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Mr. Luis Felipe Castellanos, Chief Executive Officer of Intercorp Financial Services, for his opening remarks. Mr. Castellanos, please go ahead, sir.

Thank you. Good morning and welcome to our second quarter 2022 earnings call. We appreciate you taking the time to attend this call. I wanted to start by thanking to all of you that participated in our first investor day on June the 22nd. We're very happy to share with you in detail our strategic priorities and progress, including our two-tier digital strategy. the review of our main businesses, our sustainability initiatives, and the key pillars that we are executing to achieve our objectives in the short term and the medium term, and also to achieve our purpose, which is to make sure that Peruvians achieve their dreams. Focusing on the recent developments affecting our country, we continue to see an uncertain political environment where the confrontational relationship between the executive and legislative branches continues. Unfortunately, we're getting used to frequent rotation of cabinet members, as well as to hear about many corruption accusations targeted to senior members of the executive branch, including the president and close members of his family and his team. The economic front also continues to be challenging, pressured by the international environment high inflation numbers and a slowing economy affected by a reduction of public and private investments and reduced consumer confidence. The new economy minister has initially cut the official GDP growth forecast to 2.2% for this year from the prevailing 3.6%. He has announced a plan to boost public investment and implement an economic reactivation plan, which is expected to be announced soon. The latest GDP growth print for June was out yesterday. The economy accelerated to grow about 3.4% for the month when compared to May's 2.3%. As a result, growth for the last 12 months now stands at 5.5% and continues its soft landing towards a range of between 2% and 3% of GDP growth that most economic agents expect for the year. Inflation rate receded a bit in July and head-to-head inflation decreased to 8.7% from 8.8% a month earlier. But this does not prevent the central bank to continue hiking rates. In its meeting last week, the central bank increased policy rate by 50 basis points to 6.5%. The central bank now expects that annual inflation to return within its target range of 1% to 3% in the second half of 2023. Nevertheless, under this challenging scenario, IFS continues to show resilience in its core operations. However, it is important to note that the investment portfolio in our wealth management business has not been immune to the significant volatility witnessed in the global financial markets, strongly affecting our investments and overall results during this quarter. We have seen a recovery of our investments during July and August. However, we are very conscious that global financial markets remain challenging. Our core banking franchise continues its recovery pattern with a strong growth in consumer financing and commercial banking with increased activity and sound risk indicators. Our insurance segment also had a good performance during the quarter, as well as adequate evolution of the core activity of our wealth management franchise. As you will see later, our newly created segment, our payments pillar, the one we're building based on EasyPay and related initiatives also had good results. Our digital traction continues to be strong, as well as our growth in total number of customers and our core revenues. We strongly believe that our culture, our people, our efficient operations, our sound capitalization, and our ability to adapt to changes through our two-tier digital strategy are our strengths and are the pillars that will allow us to continue growing profitably in the future and in a sustainable way. Now, I will pass on to Miquela to update you on the results, detailed results of this quarter and give you a review of our operations. Thank you very much.