7/28/2026

speaker
Kaan
Chief Executive Officer

Hello everyone, and thank you for joining our second quarter earnings call. This is Kaan speaking. I hope you're all well. Let me start with what has changed since our last earnings call. First of all, the operating environment has proven more challenging than we had anticipated, with continued geopolitical tensions adding uncertainty to the global domestic outlook. At home, The disinflation process is processing more gradually, the expected easing cycle has been pushed back, and macroprudential measures have been tightened further. At the same time, the continued rebuilding of the central bank's reserves remains an important source of confidence and reinforces the credibility of the broader policy framework. For the banking sector, the implications are clear. Higher funding costs are likely to persist for longer, delaying the pace of margin recovery, while asset quality remains a key area of focus in restrictive operating environments. Taken all together, these developments have also pushed out the timing of sustainable real return on equity generation for the sector. The direction of travel remains intact, but the path is proving longer and more demanding than previously expected. Against this backdrop, we have revised our return equity guidance for this year to 23 to 25% from high 20s. Of course, Ebru will share all the details. Going forward, disciplined balance sheet management, strong capital, prudent provisioning, and resilient customer franchise have become even more important. Our focus is therefore not only on managing the current environment, but also on ensuring that we are well positioned to capture the opportunities that will emerge as conditions eventually normalize. One of Akbank's key strengths has always been our ability to adapt. Our adaptability comes from disciplined strategic decision-making rather than reacting to short-term market developments. As the operating environment evolved, we made deliberate choices to further strengthen our balance sheet and the resilience of our franchise. We continue to reshape our asset mix toward higher yielding assets while maintaining selective and disciplined loan growth and gradually reducing the share of securities in our balance sheet. While optimizing our asset mix, we maintained resilient provision buffers and remained prudent in asset quality. Our risk management is reflected in a 380 basis points reduction in our share of private banks MPLs since the beginning of last year. This includes a further 130 basis points improvement year-to-date. On the funding side, we continue to capitalize on the strength of our customer franchise. This enabled us to increase our zero-cost demand deposit market share among private banks on a quarterly basis by 120 basis points through disciplined liability management. The strength of our customer franchise continues to drive resilient fee generation, with quarterly fee income covering all of our quarterly operating expenses and supporting strong operating leverage. Most importantly, our robust capital position of total capital, 16.4%, entire one of 13.3%, provides the strategic flexibility to turn today's disciplined decisions into tomorrow's growth opportunities. And on that note, before moving to the financials, Let me briefly touch on how we are positioning Akbank for the near future. Our strategy is built around transforming how we serve our customers through a stronger advisory model, next generation digital capabilities, and a scalable bank-wide approach to AI. We are redesigning our service model by expanding relationship-led coverage where advice creates the most value. At the same time, we are making digital the primary service channel for our mass consumer and SME customers. This allows us to serve more customers while enhancing customer experience and productivity. Digital and AI go hand in hand. We are evolving our mobile application into an AI-powered financial companion and building integrated digital platforms that simplify banking for businesses. Our AI strategy is built to scale, integrated across the bank, and supported by a robust governance framework. Rather than deploying AI and isolated use cases, we are building a common infrastructure that allows us to embed AI across the bank from customer interactions and relationship management to back office operations and software development. This enterprise-wide approach gives us confidence that AI will become a meaningful driver of both productivity and future growth. Finally, we are continuing to strengthen our subsidiaries and ecosystem partnerships, creating additional growth opportunities beyond our core banking franchise. Taken together, these initiatives reinforce our ability to deliver sustainable growth, strong returns, and long-term shareholder value. I will now pass it over to Ebru to walk you through our results in more detail. Following that, we will be happy to answer any questions you may have. Ebru, over to you. Thank you.

speaker
Ebru
Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Kambe. As you have just mentioned, while the long-term direction remains intact, higher funding costs are delaying both margin recovery and the sector's real ROE generation. In the first half of this year, our net income was up by 38% year-on-year to 34,333,000,000 and resulting in an ROE of 22.2% and an ROE of 1.9%. During the same period, our revenues increased by 45% year-on-year to $140,320,000. Net interest income expanded by 95% year-on-year, driven by our agile balance sheet management and relatively lower funding cost environment compared to the same period of last year. Our strong customer franchise continued to drive resilient fee generation, delivering 35% year-on-year fee income growth and fully covering quarterly OPEX. However, as the higher for longer rate environment proved more persistent than anticipated, we revised our NIM guidance to reflect a slower margin recovery. While resilient fee income, disciplined cost management, and strong asset quality continue to support earnings, the slower margin recovery has translated into a downward revision in our full-year ROE guidance from high 20s to 23% to 25%, as you just mentioned. Now let's dive into the quarter's financial performance and key drivers, starting with the balance sheet. As Kambi highlighted, we remained disciplined in our lending strategy, prioritizing risk-adjusted growth while optimizing maturity and enhancing yields in our target segments. We continue to restructure our asset mix, increasing higher-yielding assets while gradually reducing the weight of TL securities in our balance sheet, a strategic shift that has been underway for the past few years. This strategy has translated into a meaningful shift in our asset mix, with the share of TL loans in total TL assets rising by 7 percentage points to 59% since 2024, while the share of TL securities, excluding corporate bonds, has declined by 3 percentage points in the same period. Most importantly, we have achieved this without compromising our prudent approach to asset quality while preserving strong coverage ratios. Our selective TL loan growth focus has contributed to the 8% year-to-date growth in TL loans and noteworthy market share gains in business loans among private banks. As a result, we remain committed to our full-year TL loan growth guidance of over 30% shared at the start of the year. Turning to our loan mix, we maintained a well-balanced and strategically diversified loan book across segments. Portfolio resilience is underpinned by the strong diversification, with no single sector accounting for more than 8% of our business loans. We continued to proactively monitor sector-specific risks and take early actions where needed, actively managing portfolio concentrations to preserve strong asset quality. Meanwhile, we continued to grow our FX loan book, delivering 3% year-to-date growth in US dollar terms despite a more restrictive operating environment. While tighter regulatory caps led us to modestly revise our full-year foreign currency long-growth guidance to high single-digit, execution remained strong. We delivered a 30 basis points quarterly market share gain and continued to progress towards our 2028 strategic ambitions. Moving on to securities. We remain dedicated to actively repositioning our securities portfolio, aligning with the evolving macroeconomic environment while enhancing the yields. On the TL side, we increased the share of TL REF index bonds by 6 percentage points since the end of 2024, while reducing fixed-rate securities by 7 percentage points to improve carry in a higher-for-longer interest rate environment. During the same period, we increased the share of foreign currency securities in total securities by 8 percentage points to 35%, primarily through timely build-up of NIM accretive Eurobond investments. As a side note, we maintained our leading position in blue-chip corporate bonds, representing around 8% of our TL securities. So overall, our timely, yield-focused portfolio actions have continued to support margins while positioning us for resilient performance going forward. On the funding side, our strong customer franchise has continued to support deposit cost optimization while providing flexibility in meeting central bank's ratio requirements. We achieved 130 basis points year-to-date increase in TL demand deposit market share among private banks while maintaining a healthy 55% share in sticky, low-cost TL time deposits, reinforcing the strength and the stability of our funding base. Looking ahead, our well-structured balance sheet and sound deposit mix are expected to support gradual and sustainable NIM improvement. Let's move on to the wholesale funding side. Our transactions since the beginning of the year reaffirmed international investors' confidence in our franchise despite heightened geopolitical volatility. During the quarter, we successfully completed a 500 million Tier 2 issuance at an 8.25% yield with an order book exceeding $1.2 billion, demonstrating continued strong investor demand. We also exercise the call of the outstanding tier two, maintaining our consistent track record. Our diversified funding strategy continues to provide us with reliable access to international funding markets across different market environments. Moving on to the profitability. Let's start with the net interest margin. Heightened geopolitical uncertainty and tighter funding conditions continue to weigh on margins during the quarter. However, our proactive and disciplined balance sheet management helped contain the pressure to some extent. As a result, swap-adjusted NIM declined by a moderate 25 basis points to 3%, primarily reflecting higher TL funding costs. Looking ahead, we expect a more gradual margin recovery as monetary conditions are likely to remain tighter for longer. We believe our disciplined balance sheet management and strong deposit franchise position us well to navigate this environment. But still, taking all into consideration, we have revised our year-end swap-adjusted NIM guidance to 3.2% to 3.5% range from around 4% levels. As a side note, during the quarter, we valued our CPI linkers at 30% and every 1% change in CPI has 6 pips NIP and 40 basis point ROE impact on a full year basis. Our fee income increased by a robust 35% year-on-year in first half, keeping us well on track with our full year guidance of above 30%. Our diversified fee income base, supported by broad product offerings, continues to strengthen earnings resilience and visibility. We remain focused on expanding recurring fee streams through customer-centric innovations and deeper client engagement. Looking ahead, we will continue to leverage our digital capabilities and AI-driven hyper-personalization to further expand our fee income base. Strong fee generation and disciplined cost management have drove our fee-to-OPEX ratio back above 100%, with cumulative ratio reaching 94% for the first half of the year. OPEX growth was at 37% year-on-year in the first half and expected to moderate toward the full year guidance of low 30s thanks to our continued focus on cost control and operational efficiency. Accordingly, we remain confident in achieving our full-year fee-to-OPEC ambition of around 100%. However, net interest income dynamics continue to be key determinant for our cost-to-income ratio, which remained around 52%, leading us to revise our full-year cost-to-income ratio guidance to high 40s from low 40s. Looking ahead, we remain focused on disciplined cost management while leveraging AI to further improve scalability and efficiency. Moving on to asset quality. As expected, early signs of asset quality deterioration have become more visible across the sector, reflecting the broader macro environment. Against this backdrop, we further strengthened our relative positioning, reducing our NPL market share among private banks by 130 basis points year to date, building on the significant improvement we achieved last year. Our loan book is a reflection of our disciplined underwriting standards and well-diversified portfolio with Stage 2 plus Stage 3 loans contained at 11.5% of gross loans and restructured loans remaining limited at 4%. At the same time, we continue to strengthen our reserve buffers with total provisions reaching nearly 85 billion TL. Accordingly, our coverage ratios remain solid with growth coverage at 3.8% and stage 2 plus stage 3 coverage at 28.1%, reinforcing balance sheet resilience. Excluding currency impact, net cost of credit stood at 220 basis points during the first half of the year, broadly in line with our full-year guidance, while NPL ratio remained stable at around 3.5%. We continue to enhance our collection capabilities through AI-powered voice agents, which was just launched during second quarter. Early signals indicate improving customer engagement and increased our promise to pay rates significantly. This supports a more proactive, scalable, and data-driven collection model, reinforcing our disciplined approach to asset quality management. Looking ahead, we remain confident in our ability to navigate the evolving macro environment with cost of credit and NPL dynamics remaining well manageable within our full-year guidance. Moving on to capital. Our strong capital base remains a key strategic advantage, providing the flexibility to navigate cycles while continuing to pursue disciplined growth. Our total capital, Tier 1 and core equity Tier 1 ratios have improved to 16.4%, 13.3%, and 11.3% in second quarter, respectively. These were supported by risk-return-focused loan growth, continued RWA optimization, and the gradual easing of the quarter-specific adverse effects in the first quarter, including operational risk adjustment and dividend payment. In addition, improved market sentiment and better bond pricing enabled a partial reversal of mark-to-market losses in the second quarter. As for sensitivities, a 10% depreciation in TL results to around 25 basis point decline in our capital ratios, while the impact diminishes for larger foreign currency movements. Similarly, 100 basis point increase in TL interest rates has around 5 basis point impact, highlighting the limited sensitivity and strength of our capital. Overall, our solid capital buffers provide competitive advantage and a strong foundation to deliver sustainable, profitable growth going forward. On this slide, you may find the summary of our first half performance as well as our revised guidance, which I did share with you in detail throughout the presentation. As previously highlighted, headwinds related with geopolitical developments which resulted in the rate cycle to pause has shifted NIM expansion to second half of the year with a more gradual pace than initially expected. While resilient fee income, disciplined cost management, and strong asset quality continue to support earnings, the slower margin recovery has translated into a downward revision in our ROE guidance. As reflected in our first talk performance, we continue to make solid progress towards our 2028 strategic targets, which we shared at the beginning of this year. And last but not least, before moving on to Q&A, I'd like to share that we are extremely proud to have surpassed our $800 billion sustainable financing target for 2030 ahead of schedule, reaching $841 billion by the end of the second quarter. Looking ahead, we will continue to raise our ambition and set new targets in sustainable finance later this year. This concludes our presentation. Now moving on to Q&A session. Please raise your hand or type your question in the Q&A box. And for those of you who are joining us by telephone, please send your questions by email to investor.relations at akbank.com. The first question comes from Ashwath. Ashwath, please go ahead. We have unmuted you. Hi, can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you loud and clear.

speaker
Ashwath
Analyst

Thank you very much for the presentation. I just have three questions. The first is on the NIMS. So I guess the exit rate is around slightly lower than your full year revised guidance on your NIMS. So when do you first expect some of the rate cuts or potentially normalization in the policy rate to begin? That would be my first question. The second question is around the cost side. Are there any initiatives in place beyond the ones you mentioned in terms of AI, etc., in order to rein in some of that cost growth or OPEX growth, especially if, for example, the top line growth does not pan out to be as positive as anticipated with the rate cuts into the back end of this year? And the last question is on asset quality. So currently, I understand it's slightly ahead or above your full year guidance of around 200 basis points. How confident is the bank in being able to maintain that 200 basis points net cost of risk excluding currency, especially if, for example, rate cuts or the normalization and policy rate does not happen sometime this year? Thank you.

speaker
Turker
Head of Treasury

Hi Ashwat, this is Turker. Thank you very much for your questions. To start with the net interest margin side, as you are right to mention so like the second quarter was like the exit from second quarter was like in weekly terms close 3% and still we are in July preserving our cumulative NIM at around 3%. So when can we expect like A gradual improvement in the net interest margin to meet our guidance. It will go hand in hand with Central Bank's decisions. After Central Bank has skipped the last MPC meeting and kept 40% unchanged, probably the next tick date would be like the next MPC meet in September, where we can expect that Central Bank again returns back into one week repo funding, like in effective terms, so 37%. If the global environment also allows, maybe it's also possible that they make this move before September. But apart from this move, like equalizing the weighted average cost of funding to the policy rate of 37, I think there will be limited room for further rate cuts towards the end of the year. But anyway, with this expected normalization, We expect gradual improvement in the net interest margin towards the end of the third quarter and maybe mainly in the spring. This is the fourth quarter that we can reach this revised guidance we've shared. And hopefully, if the environment allows, more to the 3.5% sites. So that's how we see the NIM trajectory for the time being. With regard to costs, Akbank has always this strong muscle to maintain cost discipline whenever needed. So we are always looking at all areas in our OPEX where we can make some savings. Erol Sabanci, Gokhan Gokcay More than 30% year-on-year growth guidance for the full year. With regard to cost of risk, yes, as of today, we are slightly above 2%, which we've guided for the full year. But also, you know, we're always revisiting our landing criteria, landing processes whenever needed. We make these changes in the landing criteria and also In the first six months of the year, we have also kept our provisioning also quite strong, which may also give some flexibility to us in the second half of the year. So therefore, actually, as of today, we feel confident meeting this revised, unchanged guidance, sorry, for cost of risk. But as I said, to repeat myself, we are always These are our decision criteria, like maturity profile, collaboration, etc. So that's how we are responding to this uncertain environment. Thank you very much. Thank you.

speaker
Ebru
Chief Financial Officer

You're welcome, Ashfa. Next question comes from David, Toronto. Please, David, go ahead and ask your question.

speaker
David
Analyst

Good afternoon. Thank you for the presentation. My colleague has already covered most of my questions. I just have one on capital. Capital has become a bigger investor focus again, I think. Could you update us on the IRB process and the potential C21 benefit? And given the slower pace of capital generation, would you consider to lower payout this year to preserve capital? Thank you.

speaker
Turker
Head of Treasury

Thank you very much, David. Yes, we are in the process of our IRB application. So probably maybe somewhere next year. This also depends on the BRSA permission and the process on their side as well. But we can expect like around 2% uplift to our capital index ratio, both T1 and CET1 as well as capital index ratio.

speaker
Thomas Notzol
Analyst

All of them will be similarly impacted.

speaker
Turker
Head of Treasury

But having said that, when I look at the capital adequacy evolution of Akbank in the second quarter, despite the moderate profitability and moderate internal profit generation, Still, we were able to slightly improve our capital adequacy ratio. Just to recall, in the first quarter, we had all these one-time impacts, like dividend payout, op-risk adjustments, mark-to-market losses. So op-risk and dividend payout was one time, and there has been some reversal on the mark-to-market side. And also the ongoing optimization of RWEA has helped us to slightly improve our capital adequacy ratio. So, with the profitability projections we have and also the growth projections within the growth caps of the central bank, I think we can preserve this capital security ratio at these levels. And probably it's too early to talk about the dividend payout for NYX and the stance of central bank, BRSA, sorry. But just recall, you know, the impact of payout on capital, like, For full year is quite limited within considering limited payout ratios. Therefore, but we can maybe discuss more detail towards the end of the year or maybe beginning of the year, next year.

speaker
David
Analyst

Thank you.

speaker
Turker
Head of Treasury

You're welcome.

speaker
Ebru
Chief Financial Officer

Next question comes from Mehmet Seven. Mehmet, please unmute yourself and ask your question.

speaker
Mehmet Seven
Analyst

Hi, good evening. Thanks very much for your time. I had one question on the NPL balances. It seems the collection performance was very strong in the second quarter, effectively offsetting most of the increase in gross inflows. I was just wondering what's driving this and whether you see this as sustainable going forward. And my second question is on the fee outlook. You've kept the guidance at above 30%. Technically, you are within the guidance, but I was wondering if there is realistically upside to that number, whether you're expecting some maybe easing or slowdown in the second half. Thanks very much.

speaker
Turker
Head of Treasury

Hi Mehmet Bey, for NPR side actually there was like a big ticket collection in the second quarter like for which also like we had to Some interest accrual and some interest collection which has also to some extent also increased both sides of the NPL movement for the second quarter. But in net NPL formation terms, it's actually similar to the first quarter. So this big ticket collection is also impacting this. Maybe some synthetic increase on both sides of the MPI collection as well as the MPI formation. With regard to fee outlook, hopefully we can do better than that. So like maintain the 4% or maybe even Erol Sabanci, Berna Avdan, Gokhan Gokcay Thank you Mehmet.

speaker
Ebru
Chief Financial Officer

Next question comes from Cemal Demirtas. Cemal, please unmute yourself and ask your question.

speaker
Cemal Demirtas
Analyst

Thank you for the presentation. My question is regarding the guidance side. Firstly, in your macroeconomic assumptions, what is the major risk you are taking regarding the, you know, the oil prices in your base scenario? Is high oil price a reason for this cautious stance related to inflation, or do you see other factors that would affect the economy in the second half of the year? And the other question is about your TL growth, long growth and FX long growth. You didn't change it. You maintained TL long growth higher than 30% and long growth also maintained almost the same. Is it consistent with the micro outlook you're assuming? Could you further elaborate that? Thank you.

speaker
Turker
Head of Treasury

Hi Cemal Bey, with regard to macro assumptions actually since we already like six months have passed and you know like we have more like like visibility in front of us yes maybe oil prices may change but on average I think also in the system there's some like visibility so therefore we expect the Volatility with regard to inflation outlook like maybe like okay it may be maybe 29 or 31 but really maybe plus minus 30 percent is I think it's a reasonable assumption for time being and considering the like positive real rates policy of the century this is also why we've kept the policy rate at 37 percent by the end of the year. Your second question was Tial Long Growth and FX Long Growth. Already we are at 18% and maybe just to recall the growth caps on the SME side in 8-week terms. SME side, the cap is at 4.5, GPL 3% and also considering some business in exempt areas, I think Erol Sabanci, Berna Avdan, Gokhan Thank you. And as a follow-up regarding the NPL, you keep your NPL guidance at 3.5%.

speaker
Cemal Demirtas
Analyst

And based on your scenario, your cautious scenario, do you see an upside risk to that factor rather than a downside considering the very tight conditions in real sector overall? I just like to hear about that. Thank you.

speaker
Turker
Head of Treasury

Thank you very much. I think maybe we should more focus on the cost of risk side because AMPL is also driven by the notional volume, by the loan growth, exchange rate, TL equal in terms of total loan book. So therefore actually, we feel confident with regard to the cost of risk of 200% and probably we can also manage the NPL side at 3.5. Like depending on the appetite and our preferences, we may also utilize NPL sales, which we've done in the first half of this year as well. So therefore actually the focus is more really on the cost of risk side. Thank you. You're welcome.

speaker
Ebru
Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Jamal. And the next question comes from Simon Nellis. Simon, please unmute yourself and ask your question.

speaker
Simon Nellis
Analyst

Hi, thanks very much. Just another follow up on the NPL. We've seen some large restructuring defaults in the sector. Just wondering if you've had exposure and if not, how have you avoided these and do you see more stress? It doesn't seem like you expect much more stress going forward and just curious why that's the case. Do you think these recent events are kind of more specific to those corporates? Thanks.

speaker
Turker
Head of Treasury

Hi, Simon. Again, this is Turker. Yes, our structured portfolio is at a very similar level. So with regard to sector, like dynamics, I don't have that much of insight to that. But in our portfolio, we didn't experience something like that. Because the rule set is quite clear, which we have to apply. So actually we will be managing the portfolio with a similar philosophy for the remaining part of the year as well.

speaker
Simon Nellis
Analyst

And maybe if I could ask about a specific client, I don't know if you'll be able to respond, but just on Vestel, are you involved in that restructuring and is there anything you can share on that?

speaker
Turker
Head of Treasury

No, we don't have this exposure. No, no, we are not part of structuring.

speaker
Simon Nellis
Analyst

Thank you. Thank you very much.

speaker
Ebru
Chief Financial Officer

You're welcome. Thank you, Simon. We have a written question, basically, from Mustafa Kamal Karaköse. How do you expect the recent loan growth caps to affect the pace of loan book repricing?

speaker
Turker
Head of Treasury

Definitely, it's putting some limitation. But since the global change in the first quarter of this year, currently we are more like the focus of the bank is more In order to not to increase the duration mismatch. And actually, when I looked at the back book of the yield of our loan book, we were able to increase it by around 30 basis points till the end of the second quarter. while we were also able to some extent also improve the deposit cost as well so therefore actually maybe in this way I can also touch the spread side so loan to deposit spreads on TL side we've seen some like improvements in the last one or two weeks with this repricing initiative of the bank but definitely the growth cap It's putting pressure and also it may also sometimes impact the market dynamics as well on the exempt walls so that the banks are acting more competitively. We take part when the pricing makes sense or refrain to compete if we see the price is not adequate enough.

speaker
Ebru
Chief Financial Officer

Okay, and the last question comes from Thomas Notzol. Thomas, please unmute yourself and ask your question.

speaker
Thomas Notzol
Analyst

Yes, hello. Hopefully you can hear me. Lots of questions have been asked by my colleagues and I appreciate all your input and insight and guidance. I just have one follow up or two follow up questions. One is on NPL and I understand the new NPLs are driven mainly by retail sector. Correct me if I'm wrong. And if it is driven by corporate, do you see any specific industry sectors that are more vulnerable in the current environment? And do you see any more stresses in the sector? And the second one maybe is more medium term, because I think everybody understands that 2026 is not the time when Turkish banks who will return to real ROEs, and this is all deferred to 2027 and beyond, possibly. But would you be able to discuss your inflation expectation for 2027, 2028, possibly? Let's say very much a high level, especially in terms of the expected elections in Turkey in two years' time, more or less, or maybe earlier. and there's a potential fiscal loosening to boost the GDP ahead of and how this would impact inflation and ROEs as well. Thank you.

speaker
Turker
Head of Treasury

Hi, Thomas. With regard to NPI information, yes, actually, since last year or maybe since the end of 24. NPI formation is mainly happening on the retail side, consumer, credit cards, Unsecured Lending, as well as S part of SME, some examples, maybe M part of SME. But on the corporate side, we haven't seen a widespread MPI formation or stress. And with regard to Alkbank, as you can also see on the screen, we have a really diversified portfolio. and just also to go in every sector like there are good companies and bad companies and or not so good companies let's say and this is actually like an art in a way like that you like as i said like play around with your duration profile collateralization etc etc when making business with your customers but i can't really specify one single sector of there is some really stress building up This is with regard to your first question. With regard to the second question, definitely all that has happened in the last 3-4 months of the year has delayed the macro expectations we had. Maybe it's a bit too early to talk about 2027 and 2028. It may also depend on the timing of the elections. But definitely, we are expecting further disinflation processes to evolve in the country. The pace will be important. Maybe, as I said, we can discuss in more detail towards the end of the year, also when we have more visibility in the Gulf region. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Thank you. I believe this ends all the questions that have been asked. And I leave the floor to you, Kanbey, for closing remarks.

speaker
Kaan
Chief Executive Officer

Thank you. Thanks a lot again. Before we close, let me leave you with one final thought, actually. As we look ahead, I can tell that our top three priorities remain clear. The first one is supporting our customers. Secondly, managing our balance sheet with discipline. And the last one is delivering sustainable profitability. The decisions we are making today from our balance sheet strategy to our investments in our service model, digital capabilities, and AI are not about the next quarter. They are about building an even stronger Ekbank for the years ahead. We will continue to grow selectively Preserve the resilience of our balance sheet and build on momentum of our customer franchise. At the same time, we are taking a scalable enterprise-wide approach to AI because we believe it will fundamentally enhance how we serve our customers and operate as a bank. Before we finish, I really would like to thank all my colleagues at Crosshack Bank. Their commitment Energy and a focus on our customers are what make our progress possible every day. Finally, thank you for joining us today, as always, and for your continued interest and trust in Akbank. We look forward to keeping in touch. Have a great day. Thank you very much.

speaker
Ebru
Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Kambay, and thank everyone for joining us. Please do reach out to investor relations team. We're here at your disposal and look forward to seeing you all soon and have a wonderful summer. Bye bye.

Disclaimer

This conference call transcript was computer generated and almost certianly contains errors. This transcript is provided for information purposes only.EarningsCall, LLC makes no representation about the accuracy of the aforementioned transcript, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the information provided by the transcript.

-

-