Bankinter Sa Reg Shs

Good morning to all and thank you for joining this earnings call for the third quarter of 2025. Financial statements were posted with market authorities earlier this morning and all materials can be found on our corporate website. Please refer to the disclaimer in this presentation and note that this call is being recorded. Today we are joined by Chief Executive Officer Gloria Ortiz and Chief Financial Officer Jacobo Diaz.

Thank you, Laurie. Good morning to all and welcome to this third quarter 2025 results presentation. Since we last met in July, many things have happened. The tariff conflict between the European Union and the United States has been resolved. The Israel-Gaza conflict seems for now to have reached its end. We learned the results of the BBVA-Sabadell takeover bid last Thursday, and interest rates have bottomed as the European Central Bank has ended rate cuts with inflation aligned with its targets. Additionally, the EVA stress tests were published on August 1st, in which Bank Inter is again the listed bank in Spain, as well as in the Eurozone, with the lowest capital depletion in the hypothetical case of a very adverse economic scenario. We continue to navigate an uncertain and volatile environment, and despite this, I would like to highlight that this quarter's results remain satisfactory following the trend of the previous quarter with very relevant growth and activity across all business and geographies. The third quarter has been another quarter with strong commercial activity, translating into a post-tax result of $812 million, 11% above the same period last year. These results are also accompanied by solid management ratios in terms of asset quality, efficiency, profitability, and solvency. As reflected in the figures, we continue to report improving results in which, as usual, balanced and diversified growth is key. Credit and loans, as well as retail deposits, grew 5%, with off-balance sheet balances up 20% year on year. Net interest income has continued to improve in the quarter. In the second quarter, we reported a contraction of 5% that has been reduced to 3.5% in September. In fact, in quarterly terms, it is the second quarter that we have grown over the previous quarter, reaching levels of the third quarter of 2024. This is thanks to the resilience of the customer margin, which remains at 2.7% this year. On the other hand, fees and commissions continue to perform exceptionally well, maintaining a growth rate of 10.6% despite the fact that each quarter, the comparison with the previous year, is more demanding. All this growth has been achieved while keeping our risk appetite intact, which is reflected in the NPL ratio that stands at 2.05%, improving previous quarter ratio as well as the one reported 12 months ago, which was 17 basis points higher. Another key to our business model is efficiency, which stands at 36%, the best cost-to-income ratio in the sector. Diversified growth, asset quality, and efficiency are the pillars on which the profitability of our business is based, maintaining a ROTI above 19%. As a result of intense commercial activity, we once again present strong diversified growth in business volumes this period. If we add credit and loans, retail deposits, and off-balance sheet volumes, the volumes managed amount to $234 billion at the end of September and grew by $19 billion year on year. This is a remarkable growth rate of 9%. Going into detail, lending reached $83 billion at the end of the quarter, which is $5 billion more than in September 2024. Retail deposits closed the quarter at $85 billion, a figure $4 billion higher than in the same period of the previous year. And finally, we added $11 billion to the off-balance sheet business, which stands at $66 billion, showing a strong growth of 20% year on year. This year, we have seen a noticeable increase in new client acquisition, particularly through our digital channels. The integration of talent and technology from EvoBanco over the summer has assisted to further strengthen our digital strategy for the group. All geographies are growing at good pace. Spain, which accounts to 87% of business volumes, grows 7%, while Portugal, with 11% contribution to volumes, grows by 12%, and Ireland also stands out with 20% growth. New credit production also continues with improving trends as a result of the increased commercial activity. 16% in new mortgages, 6% growth in new business lending, and a 3% drop in consumer credit due to the fact that we continue to reduce exposure to riskier segments. On page seven, for the past 12 months, we have seen increasingly positive trends in sector growth across the geographies in which we operate, with close to 3% market growth in Spain, 7% in Portugal, and 2% in Ireland. In each of these markets, we continue to gain market share in each of our business lines. In our core market, Spain, the retail banking loan book increased by 3.4%, 30 bps above the market, and our business banking book outperformed by 180 bps, reaching a 4.3% growth rate. With both Bank Inter Portugal and Ireland in expansion, we continue to gain significant market share, further diversifying our asset portfolio. Portugal grew 11%, 450 bps above the sector, and Ireland an exceptional 20% growth rate, well above market growth rates in both countries. In terms of revenues, there is a very notable performance of core revenues. This is the sum of net interest income and net fees and commissions, which has reached similar levels to those in the previous year. In quarterly terms, core revenues reached 762 million euros, the largest in the series, and in fact, they are already growing both compared to the previous quarter by 1.3% and compared to the same quarter of 2024 by 2%. This sustained solid performance quarter after quarter of fees and commissions, growing at 10.6%, compensates for over 90% of net interest income compression in the year due to the negative impact from the reduction of yield curves. Net interest income fell on a cumulative basis 3.5%, but in quarterly terms, the upward trend continues. We are already 3% above the last quarter of the previous year and 5% more than in the first quarter, and we also grew 1% over the previous quarter. Going now to the next page, I would like to talk about productivity. We have a scalable and efficient business that is reflected in productivity improvements. The volume of customers managed per employee expands year after year, while the cost per million euros of volumes managed decreases year on year. This is thanks to the investments made in technology and in particular in artificial intelligence projects that are oriented to the improvement of personal activity, commercial efficiency, which relies mainly on algorithms, but also process efficiency and the improvement of the customer experience and the development also of new products. Bank Interculture of applying targeted innovation across products, services and processes continues to deliver measurable results, reinforcing our strategic positioning and driving ongoing improvements in operational scalability. I will now hand over to Jacobo, who will provide you with more additional detail and insights into our financial and commercial results.

Thank you very much, Gloria. Good morning, everybody. We are pleased to share once again another quarter growth and increased revenues and profitability. In operating income, we have grown by 4.7% thanks to increased volumes, continued strong fee growth and effective margin management. We continue to rebalance operating costs more evenly over quarters with a year-on-year increase declining each quarter to end the year within our guidance. Cost of risk and related provisions declined by 10% compared to the prior year, reflecting a continued positive trend in risk management. Net profit rose 11% to 812 million euros, gaining momentum to well surpass our initial goal of 1 billion euros in 2025. Let's move on to review additional details about each line in the following slides. So up to the trough in the first quarter of this year, we continue to deliver quarter-on-quarter improvements in net interest income. Now recovering levels of the third quarter of last year, reporting €566 million, a 1% increase quarter-on-quarter. Asset yields continue to contract this quarter at 3.49%, down 22 basis points. This quarter reflects a typical low seasonality period where corporate banking activity is relatively lower compared to retail banking activity, which has influenced a bit of a mixed change leading to a higher weight of repricing more in line with retail durations than the shorter corporate durations. Given these dynamics and a stable outlook for arrival 12-month rates, we believe average quarterly asset yields should drop marginally in Q4 to reach stability in the first half of 2026. Average customer margin for the year remained resilient at our 270 basis points, continuing to demonstrate our ability to effectively manage margins. With cost of deposits now at 84 basis points and material 14 basis points decreased from last quarter, we are optimistic to reach levels around 75 basis points by the end of the year. Our NIM also remains resilient, a direct result of the effective balance sheet management. After sharing the details of the NII results, we wanted to talk about the excellent results we have been seeing quarter on quarter related to our digital account strategy that we initiated last year as part of the new digital organization. These growing digital site account deposits, in yellow in the graph on the left, have aided in reducing and replacing typical long-term deposits with more granular and flexible, shorter-duration deposits. Between both digital site accounts and private banking or corporate treasury accounts, we now have a significant proportion of ARK deposits with less than a three-month duration. This is less than half of the average duration of the term deposits. Not only does this provide us greater agility to adjust deposit rates in line with market rates, but it also has a great source of increased customer activity, either transactional or through AUM's activity, driving additional fee volumes with a scalable operational model at a marginal lower servicing cost base. As you can see on the chart on the right, we have increased our average deposit spread over the past four quarters, reaching now close to 130 basis points. We believe these deposit spread levels are likely to remain quite resilient, possibly with some upside, for the coming years given the favorable rate environment as well as a more flexible deposit structure and our deposit gathering capability from our excellent existing and new customer base. Bear in mind that 50% of new customers are acquired through our 100% digital channels. Fees continue to deliver sequential increases quarter-on-quarter, even during the seasonally low summer months, with an increase of 11% on a year-on-year basis, reaching 196 million euros this quarter, at 2% on a quarter-on-quarter basis. This continued quarterly growth momentum is mainly attributable to the strong volume growth in fund management and brokerage services that we detail later in the presentation. We are quite optimistic to continue to maintain this growth momentum going forward, given our strong focus and strategy on affluent customer base and increasing flows from on-balance to off-balance sheet activity and customer-centric operating model. It is also quite remarkable the performance of these business lines delivering improved results, notably in the equity method and dividend lines up 29% on year-on-year basis. The diversification of sources of revenue is well represented here, given our diversified business investment over the past years in areas like our insurance JV partnership, our JV in Portugal with SENAI to deliver consumer finance products, as well as our successful strategy with the Bankinter investment franchise, delivering alternative investment vehicles, allowing our customers to invest in real assets. This business line will continue to develop and deliver increased results over the coming years, providing upside risk in non-traditional revenue lines. Regarding cost, we continue to reduce seasonality and balance our expenses over the year, increasing 3% when comparing average 25 quarterly costs to those in 2024. Although cost volumes may increase in Q4, they will be lower on a year-on-year basis when comparing to Q4 of 2024. cost-to-income ratio remains at an exceptionally low level of 36% and will remain committed to maintaining positive operating jobs in the future. On page 17, loan loss provisions continue to show improvements versus last year, with a cost of risk of 33 basis points. Other provisions also remain under control and performing well at a stable 8 basis points. With no signs of deterioration in the market of our portfolio and with a well-managed risk management across the bank, we are optimistic to maintain current levels for the coming quarters. Next page. Net profit achieved record levels once again, reaching 812 million euros, an exceptional increase of 11% year-to-date. Credit quality, credit and asset quality indicators continue to improve, with the group NPL ratio dropping to 2.05, down 17 basis points from last year. Spain down to 2.3, Portugal at 1.4, and Ireland at 0.3, all well below sector average. Moving into capital, as Gloria mentioned, we are very pleased with our EVA stress test results this quarter, resulting once again in the lowest level of capital depletion among all Spanish and Eurozone listed banks. Even under a severe economic adverse scenario, the potential capital depletion would only be 55 basis points. The prudent risk profile of our activity is differential. This has been a strong quarter for capital generation with the Z1 ratio at 12.94%, with a seasonal mixed shift from corporate lending to increased retail lending, therefore reducing RWA growth this quarter, which will be viewed with the reverse in the following quarter with larger loan growth and density consumption and the annual operational risk capital consumption recorded in the fourth quarter. As we continue to invest in technology and strategic projects, we have also seen an increase in intangibles this quarter due to the software-based solution under deployment, for example, with the new Bank United platform for Ireland or the Portuguese digital transformation program. Moving into page 22, commercial activity and trends remain strong, with customer volumes up 7% in Spain, 12% in Portugal, and 20% in Ireland, each region contributing at increased levels to the gross operating income of the bank. On page 23, loan growth, again, strong, up 4% year-on-year, growing both in retail as well as business lending. Retail deposits continue to demonstrate solid growth, increasing by 4%, with also strong performance in wealth management, reflecting a 19% increase in assets under management, contributing to fee income increases of 11%. Profit before tax up 6%, reflecting solid contribution for our core Spanish business. In Portugal, continued exceptional performance in lending activity across both business segments up 11%, strong deposit gathering up 5%, as well as increased wealth management and brokerage balances rising 23% on a year-on-year basis. Moving into Ireland, commercial momentum continues with mortgage loan growth up 23%, as well as consumer finance loan growth 23%. by 11%. We have also launched our fully digital time deposit in the Irish market with an attractive value proposition that we surely grow deposit volumes over the coming quarters. Profit before tax contribution reached 34 million euros with strong sequential increases in NII each quarter up 16%. Moving into corporate and SME banking. Business lending continues to deliver strong performance, even with a seasonally low quarter in terms of new loans. Customer lending increased by 5%, well above sector loan growth. International business segment continues to be a key growth catalyst, contributing to a third of new credit production, with a growth rate at 9% year-on-year. Page 27, retail banking asset and deposit trends remain strong, with increased new client acquisition driving core salary account balances up by 7%. New mortgage origination up 16% year-on-year, with solid market share of new production in Portugal, Spain, and Ireland at 6%. Our mortgage back book continues to grow by a strong 5% year-on-year, outperforming sector growth in every region. Regarding wealth management, our high-quality customer base typically brings annual net inflows between 5 to 7 billion euros into the bank. However, this year we have already surpassed this historical range and now reset our ambition to achieve between 8 to 10 billion of net new money every year. When taking into consideration the market effect as well, incremental wealth of our customers increased by 20 million, or a 16% increase on a year-on-year basis. Moving into off-balance sheet volumes, we continue to grow in assets under management and assets under custody, reaching now 150 billion euros with assets under management, advisory, or customer direct execution services in brokerage. Since our differentiation strategy centers around the client and how they prefer to interact with the bank rather than a product strategy, we indistinctively offer Bank Inter products as well as third-party products to retain independence in terms of customer advisory services. with a full range of products, as well as various servicing models based on customer's preference, we're able to consistently grow these off-balance sheet volumes, a key driver of continued fee growth quarter after quarter. And finally, let me recap our ambitions and targets. Given our solid third quarter financial results, a strong commercial momentum and volume growth trends, and with a stable outlook for arrival 12 months after the coming year around 220%, we remain optimistic in terms of future growth potential. In terms of our specific ambitions for this current year, loan volumes are expected to continue to grow at mid-single-digit rate, similar than deposits, with assets under management's commercial activity following the same strong performance than previous quarters. As market conditions become more favorable, we are committed to maintaining 2025 average customer margins around 270 basis points to support robust profitability that surpasses our cost of capital. In essence, we will not compromise margin integrity. Regarding NII, we anticipate that the final phase of retail repricing will take place mostly in Q4 and with much lower impact in the beginning of 26. Consequently, while some pressure on asset yields is expected to persist, it should moderate as our corporate portfolio has now been fully repriced in Q3. On the deposit side, we will continue to reduce and manage costs in a balanced manner to support ongoing customer and deposit growth, particularly in the digital site accounts. As a result, we expect a more modest reduction in deposit costs in Q4 compared to Q3 between the range of 5 to 10 basis points. Given these dynamics and our current commercial strategy, NII in Q4 will keep growing quarter on quarter again and growing year on year again, which may result anyway in a slight slippage in our Flatfish NII guidance in 2025 that will be compensated by a stronger fee growth. With upside risk in fees, we increase our targets of high single-digit growth target to reach now double-digit growth in fees. With respect to cost management, we continue to allocate and balance cost volumes over the quarters and remain on target for 2025, full year annual cost to grow mid-single digit. We also remain committed to delivering positive operating jobs in 2025, gross revenues above cost. As credit quality continues to improve, we are revising our targets with the expectation of cost of risk to fall below 35 basis points for the entire year. Although we do not provide guidance for the following year until the results presentation in January, we must say that as of today, with the current macro outlook for Spain, Portugal, and Ireland, there is no reason why we should not expect similar levels of growth in our loan book as well as resilient client margin in our levels of cost of risk. Efficiency will also remain at the top of our agenda to ensure sustainable levels of return on equity in 2026 and so on. And capital levels are expected to stay strong in coming quarters despite profitable growth expectations. I believe that this has been another high-quality set of results, with no surprises, one-offs, or extraordinary items, quite predictable, that make us feel to be on track to achieve another excellent year in 2026. Gloria, back to you for any closing comments.

Thank you, Jacobo. Well, as you can see, the results of these first nine months of the year have once again beaten records of previous years with an 11% growth in net profit, and all this is accompanied by an excellent level of operational efficiency and asset quality, both ratios improving compared to the previous year. All this allows us to continue improving returns on capital, which stands at 18.2%, 30 bps better than in 2024, and continues generating value for our shareholders, both in terms of dividend distribution and the book value of shares. To close the presentation of results for these first nine months of the year, I would like to highlight that we are once again presenting solid results because of the recurring activity with our customers and the execution of a consistent long-term growth strategy. We are growing steadily in all the businesses and geographies in which we operate, keeping our risk appetite intact, even improving the risk profile of the loan portfolio as reflected in the NPL ratio and increasing the coverage of the non-performing loan portfolio. We continue to invest in projects and initiatives that allow us to keep pace with business growth, and despite this, we improve efficiency. All these results are delivering a sustained return on the capital of the business, well above the cost of capital. For my part, this is all. Thank you again very much for your attention, and I will pass now on to Laurie.

Thank you very much, Gloria. Thank you, Jacobo. Let's now move on to the live Q&A session, please. As per the instructions previously sent via email, please remember to press star 5 on your phone to submit a question. And we kindly ask you to limit your questions to two, please. Our first caller is Francisco Riquel from Alhantra. Francisco, please go ahead.

Yes, morning. Thank you for the presentation and taking my questions. My first question is about the fast growth in digital accounts. It's four times bigger year on year, so I wonder if you can comment on the cost of these digital accounts compared to your total cost of deposits and the alternative of time deposits where you are switching. And I wonder if you can also elaborate on the commercial experience with these online customers. and cross-selling ratios, you are not exceeding your traditional mid-single-digit growth in loans and deposits. You are growing faster in AUMs, but I wonder if this is coming from these online clients or from your traditional affluent and high-net-worth clients. And then my second question is about loan growth in Spain, which has slowed down year on year a bit, particularly in Higher margin corporates from 6% in Q2 to 4% in Q3. The sector has not. They're still growing by 3% in lower margin retail mortgages. So I wonder if you can comment on competition dynamics and update in terms of loan growth and also in the loan yield. Where do you see the draft of this interest rate cycle? Thank you.

Hi, good morning. Good morning, Paco. Regarding the loan growth, I think we had another, I think, good quarter comparing year and year in terms of the loan book. As I mentioned, the seasonality of the third quarter is, I mean, typical in Spain. It has a negative seasonality. the corporate banking activity has been lower as we normally expect. So we do not have any sign of slowing down in that perspective. It's just a matter of seasonality. In fact, we keep expecting similar levels of growth at the end of the year compared to, I don't know, previous quarter. So basically, we do not... expect any changes. You mentioned competition. Of course, there is competition in the corporate banking as well as in the mortgage activity, but this has been always the case, so there's nothing special to highlight. I would say that the long road will continue to show strong results. Regarding the digital accounts, Definitely digital accounts have been a quite relevant strategic commercial move for us in the past months and quarters. So we are delivering excellent results. We are capturing quite large volumes of deposits. We are cross-selling, of course, as you can imagine, plenty of different types of products. I wouldn't say that the largest volumes of AUMs are coming from the new digital accounts because it takes some time to transform and to cross-sell these type of accounts. But definitely, we are quite happy. You were mentioning about the cost. The thing is that these digital accounts have a quite short duration, and for us, we have the agility and the capacity to change prices within a quarter. So for us, from a commercial strategy, we are quite happy.

I will add two things. I mean, the average cost of the digital accounts at present is around 1.6%. Actually, as Jacobo has said, the duration is around two months, and we manage centrally, which is different to when it's products that are managed by the branch network. We manage centrally new prices. So it is quite easy and fast to reduce the cost. But on top of this, what I want to mention is that what we have been doing is a substitution effect. So basically these deposits have been substituting higher tickets from enterprises and corporates. And there has been a reduction in the cost because we have been substituting higher costier deposits. As Jacobo has said, I mean, looking forward, we expect the cost of funds to, retail funds, to continue reducing next quarter. Sorry, this quarter. and in the order of 5 to 10 bips, depending on where the Euribor stands. With respect to competition, here, yes, we have been growing quite nicely in mortgages in Spain so far, but I have to, you know... To say that the competition is starting to be a little bit irrational, particularly in fixed rate mortgages of long term, like 30 years, so you can expect us to be a little bit less active in that segment, although we think that we will continue to grow.

Thank you. Let's move on to our next question. Our next question comes from Borja Ramirez from Citi. Borja, please go ahead.

Hello, good morning. Thank you very much for taking my questions. I have two. Firstly, on the NII, if I were to base the Q4 NII of this year and multiply by four and add the loan growth, would this make sense from a from a technical point of view for estimating the 2026 NII or would there be any other moving parts? And then my second question would be in Ireland, I think according to press you launched a deposit of 2.6% rate, if I am correct. I would like to ask if you could provide some details on the growth strategy in Ireland in deposits. Thank you.

Oh, hello, Borja. Regarding Ireland, I mean, what we are doing is just a test for the moment. So it's our friends and family. We are offering this deposit only to our clients and only a certain amount. I mean, initially we are talking about 50 million euros. So this is like a welcome deposit, and it's not going to have any impact at all in this year, NII, and I don't think in next year either. because we are controlling, as you can imagine, the growth in these deposits. With regard to NII and multiplying by four, well, it's a little simplistic. It could be near if your IVO rates stay completely stable around the year. It would be probably better than that, than the mere multiplication by four.

Yeah, I think our assumptions are we keep, as we mentioned, estimating that the average decline margin for coming quarters should be around 270 basis points, and that we will continue to grow in similar or on the similar path that we've been growing in the past quarters. So that will be the main assumptions that we have. you should take into consideration. As Gloria was mentioning, it's not just multiplying by four. We definitely think it could be a little bit higher than that.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Nacho Ulardi from BNP Paribas. Nacho, please go ahead.

Hi. Thanks for the presentation and for taking my questions. I just wanted to get a bit of a sense the capital performance of the quarter. What you just, Jacobo, flagged about reverting the effect of the mix in the quarter, in the coming quarters. I mean, still 12.9 looks to me like a very high level. Is there any chance that the bank considers changing the 50% payout ratio with the current trend of capital? Second one is on costs. You said in the guidance, if I hear correctly, need single-digit growth. So, we expect slightly more acceleration given the good performance of revenues that you front load a bit of cost for 20, for 26 in the fourth quarter, or beyond the natural seasonality that you have been trying to smooth this year, or that would be, or you're going to be very focused in keeping the costs. on that limit to avoid slittage in 25. Thank you.

hi good morning natural um regarding the capital performance as i mentioned we we present a quite strong capital ratio this quarter and i did mention that there is some seasonality impacts in in this figure so for the fourth quarter we do expect a march a growth or much larger capital consumption from the growth in special from the corporate banking activity that tends to be quite strong at the end of the year. And of course growth in the retail business and in other geographies as we have done. And additionally I mentioned that there are some special recordings in the fourth quarter from capital consumption as the operational risk is fully recorded in the fourth quarter. So we do expect a figure probably lower than this one that we have shared today with you, although the results for the fourth quarter are going to be, again, very, very strong. Do we have in mind changing our dividend policy? I would say not for the time being, but of course, if we will see these trends in coming quarters, of course, we might think about doing whatever in terms of keeping our capital ratio in levels where we feel comfortable.

Hello, Nacho. With regard to cost, I mean, we are very comfortable with the low mid-single-digit growth, and we will stick to this. I mean, we don't see any reason why we cannot meet our target.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Carlos Peixoto from CaixaBank BPI. Carlos, please go ahead.

Hi. Good morning. Carlos Peixoto from CaixaBank here. A couple of follow-up questions actually as well. So mostly on NII. So if I understood correctly, you're expecting to see some pressure on asset yields coming through is still in the fourth quarter through the repricing mechanism. Then you mentioned the deposit costs, maintaining roughly the spreads to arrival. And I guess that's some volume growth, as you mentioned, fourth quarter tends to be much stronger. And so putting all of this together, Do you see enough support for NII in the fourth quarter to do materially better than in the third queue? And you mentioned the call, you know, some, well, basically that you won't be reaching the stable NII guidance, but I was just wondering whether we could be talking about a small single-digit decline in NII or closer to mid-single-digit. Thank you very much.

Good morning, Carlos. Um, We did mention that the cost of deposit in the – we are expecting next quarter to continue to decline, probably at a lower speed than we saw in the previous – in previous quarter. And we mentioned somewhere between 5 to 10 basis points decline in the coming quarter. But we also – we mentioned that we are – we have come to a much lower speed of loan yield repricing, and we do expect some sort of stabilization or a slight reduction. in the fourth quarter. That will mean that we do expect client margin to recover. And we are quite strong optimistic in terms of we will have a good, at the end of the day, a good final quarter. But indeed, like you mentioned that, and I did mention there might be a slight or minimum slippage in the overall flat-ish guidance. But again, it's going to be much more than compensated with fees. So, we are good – I mean, we are quite well optimistic about what's going to happen in the fourth quarter. So there is full repricing in corporate that has already been achieved in the third quarter. Your rival 12 months is behaving quite well around 220. There is a little bit more repricing from the mortgage book in the fourth quarter to come. But again, there is a strong seasonality that we believe will make a good fourth quarter to end up the year. As I mentioned, the fourth quarter is going to be again higher than the third quarter and much higher than the same quarter one year ago. So we think we are optimistic about the fourth quarter of this year and of course the coming quarters in 2026. We think these 270 client margin is something that is definitely our ambition and we are definitely managing everything in order to achieve that figure.

Thank you, Jacobo. Our next question comes from Ignacio Cerezo from UBS. Ignacio, please go ahead.

Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. I've got one on the international credit book, which is around 30%, 35% of the total corporate lending book and seems to be growing much faster, basically, than domestic. So if you can give us some information, some color, basically, of what is in there and what is – The reason is growing faster and what kind of sustainability you see on that. And kind of related to this more on a system basis, from a mortgage growth point of view in Spain, obviously housing prices going up very fast. It doesn't feel that the shortfall of housing is going to be corrected anytime soon. I mean, is there any risk that the demand actually ends up drying up faster because of, I mean, problems of affordability, I mean, difficulties from people to access housing, et cetera? Do you think actually the pickup of mortgage growth we are seeing the last year or so has less or there's a risk actually it rise up into the next say six to 12 months. Thank you.

Oh, hello, Nacho. With regard to mortgages, we don't see changes in demand in the short term, so this year or next year. It is true what you're saying, that prices go up and up, and that there could start to be, particularly in, you know, medium salaries, there could be problems of affordability. There are measures like the ECO lines that where we are being active, obviously. We have a little bit more than our market share that basically are trying to tackle this problem because they cover up to 100% of the value of the property. So what we are seeing in mortgages, rather, is what I've mentioned, which is a competition that is not being very reasonable with regard to long-term fixed rates. And basically, we are not going to enter that war, particularly in those clients. Well, in our clients we might do because if we know how profitable their relationship with them is, it's okay, but it won't be a measure to acquire new clients, definitely. I think that's for mortgages.

Good morning. I'll take your question on international credit book. I think basically our corporate banking Spanish clients are much more international than they used to be. They're much more focused on going abroad. And we do provide a quite large menu of products and services with good technology, et cetera. So we're developing more technology, more, I don't know, supply chain management products, working capital facilities, endorsements, et cetera. So since we have increase our range of products and services to these type of clients, then the volume of activity and the loans and unbalanced items keep growing and growing. So this is some sort of sustainable. This is something that we do expect to keep growing at similar levels. So no one option here is quite recurrent, and this is for us a quite relevant source of revenues. in terms of NII, in terms of fees, and it's a quite profitable business.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Avero Serrano from Morgan Stanley. Avero, please go ahead.

Good morning. I just wanted to follow up on the loan growth. I take the seasonality, and one thing, I just was curious, I wanted to double-click on your comments around de-risking and the consumer book being down, I think you said, 3% quarter and quarter. Where are you de-risking? What kind of product? What region? And is it a one-off thing? And what should we be looking for in consumer going forward from here in terms of volume growth? And then the second sort of follow-up question to the broader discussion in the call is, How do you think the pricing dynamics in the mortgage in particular is going to evolve over the next few quarters? Are you seeing the market being this bad? If it stays as competitive as it is, what's the end game for you in the mortgage market in Spain? Thank you.

Hello, Alvaro. With regard to the portfolios where we are the risk gain, it is mainly open market consumer credit in Spain. So we are basically reducing our exposure and reducing also the new production and being more selective. That is on one hand, you know, this portfolio anyway is not very significant in our overall book. And we continue to grow in consumer credit, but in our own clients in Spain and also in Portugal and in open markets both in Ireland and in Portugal with Universo, you know, the JV we have with Sonai. With regard to mortgages, well, for the moment, we are not seeing any changes in the pricing dynamics, but hopefully we will be getting to prices where we have some margin with respect to the swap curve. But for the moment, that is not the case. That is why I was mentioning that we will probably decelerate growth not so much in mortgages with our clients, but rather in the acquisition of new clients with mortgages.

Okay, thank you very much. Our next question comes from Max Mission from JV Capital. Max, please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. Thanks very much for the presentation and taking our questions. Two questions from me, please. The first one is on your wealth management business. Press reported several hirings you did. What kind of AUM growth should you think of for banking during the medium term? And does this mean that fees are also likely to grow above the mid-single digits we have seen historically? And the second question is on capital, a follow-up on what the comfortable level is for you. And if the growth is not there, how can we think of deploying this capital? Thank you.

Hi, good morning, Max. I mean, definitely the current levels of growth in the wealth management business is something that we believe are sustainable. Of course, there are market effects that, you know, are not controlled. And this is something we cannot control, neither estimate. But the capacity to keep bringing net new money to the bank, as we've mentioned in the call, is becoming higher and higher. So now our estimation has increased from our 5 to 7 billion every year to 8 to 10 billion every year. And that of course means that has an impact on fees. So definitely we We don't know exactly what is going to be the level of fees, the recurring level of fees in the future, but we definitely think it's going to be quite strong and probably stronger than your, I think you mentioned, mid-single digit. So for us, again, the combination of our strategy in commercial activity has a full link in the wealth management activity and, of course, in fees.

With respect to capital, I mean, we feel comfortable with a level between 1240, 1260, something that can give us room to continue growing and that doesn't restrict that growth. So this is more or less the average level where we are comfortable.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Pablo de la Torre from RBC Capital Markets. Pablo, please go ahead.

Thank you for taking my question. Just a follow-up on Ireland, on previous comments from Jacobo. You've mentioned the fixed-term deposit proposition in the country, but can you please remind us on the broader ambition and what are the next steps? in the product roadmap in the country. And I guess in particular, you mentioned today your new higher ambition around net new money growth. So I was wondering if you were planning to start offering wealth products in Ireland next year. Maybe if I can squeeze in another follow-up on capital, given your excess capital position, And given also current valuation levels, can you just kind of update us on your appetite for inorganic growth from now? Thank you.

Good morning, Pablo. Regarding Ireland, definitely the first phase is through the launch of the term deposit that we've mentioned before. Our next ambition is going to be the launch of current accounts at the beginning of 2026. And I think this is going to be the great moment of funding the growth that we are expecting in Ireland with deposits from locals in Ireland. So we are targeting to fund whatever growth we have in the loan book in Ireland with the deposit book in Ireland as well. So this is the ambition and this is the next step. We are not considering for the time being to move into the wealth management business in Ireland. I think we have plenty of things to capture and to target before that business.

And with respect to inorganic growth, well, our appetite is very, very low, as you can imagine. We are an organic grower. We have always grown organically in the different businesses and geographies where we have the capabilities, and this is what we are doing in Ireland, and this is what we will continue to do in the future.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Britta Smith from Autonomous. Britta, please go ahead.

Yeah, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. I have a follow-up on the consumer exposure, the open market consumer exposure in Spain that you talked about. Could you share with us the volume of that book and what the driver was for the de-risking? I mean, have you seen a material change in the cost of risk there? And if so, why? And then you mentioned the operational risk impact in Q4. I mean, would it be reasonable to assume that it could be up to 20 basis points or do you expect something less than that? Thank you.

I will answer the consumer credit exposure. This is a very small book. It's like around 1.3 billion. Not all of it is being the risk, you know, the risking. The reason mainly here is not the cost of risk. It's an ROE question. So basically we think there are better businesses where we can allocate our capital, and this is why we have decided to reduce our exposure in this book.

Good morning, Britta. Regarding the operational risk, of course, we don't know the figure right now. As you know, the rules have also changed with Basel IV, so it's probably a little bit ambition for me to give you a good estimation. But it could be somewhere between 10 and 30, so probably your 20 might be in the middle.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Hugo Cruz from KBW. Hugo, please go ahead.

Hello. I thank you for the time. I wanted to ask you about fee growth, if you could give a bit more guidance. I think before your guidance didn't issue many performance fees, which you had a lot of them in Q4. So, you know, the new guidance of double-digit growth, does that include performance fees as well or not? And the second question on the cost of risk, you've improved your guidance a few times this year. The guidance for this year is below what you did in the previous two years. And then if we have a bit of slowdown in rising mortgages, does that mean the cost of risk next year could be higher than this year? Your thoughts on that would be very helpful. Thank you.

Good morning, Hugo. Regarding the fee growth, I think we – up as today, we are already at the two – double-digit growth. So just basically we do expect to continue growing at the similar path that we've done in the past quarters. We don't know yet if there's going to be any success fee. That's why we are not included in those estimations because, honestly, we don't know it yet. Regarding cost of risk, I think what we mentioned is that we are expecting to end the year with a cost of risk below 35 basis points. We are currently around 33 basis points, as we share in the presentation. We don't think that next year is going to be a higher figure. There is no reason why we should say that because what we're seeing is that there is quite stable situation. So we are very comfortable with current situation of cost and risk. We are not perceiving any changes in the levels of delinquency, etc. And in fact, as Gloria was mentioning, we are reducing the exposure to some businesses with higher level of risk. So for next year, we do not expect an increase in the estimation of cost of risk.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Fernando Gil de Santivanes from Intensa. Fernando, please go ahead.

Hello, thank you for taking my questions. Two quick follow-ups, please. Regarding fees, I mean, there has been one transaction in Q3 regarding the renewables, similar to the one you did in the past, but you have not accounted it in Q3. Can you please guide us when this transaction and if there is any potential positive one-off coming in Q4? And if that included any guidance, this is one. The second one is on costs. In the second quarter, you have the headcount down marginally, but down. Has this anything to do with the growth profile that you have been flagging during this call? Thank you very much.

I will answer the fees yes this quarter we have made a transaction the sale of a portfolio of renewables and we have not accounted for the success fees of this transaction so far because obviously the contract has to the contract has to how to We have to close the contract, exactly. So anyway, the fees that we're talking about are not material. It will be less than 10 million euros or even a bit less. So it is not something that is going to move the arrow. With respect to costs and the headcount, We are reducing the headcount in Spain. We are doing that for several reasons. The first is that we are investing quite heavily in artificial intelligence, and this is allowing us not to replace the employees that go from the bank, either voluntarily or voluntarily mainly. And I remind you that we have absorbed Evo Banco this year, and this means that we have 200 more employees in Bank Inter Spain, and that was enough to absorb the growth needed in the headcount for the year. But anyway, I think that with respect to the headcounts, you can expect the headcount in Spain to remain very stable next year or even to reduce a little bit because of all these investments we are making in artificial intelligence.

Thank you. That ends our Q&A session. We'd like to thank you on behalf of the entire Bonkinder team, and Felipe and I will be there to support you for any questions post the webcast. Thank you all, and have a wonderful day.