Bankinter Sa Reg Shs

Good morning, and thank you for joining our 2025 Full Year Earnings Call. Financial statements were posted with market authorities early this morning. All materials can also be found on our corporate website. Please refer to the disclaimer in the presentation and note that this call is being recorded. And we welcome today our Chief Executive Officer, Gloria Ortiz, and Chief Financial Officer, Jacobo Diaz. Gloria, over to you, please.

Thank you, Laurie, and thank you all for joining us in this 2025 full-year results presentation. Since we are reporting the full year, I believe it's appropriate to start with a brief overview of the environment in which our business has operated to provide context for the figures that we are about to review. 2025 was the year of Donald Trump's return to the White House, an event that has set the political tempo of the international calendar. Continuing the trend of previous years, the events in 2025 confirmed that the international landscape is moving towards an increasingly turbulent and fragmented scenario. Long-standing conflicts such as Ukraine remain unresolved despite failed attempts to reach an end to the war. In Gaza, the ceasefire came only after months of escalating violence. Meanwhile, the Franco-German axis, the traditional engine of the European Union, has been weakened by deep domestic political crisis. Without a doubt, tariff has been the most repeated word of the year. The imposition of tariffs on international trade has become the main diplomatic pressure tool of the Trump administration. The European Union, which for years has been a strategic partner of the United States, ultimately conceded in trade negotiations and accepted a 15% tariff to maintain access to the U.S. markets. Thus, the balance of 2025 confirms an international landscape that is increasingly fragmented and less predictable, where open conflicts tend to become chronic and long-lasting political solutions are replaced by fragile trusses or unbalanced agreements. And indeed, what we have been observing in these first weeks of 2026, for example, in Venezuela or in the U.S. stands on Greenland, amongst others, confirms that this year will again be marked by geopolitical volatility just as 2025 was. At the same time, technology led by artificial intelligence continues to advance at a blistering pace, transforming operating and business models. And the banking sector is undoubtedly no exception. These are global trends shaping the broader environment, but if we focus on the countries in which we operate, it is worth noting that the three economies, Spain, Portugal and Ireland, are among the most dynamic in the Eurozone and have become the new growth locomotives of the Union. In fact, in the Eurozone in 2025, inflation, which had surged sharply after the pandemic and the Ukraine war, moderated, and as a result, the ECB accelerated interest rate cuts, especially during the first half of the year. With inflation under control at the European Central Bank's target level, benchmark rates stabilised at 2% and no further cuts are expected in the short term. As a result, in 2025, the ECB reference rate averaged 2.2%, that is 1.4% each point lower than in 2024, while the 12-month Euribor fell by an average of 1.05%. Turning to financial markets, it's notable that despite escalating conflict and increased political polarization, market performance remained robust. The EBIT35 achieved a record increase of 50%, German equities rose by 23%, and the NASDAQ advanced by 19%. In this environment of geopolitical uncertainty and significantly lower interest rates compared to the previous year, we have delivered in 2025 very strong results, once again record-breaking. These results are built on solid foundations and driven by recurring client commercial activity. Moreover, in 2025, we executed major strategic projects that will underpin the bank's future growth, such as the integration of EvoBanco and AvanMoney, which is now Bank Inter Ireland, a branch of Bank Inter just like Portugal. Of course, before moving on, I want to express my thanks to all Bank Inter Group employees for the dedication, effort, and commitment, because they are the true architects of the results that we present today. The results we present today are very satisfactory, driven by intense commercial activity that brings us to report a net profit of 1,090 million euros in 2025, representing 14% growth over the previous year. 2025 was marked by diversified growth, both geographically and by business line, Overall, we grew 9% in total business volume, 5% in lending, 6% in customer funds, and delivered a strong double-digit growth, 19% in our balance sheet products. Despite the sharp decline in interest rates, we managed to limit the falling interest income to 1.8% in 2025, and on a year-over-year basis, the inflection point was reached in the first quarter. From that point onward, net interest income grew quarter after quarter thanks to predictable growth and margin management. Customer spreads averaged 2.68% for the year, with the overall NIM at 1.78%. Fee income from services had an exceptional year, growing 11%, which in nominal terms almost doubled the reduction in interest income. This allowed us to grow gross margin by 5%. And I think it is important to note that the strong performance in fee income is due to the significant growth in our balance sheet funds and not to any increases in customer fees. All this growth has been achieved while keeping our risk appetite unchanged, improving the asset quality of our balance sheet, reflected in a non-performance loan ratio below 2%, specifically 1.94%. Another key element of our business model is efficiency at 36%, indeed the best efficiency level across the industry. These three pilots, diversified growth, asset quality, and efficiency, are the foundation of our business profitability, which reached a ROT of 20%. As I have been commenting in previous quarters, commercial activity with clients has been very strong. Total customer business volume stands at €241 billion, €20 billion more than in 2024, representing 9% growth in the year, or a compound annual growth rate of 8%, an increase of €80 billion since 2020. This volume breaks down into $84 billion in lending, representing 5% growth versus 2024 year-end. Customer funds reached $88 billion, $5 billion more than a year ago, and we now manage $69 billion in assets under management, 19% more than at the end of 2024. We have more than doubled the balance recorded at the end of 2020 with a compound annual growth rate of 17%. All this growth is organic and diversified with every geography contributing and outperforming the market. Our diversified customer business volume growth is what enables us to consistently strengthen revenue streams. Core revenue fees and interest income reached $3,032 billion, a compound annual growth rate of 12% and a record for the series exceeding 2024 by 1% despite the headwind of lower interest rates. We achieved this by limiting the decline in interest income to 1.8% through volume and margin management, and through the excellent performance of fee income, which, with an 11% growth rate, more than offset the reduction in net interest income. The drivers of the income are the strong growth in off-balance sheet funds, the increasing activity of Bank Inter investment across all its business lines, and the positive performance of the economies in which we operate. Regarding interest income, I would like to highlight its upward trend throughout the year. It bottomed out in the first quarter of 2025, and from that point on, revenues increased quarter after quarter. By the fourth quarter, we already grew on a year-on-year basis by 4%. So the outlook continues to be more positive, especially with the forward rate current scenario for 2026. In summary, sustained growth, asset quality, and efficiency are what allows us, once again, to deliver results that surpass our own records, exceeding 1 billion and representing 14% growth versus 2024, tripling our results over a five-year period. Our ROTI now at 20% is also the highest in the entire series. Before I hand over to Jacobo to review in further detail the financial results, I wanted to quickly showcase one commercial strategy that was quite successful in 2025. In 2025, the 100% digital new client acquisition is what I'm referring to. Since the AIBO integration, we have improved our digital customer experience with the use of AI in commercial and marketing processes. Our deposit gathering capabilities are now stronger, more granular, and flexible. We increased customer funds in this channel by 64% in the year, now reaching 12 billion euros, close to 14% of our total customer deposit base. New customer acquisition trends have doubled since 2022 and the digital channel now represents more than half of the new client acquisition in 2025. From an industry perspective, our digital offering not only allows us to compete effectively with new entrants, but gives us a clear competitive advantage. Customers benefit from a full multi-channel ecosystem, digital branches, contact center, and also private banking network, which enhances loyalty and broadens upsell opportunities. In the second half of 2025, the strong growth of this channel generated some short-term pressure on deposit cost. However, looking ahead, our digital strategy and strengthened deposit gathering capabilities create meaningful upside supported by lower acquisition and servicing costs. Overall, our digital franchise has become a scalable and cost-efficient acquisition engine that strengthens loyalty, supports margin resilience, and accelerates fee growth, a competitive mode that becomes more powerful each quarter. Jacobo, now over to you.

Thank you very much, Gloria, and good morning, everybody. 2025 marks yet another year of increased revenues and profitability. In operating income, we have grown by 5% with increased volumes, continued strong fee growth, and effective margin management. Operating costs were more balanced this year over the quarters, with annual cost growth growing below revenue growth to end the year with guidance confirming positive operating views another year. Cost of risk and related provisions declined by more than 15%, reflecting a continued positive trend in risk management. A net profit increased by 14.4% to well surpass our initial goal of 1 billion euros in 2025. Onto NII and customer margins. On the next page, NII contributed to 2,237 million euros this year, slightly below our initial target. Asset yields for the year averaged 365 basis points and remained quite stable this quarter at 3.48%, down only one basis point from the third quarter, given the good volume growth, especially in corporate and uptick in short-term interest rate. This helps soften the impact of a slight increase of three BIPs in quarterly deposit costs due to the same uptick in short-term rates as well as the successful commercial strategy that Gloria just mentioned regarding digital account deposit gathering. Customer margins for the year averaged 268 basis points, very near to our 270 longer-term target. We believe Q4-25 marked a low point as the downward repricing of digital accounts deposit is underway in Q1-26. Therefore, we expect customer margins to recover moving forward. NIM averaged 178 basis points for the year, as the non-customer interest income improved in the quarter, leading to an increase of NIM of 4 basis points in Q4. Regarding the ALCO portfolio, this has been achieved through increased ALCO balances that you can see on page 13, as well as reduced wholesale funding costs. Moving on to fees. Fees continue to deliver sequential increases each year, reaching 795 million euros, up 11% versus 24, reaching a double-digit compound annual growth rate of 10%. This sustained growth momentum is mainly attributed to the strong growth volume, or strong volume growth in asset management, custody, and brokerage services. Moving on to page 15. Equity method and trading dividend income lines also up with an impressive 21% on a year-on-year basis. The diversification of sources of revenue is well represented here as a result of our business investment in the past. For example, Bank Inter investment that we will look later in the presentation, insurance JVs, as well with our JV Portugal with Sonai called Universal. We also confirm the banking tax will have no impact in 2025 and expect this to be the case for 26 and 27. Moving into the contribution of gross operating income. There's been a very strong contribution from each geography in gross operating income, demonstrating increased diversification, with Portugal and Ireland growing from an 11% contribution to gross income in 22 up to 16% in 25. Moving to the expenses on page 17, we have contained total operating cost growth to 4%, notably with flat general expenses due to the tangible impact we are achieving through our IT and AI initiatives, as well as with the Evo integration. Efficiency ratio improved to 36.1% this year, demonstrating our commitment to delivering positive operating jobs now and in the future. On page 18, PPP more than doubled over a five-year period to reach €1,947 million in 2025. Moving on, we see improvement in credit and other provisions. Significant decrease in cost of risk down to 33 basis points from 39 basis points in 2024, with loan loss provision volumes now below those even of the ones in 2023. Other provisions also performing well, down to 8 basis points for the year. With no signs of deteriorations in the market in our portfolio and our disciplined approach to risk management, we remain optimistic to maintain current levels for the coming quarters with potentially some upside risk. Next page, net profit reached, once again, historical levels at 1,090 million euros, an exceptional increase of 14.4% in the year, maintaining similar growth rates seen in 24, even with the headwinds faced in interest rate during the year. Moving into the credit and asset quality indicators, as you can see, they continue to improve. Risk quality, measured in terms of the non-performing low ratio, has improved significantly this year, breaking below 2% to reach 1.94%. The coverage ratio remains very solid at 68%, substantially higher than in 2020. By geographies, Spain down to 2.1%, Portugal at 1.4%, and Ireland stable 0.3%, all well below sector average consistently over time. Moving into capital, our Z1 ratio ended the year at 12.72%, and well above the minimum requirements of 8.36%, leaving an ample capital buffer of 4.4%, as well as adequate MREL and leverage ratios. Main movements in the year related to retained earnings contributing to a total of 111 basis points. Capital consumption on 51 basis points in RWAs and 35 basis points in operational and market risk. The implementation of the counter-cyclical buffer in Spain has resulted in a 41 basis point increase in minimum requirements. Moving into page 24, commercial activity, volumes, and profit trends remain not only strong, but with a greater diversification each year across geographies. Customer volumes up 8% in Spain, 15% in Portugal, and 23% in Ireland. Each region contributed at increasing levels to the profit of the bank, as well we see on the following slide. Within Spain, loan growth this year up 3%, with a strong performance in the business lending segment, growing 6%. I consider this satisfactory growth rate, especially when considering the intense competitive margin dynamics in Spain, as well as a reduced appetite for open market consumer lending in Spain in 2025. Retail deposits continue to demonstrate solid and balanced growth, increasing by 5% fueled by the successful digital campaigns we mentioned a little bit earlier. Stellar performance in wealth management, reflected by an 18% increase in assets under management balances, as well as a 19% increase in assets under custody. Profit before tax up 14%, reflecting solid contribution from our core Spanish business. Moving into Portugal, a continued momentum in lending activity across both business segments, up 9% in total with a strong deposit gathering growing 8%, as well as a substantial increase in wealth management and custody balances, rising 28% on a year-on-year basis. Cost-to-income ratio at a very efficient low level of 33%, even with increased investment in IT. Profit before tax up 7% to €210 million, or 14% of total contribution to the group. Moving into Ireland, 2025 marked the year for our Irish business to convert into a branch of Bank Inter, allowing for increased upside risk in terms of volume potential and efficiencies. We launched deposit in Q4, albeit with volume still at marginal levels. Definitively more to come in this space during 2026 as we begin to scale up deposit campaigns this quarter. Asset market dynamics and urban kinter-style commercial differentiation supported a 27% growth rate in the mortgage book in 2025, with improved trends seen in the second half of the year. Consumer finance also growing at 11%. Profit before tax contribution reaching 46 million euros, up 13% this year, with important improvements in the cost-to-income ratio, down to 44% from 48% last year. Now moving into the corporate and SME banking business. Business lending continues to deliver a strong performance, up 6% this year, consistently increasing market share year after year. One key growth catalyst continues to be our international business segment that has doubled loan volumes over a five-year period, now reaching €11 billion, representing 30% of the business lending book currently. This segment is also a strong recurring contributor to fee income from services. We also see increased activity and upside risk from other growth catalysts, like our new ESG client solution across loan and servicing income products. For example, the loan advances we provide for energy certificates, where we were the first to launch in the market in 2025. Additionally, we are expanding substantially our Bank Inter investment business that I will detail more in the next couple of slides. Bankinter Investment has doubled income contribution to the group over the past five years, with currently 31 alternative investment vehicles and associated vintages well distributed over the years since 2017. More than 15,000 Iberian Bankinter customers now invest in real assets. This franchise has been a key source for increased fee income to the group, reaching a 12% compound annual growth rate with upside risk potential for the future. On the next page, you can see the strong diversification of the different investment strategy for the vehicles across many sectors and countries, with more than 360 different underlying assets in the portfolio. Moving on now to review the retail banking business. Retail banking asset and deposit trends remain strong, with increased core salary account balances up by 7%. New mortgage origination up 10% year-on-year, with solid market shares of new production across Spain, Portugal, and Ireland. Our mortgage back book is growing steadily at 5% annually, despite rising competition in 2025. The wealth management business, on page 32, shows our high-quality, affluent client base that continues to drive exceptional incremental wealth volumes, up 21 billion euros this year, a 16% increase on a year-on-year basis, of which half of it is new money to the bank. When excluding the market effect, the net new money has reached the 10 billion euro level milestone, well above our historical range between 5 to 7 billion. Of balance sheet volumes under management and custody on page 33, ended the year at 156 billion euros, up 25 billion or 19%, increasing significantly with the markets and net inflows in all categories. With exception of fixed income security, we have provided additional details regarding commercial activity and trends for those key fee income growth catalysts in the annex, no doubt a key driver here. of continued fee growth for the future. Now let me just spend a couple minutes sharing our ambitions and targets for 2026 before I hand back to Gloria. We expect, first one, we expect solid macro outlook for all the regions where we are operating. Therefore, we expect growth across all segments and geographies, focus on our targeted type of customer, and ensuring a disciplined risk-return approach for asset origination. Volumes are expected to grow at similar levels than in 2025 and previous years. This means that lending volumes at mill single-digit growth, with deposit volumes targeting to keep our liquidity ratio stable, that is, above 100% in terms of deposit-to-loan or below 100% in terms of loan-to-deposit. All geographies and business segments are expected to grow at similar levels, with Portugal and Ireland keeping their successful track record and Spain keeping strong volumes in the corporate and retail businesses. Regarding NAI, with the current arrival 12-month rate outlook in 26 stable around current levels or slightly increasing towards the end of the year and following years, we expect customer average margin to recover 270 bps, our initial target, and therefore we target in 2026 overall similar levels of client margins and NIM that the ones we saw in 2025. With residual negative repricing for mortgages and a downward repricing of our digital accounts in Q1, we expect minimal margin compression in the first half of 26 with an upset bias to possibly reach stable asset yields by the end of Q1 and beginning of Q2. Given these dynamics, we would expect NII for the entire 2026 to increase in correlation with volume growth. For fee growth, we target high single digits for the year, supported by increasing volumes from assets under management and assets under custody, as well as from increased transactionality from each of the geographies, which are strongly correlated with the economic growth of each of them. With our strict cost allocation and management, while keeping strong IT investment around 10% of our gross income, efficiency remains one of our pillars, our main pillars, and we are committed to delivering positive operating jobs again in 2026, reducing cost to income levels below 35% for the year. In terms of credit quality, we have a stable outlook for cost of risk for the year around current levels of 33 basis points, albeit with a positive bias. And ROTI is expected to stay above 20%, ensuring attractive shareholder value creation. In summary, we expect 2026 to be another year of consistent growth in volumes and profitability, reaching new records in volumes, gross income, efficiency, net income, and of course profitability. Gloria, back to you, please.

Thank you, Jacobo. Thank you for sharing our financial ambitions. In terms of our management priorities, all of these are well integrated and will contribute to our financial goals. With high quality volume growth, a greater diversification of income from servicing fees and geographies. We will continue to invest in technology to achieve tangible benefits from our AI initiatives, driving both competitive differentiation and operational efficiencies. The outcome will undoubtedly result in a strong profitability and sustained improvement in shareholder returns. The key driver for this success centers around our clients and our employees. 2025 is a pivotal year for artificial intelligence and we are committed to embedding AI tools and culture throughout the group. I will oversee project selection to ensure we achieve tangible results. Our program called AI First is designed to enhance our competitive advantage by integrating AI into all our customer-facing acquisition and service applications. We are committed to deploying personal productivity tools company-wide, aiming to achieve 5% improvement in productivity over the medium term. Regarding process efficiency, ongoing initiatives across back, middle, and front office focus on integrating AI gen applications into our banking operations. Coupled with leveraging AI tools for software development, we anticipate a 10% increase in capacity equivalent to approximately 1 million hours over the next few years. However, AI for Bank Inter is not just a plan. It is a reality with substantial progress achieved in 2025. On page 37, you can see the measurable improvements in productivity and efficiency thanks to the bank's digital transformation and the pragmatic and effective use of artificial intelligence in operational and commercial processes. We remain committed to investing 10% of our gross income in technology. On the lower left-hand side of the page, we have highlighted several examples of our use of AI in 2025, which have contributed to enhanced employee productivity. With $36 million managed per employee, we compare very favorably to our peers with $21 million per employee. And if we measure efficiency in terms of operating cost per billion managed, we also stand out. We allocate $4.6 million of expenses per $1 billion managed for our clients, while our competitors require $6.5 million for the same volume. Naturally, this is reflected in the efficiency ratio, which has improved year after year and now stands at 36%. Finally, I would like to highlight that all these gains in efficiency and productivity are not being achieved at the expense of service quality. In fact, service quality measured in MPS has improved by nearly 10 points since 2020 and now stands at 51%. Turning to the financial page, the final page of our presentation, we report a roti of 20%, 100 pips out of 2024, together with continued value creation for shareholders through both dividends and growth in book value. We are presenting another year of historical results driven by recurring customer activity and the disciplined execution of a long-term strategy that preserves our risk appetite while strengthening the balance sheet as reflected in the ongoing improvement of our NPL ratio. We continue to invest in initiatives that support business growth while at the same time improving efficiency. The drivers behind our performance, diversified growth, disciplined pricing, strong free income engines, and best in-class efficiency are structural and provide strong visibility into continued profitable growth. In conclusion, 2025 demonstrated the resilience and strength of our business model even in a year of declining rates, geopolitical volatility, and intense competition. Bank Inter expanded volumes, protected margins, and delivered record profitability. It was not just a record year, but a clear demonstration of the strength of our franchise, the quality of our growth, and our ability to generate attractive returns and create long-term value for our shareholders. Back to you, Laurie.

Thank you, Gloria, and thank you, Jacobo. We'll now open up for questions. As a reminder, please press star 5 on your phone to submit a question, and please limit your questions to two. Our first caller is Max Mission from JB Capital. Max, please go ahead.

Hello, good morning. Thank you very much for the presentation and taking our questions. Two questions from my side. The first one is on the competitive environment in lending in Spain. Your retail book is growing below the sector and my question is whether it is intentional, why and when can this change? And the second question is just a clarification on the cost of risk guidance. You mentioned upside risks. What has to happen for them to materialize and what kind of upside risk are we talking about? Could you please quantify them a bit more? Thank you.

Thank you. I will answer you the first question regarding competitive environment in Spain. I actually, I think I pointed it out last quarter. We are seeing some irrational behaviors, particularly in the mortgage business, although also in other segments. But mainly, I would say, in the mortgage business. And you will understand it very, very quickly. I mean, there are offers, and I'm not talking to private banking clients. I'm talking to very standard clients where they can get a 30-year mortgage at 220 for 30 years fixed. I'm talking... And as you know, you know, the swap, the swap curve for the 30-year is over 3%. So, basically, it's like selling a mortgage with, you know, your Ivor minus 80 or even more. That is absolutely irrational because even if that rate has a positive margin this year, obviously you are building a portfolio that is not sustainable. And in 30 years, rates can do many things. We are not into that war. We are not going to sell mortgages at 220 because we want to build a sustainable portfolio in any environment. Well, probably not in any environment, but in most of the environments. and we are not going to enter in that war. So we are producing with our clients, and we are competing in those clients where we think they deserve better rates. But we are not going to enter in that war.

Hi, good morning. Max, this is Jacobo. I'm going to answer your second question, and maybe there's a misunderstanding. The cost of risk that we're expecting for 26 is quite similar to the current levels that we've seen here at the end of the year, which is around 30 bips, 33 basis points. I think the word upside risk means it's meant in a positive way. That means that it could be even a little bit lower, not a little bit higher. So it's a way we can interpret that word. I think we think that we are under a good macro outlook for Spain, Portugal, and Ireland. As you know, we are reducing our exposure to the consumer finance business with non-banking client. We are reinforcing of being more prudent in in all our activity. So the sense of the sentence that I mentioned of the upside risk doesn't mean this might go up in terms of cost of risk. I was trying to say that it can be even better that the current levels of cost of risk. I hope that I have clarified my point, and I expect that this was your question.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Francisco Riquel in Alhambra. Francisco, please go ahead.

Yes, thank you. So my first question is I wanted to ask about your guidance of mid-single-digit growth in loans. If you can please share indications by country. It seems to me that your guidance could be conservative if just the sector in Spain grows, say, 4%, 5% in 2026. which is nominal GDP growth. So you have grown a bit less than the sector in Spain. You were commenting that. So I wonder if you are willing to continue losing market share, particularly in retail mortgages in 26, or if we could have upside risk to your volume guidance overall. And then my second question is regarding the guidance for cost inflation. So you have given cost to income reducing 1% to H points, which means 2% to H points cost inflation below revenue growth, meaning also cost inflation lower than in 2025. But you need to invest in Ireland to become a full universal bank, also in Portugal. So that probably means very little cost inflation in Spain. So if you can please elaborate on that. on the cost guidance, the longer-term ambitions that you have presented for 2030. How do you plan to leverage on technology to achieve that? I see other banks are still investing in technology. So if you can please elaborate. Thank you.

Thank you, Paco, for your question. I will try to answer the last question and maybe give some indications about the first one, but Jacobo will complete what I say. Okay, with respect to costs, obviously technology is going to help, but it's not a miracle. So we are not going to attain, obviously, all that efficiency only with technology. I remind you that last year we integrated Evobanco. This year, 2025, we only had synergies for the half of the year. Next year we will have the synergies of this operation. for the full year. On the other hand, we just announced, I think in December, that we were absorbing consumer finance, Bank Inter consumer finance into Bank Inter. And obviously, this means a simplification of the corporate structure that also brings some synergies. So it's a question of the traditional cost management technology and also all the simplification that we are undergoing in the corporate structure. And with respect to lending growth, listen, if the competitive dynamics continue to be in the mortgages, in retail mortgages, the ones that we have seen during 2025, We are happy to be prudent and not to grow at the same pace as the market grows. But I hope, because it doesn't make any sense, that the market reacts and that we come back to a logic dynamic in pricing. Another thing where we are also reducing our growth rates is in everything that has to do with consumer credit in the open market. This means outside Bank Inter clients in Spain, because we are seeing already, as you know, there have been many announcements with regard to... With regard to the new law, and, well, there are a lot of problems in this, I would say a lot of compliance risks in this business. You want to compliment?

No? Hi, Paco. Good morning. No, no, I think in addition to, I mean, basically what Gloria is trying to say is that we are sticking to the same type of client or target of client that we've been sticking in the past. even with this exclusion of the consumer finance business in the open market activity. So this is one of the reasons. We are targeting selective origination of lending. And even though we are able to keep the similar level of growth, even if the market might grow a little bit more. But we... prefer and we prioritize a good return and risk combination instead of volumes. Ireland is going to grow again quite strongly in double-digit. Portugal is going to grow again strongly in double-digit. And Spain behavior is going to be very positive. But always we are prioritizing the combination of risk and return.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Martha Sanchez from JP Morgan. Martha, please go ahead.

Thank you very much for taking my question. The first one is a follow-up on cost. So you were mentioning a commitment to positive jobs every year. you're going to be below 35% cost of income. What do you think is the right level to run the bank? Do you see a 1% positive progress every year for the next three to five years? And the second question is on the customer spread. You are committed to that 270 basis points. This quarter, we're a bit far from that level, 261. How are you going to be rebuilding that? that margin and what is the outlook for net inflows into your digital account for next year? Thank you.

Good morning, Marta. I'm going to start answering your second question about the customer spread. So Gloria has already mentioned that we are updating the cost of the digital accounts. This is going to be a good behavior in the first quarter of this year, and this is going to instantly increase. recover part of the client margin, again, targeting the 270 in average that we've mentioned for the entire year. So for the year, I mean, the cost of deposits are the ones that we will respect more contribution to this building up the 270. loan spread that have ended the year at 3.48% in the last quarter also is intended to recover across the year. We expect or there is expectation of a steepened yield curve that will provide more upside in the second half of the year than in the first one, especially with mortgages. So we do expect that The contribution of the YASL yield might be a little bit lower to recover that position, so maybe a couple of bips in average. But definitely the cost of deposit is the one that will drive the majority of the building up of these 270s across the year. And in terms of cost, yes, I think 1%. always is very difficult to tell if it's one or one point something point every year. But definitely the message of Gloria is that we have a strong ambition to reach very low levels of efficiency. We think that we should aim to reach 30% not too far ago. This is where we want to be in terms of efficiency ratio. And this is something that we want to build in the next three, four years maybe.

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

Thanks very much for the presentation and for taking my questions. I have two questions. The first one is on fees, looking to insurance fees and distribution fees related to insurance products. I just wanted to see if there could be any acceleration of that into 2026. if there is chances to rethink about the JVs that you had in an online business, what would be the strategy in the insurance business? And the second question is, on the capital front in the quarter, there has been like 19 basis points positive effect from intangibles and other adjustments. If you could elaborate a bit, what was the driver of that?

Thank you. Hello, Ignacio. I will try to answer your first question. As you know, we have a JV with MAFRE in life insurance, but also in non-life, in all segments, but auto and home insurance. In home insurance, we are growing very nicely, actually, and also in life insurance. But where we think that we could grow more is in all the other segments that are outside life and home insurance. And, yes, we are working. We are working with MAFRE to see how we can give a greater push to this business. But we have no plans for the moment to make any changes in the JVs that we have. But as I mentioned, we are working with MAFRE to see how to improve this 7% growth rate.

I'll answer your questions. Yes, I mean, at the end of the year, we reduce the deduction of intangibles just because all the IT assets that have been developed come into production in these four quarters. Therefore, we reduce the deduction as intangible, and then we start the amortization of these IT assets.

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

Thank you for taking my question. I had a first question on the potential uses of the excess capital that you're expected to generate going forward. So beyond organic growth in existing markets, how do you envision to use this excess capital? And I know, Gloria, has already commented on this last quarter, but you continue to be linked to a potential transaction in Ireland. What is kind of your latest thinking there? And given the outlook more generally for the bank, have you discussed plans to change the ordinary payout going forward? Then it's more of a – my second question is a follow-up on the corporate structure and simplification point in consumer finance that you have already discussed. but I wanted to invite you to comment on the revenue opportunity from this change. Payments and collection services is already a large contributor to fee income for the bank, but it seems that the revenue growth there has been decelerating a little bit over recent years. So can you just please provide a bit more color on how the change you have announced can contribute to revenue growth going forward? Thank you.

Thank you, Pablo, with respect to Bank Inter Consumer Finance. And you are talking more about the payments, you know, the new payments area, I suppose, that we announced at the end of the year. We have done this. Well, first, payment income is not growing so strong because, you know, the – The regulation with regard to payments, for instance, instant payments, well, is such that has an activity that was fee-generating but has become an activity where you're charged no fees at all. So that has had an impact this year. It won't have an impact next year because, obviously, we are already comparing equal things. But with respect to payments... We have started a strategic thinking about this because this is an area that is really being transformed by technology with everything that has to do with stable coins, digital euro, with requests to pay in the transactions between businesses. And we need to have... We need to have a strategy and a value proposition. We need to understand what will be value creating in the future, what is just a bluff, as we say, because there is a lot of noise and we have to take the noise out of the room. I think payments can be... There is a side of the strategy that is going to be, you know, protecting our business, and the other one is going to be how can I make my business grow more. For the moment, I cannot tell you anything because we are working on the strategy, as I mentioned, but I'm sure that we will have some news in the next quarter or maybe in June. With respect to capital, well, Well, you know, we are not changing. We are not going to change our dividend policy just because we have 30 basis points more capital than our objective level. And we are not building up capital for any reason. for any purchase in Ireland. I mean, I've mentioned already we have, you know, our strategy there is organic growth. We are building a bank from scratch, and that is what we are going to do. We are not looking at PTSD, and I don't know. I cannot be any clearer here. So I think I've answered, Pablo. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Our next question comes from Borja Ramirez from Citi. Borja, please go ahead.

Hello and good morning. Thank you very much for taking my questions. I have two questions. Firstly, is on Ireland, I would like to ask if given the the ongoing sale of PTSD, if this is an opportunity for you to gain market share organically in the country. And then my second question would be if you could kindly provide the average cost of your digital accounts, which I think was 1.6% in Q3, and also the average duration of this, please.

Okay, Borja, I will answer you with regard to Ireland. Well, as I've mentioned, we are not interested in acquiring any operations in Ireland, but obviously, as I always say, when there is a corporate transaction, there is noise, you know, there is noise, and this is always an opportunity for the other established banks or companies in the country. We have seen that in the past in Spain, and I'm sure that that will be the same in Ireland. So yes, this could be obviously an opportunity to acquire clients there. And I pass the second question to Jacobo.

Hi, Borja. Good morning. Yes, the current average cost is 20 bps lower than I think you mentioned the 1.6. So now we are at 1.4 more or less. Thank you. Thank you.

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

Yes. Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. So the first one would actually be on... Sorry. The first one would actually be on fees. In this quarter, in the other fees caption, you have a substantial increase, quarter on quarter, year on year. I'm guessing that this relates to the roughly 10 million success fee on a transaction that you had mentioned in the previous quarter. I'm just wondering whether you see scope for similar fees of this nature in 2026 and whether the high single digit guidance that you conveyed is on the reported fee income or adjusted for that specific item. Then on, well, you mentioned you expect priority to be above 20%. What type of net profit income and growth for you expect for 2026? Should we think about the low digits or below that? Thank you.

Hi, good morning, Carlos. Regarding the guidance on fees that we mentioned, it includes. I mean, we are considering the total fees of 2025, and then our guidance is on the top of it. So we are not excluding these one-off fees because the volume is not huge or it's not really relevant. for the entire year. So we are not considering, I mean, it's like it was usual via you. And regarding the net income, I think we've provided enough guidance to provide you an idea of this increase. I mean, the level of efficiency is going to improve. Cost of risk is going to stay or even can perform a little bit even better. So yes, as you can imagine, the net income is going to grow. And again, it's going to be a new record year.

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

Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. One is a follow-up from Martha's question on the digital account growth. So how much of your mid-single-digit deposit growth is explained this year by digital accounts? And the second one, I think, Jacobo, you mentioned that you're not expecting any impact from the banking tax in 26 and 7. So is that coming constrained to those two years? And that means that 28 hours you're going to start booking the levy actually in the P&L, or do you just want to constrain the comments actually to the next two years?

Hello, Ignacio. I will answer you the second one. Actually, the banking tax is a temporary tax, so it is not expected to go beyond 28. Obviously, that is what I can say today. I don't know if they will again extend this tax. So it is temporary. And with the figures we have in hand, we think that it will be zero or absolutely immaterial because we have a cash tax rate that is very high and that absorbs very comfortably the figure that comes out from the theoretical banking tax. And I'll pass back to Jacobo for the first question.

Yes. Good morning, Matthew. I think the digital accounts have played a relevant role in 2025. But again, it's a combination of many things because the level of term deposits has gone down, which is very important. Treasury accounts has also had very good behavior because our business or the growth in our corporate business banking business has also been very, very positive. And, of course, digital accounts had quite relevance, but it's not the only catalyst of the growth of deposits during 2025. We've been able to attract the deposits, and afterwards we've been able to convert into assets under management that have brought a lot of fees. Digital accounts are very important in our commercial strategy. That's what can I tell you, but it's not the only thing that we have. We have salary accounts that also have a very good behavior. So it's important, but it's not the only driver of growth in our deposit base.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Sophie Pettersons from Goldman Sachs. Sophie, please go ahead.

Thank you very much for taking my question. Here is Sophie from Goldman Sachs. So just going back to the digital accounts, we have seen almost a tenfold increase in digital accounts. Could you give us the split of the digital client acquisition by country? So how much is coming from Spain, how much from Portugal, and how much is coming from Ireland? And then my second question would be on the fee income side. When we look at the fee growth in Q4, which was very strong, we see a lot of the increase actually came from other fees. I believe around 17 million quarter and quarter, which is almost a doubling quarter and quarter of this fee line. Could you just elaborate what that other fee income line includes? Thank you.

Hello, Sophie. I will answer the first one. Almost 100% of the client acquisition with digital accounts is Spanish. It comes from Spanish clients. We have actually acquired digitally in Spain around 130,000 new clients. and we have attracted around five billion euros of new money from these clients. This has allowed us to do something which is actually not be, not have, you know, we have made, changed these deposits with corporate deposits that were even more expensive. So actually we prefer to pay an acquisition cost to acquire clients where we can cross-sell and make more money. than to our corporate clients for the treasury excesses. We want the operative accounts from our corporate clients, which are much lower cost. But just to give you an idea, we have already cross-sell to these clients. It's very, very early to say, but we have already cross-sell payroll accounts, we have cross-sell lending, and we have cross-sell investment products. We are at around a 7% cross-sell. But another thing that I want to say is that around 10% to 15% of these clients that we have acquired are in the maximum level of the digital account, which is 100,000 clients. And this means they are probably more in the affluent segment or the private banking segment. And we are going to concentrate on those clients where we see potential to develop them. Actually, we are doing some tests to see in which area of the bank, whether it is the branch area, whether it is the telephonic managers or whether it is digitally that we can actually develop these clients. And for the moment, we are having quite good results. I will pass you through to Jacobo to answer you the fee income question.

Hi. Good morning, Sofía. Yeah, I mean, the fee, we have recorded the 10 million euros of success fee of alternative investment funds in that line. That's why you see in the other fees that amount. I must say that the alternative investment funds activity is performing very well. You've seen also that in the line of the equity method, we have recorded very good results, and I believe this is something that is going to be sustainable over time. We have 31 vehicles. We have good average fees. We have quite strong expectations in the future, and as we mentioned during the call, we have brought to the bank around 10 billion of net new money, and some of them flies to the Alternative Advancement Fund. So this is a business that is quite relevant for us. It's going to be another priority in coming years, and you should expect more fees to come from this business and more equity method income from this business in the future. Thank you, Sophie.

Thank you very much. Our last question comes from Britta Schmidt from Autonomous Research. Britta, please go ahead.

Hi there. Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. I have a question on the digital account. How should we think about the adjustment on the pricing of the stock and versus the flow? So maybe you can give us some sort of indication as to what basis point reduction and deposit cost you expect from this initiative. And on the acquisition cost of these customers, I think given that you just explained that these are mainly affluent, it's probably clear why the acquisition cost will be lower than for other channels. But maybe you can give us some sort of quantification of how much lower these acquisition costs are. Thank you.

Well, I will give you, for instance, the campaign where we acquired, you know, was more successful this summer, summer in September, which was also after the acquisition of Evo. So it's really the digital organization. The acquisition cost was 20 euros per client. So really the acquisition cost is more the cost of the actual account. What we want to do is, I mean, as you have seen, we have already reduced by 50 basis points every single account in the digital organization. And we will go on with this trying, you know, doing trials and reducing the cost. Obviously the front, so the front, the new production, the new acquisition will have to be higher and we will be always in the order of the reference, ECB reference rate or somewhere around there. Obviously depending on how the competition is behaving. And the second question.

Thank you very much all for attending today. That has ended our Q&A. And on behalf of the entire Bunking the Team, we definitely thank you for your interest and participation. As a reminder, the Investor Relations Team will be available after the webcast to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you and have a wonderful day and start to the new year.

Thank you very much. Goodbye.