Erste Group Bank Ag S/Adr

Guten Tag und herzlich willkommen zur Pressekonferenz der Erste Group. Herzlichen Dank für Ihr Kommen und auch herzlichen Dank an alle, die sich online eingewählt haben. Sie sehen, wir haben heute einen etwas gemütlicheren Rahmen gewählt. Der Blick ist unschlagbar, aber wir hoffen auch, dass online Sie gut sehen können. Wir haben heute unsere Halbjahreszahlen angekündigt, aber wir nutzen immer gerne die Gelegenheit, um auch so mit Ihnen in den Austausch zu kommen, regelmäßig und vor allen Dingen Ihnen für Ihre Fragen zur Verfügung zu stehen. We start with a short presentation by Peter Bosek, CEO of the Erste Group, Alexandra Habeler-Drabek, the risk manager, and Stefan Dorfler, the financial manager. And I hand it over to you.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It is quite warm, thank God, well air-conditioned here. Perhaps only worth mentioning at the beginning, we have the campus for 10 years now. and I think it is simply outstanding how modern and beautiful and pleasant it still seems after 10 years, as if it was actually built yesterday. Let me start with a step back to show in which region we operate. Why is it an interest for us to share this with you? Because we are deeply convinced that Central Europe has come to the next step of development in recent years. And I believe that this has been perceived far too little in many parts of Western Europe, also in Austria. Why is it a pity? Because I think it's a huge opportunity for countries like Austria to get closer to Central Europe. We all know the countries in which we operate from the past 25 years and it has always been an essential part of our history in this region that Central Europe is in a recovery situation compared to Western Europe. You can see here on this slide the average growth in terms of real GDP per head, the accumulated growth rates from 2007 Until 2025, so just before the beginning of the financial crisis, you can see very clearly how the region has developed excellently in the countries in which we operate. In our view, this is mainly due to three effects. Point number one, there has been a significant increase in productivity compared to the time before. Second, I think we should not underestimate the support that has been given through the European Union's cohesion fund. There are considerable funds, so to speak, in terms of funding for different or from different pots of funds, flowed into this region. And third, of course, an enormous desire to improve our own situation in this region, which has been incredibly positive, so to speak, on work ethics and everything that is connected to it. If you look ahead and not just look back, the growth that we see today in Central Europe is still above the European average. The only exception is Romania. I think the situation in Romania is generally known. The potential of this country is still huge and we are sure that Romania will soon be caught up again. and his budget deficit can manage accordingly. But the point we actually want to make is that the success story is not only so much dependent on how the countries have picked up in the past 25 years, but actually the view forward, because it is one of the very few regions in Europe that is growing. And that's actually what we want to transport, because Central Europe is developing for Europe. You see, if you look at the founding rates, In the European comparison, Central Europe has a strong founder boom that we see. We see many companies in our region doing business with other companies in other countries in our region. So to say, this growth that takes place in Central Europe is of course still dependent on countries like Germany, but the dependence is beginning to reduce. These countries have taken the right steps and will certainly continue to take them in view of creating an economic infrastructure and framework conditions that actually make us very, very future-proof for the next 20 to 30 years. Now we are, of course, as you can imagine, Manfred Neuwirth, Manfred Neuwirth These countries are oriented to the front and have understood that they are no longer the extended work bank of Western Europe, but there are companies that are now starting to grow in other countries in an organic way. In Poland, they had 45 company acquisitions abroad last year. Ingo Bleier, Magistrate Ingo Bleier In the next 20 to 30 years, we are also seeing a trend, of course, and the region will be very exciting, a trend that is present globally. We are seeing this nearshoring trend that we have all learned through things like Covid and problems with supply chains. I think a lot of companies have strengthened their supply chains since Covid. I think that is also one of the reasons why Thank you very much. You can hear something about artificial intelligence every day from early to late in the evening. There are few who talk about what energy demand is behind it. You know that all the big tech companies are starting to build small nuclear power plants. Europe will also have to find its own solutions in order to be part of these technological leaps at all. And to be able to do that, you don't just need alternative forms of energy production, you mainly need the energy lines that support it accordingly. We all come from a system in Europe, and this is by the way the same topic in the USA, we come from a system of central energy production that has a central energy infrastructure. In the meantime, we are confronted with a situation where we have a decentralized energy production that also requires a different infrastructure. Austria recently resolved this by feeding on self-generated energy, even what it costs, in order to be able to finance further energy infrastructure development. Only this is of course a very fundamental factor and a necessity in order to

...a necessity in order to prepare the infrastructure for the future development of our economy because I believe that different types of economies need different types of energy infrastructure, data centers, et cetera, in order to be able to take the next step in its economic development. And I think that for Europe this is extremely significant because a lot of the production in recent years Manfred Neuwirth And I think we still have a big benefit because I believe that the education and training here in Europe is still excellent and it's available to many people. So we are optimistic, especially optimistic for our own region. Now I'd like to hand over to Stefan who will focus on the other economic boundary conditions.