Finecobank Banca Fine Spa

Good afternoon. This is the Coral School conference operator. Welcome and thank you for joining the FinEco Bank first quarter 2021 results conference call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, they may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on their telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Alessandro Foti, CEO of Fineco. Please go ahead, sir.

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining our first quarter results conference call. Before we start going through the details of the presentation, let me please highlight the main strategic developments we are undertaking as we have entered in a new dimension of structural growth given the strong acceleration in the long-term trends. The first quarter of the year marks a turning point in our story as we have introduced a wide set of initiatives to progressively become more a platform fulfilling the financial needs of our clients than a bank. The new dimension of growth is generating, first, an acceleration of the leveraging of our balance sheet, which will in turn progressively increase and improve our revenues mix, boosting fees and commissions. Second, a strategic discontinuity in FinEco asset management, which is entering in a second wave to take more control of the value chain to further accelerate our investing revenues and margins. Let me highlight that in the first quarter of the year, we recorded a record high net profit reaching $95 million. and increasing by 3% year-on-year, despite the full contribution to the single resolution fund equal to 5.8 million paid for the first time in 2021. These results is even more valuable considering that has been achieved in a new normal world and compares with the best quarter of 2020, which was characterized both by low operating costs due to the strict lockdown in place in Italy and by the strong performance of brokerage due to the volatility peak. Gross operating profits stood at 144 million increasing by 7% year-on-year, excluding non-recurring items of 2020, showing the soundness of our industrial growth. Revenue stood at 218 million, increasing by 8% year-on-year, excluding non-recurring items of 2020 and mainly supported by investing and brokerage. Operating costs well under control and confirming operating leverage as a key strength of the bank, with cost-income ratio at 33.8%. Also, during the first month of the year, Our commercial activity continued to strengthen compared to the impressive growth experience in 2020. After the record net sales registered in the first quarter, April recorded almost 950 million inflows with an outstanding mix, 95% of asset under management, and 6% 122 million outflows in liquidity, confirming again the efforts of the bank in reducing deposits and improving the asset mix. In April, we also registered strong brokerage revenues, estimated at around 17 million. This is very good news considering the unfavorable market conditions due to both low volatility and volumes. Nevertheless, revenues were around 50% higher compared to the average monthly revenues in the period 2017-19, confirming once again that the floor of the business is now definitely higher compared with the past. Let's now move on to slide five and start commenting our first quarter results. As announced, we reached very strong industrial results also in a new normal world, with net profit standing at $94.7 million in the quarter, plus 2.7% year-on-year on a like-for-like basis. Gross operating profit stood at $144.5 million, increasing by 7.2% year-on-year, excluding non-recurring items of 2020. Thanks to very strong revenues, reaching a record high level of $218.2 million, up 8.4% here and here, as we have been able to catch the strong acceleration of the structural trends in place, mainly thanks to the contribution of investing and brokerage. Operating costs stood at $73.8 million, increasing by 4.5% here and here, excluding costs strictly related to the growth of the business. We will deep dive on cost later on during the presentation. Cost income confirmed to be very low at 33.8% despite the continuous expansion in assets and clients, thanks to our strong operating leverage and to the scalability of our platform. Let's now move to slide six and start to analyze more in detail the dynamic of our results. In this slide, we are showing our net financial income, including net interest income and profits from treasury management. This is in order to give a better representation of the overall contribution coming from the way we are managing the investments of our clients' liquidity. Going forward, the more we will be effective in leveraging the balance sheet and the more we will be able to slow down and possibly even reverse the growth of our financial investments. This will lead to recurring industrially driven profits from treasury management and progressively improve revenues mix within higher components of fees and commissions. In the graph on the left-hand side of the slide, we are representing the first six years of this process as our net financial income reached 75.1 million in the quarter, growing by 4.3% year-on-year and 17.1% quarter-on-quarter. Net interest income remained resilient at 61.8 million despite the worsening of interest rates environment and profit from treasury management stood at $13.2 million. Let's now move to slide seven. Fees and commissions stood at $118.7 million in the first quarter of 2021, growing by 13.1% year-on-year and by 22.8% quarter-on-quarter, thanks to the positive contribution of all-product high-risk. in particular investing in brokerage. Trading income net of non-recurring items and profit from treasury management reached 23.9 million in the quarter, thanks to the strong performance of brokerage. Let's jump now on slide 26 to deep dive on our brokerage business. Brokerage confirmed once again that after the recent events, the floor of the business is structurally higher. compared to the past and regardless of the level of volatility. As you can see in the chart on the top of the slide, in the first quarter of 2021, overall brokerage revenues reached a new quarterly record at 65 million, increasing by 2% year-on-year, despite a much lower market volatility. As anticipated at the beginning of the call, also revenues in April were very strong, reaching $17 million in a month characterized by low volatility and low volumes. This is very good news for us as revenues were 50% higher than in the period 2017-2019, confirming once again that the floor of the business is now higher compared to the past. Let me remind you that the growth of the brokerage business is driven by the contribution of three structural components. First, the deep reshape of our brokerage business. Let me remind you that we have recently launched a new U.S. options platform and that in the first half of 2021, we will launch our leveled certificate offer, becoming issuer, market maker, and distributor through our platform. Second, the client base using our platform is widening with active investors that have grown significantly in absolute numbers, standing well above the average level of 2018 and 2019. Please note that our active investors have an average of five executed orders per month, are wealthy people in their 50s with assets above 200,000 euros on average. And the vast majority of them has a relationship with our financial advisors for the long-term planning of their financial wealth. Third, we are continuously increasing our market share. For example, our market share in Italy on equity traded volumes increased to 27.8% in December 2020. Let's now move on slide eight for a focus on investing. Let me remind you that over the last few months, we have experienced a strong acceleration towards asset under management, as we have been able to catch the structural trends in place in Italy. The acceleration of investing business is expected also going forward, as we are preparing a strategic discontinuity in Finneco asset management that will allow us to improve the efficiency of the value chain, generating higher revenues and margins. We will deep dive on this initiative later on during the presentation. Investing revenues amounted to 69.4 million in the first quarter of 2021, increasing by 13.8% year-on-year and 6% quarter-on-quarter, thanks to the volume effect and stronger net sales into asset under management driven by higher contribution by FinEco asset management. More in detail, management fees increased by 17.3% year-on-year and by 7.4% quarter-on-quarter. Let me please highlight that the court is also showing the first sign of higher risk appetite by clients. resulting in management fees margins slightly increasing to 63 basis points. Let's now move on slide nine for a focus on our costs. This slide confirms once again efficiency to be part of our DNA and core in our bank, representing a clear and unique competitive advantage. Let me please underline that the first quarter of the year was characterized by costs directly related to the strong acceleration of our growth dynamics in the new normal world. On top of this, the yearly comparison is affected by the strict lockdown in the first quarter of 2020, driving non-HR costs to their lowest level of the last 10 years. Operating costs in the first quarter of 2021 stood at $73.8 million, growing by 4.5% year-on-year, excluding costs related to the growth of the business, particularly in the quarter we spent additional 2.4 million in marketing costs, mainly in the UK and not in place in the same period of 2020, 0.7 million additional costs related to our financial advisors, as we have higher contribution to FEAR and the NASARGOR due to the strong net sales recorded at the beginning of the year. Please note that these contributions have a fixed annual limit. and that is mainly fielded in the early months of the year. Additional $1 million cost for FiniCost Management that is preparing itself to further expand its business, allowing us to have a higher control of the investing budget chain. Finally, additional $0.2 million related to cost for the customer care as the new current accounts almost doubled. Going into the details, non-HR costs stood at $47.5 million, excluding the previously mentioned expenses related to the growth of the business. They only grew by 3.8% year-on-year, confirming our strong operating leverage. Finally, staff expenses stood at $26.2 million in the period, increasing by 3%. 5.7% on yearly basis net of the cost related to the expansion of the business of Finneco Asset Management. Let's now move on slide 12 for a focus on our capital ratio. Finneco confirmed once again rock solid capital position on the way of a safe balance sheet. Let me remind you that Following the extension of the recommendation by ECB and Bank of Italy on December 2020, we will refrain from paying dividends until September 30th, 2021. Let me highlight that our intention is to give back to our shareholders our excess capital at the first window of opportunity. With this regard, let me please remind you that the courtier-on-war ratio is not a constraint for us. And thanks to the initiative the bank is undertaking, we expect the leverage ratio to stabilize in a comfortable zone in range between 3.5 and 4%. Common equity tier 1 ratios stood at 26.5%. Let me please note that the quarterly decrease is mainly explained by temporary increase of risk-weighted assets post-Brexit related to our treasury exposure toward UK financial counterparties. Going forward, we expect this component to significantly reduce, as the regulators should pronounce, on the treatment of exposure towards U.K. counterparties, making them equivalent to the European ones. In case of different treatment, we will significantly reduce our existing exposure. Respected assets stood at 4,208 million. increasing compared to December, mainly due to the previously mentioned temporary effect related to the UK counterparty's exposure. Total capital ratio stood at 38.4% as of March 2021.

Let's now move on to slide 14.

As you know, 2020 has made it even clear that Finicol is in the sweet spot for growth. And in the first quarter of 2021, the bank has been able to deliver even stronger net sales, reaching $3.3 billion with a very strong asset mix. April net sales were only the latest confirmation of this big jump in a new dimension of growth. Let me now spend a few words on the recruiting. As you can see in slide 15, starting from last year, we have experienced a strong increase in the interest of financial advisors to join our bank, thanks to our business model, which proved to be the best position to grow in the new landscape, also thanks to our unique FinTech DNA. To this regard, please know that we have no need to overpay financial advisors with huge upfront fees and use the aggressive approaches historically taken by the industry. As a matter of fact, in the new environment, Finneco emerged more clearly as the perfect bank for professionals looking to grow their home business in a sustainable way. Those dynamics were confirmed in the first quarter of the year when we recorded a net increase of 69 personal financial advisors in our network and led to net sales generated organically by the bank to a much normal level at 86% in the first quarter of the year. Let's now skip to slide 20 and start discussing about our expectations for the business going forward. In this slide, we summarize our guidance for 2021. With regards to our banking revenues, we expect net financial income to be flat year on year thanks to both a resilient net interest income and a higher profit from treasury management coming from our valuable financial portfolio. Going forward, we expect the net financial income to stabilize thanks to the acceleration of the leveraging of the balance sheet, to the improvement of the steepening of the curve, and to the new initiatives in place like the buying of tax credits. Overall banking fees in the region between 40 and 45 million, thanks to the smart repricing launched in 2020 and to the additional fees from the new pricing on the new current accounts. On investing, we are increasing our guidance on revenues, growing by around 20% with resilient or slightly higher margins compared to 2020. Going forward, we expect a strong acceleration on investing as we expect a further increase in our network productivity, leading to our higher volumes, and we will implement the second wave in FinEco asset management, which is going to take even more control of the value chain that will give a boost to margins and revenues. Brokerage revenues are expected to remain strong with a floor that is definitely higher than in the past. Operating costs are expected to grow in a range between 4.5% and 5%. Please note that there might be additional costs related to Finneco asset management as we are introducing the previously mentioned strategic discontinuity to improve the efficiency of the value chain in the investing business. Going forward, we confirm our guidance on a continuous declining cost income in the long run thanks to the scalability of our platform and to the strong operating gearing we have. With regards to systemic charges for 2021, expected to stay in a range between 35 and 37 million, booked within provision for risk and charges. Please note that the more we will be effective in the leveraging of the balance sheet, the more we can decrease our contribution to systemic charges. Our capital ratios, we expect the quarterly annual ratio to remain above the floor of 70% and leverage ratio above 3.5. Let me please add that thanks to the progressive rollout of our industrial initiatives, We expect the leverage ratio to stabilize in a comfortable zone in a range between 3.5% and 4%, currently with the combination of both a strong acceleration in growth to the bank and the distribution of generous dividends. Customer risk was equal to nine basis points in the first quarter of 2021, thanks to the quality of our lending portfolio that is offered exclusively to our loyal customer base. For 2021, we are confirming the guidance in a range between 10 and 15 basis points, even in this environment. Finally, we expect robust and high-quality net sales with lower components of deposits, thanks to all the initiatives we are undertaking. Let's now move to slide 21 to deep dive in all the initiatives the bank is undertaking. The recent events have produced a strong acceleration in structural trends and have increased the speed at which we are growing. In order to take full advantage from our new dimension of growth and to further build on it, we have recently undertaken a wide set of initiatives that are already delivering higher than expected results, as April Netsafe figures confirm it. Let me please remind that the new initiatives will allow us to improve our revenues mix As already said, the first quarter marks a turning point in our growth story as we are strategically evolving our business model to a fee and commission-driven model, becoming more a platform to fulfill clients' financial needs than a bank. Let me now go briefly through the new initiatives. First, we changed the incentive scheme of the network financial planners that is now only linked to the net sales in asset under management. This has produced a stronger acceleration, improving the quality of our net sales mix. Second, we will further increase the productivity of the network through new software developments, leveraging on our deep internal IT know-how. we are introducing a strategic discontinuity in FinEQ asset management that will allow us to improve the efficiency of the value chain in the investing business. Fourth, we are improving the quality of our client base, focusing our target market on the upper end. As already anticipated in the previous quarter, in February we introduced a new pricing for new current accounts to better control the acceleration of new clients from traditional banks and to be more selective in our client acquisition. Finally, the launch of the new platforms leveraging on our FinTech DNA. First, the platform to distribute third-party savings accounts. It will be live in June with the first provider, while others will follow later on. And we will give clients another alternative for their deposits. This platform can be considered a perfect example of open banking. The second platform is allowing us to manage tax credits to a state which we are progressively buying. All this set of new initiatives will allow us to be more selective in the growth we are pursuing, resulting in a better quality of revenue, better quality revenues mix, coupled with the leveraging of our balance sheet. Let's now move to slide 24 to deep down our investing business going forward. As anticipated, going forward, we expect an acceleration in our investing revenues and margins, thanks to a further increase in our network productivity, leading to growing volumes and to the strategic discontinuity we are undertaking within equity asset management to further extract additional operational efficiency, which will allow us to take more control of the investing value chain. FinEQ asset management is confirmed to be key in our move to accelerate the conversion of deposits into asset under management. Let me please highlight that our Irish company strongly and consistently contributed to the group's net sales. For example, in April, it recorded its best results here in terms of retail net sales, equal to more than half a billion inflows, confirming to be on the right path to fully catch its strong growth potential. Let me remind you that increasing volumes will result in a geometrical growth of its margins contribution and that our Irish company is on its way to develop a new product range based on advisory services by third parties, which is going to make the value chain even more efficient. Finally, during the year, it will be heading new solutions focused on equity and sustainability on the back of the increasing demand by customers. Finally, please note that we are observing an increase in the risk appetite by clients, and this could translate in an improvement of margins going forward. I now leave the floor to Paolo Di Grazza, our Deputy General Manager, for an update on the development on our UK business on slide 29.

Paolo Di Grazza Thank you, Alessandro, and good afternoon, everybody. Our one-stop solution offer in the UK is proving to be very welcome, and our marketing campaign is providing a strong boost to quality client acquisition. In the first four months of the year, we have already opened more current accounts than in the whole 2020. Thanks to the acceleration of these dynamics, we confirmed to reach our first target of 30,000-35,000 good clients well before the initial time horizon we estimated. As you can see on the left-hand side of the slide, since the start of our marketing campaign, we have recorded a strong acceleration in our customer acquisition dynamics and in the quality of our client base, in particular in the last few months. Let me please highlight that the stickiness on our active clients is very high and equal to 90%. This confirms that we are not attracting hit and run highly speculative and volatile customers, but we are attracting experienced traders, loyal and looking for quality offers. the further evidence of the right position chosen by the bank. On the second graph, you can see that we are further improving the penetration of active clients and brokerage, now representing more than 70% on new current accounts in the first quarter of 2021, and confirming once again that we are targeting the right clients with the right offer. This translates in a further boost in our revenue generation. As you can see on the right-hand side of the slide, we are building up on the strong acceleration we experienced in 2020. As revenue in the first quarter 2021 were more than half of the revenues generated in the full year 2020. On top of this, we are continuing to improve our revenues mix in favor of over-the-counter and listed products, which are now the lion's share of our growth. Together with our huge operating leverage, this has allowed us to be profitable, excluding marketing expenses, at the end of the first quarter 2021. Finally, in slide 30, we sum up the next steps that are getting us closer to the full launch of our investing offer. In particular, please note that DI's accounts are now live and already recorded more than 680 subscriptions in just two months. Let me add that we launched a new promo to attract clients from traditional banks, and we are step-by-step introducing more fuel in our investing offer. Finally, through the year, we will continue to enlarge our fund offer with a wide pipeline you can see in this slide. Now, thank you for the attention, and I will hand it back to Alessandro.

Thank you for your time, and now we can open the call to questions.

Excuse me, this is the Coruscant Conference Operator. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and 1 under touchtone telephone. To remove yourself from the question queue, please press star and two. Please pick up the receiver when asking questions. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. The first question is from Azura Guelfi with Citi. Please go ahead.

Hi, good afternoon. A couple of questions, mainly on the outlook and on the cost of investing fees. You have improved your guidance for the fee income and if you could give us some color if it is mostly linked with the improvement in flows that you are expecting or is it also linked more to a more resilient margin and how do you see margin evolving also linked with the changes that you have implemented at FAM? The other point is that you have given that detail on the various P&M line, but you haven't given a bottom line if you want guidance. And you've been on the press saying that you expect net profit to be resilient year on year. Would you expect, do you confirm this, or do you expect it to be a little bit better? And if I may, on efficiency, usually you have a very strong efficiency. And this quarter, we haven't seen this because of the, if you want, extra growths. But if we strip these out, basically we implied, and looking at your guidance, the implied run rate for the next quarter will be below the Q1, excluding extra cost of FAM. Would that be reasonable? And how could we think about these extra costs in FAM? Thank you.

Thank you, Azzurra. So let me start from the outlook on investing fees. So let me split the handspan in two components. There is the first component that is related to the 2021, which clearly the increase of the guidance is driven by a combination of First of all, we expect that the productivity of the financial planners is expected to keep on building up thanks to the deployment of new solutions, new technology, and so on. Clearly, we expect an improvement of the margin mix related both to the increased risk appetite by clients And also clearly that the more we have a growing contribution by FinEQ asset management and more clearly is translated in higher revenues and margins. And this is the first component. Then there is the second component. And because these elements of 2021 are going to stay with us also in the following years. But on top of that, clearly, big discontinuity on which we are working is to capture a much bigger slice of the value chain because at the moment we are leaving on the floor a lot of money and clearly we are going to remain consistent. with the concept of an open architecture, but we are going to put in place solutions for capturing this absolutely enormous amount of money that is left on the table. I'm trying to give you a practical example in order to give you the flavor of what I mean. The most recent product that has been launched by Finnecos Road Management, that is the China target, that is the accumulation product on China, in which clearly we are using a tracking index for replicating the exposure to the equity Chinese market. At the same time, we are entering in securities lending transactions for extracting value to give to clients in terms of remuneration of their liquidity. This product is an example in which everything is going to remain completely in our group in our group without sharing and nothing externally but this is just and then we we have many other initiatives that are going to be put in place so going forward clearly we can expect a really massive increase of the of the investing margins in the in the coming years is more or less the same concept we introduced when we launched clinical asset management at the beginning. We say that we were expecting a large contribution, and now we are entering the second wave. So this year, clearly, we expect that the guidance has been increased. The increase of the guidance is not fully reflecting The numbers that we are experiencing right now, because the numbers are definitely very well above our expectations, but we prefer to remain, to still remain cautious. And so this is the reason why we are guiding the market in the region of an increase in the region of 20%. And then clearly we expect going towards the end and particularly next year that the contribution of the new initiatives by Finnecos Admin is going to play a very important role in making the investing revenues growing in a big way. Bottom line guidance. The bottom line guidance clearly we We think we are quite confident that when we look to the consensus of the market, generally speaking, we are quite confident that we can beat this consensus, considering putting together the resilience of the financial income. the very strong momentum of investing fees and clearly the much higher floor of the brokerage business. And on cost efficiency, yes, you are you're right clearly in the first part in this first quarter we had some extraordinary components like the higher marketing cost driven mostly by the UK but simple fact that in the first quarter of last year that we had no cost on UK also there is the seasonal impact that this year has been much stronger, that is the contributions to the retirement of financial planners, that as we described during the presentation is a fixed amount, but clearly the faster is the growth in the at the beginning of the year, and the more you're reaching the ceiling. So in this case, considering the absolutely very high results achieved in the first part of the year, this ceiling has been achieved faster than usual. So this is more or less the picture.

The next question is from Domenico Santoro with HSBC. Please go ahead.

Hello. Hi. Good afternoon. Thanks for the presentation. I do have a number of questions. First of all, on the net financial income, I apologize for breaking down, again, the two components. I know that you give us a guidance for 2021 on the combined contribution of the two. But I want a little bit more color, if you don't mind. First of all, you benefit from large trading gains on the quarter. Of course, as you said in the presentation, the more you're able to change the balance sheet to move off balance sheet assets, and the more you can also be more dynamic in the management of your bond portfolio. But I just wonder... what should be this revenue stream going forward, if you have an idea. Also because I guess you have quite significant unrealized gains on your bond portfolio. So this is the first question. The second, on the net interest income instead. So these are 61, 8, 62. Shall we consider this a sort of clean number for the next quarter? And can you also mention, please, if you could give us a bit of color how this can evolve in the second part of the year, given that you have part of your bond portfolio swapped into variable rates. And if you can give us also a bit of color how the economics attached to the eco-bonus can be in the second part of the year. The other question is on banking fees. I appreciate that you give us the full number for 2021. Also, what could be the additional revenue stream coming from the distribution of time deposits? So I just wonder whether this 40-45 is a sort of floor and it can go up over the next years because of all the initiatives that you have in place. Brokerage, I understand that you say in your guidance a flow is definitely higher than in the past. I'm just wondering whether 2021, it can be better even compared to 2020, which was a very strong year. You know, this is the line of the P&L which is more difficult for us to model, but you have a number of initiatives in place, so I appreciate if you could give us a guidance. And then you now mentioned, if we come to dividend, I know everything is up in the air because it's conditional to the ECB removing the ban. But you mentioned now 3.54%. So my understanding is that you're moving your bar in terms of leverage ratio more closer to the 4%. So are you starting to think about how you're going to please your shareholders coming back to 2019 dividend? and, you know, a distribution of excess capital in terms of excess, what you have in excess of 4%. Sorry for the very long question. Thank you very much.

No, thank you very much, Domenico, because you are... are giving to us the opportunity to deep dive in some very important components as we we said at the beginning of the presentation this quote is marking a quite relevant discontinuity with the past so the reason why we picked we are now showing the net financial income so putting together net interest income and the profits from treasury management because this is strictly related to the changing strategy by the bank, and that is the leveraging on the balance sheet. So the bank started some months ago in moving in that direction, and clearly the more effective we are going to be, and clearly the more this is going to reduce our dependency on the financial investments. And considering that the recent evolution on our deposits is not is not embedding any impact by the most relevant initiatives we are putting in place because the initiatives related to the introduction of the clause for closing the accounts to clients characterized by a too high level of liquidity has not started yet because at the moment the only the only result has been that the introduction of the close as uh is ringing as a wake-up call for clients and this is contributing in accelerating the the asset under measure business but the bank has not uh has not moved yet in direction of uh starting on getting rid of the of uh this kind of clients uh second clearly there is uh no contribution by them uh the the temp deposits uh And so for this reason, we are extremely confident that this process of the leveraging is going to continue. And so clearly, the more we are affecting that direction, clearly there is a clear correlation between the net interest income and treasury management, because we are going to become more, and as you are correctly underlined, we are sitting on a quite large unrealized cap potential capital gain on the portfolio clearly and the more we are going to move in the direction of the leveraging of the balance sheet and the more we can progressively release portion of this. The only, unless there is an absolutely gigantic increase in interest rates, but in this case it's not a problem in any case because the next future reinvestments we are going to make on the remaining part of the liquidity is going to be made at a much higher rate. In any case, if we are looking forward, because for 2021 the guidance of a flat financial income is a done deal. Regarding the following years, clearly everything is moving in that direction because the combination effectiveness of what we are putting in place for the leverage in the balance. The very clear improvement driven by the steepening of the yield curve because clearly Another very interesting effect that this year, considering that we are starting on accelerating in slowing down the growth of deposits, we practically stop investing. And so we are postponing our investments on the longer horizon. the combination of the measures keeping on working on producing the balance, the steepening of the yield curve. Also, we expect progressively and an interesting contribution from the fiscal credits we are buying, because this is going to play a material impact going towards the end, but the largest part is going to be next year. If we put everything together, we are absolutely fine and confident that the financial income is going to remain stable. And this is the reason why we are putting together the net interest income with the treasury, because they are absolutely interconnected. Giving you a separated guidance on net interest income or respect to the other part, in our opinion, doesn't make a lot of sense considering because they are strictly related for the reasons I was uh i was explaining on the on the on the third on the third on the temp deposit platforms clearly the main goal is not to is not is not going to bring revenues but to accelerate the this process of the leveraging on the balance sheet and but we also we expect and going forward and also some decent profitability by this, but it's a little bit too early. But again, the main goal we have with the introduction of this platform is to accelerate and to reinforce the process of the leveraging of the balance sheet. Brokerage. Brokerage is clearly why we are so interested in capturing the the floor of the business because first of all the fact that they would be able to deliver higher revenues in the first quarter respect the last year that has been the real big guy the real big quarter in the brokerage because because if you look to the uh revenues generated quarter by quarter by brokerage the real big numbers has been achieved in the first quarter. And considering that these results have been even higher in a context characterized by much lower volatility. And for example, the month of April for us has been an absolutely extraordinary month because if we look to the volatility of the month, the volumes, has been one of the month characterized by the lowest level of volatility of the last few years. Nevertheless, The 17 million, it's a big number. So same story. clearly we are not in the position to predict the level of volatility and volumes. But if you want to be extremely pessimistic and conservative, you can assume that for all the year long, volatility and volumes are going to remain the same of April. But honestly speaking, I don't think that this is going to be the case because just the most recent days is marking a 108% the rates change in the market conditions, but if you assume that the situation remains multiplied by using this floor for estimating the revenues generated by brokerage and so on, but this is up to you. It depends. For us, clearly, we cannot manage volatility and so on, but for us, what is extremely important reassuring that in a month like April that has been absolutely disgusting in terms of conditions of brokerage, the revenue generated has been absolutely amazing. The question on dividend is very important because clearly one of the main results generated by the delivery on the balance sheet that practically we can say that the constraints of the leverage ratio is definitely over. So it's not anymore existing. Because just slowing down and slowing down at the level where we are now, the leverage ratio is not going to bite anymore. So Fineco is going to become a really and really completely fully capitalized platform And so clearly this is boding well for having much more ammunition for satisfying our shareholders' appetite. So clearly we can And we can clearly think to increase what we are paying in terms of dividends, or we can use a portion for increasing dividends and another portion for putting a little bit more money on our expansion abroad. But clearly, practically, FinEQ is becoming a cash machine that is practically not consuming Any kind of capital, both in terms of court can run and more importantly, the leverage ratio, because leverage ratio has been starting from the listing the most relevant constraints now with this brand new. direction of the bank, the leverage ratio is not going to be new. And clearly the range, the target range is embedding clearly a distribution of the excess of capital that we have accumulated over the last couple of years following the ECB directions. So this is absolutely very important and thank you for raising the point.

Can I ask a very quick one, a follow-up, just to be clear what you mentioned before on the net financial income and to be clear I understood well. Is it correct to assume that from now on, whatever is the impact of all these measures on NII, which are not only, of course, interest rates related, so market related, but also conditional upon the way the balance sheet will move going forward, are going to be compensated from additional revenues from profits from Treasury?

Yes. Yes, because clearly we decided to make the life of our shareholders a little bit easier, so we put it together because you can have different combinations. Clearly, the decline in the contribution from the Treasury portfolio can be driven exclusively in the assumption that there is such a a massive increase in interest rates that clearly is decreasing the potential capital gains portfolio. But in this case, clearly, the reinvestment of the remaining portfolio is going to be done at a much higher rate. And in any case, at the moment, there is pretty evident that next year, the reinvestment of the running of portfolio is going to be done at and a level of rates that is definitely higher with respect to the initial expectations. And also clearly there is the contribution of the progressive building up of the platform for the fiscal credit that clearly it's a little bit time consuming because we We are buying clients by clients these small tickets and so they are progressing, but clearly we are extremely confident this is going to bring progressively a very interesting contribution. So if we put everything together, because it's very difficult to give you a perfect idea of the combination of net interest income and so on, because it depends on the speed and the depth of the leverage on the balance sheet. But putting everything together, a guidance that we think is absolutely sustainable is to look to the financial income. This is going to remain absolutely stable and also going forward in the following years.

so that 280 million that you realize in 2020 that's the reference for us for 2021 and 2022 in a way correct all right thank you very much thank you for the clarification the next question is from luigi de bellis with equity sim please go ahead yes good afternoon just one question clarification on investing

Can you give us more color about your strategies and drivers to accelerate the conversion of liquidity and deposits in asset under management? Roberto, can you quantify the potential impact expected by your actions to speed up the conversion or an expectation of a percentage of conversion to expect in 12-24 months period? For example, how much are the real eligible assets to be converted and if this is already in the guidance? Thank you.

Regarding investing, as I was anticipating, We have to split the hardware into two components. One is the business as usual. So we expect clearly a continuous acceleration in direction of a better business mix for the reasons we explained, because the incentive scheme, the financial plan is just direction of asset under management we can afford to do that because the the growth in terms of net sales is coming by itself because as we will explain it finico is experiencing an absolutely gigantic flight to quality in our direction second the journey of continuously deploying technology for improving the productivity of financial planning is continuing. So we are just at the beginning of this journey. And so we are extremely confident the productivity of financial planning is good. Third, the client we are acquiring. Different from the past now, our client acquisition is massively skewed in direction of investing clients. So because we progressively moved up in the upper end of the client base. And so the new clients are joining the bank are clients that they are structurally interested in investing. And so by definition, the percentage of liquidity remaining is extremely, extremely low. And so our point of attention is much more in direction of the old clients of the past. And the second component clearly is the huge change in the interaction that we are going to have with our platform. So at the moment we are living on the market and a huge amount of money that is completely pocketed by third parties. uh the the what we are going to introduce in terms of change of interaction with the platform uh product structures and so on is going to make for us possible to recover and a quite sizable component of this amount of money that is left on the market i would like to remind that sineco is still in the at the very initial phase of taking control of the of the value chain of our investing process because differently from the industry that is by many decades that has been extremely accurate in capturing the full value chain we are just at the beginning of this process Now the timing is the right timing, and so we expect that this is going to bring a quite sizable acceleration in investing revenues on top of what we are doing now.

Thank you very much.

The next question is from Alberto Villa in Termonte. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, and congratulations for the results. Alessandro, just a couple of questions about the foreign operations because on the Italian operations I think my colleagues have asked you almost everything. First of all, it's just a general comment. I'm pretty fascinated by the moving towards a platform rather than a bank, and I think the ramification of this change is pretty wide. You explained to us what you mean, but probably it's something that we have to digest a little bit over time. But I was considering if this transformation as a platform also may accelerate your expansion abroad. I have a couple of questions on the foreign operations. First of all, on the UK, maybe you mentioned during the presentation, but I missed it, when you think to get to 30, 35 good clients and out of the 15,000 clients you currently have, how much of them are good clients? Secondly, you also mentioned during some press interviews that you are considering entering new markets, and this is not totally new, but you mentioned Germany as a potential priority. I was wondering if you can share with us if there are any steps forward on this direction.

Thank you, Alberto, for your question. Regarding the first question, So it's clear that the transformation of Fineco much more in a platform and respected to be a bank and so through the delivering process clearly is opening the way for also an acceleration of the expansion abroad. I want to be even clearer on the point because clearly the most relevant part of the leveraging of the balance sheet is going to have a quite sizable impact on the profitability of the bank. For example, we are not considering everything related to the systemic charges and so on. But more importantly, it's going to change completely also the capital ratios of the bank. FINEQ is running, for the most part, a capital-light business model, and we know, everybody that is familiar with our equity story, they know that the only real point of attention was represented by the leverage ratio. Now, with this strategic change, clearly these constraints is going to be completely removed immediately. So just also this here, the level of duration is not going to be anymore a problem for us. And clearly this is what does it mean? This means that we have a much higher level of resources that we are freeing up that can be and so we can move in direction of a blend of an even more generous treatment of our shareholders in terms of dividends and at the same time also putting a little bit more money in what we are doing abroad but this clearly is possible thanks to this transformation and this transformation is Because one question that someone can make is, why now and not before? The reason is pretty simple, because the structural trends supporting our business, thanks to the most recent events, they have accelerated in a big way. And so now we can afford the luxury of deciding exactly which kind of clients we want to take on board and which kind of clients we don't want. And this is a great privilege. And this is the reason why now we can definitely say, come on, we can grow in a big way, but in the right direction and so on. And so the answer is absolutely yes. This change in strategy is going to, but it is industrially driven. It's not that we wake it up in the morning and say, come on, we want to change a strategy. We realized that this was the right timing for definitely freeing up the 100% of the resources of the bank. So regarding what's going on, so probably, Paolo, if you want to elaborate a little bit more on the questions raised by Alberto on the expansion abroad, also the next countries and so on. So please, Paolo, if you want to jump in.

Yes, Alberto. So the first question, when do we think to get to 30,000, 35,000 clients? If we keep on going with this pace, probably... I would say at the end of the half of 2022 we will be probably there, maybe even earlier than that time. And on the question of how many good clients we have, so basically more than 70% of the new current accounts that we acquired are active in trading. and so it's it's very very high the the percentage of percentage of good clients we we have just for the reason that we um we are addressing our marketing campaign advertising to the right target market as we said many times we don't we don't need and we don't want to attract hit and run clients attracted just because Maybe there is a very volatile market that that kind of clients are not interested in. And so very, very high, very, very high. We have good clients, basically acquiring good clients to answer your question. And on the next countries, we are working on a plan just to... to be ready to expand in other countries. Of course, our focus is on Germany as the next country, but also we think it's very interesting for us also, Spain. And so in the next probably few months, we will be able to give you more color also in this direction, but we are working on this plan these days.

In any case, Alberto, just for coming back to the transformation, what Finneco is doing is practical, is what probably traditional banks, they will realize in several years that this is the right direction. Because what is going to make a difference between a relationship with your clients is the experience you are giving to them. And so this is the concept of platform. This is the reason why it's so important. And clearly Finneco, we have a gigantic advantage because our real strength is the platform. And so for our clients, what is important is to fulfill their needs. And so we come to the conclusion that it was totally useless to maintain the burden of everything that is connected to be in a full-fledged bank because we don't need that. So we don't need to. And so...

Okay, interesting. Thank you very much.

The next question is from Enrico Bolzoni with Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.

Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for taking the questions. Just two, three questions, if I may. So the first one is, again, on the combination of net interest income and the impact of treasury activity. Is it fair to say that, I mean, clearly this quarter you had these very strong numbers from the rebalancing of the portfolio. Is it fair to say, however, that the larger this number is, for example, this quarter means that actually you roll down the curve a lot of the existing bonds, At the same time, I should expect for the next quarter quite a bit a drop in NII because clearly a portion of the portfolio, very high yield has been sold and possibly rolled over with new bonds at a smaller yield. So I just want to understand whether I should expect for the next quarter even stronger treasury revenues because clearly now you need to basically keep it going and at the same time lower NII. So if the two are going to set each other but also grow in size respectively. My second question is on the recruiting of financial advisors. So clearly there's been a bit of an acceleration, so I see more advisors that want to join FinEco. Can you give just a bit of color in terms of why they want to join? Do you see them coming from some other competitors? What are the things that they don't like from the other players and basically they make them wanting to join FinEco? And then finally, a question on the international presence. I appreciate that in the UK things are still in the early phases, but would you consider in medium term, say not too far future, also the possibility of offering financial advice also to other countries, for example, in the UK in a similar way to what you do currently for Italian clients in Italy? Thank you very much.

Yes. So on the Net financial income, it's difficult to give a precise guidance quarter by quarter because it depends on the speed of the acceleration of the leveraging, market conditions, and so on. So we think that the best guidance is to overall to have an year-end and stable net financial income. But honestly speaking, it's extremely difficult difficult to make such a precise forecast of the evolution quarter by quarter, exactly for these reasons, because the leveraging process of the balance sheet is as you can expect, is not perfectly linear because it's related to execution of some activities and so on. We think that the best approach for the evolution of the net financial income is to use the guidance we are giving so we have a stable overall net financial income. going throughout the year end and the following years. But clearly, as much as we are going to deep dive in the process of leveraging the balance sheet, the more we are going to deploy the initiatives and progressively we are going to give even and high visibility and granularity in what you can expect on the financial link. On the recruiting of financial planners, clearly we have not changed our mind. We remain convinced that it's a mistake to overpay financial planners for making them join you. We didn't change our mind. What is changing in the market? What is changing? is deciding to keep on doing the job of a financial planner is realizing that to get a high upfront premium is important, but it is even more important to have in place the right conditions for remaining on the business successfully going forward. And which are the conditions for being successful? First of all, efficiency technology because now everybody has realized that in this brand new world, if you want to interact with your clients in an efficient way, you need to have a business partner characterized by a very high level of technological efficiency. Otherwise, you are not able to fulfill your client's needs. Second, your business partner has to put you in the condition to be efficient, because if you are submerged by tons of papers and so on, it is not going to work. Third, this new world is accelerating in the direction of making transparency and fairness more and more important. And so the possibility to have a business partner that historically has been characterized by fairness and transparency is growing incredibly important. Who is joining us? The largest part is represented by bankers because the real big revolution is happening there. Because at the moment we are observing that everybody is excited on the on the so-called reflation trade so that the traditional banks are going to experience a comeback. But what everybody is missing in the story is that, yes, this is probably true, but what is missing in the story is that the world has changed and traditional banks are not absolutely ready in terms of service model, business model to comply with the needs, the new needs of clients and so on. And who is working in the commercial network of traditional banks, they are realizing this, that the world characterized by branches and so on is over. And, for example, we are observing what the reason is absolutely shocking trends underway with banks closing branch in a big way, but not ready yet in providing the alternative service model to clients. So now we have tons of clients that are orphans of their physical branches and not really very well working new service model. And who is working in the banks are realizing this. And they understand that probably if they have the ambition to keep on doing this job in a decent way, they have to look in another direction. And by definition, Finneco is the perfect landing spot. So this is what's going on. So for this reason, we expect a continuous growth of the dimension of the network. And this is absolutely good because we have on one hand the increase of the productivity So the efficiency of the engine is improving, but at the same time also the dimension of the engine is growing. That's not bad. Regarding the, again, I'm changing, I'm passing the power. If you want to make additional comment on the international presence, the financial advice, like we are doing in Italy, if you want to make some comments on this point,

Yes, of course, we know there is a huge potential also outside, also in the UK, but in the rest of Europe, in offering consultancy and financial planner connected to our platform. But for us, it's still too early to think about these kind of steps. We have to establish the platform, the online platform, and establish the operations. and then we will see from there. But the first phase for us is to be ready in different countries in Europe as soon as possible, and then from there we will see. I agree that there is a huge potential also in offering outside the financial planning to clients.

Thank you. And actually, sorry, if I may, a short follow-up question. I know you touched it already. On the margins, fee margins, so the 63 basis points, clearly with the mixed shift, people become, and FAM as well, productivity. Is there any numbers at all you can give in terms of medium-term guidance? So can this become a 70 basis point? Can it become a 75 basis point? If I look, for example, at just the flows you got in the last three months, is there an average you can give us in terms of marginality for these new assets going in FAM and or in products with higher margins?

We think that it's a little bit complex to give such a precise guidance. What we can say is that we are positive on the fact that the margins slowly but steadily can go up for a combination of and a better mix and continuously growing contribution by financial management so we we think that there are there is room for a continuous growth in the in the margins but it's uh probably in order to have uh in order to have an discontinuity, a big jump in the margins, we have to expect for the second wave that we are preparing in Fineco asset management being deployed. But this is going to happen more during the next year than this year. But in any case, we think that it's – and considering that Fineco is by far the the most convenient player in the market and then the fact that we are able to keep on delivering convenience to clients at the same time with margins that they are going up we think that it's an absolutely good the example of the target china we recently launched it's perfect because It's a great product because there is a smart usage of passive funds together with the securities lending. The result is an incredibly efficient product, incredibly profitable for us, and at the same time very convenient for clients. So this is the direction in which we are going to move much more aggressively in the coming months.

Thank you. It's very helpful.

The next question is from Angeliki Bajraktari with Autonomous Research. Please go ahead. Good afternoon.

Thanks for taking my questions. If I may ask, and apologies if you have already answered to that, I'm not sure I fully understand what is changing at Fineco Asset Management and what does the sort of strategic discontinuity actually entail And are you sort of making some hires of personnel there that could look to move more products sort of in-house or sort of sub-advisory in-house? And how could this affect the cost guidance that you've given? You've said 4.5% to 5%, but there could be some extra cost for a farm there. So I would be interested in understanding sort of what could be the size of those extra costs and also what you're trying to achieve in practical terms in Ireland. And second question, we have seen recently, especially in the US market, retail traders moving a little bit away from capital markets and going a lot into Bitcoin. Is that something that is asked, is demanded by your sort of more active traders at the moment. Is that something that you could launch down the line or are you still very cautious on that product?

What is changing in Finneco asset management? What is changing in Finneco asset management that at the moment we are leaving on the table several hundreds of millions of euros of commissions that we are sharing with someone else. And clearly I'm not saying that we are going to get back the full amount, but clearly we think that a very interesting company is going to be brought back in our platform. So in which way? exactly what you were suggesting. We are going to have a growing components represented by a much larger core components represented by passive solutions combined together with smart investing strategies. The example of the China product is extremely second moving, accelerating moving from sub advisory mandates to advisory services and so on. And clearly, everything means that we need to put a little bit more of resources in the company, but we are just talking about a few additional millions of euros. So what we are going to get in terms of increase of margins and what we are going to spend more in terms of cost, clearly there is an absolutely enormous amazing marginal concentration. So this is the last problem we have. So the real point of attention that the amount of money that we are still leaving on the table is absolutely huge, and we are in the process of bringing back an interesting part of this. Clearly, this is not going to happen tomorrow morning, but this is the direction we are going to take. And so this is going to have an an absolutely sizable impact on the revenues generated by the investing business. On Bitcoin, on the cryptocurrency, yes, there is demand by clients. But we are fully aware that we are missing some opportunities, but we prefer to remain still on the sideline because we think that there are still some tail risks in the cryptocurrency world. And we think that we are not inclined to take the risk. So we prefer to miss some opportunities and waiting as soon as we realize that these risks are manageable. The risks are mainly related to the custodian part of the story. and also everything related to the anti-money laundering issues. So regarding this point, the situation is not clear enough. And so we prefer to stay still on the sidelines.

Thank you very much. If I may add, I think in one of your older presentations you had mentioned the potential for a CFD with sort of cryptocurrency underlying, so effectively mimicking the performance of cryptocurrencies. Is that something that you could still launch or are you now going to wait?

As soon as we are going to have an official, something official, for example, as soon as, because there are rumors to have an the possibility of introduction on a future contract on cryptocurrency. In the case there is such a kind of a move, at this point we are going to introduce an NFT on cryptocurrency. But we prefer to wait for having an underlying that is traded on some kind of an officially regulated market.

Thank you. The next question is from Filippo Prini with Kepler. Please go ahead.

Yes, good afternoon. Three brief questions, if I may. The first one is on the ARPU of UK client, if you can give the ARPU of the first quarter this year and also the comparison with the ARPU of the past quarter. The second is just a clarification. Remember that you mentioned the last presentation that the realized gain of your investment portfolio amounted to 1 billion euros. Just an update of this figure at the end of the first quarter. And the third one is on your market share on the guaranteed deposit in Italy. That is the reference parameter to the contribution to the systemic fund. If you can share us which is your expectation of reduction of your market share due to the strategies you are implementing and then the saving of contribution to the systemic fund. Thank you.

On the ARPU, on the UK clients, just an introduction, we don't think that it's considering that the business is structurally improving with the enlargement of the solutions offered to clients. Clearly, it doesn't make, we think it's not a KPI that we think that it's worth the case to use. But I don't know, Paolo, if you're going to elaborate more on this point, probably you are a better position than me.

Yes, basically the ARPU is still very good. It's really lower than the first Q 2020 because obviously it was a stellar quarter in terms of volatility and activity of the clients, but it's still in line what we were expecting. and so uh i think that probably yeah i agree with alexander that is not the best the best key indicator to uh to use right now but still uh very good we're happy with the what we see and uh it's stable if we consider that the the queue the first queue of 2021 is a different queue and still the acquisition is uh it's quite uh it's quite the same regarding capital gain

Capital gain at the moment, the potential capital gain is in the region of 600 million. This clearly is reflecting the quite important rise in interest rates, the steepening of the yield curve. Clearly, and this is a perfect, you're giving to me the opportunity because it's a perfect relationship between the capital gain and what's going on on net interest income because clearly this has made the perspective for, for example, for 2021 definitely better with respect to what we were expecting in terms of reinvestment. So clearly this is the reason why we think that considering the leverage on the balance sheet and so on, we have to keep everything tightly together and so on. So at the moment, in any case, we're talking about more or less 600 millions of euros of still unrealized capital gain on the portfolio. The market share on guaranteed deposits is, I think, that is going down because also probably Lorena, our CFO, can be more precise on the point, but the market the most recent numbers are showing that our market share is starting or going down. I don't know, Lorena, if you want to.

Yes, thank you, Alessandro. Good afternoon to everybody. Yes, we have a market share at the end of September 2020. That is the date in which we have contributed to the deposit guarantee scheme and it was in reduction and it was at 2.9%. We reached also a market share above 3%, 3.5% in the previous period.

Is it reasonable to expect, considering what's going on, that our market share is probably going to keep on going down?

Yes. Okay, thank you.

Mr. Foti, there are no more questions registered at this time.

Thank you for all the questions. And as usual, feel free to make us a call if you need to make some more deep dive in NAMBAS concepts and so on. And thank you again for attending our presentation.