Finecobank Banca Fine Spa

Good afternoon. This is the Corusco conference operator. Welcome and thank you for joining the FinEco Bank's full year 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 2021 results conference call. Last year confirmed our new dimensional growth thanks to the acceleration of the structural trends. and we are progressively delivering on our two strategic discontinuities in order to become more a platform fulfilling the financial needs of our clients than a bank. First, the growth of our balance sheet is now definitely under control, which is in turn progressively improving our revenues mix in favor of fees and commissions. Second, P&E asset management is now reaching a new dimension and it has accelerated its process of taking more control of the value chain to further increase our investing revenues and margins. The strategic discontinuities are making Fineco more and more a fast-growing and capitalized business model with a structurally higher profitability thanks to the investing and the structurally higher room to dispose of it, as the leverage ratio is no more a point of attention. This will allow us to distribute a higher level of dividends and at the same time to be in the position to invest more on our growth. In this regard, we are very pleased to propose to the next annual general meeting a dividend per share of 39 euro cents. Coming back to our results, in 2021, we recorded a record high adjusted net profit of $349 million, up by 7.6 percent year-on-year, despite the increased contribution of systemic charges. This result is even more valuable, considering that it has been achieved in a new, normal world and beats the previous record set in 2020. Adjusted revenues were at $805 million increasing by 7.4% year-on-year, and mainly supported by the investing, thanks to the growth in asset under management and the higher control of the value chain by Finnecoset management. Brokerage confirmed a structurally higher flow, also in an environment characterized by a much lower volatility compared to 2020. Operating costs were under control, and cost-income ratio leverage as a key strength of the bank. On cost, let me please underline that the strategic decision to manage almost 100% internally our IT is protecting us from the inflation on IT costs. Our capital position confirmed to be strong and safe with a common equity TR1 ratio at 18.8%. Our commercial activity continued to strengthen compared to the impressive growth experience in 2020. After the record net sales registered in 2021, in January, we recorded around 7 billion, 0.7 billion. The mix confirmed to be strong with about 0.3 billion in assets under management, of which around 75% were represented by FinEQ asset management retail net sales. On our Irish company, let me please underline that January saw a further confirmation of the acceleration in the discontinuity on the investing value chain with 0.5 billion institutional net sales. Brokerage revenues are estimated for January at around 19 million, also thanks to the uptick in volatility, mainly in the second part of the month. Revenues are around 70% higher compared to the average monthly revenues in the period 2017-2019, confirming once again that the floor of the business is now definitely higher. Let's now move on to slide five, As announced, we reached very strong industrial results, also in a new normal world, with adjusted net profit standing at 349.2 million in 2021, plus 7.6% year-on-year on a like-for-like basis, despite the higher contribution for systemic charges. Revenues at $800 million, or $804.5 million, up 7.4% year-on-year, as we have been able to catch the strong acceleration in the structural trends in place, mainly thanks to the contribution of investing. Operating costs equal to $258.9 million, increasing by 4.4% year-on-year, excluding costs strictly related to the growth of the business. Cost income confirmed to be very low at 32.2%, 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 on to slide six and start analyzing more in detail the dynamics of our results. In this slide, we show our net financial income amounting to $280 million and remaining flat in the year. Net interest income was equal to $248 million, despite the worsening of interest rate environment, and profit from Treasury management to $32 million. Let me remind our sensitivity to a change in interest rates. The parallel shift of 100 basis points would generate 133 million of additional net interest income. With a parallel shift of minus 100 basis points, we would generate minus 160 million of less net interest income. Let's now move on to slide seven. One of the main consequences of our focus on becoming more a platform than a bank is that we are continuing to accelerate the growth of our non-financial income, which in 2021 was equal to $522.1 million, up by 11.9% year-on-year, mainly thanks to the positive contribution of investing. Now, jumping to slide 24, we will deep dive on the performance of the brokerage business. In 2012, brokerage confirmed once again that the floor of the business is structurally higher compared to the past, and regardless to the level of volatility. As you can see in the chart on the top of the slide, in the fourth quarter of last year, brokerage revenues reached 52.9 million in a period characterized by low volatility, resulting nevertheless in a monthly average 57% higher compared to the monthly average revenues in the period 2017-2019. In January, estimated brokerage revenues were equal to $19 million, around 70% higher compared to the average monthly revenues in the period 2017-2019. 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. In this regard, we are live with the marketing campaign on our leveraged certificates platform. And in the first half of 2022, we will launch a brand new brokerage platform which we will combine our state-of-the-art standard with top quality, easy to use. Second, the client base using our platform is widening with active investors that have grown significantly in absolute terms, standing around 35% above the average level of 2018 and 2019. As you know, our active investors have an average of Four executed orders per month are wealthy people in their 40s slash 50s with assets on average above 200,000 euros. And the vast majority of them has a relationship with some financial advisors for the long-term planning of their financial wealth. We are also live with the most competitive offer in Italy to catch the next generation of active investors with a very aggressive pricing for our investing and brokerage platform, giving clients up to 30 years old access to global markets through shares, bonds, ETFs, and mutual funds, also through accumulation plans. we are continuously increasing our retail market share. 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, and we have been able to catch the structural strength in place in Italy. On top of this, Finneco asset management is now reaching a new dimension in the economies of scale, this taking more control of the value chain. As a result, investment revenues amounted to $275.6 million in 2021, increasing by nearly 30% year-on-year. Management fees increased by nearly 30% year-on-year in 2021, while in the fourth quarter of 2021 increased by 36.1% year-on-year and by 8.1% quarter-on-quarter. In the fourth quarter, we also recorded 4.2 million in other commission lines, which are strictly linked to the operating efficiency in the value chain reached on the institutional classes by FinEQ Asset Management, and booked at the end of the year. Management fees margins after tax increased to 50 basis points in the fourth quarter, thanks to FinEco asset management delivering on its strategic discontinuity, and thanks to the accumulation of products, which are increasingly shifting towards equity. On top of this, we have also recorded a positive contribution by FinEco asset management activity on the institutional business, which is in turn reinforcing the effect coming from retail classes. Let's now move on to slide nine for a focus on our cost. This slide confirms, once again, efficiency to be part of our DNA and core in our bank represented a clear and unique competitive advantage. Let me please underline that 2021 was characterized by cost directly related to the strong acceleration of our growth dynamics in the new normal world. Operating costs in the year at 258.9 million, growing by 4.4% year-on-year, excluding costs related to the growth of the business, mainly related to additional 4.2 million costs for financial management that they are current with the acceleration to further expand its business and have a higher control of the value chain. additional $1.1 million in marketing costs in the UK. Staff expenses were equal to $109.6 million in the period, increasing by 6.5% on a yearly basis, net of the costs related to the expansion of the business of Fine Costs Management. non-HR costs at 149.3 million, growing by 2.9% year-on-year, net of above-mentioned costs related to the growth of the business. Let's now move on to slide 11 for a focus on our capital ratios. Finneco confirmed once again a rock-solid capital position on the wave of a safe balance sheet. Common equity tier one ratio was equal to 18.8%, including the 2021 dividend proposal. Leverage ratio was equal to 4.02% in line with the optionality allowed by ECB and Bank of Italy, our leverage ratio. and total capital ratio to 29.63% as of December 2021. Let's now move on slide 13. As you know, 2021 has confirmed that in the new normal world Finicco is in a new dimension of growth And last year, we were able to deliver record net sales with a strong asset mix, as assets under management increased by almost 70%. Let me now spend a few words on the recruiting. In the new environment, Finneco emerged more clearly as the perfect bank for professionals looking to grow their own business in a sustainable way. As you can see on slide 14, 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. To this regard, please note that we have no need to overpay financial advisors with huge upfront fees and using the aggressive approach historically taken by the industry. As a result, last year we recorded a net increase of 184 personal financial advisors in our network as we recruited 116 seniors and 155 juniors with net sales generated organically by the bank at 87% in the period. Let's now skip to slide 19. In this slide, we summarized our guidance with regards To our banking revenues, we expect our net financial income to be in 2022 at least stable at the level of 2021. Going forward, we expect our net interest income to benefit from the new interest rate environment, both thanks to the sensitivity of the existing portfolio and thanks to their investments. I would like also to remind the point that Finneco, thanks to the fact that we have half of our investment portfolio that is at the variable rate, we have one of the highest gearing to interest rates among the banking industry. Let me also add that this new interest rate scenario, coupled with the most recent newsfloss on tax credit, has changed our appetite towards this activity. And we are now expecting to buy a lower amount of fiscal credit, but counterbalanced by a higher contribution from financial investments, thanks to the new investment. In any case, we expect to keep on lowering our exposure towards Italy, also considering the runoff of the unicredit bonds. Overall, banking fees are now expected above 50 million in 2022. Going forward, they are expected to keep on growing thanks to the increase of the client base and the previous repricing actions. Already taking into consideration the negative market effect of January, we expect for 2022 revenues to increase high teams with higher management fees margins. We also expect an increase of around 100, 120 personal financial advisors in our network, and we are emerging as the reference point for professionals looking to grow in a sustainable way. Going forward, we confirmed the guidance of around 6 billion per year in asset under management net sales and 6 billion per year in retail net sales by Finneco Asset Management. We also confirmed the increase of the bank's management fees margins after tax up to around 55 basis points and pre-tax margins up to around 75 basis points by 2024. At this regard, let me please underline that based on the most recent numbers, we could reach that level before than expected. Brokerage revenues are expected to remain strong. with a floor in relative terms with respect to volatility. That is definitely higher than in the past. And let me underline that in 2022, it is reasonable to expect a higher volatility compared to 2021. So we are confident that brokerage revenues will be higher compared to last year. Operating costs in 2022 are expected to grow around 5% year-on-year, not including around $7 million of additional costs related to farm strategic discontinuity to improve the efficiency of the investing value chain. On costs, let me please underline that the strategic decision to manage 100% internally our IT is protecting us from the inflation on IT costs. Thanks to this, we will consider in the coming months the possibility to further accelerate the marketing expenses to take advantage by the strengthening of the structural trends. Cost income, we confirm our guidance of a continuously declining cost income in the long run, thanks to the scalability of our platform and to the strong operating gearing we have, this excluding potential higher marketing expenses. Systemic charges for 2022 are expected in a range between 42 and 44 million, look at within provisions for risk and charges. Tax rate for 2022, we expect a decrease of around one percentage point. On our capital ratio, we expect CT1 ratio to remain above the floor of 70%, and leverage ratio comfortably in a range between 3.5 and 4%. Currently, with the combination of both strong acceleration in the growth of the bank and the distribution of generous dividends. As you can see in slide 54, in the annex of our presentation, the point of attention related to the leverage ratio has been definitely fixed. On dividend per share, going forward, it's constantly increasing, also thanks to the progressive delivery on our strategic discontinuity. quarter 2021, thanks to the quality of our lending portfolio that is offered exclusively to our loyal customer base and to the improvement of the macroeconomic scenario. In 2022, we expect a hit in the range between 10 and 15 basis points. Finally, we expect a robust and high-quality net sales with a mix mainly skewed towards asset under management and with a lower component of deposits thanks to the whole initiatives we are undertaking. Let's now move to slide 20. As you know, in order to take full advantage of our new dimensional growth, we have undertaken a wide set of initiatives to keep the growth of our balance sheet under control. Let me now go briefly through the new initiatives. First, we changed the incentive scheme of our network of financial planners that is now only linked to net sales in asset under management. Second, we will further increase the productivity of the network through new software developments for our advisory services, leveraging on our deep internal IT know-how. Third, we are improving the quality of our client base, focusing our target market on the upper end, also thanks to the past repricing of our banking services in order to better control the acceleration of new clients from traditional banks and be more selective on our client acquisition. Finally, thanks to Finacost management efficiency and strong time to market, we can count on a wider product range. in order to fully catch the whole spectrum of clients' financial needs and effectively convert the excess liquidity. On top of Finnecoset management target offer, our company now is accelerating even farther in the release of a new strategy, and we also launched a passive financing retail classes. All these sets of new initiatives is already delivering, allowing us to move towards the concept of platform As you know, in 2021, we recorded a strong improvement in our assets under management and sales, growing by 70% year-on-year and increasing their penetration of total net sales to 68% from 46 in 2020. On the other end, the growth of deposits is definitely under control, decreasing 2021 by 41% to only 1.5 billion and representing only 14% of our total net sales. As a result, already now, at the same time, we can sustain our strong long-term growth, distribute an higher level of dividend per share, and comfortably remaining well above our regulatory requirements. Let's now move to slide 23, to deep dive into micro-asset management. As anticipated during the presentation, Finnecost Management is already delivering in its strategic discontinuity to take more control on the investing value chain, resulting in higher revenues and margins for the group. Finnecost Management is gaining commercial traction and increasingly contributing to the group net sales. And last year, it gathered a record high of 3.9 billion retail net sales, up by 81% year-on-year. As the Irish company is now reaching a new dimension in the economy of scale, the pipeline of new solutions is further accelerating. In the coming weeks, we will launch around 15 new strategies, allowing Finneas Consulting Management to further step up its retail net sales. Let me please underline another important leg of Finneas Consulting Management activity in the process of the internalization of the value chain, where results are even better than expected. As you know, our company has recently recorded a strong increase in its institutional classes. We have 3.2 billion net sales in 2021 and 0.5 billion already in January. The more Finnecos management grows in dimension and product offer, and the more it can use its supervisory mandate as underlying of the investment solutions. this leading an additional margin contribution from the bank. On top of this, the discontinuity in FinEQ asset management is allowing our Irish company to progressively and structurally decrease the cost of third parties through a number of initiatives, like, for example, the launch of new flagship product range fully managed in-house, new advisory services, and lower cost of mandates. I'll now leave the floor to Paolo Di Grazia, our Deputy General Manager, for an update on development on our UK business of slide 27. Thank you, Paolo.

Thank you, Alessandro. Good afternoon, everybody. Last year, I confirmed once again that our offer in the UK is very well welcome. Thanks to our best-in-class price-quality ratio and to a marketing campaign targeting a quality cluster of clients. We are not focused, as you know, on hit-and-run, highly speculative and volatile customers. but we are attracting experienced traders loyal and looking for quality offer with a strong activation rate at 65 percent on our brokerage offer as you can see from the graph on the left hand side of the slide our quality client base is now equal to around 20 000 clients and our customer acquisition metrics further improved in 2021 with new current accounts doubled compared to the 2020. This is translating in a boost of our revenues metrics, and as a result, our UK business is progressively gaining traction and is now profitable at operating level. The trend of our revenues generation is extremely positive, as you can see from the graph on the right-hand side of the slide. In 2021, we recorded 1.6 million of brokerage revenues, in 2021 and in January proved to be another strong month. On top of this, our cross-selling is working very well and 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. On a final note, we are in the process of preparing the setup to launch our offer in Germany by the end of 2022, as we think that our model, just based on the features of the German market, can be very attractive for local clients, also thanks to our unique price-quality ratio. Thank you for your attention, and I'll give it back to Alessandro.

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

Excuse me, this is the Coral School Conference operator. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and 1 under touch-tone telephone. To remove yourself from the question queue, please press star and 2. Please pick up the receiver when asking questions. Anyone who has a question may press star and 1 at this time. The first question is from Domenico Santoro with HSBC. Please go ahead.

Hello. Hi. Thanks for the presentation. Just a few questions in particular on your guidance on page 19. The migration to FAM is much faster, much quicker than you probably envisaged at the beginning. And you said that the 75 bps target would be maintained, but probably realized sooner rather than later. What is implied in your guidance on investing? Because if I look at the Q4 trends, this guidance, it looks to me a little bit conservative. So the 5 bps margin increase that you realized in 2021, I mean, do you expect a similar improvement or something less? Just understand what is implied in your guidance, also because in terms of sales, you're now basically running in the line with 6 billion. The question that I received is on the 4 million euro other fees in investing. My understanding is that they are related to efficiency, a spammer. are they sustainable, might be larger going forward, or is this a one-off? Then a question on banking fees, because also in this you're running at a higher quarterly rate, but you keep something like a guidance about €50 million. Can you be a little bit more precise? You're always talking about €55 million more. It will be very interesting to understand. The other question that I have is on NII. What's the contribution at this point from the fiscal credit to your NII in Q4? And what should we expect from higher sovereign yields? Is it correct that NII, the core, is at an inflation point at the moment? And then a question on dividends. If we see you successful... in reducing the size of the balance sheet, so moving deposits into IOM more than what you have done so far, improving also your leverage ratio. Is there any reason to expect the payout to increase in the future? And for that, what should happen? Thank you.

Thank you, Domenico. So let me start by the first question, so related to the so what we can expect in terms of margins and so on. Clearly, by definition, we have to take a conservative approach because there are, for example, going forward, there are components that we can control, like what the market can do and so on, but really assuming In a decently normal world, it's pretty clear that we are in advance respecting the plan for reaching the 75 basis points margin. Regarding this point, I'm inviting you in considering as more interesting the after-tax margins because they are embedding also the fiscal component on the Irish activity. But nevertheless, so we definitely, based on this, what is emerging as a positive surprise for us that our company is doing a quite terrific job in in doing things much better and faster than we were expecting and this is allowing to us to to be faster in internalizing components of the business and this really is giving an additional contribution to the evolution of the margin. And so this more or less is the, we prefer not giving a precise run rate of the increase of the margins, exactly for the reason I explained before. I think that if you look to the guidance we are giving in the increased of the revenues and so on, in my opinion, you can extract some interesting indication by how much we can expect to grow. But in any case, what is important to underline that the more FinEcoset management is growing in terms of dimension and the more is expected to grow the institutional part and this is not going to be linear because it's a matter of economies of scale, it's a matter of dimension. Clearly, this is a part of the business which the more the company becomes bigger and the more we can expect to get positive surprise. Regarding the 4 million other fees in investing, this is not a one-off. It is a requirement because for accounting reasons, this operational efficiency that is extracted by the way we're made, they are accounted at the year-end. This is for accounting standards. And so we expect to have at least the same level of efficiency other fees and so on going through the arrangement. Banking fees, clearly this is driven by the reason, the fact that we are keeping on acquiring new clients because the bank, despite that we introduced two waves of repricing, is remaining incredibly attractive because in relative terms, if you compare them what we are offering in terms of quality of services, the prices we are charging to clients. Fineco, the gap between us traditional bank is keeping on widening and so we expect that these flows of clients continuing and we and we have all the new clients entering paying the new the new pricing and this is the reason why we we expect and but we were not giving it and uh so we we are we prefer we are at the beginning of the year so it's uh we think that is the right approach to be So saying we are going to be above 50 million makes us comfortable, and then probably we are going to make some more fine-tuning in the guidance going forward. Net interest income, as we explained, so the contribution of fiscal credit on the net interest income in the fourth quarter. I don't know, Lorena, if you want to give me an answer.

Yeah, in the fourth quarter it was 1.6 million euros.

Yes, it's still negligible. As we explained, with the combination of interest rates that have gone up quite considerably and also the fact that the recent news on the market has made us even more conservative, we expect a lower amount of fiscal credits both. But at the same time, this is going to be compensated by a higher amount of financial investments. So, and all together, this is not going to make any significant change in terms of contribution to the net interest income. On dividend, if you are successful in reducing the, our goal is to keep our balance sheet, base of deposits under control, because it's clear that Fineco is keeping on growing. Clients are continuously coming to us. There is what is very important to underline that Our clients are using in a large way our transactional banking platform, and this is a great value we have inside. This means that by definition, using transactional banking means that a certain amount of liquidity is going to stay with us. This liquidity is incredibly valuable because it's sticky, completely uncorrelated to the level of interest rates. The reason of our very high gearing on interest rates is also because our base of deposits is completely uncorrelated with the level of interest rates. So if you have interest rates going up, Also, in a big way, this is not going to make any significant change in what we are paying to our clients because we are going to keep on paying absolutely nothing. And so our goal is to... practically has been achieved. FinEQ is going to continue to deliver continuously growing results, net profits, and then we will decide going forward according with the market conditions and so on. For example, if there is the opportunity, we are going to take the possibility to spend more in the growth, for example. If there are going to be also the possibility to accelerate even more in the dividends, Yes, we would consider, but clearly we don't think that makes a lot of sense for a company like Finneco East to give an extremely strict binding guidance on, for example, dividend payout. So usually the guidance, a very strict dividend payout is given by companies that they are not... on the fast lane of growth. I'm not expected to change too much in what they are doing. Fineco is a unique investment case because they are at the same time a fast-growing company and a company that is disrupting the industry at the same time distributing very high dividends. So we think that makes much more sense to give as an indication that our dividend per share is going to keep on growing constantly year by year.

Okay, thank you very much.

The next question is from Gianluca Ferrari with Videobanca. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much. Good afternoon. A couple of questions. The first one is on the banking book, if you can give us an updated number on the level of realized capital gains you have as of today. Then looking at your guidance of flat net financial income, but also looking at the sensitivities on your NII, it seems to me that you are not targeting much profits from treasury management in 2022, if you can elaborate a bit on what are you expecting to realize in 2022. Then on products, you are mentioning 15 new strategies at FAM. A bit of additional color on that are these target dates. Is the duration three to four years? A bit of color would be appreciated. And last, still a new product. You are mentioning a new passive fund to be distributed to retail. This could go apparently a bit against the margin expansion you are targeting. Can you tell us which kind of management fees are you expecting to charge from this passive fund? Thank you.

First of all, let me start on the...

We have realized, so at the moment, what we were expected to have, excuse me, there is someone with the microphone open and there is some noise, please. So, thank you. So, on the realized capital gains, so what we were expected to get, in terms of treasury management has been done throughout the month of January. So that is more or less, this has been everything we were expecting has been done. So we don't expect to get any more going forward. And clearly now with the big move that has been in interest rates now, the expected growth, for example, throughout next year and 2024 is going to be massively driven by net interest income and the contribution of the Treasury management is going to be practically close to zero. But this is not a great surprise. we had many times the perceived today we explained to the market that is a kind of communicating pot so that the more we have interest rates going up and the more you can expect our our net interest income keeping on rising at the same time the with diminishing possibility to get to get the treasury management so practically as we we explained considering that we we we realized that all the treasury management expected to be done throughout this year in the month of January. Now, going forward, our guidance is at least at least to be flat. But clearly if we look to the, we are not giving a more precise guidance because the interest rates are extremely volatile. But if we look to the, now that we make a photo of the existing interest rates, clearly probably the guidance is going to be a little bit higher. But it is the reason why we're guiding for at least flat financial income. And on the on the on the new farm products is going to be is going to be a blend on new targets but also a strategy based on the for example specific teams and and and a big trend that they are emerging on the market uh for example there is one that is uh is a strategy that is uh moving clients in the direction of investments and they're going to protect them against inflation. And regarding the passive funds, it's exactly the contrary. So what is going to be proposed to the market is something extremely innovative because we are going to internalize these passive funds. So we are going to keep inside an interesting part of these margins. And this is going to be used for a kind of robotized solutions for clients. So at the end of the process, these new solutions, but we are going to be more precise going forward. It's going to be something that we think quite disruptive for the industry going forward. We are going to arrange a specific conference on the launch of these new products because these new products, thanks to the fact that we are in control of the operational side of the story, are going to be incredibly convenient for clients and margin-creative for us. So the risk to have a dilution in what we're doing does not exist. It's exactly the contrary.

Thank you. Thank you very much, Alexander. Very clear.

The next question is from Alberto Villavid, Intermonte. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon and thanks for the presentation. A couple of questions from my side as well. First of all, I would like to have your view on how inflation is affecting your business apart from the interest rate scenario. I'm wondering if we might expect any pressure on the cost side, guided for plus 5% this year. Is that a level of growth that we should expect even for the coming years? And on that, if the 5% in 2022 already includes some investments for the expansion in Germany, and how should we look at the cost associated to this move? And again, on inflation, if the Higher inflation for Italian households will eventually help you accelerate moving cash into your managed assets once in a while. And if you think the $6 billion is guided for in terms of net income, it's something you can overachieve. And the final question is on competition. We have been hearing Italian banks like Intesa in their business plan, but also Megavante today, pushing IAD initiatives to attract existing new clients into let's say, lighter banks or models which copycat some of the features of your model? Is that something that could slow down your growth in any way in terms of customers, acquisition, and so on?

Thank you. Thank you for the very interesting question. First of all, let me make an extremely broad comment on the impact of inflation on our business. Let me start from the end. So overall, the inflation is going to, for the time being, is having a very positive impact in our business for a very simple reason. Because now we are, as you know, Finneco is characterized by being an an extremely diversified business model in which we have three cylinders that are powering our growth, our revenues. One is banking, then there is investing, and then there is brokerage. So the fact that now we have more inflation than Sony has created a unique situation in which we have all the three that they are pushing for growth. Because until, as you remind us, until the most recent past, we had the banking cylinder that was a little bit under pressure, considering the interest rate environment. Now, it's pretty clear with this new environment, the banking business is going to keep on progressively accelerating in a very interesting way. So, second... clearly this is driving, is bringing us back to a much more normal environment. So with volatility that is back again at least at a decent level. And so this is making the brokerage and business on which we have great expectation. At the same time, overall considering the all the most important trends, this is not going to disturb too much the investing business. So investing business is going to keep on growing quite nicely. It's possible that they can grow a little bit less than respect to the extraordinary here we had last year, but clearly this is not going to change anything in terms of the expectation in terms of growth of revenues, margins, and so on. At the end of the story, we have a combination that is absolutely great because everything is expected to keep on growing quite nicely, so we are extremely pleased. So for us, this new environment is even better and more balanced with respect to what we had in the past years. And regarding the cost, we have clearly an incredibly great advantage, because we think that going forward, financial institutions are expected to face quite a lot of pressure in terms of, for example, IT inflation costs, and clearly we are immune by this kind of inflation. In the guidance, we are not putting a significant cost for Germany for a very simple reason, because Germany is expected to be probably up and running by the year end, so the impact on 2022 is going to be very, very small, so this is not going to... And for sure, the second point, you are completely right, in a higher inflation environment is making clients more aware that keeping cash on their current account is not a great choice. And this probably is explaining why, despite the horrible January we had in terms of markets, nevertheless, and also considering the seasonality, the net sales in asset underneath has remained absolutely very interesting. Because in other periods of times, And in January, characterized by such a huge correction in the market, with that driven and not positive net sales, but probably the risk to have negative net sales. This has not been the case. It's been an absolutely decent number. And this is a confirmation that a higher inflation environment is helping in making clients more aware. Regarding the third point, we think that the announcement made by Intesa is great news for us. for a very simple reason, because when you have the most important, the largest financial institution in Italy that is putting as a cornerstone of the business plan a big push in the direction of a more digitalized world and there is no more intention to buy other banks, to buy branches, clearly now we can say that we are completely definitely in our world. So we expect that the pie that is going to be available for us is going to become much bigger because now it's pretty clear when you have such a huge and large and important institution like Intesa that is making such a bold step fear that the old world is gone and welcome in the new world. And this is our world. And in which now the landscape in which we are competing for clients is much more in our favor because it's a landscape in which the component represented by the The fact that you are occupying the territory, that you have a kind of oligopolistic position is going. And now the landscape is the landscape in which you are fighting for clients based on quality of services. And this is the landscape in which we are absolutely great. So I'm very happy. to have this because now also the last remaining clients that is still saying back come on is i can't trust of the digital world and now it's clear it's uh now we are so the market is going to change dramatically and it's changing in a direction that is our direction so we are very very pleased and this is going to i think is going to bring a a huge contribution to our growth

Okay, thank you. Thank you very much.

Next question is from Elena Perini with Intesa San Paolo. Please, go ahead.

Yes, good afternoon. I've got two questions. The first one is a strategic question. In this new year, which has just started, which is, on one hand, the highest opportunity that you see ahead and, on the other hand, the most significant challenge. And then the second question is on your brokerage business, which confirmed to be very strong, in particular... Your January estimated revenues at 19 million are slightly higher than the average of 2021. So I was wondering if you expect brokerage revenues to be higher than last year in the current year. Thank you very much.

Yes. The most significant opportunity I'd like to summarize with the concept that the structural trends in our favor are massively reinforcing. I'm coming back to the concept. The fact that everybody is now completely convinced that the future is in a much more digitalized world. clearly is that we built this bank 20 years ago exactly for this kind of world. And now, and so this is going to, and we have a huge advantage in terms of learning curve, internal culture, infrastructures, and so on. And so this is going to be a massive opportunity for us. And the main challenge, in my opinion, is mostly just internal. So the biggest challenge we have is that on one hand, we have to keep on remaining an extremely disruptive and fast-changing and innovative institution and at the same time being a very large and and systemic player, and so we have to keep and balance the two souls. So this is the main challenge, but it's just internally I'm fully confident that we are going to be able to find the right balance. On the brokerage, yes, we confirm that we, brokerage, as you know, Helena, brokerage is by definition the least predictable part of the business because volatility is playing a role. Considering that last year that has been relatively disappointing here for brokerage because volatility has been extremely low, nevertheless, we delivered absolutely good results, much higher and stronger than in the past. Considering now we are back in, let me say, a more normal world and so on, I'm fully convinced that brokerage this year is going to deliver higher results respect last year. Yes.

Okay, thank you very much.

Very clear.

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

Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. First of all, on the 4 million other commission revenues that you booked, could you please give us a bit more detail? You mentioned that these relate to efficiencies at FAM, but can you perhaps explain to us What are those fees exactly that you have to book every time in Q4? Are they sort of the margins on sub-advisory mandates, on the institutional share classes? I'm not sure I fully understand the mechanics on that. Second question, could you give us a bit more information on the launch of the new brokerage platform that you mentioned during the call. What is changing there exactly? And last question, is there a level of BTP yields above which you think retail customers in Italy could consider moving out of assets under management and back into government bonds? Thank you very much.

yes so i'm on i'm trying to give you a little bit more visibility on the other commissions without boring everybody with the technical technical details so we practically use the the the the finical uh the finical management files clearly you have an uh you you have a certain amount of cost that if you go throughout the the prospectus there is a certain amount of operational cost that they are expected to be charged on the fund. It's clear that if at the end, you are mainly thanks to the economy of scale, because the more you are growing in your business, and the more you have the opportunity to make what you're doing more efficient, and so you are able to spend less, this clearly is recovered as other commissioners. because respect what is expected to be charged to the funds, we are spending less because we are more efficient. So this is the very simple reason. And clearly, the final calculations are done at the year-end, and considering that we have an absolutely reasonable expectations to keep on growing. We expect that this is not going to be a one-off. This is going to be a recurring component of the business. And so I don't know if you've been able to give you a little bit more clarity on the point. But if this is not the case, we can't. And regarding the...

Can I just, one confirmation on that point. If I understand then, the bigger FinEQ asset management becomes, the bigger this component of savings that effectively you haven't spent during the year should get, right? So not only should it be recurring, but it could also be increasing year on year.

Yes, theoretically yes, but we prefer to be conservative, so let's take this because it's not a one-off, it's recurring, and there is theoretically room for having an even higher margin, so yes. and uh on the on the on the new brokerage platform i would i would leave the floor to paolo uh that is directly is the is the developing and is the mastermind behind what we think is going to be a quite uh again innovative and disruptive platform on the market so please paulo if in a few words you can transfer the So the cost that there is behind the platform without entering in too much technical details.

Absolutely, yeah, definitely. So the first point is that we're going to use a new technology, we're going to use HTML5, which is much, much more usable than the usual platform. The new platform will replace the PowerDesk platform, which is the platform for the top-end clients. and it's going to be much more usable. It's going to be a pro platform, but made very, very easy also for active investors. So it's something you will see a massive improvement in customization of the platform, massive improvements in the charting tools, the trading tools, the search engines. Basically, it's a new world. It's a brand new platform, brand new technology, a lot much, much easier. and we're going to also to give the platform for free for everybody. For PowerDesk, the clients are paying a fee, a monthly fee. We decided to give the platform for free. So it's going to be a massive change, a massive improvement in the brokerage business. And then we're also adding the demo mode on the platform. So basically, it's going to be quite strong also tools in marketing. We're going to allow... potential clients to sign up for the platform and just use it in a demo mode. And this is going to give us big opportunities to develop new customers and potential customers that are using the platform in the demo mode.

And Paolo, correct me if I'm wrong. If we want to summarize practically, we are going to give an experience that is a professional experience for clients. That's right. Then an easiness in the usage that is affordable also for an absolutely basic client. Because usually in the markets you have... professional platforms that they are really clearly cumbersome and complex to be used or easy to use platform but they are very basic and so this is going to be a combination of a very easy approach but the same thing incredibly professional so yeah basically yeah that that's totally true we're going to give the possibility to for our clients to choose among different settings of the platform preset

platform, preset screens, or even customize everything, basically everything from, you know, the size of the font, the color, the size of the screen, the windows, everything. So if you want to, you know, an easy setting, it's very easy. Just click and you choose the easy setting. If you want to customize in the most, you know, complex way, you can do it. I think it's the beauty of the new platform.

Regarding the last questions on the BTP heals and the possible impact on it, it's not the BTP heals that is going to change. What tends to change the appetite of clients in moving an asset under management is a sharp move in short-term interest rates. So, for example, we have usually based on our sensitivity and experience of the past. Usually when you have short-term interest rates rising, for example, above 200, between 200 and 300 basis points, this tends to be a level of interest rates that you can expect in changing some of the habits of clients. But clearly, considering our business model, that we have our absolutely powerful transactional banking platform, clearly, if tomorrow morning we have short-term interest rates going up to, I don't know, 2%, 3%, fine, we can... We can expect to have a modest slowdown in the investing business, but we are going to make a real fortune on the net interest income side, for example, so clearly. But what is moving the client's habits is the short-term interest rate.

The next question is from Filippo Trini with Kepler. Please go ahead.

Hello, good afternoon. I've got three questions for you. The first one is on your guidance on production mortgages. I've seen that it is twice as lower than the production of last year. So it's just a matter of an increase of interest rate or maybe also your internal decision. The second is on January inflows. You collected only 4 million on deposit. I just understand if it's just the monthly effect of January or the first effect of all the initiatives we have put in place to reduce the excess of liquidity on current accounts of your customers. And finally, getting back for a second to the increase of interest rate, I perceive that it could be massive and very positive for the banking revenues, but could you somehow at least give an indication of what could be the impact on the value of the asset management from an increase of these 100 bps of interest rate? Thank you.

On the mortgage guidance, it's just that we Keeping in account the fact that we, as usual, on the mortgage business, traditional banks are extremely reluctant in adjusting the pricing of mortgages currently with what's going on in the market. And so the results that we are running through are definitely an unprofitable business. And we are not interested in doing that. And so clearly, considering that, and so we are progressively adjusting the pricing, we are charging on mortgages currently with the direction of interest rates. And so for this reason, considering that there is a reluctancy by traditional banks in adjusting their pricing, we expect probably to have clients moving in the direction of other banks. As we explained, for us, residential mortgages is an ancillary business that we are providing just for fulfilling the full range of needs of our clients. We are going to keep on just keeping on dedicated pricing for the best clients, for example, for our best private banking clients. we are going to use a more benign approach on pricing. But overall, we expect to decrease the production because the traditional banks are going to keep on offering rates that are not current with the market conditions. And on the deposits of January, yes, clearly we... we have an um there is the there is a structural uh so that they they they'll in january january has been a quite a quite a complex month because we we know that first of all in terms of calendar has not been favorable because we had the end december that had been characterized by the possibility of, for example, financial planners working until the last day of the year. And on the contrary, they close the calendar, they return to their job practically after the 10th of January. And when they return to their desk, they found a big correction on their way. So this has been quite... complex from that point of view. So the result has been a mix in which we have been quite happy with the performance on the investing side because considering the very few number of days in which they are working. The big correction in the market, the results have been absolutely very good. At the same time, clearly as usual, when you have big market corrections, you have also the asset under custody tends to be quite large because the brokerage clients they tend to act as a contrarian. So when the market is going down, they're buying, and when the market is going up, they're selling. But overall, clearly, raising the client acquisitions and so on, the new initiatives we put in place are making the new clients joining the bank much more skewed in the direction of using the investing services and the brokerage services. And so we can say that is a confirmation that what we put in place for keeping under control the balance sheet is definitely working. And on the sensitivity on the net interest income, what impact on the value of asset management? There is no real impact on the value of asset management. So the only real impact is represented by, we have, so if we have a rising interest rate, clearly the only impact can be represented if you have a market that is going down. But as we explained in the guidance we gave on the investing revenues and fees, we have considered the negative market effect that has been caused by the January correction. We have on every one billion of reduction of our asset under management is worth seven millions of euros of commission. on a pro-rata basis. So if this is happening at the beginning of the year, clearly, if this is happening at the middle of the year, it's half. So we don't see any great correlation between what's going on on the net interest income and all assets under management. I don't know if I'm addressing correctly your questions.

No, no, that's the point. That's the point. Thank you.

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

Thank you very much for all the very interesting questions. As usual, if you need to make some more deep dive in our numbers and guidance and points, please make us a call. We can arrange a follow-up anytime. Thank you again.