Komercni Banka As

Hello. Good afternoon. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome from Komershnyi Banka. Thank you for sharing your time with us today. It is the 30th of April 2025, and we are going to discuss the results of Komershnyi Banka Group for the first quarter of 2025. Please note that this call is being recorded and just I have just started recording. Our speakers today will be Jan Juchelka, Chairman of the Board of Directors and CEO of Koneční banka, Jiří Šperl, Chief Financial Officer, and Didier Collin, Chief Risk Officer. And standing by in case you have questions for them are Jitka Hobová, Chief Operating Officer, Margo Simpson, Chief Digital Officer, Miroslav Hirschel, Head of Retail Banking, and David Formánek, Head of Corporate and Investment Banking. As always, we will begin with the presentation of results, which will be followed by a question and answer session. During this presentation part, all participants will be on listen-only mode. We would appreciate if you could keep your microphones muted during that time. Now, let me ask the CEO, Jan Juchelka, to begin the presentation. Jan, please.

All right. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the presentation of Q1 results for Komercní banka group. Together with my colleagues, we are keen to lead you through the presentation and answer your questions afterwards. The highlights of the first quarter are the following. Komercní has continued fulfilling its role in Czech economy. we were growing not only the number of clients, which was by 60,000 to the current level of 1.7 million, together with ongoing migration of clients from old technological stack to the new technological stack, but also we continue the needs of our clients in the field of financing. The loans were growing by almost 3% on year-over-year comparison. Housing loans by almost 55% compared with the first quarter of 2024. And then... having also good news on the side of deposits, where despite the fact that they were stable or slightly below, then the growth was realized on the side of current accounts, which is giving us back not only liquidity, but also also NII. The mutual funds were growing by double digit growth more or less traditionally, but we want to bring this dynamism back to the levels which we are used to in the previous quarters. So no complacency, no space for complacency here. Whereas the other assets under management, such as pension schemes and life insurance reserves were growing, were at zero or in slightly negative territory. The total capital ratio, i.e. the balance sheet, was at the level of 18.7%, quarter one, 17.7%. along to deposit ratio 81.9 and both long term and short term liquidity ratios at more than satisfactory levels. So on that side, the balance sheet remains very, very strong. Speaking about P&L, so the translation into P&L is We are bringing to our shareholders one of the strongest, if not the strongest first quarter in the history of bank, of our bank, and bringing 4.2 billion Czech crowns of group net income, which is almost 50% higher on year over year comparison. Earnings per share are landing at the level of 22.17 Czech koruna per share. Cost of risk, which was one of the contributors into this result, is in negative territory, 22 bps, thanks to the release of provisions. Cost to income lending slightly above 50% of reported numbers would be 47.2 should IFRIC remains renewerized. ROE 13 percent, 13.7 under the fulfillment of the same condition. So, let me move to the next page, which is the macroeco. Czech Republic remains, let's say, a growing country, even though in rather mediocre intervals or mediocre scope. In Q4, the GDP was up by 0.7 and Q on Q basis and 1.8 year over year, mainly supported by the activities of households and government consumption. Wages were up by 7.2%, which means also that there was a growth of real wages by 4.2%, hence the households bringing to the market more economic activity. Unemployment compressed still below 3% at the level of 2.7% as of February 2025. The inflation at the same level, 2.7% on year-over-year basis in March, and Czech National Bank remained at the level of 3.75% with the short-term rate, short-term variable rate. CZK 25 per euro, stronger by 0.9%, and 23.21 vis-à-vis US dollar. The market rates, three months prior to 3.72, down by 20 bps year-to-date, then 10 years IRS at 3.78. down by two bips, and five years IRS, 3.56, minus 10 bips year-to-date. The Czech Gavis, 10 years, 4.29, slightly up by seven bips on us of year-to-date. What is pretty nicely self-explanatory part of this page is the right-hand bottom side. where our colleagues have displayed the composition of Czech exports by sector and composition of Czech exports by country, where we see that the logic and deliveries and contributions of our industries is mainly in the field of motor vehicles and having Germany slash European Union as the main trading partner. for the direct connections or direct exchange. The United States being at a level of 2.9% of our exports, one should remain in the context of hectic discussions around and decisions around tariffs that there are also indirect exports to the United States through Germany mainly. Yeah, so we can move probably to the next page and see the business performance. Gross loans to clients were growing by 2.9%. as I mentioned already, driven mainly by housing loans, both KB mortgages and loans from Modera Piramida went up by 54.5% compared to the first quarter of 24 and by 6% compared to Q4, 2024. So, which is reminding us the old good times where all the mortgage production is going at full speed. And after the transformation of Mudra Pyramida, who is now the only and sole provider of housing loans that we have our ambitions also in the commercial side of the origination of new mortgages. Group lending in general, 2.9% up. The parts below the housing loans is showing with the let's say, nice contribution of small businesses and corporates, whereas the SGEF is bringing us somehow to lower levels as we used to be, and we believe that the leasing financing will be growing up as the year will go. So, So, this is the slide. This is the picture. Sorry, I confused you maybe a little bit. 2.6% corporate clients, 0.7 small businesses. And SGAF, I stick to what I mentioned, 2.1%. So we would rather see that above 5% growth. And we believe that SGAF will go back to these levels. So next page is showing our contribution to remarkable transactions. in the financing of our corporate clients. So you can see at page number nine, please. I don't see the page moving. Yes, nine. One back. Yes, this one. We were active all over the place, all over the segments, all over the sectors, including municipalities. We have picked up one green financing to Accolade, which is one of the largest clients in real estate development. Next page is showing us the developments on deposit side. The deposits are slightly down, even though, as I mentioned, the composition of current accounts chipping in almost 5% growth is, let's say, bringing back the hope that the trend of growing current accounts volumes will be continuing. And the term and saving accounts are down by 6.3%. Our traditional strength, which is investments and investment products, up by 8.1%. The main contributor being Amundi and private banking. The other two main contributors, like insurance reserves and client assets under management in KB Pension Company, are slightly below, slightly in the negative territory. So here probably I should stop myself and hand over to Jiří Šperl, our CFO for the financial performance.

Thank you. Thank you, Jan. Good afternoon. Indeed, financial wise, the group generated a very solid quarter. at the level of 4.2 billion, as mentioned already by Bayan, i.e. almost by 50% year-on-year. I can confirm that it is the best first quarter in the history of the group. At the same time, it is fair to add that the result was positively influenced by the first release of the provisions and also by decrease of the regulatory charges. As said, in absolute terms, cost of risk and regulatory charges contributed the most year-on-year, as visualized on the chart, the waterfall chart on the left-hand side. Cost of risk by almost 1 billion CZK, on regulatory charges almost 400 million CZK. Of course, no surprise that this transposed positively also to the profitability indicators Janos mentioning ROE, so I will add ROTE on tangible equity, which is growing even more to the level of 15.5 IFRIC 21 adjusted. Quarter on quarter we went a bit down, which is, however, given more by the base effect than anything else. We were mentioning three months ago that the Q4 last year was one of the best quarters in the history of the group. Let's move to the balance sheet, please. So balance sheet total assets went a bit down here in Europe. by minus 1.8%. There is a slight recovery, quarter over quarter, but less than expected, to be frank, and influenced by slowdown in the deposits mainly, as Jan was already commenting. On asset side, quarter over quarter perspective, the loans basically stayed flat-ish, while the liquidity surplus was placed mainly into repo with the central bank. The Gavi's, Czech Gavi's investments are basically flourished. And this is bringing me to net interest income category. So it was growing year on year by two percentage points, supported both by income from loans, plus 4% and income from deposit. plus 6% while both other NII and NII from IB went a bit down. The correction in a quarter over quarter perspective is almost solely influenced by doubling of the minimal obligatory reserves that started as of January the first this year. that are, as you might know, non-interest-bearing. So at that time, we were quantifying the impact and the yearly impact was quantified at the level of roughly 800 million CZK. So the quarterly impact is roughly at the level of 200 million CZK. To say without this impact, NIA would grow slightly, but still less than one percentage point. It's of course also transposed into NIM, Net Interest Margin, that is very much comparable both quarter over quarter and year on year and landing for Q1 at the level of 1.71. Let's move to the fees and commissions. Fees and commissions remain still one of the drivers of the growth. Year-on-year growing still double the gif by very strong 11.2 percentage points with two very clear drivers. First one, it is fees coming from the specialized financial services and I should say another super strong quarter, adding more than half a billion check-arounds mainly due to continuing of bond issuance, loan syndication, there is a growth in income from the private banking, et cetera, et cetera. And the second driver is a very good quarter in the era of fees from cross-selling following the sales of the non-bank assets under management as mentioned by young, and this category is growing, you know, nearly by 11%, From the quarterly perspective, there is a correction down. Not a big surprise. Here I can say that it's mainly influenced by the extraordinarily high Q4 2020 thought, as you were commenting on that roughly three months ago. Still, however, above the, to say, run rate. So good quarter. Financial operations, please. So financial patients are growing or income from financial patients are growing by roughly 12% on a year-on-year basis with both components, key components growing and contributing dynamically. So it's the case of capital markets plus 15% and also effects from the structural book growing by 9%. As usual, I would like to add that the blue part is much more stable. So we very much appreciate that. On the quarter-over-quarter perspective, there is a slight drop. I mean, the overall financial operations income, which is rather of seasonal nature. In absolute terms, more than 900 million check-arounds is still above our run rate. And the results of Q3 and Q4 last year was rather extraordinary. OPEX, please. OPEX was going down by 4.4%, influenced mainly by first lower regulatory charges, but also other categories are pretty under control. Let's go briefly through all of them. So personal expenses are growing by plus 4% due to the increase of the base salary, roughly one year ago. But at the same time, we are reporting that the number of the employees is lower year on year by more than 4%, exactly in line with our plan. In terms of GAE going relatively significantly down minus 4%, and here the savings go basically across the board. I was already touching regulatory funds. So here it is like around 370 million check rounds down. And according to our expectation, This is kind of a new normal in terms of resolution fund charges and deposit insurance fund charges because the fund is already filled. And finally, depreciation and amortization still have a growing double digit, which should not be normally surprised because it's still in the middle of the transformation. So it is a kind of mirror of activation of the assets, mainly from the new digital bank. Probably one comment to the bottom right chart on the bottom right chart. It's true that quarter over quarter costs are going a bit up, up around 5%. But to say if we adjust by regulatory charges, which have to be booked in Q1, Q2, Also, quarter over quarter costs would go a bit down. So even the trend is visible here. So that's all from me now and passing over to Didier. Please, Didier, go ahead.

Thank you, Virgie. Good morning. Good afternoon, everyone. So turning to the overview of our asset quality for the first quarter, We continue to experience a good level of resilience with notably two developments, one being the reduction or the contraction of our 12-month default rate for the SME portfolio following some peaks we had in the last two years, so levels returning through or near through the cycle range for the SME portfolio, which is good. The second one is that we continue to witness some contraction in the same indicator 12 months default rate for our unsecured retail portfolios, namely consumer finance and small business lending. And of course, at the same time, the mortgage loan and the large corporate portfolio continue to be at a very low level when it comes to default rate. If you translate this into the IFRS 9 risk classification of our loan book, In the first quarter, we've seen some moderate improvement, and in particular, when it comes to the S2 category, which contracted by a little bit over 5 billion. And in fact, this contraction is the simple reflection of a couple of material one-off situations on our corporate segment with two client situations significantly improving in the first quarter. And for the rest, maybe the point that I keep reminding you every quarter is that we continue to see a very low level of intensity when it comes to loan migration dynamics between the S1 and S2 portfolios, which is another sign of the resilience of our loan book. this level of migration being very stable between 10 and 15 billion cheque rounds going both ways. So compared to the size of the loan book, a very low level. Taking a quick look at the NPL exposure, queue on queue, it remained very stable. And in fact, we had a very low level of migration into the NPL part of our portfolio. So all these give you this content level of our key metrics, the S2 ratio that slightly contracted below the level of 14%, the NPR ratio which was stable at 2% and the provision coverage that we report for the NPL portfolio also stable within the 40 to 45 percent range, which is a comfortable level, taking into account the fact that we do not reflect here the value of our collaterals. So this is for the asset quality, and if we go to the next slide, we see it's translation in terms of the evolution of our cost of risk. So for the first quarter, recorded at half a billion shekron in net reversal, which is made of three main components. The first one is this reversal, which we had announced to you in the last two quarters for one of our corporate clients generating near 1.1 billion check round in provision reversal. So that's the first one. The second one, which is also in terms of positive development, is the level of net creation generated by our retail portfolio exposures, which was slightly above 100 million shekron, which is materially below the quarterly average of the last two, three years, which is more in the range of 200 million shekron. And the third point is that we booked half a billion shekron temporary reserve. This in anticipation of the upcoming update of our macroeconomic scenario. under the IFRS 9 standard reflecting the recent tariffs announcement. And this half a billion check round temporary reserve in fact was very simply estimated based on an expected 25 bps increase of our probability of default for the corporate segments. And this reserve will be quote unquote recycled once we have the upcoming or the next version of our microeconomic scenarios, which will be sometime next month. So this is for the main component of our cost of risk figure for the first quarter. a brief comment on the overlay reserves which we created in 2022. So for the first quarter, we kept them stable at a level of 2.2 billion cheque round. And as we communicated to you in the previous quarter, we will start our release phase, which is expected, in fact, to kick in this quarter and continue through the second semester. with the planned reversal of its retail component, which is for an amount in the range of 700 million shekels. And to conclude on this cost of risk overview, we've decided to update or precise our year end for 2025 cost of risk outlook, which is now guided in the range of zero to 10 basis point closer to zero, i.e. a range that is well below our through the cycle cost of risk level. And this takes into account two or three drivers. One is obviously the one I just mentioned, which is the plant reversal of our retail overlay reserve. The second one is an assumption in terms of stable default rate across all segments and product portfolios under our central scenario, macroeconomic scenario. And we've also added a bit of a add on our reserves reflecting some possible increase in any credit or losses that we could incur coming from digital or the digitalization of the bank and through digital fraud risk just to be on the safe side and that gives you this the main drivers behind this guidance again which is within the range of zero to 10 basis point for 2025 year end, and again, closer to the zero level. And on this, I'm going to hand over back to you, Yaji.

Thank you, Lydia, for this capital. Well, the capital adequacy is still very strong at the level of 18.7, sorry, uh quarter over quarter it is uh almost the same uh ie still around 210 basis points above the minimal requirement and even above our management buffer which is 52 to 200 probably here it is first to stop for a second march is the first publishing date when we are reporting under the new method, under the new standard, IECR3, or otherwise called like Basel IV. And from the waterfall chart, you can see that the first adoption impact is more or less neutral. When the positive impact coming from the credit risk-weighted assets, that added like plus 44 basis points into capillary passive, It was offset by a negative impact on the op-risk risk-weighted sets side by almost the same figure by 43 basis points. This was not a surprise. We were expecting kind of a neutral impact. Still, what is ahead of us is the impacts into the market risk-related assets, which are expected probably next year. And they are going to be, as indicated before, still positive impacts. Not surprisingly, also MRL adequacy is safely above the requirements. And for you, also in 2025, we do not plan to go for another subject slash SNP, senior non-prefect instruments, as we simply don't need it. and the final slide of the presentation is the outlook yes so there is there are some some changes but not too many in in macro Jan already was touching at the beginning of this presentation. So growth of the economy is expected at 1.5% in 2025, inflation around 2%. Rates are still expected to continue going down, lending at 3%. And here is a slight change because three months ago we were saying by the mid of the year, so now we are extending the time by the end of the year. So we are expecting on quarterly basis that CNB is going to go down by 25 basis points. In terms of market growth, there are no changes. So both lending and deposits are expected to grow by a single digit. For KB, and that's given the slowdown in Q1 this year, we are a bit downgrading the growth, which basically goes across the board. The overall growth on the loans side is still at the mid-single digit, but now we're at the kind of lower edge of mid-single digit. Deposits, due to the same reasons we downgrade from high single, same reasons I mean a bit slowdown in Q1 this year. we downgraded from high single-digit to mid single-digit growth. Having said that, we also adjusted KB financial outlook on revenue side down from high single-digit to mid single-digit, and mainly it is on NIA front due to the lower than expected growth of deposits in Q1 and the quarters to come. And this is going to be followed by lower OPEX than expected and even guided three months ago. Three months ago, we were guiding low single digit down, now low to mid single digit down. And that's thanks to continuing simplification, optimization of branch network, Decrease in staff numbers by approximately 500 by the end of the year. And also, I was touching that before, a lower contribution to the resolution fund charge. Create risk skipping. Didier already informed you. So finishing with potential risks, they remain completely the same, just we added one which is disruption of international trade due to protectionism so that's all and now i'm returning course to the interest studio thank you thank you thanks to all the presenters in the next part of our today's meeting we'll be happy to answer your questions

Let me remind you that this meeting is being recorded. If you have a question, please click on the icon with raised hand at the upper part of your screen, and then please wait to be called. If you are connected through a phone and you would like to ask a question, please wait for an opportunity later on. Thank you. So our first question comes from the line of Jovan Sikimic from Udo Bank. Jovan, please go ahead.

Hello, everyone. Thank you for calling. I just have one question on the Outlook. We missed you. We missed you. Okay. Sorry, sorry, sorry. I have just one question on outlook on fees. I think it previously is what said like growth, but now it's at stable. Is it correct or I missed something maybe in the last guidance?

Yes, I can take this one. If you are correct, it is current guidance is stable. And what you can see behind mainly is the fact that we are expecting a bit slower dynamism of the sale of equity funds, equity mutual funds. due to uncertainties on the markets recently, right? So as these products are generating very effective fees, that has been transposed into our downgrade, a slight downgrade of the fees and commissions.

Okay, and you take also the reported one because there was some one-off in Q4 on the fee side, but you take the reporting as a base for the guidance, right?

Yes.

Okay, okay. And maybe I have just one. I'm not sure whether I get it correctly. The components of the zero to 10 basis points risk-cost guidance, there were like two, three points. If maybe you can repeat, that would be my last question. Thank you.

So in fact, I will give you the first ones which are from a materially point of view, the one to keep in mind, which is what I summarized regarding the adjustments of our governance to manage overlay. So in the rest of the year, so Q2 and the second semester, provided that we continue to see the improvement that we've seen for the retail portfolios, which is more than likely. We will reverse the 2022 reserves for its retail components, so it's more or less in the range of 700 million check round. That's number one. And number two is that we... made the assumption that default rate would be at the same level of as last year so 2024 for all product and segment portfolios which is you know a reasonable assumption to make within our central microeconomic scenario okay great thank you thank you

for the question and the answer. So let me remind you that if you'd like to ask a question, please raise the hand button. So our next question comes from Delphine Lee from JP Morgan. Delphine, please go ahead.

Yes, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. Actually, I just have two quick ones. So just on, first of all, on the lending volumes. So mid-single digit, and you're talking about the low end, you are assuming, I guess, an acceleration of lending volumes in coming quarters. Just wanted to get a bit your level of confidence and, you know, if you... can elaborate a little bit about that. And then the second question is on cost. Clearly, it's very helpful to see, you know, sort of like a bigger decline this year. Just wondering sort of what should we expect for, you know, 26 onwards? You know, what kind of cost trend should we expect? Thank you.

I will start with the answer to the first question. Probably my Business Alliance colleagues will complete me. So, how we are confident? We are confident. Let's probably touch the main products that are behind us. So, we are very confident in terms of mortgage. mortgage loans, simply the demand is still super high. The sales are expected to increase further. The same consumer loans, here we've downgraded a bit from high single-digit to mid, but still the demand is also relatively convincing so here we are we are also fully confident in terms of a corporate to say for the time being there is a very rich pipeline that according to our opinion should offset a potential of the impact of tariffs. But if you are asking for the level of confidence for corporate, for me, the lowest confidence is right at this point, i.e. corporate, because simply there is a risk that companies are going to postpone or delay their investments, et cetera, et cetera. But I don't know whether some of my colleagues would like to compete me.

Maybe just to say that on the retail side, mortgages are 60% above the last year's production, but it doesn't immediately translate into the outstanding volumes because this is like standard structure of production. It's not just refinancing of these things that come immediately. It's full scope, reconstructions, constructions, everything. So it will come to the outstanding volumes, but it will take time and the growth will continue. So I'm pretty much confident on the retail side.

Just to complement for the corporate part, so what we see is now a bit, let's say, bigger appetite of the corporates to discuss some investment financing opportunities and also the working capital lines are being drawn more than it used to be some time ago. So these are, let's say, two actual elements of what's happening in this landscape.

And the other question was on the cost side. So more concretely in 2026. So as I was mentioning for this year, we are expecting slow to mid single digit decline. And for 2026, you know, usually we are not guiding the years to come, but it is expected that the costs in 2026 will stay basically flattish versus the decreased base we are targeting in 2025, so around flat.

Great, thank you very much.

Thank you all. The next question comes from Martin MS from UBS. Martin, please. Martin, we don't hear you. Can you unmute yourself?

Can you hear me now?

Yes.

Excellent. Thank you for taking the questions and thank you for the presentation. A question on the NII outlook. Obviously, you slightly revised your guidance down on that front. Can I just ask, is that mainly the function of somewhat lower confidence in corporate lending growth? I long to the volume picture, or perhaps the net interest margin, maybe through deposit competition, maybe through lower loan spreads also play a role here? And just on that related topic, if you could talk a little bit about deposit competition and the pace of expected shifts from here onwards in the deposit mix. Thank you.

Okay, I will take the first one. So, and I would look at, you know, almost a sole reason for the slowdown. And now I'm skipping the, let's say, change is minimal obligatory reserves. But our volumes are almost nothing else. we believe that the volumes recover as is part of our guidance. In terms of income from the deposits Jan was touching at the beginning, a positive piece of information that it improved. I mean the ratio of unpaid versus total slightly improved and I'm not benchmarking with Q4 2024 because that's kind of extraordinary. Always Q4 is a bit different. But if you have a look on the, let's say, evolution of this ratio, unpaid versus total, I remember that one year ago, it was around 52%. Then it went a bit up. And for the time being, at the end of Q1 this year, it is already 52%. But the point is that the change of the structure happened relatively late. So you still do not see full impact of that in Q1 results. But this should recover in the quarters to come.

Thank you. Thank you, let me again remind you to use the raise the hand button. If you have a question.

I think there was still a question about the competitive landscape in deposits.

That's right, yes, sorry, sorry. Okay, so yeah, please go ahead.

You mean competition is still the answer is in the air. So I may start on the retail side by saying two things. First one, we stick to our, I would say, general principle approach saying we pay a fair price. So we don't aggressively compete on the pricing side of deposits. It's not the way we would like to track clients. So we definitely see some of our competitors paying more. On the other hand, we believe we are quite reasonably balanced at this moment. This is the first thing. Second one, usually volatile times play in favor of banking deposits. And we can see it already a bit. And third one, volatile times and decreasing interest rates play in favor of current accounts, outstanding balances. So this is where my optimism would be probably stemming from, if this brief nutshell answer is enough for you.

That absolutely makes sense. Thank you.

Thank you. If you would like to ask a question through a telephone, please press star and six to unmute yourself and you can ask your question. And of course, still you can use the raise the hand button as well. Our next question comes from the line of Matthew Shane from Whitehall Capital. Matthew, please.

Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity. Just to better understand the corporate loan growth guidance as well, when we talk to clients, are they initially hesitant at this point in time to invest? What is the actual demand? Because you talked about some demand you're seeing from clients, but are they willing to forego it till they get more certainty on the environment and how it's changing? So I just want to better understand the real ground interactions you're seeing and whether we are being more conservative just in line of how, let's say, the environment is changing.

Maybe I start to give you a kind of short comment or reflection from the clients. Generally speaking, last year the companies were more hesitating about pursuing their investment plans and this year they are rather more active despite all the geopolitical uncertainties. Maybe a favourable factor or element is also decreasing interest rates and basically interest rates more or less according to the expectations hitting the, I would say, medium term levels and the companies are just ready to pursue some investments. Some of them are necessary from technological or lifecycle point of view as well. So this is the current situation. We do not record a kind of increased level of uncertainty because the level of uncertainty is anyway high already for some time.

Got it. Thanks. I'm not sure if Neku would like to also add for retail or is that a complete answer?

No, yes, that's it. I just wanted to ask about the corporate lending.

Okay. Okay. I see. Okay. Thank you. So, yeah, let me propose waiting a few seconds if you have another question.

Probably if I may just fill the moment of silence coming back to the corporate lending question. Both Mate and Matthews ask for the same. What is probably not fully, let's say, reflected on our assumptions for 2025 is the level of public investments, which might create additional space for private investment, too. and give some anchor to corporate clients, including large corporations, including midsize companies. I'm speaking mainly about potential new investments into infrastructure, be it energy, be it transportation, transportation type of infrastructure. So on that side, we are, as Czech Banking Association is in pretty lively discussion with the government, and there might be some inputs or impulses coming from this side. So that might a little bit elevate the bar for opportunities on corporate finance.

Thank you. Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of. Please go ahead.

Hi, thank you for the opportunity. I just wanted to understand how you think about the related levers of CET1, 81 issuances and dividend payouts. Philosophically, how do you think about whether when to issue 81s, if at all you do, or generally as a concept, would you not like to do so? The reason I'm asking is, let's say over the last few years, you've been paying 100% payouts. And that has, of course, been reducing the CET1 ratio. And at some point, you might reach a point where you would say, I don't want to reduce the capital ratios anymore. At which point would you like to optimize the way you hold capital between common equity A1 and AET1s? Just what is the long term thinking around it? Thank you.

Should I take it on? Okay, okay. So, well, question number one was, are we gonna consider to issue 8081? Actually, not really, because after some considerations, it's very clear that this would not work efficiently, and this would lead to the kind of double taxation, both on the KB side and the investor side. That's first. Second, you're right, 2025 is third year. in a row when we paid or we announced to the markets to pay, which is the case for 2025, 100% of the capital. At the same time, we would like to grow sufficiently which will consume the relevant part of the newly generated capital. And the last point is, for the time being, as a matter of policy of the bank, we do not guide dividends beyond the year we are operating. At the same time, I can repeat here that once there is a surplus of the capital, we are not going to sit on it, and we will return to the shareholders. Yes, thank you.

Thank you for the answer.

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Jan Schubach. Please ask your question.

Hi. Let me apologize. I was not here, so maybe this question was. I'm not sure. I wanted to ask about the dividend policy of the KB. Due to 2024 or 2023 was policy, I think, 40% holding, 60% divide to shareholders. Then it was reason to 100%. And I wanted to ask, have you seen the future policy of the dividends until maybe 2026, 2027? Thank you so much.

Okay, so I don't know when you joined the meeting, but it was exactly the point of the previous question. so let me very briefly summarize the answer we do not guide the dividend policy beyond the year we are operating first we will be more concrete during q1 during q4 presentation results in February 2026. This is one thing. Once there is a surplus, we tend to return it to the shareholders. The third point is maybe just to explain why we paid three consecutive years 100%. of course 25 subject to all validation but it was very much about the focus on the capital management discipline and what you can see behind this is a very high level of our models almost the complete KB group is running under IRBA. We are preparing IRBA for other components of the group, which could be KB Slovakia, which could be ZGEV, et cetera, et cetera. That's one point. Other point, we redirected a kind of allocation of the capital into the retail loans that are capital less intensive. uh we are considering uh to go directions of more the more originate to to to distribute etc etc right so that's why we were able to pay 100 percent still the kind of standard normalized dividend policy is whatever between 62 to 70 plus thank you

Thank you for the questions and for the answers. It seems we do not have any further questions in the queue, so let me hand back to the CEO, Jani Filka, for the concluding remark.

All right, thank you very much for being with us. We are thrilled to continue our hard work to deliver the next quarter and the main aspects of 2025 according to what we are debating here with you. I wanted to thank you for your trust and work you are dedicating to covering KB shares. Also thinking to my colleagues who presented or answered your questions and including the investor solutions team for preparing all of this. Thank you very much and see you at latest at the occasion of the second quarter results presentation. Thank you. Enjoy today.

Thank you very much. This has concluded the presentation. You can now disconnect.

Thank you. Bye-bye. Bye. Bye.