National Bank of Greece S.A

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I'm Poppy, your course call operator. Welcome and thank you for joining the National Bank of Greece conference call to present and discuss the first quarter 2022 financial results. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Pavlos Milonas, CEO of National Bank of Greece. Mr. Milonas, you may now proceed.

Good afternoon, everyone. And good morning to those of you joining from the U.S. Welcome to our first quarter 2022 financial results call. I'm joined by Christos Christodoulou, Group CFO, and Greg Papadrigoris, Group Head of IR. After my introductory remarks, Christos will go into more detail on our financial performance, and then we will turn to Q&A. I will begin with a description of Greece's economic developments and prospects in light of the spiking inflation resulting from Russia's invasion in Ukraine that have pushed up energy and commodity prices. Inflation is clearly going to be higher and for longer than previously expected three months ago. In Greece, it is currently expected to peak close to 11% in the second quarter and decelerate notably only from the fourth quarter an average 7.5% for the full year. That being said, there appear to be several countervailing forces to offset its impact on the real economy. First, employment growth is very strong and looks to remain so in view of the surprising buoyancy of tourism, the so-called traveler's revenge.

Employment growth is expected to be 4% in 2022.