National Bank of Greece S.A

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I am Maria, your course call operator. Welcome and thank you for joining the National Bank of Greece conference call to present and discuss the second quarter 2026 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 for those joining from the U.S., Welcome to our second quarter 2026 financial results call. I'm joined by Christos Christodoulou, the group CFO, and Greg Papagalouris, 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. So let's begin. On the macro front, we continue to navigate an environment of elevated volatility. Yet both the Greek economy and the banking sector have demonstrated remarkable resilience, consistently revealing a capacity to adopt and create value during a highly challenging external backdrop. Recall that at the beginning of the year, the base case scenario envisaged a gradual normalization of the geopolitical environment from mid-year, a date already passed. In fact, the second quarter once again exceeded expectations, S.A. S.A. S.A. S.A. Tourism continues to outperform and remains on course for another record year. Labor market conditions strengthened in May-June, with unemployment declining to an 18-year low, and real wages are set to record positive growth for a third consecutive year. The Greek private sector also continues to benefit from supportive financing conditions. Credit expansion remained robust and capital raising in the domestic capital market reached a new record level through July, underscoring both the strong demand for fixed investment as well as sustained investor appetite for Greek assets. Greece's fiscal position continues to serve as a key pillar of resilience. Following the record primary surplus achieved in 2025, fiscal outperformance continued in early 2026. Greece S.A Moreover, more measures are expected to be announced at the time of the Thessaloniki Fair in September. Looking ahead, investment remains the central pillar of Greece's growth outlook. As the country enters the final stage of RRF implementation, more than 20 billion of available resources remain to be deployed during the second half of 2026 and a couple of years beyond. combined with a mature pipeline of additional private sector investments already underway, these resources are expected to continue supporting fixed capital formation, productivity growth, and the ongoing transformation of the Greek economy. For the banking sector, the macroeconomic backdrop remains particularly supportive. Strong investment momentum, healthy corporate balance sheets, improving labor market fundamentals, and ample liquidity continue to underpin credit expansion, support asset quality and drive increasing demand for more sophisticated banking, transaction and advisory services. Consequently, we remain confident that the Greek economy is well positioned to navigate heightened uncertainty, creating favorable conditions for sustainable lending growth and long-term value creation. Now let me turn to our financial results. The strength of the Greek economy, combined with our comparative advantages and disciplined execution, has enabled the delivery of another solid set of results in the first half of the year. Our results are comfortably fulfilling the full-year 2026 guidance issued in February, leading us to upgrade multiple 2026 full-year targets. Specifically, in the first half, we delivered a profit after tax of $661 million, which implied an earnings per share of €1.45, 3% higher relative to 2025's first half comparable levels. Our return on tangible equity reached 15.5% or over 20% adjusted for excess capital, leading us to provide our full-year 2026 target to over 15%. The key driver in the second quarter has been the strong momentum in our core income generation, underpinned by the strong performance of both our NII and Felines. Regarding NII, it increased by nearly 3% quarter to quarter in the second quarter of 2026, notably stronger than the previous quarter, on the back of solid performing loan expansion and a positive trajectory in benchmark rates. Importantly, NIM has pivoted from the first quarter 26 flows, standing at 273 base points. The current rate trajectory allows us to rise upwards our NII expectation from a low single digit to a mid-single digit growth rate for the full year 2026 on a year-on-year basis, as well as our NIM to circa 280 base points. With regards to credit expansion, both corporate and retail disbursements accelerated in the second quarter, despite geopolitical uncertainty, leading our performing loans to expand by over $2 billion. Year-to-date, a growth of 13% year-on-year. Corporate credit, up by 17%, continues to be the key driver, with credit demand focusing on large corporates, SMEs, and project finance across key sectors. namely energy, infrastructure, and shipping, supported also by the approval acceleration linked to RRF deadlines brought forward. Retail performing loans, up 4% year-on-year, continued contributing positively to credit growth with disbursements coming in higher by 20% year-on-year across all segments, resulting in notable market share gains. Turning to commissions, our fee income growth picked up in the second quarter, yielding a double-digit growth for the first half of the year, 10%, on the back of retail fees fueled by continued strong sales of investment products. Indeed, these led to a half percent gain in market share year-to-date, despite the market turbulence. The other driver was corporate fees from new originations. Our strong first-hand performance provides confidence, for comfortably achieving our high single-digit full-year 2026 guidance. As regards costs, we have remained disciplined in our commitment to invest in our people through the onboarding of new talent, higher wages, as well as variable pay linked to productivity improvements. In the same direction, our multi-year investments in technology and digital infrastructure provide us with many comparative advantages. as regards commercial effectiveness, digital offerings, and cybersecurity. Notably, we recently completed the largest banking technology project ever undertaken in Greece, the replacement of our core banking system. This five-year landlocked project has been a strategic move that facilitates the bank's transition into the new technological era we are facing. by providing modularity for ease of integration and extra functionality, for example, virtual accounts, operative accounts, liquidity management. Two, agile product parameterization for faster time to market. Three, open architecture to facilitate the delivery of our digital strategy for banking as a service. Four, cloud-native architecture, committing easy shifts to cloud, which will be the best practice in the future. and at five, Headroom, for a 30% increase in the already market-leading transaction levels, absorbing future growth without the need for re-platforming. Plus, the core banking system acts as a cornerstone for our AI strategy. More on that later. It's an appropriate moment to remind you that our early investment in technology has allowed us to, one, renew 80% of our systems, reducing their average age to below six years. Two, to create a market-leading embedded banking business due to our APIs capabilities as well as bespoke APIs for large corporate customers' payment needs. Three, last and not least, to totally revamp our digital offering with three new mobile apps, two new websites, and a new youth platform, leading to a market-leading overall number of digitally active customers. Furthermore, the bank has fully embraced AI usage. where our use cases already span across front, middle, and back offices. We have leveraged AI capabilities in many areas, such as the support of corporate business lending underwriting, AML fraud prevention, and the creation of an internal knowledge management platform, Athena, to name just a few. We were also the first bank that rolled out a customer-facing agent, our digital assistant, Sophia, with our rapidly growing services she offers expanding across all our digital channels, servicing already 200,000 requests per month, i.e. approximately 25 or so requests, a number that's growing. Moreover, we recently added in July a real-time voice capability sphere in our contact center, already servicing approximately an additional 130,000 calls per month. These innovative steps open the door to a wealth of new functionalities and opportunities for the bank, putting us at the forefront of European financial services in terms of technology stack and the application of its capabilities. These efforts also provide structural protection and operational resilience in a more challenging world with IA-led cyber risks. Our capital position remains strong. with a set one ratio at 17.3%, absorbing the sharp increase in performing loans during the first half of the year, especially in the second quarter, as well as superior payout accruals. As regards capital strategy, a robust capital position, one of NBG's key comparative advantages, provides security during uncertain times while supporting organic growth and superior shareholder returns, which remain our priorities. Importantly, our capital resources offer strategic optionality for growth and value creation for our shareholders. As you may recall, in the previous quarter, we announced a major step toward enhancing our fee-generating capabilities, forming a partnership with leading global insurer Allianz. This partnership aims to enhance our offerings of customer-centric insurance solutions while maintaining a capitalized model, thus contributing to sustainable earnings growth and long-term value creation to our shareholders. In the same direction, we are currently proceeding with another strategic transaction, partnering with Romero's Capital to capitalize on selected real estate investment opportunities. Our initial investment will be the area of $400 million, opting to achieve recurring income generation while diversing further our fee structure. The partnership is anticipated to provide a substantial uplift to group fees by circa 3 percentage points during 2027-2028, and is return on tangible equity accreted by over 20 basements. To close, it is important to reiterate that our strategic priority for growth remains firm. To enhance shareholder value by increasing our revenue base on a sustainable basis and the event of inorganic growth to create tangible value. With that, I would like to pass the floor to our group CFO Christos. will provide additional insights to our financial performance before we return to Q&A.

Thank you, Pablo. The first half of 2026 was another period of strong execution for EBG. We delivered robust profitability, accelerated core income growth, and also strengthened the foundations for future earnings growth. As illustrated on slide 21, in H1 we generated a profit after tax of $661 million before one-offs, supported by increased NII momentum and accelerated fee growth. This translates into a return on tangible equity of 15.7%, or 15.5% normalized for the first half trading gain, comfortably above our initial full year 26 guidance of circa 15%, which now we revise upwards to over 15%. Importantly, adjusting for excess capital, return on tangible equity exceeds 20%, showcasing the significant upside potential embedded in our balance sheet, which is being released as we progressively deploy our capital resources. As regards our earnings per share, we generated an EPS of 1.45 euros in H1 that led us to upgrade our full year guidance to over 1.4 euros per share. Going into more detail, Our NII momentum strengthened further during the second quarter, increasing by 3% quarter-on-quarter, as shown on slide 25, primarily driven by volume effects, as market rate impact is mostly expected in the second half of the year, given the repricing lag in our loan portfolio. Performing exposures grew by an impressive 2.1 billion year-to-date, which combined with the improving rate dynamics in the latter part of the second quarter will support NII going forward. Importantly, Q2 marked a turning point for our net interest margin, pivoting from the Q1 trough. Looking ahead, the combination of higher rates and sustained credit dynamics underpins our expectation for a strong second half of the year, leading us to upgrade our full year NII guidance from a low to a mid-single-digit growth. While NII and net interest margin remain key strengths, fee income is increasingly becoming a powerful growth engine. Our fees gained significant traction in Q2, up by 14% quarter-on-quarter, resulting in a 10% year-on-year growth for the six-month result, with momentum across core businesses, as shown on slide 32. Retail banking is up by 14% year-on-year, led by investment products, which grew by almost 50% year-on-year on the back of strong cross-selling, leveraging our deposit franchise, as we continue to benefit as clients move balances from term deposits into pre-generating investment products, supporting our market share gains in mutual funds. This trend allowed us for a 50 basis points year to date increase in market share in mutual funds, while retail funds under management grew to 10.6 billion in Q2, up by 14%, or 1.3 billion year to date as illustrated on slide 33. At the same time, Corporate fees also delivered double digit growth, supported by a 20% year-on-year increase in non-origination fees, also capitalizing a very strong finish in RRF-related contracts. Beyond the strong underlying momentum, we continue to make tangible progress in building a more diversified core revenue base, focusing on scaling up our fee-based income generation which will materially support our income growth from 2027 onwards as disclosed in slides 15 and 16. The Allianz transaction represents a strategically important step in this direction, strengthening our insurance proposition through innovative product capabilities and elevated customer experience. Along the same lines, the recent agreement with Romero's Capital broadens our recurring income opportunities through a disciplined and highly selective real estate investment platform further enhancing the resilience and diversification of our earnings profile. Both transactions create substantial value delivering a significant uplift to both our EPS and return on tangible equity and exemplify the type of strategic transactions we seek to pursue. Value accredited investments that leverage our core franchise capabilities strengthening our product offering and customer penetration enhancing the quality and sustainability of our earnings. Below our top line, our operating expenses increased by 8% year-on-year, as shown on slide 34, in line with guidance, balancing cost discipline with strategic investments in technology and people as we strive to offer innovative products and best-in-class service to our clients. Personnel expenses increased year-on-year, primarily due to sectoral and bank-specific union agreements, as well as through performance-based variable remuneration and selective recruitment of new talent and specialist skills, leveraging voluntary exit scheme offerings. Admin expenses growth reflects initiatives aimed at enhancing customer experience. Similarly, depreciation charges reflect our sector-leading investments in technology and digital infrastructure, enhancing productivity, commercial effectiveness, digital offering, and cybersecurity. As our CEO just mentioned, in May, we successfully completed the migration to our new cloud-based core banking system the largest banking technology transformation ever undertaken in Greece and one of the most significant in Europe. This milestone places MBG at the forefront of modern banking infrastructure and creates a platform for faster innovation, efficiency, and superior customer service. As illustrated in slides 17 to 19, we are also accelerating the adoption of AI across the organization from the SOFIA digital assistant to the introduction of an AI-powered voice agent in our contact center, the first in the domestic banking sector. Crucially, these investments are being realized without compromising efficiency, with our cost-to-income ratio kept at industry-low levels, below 35%, supporting another positive full-year 26 target revision. As regards credit risk charges, Near zero NP flows, combined with our leading coverage levels by European standards, support the cost of risk below 40 basis points, in line with our full year expectations, displaying consistent normalization despite geopolitical uncertainty. Turning to slide 23, our capital position remains a key competitive advantage. In Q2, we absorbed the pickup in risk-weighted asset growth, driven by strong credit expansion, as well as superior payout accruals. with our core equity TR1 ratio standing at 17.3% and our total capital ratio at 21%. At the same time, our MRL ratio of 28.4% remains well above the regulatory requirement of 26.7%. While these levels provide significant resilience in an ascertained environment, they also create substantial strategic flexibility. Our capital allocation strategy and priorities are disclosed on slide 14 remain disciplined and firm, support organic growth and superior ordinary shareholder distributions while maintaining optionality on extraordinary distributions and value-accredited strategic transactions depending on opportunities. The examples of Allianz and Romea's transactions are testament to this. Capital deployment of less than 20 basis points for both transactions delivering profitability of circa 80 million in 2027 and over 100 million in 2028. Now let me walk you through the highlights of our standout balance sheet summarized on slide 22. As referred to earlier, trade expansion accelerated in Q2, driving our performing loan book 2.1 billion higher year-to-date, comparing well to our full-year trade expansion target of over 3 billion, as shown on slide 26. This reflects loan disbursements of 5.5 billion, up by 30% year-on-year, driven by healthy credit demand across capital segments, as shown on slides 27 and 28. Corporate lending remains a key driver, with disbursements up by 33% year-on-year allocated across sectors, with emphasis on energy, shipping, tourism, and infrastructure. Loan origination dynamics were positive in the retail segment as well, As momentum continues to pick up across retail products, with dispersions rising by 20% year-on-year to 1.3 billion, driving retail performing exposures 0.3 billion higher year-on-year. In the liability side, deposits increased by 3.5 billion year-on-year, as shown on slide 29, driven by price inelastic core deposit inflows, which comprise more than 80% of our total deposits. Our deposit and total funding cost stood at 27 basis points and 64 basis points respectively, as depicted on slide 31, the lowest in the domestic market. Evidencing a superior liquidity profile, our liquidity coverage ratio stands at 230%, amongst the strongest in the euro area, with our loan-to-deposit ratio settling at 67%. A few words on asset quality, illustrated on slides 35 and 36. Our NP ratio of 2.4% is supported by benign asset quality trends, as flows remain unaffected by uncertainty, supporting a cost of risk below 30 basis points as per our guidance. Our leading coverage levels comprise another strength of NBG's balance sheet, providing cushion against potential risks, reinforcing our resilience. In the first half of the year, we delivered robust profitability, which has led us to upgrade our return on tangible equity and EPS targets for the year, supported by an improved outlook for core income dynamics. Beyond financial performance, our investments in technology have positioned us well ahead of domestic, as well as many European peers, establishing a clear competitive advantage as we leverage the capabilities of a modern IT infrastructure, facilitating the deployment of AI across the bank. At the same time, our strategy sets the foundations for sustainable value creation beyond 2026. Our capital position provides us with a mass strategic flexibility, enabling us to combine organic growth with superior shareholder distributions while maintaining strategic optionality for capturing value-adding opportunities. Long-term value creation for our shareholders is a key priority. And with that, I would like to open the floor to questions.