Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Dubai Islamic Bank First Quarter 2025 Financial Results Earnings Call. Please note, to all those who are listening to us via the webcast link, to kindly refresh their browser link in case of experiencing any intermittent audio issues. As a reminder, please ask your questions by submitting them via email to webcast@dib.ai. I will now hand over to your host, Janany Vamadeva, from Arqaam Capital to begin. Please go ahead. Thank you, Nadia. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. This is Janany Vamadeva, and on behalf of Arqaam Capital, I'm pleased to welcome you to Dubai Islamic Bank's Q1 2025 Earnings Conference Call. I have with me here today from DIB Management, Dr. Adnan Chilwan, the Group Chief Executive Officer, Junaid Esmail, the Chief Financial Officer, and Mr. Kashif Moosa, the Head of Investor Relations and Strategic Communication. Without any further delay, I'll now turn the call over to the Head of Investor Relations, Mr. Kashif Moosa. Kashif, over to you. Thanks, Janany, and welcome everyone to Dubai Islamic Bank's Quarter 1 2025 Results Webcast. The session is led by Group CEO Dr. Adnan Chilwan, accompanied by John Macedo, the Chief Financial Officer, and myself. Request everyone to keep the questions coming through to the email provided, and they will be then addressed at the end of the presentation, so with that, we will start. We will then move on to slide four. As you can see, the global economy has started the year with some uncertainties, following shifts in the macroeconomic and federal policies coming from the world's largest economy, the U.S. Trade tensions and softer demand momentum, according to the IMF, are leading to a softer and moderate global growth this year. OPEC, similarly, lowered its oil demand growth forecast this year, reflecting the likely impact of the ongoing trade conflicts between oil-consuming nations. But that said, the Gulf economies seem to be largely spared from the initial proposed tariffs, which seem to be having a relatively more muted effect on the region. Despite the ongoing uncertainties, the MENA region is forecasting steady growth this year at around 3%, driven primarily by increasing infrastructure spending and rising FDIs within the region. We now move on to slide five. Now, closer to home, IMF is projecting higher growth for the year for UAE at 4% for 2025, and an even higher 5% next year, with inflation likely to remain steady, hovering around the 2% stage. The UAE continues to remain resilient, driven by its diversified economy and strong non-oil sector, which, as you can see from the upper left chart, the contributions of the non-oil have been increasing towards the overall GDP of the UAE throughout the past few years. Top key sectors such as trading, manufacturing, financial services, construction, and real estate continue to witness healthy growth, as you can see from the bottom left chart reported for the last three quarters of 2024. The banking sector, again, continues to remain sound and robust, as we see the initial earnings results from top banks being reported out this week, with DIB having another strong quarter, and the details of all this, which you will see in the coming slides, presented and discussed further by the Group Chief Executive. With that, I will now hand over to Dr. Adnan Chilwan, Group Chief Executive, to take you through the first quarter financial results. Dr. Adnan, please. Thank you, Kashif. Good morning, everyone. I'll run the webcast in our normal format and do a quick page turn highlighting the main messages on each slide. Once that is done, we will open the floor for questions as usual. And then, as always, the last five minutes of the hour I would use to summarize the webcast and leave you with some key takeaway messages. On slide seven, a very quick look at our key highlights. The past few weeks have been quite unpredictable for the global economy and the financial markets as we see some economic policy shifts within the U.S. Within the UAE and the wider region, we've continued to see strong business activities given the robust economic fundamentals and the transformative reforms that the country has established over the past few years. This positive economic environment, together with the UAE's strategic focus on attracting businesses and talents, has led to another record-breaking quarter for us here at Dubai Islamic Bank. Ample liquidity supported by deposits growing by over 7% year to date has led to the expansion of balance sheet by more than 3%. This, in turn, supported our deployment strategy across both financing and fixed-income businesses, and we stand at around 4% year-to-date growth within the portfolio. The remarkable performance helped us reach AED 2.1 billion, and these are pre-tax profits during Q1, which is up by nearly 14% year-on-year. With such a strong start to the year, our new strategic theme that we unveiled at the beginning of the year, which is called Accelerate, has already provided the right impetus and momentum for the next nine months and to a successful closure of 2025. Slide eight looks at the balance sheet. Now, over 3% growth in total assets has allowed us to reach a balance sheet size of around AED 355 billion. Both sides of the balance sheet have showcased strong performance, with deposits rising to AED 265 billion, which is up by around 6.5%, and net financing and sukuks have grown by over 4% and nearly stand at AED 307 billion. The solid growth of more than AED 26 billion in gross new financing during the quarter, which is up by 26% year-on-year, has helped push the financing portfolio, which stands at around AED 222 billion, a growth of nearly 5%, which I've alluded to on the previous slide. Overall, both profitability and return ratios, as well as asset quality metrics, have shown positive trends, which we will dive into further as we progress through the presentation. Slide nine is an income statement slide. Despite the corporate tax impact, which now has risen to 15% from 9% last year, and the rise in operating expenses by 4%, our P&L story has remained strong during the quarter. As you can see, net operating revenues grew by 5% year-on-year to reach AED 3.1 billion. This 14% increase in profit and an 8% rise in profit after tax, both year-on-year, are strong evidence of the bank's ability to successfully navigate any changes in the market dynamics while continuing to invest optimally in the growth of all businesses. We have seen a significant drop in impairments, which stand at around AED 163 million from AED 299 million in the same period last year. This is low by around 45% year-on-year. It's also a clear testament to the quality underwriting that the bank has been pursuing over the recent past. Our cost-to-income ratio at 28% and our net profit margin ratio at 2.9% remain healthy and are on target for the full-year guidance that we've already unveiled at the beginning of the year. Slide 10 is a look at profitability and the cost structure of the bank. In this slide, I would like to highlight that the main contributors to our profitability, clearly non-funded income, came in strong during the quarter at AED 962 million versus AED 849 million in the same period last year, and this is approximately a 13% rise. As mentioned earlier, the steady rise in our OpEx of 4% year-on-year is attributed to our continued investment in our resources and the talented skills as we continue to strengthen the key areas of the bank. Ongoing campaigns to drive our customers to our digital channels, which is obviously on the consumer side, continue to be a reflection in the marginal rise within our operating expense. Margins have remained relatively stable at 2.9%, and while slightly below year-end, these are still in line with the overall guidance that we've given for the year. Slide 11, let's focus on deployment of these funds. You will see that the bank witnessed healthy growth across all business lines. Corporate banking, which is a combination of local and cross-border portfolio, increased by 4% when compared to the year-end numbers, and it stands at AED 155 billion. Consumer banking business has seen good growth of around 7%. That stands at around AED 68 billion. And our sukuk investment book has grown by around 2%. It stands at around AED 84 billion. Now, this growth was supported by strong gross new underwriting across all our businesses, and we have seen to the tune of around AED 26 billion driven by our corporate book, and this includes our investment banking book, our cross-border book, our local corporate book, and around AED 12 billion to the tune of around AED 12 billion in corporate and AED 9 billion in retail. So overall, we've seen gross underwriting to the tune of around AED 26 billion across all our businesses. Our net financing has grown by an impressive amount to nearly 5% year-on-year, and we've reached a portfolio size of AED 223 billion. And the breakdown of this, as you can see in the pie chart, is a 70/30 split between corporate and consumer. Let us now dig deeper into these individual business segments. Slide 12 looks at our consumer banking business. The consumer banking business has had a very strong quarter as the portfolio grew by 7% to date and is now at AED 68 billion compared to AED 63 billion at the end of 2024, and when you compare that to the end of 2023, that portfolio stood at AED 56 billion, so very good traction in that portfolio, and over the last two years, this portfolio has grown more than 20%, which is quite remarkable. Consumer deposits have continued to see a steady increase, and they are now standing at AED 94 billion, with the current and savings account within that portfolio standing at around AED 50 billion, which is a healthy rise of 6% during the quarter. Overall revenue trends within the consumer bank remain healthy as the portfolio has demonstrated a growth of more than 10% in revenues to reach AED 1.2 billion. As we can see, overall, the consumer portfolio is on track for good growth momentum, and this is in line with the fast-growing consumer market within the UAE, which is obviously driven by a rising population as well as an increasing number of residents that we have seen within the past few quarters. Slide 13 looks at our local as well as our cross-border corporate business. Now, this portfolio continues to grow steadily. It now stands at around AED 155 billion, which is up by 4% during the quarter and around 8% during the past two years. Growth in this portfolio is supported by a rise in many sectors, some of which being utilities, manufacturing, aviation, logistics, as well as selective real estate, last but not least, certain trade finance activities as well. Corporate deposits have seen a healthy rise of about 7% during the quarter, which was up from AED 157 billion at the end of 2024 to stand at AED 169 billion at the end of the first quarter of 2025. Now, of course, lower yields have been witnessed in this portfolio, and they were on account of decrease in benchmark rates. That said, the net funded income grew by around 4% year-on-year to reach AED 613 million dirhams. Now, this showcases the bank's ability to compensate the loss in income from healthy growth within the corporate financing book. And here, specifically, we've seen a gross underwriting, like I've mentioned, of close to around AED 12 billion during the quarter. So lower income on account of lower benchmark rates is compensated very well by our growth strategy, and as we grow the portfolios, we are compensating for the loss of net income within the portfolio. Slide 14 looks at our treasury business. While our treasury manages the group's liquidity requirement, it also proactively manages the fixed-income investments for the bank. Now, during this quarter, we saw a steady growth of around 2% year-to-date, and the portfolio stands at around AED 84 billion. This is a reflection of issuances in the market and the price points at which we grow these portfolios, so quarter one 2025 has seen some muted growth in our fixed-income book, and that's, again, deliberate. We want to make sure that we tap the market at the right price point. It's also a reflection of where the issuances are within the Islamic space, and we will always be opportunistic to make sure that the excess liquidity of the bank is invested in our fixed-income book in order to lock rates. As the interest environment would start to decline, we would benefit from our fixed-income portfolio because we are locking rates, which are relatively higher when compared to what they will be towards the end of the year. Revenues within the treasury book saw a growth of 7% year-on-year, and we've reached AED 644 million. Revenue growth was supported by higher net funded income, which rose by around 10% year-on-year to reach AED 569 million. And this is exactly what I have explained. We have been locking high interest rates within our fixed-income book, and while it's a reflection of new issuances, also, there are some secondary trades that we lock in to make sure that we are benefiting from this portfolio, which is being locked today. As interest rates go down, we will tend to take advantage of a book which is overall yielding across close to around 5%. Slide 15 looks at asset quality. The good story continues here with continuous improvement that we have witnessed in the asset quality metrics over the last few years. Our NPF ratio has fallen to around 3.7%, and this, for us, is the lowest it has been since the global pandemic. It reflects a 30 basis points drop since year-end 2024, and it reflects a 127 basis points drop when compared to the first quarter of 2024. The last 12-18 months have been very good from an asset quality metric standpoint, and as we progress into the remaining part of 2025, we are very, very optimistic that this asset quality will further improve because the good book continues to increase, i.e., the denominator continues to increase, and also absolute amounts of NPLs continue to come down. So with both sides of that ratio being addressed, we anticipate that we will be in line with the year-end guidance, and in fact, we may even be better than the year-end guidance as far as the non-performing loan book of the bank is concerned. Cash coverage continues its upward trajectory. We continue to use the strength of our P&Ls as well as our robust models to build provision wherever required. The cash coverage on our NPL book stands at around 98%, and our total coverage, which is including our discounted collateral at any point in time, stands at around 139%. Both have increased by around 100 basis points during the quarter. Slide 16 looks at asset quality by stages. You can see that the breakdown across the stages also paints a very strong positive picture. As we can see, stage two and stage three are decreasing, clearly pointing towards quality underwriting as well as improving credit standing. ECL coverages on stage two and three have increased with stage two at 9.4% and stage three at 81.8%. These have increased by circa close to around 250 basis points across the stages. Absolute non-performing financing continues to decline, and it stands at around AED 8.6 billion versus AED 9.1 billion at the end of the year. So one can say that the 30 basis points reduction in non-performing loans is not only on account of the denominator increasing, but more importantly, the absolute amounts also coming down. Slide 17 looks at our funding sources and liquidity. Liquidity of the bank has continued to remain healthy and strong within both our wholesale business as well as our consumer banking business. Deposits had a strong quarter, growing by more than 6% year-to-date to reach AED 265 billion, and this was necessitated because the very strong pipeline that we have on our asset side. Needless to say, we've seen a very strong growth in the first quarter. I alluded to the AED 12 billion growth in our financing book, but also the strong pipeline that we have in the subsequent quarters necessitates that the bank has a good liquidity position, so we've managed to mobilize deposits from the market. Our current and savings account ratio stands at close to around 37%. Fixed deposit ratio stands to around 63%. All this put together, LCR ratio is quite healthy, as well as our NSFR ratio is strong. All these points to the direction that with strong liquidity and funding sources, we are better equipped to manage the growth of the bank in line with the guidance that we have given at the beginning of the year. Slide 18 looks at capitalization. Bank's capital, both in terms of total capital as well as CET1 ratio, is quite robust, well above the minimum regulatory requirements. CAR stands at 17.3%, and CET1 stands at around 13.4%, and obviously, in the first quarter, these are already net of the dividend payouts that we've made. A very quick look at our digital strategy on slide 19. The bank continues to invest within its digital ambitions, and we aim to transition into a more digital-first organization, and this aligns with our commitment to accessibility and inclusivity. Now, having said that, this means that we are investing significantly in advanced digital infrastructure, which obviously should support seamless integration to new technologies, and some of that includes adoption of cloud computing, advanced data analytics, AI-driven solutions, looking at next-gen AI, looking at making sure that data analytics plays a very important role within decision-making so that we can better serve our customers and enhance the overall customer experience ambition of the bank. Slide 20 is a slide on sustainability. We have achieved several milestones during this quarter in pursuit of our ESG growth strategy. Now, during the quarter, we issued three new publications to further drive our sustainability ambitions. We have issued an annual sustainability report. We also have an annual sustainable finance report, and lastly, we also now have a Sustainability-Linked Finance Facilities Framework, which is a first from any Islamic bank globally. These frameworks obviously support our existing and new customers, transform their current business models into a more sustainable and future-proof one. All of the recent publications that I've alluded to aim to further enhance our ambition towards global sustainability, and all of this is to make sure that we further drive transparency and disclosures and propel towards a sustainable finance agenda. Slide 22, we look at our key ratios and key metrics and compare them with the full-year guidance. You can see that all of the ratios, the eight key metrics that we have on this slide, are making very good progress towards the overall financing, towards the overall full-year guidance that we have given at the beginning of the year. While we will be measuring these quarter on quarter, customary to what we do, at the end of next quarter, we will revisit each of these guidances and see if we have to move them upwards. For now, if you can see in terms of growth, we are on track. If you analyze that growth, you will see that we'll probably be meeting our guidance. We are very optimistic that we will meet that year-end guidance on loan growth. Pipeline continues to be strong. Non-performing financing is looking very, very strong. We are optimistic that we are going to meet that guidance. ROAs and ROEs are a reflection of the earnings, which continue to be strong. Net profit is robust, and more importantly, it is consistent. In terms of net profit margins, we have guided the market to a margin of 2.8%-3%. Of course, we are in line with that today, and with interest rates going down, will these margins come under pressure? Of course, they will, but we are optimistic that we'll be able to manage that with repricing both sides of our Balance Sheet, but more importantly, repricing our liability side because, as you would appreciate, a large portion of our liabilities are in fixed deposits, so I think it's very advantageous for us that if interest rate goes down because a large portion of our liability books would be repriced in our favor, and in terms of our Cost-to-Income Ratio, again, our guidance is 26%. We are at 28%, which is at similar levels when compared to normalized Cost-to-Income Ratio for 2024, and we are optimistic that we will go very close to that 26% mark at the end of the year. I pause here, and we'll now open the floor for questions and answers, and I can see that there are a lot of questions that have come in. We'll try to address as many as we can. We'll take a pause. We'll try to see common ones and come back to you and answer them. But once I'm done with questions and answers, like always, I will use the last five minutes of the hour to summarize everything that we've covered. Thank you, Dr. Ladies and gentlemen, we are open for questions. We're going to review a few as they come through and then answer the ones, avoiding repetitions, of course, just to keep everybody's time in mind. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now start the question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, please send them via webcast at dib.ai. Thank you for holding until we have our first question. S o we've got a first set of questions from Rahul from Sydney. The first question is about the peers. Some of the peers have talked about using deductions to lower the effective tax rate impact. Are there avenues that you are exploring? The second one is about the loan growth and credit costs, and are we comfortable with the ECL stage one coverage, which where it stands today, or how do we feel about it, and the third is on the lower repricing of your assets from rate cuts in 2024 already done, or is there more impact expected? Rahul, thank you. Excellent questions. I'll take them in the order that you've raised. Peers talking about using deductions to lower effective tax rate, impact on PBT to close to 12%-13%. Rather than alluding to any specific rate or pointing towards any specific direction, as you would appreciate that in any jurisdiction, the effective tax rate is not the exact rate that has been announced. So in our case, everybody will be subjected to a rate of 15%. And like any good corporate, we will also try and evaluate if there are any deductions that we can benefit from. And that would be a business-as-usual exercise as we speak. We even did that when we used to be subjected to 9%, right? So we always look at opportunities to see if there would be any tax deductions. And this is something that we will continue to look at. And if we find opportunities, definitely we will try and apply that. What that would end for the effective tax rate to be, whether it would be 12%, 13%, 14%, is too early to say, right? Because this is a moving goalpost, and it's a very dynamic environment, so we'll continue to do that and evaluate that as we go forward. Your question two talks about loan growth and the credit cost due to macroeconomic headwinds and oil price decline and whether we are happy with our stage one ECL coverage. You would appreciate that this has been an ongoing journey for all financial institutions within the UAE, i.e., the computation of ECLs, and every year, banks try and enhance the modeling of ECL computations. We are also, with the latest version within our modeling pilots, we are at a very, very advanced stage. Our ECL computation today, are we happy with it? Yes, we are very happy with it. In terms of coverage, you are talking about macro headwinds. You will appreciate that close to around 95% of our portfolio is within the GCC. So the macroeconomic headwinds that you're referring to may not reflect in the GCC's business models. Having said that, we rely on our models, and if need be, we will relook at our models. But as of now, we are very happy with our ECL coverage, not only for stage one but also for stage two. In terms of your third question, which is on lower repricing of your assets from rate cuts in full year 2024, is that already done? Yeah, we usually manage to reprice. A large part of our portfolio is variable, and we manage to reprice our portfolio anywhere between three to four months. So the rate cuts that you are alluding to have already been factored and have been repriced. If any more further interest rate cuts happen, then obviously that repricing would go through its normal cycle, which lasts anywhere between three to four months, right? So you would appreciate liabilities get repriced faster than assets, and there's always a lag of around three to four months. But the 2024 rate cuts have already been repriced majorly. Okay, so we've got a few questions from Janany Vamadeva from Arqaam Capital. The first is on the sequential movement in margin, as they seem to have looked like they've compressed, and how many rate cuts are baked into the guidance for the 2.8%-3% guidance for 2025. Also, second question is on the recoveries. Do you expect them to continue? What is the expectation of cost of risk for 2025 now? And the third is on some color on corporate growth, and is it coming from cross-border or local? Those are the three questions. Thank you, Janany. In the order of questions that you've raised, margins, the sequential movement in margins compress sharply quarter on quarter. If you recollect, when we were discussing our full-year results, specifically Q4 2024, and we were talking about higher margins, I had mentioned proactively that you have to take off out of these margins that we are reporting, take off these one-off enhancements in the margin that happened due to certain extraordinary income that we had recognized within our funded income line on account of certain recoveries that had happened from some of the legacy asset quality challenges that we faced. Because the recoveries that happened were reflected in two lines, if you remember me explaining that. One was within the impairments and provisioning line, and the second was within the funded income line. If you strip out that enhancement in the funded income line, and that was to an extent of around AED 400 million. If you strip that out, you will see that our net interest margins were at 2.9% even at the end of 2024. Quarter on quarter basis, we are at the same level, which is at around 2.9%. You should not look at it. If my memory serves me correct, you are talking about 3.1% moving to 2.9%, but that explanation was given at the end of last quarter where we said that our net interest margins are actually, in essence, 2.9%, and we are flat. How many rate cuts are baked within the guidance of 2.8%-3%? When we did the planning and gave the guidance at the beginning of the year, we were anticipating around four rate cuts, one every quarter. Since then, of course, a lot has changed. We are still talking about rate cuts, but it's anybody's guess that there might be two rate cuts or three rate cuts, if not more. But I think what we need to understand is, rather than how many rate cuts, we need to understand the quantum of those rate cuts. So we are working now. From now on, if you look at it going forward, we are looking at roughly around 50-75 basis points from now until the end of the year, and that's what the dot plots are also pointing towards, right? So irrespective of how many rate cuts, I think let's look at what were the total rate cuts that we were anticipating. So we were looking at roughly around 1% reduction in rates, and now with what has happened in the first quarter, we are looking at roughly around 75 basis points, right? So that is where we probably think the Fed will land. Expect recoveries to continue in the coming quarters? Of course, there have been some mild recoveries in quarter one also, and maybe there might be a few more recoveries in quarter two, quarter three, quarter four, but nothing to the extent of what we saw in 2024, right? Because asset quality has significantly improved, and our legacy challenges are now behind us. That means that whatever enhancements that we had to make to our P&L were done in 2024. Of course, there would be some things that would trickle down in the subsequent quarters, but nothing as high and as large as 2024. Do we see any current oil price movement affect asset quality and the growth outlook for the sector? No. As of now, we are holding all our guidances. We've seen macroeconomic headwinds globally, but not so much within the GCC. And as you would appreciate, we've seen oil price volatility back in the pandemic days, right? And the economies within the GCC, which is what we are exposed to predominantly, are very well diversified. So we don't see any changes to guidance, any downward change to guidance as of now, or even asset quality challenges. You're also asking for some color on corporate growth, and did it mostly come from cross-border lending as more than 50% of quarterly growth came from outside UAE? Before we start looking at portfolio and where the portfolio ends, it's also extremely important for us to look at gross underwriting because that's how our engine works. So when we look at gross underwriting within our wholesale business, I can say that our corporate book locally, as well as our corporate book regionally outside the UAE, has grown similarly. Of course, when we see certain prepayments and repayments happen locally, it does not reflect in our corporate local book. But overall, I can say that we've grown by about AED 12 billion gross underwriting on our total corporate book, which is local as well as international or as well as regional, and it has grown equally across our business. The reliance that you talk about to the kingdom and the kingdom's reliance on oil price, listen, we have a very well-articulated strategy to the kingdom, right? Which is what we have been alluding to in the last 24 months, and which is what we have been religiously following over the last 24 months. It has panned out very well for us. We've grown our book days, and obviously, we are supporting that book through our local balance sheet here. So for us, that strategy continues to hold good. It's a very strong strategy. It's a strategy that is giving credit to some very strong names based on repayments that are amortizing in nature. More importantly, it is within sectors within the Kingdom that is similar to what we did within the UAE, which means we lend to sectors that are vibrant to the growth of an economy, and I mean utilities, I mean manufacturing, I mean aviation, a little bit of healthcare if possible. So all of these is what we have been focusing on whenever we do any business even outside UAE. So Kingdom is no exception to that. Of course, the Kingdom relies on oil for its revenues, but it's also moving towards a diversified economy. For us, the credit that we have extended to, and at the time we extended to, never took into account where the oil price would be, right? For us, the credit that we underwrote to these names in the Kingdom were based on strong cash flows and based on their business models and the sectors that I have already articulated. So for us, nothing changes. Of course, we are not saying that everyone is insulated from what is happening. We continue to monitor the situation, but as of now, we have ended quarter one on a very strong footing, and that only allows us to elevate our ambitions going forward, and we are in line with our guidance, and we continue to hold our guidance across all our metrics go ing forward. Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to remind you, if you have any further questions, please send them via webcast@dib.ai. Thank you. Yeah. Again, Janany, just give us a little bit of time because we are sifting through questions that are common ones that have already been answered in detail. So just bear with us. Thank you. All right. So we have some questions from Gulash. The first question is on the quarter-on-quarter growth in lending and how does it spread across the quarter? The second is on the first quarter 2025, what is driving the decline in share of profits from JVs and associates and other income. The third is on the dividend payout and what's the expectation on it for 2025, and how should we look? And the fourth is on the expectation of cost of risk for 2 025. Thank you all for your questions. Your first question is on quarter-on-quarter lending growth and whether it came towards the tail end of the quarter. I can say that it has been spread across the month, so there's nothing that is skewed towards the end of the quarter. If it is a consumer business, for example, you will see normal underwriting of the consumer business month on month. So we've got a well-oiled engine over there. When you look at our fixed income book, that is obviously a reflection of issuances in the market and the kind of opportunity that plays to us. A corporate book, local as well as regional corporate book that we built is, again, not skewed towards the end of any quarter. That might also happen, but if you are asking specifically for Q1, no, it has been a good steady increase. You would appreciate that in the first quarter, the last month of the quarter was extended holiday period. So definitely, it's not skewed towards that. But usually, we try to make sure that we've got smooth underwriting across all, but sometimes it might happen that we book a business that is very close to a particular month end or a particular quarter end. But in Q1, that has not happened. Your second question is around Q1 2025. What is driving the year-on-year decline in share of profits from JVs, associates, and other income? If I understand your question, you probably want to ask not year-on-year. You want to ask what is driving the year-end decline because when you compare Q4 2024 versus Q1 2025, you might see that there is some decline in other income, and that is on account of certain income that we had booked from sale of some real estate assets or exceptional performance by some of our associates outside the UAE, which obviously, in most years, is year-end activity. So you will always see, if you go back years, you will see that Q4 for almost all our associates and JVs is always very high in terms of income, and Q1 is then a little muted, and it only then takes off when strategies are put in place and everybody gets the hang of their individual business plans. Our joint ventures and associates start to contribute. So that's just a normal pattern that you see. Other income is a reflection on markets and opportunities in the market. We've had a good Q1 in terms of other income, but more importantly, Q2 is looking stronger. So if you are asking me pipeline, not just in terms of loan underwriting, but also in terms of other income, our Q2 pipeline seems to be from this vantage point, seems to be stronger. Your question three is around dividend payout ratio in light of strong lending growth. I think more than dividend, you probably are moving towards capital preservation and what would be our capital levels. I think, again, too early to talk about dividend payouts. You would always appreciate that we look at our year-end results, we look at our future growth opportunities and potential, and then we balance it out by coming up with a dividend payout ratio, which not only gives returns to shareholders but also allows the bank to retain a good amount of capital for supporting future growth. So very, very early days, but you can look at our past track record, and you can probably extrapolate from there where our dividend payout ratio should be. But for now, I think we are focusing on our growth ambitions, and we've got adequate capital and adequate liquidity to support that growth. Cost of risk, we valued it to a normalized cost of risk of about 60-70 basis points. Now, mind you, this does not take into account recoveries, right? Because recoveries are very difficult to predict. Our cost of risk at the end of 2024, when we opened 2024, we were talking about 60-70 basis points. But you will appreciate that we ended our 2024 with a cost of risk of 14 basis points because we had exceptional recoveries. Today, as we stand, our cost of risk is also very strong. It is at 20 basis points. It is way below the normalized cost of risk of 60-70 basis points. I would guide all the analysts to look at 60-70 basis points because that's normalized. Given the size of our balance sheet, given the way we underwrite business, given our ECL modeling, and given macroeconomic forecast, our cost of risk for a bank this size should be around 60-70 basis points, which is what we point to and how we end the year is only a reflection of recoveries and the overall macroeconomic dynamics. Okay, so we'll take this last set of questions, then we come to the point where Dr. Adnan will summarize. This is Murad Ansari from GTN. GTN, the first question is on the property income, and it has been pretty steady over the previous three quarters. Can you please shed some light on how it's expected to evolve over the coming quarters? And the next one is on the NPF recoveries in first quarter. Any color on whether it's any sector-specific or any color on that? Thank you, Murad, for your questions. Your first question around property income, which is included within our other income line within the financial statements. You're talking about Q1 to be at AED 280 million, and the previous three quarters have also been very consistent. Absolutely right. I think the AED 280 million is a combination of a couple of things, right? Our own real estate assets, which we continue to shed, continue to sell within this very buoyant property market. These are the legacy assets that we hold on our book. So we are very opportunistic when we get a good offer for some of these real estate assets that we've been carrying for a very long period on our balance sheet, and these are investment in properties, right? So on our book, they are at cost. So when we get an opportunity, and it's a good opportunity, we kind of shed them, and we make gains out of that. So that's one part of that AED 280 million. But more importantly, also, the real estate market is quite buoyant. So within that AED 280 million is also our income from our joint venture, our income from our subsidiary, which is the property developer company that we have. That continues to do very well. A reflection of the market, very well-diversified book we have there. So as that business grows, this portion of our income will also grow. So it's a combination of a few things in there, but the real estate market has done very well in the last 24 months, expected to do very well in the next 18 months or so. I think we are only going to maximize that opportunity, if anything, in reducing our exposure to real estate by some of the assets that we hold on our book. NPL recoveries in Q1, very negligible, right? Because if you look at our total impairment that we have charged to our financial statements, and we are at around AED 163 million net of recoveries. So that means that we have still made provisions, which means recoveries are very insignificant, AED 96 million to be precise. That is coming from many accounts, right? These are very small. No single account takes away the credit for that AED 96 million, and nothing across which sector. These are small. Can be something in the trading world, can be something in the manufacturing world, a little bit on the healthcare side. So nothing that we can talk about on a meaningful basis. So the next three quarters, also, we feel that this trend will continue, which means that we will continue recovering small items because, like I was mentioning, I recall to Janany's question is that we don't have any significant asset quality challenges now sitting on our book, which means that there's nothing significant from a recovery perspective that we are anticipating. So this will be business as usual, and hence the normalized cost of risk of 60-70 basis points. And what recoveries would be achieved will then reflect into that overall 60-70 basis points cost of risk. We are coming to the end of the hour, and as promised, I want to use these last five minutes to kind of articulate certain key messages that I've already alluded to so that you have some key takeaways from this last one hour. We've had a very great start to the year in terms of business origination, and I've mentioned in terms of gross underwriting, we've done about AED 26 billion that has reflected 12 billion of that has reflected on our portfolio, so very strong start to, obviously, our portfolio growth, but more importantly, our ability to originate business. I think it's extremely important everybody understands the ability that the bank has in making sure that we make the most from our very well-oiled engine, and this very well-oiled engine is our business engine in our corporate bank, both locally and regionally, in our fixed income book, both locally and regionally, as well as our consumer banking book, which is more local in nature, so our business origination capabilities have become superior. We continue to underwrite business quarter on quarter better than every quarter that has gone by and year on year, also better than year on year. So when you compare our business origination in Q1 2025, it's higher than our business origination in Q1 2024. So I think we take a lot of pride in that because that is going to pave way for better portfolio growth. So that's the first key message I want to give. The second is, obviously, the bank has a good business origination has allowed us to maintain our revenues on our asset side, right? Because in a declining rate environment, obviously, revenues can come down, but we have not seen significant reduction in our top line. It's because we have offset that by very good financing growth. And how have we done that? Better business origination, lower attrition, hardly any early settlements, resulting in a very, very good net portfolio growth. And we mentioned that about 5%. And that good net portfolio growth has allowed us to make sure that our net revenues have not seen significant decline. So even if rate environment is looking to go down from here on, anybody's guess, between 50 basis points to 75 basis points, we will try and offset that with our business origination capabilities because that is extremely important, which means that we will be able to maintain our net interest margin guidance. We will be able to maintain our net revenues, and we will not see significant decline. So I think analysts should appreciate that because that shows you that our engine is working very well. It worked very well in 2024, but it is working even better in the first quarter of 2025. And we are only anticipating that in the next three quarters, this will only get better and better. The third point is, of course, in a declining interest rate environment, whilst we have mentioned the asset side and how we are offsetting the declining net revenues by making sure that we are compensating business origination, the declining interest rate environment also has an impact on the liability side of our balance sheet. And that is something that we are very happy about. Why? It's because, obviously, financial institutions usually like high interest rate environments because they make more money on the asset side. But for us, it's a little different, right? I just told you how we are controlling our net revenue decline on the asset side by compensating through volumes. But more importantly, on the liability side, we are happy that the interest rates will decline because of the structure of our balance sheet on the liability side. A large portion of our liabilities are fixed deposits in nature. So when those interest rate declines happen and the interest rate reset happens, a large portion of our balance sheet will be reset and repriced in our favor. And that would mean that our cost of funding comes down. If you go back into history and you look at the last 10 years, DIB has made very good net interest margins when the interest rate environment has been down because the structure of our liabilities has pretty much been the same over the last 10-12 years, right? Where we have our current and savings account at 38%-40%, and our fixed deposit is at around 60%-62%. So reduction in interest rate environment would only benefit us, and we will be able to reprice our high-cost deposits. Point number four is on other income, and we anticipate this other income line to be strong. I just responded to Murad's point and also Janany's point on other income. Our other income line in 2024 has been very strong, and even in 2025, first quarter has been good. We will only benefit from this other income line going forward, which means that business as usual, normal P&L looks very strong and robust, but it will always be enhanced by certain activity that we have within our businesses, within our joint ventures, within our associates, as well as our real estate portfolio. The fifth point is around efficiency ratios. Now, of course, they are a result of the profitability that we've achieved, and Q1 has been very good profitability. We anticipate that we can continue this trend going forward. Again, both sides of our balance sheet. I've mentioned comprehensively what we'll do on our asset side. You've seen our business origination. I've told you what we'll do on our liability side in terms of repricing of our liabilities. All of this put together means that our profitability will be robust. We don't see any asset quality challenges. When that happens, our profitability is going to be robust. Our profitability will be only enhanced by these other income lines, which means good profitability resulting in very good efficiency ratios. By efficiency ratios, you can look at where our ROE is, where our ROA is, and also our cost-to-income ratio, despite the increase in cost that is required to support our enhancements, our control function, our transformation, our digital ambitions, all of that, despite that, our cost-to-income ratio is in line with the guidance. Last but not least, asset quality that continues to be a very strong point for the bank in the last 24 months. 2024 was a very, very good year in terms of asset quality. And you know what? Q1 2025 has just taken that trend forward. So overall, six key messages that I have given you, this is the result of a very strong quarter. And that only allows us to put a strong foot forward in the remaining part of the year. We are already seeing very good business momentum in Q2. So hopefully, the next time we meet to discuss Q2 results, you will see that we've only enhanced the good work that we've done, and we've only taken it forward. Thank you. I've reached the end of the hour that we had promised with investors. Please do dial in, connect with the team, dial in next time, and we will keep these sessions as engaging and interactive as possible. We will also continue to do non-deal roadshows across during the year and probably try and meet some of you face-to-face. But our investor relations team is quite active. Please make sure that you reach out to them whenever required, and we will try and address your queries if any. Thank you, and God bless you. Thank you, Doctor, and thanks everybody for joining the call. And we look forward to welcoming you again in the first half results call. Thank you. Bye-bye. Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation.