Good morning. This is the conference operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Crédit Agricole second quarter and first half 2026 results conference call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode, after the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions by pressing star and one on your telephone. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, they may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on their telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Monsieur Olivier Gavalda, Chief Executive Officer of Crédit Agricole. Please go ahead, sir. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. It's a pleasure for me to share with you the strong results published this morning by Crédit Agricole S.A. Clotilde will present them extensively in a few minutes. Before, let me share with you a few key highlights, both on financials and on recent important developments, illustrating the fact that Crédit Agricole Group is on the move. Let me start with the results we released this morning. Crédit Agricole S.A. is posting high results of EUR 2.1 billion this quarter, up +1.4% on pro forma basis. It's thanks to two elements. First of all, very strong growth in revenues, +7.7% quarter-over-quarter, resulting from the dynamic activity observed in all business lines. Revenues reached their highest level this quarter at EUR 7.4 billion. Secondly, high profitability, as we are posting for H1 2026, a cost-to-income ratio below 55%, precisely 54.7%, and a return on tangible equity above 14% at 14.3%. Based on these very solid results in H1 2026, we will pay our first interim dividend amounting to EUR 0.57 per share on the 15th of October. This corresponds to 50% of our H1 distributable results, consistency with our distribution policy, as you know. Finally, CASA CET1 ratio is just about stable at 11.3%, still above the 11% target for Crédit Agricole S.A., even considering the impact on the recently increased position in Banco BPM capital up to 29.3%. Excuse me. Indeed, we continue to develop strategically in Europe, particularly we are developing in Italy. Italy, as you know, is our second domestic market and a strategic priority for the group. Over the years, we have significantly expanded our presence in Italy, we remain committed to further investing and growing our franchise. Notably, since the beginning of the year, we have continued to strengthen our ties with Banco BPM. We increased our stake from 20.1%- 22.9% in Q1. This allowed us to obtain four seats in the board in April, we have now, in July, reached 29.3%. This increase in ownership is consistent with Crédit Agricole's strategy as a long-term investor and partner of Banco BPM in its development. That said, as you know, there has been considerable market speculation regarding further consolidation in the Italian banking sector. Our position remains unchanged. Any transaction involving Banco BPM should create long-term value for Crédit Agricole S.A. and the other Banco BPM shareholders. With our 29.3% position, we are now by far the first shareholders in Banco BPM. We will thus have a say on any transaction involving the company alongside the other Banco BPM shareholders. We will analyze any solid project with respect to its strategic interest, execution risk, and capacity to create value over the long term for all of Banco BPM shareholders. As always, there are many scenarios on the table, but at the time being, we are not aware of any concrete project regarding MPS, Monte Paschi, and Banco BPM. We have not been approached by either party regarding any potential involvement in such a project. At this stage, it is very difficult to see how a combination between MPS, Monte Paschi, and Banco BPM can be value accretive for Banco BPM shareholders. More generally, we are rolling out our strategic plan. We continue to develop in Germany. Last quarter, we announced the launch of our European digital platform, Crédit Agricole Savings. The initial phase is a success as we are onboarding 200 new clients per day already. This should accelerate with the upcoming launch of the app and be complemented soon by the launch of Crédit Agricole Deutschland. We continue to develop in France, where activity is very strong, and where we have also started integrating the Milleis Group since the end of April with LCL. We continue to develop all over Europe, in Spain with new partnerships and in all the other geographies where we are present. We are innovating. We have launched a stablecoin in EUR, CASA EURXT. We have led new initiatives related to tokenized finance. We are working on other on-chain settlement solutions for institutional clients and for big corporates. We are also accelerating our AI transformation. Indeed, as you know, Crédit Agricole Group will allocate EUR 500 million of its IT investment plan over three years to accelerate the industrial deployment of AI across the group. We are thus creating a dedicated AI and data company and investing EUR 150 million in capital in it. This company will operate industrially the AI technology basis for all entities and create a shared data platform at the level of the group. These LLM-agnostic infrastructures and private cloud solutions are essential for strategic autonomy. More importantly, for the long-term management of our costs and the control of our industrial choices. We will also deploy an industrial agentic platform designed to enhance productivity and enrich customer interactions. Driven by principles of performance, European technological sovereignty, and ethical AI, this initiative aims to make AI a collective lever for transformation and efficiency at the service of the entire group. I will stop here now and leave the floor to Clotilde. Thank you very much for your attention. See you soon after the holidays. Bye-bye. Thank you, Olivier. I'm going to pick up on the following slide on the key figures. I just wanted to take a step back from the listed entity to look at Crédit Agricole Group, which posted a very strong performance this quarter with a strong increase in net income by 7.8% Q2-over-Q2 and 22.4%, excluding the Amundi U.S. base effect. You know that we are, of course, looking at figures pro forma of Banco BPM, i.e., considering that Banco BPM was at 20.1% equity accounted in the Q2 of 2025, and this 22.4% excludes the around roughly EUR 300 million impact of the Amundi deconsolidation of last year. This strong performance is driven by revenues, which grew 12.9% to reach the record level of EUR 10.9 billion this quarter. This strong increase in revenues results from both scopes, CASA's activities and revenues, of course, I will come back to that. What we will see this quarter is also the reiterated performance of the regional bank's revenues that increased by 12.9%. Thanks again this quarter to a spectacular upturn in net interest income, + 38% this quarter. Growth operating income grew by 25.8% Q2-over-Q2, and the cost-to-income ratio is well below 60% at 58.3%. We have very favorable jaws of more than 8 percentage points this quarter. The cost of risk is stable at 30 basis points on outstandings, and of course, we maintain a very strong position in terms of solvency with a CET1 ratio of 17.2% and very strong liquidity. Now, if I come back to CASA, where we have, thanks to a strong growth in revenues and positive jaws, an increase in gross operating income by 11.4% this quarter. This strong performance in revenues was driven by strong activity in all of the business lines. On the next slide, you see that activity was dynamic everywhere, because this quarter we have strong customer capture, 580,000 new customers in the Q2 in retail banking. That is close to 1.2 million new customers since the beginning of the year. This customer capture again benefited from increased digital acquisition in France and in Italy. If we dig down a little bit by business line, in retail banking in France, credit production is strong. Home loans are growing by 10%, corporate by 8%. In Italy, credit production is dynamic, 8.5%, thanks to the recovery in home loan production this quarter in a very competitive market, we also have dynamic production in Poland. The loans outstanding and the on-balance sheet assets continue to grow globally, the growth in off-balance sheet assets was dynamic in France and in Italy. This was therefore reflected in the asset gathering division, which also posted a very good quarter. In insurance, we have a record level of premium income at EUR 15 billion. It increased by 18% thanks to all of the activities, savings and retirement, personal insurance, property and casualty. The net inflows reached a record of EUR 6.8 billion in savings and retirement, in particular, thanks to the success of the Oriance offer, the outstandings of which represent close to EUR 5 billion at the end of June, and we reached 18.2 million contracts in P&C this quarter. Amundi, as you know, posted very strong net inflows and record AUMs. The medium to long-term inflows are strong, thanks both to ETFs and to active management, and activity is dynamic in third-party distribution and through the insurers of our partners, Crédit Agricole and Crédit General. Finally, in wealth management, AUM are increasing strongly with positive net inflows. If I turn to CATFM, the production increased to EUR 12.8 billion, thanks both to mobility and to personal finance. Of course, the used cars remarketing activity is impacted by an unfavorable automobile market that weighs on the sale of these used cars, but it's the case for all of the players on the market. This bears witness to the strength of our diversified business model. You can see that in the large customers division, the CIB posted a record Q2. Thanks to the excellent performance in investment banking, in particular in structured equity and to ECM. We have FIC, which is stable at a high level. Finally, CACEIS had a high level of settlement and delivery volumes that was boosted also by market volatility in 2026, and we continue to increase our outstandings of AUMs and AUCs. A buoyant activity across the line, which reflects on slide nine in the growth in revenues, which was very high this quarter at 7.7%, driven by all the divisions. I talked about the strong activity in asset gathering. These revenues are growing thanks to higher management and technology fees for Amundi and to strong commissions in wealth management. The insurance revenues grew by 9.1%, supported by the performance of all of the business lines, and of course, by a favorable market effect, particularly in savings and retirement. In the large customers, I talked about the record Q2, in particular with investment banking, which had a growth of above 63%, excluding FX effect, and asset servicing, more than 8% growth. In SFS, I was talking about the fact that mobility was impacted by a weaker automobile market. This led, in terms of revenues to a quarter to lower results on used cars at Crédit Agricole Auto Bank Drivalia. These effects were compensated by the good performance in personal finance revenues that was supported by a positive price effect. In retail banking, I talked about strong volume growth, but as you can see, we have, in the same way as we had that with the regional banks, a very strong upturn in net interest income in France, 17% growth for LCL, so volume and price effects. We also have an increase in Italy of net interest income by 2% thanks to an efficient management of the cost of resources and of macro hedging. Of course, the fees increased in all of the geographies in France and in Italy. You see all of these green bars for the businesses. All of the businesses are contributing to the growth in revenues. In the corporate center, we integrate the contribution of Banco BPM for EUR 111 million. In fact, at the end of the second quarter in our accounts, we have a 24.9% share of Banco BPM even though, as you'll see just afterwards, the CET1 is impacted in full by our participation that was brought to 29.3% in July. The contribution of Banco BPM to the corporate center revenues should increase in the following quarters. Based upon the current results of Banco BPM, it could be something around EUR 150 million per quarter onward. If I move now to expenses, we have a significantly positive jaws this quarter, + 3.1 percentage points. We have a limited increase in expenses in all of the businesses. As you can see on the right, we have some scope effects that are summarized on slide 34, including Milleis in insurance, Abanca, and Vera Assicurazioni in Italy, and we have integration costs for Industriels. Besides this, it's mostly the variable compensation increase, which is EUR 75 million, linked to the strong performance of Amundi and CA-CIB that explains most of the increase in asset gathering in large customers division. We continue to invest in our development, in particular in SFS and in the retail banking divisions. In SFS, as you know, we're supporting the strategic launching of CA Savings and CA Deutschland, with costs that represent Over the H1, around EUR 10 million. I had talked to you about EUR 50 million expected in 2026. We're also investing in the transformation of LCL with EUR 33 million in the H1 of the year out of the EUR 95 expected over 2026. Even as we invest, we are improving operational efficiency because our cost to income ratio is at 54.7%, - 1.2 percentage points H1 over H1. Thanks, of course, to our decentralized cost-sharing model, but also to the integration of recent acquisitions. I'm thinking in particular of CACEIS. We're fully benefiting from the synergies generated by the integration of RBC Europe, which are going to generate more than EUR 100 million additional net income from 2026, of which three-quarters are linked to cost synergies. Just by the way, the Degroof Petercam integration is progressing also with about 45% of synergies realized. We're well on track to reach our additional EUR 150 million-EUR 200 million net income target linked to this operation in 2028. Moving to cost of risks. The cost of risk decreased Q2 on Q1 and was roughly stable from Q2 to Q2, this evolution was mainly driven by an increase in Stage 3 provisions, sorry. A share of this increase, EUR 128 million, is a technical transfer from Stage 1 to Stage 3 of exposures that are currently being disposed of in CA-CIB. Excluding this, incurred risk is at EUR 571 million, we have the increased Q2 over Q1, which is explained about EUR 60 million in CA Consumer Finance by the increased risk on personal finance in France, due of course to the economic environment. We're monitoring this closely, as well as some adverse impacts of model revisions. In CIB, roughly EUR 100 million by additional bucket transfers from the Stage 1 and Stage 2 to the Stage 3 on a few tickets. These transfers are not a surprise. These exposures are closely monitored, and they, of course, have an impact on the Stage 1 and Stage 2 cost of risk, which presents a net reversal. But as you see, we have a very prudent provisioning, and that's why you see, by the way, this net reversal in the Q2. There's no surge in low loss provisions. The annualized cost of risk on outstandings are decreasing since the Q4 2025. The credit quality indicators are very good. The non-performing loans ratio remains very low, and the coverage ratios are very high, and this is going to allow us to absorb any surge in incurred risk. As you can see, our provisioning is, as always, very prudent, and we have among the best coverage ratios in Europe. Now, with that said, of course, we remain cautious, and we continue to monitor closely the corporate customers in retail banking, real estate, construction, distribution, automobile, generally SMEs. But as you see, by the way, on the slide, moving forward, in French retail banking in particular, the cost of risk remains under control. In this slide, page 12, you see that we have this additional Stage 3, cost of risk of CA-CF, but everything remains very, very controlled. In the CIB, as you can see, there's these migrations, but we have very low cost of risk with investment-grade customers and a diversified and balanced assets. Just for Crédit Agricole Italia, the cost of risk is decreasing, and credit quality indicators have been improving since the fourth quarter of 2025. Now moving on to results, net income. All in all, the net income is high, and it's increasing by 1.4% if we exclude the base effect linked to the capital gain realized last year with the deconsolidation of Amundi U.S. for EUR 304 million in the Q2 of last year. I already mentioned the very strong increase in revenues, the improved operational efficiency, the controlled cost of risk. Let me just take a few minutes about the fact that our net income is impacted by the slight decrease in equity accounted entities. We have various opposite effects. We have a decreased contribution from leases, minus EUR 33 million this quarter due to lower margin on used cars. I talked about it. This is really a market effect. A pro forma issue on Banco BPM, which is very limited, and this is partially offset by a positive base effect in CA Leasing & Factoring and by positive effects for Amundi, where we have the contribution of ICG for + EUR 12 and Victory Capital for today, EUR 28. So we have pluses and minuses, and so the evolution of equity accounted entities is very limited. Of course, we have a higher income tax. First, due to the strong operational performance that I already described. This is an increase in the tax base. But also we have a couple of base effects, in particular in insurance, where we had capital gains last year with reduced tax rates, and we also have a higher taxation in Italy, but also, even though it's smaller, Poland and Ukraine. As you can see, despite these elements, net income is increasing thanks to this very strong increase in gross operating income, activity was strong, net interest income high, jaws positive, cost of risk stable. This is really the strength of our diversified, universal banking model. This allows us, following slide, to generate organic Capital. As you can see, the capital remains very strong this quarter for CASA, with a CET1 ratio of 11.3%, even as we integrate significant M&A activity. First, if we look at organic capital generation, that is 31 basis points. This includes an active management of the balance sheet with a new SRT, a significant risk transfer this quarter in CIB. This brings the total of RWA release, thanks to these optimization measures, to EUR 3.8 billion this H1. Of course, we want to intensify securitizations in the medium-term plan, but we are always making sure that the cost of release is accretive. This allows us to provision the dividend that Olivier was talking about of EUR 57 per share, which I recall will be paid on the 15th of October. We have an M&A, in fact, which is quite strong, with 33 basis points related to the increase in our stake in Banco BPM to 29.3% and four basis points for the integration of Milleis. We have a methodological impact positive for 10 basis points. This includes bits and pieces, but as a reminder, it comes after a couple of negative impacts in the past. So all in all, we do not have that strong methodological impact over the last three quarters. Finally, OCI and other impacts +12 basis points, notably thanks to market recovery this quarter. On the right you see the RWAs are moderately increasing to EUR 2.2 billion over the quarter, with organic growth almost entirely offset by positive methodological effects. You see the fact that we have this quite stable RWAs in CIB. Moving to the Crédit Agricole Group, because as you know, our objective is not to build up capital at CASA level. So when we assess the capital strength, the relevant figure is Crédit Agricole Group CET1 ratio, which is above 17%, despite, again, strong M&A activity. We have the same factors that apply. But as you know, the M&A is lower for Crédit Agricole Group because we have not gone beyond the threshold for the significant financial stake for Crédit Agricole Group, and we have an additional positive methodological effect in the regional banks. This brings the total to 28 basis points. The TLAC and MREL ratios are very comfortable, in particular because we have front-loaded our medium to long-term refinancing plan, which is today at close to 90% refinancing plan for CASA, so very prudently managed. As you see on the next slide, we have a very comfortable liquidity position with very high levels of liquidity reserves at EUR 475 billion. The LCR and NSFR ratios are excellent, customer deposits are stable and are diversified, granular, so everything is fine on that front. Moving to the next slide, let me just conclude by saying that we are posting strong and growing results thanks to dynamic activity in all business lines, and in particular, thanks to a record performance in the asset gathering division and to dynamic loan production and net interest income in France. This allows us to reach a record level of revenues of EUR 7.4 billion, which bears witness to the strength of our universal model and diversified business mix. As we grow, operational efficiency is controlled with a steady cost of risk, positive jaws, declining cost to income ratio even as we invest. We are investing in AI, as Olivier was saying, with a pooled industrial AI platform in stablecoin, in the transformation of our businesses in France and in Europe. We integrated Milleis this quarter. We signed a partnership with Cajamar. We are rolling out our savings platform in Germany, and we have increase in our participation in Banco BPM to 29.3%. All in all, profitability is very high with a return on tangible equity of 14.3%. This allows us to maintain strong capital levels and to announce the payment of an interim dividend of EUR 0.57 per share in cash on the 15th of October. I am going to stop here. Thank you for your attention just before the summer break, and we can now open the floor to questions. This is the conference operator. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star one on their touch-tone telephone. To remove yourself from the question queue, please press star two. First question is from Giulia Aurora Miotto, Morgan Stanley. Thank you for taking my questions. The first one on targets. Cost income 54.7%, ROTE already above 14% in the H1. Maybe you can tell me that it was a particularly conducive environment, but we are two years before the end of the plan, you are already ahead of the targets, especially in light of an acceleration of AI, your focus on AI, your investment in AI, these two things combined would probably call for an update or upgrade of targets. Wondering if that is on your mind. Second, thank you for the clarification on Italy. In the past, you have talked about a deal which makes sense for you, which would be the combination of Crédit Agricole Italia and BPM. Wondering if that is on the table or likely, in your view, anytime soon. Then, sorry, just a quick numbers thing. Wildfires in France, is there any quantification you can do in terms of impact for Q3? Thank you. Great. Thanks, Giulia, for these three questions. First, in terms of targets and in particular on cost-to-income ratio. As you know, usually, the cost-to-income ratio in the first quarter is lower than that of the second quarter. You can't multiply that of H1 by two to get the impact of the cost-to-income ratio of the end of the year. However, we had told you a couple of quarters ago, and I'm going to reiterate that compared to the pro forma cost-to-income ratio we had in 2025, i.e., 57.4%, we will be decreasing that, it'll be below the cost-to-income ratio of 2026. More generally, we can say that the net income is going to continue to increase in 2026, sorry, compared to 2025. We're really on track with our medium to long-term targets with this movement, a downward movement of cost-to-income ratio and an upward movement in terms of net income, which is starting, of course, in 2026. In terms of costs, of course, we're investing in our AI platform, and this industrial AI platform is going to allow us to create AI agents, customer relationship solutions, but also efficiency. Indeed, we do want to improve efficiency with AI. This is one out of a whole number of levers that we're going to use to improve efficiency. As you know, we have a decentralized model, and each of the businesses are really targeting to lower their cost-to-income ratio to really improve their operational efficiency. We have cross-entity initiatives. We're working on synergies. In Italy, we have these synergies due to the acquisitions. Of course, AI is going to help us improve our operational efficiency. Italy. Italy, we have not changed our strategy. Our strategy is that Italy is our second domestic market. It's a strong priority for us. As you see, Italy represents 20% of our net income this first half year, so 20.1%. It's strategic, it's important for us, and we want to continue to develop in Italy organically, but also with the partnerships that we have between the business lines and Crédit Agricole Italia, and the business lines and other retail networks, and in particular, Banco BPM. We are a long-term partner of Banco BPM, and that's also why we strengthened our stake in Banco BPM to 29.3%. We're now by far the first shareholder in Banco BPM, and we're committed to this investment and to this strategic relationship. There's of course, lots of scenarios on the table. We are not going to be the ones who are going to be taking decisions. What's certain is that with our 29.3% stake, nothing can be done without us. Nothing can be done against us. Of course, one of the preferred scenarios for us would be a merger between Banco BPM and Crédit Agricole Italia because it would generate value for us, and it would allow us also to strengthen our setup in Italy. Really, in Italy, this strategic market for us, it's a long-term position we have. We really want to build up. In the medium-term plan, we said we wanted to go from 6 million customers to 6.5 million customers. We're rolling out a lot of initiatives also organically, in particular, digitalization for the professionals, synergies between Crédit Agricole Italia and CA-CIB, et cetera. Regarding your question on the wildfires, it's been something that has indeed been very shocking for everyone. Our first priority is really to support the victims and the communities and our employees, and we're putting in place a certain number of relief measures for our customers. We have loan repayment holidays. We have zero interest emergency cash advances. We have support plans for businesses. We've put in place a EUR 2 million solidarity fund. That's what we're focusing on right now. In terms of impact, probably the impact is going to be lower than that of the storm's impact in the first quarter. That's the direct impact. There is going to be an indirect impact, nevertheless, with the impact on the macro economy, which will probably hit more the regional bank in that area, which is Crédit Agricole Aquitaine. At this stage, we're really focusing on supporting our customers as we always do in the good times and bad times. Thank you. Next question is from Tarik El Mejjad, Bank of America. Hi. Good morning, Tarik. Good morning, everyone. Just two questions, please. I'll come back on Italy. I'm sorry, you look actually passive but also active at the same time. Let me explain. First active because you raised your stake, as Mr. Gavalda said, you clearly have your say on any deal. His comment was clear that it doesn't look like supportive to BAMI Banco BPM deal, if I understand well. Passive because clearly also from your comment just now that you're really keen to do BAMI Crédit Agricole. Do you think this position of being really caring about what government think, we've seen in Europe that any deal that can happen has to be going slightly hostile against different stakeholders, including government, to lend something. Is that something you intend to consider at some point? If you want that deal to happen, clearly that's what you want. I don't see just being on the sidelines how this could land. Question number two is on the cost of risk. Clotilde, I think you explained very well that part in your comments, but can you just focusing on the Stage 3 ex migration from Stage 1 and 2, what are the areas that show that flare-ups in Stage 3? How do you see basically the outlook from there? Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Tarik. In Italy, yes, indeed, we do have a say, with this 29.3%. We are a key player. We're not necessarily a decision-maker, but we're a key player, that's why I was saying that nothing can be done without us. Now, regarding other scenarios, we have not received any concrete offer regarding the MPS Banco BPM rumors that we're hearing in the press. We're reading the press like you, but we have not received any concrete offer. Going forward, do we care about the Italian government? Of course, naturally. We are a long-term player in Italy. It is our second domestic market. It is strategic, of course, we care about all of the stakeholders in Italy. It's important for us to continue to support the development of the Italian economy. Naturally, we have to think about all of the stakeholders in this country, which is very important for us. Now, in terms of cost of risk. Yes, there is this technical migration of a few files. I'm not going to tell you the details of the few files, naturally, but what I can tell you is that we have a prudent stance in terms of cost of risk, and we have always had a prudent stance. Now, in these specific files, which is a little bit specific compared to what you can see usually, the order of magnitude of the reversal of Stage 1 and 2 provisions that feed into the increase in Stage 3 provisions, the order of magnitude is very similar for these few technical migrations for files that are being currently disposed of. We have had a particularly prudent provisioning stance for these specific files for the 128. Besides that, indeed, we have a few tickets for which we have an increased transfer from Stage 1 and 2 to Stage 3 for CA-CIB. In fact, it's limited compared to the view that we can have as to the whole quality of our asset base. We have a very diversified and balanced business mix. We have investment-grade customers. As you can see in financing activities, the cost of risk is very low in terms of basis points. We're always monitoring the evolution of the corporate customers. Our corporate customers are solid, are diversified, are counting on us, by the way, to help them diversify, to help them hedge, to help them develop internationally. And the NPL ratio for CA-CIB is very low. It's below 2%. This is something that is very a strength of CA-CIB with our business mix. Now, moreover, this 571 in Stage 3 cost of risk is also, but to a lesser extent, due to CA-CF, and that's really the macroeconomic environment, which we're very much monitoring closely, and this is something that we're used to dealing with, and that we have been used to dealing with it. Thank you. Can I just follow up on Italy very quickly? Have you ever had, sorry, discussions with the government because contemplating merger, like others did in other geographies in Europe, also an argument of serving better the economy and other stakeholders and improving profitability in the system, and so on? Or do you feel discussions cannot even go to that ground? It's more political, and you are, after all, French. We are discussing all the time with all of the stakeholders. We are a very large bank, and so we're always talking with everyone. Thank you. Next question is from Delphine Lee, JPMorgan. Hi, Delphine. We can't hear you. I can't hear you. Delphine Lee, your line is open. Sorry about that. Sorry. Thank you for taking my question. Hi, Clotilde. Just wanted to come back on Italy, if that's okay. Coming back on what Olivier said a bit earlier, can you maybe a little bit elaborate on what you mean by when you say that you see it as difficult that a potential Monte Paschi, Banco BPM merger can be value accretive? If you could just explain a bit more. My second question is on NII, more generally speaking. We've seen some very strong performance in France. Is the guidance still a high single digit for the whole year, and also in Italy, NII has been progressing as well? Is the guidance also still that NII this year is a little bit under pressure, which feels maybe a bit outdated? Thank you very much. Great. All right. I'm not going to comment more in detail regarding the mergers of, in particular, Banco BPM and MPS because what's important for us is to consider more generally, not in one scenario specifically. More generally, we have to consider the positive impacts that we will need to get out of any scenario. We have a position where we will make sure that any outcome is value-creating for us. It's not so much a comment on one specific rumor about one specific merger, on which, again, we have not received any concrete proposal. It's just to say that in any case, whatever happens, we will make sure that any outcome is positive for us. We will make sure that any outcome is value-creating for us. That's really what we have as kind of the way we're thinking about things in Italy. Now, for net interest income, yes, indeed, very strong net interest income, for example, for LCL 17%. Indeed, I had told you about high single digits net interest income by the end of the year. We're going to stay on that guidance. Maybe it's a little bit prudent, but for 2026- 2028, what we have told you in the workshop is that we're planning on having an increase in net interest income by 6% over the medium-term plan. What is this going to be driven by? We're making the hypothesis that we have a stable liabilities mix. This is an important hypothesis because you remember when there was that strong hike in interest income a couple of years ago, what negative impact that we have had was this shift in the mix from site deposits to time deposits. What we're making is the assumption that it's going to be stable, which is a very reasonable assumption if you consider that the variations in rates are going to be progressive, which is what we're seeing today. This increase in net interest income should be driven essentially by two things. Well, three. One, volumes. Two, on the liability side, a lower rate on the term deposits, because as we renew our balance sheet, the rates are low. Three, on the asset side, higher rates on the new loans, because as you can see, there is still a positive difference between the front book and the back book for LCL. We also have, in particular, that for regional banks. For Italy, yes, indeed, we were talking about a decrease in net interest income. Again, it's probably prudent. It's more or less stable today in the first half-year, I want to remain on this prudent guidance for the end of the year because we have a very competitive market in Italy. We have had an impact that it's stable over the first half-year because we had a decrease in the first quarter and increase in the second quarter. I think it's going to remain relatively stable over the year. Thank you very much. Thanks, Delphine. Next question is from Stefan Stalmann, Autonomous Research. Hi, Stefan. Yes, good morning. Good morning. Clotilde, thanks for taking my questions. I wanted to get back to the moving parts on impaired loans and provisions. I am not sure I understand that you have an increase in impaired loans of about EUR 1.4 billion during the quarter. Can you tell us what happened and maybe how much of that is related to this pending sale of non-performing loans? I am also not quite sure I understand why there would be a technical migration from Stage 2 to Stage 3 potentially related to this pending disposal. I also don't understand why the Stage 2 provisions of such a portfolio would be similar to the Stage 3 provisions. Usually at Stage 3, you should be much higher. Maybe you could add a little bit more detail on that part. Yeah. I also wanted to come back to Italy, and I hear you that you don't want to comment on every scenario, but Olivier was actually very specific, saying that he cannot see or difficult to see how the combination of Monte and BPM could create shareholder value. That's a pretty specific comment. I was wondering if you had any color on what the basis is on which he reached that view, and whether that's already baking into the view, some view on what this combination would mean for CASA. Thank you. All right. Okay. For the cost of risk, thank you for your question. Yes, indeed, impaired loans has increased from EUR 13.4 billion to EUR 14.8 billion between the end of March and the end of June. That's EUR 1.4 billion increase, 10%. Between EUR 500 million and EUR 600 million of that is linked to this technical migration. I am not going to, again, go into the different files, but what happens when you have a technical migration is that when you are relatively certain that the file is going to be disposed of, you know what is the price at which it is going to be disposed of. When you have a good idea as to the price of that. That's when you adjust your provisioning and you put it into incurred risk with a rate of provisioning, which is equivalent to the price at which you can dispose of that. Sometimes, if you have been very, very prudent in the provisioning before of the Stage 1 and 2 cost of risk for this specific file, the price can be, in fact, close to that provisioning. That's a situation where you can have a same ballpark for +128 and the minus on the other side with the reversal of the Stage 1 and 2 provision. It's something I agree. It's not something that's habitual. We do not do that usually, but in this specific different cases, we are going to have this effect, which again, reflects our very prudent provisioning. Of course, we do that in all of our files, but in certain number of files, we have a little bit more specific provisioning. If we take this off, in fact, the impaired loans increased by about 6%, which is much more reasonable, and as I was saying, the NPL ratio is very low for CASA, 2.4%, and the NPL ratio for CA-CIB, as I was saying, it's below 2% if you correct from this technical migration impact. Very low NPL ratio for CA-CIB, below 2% corrected from this. Very high loan loss reserves, very high coverage ratio. In Italy, what I can tell you is that, again, what is important for us is creating value for our shareholders, and we have a preferred scenario. Yes, a preferred scenario would be to have a merger between Banco BPM and Crédit Agricole Italia. It's very difficult for us to be more precise than what Olivier was saying because we have not received a concrete proposal regarding any merger between MPS and Banco BPM. It's difficult to give you more detail because we do not have any concrete proposal. What I can tell you is that our preferred scenario, which is something that creates value strongly for us, is the scenario of a merger between Banco BPM and Crédit Agricole Italia. Thank you very much, Clotilde. Could I just maybe follow up on the credit part? Is it the fact that you received an indication of interest in these assets or that you tried to sell them? Is that what triggered the reclassification from Stage 2 to Stage 3? Yeah. Did these loans just go? Yeah? Yes. That was the case? Yes, Stefan. Yes, it's few files that are being disposed of and on which we are discussing a price. We have a reasonable idea as to the price. That's why you can do this technical migration. You have to do it. First time that I hear that the value indication on a loan drives its Stage 2 or Stage 3 classification. Well, it's a technical migration linked to files that are currently being disposed of. It's also because we're in the process of disposal currently. Oftentimes, what you see is you have files that are disposed of, but it's not currently being disposed of. Great. Okay, thank you very much for your help. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks. Bye. Next question is from Alberto Artoni, Intesa Sanpaolo. Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. You have two, please. The first on French retail and the second one on large customers. On French retail, of course, fantastic performance this quarter. Just wanted to understand a bit on the NII developments, if the likely increase of Livret A, we'll see, is going to have an impact or if the other moving parts will massively outweigh what I think it might be a negative impact if the Livret A goes to 1.7% as the Banque de France is suggesting. The second question is just a clarification on the investment banking business in capital market. You mentioned structure equity activities as one of the reasons for the good performance in the quarter. I just want to understand those products that you sell on the retail network to households, and is something that you have been always doing or you're doing more of those things and perhaps is an opportunity to sell more of those products in the future? Yeah, just a bit more color on that business. Thank you very much. All right. Thank you, Alberto. On French retail. Indeed, we are expecting an increase by 20 basis points of the Livret A in the month of August. In fact, before hedging, as you know, we hedge, we have a macro hedging of our balance sheet. We hedge according to the way we model our liabilities and our assets according to the way they evolve with short-term rates, long-term rates, inflation. Before hedging, you could consider if you did the calculations because we have a lot of the regulated savings that are centralized at the Caisse des Dépôts. If you did a before-hedging calculation as to the impact on LCL of this 20 basis points impact of the Livret A, you would come to around EUR 10 million of a negative impact between August and December. It's a little bit more for the regional banks, naturally, because they're more exposed. Of course, we hedge that. We model the Livret A in the way it evolves based upon interest rates and inflation. Since we hedge that, we don't hedge 100%, of course. Since we hedge that, the impact on the income of retail banking, be it regional banks or LCL, is very limited. The drivers going forward are going to be volumes, are going to be the evolution of the price of our balance sheet on the time deposits, and it's going to be the difference in the front book and the back book on the asset side. For capital markets, in fact, yes. In investment banking, we have an increase by more than 60% of activity, which is due in particular to the excellent performance of structured equity activities, equity derivatives. This does include distribution that we do in the retail network, but not only. Equity derivatives is something that we're developing. We have been developing it. It's very small for us as of today, to tell you the truth. As you know that investment banking in capital markets is about half of our revenues, and the other half is financing, finance market. Within capital markets and investment banking, you have investment banking and FICC. It's very small as of today, but we are developing it. It's in our growth trajectory in the medium-term plan. We want to continue to develop indeed for the retail network, but we also want to increase the volume, in particular, by opening new markets across Asia. We have sustained activity in U.S., for example. It's not only the retail market, the retail networks in France. Thank you very much. Thanks, Alberto. Next question is from Sharath Kumar, Deutsche Bank. Sharath Kumar, your line is open. Hi, Sharath. This message has been transcribed. One moment while I notify the caller. All right, I think we're on Sharath's voicemail, probably. Next question is from Matthew Clark, Mediobanca. Good morning, everyone. Two questions, again, on NPLs and LCL NII, please. On the NPLs, and in particular, NPLs in CA-CIB, what I don't understand is that the coverage ratio has gone down from 90-something% to 60%, despite the big increase in gross NPLs by the EUR 1.4 billion. We can kind of impute from the component you said that was a technical migration, that that part has a fairly low coverage ratio from the sort of EUR 100+ million of provisions from S2 to S3, covering the EUR 500 million-EUR 600 million you alluded to. That also implies a very low, if not negligible coverage ratio for the other NPLs that have come through in that division. Can you just help us understand why there would be such a low or negligible coverage on the other incremental NPLs in CA-CIB? That's sort of rather long-winded question 1. Question 2 is on LCL NII. It looks like you're already at the 2028 target, NII level from annualizing the second quarter. Do you really expect no growth between now, this quarter, and 2028? If so, why? Thanks. All right. Thanks, Matt. For the coverage ratio, when you have the coverage ratio, it's a ratio between the Stage 1 and 2 and Stage 3 provisions on the numerator. On the denominator, you're going to have your impaired loans. Now, when you have migrations between Stage 1 and 2 to Stage 3, you're going to have a slight increase in impaired loans. We talked about that answering Stefan's question. Then you're going to have a coverage ratio, the numerator that can change depending on the mix between the Stage 1 and 2, and Stage 3. We do have a decrease here in the coverage ratio of CASA by 5.4 percentage points. This is after the disposal of the files. If we had integrated the disposal of the files, the coverage ratio would have been lower by about between 1 and 2 percentage points. After the disposal, we have the coverage ratio that goes back up a little bit, it's true that the coverage ratio decreases a little bit due to the fact that we are doing this migration to Stage 3, and therefore, that there's non-performing loans that is increasing a little bit. Again, this is something our coverage ratio remains very high in CASA, 67.2%, very high at the level of the group. It's quite logical that when you have a very large amount of Stage 1 and 2 provisions, because we have out of the EUR 9.7 billion of loan loss reserves, EUR 3.2 billion in Stage 1 and Stage 2 provisions, it's natural that at one point you use these provisions to have this migration in order to absorb the incurred risk. Going forward, this is also something that is going to protect us from any surge in incurred risk going forward. Now, in terms of net interest income, we are going to continue to have a positive impact going forward. It's true that in variation, the increase this quarter has been very strong, due also to a situation in 2022 where we had not started this normalization yet. Today, we're really in a normalization. Normalization of the price of our term deposits, normalization also because we still have this difference between the front book and the back book. This normalization takes some time. The rate of growth is going to be slower going forward. Nevertheless, we still have these elements that are positive drivers of net interest income going forward. You gave this target of EUR 2.3 billion in 2028, eight weeks ago. You're saying it's already stale? We're- The target you gave at the end of May, so with one month left to go from May. You have to consider the target- I don't quite understand. Yeah. You have to consider the target in terms of the rate of growth. The rate of growth is 6%, we have strong, still, drivers of growth, but very much more progressive going forward. Thank you. Thanks, Matt. Next question is from Anke Reingen, RBC. Yeah, thank you for taking my questions. Just two quick ones, please. Sorry to come back to Italy. Just one thing still not clear to me. You basically say your preferred option is a combination of your Italian operation with BPM, but what are you proactively doing to develop your preferred option, apart from obviously increasing your stake to 29%? Would you be happy to just stay at the 29%, or is that never going to be an end state? Thank you very much. I think that the increase of 29.3% is pretty proactive, in fact. You're asking me what we can do to do proactively. I think this is a pretty proactive move. This allows us to really be key in the setup. This allows us to make sure that nothing takes place without us or against us. There's so many different scenarios on the table. It's difficult to give you any more elements about that, but I would not say that the increase to 29.3% was passive. It's really something where we have proactively shown how Italy was important for us, and how our partnership with Banco BPM was important for us in the long term. Yeah. No, sure. I meant in terms of in addition to that, would you be happy to stay at 29%? There's lots of scenarios on the table. As of today, what's going to be important for us is to create value for us and for our stakeholders. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Next question is from Sharath Kumar, Deutsche Bank. Good morning, Clotilde. Thank you for taking my questions. Apologies for the earlier technical issues. That's okay. First Hello? Yeah. We can hear you just fine. Thank you. First one is on specialized financial services. Can you quantify the weakness associated with used car sales? Do you think you have reached an inflection point or there is more pain to come? Previously you had said, like a double-digit contribution for 2026 for leases. Do you have any updated guidance in light of the second quarter loss? Second is on tax rate. You did speak about the reasons for the higher income tax rate in second quarter. Tax rate was nearly 28%. Do you provide any guidance for the expected tax rate going forward? Consensus currently is factoring only a 24% income tax rate. Lastly, a quick one on capital. Last quarter, we had a - 17 basis points from model and OC adjustments. This quarter, it was + 22. How should we think about this impact on an annual basis? At least on the model adjustments, do you give any guidance on an annual basis? Thank you. Thanks, Sharath. First of all, on CAPSM, in fact, the impact of the used cars market is really what explains the deterioration in the performance of leases and Crédit Agricole Auto Bank. This is what explains the deterioration of the performance. Why is this taking place? We have a situation where the sales of new vehicles have been decreasing by 20% compared to their pre-COVID levels. We have the used cars market, for which the prices have normalized and have decreased by about 12% since their highest level of 2022 and 2023. We also have a situation that has been worsened for us because we have a partner, which is Stellantis, by the underperformance of Stellantis in Europe. We also have structural drivers in the market with the development of the electric cars, with the entry of Europe and China, et cetera, the impact on consumption of the crisis, et cetera. We are in a situation where the market is weighing on our performance. The year will not be a good year for the automobile activities of CAPSM. All the more so as we have been one of the last players to enter the market at a time where the prices for the used cars was high. We will not have a good year in 2026. We're going to have to wait, I think, for Within 2027 to start seeing things that can pick up a little bit more, but we don't have visibility after that before 2027. Naturally, we're launching structural measures to restore productivity, value-driven pricing, we're diversifying our distribution channels, we're improving the remarketing processes, et cetera. We have strong foundations with 900,000 vehicles in our fleet. We have a very resilient model, but we are impacted by the automobile market, this is something that is going to take place that is going to weigh on our activity for the year at least. In terms of tax rates. In fact, last year was a year where things were maybe less normal because last year we had the effect of the consolidation of Amundi U.S., and we had base effects that were favorable, in particular for insurance. I was talking about capital gains that benefited from a low tax rate. It's always very difficult to talk about what we can do in terms of guidance going forward, but I would not consider 2025 to be more a normal year than 2026. For methodology. Indeed, there has been pluses and minuses. There was a lot of pluses this quarter. There were minuses last quarter and minuses in the Q4. I think what we can expect going down the line over the next year is there's still going to be probably pluses and minuses, but more or less, it should be relatively neutral till the end of the year on our capital. Thank you. Thanks, Sharath. We have no more questions registered at this time. Thank you. Well, thank you very much, everyone. Thank you for the very stimulating questions. Thank you. Of course, we're going to see you again when we come back in September, and we have a workshop that is planned in insurance in the month of November. 25. 25th of November. We're going to be very happy, hopefully, to see you all in person for this workshop. Of course, we're going to talk for the Q3 results naturally and during the road shows, of course. Everyone, I hope you're having a holiday break, enjoy, everyone. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over. You may disconnect your telephones.