Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I am Gail, your Chorus Call operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Alpha Services and Holdings conference call to present and discuss the first quarter 2024 financial results. All participants will be in listen only mode, and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a question and answer session. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on your telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Alpha Services and Holdings Management. Gentlemen, you may now proceed. Hello, everyone. I am Iason Kepaptsoglou, Alpha Bank's Head of Investor Relations. Thank you for joining us. As usual, Vassilios Psaltis, our CEO, will lead the call, summarizing Q1 and providing you with a few updates on the outlook. Then Lazaros Papagaryfallou, our CFO, will take the floor to take you through this quarter's numbers. As ever, we will take Q&A in the end, and we hope to finish within the hour. Vassilios, over to you. Thank you, Iason. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining. Let's start with the Q1 results on slide 4, please. This quarter, we're very proud to have delivered EUR 211 million in profit, which is, please note, the highest number reported since the third quarter of 2007 and the onset of the global financial crisis. We have delivered a 13.5% return on tangible equity and EUR 0.09 of earnings per share for our shareholders. Our operating performance has been fueled by growth in our top line, marked progress in fee income generation, solid management of operating leverage, and a continuing improvement in provisions. We continue to grow our loan and AUM balances and position the business to maximize the recurring value we can create for our stakeholders. Our capital buffers continue to grow on 68 basis points of organic capital generation, reaching a reported level of 14.6% in Q1, or above 16% when accounting for the completion of pending transactions. These numbers are net of a 35% accrual for dividends out of 2024 profits, which is up from the 20% accrual of 2023. Recently, we have also submitted our request to the supervisor for the resumption of dividends out of 2023 profits, with an intention to pay EUR 122 million equally split between a cash dividend and a buyback program. We expect to receive a response early in the summer. Moving on to slide 5. This is a reminder that we expect to maintain this trajectory of constant improvement across all key metrics over the coming years. Our profitability should grow towards a level of around 14%. Our earnings per share and book value should trend higher, while we continue building solid capital buffers throughout the plan, allowing us to maximize the value we can deliver to our shareholders. The trends we have experienced in the first quarter reconfirm our outlook for the year. It is still early days, but risks appear to be tilting to the upside. Interest rates are hovering slightly higher than what we have budgeted for. Concurrently, we're experiencing a smaller than anticipated increase in retail funding costs on account of a slower than expected transition to time deposits. As a result, we are confident in the full-year 2024 outlook for 13% returns and EUR 0.31 of earnings. On to slide six, please. We remain focused on maximizing the value that we can add to our stakeholders. Our balance sheet positioning, our franchise strengths, our partnerships, our focus on operating efficiency, and our efforts on asset quality underpin our promise to deliver profitable, self-sustained growth. This should allow us to deliver 30% of our current market cap to shareholders in distributions, subject to regulatory approvals, while still leaving us with 40% of our current market cap in excess capital. In our recent application to the supervisor, we reinstate shareholder remuneration for 2023 profits. We have opted to ask for half of the distribution to be in the form of buybacks, as we are cognizant of the fact that a good part of our investor community put significant weight on the existence of cash dividends, so we have incorporated that in our decision. At current levels, however, the return on a buyback program indeed far outweighs other possible alternatives, even under the most stringent criteria, making it the best use of funds for our shareholders. With that, let's move to slide seven, please. Following our Investor Day in 2023, we have continuously updated you on the progress we are making on the various facets of the plan. On our full-year results, we focused on the six main pillars of our strategy, and today I would like to give you an update on our two enablers, human resources and digital. It is important to remember that our plan hinges on these two critical elements. An increasing portion of our revenue growth and diversification rests upon digital sales of products. Physical sales are also increasingly enabled by our digital capabilities. Then again, we're operating in a competitive job market, and our HR proposition is pivotal in enabling us to attract and retain talent, as well as to ensure that our people have the right skills, the right mindset, and we are aligned to produce the desired outcomes. Moving on to slide 8. As you can see, we have reshaped our HR landscape, introducing a number of new roles spanning HR strategy, organizational effectiveness, talent management, change management, and more. This redefinition has allowed us to allocate HR business partners across all business units, ensuring strategic alignments and tailored support. Through automation, via our new self-service platform, we have embarked on the review and streamlining of processes, enhancing efficiency across the board. Moreover, our focus on attracting and nurturing talent has resulted in seeking 400 new hires over the past year, 190 of which were in the front-facing and digital teams. To cement a high performance culture, we have implemented a combined variable plan, introduced a new talent retention scheme, and integrated linked business unit targets with our business plan. Investing in our employees' growth lies at the core of our strategy. We have witnessed a significant uptick in training hours and enrollments, signaling our commitment to learning and development. Flexible career paths have been introduced, offering employees a dual career option, and through the reduction in organizational levels, we further foster agility. Establishing job profiles for all unique roles across the organization and clustering them into job families facilitates seamless internal mobility. Building robust succession pipelines demonstrate our dedication to nurturing future leaders. At the heart of our employer value proposition lies our new culture, as expressed through the Alpha Way. We have commissioned a group of senior leaders, what we call champions, and a number of transformative initiatives aimed at embedding our new purpose and values in everything what we do. Our dedication to diversity, equity, and inclusion is evident through the implementation of a comprehensive strategy, along with initiatives empowering women and fostering financial inclusion. Additionally, our commitment to employee communities of change is an excellent example of our strong belief in fostering collaboration and driving change from within. Through these three pillars, we're not just transforming HR, we are shaping a future where our employees can thrive and achieve our cascaded business plan goals, guided by purpose and inclusivity. On slide 9, please. We have made significant progress in advancing our digital offering. Our products are built upon a core banking system that was transformed as recently as 2018, and is based on modern standards and cloud native technologies. Our in-house digital factory team is fully established with new processes and new ways of working. Alongside them, we have two centers of excellence for CX, UX, and advanced analytics. This backbone has allowed us to launch a series of products and services, and to redesign existing digital journeys to increase uptake and boost our sales capabilities. Our investments are translating progress. As of the first quarter of the year, 25% of our sales are made through digital channels, reaching our year-end targets ahead of schedule, and paving the way to outperform our target of getting to 30% by the end of next year. More than 80% of daily banking services are currently digitized, and we expect to reach 100% by the end of next year, while active users continue to increase. Of course, transactions are almost fully digitized. Let's briefly look at one practical example on slide 10. We were the first bank in the market with a digital solution, allowing parents to provide their kids with pocket money, called myAlpha Vibe. Despite its short life, the application has already received numerous awards, and it's not hard to understand why. Teenagers are introduced to banking in a controlled manner, improving financial inclusion, providing them with a solution that is both safer than cash and in tune with the times. Parents have the flexibility of reloading the card remotely while overseeing transactions and placing safeguards around certain types of transaction, such as betting or alcohol. You can find more details on products that we have launched for retail clients and businesses in the appendix of this presentation. Lastly, from my side, a brief update on our partnership with UniCredit on slide 11. The various facets of the transaction remain on track, with Romania expected to close later in the year, the launch of UniCredit's investment product suite onemarkets in early summer, and Alpha Life on track for the first half of 2025. On the wider commercial agreement, we have already completed 14 trades on trade finance guarantees and letters of credit, have launched a structured market link deposit targeted to our gold customers, and are working more closely on clearing, trading and treasury, factoring, as well as brokerage. We still have a lot of ground to cover, and we will continue to update you on the progress that we make. As a reminder, we expect the transaction to be EPS neutral, not including any potential upside from the commercial agreement, while adding more than 100 basis points to capital. Lazaros, the floor is yours. Thank you, Vassilios. Let's go to page 13, please. This quarter, we are reporting a positive bottom line of EUR 211 million, which, as Vassilios mentioned, is the highest in the last few years. Excluding one-offs, normalized profits came in at EUR 222 million, up 3% versus the previous quarter, and 37% versus Q1 of last year. Slide 14 on our balance sheet. Our tangible book value grew 13% year-on-year, while our regulatory capital is up 13% over last year's levels. Remember that tangible book value has not yet reflected the intended dividend payments, which have been accrued in our regulatory capital position. Slide 15 on the main profit and loss components. Net interest income has expectedly turned a corner this quarter, but we have been able to offset this by retaining a high level of fees, maintaining our cost discipline, and having a strong quarter in terms of cost of risk. Turning now to slide 16 to start digging into the details. High loan volumes have offset the increase in deposit costs that have, however, come in somewhat better than expected, as the mix and overall bet on deposits continues to increase slowly, similarly to the market. Growth and reinvestments in our securities book continue to add to the top line. The decline in our top line this quarter is thus largely attributable to increased hedging costs, alongside the issuance of a senior preferred instrument in the earlier part of this quarter. Slide 17 serves as a reminder of the drivers of our top line going forward based on our business plan assumptions. We expect the drivers of this quarter to more or less persist over the coming months, with loans and deposits on the commercial side netting off, and some help from the growth and reinvestments in our securities book being offset by higher wholesale funding costs. As rates have stabilized, our relative positioning is becoming apparent, with our quarterly performance in line with our peers. As rates move lower, we expect to see lower deposit costs, a positive delta from hedging, as well as a lower cost for our interbank position. Slide 18 on fees, which are up 18% versus last year, with growth across all categories, especially on elements that reflect our franchise differentiation. Higher activity on disbursements and loan guarantees has led business credit-related fees higher. The growth in higher margin AUM balances is getting reflected in asset management fees, and bancassurance is benefiting from new product launches, with our market share in this segment having grown by six percentage points in the past two years. Cards and payments fees continue to perform well, reflecting at the rollout of increased digital capabilities, including digital cards and transaction bundles. Slide 19 on costs. Quarterly performance is explained by the write back recorded in Q4, related to the Single Resolution Fund contributions. We carried costs, came in 2.5% better year-on-year on lower resolution fund charges, lower IT expenses, maintenance and building costs, and higher staff costs, reflecting inflation and variable remuneration accruals. Depreciation was also higher on a year-on-year basis on IT investments and digital transformation. Slide 20 on loans. Our performing loan balances are growing at 6% on an annual basis, while we continue to meet our profitability threshold for disbursements above 15%, with this quarter landing above the average of 2023, as well as the fourth quarter of last year. Repayments remain elevated given the prevailing interest rate environment, partially explaining the drop of corporate deposits in the quarter. The pipeline for the year remains solid, and we are maintaining our guidance. Turning to slide 21, deposits that have seen the typical seasonal decline. Deposit outflows from individuals have remained under the management of the bank, as they have been largely converted to predominantly high margin asset management products. The drop in corporate deposits reflects, as mentioned, loan repayments as well as investments from corporates. Importantly, despite the drop in balances, the proportion of time deposits has remained stable in the quarter at 25% of the total increase, in line with the sector trends. With that, let's move to asset quality on slide 22. As highlighted with full year results and following guidance from SSM, this quarter, we have reclassified the portfolio of state-guaranteed loans to NPEs, in line with supervisory expectations and our internal policy. The inflow has been more than offset by robust levels of curing activity and has not affected our cost of risk. This quarter's ordinary cost of risk has, however, been affected by the inclusion of a EUR 29 million provision for a perimeter that has been earmarked for sale, leading to a potential further 25 basis point reduction in the NPE ratio. The overall cost of risk, excluding the impact from this perimeter, would have landed at just 38 basis points, benefiting from strong curing activity. Then finally, on capital, on slide 23. Our organic capital generation was strong for another quarter at 68 basis points, despite the payment of the AT1 coupon this quarter. We continue to fund growth through internal means, while our capital generation capacity is further levered through the recovery of deferred tax assets. Other capital elements include a provision of circa EUR 12 million for the calendar provisioning impact from the reclassification of state guaranteed loans to NPEs, while transactions did not have a material impact this quarter. Note that as mentioned by Vassilios, we are accruing 35% of profit for dividend payments, so our 14.6% core equity tier one ratio is net of that, while pro forma for remaining transaction, it stands higher at 16.2%. With that, let's now open the floor for questions. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star followed by one on their telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, then you may press star and two. Please use your handset when asking your question for better quality. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. One moment for the first question, please. The first question is from the line of Nida Iqbal with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Hi, thank you for the presentation, and congratulations on the great set of results. My first question is on the 2023 payout, and the proposal for a 50% cash dividend and the 50% buyback. Just wanted to understand the rationale a bit better, and importantly, to the extent that you can comment, is there or could there be any regulatory hurdles to a full cash payout? And is part of the buyback related to that in any way? And also, how should we think about the next 2 years -3 years in terms of payouts, cash versus buyback? So that's my first question. And the second question is on asset quality and cost of risk. Clearly, cost of risk is trending well below guidance. So is there upside? Is there, is there potential for an upgrade, later on in the year? Any color there would be helpful. Thank you. I'm guessing, obviously, the cost of risk guidance, Lazaros, maybe you can start with that, and then we can discuss on the payout in case Vassilios wants to add something. Hello, good morning again. Indeed, we have experienced benign asset quality trends in the first quarter of the year. As you have seen, the provisions of the first quarter included, among other things, an extraordinary charge for a sale perimeter of EUR 29 million. Excluding which, the underlying cost of risk would have landed at 38 basis points. Overall, we do see the good trends of the first quarter organically continue throughout the year, and we are confident that numbers will trend within our guidance for 2024. We are not changing our guidance at this point in time. We want to have more data points through the year, and we will be providing more background at the end of the second quarter with the results. Now, as far as the structure of the intended structure of the payout is concerned, as we said, we have submitted that to our regulator. This is subject to approval. The idea is the following: number one, Alpha Bank always had a trusted followership among shareholders that look at the yield on the cash dividend. This is something that we have repeatedly said in the past. Alpha Bank has been the only listed Greek company which has uninterruptedly paid a dividend from 1949 until the onset of the Greek crisis. Second point is that we have taken the conscious decision to split it and include the buyback option, because we feel that this is the one legitimate case where a management can make a statement about how it feels about the valuation of its stock. This is a tangible way of expressing that we feel that there is a mismatch between what we feel is the internal value of our stock and what the market feels. Now, if that is the case, going forward or not, obviously this is quite a circumstantial case, so this decision will be taken upon due time. If I may add, Vasilis, on your comments, there was a question about regulatory hurdles for cash dividends or buybacks. Obviously, we do expect the decision from the regulator early June, so that is an important milestone. We have applied for a 50% cash dividend and a 50% buyback, for the reasons Vasilis explained. As long as the total remuneration to shareholders is within our capital planning. There is no preference from the regulator with regards to the split between a cash dividend or a buyback. You need to move within the total remuneration that has been included in the capital planning submitted to them. As far as the mix in the coming years, to start with, I remind the target that we have communicated with the fourth quarter results, that we want to distribute one way or another, EUR 1.1 billion in the next three years. Obviously, this is a pool which is going to be used subject to regulatory approval for both cash dividends and buybacks. The mix will be determined down the road, depending on market conditions, the evolution of our share price, and alternatives for the usage of our capital. Thank you very much. Very clear. The next question is from the line of Eleni Ismailou with Axia Ventures. Please go ahead. Good morning, and congratulations for this very strong set of results. I've got a couple of questions from my end. The first one is with regards to the state guaranteed loans. I was wondering, why have you taken a different approach to your peers and reclassified them to NPs? And then the second question is, whether you could give us, whether you could help us understand a little more with regards to your hedging strategy in terms of hedges against the non-maturing deposits. What is the current size of the position, and how this has changed quarter-on-quarter? And whether you expect it to increase further, and how should we think about, its mechanics vis-à-vis the changes in interest rates? Thank you. Okay. I guess, Lazaros, that both of those are for you. Yes. The delta to peers on state guaranteed loans and hedging strategy. Hi, Eleni. Thanks for the questions. On state guaranteed loans, there was a supervisory expectation for the loans guaranteed by the Hellenic Republic, which are reported to SSM now as non-performing exposures. As per our internal policy, adopted back in 2018, we have equalized the treatment of defaulted loans with impaired loans, as well as NPs under EBA definition. So it was a one-way street for us. As long as they're reported as NPs to the regulator, we do reclassify to stage three, and we report them as a stage three loan. There is no difference between the IFRS treatment and the regulatory treatment. Now, with regards to those loans, the balance that we have transferred is EUR 0.1 billion. That is the total amount we had in our stage one and stage two for those exposures, and has now been transferred to stage three. We have also taken a calendar provisioning to reflect the phasing as per the supervisory expectations. We do expect to see good recoveries because there is strong collateral behind those exposures, and 75% of these exposures are mortgage loans. Now, with regards to the hedging strategy that you have asked. On top of the natural hedges that we have been building since early 2023 to reduce interest rate sensitivity, we have added EUR 4 billion of overlay receiver derivatives year to date against non-maturing deposits, capitalizing on the high rates observed in the first quarter as market repriced the rate cuts from the end of the year. The current yield of these derivatives is 3.3%, and the quarterly run rate is EUR 7 million. To give you a sense for the sensitivity, for every 25 basis points that your IBOR is lower, this number will be improving by EUR 12 million annually. And as we have communicated also on our previous calls, the amount of overlay derivatives is a function of natural hedges, plus the total amount of first demand deposits that they were having. Our current ratio of fixed rate assets to first demand deposits is circa 75%, from 40% in the end of 2021, as we have been gradually increasing fixed rate assets and converting fixed rate liabilities to floating. If the conversion of first demand deposits to time materializes as we have in the budget, this ratio will be above 100%. Now, on your question, whether overlay derivatives will be increased, this is a function of balancing developments as well as macro, given the timing and depth of cuts is a very unknown parameter. Excellent. This is all very clear. Thank you very much, and again, congratulations for this great set of results. The next question is from the line of Gabor Kemeny with Autonomous Research. Please go ahead. Yes, hi. A question on the NII outlook, please. The NII has been trending pretty well in the first quarter. I think you were guiding for NII down 5% for the year. I think in Q1, you were 7% above that, if I annualize the Q1 result. So how do you think about the guidance at this stage? Maybe you can give us a sense of how you expect NII to develop in the next few quarters. And the other question I had is a follow-up on the buyback. Is there any upside, or, I mean, is there a chance that you might be able to do buybacks above the 30%, 35% accrual? Maybe you can walk us through the moving parts around meeting your MREL target and doing potentially more buybacks. Because, as you say, this seems to be a very sensible investment. Thank you. I will start with the latter question on buybacks. We have provided a guidance on the payouts until 2026. So for 2023, it was 20%. For 2024, it's 35%, and the coming two years is 50%. That is the total remuneration to shareholders, including cash, dividends, and buybacks, which, if you take into consideration our projected business plan targets, may lead to EUR 1.1 billion of total remuneration, which is a good part of our existing market cap. At the end of that period, 2026, we will be having significant excess capital at EUR 1.5 billion, for which we have not given yet any guidance on how that may affect total payouts. So for the time being, I think you should stick to the payouts that we have portrayed until 2026, year by year, which make up 30% of our market cap. And you should factor in the fact that by the end of 2026, we project to have another 40% of our existing market cap, cap in excess equity. And we will be giving more data points as to the usage of the excess cash as we implement our business plan and we engage in the supervisory dialogue. The first question was about net interest income. Indeed, in anticipation of high rates and deposit betas by year-end 2024, early March, we have given a full year guidance for the year for a 5% lower NII in 2024. I remind that we have based our guidance on an average EURIBOR and, DFR at 3.5%, and a deposit beta of 24%. We have also provided sensitivities on rates, deposit betas, loan growth, wholesale spread. The trends year to date suggest some positive tailwinds on the back of these drivers, so we're moving within our guidance. We have started the year with good loan volume trends versus the market. New disbursements 25% higher in household lending and 9% in businesses, with our risk-adjusted return standing at 17% versus an average of 16% in 2023. Loan contribution in net interest income increases nicely and offsets higher deposit costs. Securities income grows as new investments and reinvestments of the stock contribute towards a higher net interest income, offsetting higher wholesale funding costs. The deposit mix is shifting lower to time deposits than initially expected, and deposit beta moves slower from 15%-17%. The first quarter NII drop at 4% is mainly attributed to calendar days, hedging costs, and the front loading of our MREL issuance in the first quarter. These drivers explain the bulk of the first quarter movement, and I believe this is a trend in line with the market. We will give more color for the outlook in the second quarter results, but we're not changing guidance now, nor we are marking to market our NII guidance every 12 weeks. That all makes sense. Thanks very much. The next question is from the line of Mehmet Sevim with JP Morgan. Please go ahead. Good morning. Thanks very much for your time. I have one question on the Romanian sale, please. If you could just update us where you are now in the sale, and when we could expect the closure to happen. And the reason I'm asking is because if you look at your pro forma CET1 on accounting for all the remaining transactions, including Romania, it's at 16.2%, and clearly it's very strong. And if we consider this, I'd like to ask what your latest thinking would be on an accelerated NPE cleanup from here through inorganic sales. Has your view changed now, given where your peers are versus Alpha Bank? And if you could share any further details on that, that would be helpful, I think. And just one clarification on the buyback. So I understand we expect the communication from the ECB in June. So can I therefore ask what the timeline would be related to the buyback itself? So when you would expect it to launch and finish? That's all from me. Thanks very much. I'll take the last technical question, and I'll let Lazaros take Romania and maybe on the potential for accelerating NPEs. With regards to the buyback, obviously, first, we need to get the supervisory approval, which is gonna come in the early summer. And then we would need to put a resolution through the AGM and expect approval. The AGM is scheduled for late July. The buyback would be able to start thereafter, and obviously, the length or the duration will depend on various phases, and I don't think we ought to be commenting on that currently. And with that, to Lazaros for Romania and potential inorganic, or maybe you wanna- I'll take the Romanian part. In Romania, we're working hand in hand with our partners at UniCredit, and we are working according to schedule. The idea is that we will be able to get the respective benefit by year-end into our accounts. We have a couple of milestones ahead of that, but we have delivered a strong preparation on this one, and we don't have any information that would make us shy away from this target. Yeah. On your question on NP cleanup, you have seen us doing one more transaction that we have classified in the held for sale back in the fourth quarter of 2023. We are upsizing this by EUR 100 million or so. We do have, in the pipeline, EUR 500 million of an additional sale perimeter to be transacted in 2024, thus leading the NP ratio lower towards the 5.7% level. And as we have guided in previous quarters, we are now taking a more opportunistic stance on transactions, in the sense that we don't have any bulk big jumbo securitizations transactions in front of us, but we have bits and pieces over Alpha Group in order to effect transactions in the range of 100 or 200s when opportune, as we have also expanded the ecosystem of our counterparties, and we have agility and flexibility to transact in various asset classes. So whenever we see that opportunity, we will definitely tap on it with a view to decrease NPEs below 5% and get it towards the targets we have in the business plan and European average. Okay, that's very clear. Thanks very much. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone. The next question is from the line of Mimis Ogliosman with Ambrosia Capital. Please go ahead. Hello, many thanks for your time and the presentation. Just on the performance on fees, which was quite impressive, could we say other than NII and cost of risk looking like upside risk, could fees also be an upside risk opportunity for 2024? And, any color how you would expect fees to perform post the collaboration with UniCredit starting, I believe you said, summer? Thank you. Indeed, in fees, we had a strong quarter. On a year-over-year basis, you have seen a healthy growth across categories, on the back of higher loan disbursements in both retail and wholesale. Other loan-related fees and credit business like LGs performing good. We have seen also a very healthy increase of asset management fees on the back of a very strong increase in our AUMs, especially those that relate to higher margin mutual funds manufactured by our product factories. We have seen a growing presence in the bancassurance market. As I said, we have increased in the last couple of years, our presence there by a few percentage points in terms of market share. We're doing more progress on transaction banking and payment fees. Having said that, we do aspire to higher fees. And, we are now working with UniCredit on various initiatives that relate not just to the core of our commercial partnership that has been announced, that is, asset management and bank assurance in Alpha Life projects. We also work together to develop propositions for transaction banking, DCM, ECM, the syndicated loan market, FX. There's a series of initiatives currently, a factory, at the level of the operating teams that work in order to increase the ambition to levels that can be communicated to you later on as those initiatives crystallize, and can carry a financial envelope that we will be able to communicate later on to the market. Understood. Thank you very much. The next question is from the line of Nellis Simon with Citibank. Please go ahead. Oh, hi. Thanks, thanks for the opportunity. A few quick ones from me. Firstly, just a clarification on the buyback. I assume this is the case, but can you just confirm you're looking to cancel the shares if you do get approval, and once you buy them back? That'd be my first question. Second question is more technical. Just on the servicing fees and securitization expenses that you show in your risk cost, what's the long-term trajectory expected on these? Will these fade out over time? Yeah, I guess those are my two questions. Thank you. On your first question, yes, the idea is to cancel shares after we effect the buyback. On your second question about the long-term outlook of servicing fees and securitization expenses. On servicing fees, there has been a reduction in the last couple of years because the stock of non-performing exposures go down, and that is the medium to long-term outlook that you should take into account. As NPEs and assets assigned to our servicer, Cepal, go lower, this line will trend lower in line with the drop of non-performing exposures. As far as securitization expenses are concerned, we have been using securitizations from performing exposures across asset classes, be that corporates, shipping and looking also into mortgages, in order to reduce RWA density on these portfolios and improve the risk-adjusted return on capital of the various business segments. That obviously improves their risk-adjusted return and enables them to compete more effectively in the market with a lighter capital allocation. We will be using this tool in order to affect capital optimization going forward, as long as the cost of doing that transaction, especially the post-tax cost, is much lower than the cost of capital of the bank. It's raising capital in essence, synthetically, in a very efficient way. Depending on the costs of these securitizations and the opportunities to further optimize RWA density, you would expect to see us incurring such a cost over the coming years. Thanks very much for that. Actually, just one last one on funding. So I think you're targeting EUR 50 billion of deposits by year-end, but you're down 2% year-to-date to EUR 47 billion, or just over EUR 47 billion. How do you see funding issues going forward from here? It seems that deposit growth is a bit weak. Is it just seasonal, or do you still think you can get close to that EUR 50 billion target by year-end? Thank you. The deposit trends in the first quarter are typical of a first quarter performance, both in retail and wholesale, and are in line with the market. Actually, in wholesale, based on Bank of Greece data, we have increased our market share in corporate deposits. Whereas in retail, if you take into account the conversion of retail balances to mutual funds manufactured by our product factories, we are flattish quarter on quarter. In corporates, what we have seen is the usage of cash and liquidity for the prepayment of some facilities. That is accounting for one third, almost, of corporate deposit outflows. The rest relate to the business objectives of our corporate customers, especially some big, bigger customers who are implementing their own plans, plus some seasonality that you always observe in the first quarter of the year compared to the year-end. In retail, as I said, it's the conversion of deposits to target maturity and mutual funds. ... that have a higher margin for us, north of 2%, that we have promoted quite aggressively in the first quarter of the year, with great success, as you can see in the numbers, and also on a relative basis with the market. The way we will balance AUMs and deposits in the coming quarters is something we dynamically discuss at the Asset Liability Management Committee, depending on rates, investment appetite, and alternatives for our customers. We do not expect any deviation from the business plan targets that we have on the way our balance sheet is funded. Okay, thank you very much. The next question is from the line of Andreas Souvleros with Eurobank Equities. Please go ahead. Hello, and congratulations for your, the set of results. Most of my questions have been answered, so I have left with one quick one. It's on the topic of expenses. You have guided for an annual growth rate of around 1.4 annually. But in your first quarter, you experienced a year-on-year reduction of around 3%. Is this an indication for the rest of the year, which may lead to an update in your guidance? Thank you. Thank you for the question. We have guided for a cost income around the 40% level for the full year. Typically, the first quarter is more benign in terms of costs. Of course, we have managed the cost base in order to counter the impact of inflation and increased investments on both human capital and technology. That's why you see the carry costs going down 2.5%, year-on-year. We do expect higher costs in the second half of the year, so we stick to our guidance for the cost income at the levels we have portrayed in March. Thank you very much. Very clear. The next question is from the line of Alberto Nigro with Mediobanca. Please go ahead. Yes, thanks for taking my question. Just a follow-up question on AUM. We saw a very strong performance this quarter in asset under management. If you can give us more color on your strategy going forward on asset management and how you will grow in this segment. Can we assume that a portion of the current term deposits can become AUM in the coming years when rates go down, and if you are thinking to gain more market share from your competitor in this segment? Thank you. Well, our strategy in terms of asset management, which we, I think, very clearly articulated when we had back our investor day, it launches upon a variety of issues. Number one is that indeed, we have the customer. We are the strongest represented bank in the affluent space, which is the customer cohort, which is much more prone towards a candle-to-grave concept as far as its financials is concerned. And given the fact that in Greece, following this protracted financial crisis that we have been having, the issue of reestablishing trust was quite important, we felt that we have done all the right moves in order to do that, both in terms of providing the right set of relationship managers in order to build and cultivate that relationship, as well as also with the product platform that is related to that. In particular, larger elements, we do have high hopes from the implementation also of the UniCredit bundle of onemarkets, which we are about to soft launch in the summer, and then having the formal launch in September. That will amplify the options that our customers is having. With an investment penetration, which is still one of the lowest in Europe, we do have high hopes at, as long as the situation in Greece continues and we don't have any sort of adverse situation in the markets, we will be able, quarter by quarter, to continue this trend. The last point that I want to mention is that one of the key reasons for changing the operating model in our retail is exactly that, is to free up capacity from transaction-related elements. You heard before that we are almost taking completely out of the branch the transaction element, and freeing up this time in order to devote to our customers, the good part of which will go into speaking to them for their asset allocation and for the choice of investment programs, products. Mr. Nigro, are you finished with your questions? Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the conference over to management for any closing comments. Thank you. Well, thank you very much for taking the time to participate in our call and your active engagement, and we're very much looking forward to catching up with you in the early August with our first half results. Thank you very much, and have a good day. Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now concluded, and you may disconnect your telephone. Thank you for calling, and have a pleasant evening.