Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I am Mina, your Chorus Call operator. Welcome, thank you for joining the Piraeus Financial Holdings conference call and live webcast to present and discuss Piraeus Group's full year 2022 financial results. This time, I would like to turn the conference over to Piraeus Financial Holdings CEO, Mr. Christos Megalou. Mr. Megalou, you may now proceed. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to today's conference call on our 2022 financial results. This is Christos Megalou, Chief Executive Officer, and I'm joined today by CFO Theo Gnardellis, Chris Berbati, and Xenophon Damalas. 2022 was another milestone year for Piraeus Bank. The bank holds the leading position in a number of areas in the Greek market, as shown on slide 4, while also enjoying high client experience ratings. Over 2022, our group delivered strong financial results, beating targets and even most recent expectations. Guidance was revised twice within 2022, and the final KPIs outperformed estimates across all financial indicators. On slide 5, we report the highlights of our 2022 performance. Piraeus generated normalized EPS of EUR 0.42. Strengthened its capital position by 300 basis points, beating guidance and reaching 11.5 fully loaded CET ratio. Produced return on tangible book value of 10% on a normalized basis, also exceeding guidance. Recorded reduced operating costs by 5% on a recurring basis, with G&As down 11%. In the following slides, we present the progress recorded in fundamentals. Starting from our capital base on slides 8 and 9. Organic capital buildup picks up pace with 50 basis points increase in Q4 for sustainable business. At the end of 2022, Piraeus was at 16.4% fully loaded total capital ratio, comfortably above requirements, which stands at 14.25%, and supervisory guidance. The group's performing loan book, as presented on slide 10, exhibited dynamic growth trends, increasing by EUR 2.7 billion in 2022. I need to highlight our efforts in RRF financing with EUR 900 million allocated to RRF projects across various sectors of the economy. Piraeus has successfully absorbed the first two tranches of RRF amounting to EUR 400 million, while the third tranche amounting to EUR 300 million is expected to be approved in the forthcoming period. Slides 12 to 15 download all the information regarding net interest income intrinsics from yields to pass-throughs and granularity of deposit accounts, so as to understand the potential shifts among product categories. Furthermore, our cost containment efforts continued unabated in 2022 despite the inflationary challenges, and resulted in yet another 5% year-on-year reduction in total operating expenses, down to EUR 828 million, as shown on slide 16. Our NPE ratio dropped to 6.8% from 13% a year ago, driven by sustained negative formation. Slide 17 provides a summary of our asset quality indicators. Piraeus possesses a superior liquidity profile, and this has been evidenced by the EUR 9 billion TLTRO repayment in December, while keeping liquidity coverage ratio at above 200%. Slide 19 presents our 2023 guidance, as already communicated to the market in late January. The bank is energized and focused to deliver on all areas of the business, and we believe that the current year will be another milestone for Piraeus. Finally, we feel proud to have been upgraded this month to A level rating in the MSCI ESG Index, driven by improvements in all angles of our ESG agenda. Additionally, Piraeus is the first bank in Greece to have its 2030 targets validated by the Science Based Targets initiative for the reduction of both operational and financed CO₂ emissions. At the same time, we have been included in the Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index for the second consecutive year. Both MSCI and Bloomberg distinctions come with top score for the Greek market. With that, let's open the floor to take any questions you may have. The first question is from the line of Nida Iqbal with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Hi, thank you so much for the presentation, congratulations on the good results. I have 2 questions. Firstly on NII, it grew strongly in the 1st quarter, and we saw about 60 basis points in NIM expansion. Based feel like that the 2023 guidance is a bit conservative. Just wanted to get a sense of, you know, what are your expectations for the NIM expansion from the 4th quarter level? In terms of deposits, of course, we've not seen a material shift towards term deposits increase yet. What are your expectations on that as well? Mainly on the margin side, what are the risks that could materialize in terms of the margin expansion from here? My second question is on the asset quality side. It's clearly been very resilient so far, but we are in a higher rate environment. You know, which segments, like corporate or households, are you worried about, if at all? Thank you so much. Nida, I'll ask Theodore Gnardellis, our CFO, to cover both of your questions. Nida, on your NII question, we had discussed how Q4 will be an NII peak quarter. We are monitoring closely 3 key numbers. One is the time deposit mix to the overall deposit book, the loan pass-through, and the deposit pass-through. We're still seeing a lower deposit pass-through than what the guidance is based on. However, we expect this to pick up, and some early signs for this are already in the market. The higher Euribor expectation than our guidance. I remind everyone that our guidance was based on a 2.5% DFR. Everything else static, mix static, loan pass-through, and deposit pass-through static. The sensitivity is about 20 basis points higher NIM for every 100 basis points higher DFR on an annualized basis. That said, we are looking again at the expected pass-throughs because higher Euribor levels would potentially mean also different pass-through expectations. For the time being, we are standing behind our guidance for net interest margin above 2%, and we would come back, I would say, later in the market, potentially also after some observations as to whether this will materially change. For the time being, above 2% NIM remains to be our guidance. In terms of asset quality, the budget and the guidance for the returns for this year has an increased cost of risk versus what we are now observing. We are now trending at about 80 basis points, and we are guiding for returns incorporating 120 basis points. That is indeed on the higher side. It is based on expected increased inflows. Nothing is being observed today. However, there are segments that are to be monitored. For sure, the mortgage book that also enjoys a very high pass-through is an area, and we're looking at actions there that would allow to defend potential inflows. As well as, I would say the more unsecured part of the book, not because of a pass-through because there the things are quite static, but because of the overall inflationary environment. I would say it's mostly unsecured exposures, primarily within retail as well as the mortgage book that needs some attention. Thank you very much. The next question is from the line of Mikhail Butkov with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Good day. Thank you very much for the presentation, and congratulations on strong results. I have a couple of questions. First two relate to funding and liquidity, and the last one on loan yields. You have a relatively comfortable loan-to-deposit ratio of 62% in the fourth quarter, which screens below the average for the industry. Do you leverage this in your pricing strategy of term deposits? Or in other words, do you see a comfortable loan-to-deposit ratio as an incremental opportunity for lower pass-through on term deposit rates compared to industry? The other question is on TLTRO. TLTRO funds are getting repaid across the industry. Do you think this can be a risk for the increased competition for funding on the industry level? On the loans, loan yields, do you see any episodes such that corporates reach out to you and ask for the potential downward renegotiation of loan yields? Do you see any such trends so far?, that is it from my side. Thank you. Hi, Mikhail. Of course, Piraeus Bank has a superior liquidity position, I would say, versus peers and overall the market, not only because of the LDR of 62%, but because of the fact that it enjoys a very large and granular first demand deposit book. Almost 80% of our deposits are in first demand. We have 50% in very granular kind of, you know, mass retail accounts. That in itself is a strategic advantage. Of course, we're seeing pass-throughs that are lower than expected still. We're seeing a mix that is not moving, also not moving versus what we were expecting. It will move, but it is, that is an opportunity. We are using also asset management propositions to promote a yield-looking depositors that are looking for the higher kind of returns. Overall, I would say the liquidity profile of the bank is certainly a strategic advantage. We have the luxury, I would say, to balance between kind of overall book pollution versus satisfying the needs of particular customers. In terms of TLTRO repayment, definitely not for Piraeus Bank, overall, I would say no. Even post full TLTRO repayment, the bank is substantially cash positive, there's not going to be any funding competition, at least not driven from us. In terms of loan yields, it's an active management story, right? The pass-through, as we've, as we're disclosing, is at 65%. There is a spread contraction going on. There is a proactive and reactive negotiation with larger and smaller corporate exposures. Overall, we were expecting that. We were expecting the moment we crossed into the 1%+ Euribor area. It's a healthy process that's going on. Far, the pass-throughs, however, are exactly what we're expecting, and in some segments better. All right. Thank you. Thank you very much for the answer. The next question is from the line of Mehmet with J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead. Good afternoon. Thanks very much for the presentation, congratulations also from my side. My first question is a follow-up question on the previous one, that is on deposit beta and deposit costs. On slide 13, you show the time deposit cost now at 92 basis points for the stock, I think that's as of last week. I think it looks quite high, maybe not from a deposit beta perspective, but more, more so from the perspective of us being quite early in the cycle, also, I think taking into your account your very strong funding and deposit franchise. Could you please provide more color on where you're seeing the pressure from in particular and how your repricing strategy looks like? It feels like you're already giving away quite a lot, and whether this is in line with your initial expectations? Hi, Mehmet. What you're seeing there, first of all, is the pass-through as we're saying, is 34% for an overall end game of that includes it in the guidance of 50%. Since you're looking at the nominal number, and rightfully so, this is a mixed effect of Euro and FX TDs. The FX TDs are now at the dollar time deposit we've got of about $2 billion are above 3% level. The actual Euro rate of everything else is at below 0.6%, is at 0.56%. You will see as the Euro TD converges, that this delta will be going down because the effects rates are, I would say, have kind of plateaued. This is very much in line to what we're expecting. We announced some new products and repricing last week. What we are particularly focused on, I would say, is the mix rather than the nominal rate. Another thing to note is that the renewals that you're seeing there on that particular day and what has been going on in the past days are longer duration lockups. The renewals that are happening that are pushing up the TD yield within expectation are being locked for longer durations. Therefore, this will benefit, as you understand, as the Euribor increases, these TDs will have been locked at today's market level. That's an additional benefit in the overall effort to maximize the NIM of the year. Mehmet, this is in line with our strategy from the beginning of the year, which also includes offering to the market asset management products as well. For example, we are right now in the market with a target maturity fund, which we see has a very good take-up and absorbs a lot of the pressure that may come from depositors for higher yields. It's a multilateral strategy that so far is executed as per our initial strategic thinking. That's very helpful. Thanks very much for the comments. My second question will be on your capital and your NPE cleanup from here. Your capital progression is very strong, of course now 11.5% CET1, and I think if we take the trends into account, it wouldn't be surprising to see you beat your guidance again this year and maybe with CET1 at, let's say, 13% by year-end. In that case, would you consider being a little more aggressive in the NPE cleanup from here and maybe do another NPE transaction to finally bring down the NPE ratio to, say, 3% and then fully close the gap with European banks? Just in general, how do you balance this decision at the moment, taking into account the CET1 progression and the NPEs from here? Okay, fair question. Indeed, depending on the evolution, I would say, of the net interest margin and the cost of risk, we could be looking at higher returns, and eventually also looking at higher capital. As we said, the guidance stands for now, I understand kind of your insinuation in the numbers. Makes sense. The NPE cleanup was a number one, I would say, priority, so that we can normalize the cost of risk and land it to where we want it to be, to be able to promise sustainable results. We are at that level now. What matters primarily is shareholder value. If we have. We would not be burning capital to be accelerating by a few quarters, I would say, some NPE ratio numbers. Our number one priority are returns, organic capital accretion, and sustained indicators across all the lines. That said, we are now in the context of doing our revised business plan for 2023, 2025, including a new NPE plan. We are looking, I would say, at marginal pockets of NPE that we could get rid of kind of sooner, balancing though, at all times, the organic capital generation and the profitability of the bank. Okay. That's very helpful. Thanks very much, Theo. The next question is from the line of Alexandros Boulouris with WOOD & Company. Please go ahead. Hello. Thank you for the presentation, and congratulations on the numbers. A quick question on your loan yields. The PE yield, you had mentioned in your recent presentation with the guidance, an average of 5% for 2023. It was already at 4.7 in the fourth quarter with the average Euribor at 1.8. Could that be a bit conservative given the where we stand at the moment? I understand the lending spread pressure that you mentioned earlier. That's my first question. The second, a bit on cost of risk. You mentioned before, you mentioned that as well before in a previous question, but I saw that you increased the GDP growth forecast to around 3.5% in 2023. Would you say that the 120 basis points is the worst-case scenario on your estimates? Thank you. Hi, Alex. Whenever I hear a comment about worst-case scenario, I do have a small smile, but for this. Things change. The PE yield look, indeed you're right? The 5%, remember, was based on a loan pass-through of 60%-70% on the DFR that we had guided for. With the same pass-through that we are looking at right now and the revised expectations of Euro rate evolution, yes, it could be higher. However, again, what matters is net interest margin. The balanced effect between loan pass-through to D mix and TD pass-through so as to come to an end, net interest margin. This is what will matter in the end, everything blended it for the NII. Guidance for above 2% do nothing on the pass-throughs and the mix expectation, 20 basis points extra on the NIM or 100 basis points of Euribor. This is what I would say should stay with you guys. In terms of the cost of risk, I would say not only because of the GDP, which is which we were always guiding, I think for this for this number. Also from the from the breakdown of the book and what we're seeing in the market right now after I would say the first steps in the Euribor evolution, there is upside to that number for sure. We would not be reassessing it until we can see a couple of quarters. We would come back, I would say later in the year, if we see an evolution and after we do our FC too, after Q2 results. Thank you. One follow-up as well on retail lending, disbursements still lag repayments. I would expect a similar trend in 2023 given the higher rate environment. Is that correct? When, when should we expect this gap to close? Would it be 2024 maybe or? Thank you. It is correct, Alex. I mean, our estimate for 2023 is gonna be same as of 2022. We would expect an improvement in 2024 for retail. Great. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Osman Memisogluwith Ambrosia Capital. Please go ahead. Hello, many thanks. Also congrats for the great detail of disclosure and effort you guys put into that. I really appreciate that. Having said that, of course, everybody has questions. Coming back to the NIM, maybe focusing a bit more on loan yields and on a quarter-on-quarter bit. Given all the lags you go through for different segments, would it be fair to say we will see a slower yield expansion quarter-on-quarter? Or the way things are going in January and February, could we potentially see a similar expansion in yields? That's my first question. Hi, Osman. Even with the recent observations, the pass-through is still at 65%. Just take the Euribor evolution as it has been happening throughout the past 2 months. If you apply 65% on the delta, you will kind of get to the numbers that we are. 65 still stands even after the first months of Q1. Understood. Okay. Then, moving on to the cost side. The G&A performance particularly I thought was quite impressive. We did not see the seasonal pickup. Could you give us? I mean, what drove that non-seasonal flattish performance? It was a major effort on the admin cost that happened throughout 2022 with new practices and governance structure, I would say, within the bank. Also what we did is we reviewed quite carefully the accrual methodologies in some of the cost lines so as to be able to give a stable, I would say, evolution of the G&A. This is now, I would say, a thing that is fixed and is expected to continue. The G&A output was a result of multiple initiatives. It's not one thing, it's many small things that generate this result. What makes for an even better articulation of the result is the fact that it encapsulates a quite heavy inflationary headwind. This is net of that. This effort will continue. This stability in terms of the disclosure and the accrual is kind of the norm now for NPE. You can expect a more steady disclosure of the admin cost. Perfect. Then the final bit on my side. Tangible equity seems to have increased Q on Q more than bottom line, to the tune of EUR 50 million or so. Any color you can give us there? What drove that? There was some evolution on the reserves other than the bottom line. It's part of the OCI reserves evolution fair value through OCI of some of the equity positions in particular that created this delta. Perfect. Thank you. The next question is from the line of David Daniel with Autonomous Research. Please go ahead. Good afternoon. Congrats on the results, thanks for taking my questions. Just staying with costs, and particularly on the staff costs, I think there's another. there's more kind of one-offs coming through. Just interested if you can give a bit more background on what you're seeing in staff costs and whether we should think that there's more one-offs to come through with potentially inflationary pressures in 2023. Second one was a bit more broadly on loan growth. I think the numbers might have slowed in Q4, and I'm just interested to hear your views on how RRF is going and whether loan growth might slow down potentially next year or this year, I should say. Finally, just a bit of information about what's happening with the Stage 2 balance would be good. I think it's dropped quarter-on-quarter. If you could just maybe comment on that'd be great. Thanks. Hi, David. Let me cover the RRF question. Now, you know, we were from the very beginning, we were always a, you know, a big proponent and a big player in the RRF product and a big supporter of that. We have been in a position to close our first two tranches and working vigorously on the third one, and then quickly in line for the fourth and fifth. We see pipeline across the sectors that are being financed by the RRF renewables, digital, and energy efficiency and so on. We are absolutely certain that this is going to be a major driver of loan growth for 2023. The flow and the book is looking healthy and this is going to be helping us in actually achieving the EUR 1.7 billion credit growth that we are guiding the market. To the question about costs and staff costs, we are on a steady pace of right-sizing the bank. There will be restructuring costs. They're also included in the capital projection and the guidance that we gave late January. There will be restructuring costs also in 2023. As far as recurring costs go, I would say that any headwinds in terms of adjustments that need to happen, kind of union contracts, et cetera, are countered by this right-sizing effort that's going on. Overall, we're looking, I would say, at a steady staff cost profile going forward, which allows the cost to income to continue reducing on the back of an increasing denominator. To the Stage 2 evolution, yes, I mean, the Stage 2 levels have been quite static and potentially improving in the future so far. In the future, it might be that we that we do see some Stage 2 inflation, which we will be doing as we are coming out with products and efforts to support borrowers that are facing difficulty with interest payments or inflationary effect. We don't expect this to create any credit losses, any provisions, because the ECL coverage of Stage 2 is actually quite low given the models. Still, what matters most is the protection of the and the support of the borrowers over the coming year throughout this Euribor cycle. Thanks. I see the Stage 2 drop from like EUR 4.5 billion to EUR 3.8 billion in Q4. Was that part of a transaction or is there anything to be said to that movement? Nothing, nothing particular. Nothing one off or inorganic. This was a pure organic evolution of the book. Okay. Sorry, finally on the loan growth in Q4, the FX impact, is that a dollar exposure that's gonna cause that negative? I think it's $200. Overall, it had to do with the evolution of the Euro dollar rate, primarily. That dropped the Euro balance, the Euro IFRS balance of the exposures. It was the opposite effect from what we had seen in previous quarters, where it was actually increasing the Euro balance. Thank you very much. The next question is from the line of Simon Nellis with Citibank. Please go ahead. Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. Most of my questions have been asked, although I have a few technical ones, mostly on cost of risk. Just on the 120 basis point risk cost guidance, that's for organic cost of risk, right? The basis is the Was it 78 basis points you booked in the fourth quarter? Is that right? Yes, that's correct. That's the comparison. Do you have any. Except that excludes the, kind of the NPE inorganic. Do you have any line of sight on how much that might be this year? Overall between credit protection and service fees, the cost that is included in the 120 is about 40 basis points. Out of the 120, 40 basis points are kind of servicer and credit protection fees. The rest I would say is what we call underlying cost of risk. That has to do with the actual loan book. This quarter you booked, how much? EUR 33 million, right? Of cleanup and other adjustments. That's excluded from your kind of organic risk costs guidance. I'm just wondering if you have any visibility on that line item going forward. The inorganic, you mean, cost, so it's kind of cleanup costs? happening in 2023. Exactly. We do have some tails of cleanup efforts that were done in previous years, have to do with costs and kind of final payments that have to happen as the transactions we've already kind of signed and helped for sale complete. These are included in the capital projections. It's in the vicinity of 30-50 basis points, depending on how we complete those transactions. Understood. And I see other impairment was quite high in the third and fourth quarter. Can you kind of unpack that? I think it was EUR 70 million for the full year. What's the outlook for other impairment? It's. This is a line that always is a sum of multiple things. Again, guidance is kind of including what we would normally expect. This particular year, for example, we had some impairments on the REO book, where we took a few tens of millions of P&L hit in terms of the assessment on the inventory book. On the other hand, the investment book was actually revalued at a different line, higher. There's multiple plus or minuses. There's no particular one here worth mentioning. It's kind of a situation that will be also evolving in 2023, part of the P&L guidance and the capital guidance. Sorry, what were the nature of those provisions? I didn't quite catch. Well, we've got an inventory real estate book of something over EUR 1 billion. That's one part of the story. There's multiple other smaller ones that every year we do kind of a revaluation. As per IFRS, the properties that show a gain in inventory book, you do not book, the properties that show a loss, you have to actually mark down. There's a markdown in that in that number because of the IFRS classification. Understood. Understood. Just on the losses from these borrower support measures that you've agreed with the government, Will that show up through the provision line, or is that going to come up somewhere else in costs? I think you pay the government, right? Where is that going to be sitting? There is a EUR 3 million levy that we have booked in Q4. You will see it in the admin costs in the other category, where you see an increase quarter-on-quarter by EUR 6 million. 3 of that is that interest levy. Okay. That's pre-funded, basically? Yes. It's already booked in-. The whole year. Nice. Okay. My last one. Do you expect any further gains from selling kind of renewable energy assets or other similar transactions like we saw in the fourth quarter through the associates line? I would say that in terms of overall, the migration has been completed in terms of our kind of equity stakes in these lines. The book is quite rich. I would say we're now looking at how we can gain value from the stakes that we have and kind of gaining, I would say, economic value, not necessarily book or capital value within the year. We're primarily focused on that. There is nothing of one off nature in the guidance and the returns expectation of 2023. Okay. Actually, one last one, 'cause I saw your assets came down. I guess that was expected because you're repaying LTRO. Do you expect further reduction in assets going forward? Because I think you have some further repayments. Will assets kind of stay steady or even grow from here, from this level? It's kind of a static picture, and a marginal growth as the TLTRO repayment of 2023 is going to be over-balanced by credit and bond book expansion. Overall, we're looking at a static stroke growing asset base, as a major reduction happened with the major TLTRO repayment of this quarter. Got it. Thanks so much. That's all from me. Sorry for so many questions. The next question is from the line of Violeta Baraboi with Societe Generale. Please go ahead. Hi. Good afternoon, gentlemen. Congratulations on the results, and thank you very much for taking my question. It's gonna be a quick one, actually. It's gonna be on funding. I'd love to understand a bit whether you're gonna revisit the market, so in wholesale funding this year, and where within the capital structure are you thinking of issuing, if any? Thank you. Hi, Violeta. Look, in terms of the capital structure, we have filled all the buffers and the one that we are looking possibly to be funding later in the year, let's say Q3, Q4, is the senior preferred line, just to make sure we are in line with our MREL obligations. We're talking about possibly a benchmark transaction of EUR 500 million or thereabout. With that, we will be okay in covering our obligations, but we will be monitoring market conditions and decide on size and timing as we go towards through the year. We're not in a hurry. Understood. I guess that would be in euro. It's gonna be in Euro, yes. Thank you very much. Sorry, second one. As I look at your bonds, just trying to understand a bit, what's your position on Q2 calls? You know, how obviously you cannot maybe comment a lot on it, you have a Q2 upcoming for call in 2024. Maybe it's a bit too early to ask the question, but how do you think about, you know, calling the bond or refinancing the bond? What's your position on that? Thank you. Violeta, obviously it's too early to be asking or answering that question. It has to do with interest rate evolutions, market, kind of market sentiment at the time, availability, et cetera. Post June 2024, the Tier 2 reprices. Depending on the market appetite for Tier 2 at the time, the secondary market, and the interest rate environment, we will make a decision later, I would say, as to whether we're we're gonna be calling the bond or not. Understood. Thank you very much for your answers. We have a follow-up question from the line of Osman Memisoglu with Ambrosia Capital. Please go ahead. Hi., just two technical stuff on my side, as well. On TLTRO, I remember there was a positive catch-up. Could you remind us just for on a quarter-on-quarter basis into Q1, what should we keep in mind that won't be there this time around? Also, tax expense. Is this Q4 the trend we should expect through 2023? Thank you. On TLTRO, there was a catch-up of about EUR 19 million, if I remember correctly, which happened in Q4. This was netted off by the actual TLTRO cost after November 22nd. Overall, that's why you're seeing a kind of breakeven or zero or close to zero TLTRO cost in Q4, while actually giving the interest rate, you should see a cost. There you're seeing zero because of this netting of the catch-up. There's nothing from now on to expect. The TLTRO balances will be paying a DFR as normal. The tax expense, the tax plans will eventually converge to 29% of IFRS pre-tax. You might see it a little bit higher in the coming years. Overall, we are approximating the normalized levels. Let's all remember that the tax plans were taken through massive quakes because of the cleanup and the abrupt recognition of the tax losses of the MP cleanup. We're seeing some kind of disturbances between 2021 and 2022. From now on, I think we are now in calmer waters. We will be able to be projecting and guiding for a more normalized tax situation. Okay. 23 will be closer to 29%. Closer, yes. Perfect. Thank you. The next question is a follow-up question from the line of Mehmet Sevim with J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead. Thanks very much. I'm sorry if I missed this earlier, but looking at the breakdown of cost of risk, seems you're reporting a significant decline in underlying cost of risk this quarter, but at the same time, a visible pickup in servicing costs. What was the reason behind this, please? They are, I would say, semi-joined. Servicing costs were increased this quarter because of substantial cleanups and some of the recognitions that happened from the portfolio, as well as exceptional cures. All these efforts, these outflow efforts, allowed us also to be releasing some of the provisions from the particular exposures as they were being cured or collected, thus coming to a lower underlying cost of risk for the quarter. Overall, what matters for us, as we're projecting are the 80 basis points on an organic basis cumulatively, which compares to the 120 that we are including in our guidance. Great. Thanks very much. The next question is from the line of Iuliana Golub with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Good afternoon. Congratulations on the results. Thank you for the opportunity. I was just wondering, given your insurance plans, for EUR 500 million more this year, I'm just looking at your final MREL requirement, which would be, I think, 27.3%, given the combined buffer requirement. That would leave you with about EUR 2 billion more in funding to do. I was just wondering if you'd use any market strength this year to do more than 1 benchmark deal because it would leave you with quite a lot to do for 2024. Thank you. It will depend on market conditions, of course. There is a possibility also that this year, Hellenic Republic may be getting the investment grade, and that will assist funding in the market for the banks as well. We play it by ear, Iliana, and we see whether we will be, you know, kind of, doing more. That's, that's, you know, the way we look at this part of the funding schedule right now. Theo? Let's also remember that the convergence to the final target for Greek banks goes throughout 2025 as well. We have up until the end of 25 to be meeting the final target. Also the enhanced profitability and the CET1 accretion also contributes to meeting kind of interim guidance. For the 2023 guidance, the one benchmark deal that our CEO mentioned is absolutely sufficient. Of course, you know, we could be anticipating the convergence under the right conditions. That's very helpful. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Alberto Nigro with Mediobanca. Please go ahead. Mr. Nigro, you have the floor, please. Sorry, can you hear me now? Yes, of course. You can go ahead, sir. Okay, thanks. Sorry, I was on mute. Just few technical ones on the takeover of MIG and Attica Group. Can you tell us which will be the impact on PNL and which is the strategy behind this? On the bond portfolio, can you please give us an indication of the size that you can reach in future years beyond 2023? Thank you. Alberto, hi again. Look, I mean, Piraeus Bank, as you all know, has been long involved, directly and indirectly with Attica Holdings, with MIG, and is, is, you know, looking at these particular assets with a value creation opportunity in mind. We have been, essentially, given the potential upside of Attica and also in conjunction with the anticipated merger with ANEK, decided to defend our position with MIG. This resulted in the mandatory tender offer that is in place right now. We estimate that when this mandatory tender offer is completed and everything will be finalized, the total cost for us for that particular chapter will be a few basis points in capital. And of course, we do all of this because we expect significant upside for the Attica-ANEK merger, the position that Attica has in the ferry market in Greece, which is 100% almost dependent each year on the tourism season. That's why we're doing all of this. And that's what we expect from this to happen. Alberto, on the bond book, we are active buyers of bonds. We are looking at opportunities, obviously very attractive rates from time to time. We are not talking about a massive expansion. It's an expansion budgeted of about EUR 1 billion throughout the year. We are looking at opportunities beyond, I would say, the local sovereign. I would say the EUR 12 billion bond book that we have been able to accumulate now generates a healthy NII, given our cost of funding, and we are holders to maturity of this. Thank you so much. Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the conference over to Mr. Megalou for any closing comments. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for participating in our 2022 results conference call. We were extremely pleased that we were in a position this year to come very early informing the market of our year. As a result, we will be kicking off an investor outreach program over the next few weeks. We look forward to see you either in London or in New York or in Boston over the next few weeks. Looking forward to continue discussing with you our bank and the opportunity for the future. Have all a nice weekend. In Greece, actually, it is a festive long weekend, so please enjoy. Thank you all.