Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Before I hand over to Magda Palczynska, Head of Investor Relations, a reminder that today's call is being recorded. Ma'am, you may begin. Good morning, and welcome to UniCredit's second quarter 2023 results conference call. Andrea Orcel, our CEO, will lead the call. Stefano Porro, our CFO, will take you through the financials in more detail. Following Andrea's closing remarks, there will be a Q&A session. Please limit yourself to two questions. With that, I will hand over to Andrea. Thank you, Magda, thank you all for joining today. I would like to start the call with a heartfelt thank you for all the employees of UniCredit that continue to deliver as they have quarter after quarter. Thank you all. The global political and economic environment continues to be marked by uncertainty, with concern regarding the impact of inflation, higher rates, and transition to sustainability within a new geopolitical environment. So far in 2023, as within 2022, the European economy is outperforming our prudent assumptions. The European banking sector has remained resilient, with sequential concerns around banks not occurring. Liquidity has remained stable, pass-through and cost of risk more benign, and profitability at elevated levels. We continue to push into the future the expected shocks. Within this environment, UniCredit's excellent results are a demonstration of the resilience of not only Europe, but of the European banks. Yes, risk remains, and inflation, combined with a possible further economic slowdown and the development of new technology, need to be managed. We remain vigilant. We take preemptive actions, prudent and ready to adapt. What this presentation will demonstrate is the excellent progression of UniCredit Unlocked and of our industrial and cultural transformation. Our people are leading the evolution and doing so as one team, united by the same principle, the same values, and with the same mission. The vision driving that mission is for UniCredit to be the bank for Europe's future and a new benchmark for banking. Let's start our presentation with slide two. Is it working? One second. Okay. Let me start with a snapshot of our current results. They show just how well we are progressing towards realizing that vision. We have delivered our 10th consecutive quarter of profitable growth, the best Q2 and H1 ever. Underlying net profit in the H1 of the year was EUR 4.5 billion, or in excess of that. This is adjusted for EUR 230 million of integration cost that we are expensing to continue supporting our operational efficiency improvements in the face of inflation, whilst becoming more agile and self-funding significant investments. Net revenue rose 38% year-over-year. This is especially impactful. Sorry, we seem to be having a problem with the slide. One second. Just doesn't want to. Here we go. Sorry. Let's see if they stay. Yes. Okay. Net revenue rose 38% year-on-year. This is especially impactful given the drag from targeting quality growth, one that shows risk discipline, improvement of mix, and a focus on EVA positive transaction. Costs fell 1% and RWA 7% year-on-year, in spite of growth, inflation, and our investment for the future. The effectiveness of our operational and capital levers is shown in our 39% cost-income ratio and our 8% net revenue on RWA ratio. Both are best ever, industry-leading, and a result of improvement on both variable of the ratio, so both numerator and denominator. Far this year, our return on tangible equity at 13%, CET1 is at 21%. It is still at 17%, considering the excess capital that we still carry. Our CET1 reached 16.6%, structurally higher than our target of 12.5%-13%. Whilst at the same time, we will have distributed in excess of EUR 15.5 billion between 2021 and 2023, well above our initial target. This is thanks to our much higher than initially expected profitability and organic capital generation. Indeed, we generated 210 basis points, or EUR 6.5 billion of capital in the first half alone. The strategy we're implementing is uniting our bank as one empowered franchise, capable of delivering consistent, quality, profitable growth and outsized distribution over the long term. As such, we are upgrading both our net income and distribution guidance, respectively, to equal or greater than EUR 7.25 billion and EUR 6.5 billion, while absorbing yet upsized integration cost of EUR 500 million and continuing to increase our CET1 year-over-year. All providing a strong foundation and outlook for 2024, as we expect to be broadly in line with the increasingly higher bar set this year, with clearly identified levers to achieve it. What you're seeing with this result is the combination of a sector benefiting from generally supportive macro, some of which is structural, as we're not going back to negative rates, and the large contribution from the relentless execution of UniCredit Unlocked. The latter is what continues to drive our differentiation versus peers and enables us to beat expectation. Let me take you again through its essence. Understanding it is understanding our transformation to date and our further potential. Let's start with our winning strategy to achieve our vision. We have a group-wide determination to put clients at the center, to understand what they want today and what they will need tomorrow. We serve them across three foundational countries, boosted by ten of the fastest growing and most innovative markets in Europe, coming together as one. This is a bank that represent a new and emerging Europe, powered by a renewed single group mindset that truly unlocks the unique value for our clients and our stakeholder of being Pan-European. We provide our clients with a differentiated service that combines local reach with European interconnection and group-wide product factories that leverage an ecosystem of best-in-class partners, powered by an increasingly harmonized, forward-looking digital data and operations across our group. All is underpinned by solid principle and values that our people chose, live, and breathe day to day. We move to our ongoing industrial and cultural transformation, unique in that it is from within and employee led. We're strengthening our client proposition, distribution power, and product factories, while streamlining our organization, processes, and way of working across all banks, all supported by our technology evolution. We continue to invest in the business for the long term, making the necessary structural changes to be future-proofed and resilient. This allows us to support our communities through social programs, our clients and people to go through challenging times, and our commitment to youth and education. This approach serves all of our stakeholders well while delivering exceptional, targeted financial outcome. As we continue to strive for excellence and execute relentlessly on UniCredit Unlocked, I am confident that our financial performance is set to continue through 2023, 2024, and beyond. Let's turn to slide four. Let me now take you through how we are deploying our strategy in further detail. Clients. UniCredit Unlocked is primarily driven by around our 15 million clients across Europe, serving them and their communities locally, but benefiting from tools available to a group of our size and nature. For most of our franchise, countries' exports make up 50% of GDP. Our footprint is a unique gateway to the continent and possible expansion. We have overlaid this with industrial actions designed to ensure our clients not only connect, but also have access to premium, tailor-made products, accessed the way they prefer. This is supported by investments in our network, which we continue to upgrade, and technology aiming to create the branch of the future, in which an omni-channel approach combines a digital offering with passionate, skilled people, delivering best-in-class solutions, all within a higher quality and seamless client experience. Our clients are served by 13 banks, who are leaders in their own market. We have refocused our previously inward-looking organization towards our clients. We have reunified our client franchises, harmonized group segmentation, and returned coverage and day-to-day decision to our banks and within our banks to the frontline. This model relies on both a clear, unified framework of reference and our diverse talent, who have the best understanding of the local market and dynamics. Talent, which is critical for us to attract, retain, and develop, which is why we hired around 2,000 people, and we are providing them with circa 30 hours of training to maintain pace within digitization, product development, risk, and ESG. Each market is now equally served by our group product factories, which we pulled out from the individual banks and centralized. These in-house factories leverage our group-wide scale and scope, also to support an ecosystem of top-class partners. The most recent example is Mastercard. We signed a groundbreaking partnership in June, the first time any large commercial bank had put in place a single card, exclusive multi-market strategy of this scale in Europe. This partnership underscore our One UniCredit approach and our further unifier across all of our market. The centralization of our factories and group-wide partners, combining with delayering, simplification of processes and way of working, training, and putting back decision capabilities in the right places, are delivering the divisional result you have witnessed today and in the last 10 quarters. Best in class, in each market, in each business. All of these pillars are being facilitated and enhanced by a gradually more streamlined and group-wide approach to technology and operation. The first phase of our digital evolution is nearing completion, taking back control of our heavily fragmented and outsourced technology, bringing it in-house, and selectively investing in it. We have hired more than 700 developers since 2022, and are upskilling our people to ensure that we have the right capabilities, engaging our providers from a group standpoint instead of individually, and streamlining the way of working to lower cost, and most importantly, time to market. We have invested in cleaning and simplifying products and processes, freeing up resources, time, and investment dollars, which can be repositioned towards what we really need. The second phase will be the gradual transformation to a modern, digital, and data-driven organization, which will see the acceleration of automation, design of new tools, and best-in-class platforms to improve our client responsiveness and more efficiency in the increasing of our consumption of technology. All of this is united by a holistic culture, driven by core values and a common set of principle chosen by our people and embodied in our actions. Our industrial and cultural transformation has powered our last 10 quarters, delivered differentiated performance, and rebased our key financial metrics. We now have a sustainable competitive advantage that we are determined to further consolidate. Let me take you through our new transformed core financial KPIs and their drivers. We believe we have cost leadership. This is critical to maintain a differentiated level of profitability, particularly given recent and prospective inflationary pressures. It is also critical to maintain our edge over fintechs and other market players. We have moved from force to efficiency leadership in Q1. This is a structural change versus the past, is driven by targeted cost reduction that does not affect but rather invests and propels the quality of our revenue growth. In absolute terms, we have reduced our cost base since 2017 by 18%. Critically, however, since 2021, this was done while substantially propelling and increasing both gross and net revenue, rather than shrinking them. We aim to continue, and even strengthen, this competitive advantage. Quality revenue growth. We transformed both the growth and quality of our earnings. We moved from revenue laggard to revenue leader, delivering 10 successive quarters of top-tier quality growth. We fundamentally transformed our ability to grow our revenue base while improving our mix. Targeted quality revenue growth has meant being disciplined on risk, delivering EVA positive new business, and focusing on fees and other capital-light, EVA positive sources. Net revenue to RWA improved from tenth to third, whilst fees to RWAs improved from fifth to second, as we're strengthening our factories. We have and will continue to address weaknesses generated by past retrenchment that saw us selling or constraining quality businesses. We have made significant progress in rebuilding our high-value added client content in a number of ways. Firstly, organically, by hiring best-in-class talent, attracted by our ability to deliver 15 million clients across Europe in a captive fashion. This is the case in both advisory and capital market and client risk management, demonstrated by the caliber of talent, now in-house, and the visible results. These are targeted to our existing client base. Secondly, by selectively internalizing critical part of the value chain, for example, in asset management, building central product selection and packaging, able to deliver projects such as Nova and onemarkets. Thirdly, through our two-way partnership with best-in-class product provider, such as Allianz, Azimut, and more recently, Mastercard. We are reviewing further opportunities of growth. For example, in payments, both corporate and retail, where we see a significant opportunity, and in unit linked, where we could internalize our dominant business in Italy. All of this requires significant investment in talent, in training, in technology, to both power group-wide factories and local distribution channels and deliver seamless integration between them. Let me give you an example to explain that point. Let's take insurance. We have already rationalized our providers from nine to four and transformed them into partners. Today, Allianz designs best-in-class protection products tailored for our clients. Together, we have trained our people and provided insights to our clients. The result is a step up in our Italian protection market share to 14%. We're taking it even further. An integrated tech platform at group level is being launched, allowing real-time access to product with streamlined processes and technology solution. This will further power our growth in the segment. Our transformed quality revenue capacity is another competitive advantage that we will continue to focus on. Structural lower cost of risk. Over the past few years, our gross and net NPEs have fallen dramatically, respectively, to the 2.6% and 1.4%. Our underlying cost of risk has structurally declined from at least 40-50 basis points to 20-25 basis points, so halved, subject to confirmation within a longer time series. Our underlying cost of risk, excluding Russia and overlays between 2021 and 2023 year to date, has been well below 20 basis points, reaching single-digit basis points over each one of the last six quarters. It has benefited from a particularly benign environment and write-backs from repayments, which underscore how conservative we are on staging, classification, and provisioning. Generally, this is due to the substantially higher quality of our credit portfolio as compared to the past, that we have markedly accelerated since 2021. Second, the substantial, more conservative, absolute and relative to peers, both backward and forward-looking staging and provisioning policy. We are covered much higher in other, in every NPE stage. We believe we have moved firmly at the forefront of our peer group in this matter, and are better prepared than any to weather the current macro and geopolitical uncertainty. As a result, cost and cost of risk are much more within our control now and in the next few year than most of the market had realized. We are prepared with this healthy provision and overlays in a quality credit portfolio to provide a solid buffer and positively differentiate cost of risk, both for now and in case the market turns. This is another competitive advantage, and we are determined to continue strengthening it. Capital excellence. Our transformed capital efficiency has been a major contributor to our sustainable performance, and we ranked first on this measure relative to peers in Q1. This has three main drivers. First, we focus on deploying... yep, sorry, slide. We focus on deploying capital above the cost of equity. 77% of corporate RWAs are now to SCBA positive clients as we improve the profitability of our legacy portfolio and our discipline in new business. Second, we improve the profitability of our commitments via cross-sell and pricing or ultimately exiting or securitizing position where RoAC accretive. Third, we are growing capital-light products. This is yet another competitive advantage that supports our return on tangible equity and organic capital generation. We are determined to continue building upon it. Our P&L advantages combine with those of our balance sheet, creating performance with strengths. Our CET1 remains best in class among peers. We continue to grow capital in spite of our best-in-class distribution, thanks to our outsized organic capital generation. Our liquidity ratio remains strong, sustainable, and well above peer average, allowing better management of margins. We maintain a high-quality credit portfolio with conservative, proactive staging and provisioning, further improved by high overlays and lower default rate. We are focused on investing wisely to maintain profitable risk-adjusted return for the long term, to the benefit of all our stakeholder and in many forms. These last two slides have sought to explain what a dramatically different group UniCredit is today, despite being less than two years into our strategic plan. Our commitment to continuing this fundamental and holistic transformation remains, as does our commitment to delivering strong, sustainable result and distribution. It is our knowledge of how much more this transformation can unlock that gives us confidence in the future beyond the effect of this positive macro. Let's now get back to the present. This is our tenth consecutive quarter of quality, profitable growth. We have balanced our three levers to deliver this in a sustainable fashion. Net revenues rose significantly in both the half and the quarter, driven by quality NII growth and a tightly managed pass-through. Fees remain robust, especially if we exclude the impact of lower current account fees in Italy that had not yet been waived by all banks. This is EUR 20 million adverse per month. Cost of risk at very low levels, both given the macro and the new change UniCredit I have just described. Of particular note is the dynamic of our deposit pass-through below expectation at circa 24% and showing signs of approaching more normalized levels outside of Italy. This supports our new pass-through guidance. We have been able to more than compensate the inflationary pressure on cost, both in the half and in the quarter, while continuing to invest. Integration costs enable us to continue on this path, and we're stepping them up. The positive momentum in our gross operating profit continues again, beating expectation. It rose close to 52% in Q2 and 42% in H1. Our capital excellence continue with both outsized capital generation and further consolidation of best-in-class CET1. UniCredit return on tangible equity continues to rise. We are surpassing our peers on this metric, having significantly lagged until a few years ago. At the same time, thanks to our substantial share buyback at depressed valuation, we are further propelling a very significant per share value creation. We're fairly unique in this respect. Let me take you now through each country or region. Our Italian business had yet another excellent quarter, demonstrating its ability to deliver sustained quality, profitable growth, and outstanding returns well above peers. Net revenue rose 19% year-over-year to EUR 5.2 billion. Gross revenue up 23%. This was driven by NII growth of 66%, thanks to strict management of the pass-through. Fees were down 5.2% year-on-year, mostly due to active relief provided to customer on current account applied since April. Without such relief, our fees would have been down only 2.6%. We saw good result in asset under custody, products, and excellent ones in protection, as I was commenting. Costs fell 2% in Italy, thanks to our continued focus on simplification and streamlining, and despite continuing investment both in the front line, with circa 370 new hires in 2023, and in our branches, with circa 550 completely renewed branches from the beginning of 2022. RWAs were reduced by 12%. As a result, we achieved a strong operating and capital efficiency with a 35.5% cost-income ratio and 9.1% net revenue to RWAs. Profit before tax rose 31% to EUR 2.9 billion. ROAC exceeded 25%, and the region contributed 86 basis points, or EUR 2.7 billion, of organic capital generation to the group. Our commitment to our community, clients, and employees remain undiminished this quarter, delivering, amongst other things, the launch of a second tranche of UniCredit per l'Italia, a EUR 10 billion package to support clients, both individuals and business. We also introduced a package of up to EUR 1 billion to support those impacted by the May floods and offered mortgages dedicated to energy sustainability to help family and individuals in the realization of their housing projects. Today's strong set of result and the very concrete step we have taken to support families and businesses confirm that financial and social objectives are not in conflict, demonstrating that UniCredit can deliver for the benefit of our investors and of Italy as a whole. Germany. Germany's structural transformation continued to power excellent result. Net revenues were up 13% year-over-year. Gross revenues were up 14%. This was driven by NII up 9% and fees up 5%, driven in part by the successful delivery of our capital-light corporate financial advisory business and also asset management fees. Costs fell nearly 5.3% in Germany, with the ongoing transformation more than compensating for inflation and setting a new run rate for the future. RWAs were down 5% year-over-year. We also achieved a very strong operating and capital efficiency in Germany, with a 41.7% cost-income ratio and 7.3% net revenue on RWA ratio. Profit before tax was up 36% at EUR 1.3 billion. ROAC reached 18.7%, and the region delivered 57 basis points or EUR 1.8 billion of organic capital to the group. We continue to invest in our clients and our frontline, delivering the introduction of a cashless advisory branch model for local, high-quality customer advice. Our corporate client portal has released further functionalities, including the introduction of power of attorney self-service. This quarter has seen Germany continue to deliver simplification with integration of COO and digital to deliver a full end-to-end and customer-focused approach. All of this is resulting in us being named top employer in Germany for the thirteenth time in a row and receiving the EDGE Move certification for D&I in 2022. Central Europe. Central Europe's quarter was defined by consistent stability and delivery of high profitability. Net revenues were up 29% year-over-year. Gross were up 27%. This was driven by NII up 39%, fees slightly down following general market pressure, but up in transaction and financing. Costs remained flat year-over-year, as the discipline continue across all country, and our focus on operating and capital efficiency was reflected in a 38.5% cost-income ratio and 7% net revenue on RWA ratio. Profit before tax was up 65% to EUR 1.1 billion. ROIC was 20.6%, and the region delivered. Sorry. Delivered 29 basis points or EUR 0.9 billion of capital organically. We have made significant progress in retail digitalization, signing up 67,000 new clients in H1 2023 in Czech Republic and Slovakia alone. We launched our first green mortgage covered bond in the Czech Republic and succeeded in obtaining the Green Start certificate in Slovenia. We established the inaugural Girls Go Finance event to strengthen girls' understanding of finances through our partnership with Teach Austria, an initiative we intend to roll out across all of our Teach For All markets. Eastern Europe profitability continued at pace this quarter, driven by business intensity and further efficiency gains. Net revenues were up 47% year-over-year, with gross revenue up 31%. This was powered by both NII up 44% and fees up 4%. Our focus on active cost management continued to balance a continuous efficiency drive with investment in digitalization and automation. Our focus on operating and capital efficiency was reflected in a 34.1 cost-income ratio and 9.2% net revenue on RWA ratio. Profit before tax landed at EUR 800 million. ROIC was 34.4%. The region delivered 18 basis points or EUR 600 million of capital organically. We continue to invest in our network and business and customer transformation. This quarter, we introduced cashless branches in Bulgaria. We effectively balanced our S with our E commitments, rolling out a number of social programs for vulnerable groups focused on youth in Romania, while also supporting the employees of this group. At the same time, we saw EUR 170 million of new lending to renewable energy within Bulgaria. Client solution. As we have discussed extensively about our investment in our factories, we will now provide just some key highlights and additional data for this quarter. Client solution revenue was resilient in the first half and relative to a strong base. Revenue fell 3% year-over-year and would have been up 1%, excluding Russia. Corporate solution revenue fell 2% in the first half, but grew by 3% excluding Russia. Overall fees were up 5% year-on-year, with RWA consumption down 13%, driving record profitability. Transaction and payment revenue rose 12% year-on-year, while advisory and capital markets was up 7 and reached a number 1 fee ranking in its home market. Client risk management revenue fell 13% but would have been flat, excluding Russia. Specialized lending was down 9% year-on-year, but flat normalized for TLTRO and 1 large one-off. Individual solution revenue fell 4% year-over-year. Strong performance in protection continued, while life insurance remained under pressure, particularly as we kept discipline around Ramo Primo. Brokerage and custody showed the strongest growth, up 90%, led by strong client demand for bond products. Our commitment to our purpose begins with us and the actions and decisions we take with respect to our own people, our clients, and those communities that we are interestingly part of. These actions were evident in the overview that I gave for each one of the regions, actions targeted for the need and challenges of each local market. Beyond that, whether it is closing the gender pay gap, the partnership we forged to fight discrimination, supporting arts and culture, the work of our foundation, which will now invest this year alone, EUR 20 million in projects to support youth and education of our UniCredit Start Lab, our commitment to deliver on our purpose remains a central tenet of our strategic plan. I am now handing over to Stefano, who will provide more detail on our numbers on H1. Thank you, Andrea. Good morning, everyone. Let's turn to slide 18. Before I take you through the Q2 2023 results, please note that my comments are based on a year-over-year comparison, that is Q2 2023 versus Q2 2022, unless otherwise noted. Let's look at the P&L in more detail, starting with revenue. In the Q2, we generated a record EUR 6 billion revenue, up 25%, mainly thanks to an increase in net interest of about EUR 1 billion. Revenue in Q2 includes the EUR 60 million negative impact from current account fee repricing in Italy. Trading activity at EUR 0.5 billion, up 32%, supported by the fixed income currency and commodities business. This quarter also benefited from higher treasury contribution. We took EUR 0.1 billion impairments in profit for investment in the quarter, mostly from participation in Russia, Italy, and Austria. Six semi-charges in second quarter include EUR 27 million tax on extra bank profits in Hungary, as the government changed the methodology for the 2023 calculation, as flagged last quarter. Let's turn to the next slide. Let me share some highlights of UniCredit's strong balance sheet and robust liquidity position. Our favorable liquidity position starts with the structure of our balance sheet and a loan-to-deposit ratio well below 100% at a stable and sound 90%. We have a resilient and diversified deposit base. More than 80% of our deposits are from retail and SME clients. Our deposit market share across the group is stable. The decrease in volumes in the quarter are mainly driven by corporate using their cash buffer and our focus on pricing. Thanks to our superior liquidity profile and balance sheet strength, we are in a position to be able to do so. Retail deposit volumes were broadly stable. Clients kept diversifying their saving into more asset under custody products, in particular, BTPs in Italy, and they are keeping their asset with us, with our TFAs up EUR 11 billion in the quarter. Total deposits are still comfortably above pre-2020 levels. We expect the overall deposit volume to continue slightly declining in 2023, as we prioritize pricing management and quality net interest income, and as there is for the rotation to asset under custody or asset under management. This is also reflected in our deposit beta, which I will discuss in more detail later. Our liquidity cover ratio at second quarter 2023 was above 100% after TLTRO repayments, in line with our managerial target range at 125%-150%. We have a large liquidity buffer, with about EUR 215 billion liquid assets, effectively unchanged compared to the quarter before. Let's turn to slide 20 and focus again on the quarter. Net Interest Income was EUR 3.5 billion, up 6% quarter-on-quarter. We continue to experience a positive net interest dynamic, driven by higher loan rates and still low deposit beta. Net interest margin at 2.1%, up 9 basis point in the quarter. Customer loan rates are up 43 basis point in the quarter across our regions, leveraging on higher interest rates and thanks to our commercial actions. Average client loan volumes, relevant for net interest, are down EUR 4.3 billion in the quarter, driven by Germany and Italy, mainly short-term loans for SME and large corporate. Clients' demand for lending has declined in the first half of the year and is expected to remain contained as a consequence of higher rates. We remain focused on more profitable capital efficiency loans while supporting our clients. Loan volumes are bolstered by EUR 3.3 billion in USG lending in the quarter, as we continue assisting with our clients' green transition and support social initiatives. The increase in the customer deposit rate is limited to 20 basis points for the quarter, while the average durable three months was up 73 basis points. Our average deposit pricing is below the system across most of our regions. Average commercial deposit decreased by EUR 8.9 billion in second quarter, mainly in Germany, also Austria, driven by a few large corporates. We expect retail deposit market share to remain stable, while corporate deposit dynamic will continue to be lumpy. We have updated our managerial net interest guidance and sensitivity. Based on a 3.75% ECB deposit facility rate from the third quarter, remaining stable thereafter, and a deposit beta below 40% at the end of the year, we expect an improved full year 2023 net interest income guidance at least EUR 13.2 billion. This is mainly thanks to a better average deposit beta for the year, slightly below 30%. The observed deposit beta for the group, for both sight and term deposit in second quarter, is around 24%. an increase as we expected, less than assumed. The slight increase in the quarter is mainly driven by Austria. In Italy, we still have a low level of circa 11%. We continue to see a shift from sight to term deposit. However, sight for the group is still 75%. The recent TLTRO maturities did not have a material impact on the market or UniCredit funding cost. The net interest income sensitivity for a one percentage point of deposit beta is about EUR 130 million at current rates and deposit volume assumption. The net interest income impact from a ECB deposit facility rate increase of 50 basis point is about EUR 0.3 billion, which also depends on how client behavior and competitive dynamics develop. If the ECB starts to reduce short-term rates, our deposit replicating portfolio, which is factored into our net interest income guidance, will continue to support our net interest income. At today's interest rate levels, the run rate net interest income will be supported by about EUR 0.3 billion per year. Let's turn to slide 21. Fees in second quarter were EUR 1.9 billion, up 2%, excluding the current account fee reduction in Italy, or EUR 60 million in the quarter, in line with our guidance. Continuous strong performance in transactional fees and better financing fees, more than offset, still subdue investment fees. We are well diversified and balanced, as you can see from the year-on-year development of the different component parts of our fees. Transactional fees were up 1% or 11%, excluding current account fee reduction in Italy, thanks to robust payment and card fees driven by client activity and property and casualty insurance growth in Italy. Repriced current account fees in Italy will continue to negatively impact transactional fees by about EUR 20 million per month to year-end 2023. Financing fees are up 2%, thanks to a recovering global capital market activity and loan fees in Germany, more than offsetting higher securitization costs stemming from our active portfolio management strategy and lower credit protection insurance linked to retail mortgages in Italy. Investment fees were down 3% on reduced management fees due to lower average asset under management stock, mainly in Italy. Asset under management gross sales and upfront fees are stable. Client aging fees were stable as we keep on supporting our clients in defending their business outcome in this volatile environment. Let's turn to slide 22. We reduced costs 1.2% year-on-year, while inflation in our footprint was above 8% in H1 2023. Let's take a closer look at HR and non-HR cost developments. HR costs down 1% year-on-year, benefiting from lower FTEs, down 4.6% to 73,000, supported by early retirement plans becoming effective in Italy. The trade union agreement in Italy is currently being renegotiated on a national level, while the German one is valid until mid-2024. Austria closed the annual agreement at the beginning of 2023, as the mandatory salary increase of about 8% is already included in Q2 2023 results. Non-HR costs are down 1.4%, thanks to a tight cost management and remediation actions compensating the overall inflation impact. Although integration costs are not included in the cost line, we incurred EUR 214 million in second quarter 2023. We expect for the full year to have around EUR 0.5 billion. This is to further allow us to reduce the structural long-term cost base of the group, while keep hiring and investing. Let's turn to slide 23. Cost of risk was at very low, 2 basis points in the quarter, supported by our still low default rate at 0.8% and the good performance on repayments and back to bonis. We kept our overlay LLPs on performing loans stable in the quarter at around EUR 1.8 billion, to be used for any shocks or to be released in the following two years. Our underlying cost of risk, net of overlays in Russia, has reset and was single-digit basis points over the last six quarters. The cost of risk in the quarter includes our biannual IFRS 9 macro scenario update, with corresponding LLPs stable. In Italy, the cost of risk of 21 basis points reflects the ongoing sound asset quality. Cost of risk for Germany and Eastern Europe is low at 7 and 4 basis points, respectively. In Central Europe, we had the negative cost of risk because of NP repayments, leading to LLP releases. Our updated spillover analysis and details of our commercial real estate exposure can be found in the annex and confirm the soundness of our group risk profile. The group's expected loss on new business at 27 basis points also confirms the credit quality of our portfolio origination, and our risk discipline is ingrained in our organization. Let's turn to slide 24. Our underlying asset quality remain robust. Gross NPEs at EUR 12.1 billion, reduced by about EUR 0.5 billion in Q2. The NPE reduction was driven by unlikely to pay portfolio disposal in Italy, which lowered the share of unlikely to pay and past due, still comparably high at 76%. NPE coverage ratio at 48%, broadly stable quarter-on-quarter. NPE coverage does not include overlays on performing loans, which come on top. Let's turn to slide 25. In Q2, our Risk-Weighted Assets stood at EUR 295 billion, down EUR 4 billion quarter-on-quarter, driven by continued active portfolio management measure worth EUR 3.5 billion, including securitization and the reduction of low-performing businesses. Risk-Weighted Assets are down EUR 22 billion year-on-year and are expected to remain below EUR 300 billion also by year-end. Let's turn to slide 26. In Q2, we organically generated 101 basis points of capital, 77 basis points from net profit, and 24 basis points through our active risk-weighted asset management, way ahead of our plan. We completed the EUR 2.34 billion for share buyback tranche and launched the remaining EUR 1 billion second tranche for 2022. As of 21st July, UniCredit purchased shares equal to 6.5% of the share capital for a total consideration of some EUR 2.4 billion. Before I hand back to Andrea, one item of note: the Hungarian extra profit tax has been extended to 2024 as well. We expect it to be broadly in line with this year amount, which was EUR 75 million. Please, Andrea, the floor is yours. Thank you, Stefano. I will now finish with some closing remarks. We're now incorporating in our guidance the improved assumption on rates and pass-through, as well as cost of risk. We are also further stepping up in the execution of UniCredit Unlocked key industrial drivers. As such, we are upgrading again our net profit guidance for 2023 to at least EUR 7.25 billion, an increase of around EUR 1.6 billion from our initial guidance at the beginning of this year, despite absorbing EUR 500 million in integration costs that were not budgeted at the beginning of the year. Accordingly, our distribution intention for 2023 has improved to a minimum of EUR 6.5 billion, EUR 1.25 billion higher than our guidance at the start of the year. Cash dividend shall be at least EUR 2.4 billion, up 25% year on year, versus EUR 1.9 billion of 2022, and circa 35% up based on the current number of shares. We are confident that we will maintain this profitability and distribution at broadly this level for 2024, given our clear levers to deliver within this reference macro. Sorry. This would translate to total distribution of EUR 22 billion between 2021 and 2024, versus the EUR 16 billion we announced with UniCredit Unlocked, while substantially increasing at the same time our CET1 and our excess capital that should also benefit shareholders in due course. We have our sights also firmly set on future success with clear management priorities that I have already touched upon. We will limit NII reduction by managing pass-through across each one of our banks, focusing on targeted volume growth and pricing optimization, and reaping the benefit from our asset and liability management strategy. We have a number of ways to further increase our fee generation across advisory and capital markets, private banking, payments, and overall insurance. This will provide further support to NII compression when it occurs. Our cost reduction remains targeted, effective in further declining our cost base while continuing to fund our investments. We will execute this reduction by simplifying processes, rationalizing our organization, and in new and renegotiated supplier contracts at group levels. Our cost of risk should remain structurally low. Thanks to our disciplined quality growth, the quality of our credit portfolio and its coverage, complemented by conservative provisioning. We're well prepared to maintain our cost of risk below 25 basis points, even in eventual forecasted peaks resulting from unexpected exceptional. We have EUR 1.8 billion or 40 basis points of additional overlays that we charged to our P&L in 2021 and 2022, that can be used exactly for this eventuality, reducing the peak. We continue to pursue RWA efficiency. We will continue our discipline management actions, remain focused on capital-light products, and increase further the efficiency of our loan back book as it rolls. These are our current priorities for 2024, which should enable profitability and distribution broadly in line with 2023. This will be supported by the significant foreseen tailwind of a reduction in our systemic charges and benefit in lower integration cost. Let's now turn to the last slide. Before I close, I would like to take a moment to give you my views on how we look at distributions. We're often described as having outsized distribution, but our ability to offer attractive returns is based on our extremely strong organic capital generation. We're in an enviable position and fairly unique position, a compelling and growing shareholder remuneration, an increasing CET1 ratio, even post-distribution, and very significant per share value growth. Our approach to striking the right balance between cash dividend and buybacks is determined by our prevailing valuation, and with a view to having a sustainable increase in the dividend year by year. As our valuation improves over time, we're open to gradually increase the cash dividend payout to ensure a more attractive cash dividend yield. We're able to deliver outsized distribution versus our peer group, while significantly increasing our CET1. Our distribution are not relying on distributing our excess capital. That said, we also recognize that we are carrying an ever increasingly larger amount of excess capital, that the market seems to currently value at zero. We will return the success to shareholder if no better use of the capital can be found. This success also gives us confidence in being able to maintain our 2023 distribution for the foreseeable future, regardless of external factors. This is an advantage relative to our peers. Thank you, and I will now open for questions. Thank you. This is the call conference operator. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. To remove yourself from the question queue, please press star and two. Please pick up the receiver when asking questions. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. The first question is from Antonio Reale with BAM. Please go ahead. Hi, good morning, everyone. It's Antonio from Bank of America. Two questions from me, please. The first one is on capital and the second one on the net profit outlook for 2024. Starting with the first question, which is actually a follow-up based on Andrea's remarks. When I look at your increased distribution, even as it stands, you will end basically every year with quite a large stack of excess capital and growing. Your policy has been quite clear. On slide 30, I think you show the payout as a percentage of organic capital generation, which is now at 70%. Even then, it's starting to look somewhat conservative. What do you think it takes for you to increase that payout to 100% of your organic capital generation? Because with that, you wouldn't even be paying any of the excess capital out. I mean, at the risk of sounding a bit harsh here, I mean, you've marked down your Russian exposure, you have large overlays, you don't really guide to any significant regulatory headroom going forward. Why not pay 100% of what you generate, given, as you said, you have a lot of excess and so I'm wondering why the need to go further? That's my first question. The second question is to do with your net profit guidance. You're guiding to be broadly in line to this this year, also in 2024, at least EUR 7.25 billion. Could you talk about how you see the drivers year-on-year in 2024 versus 2023? I think on slide 29, you very, you provide some very interesting color on a qualitative basis. Can we maybe talk through and help us understand better the bridge in profitability across those key drivers? Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Antonio. Let's start with capital and distribution and everything else. Firstly, I take note and noted on the fact that, if we look at our capital as a proportion of organic capital generation or as a proportion of net income, we seem to be becoming less aggressive. Meaning that if we look at the proportion of distribution vis-a-vis net income in 2021, and then in 2022, then the indication we're giving for 2023, we're distributing ever less relative to net income, a little bit more relative to organic capital generation, which is what drives us. Why are we doing that? Because we're not at the end of a year. We have been very clear in saying that our distribution are equal or above to the numbers we're giving you, and the numbers will be finalized when we reach the end of a year, we see what the future will take us in 2024, and we have all the elements to take a judgment call. In general, we maintain the fact that we will maintain prudent distribution, which for us are keeping them within our guiding capital generation, with an eye on what they are as a proportion of net income, as net income seems to be an industry practice. I am committed in fulfilling my commitment on distribution, actually, on beating them through results. On the excess, it's something different. At some point, we will complement what we do organically, recurrently, and ordinarily, which is what I'm talking about now, with an integration of return of my excess capital over time to complement what we are doing. We are on the second quarter of the year. There is still a lot of uncertainty. At the moment, the guidance is what it is. We will refine it as we go through the year. The second thing is 2024, which I think is quite critical. I think that the whole UniCredit is delivering as best it can for 2023. The role of a management team is to prepare for 2024 and beyond. As we look at 2024, we look at it in this fashion: firstly, NII will have an adverse headwinds, assuming that our macro is correct, given that interest rates are gonna have plateaued, will have plateaued, and the pass-through is going to continue to converge. That effect for us is a little bit greater than peers in Northern Europe, a little bit less than our peers in Italy, given that the markets where the pass-through has the biggest effect are Southern European markets. This adverse effect will be partially offset by what? It will be offset by, A, selected volume growth in SMEs and other segments and products across the franchise in retail, which we are in a position now to do at EVA positive levels. This is also helped by the fact that we continue to grind down our back book, that grounding is an adverse on our loan growth, but it's not gonna last forever at the same rate. The second thing is that we were, as we said several time, originally, let's say, under-replicated and conservatively replicated. As we bring up our replication to the right run rate for this level of rates, because we expect them to go down at some point, we are bringing in additional revenue, Stefano has mentioned it, at the current level of interest rate is EUR 300 million of additional revenues per year. If rates increase, that's more. These factors together, we're anticipating a reduction of NII, but a reduction of NII that is less than what you may think because of these offsetting factors. Still a reduction. The second thing is what happens on revenues overall. We are anticipating a strong or solid fee income as we continue to invest in our factories. The fee income from our factories is dependent on the macro. Much lower rates means better fees in asset management, in life insurance, and in other things. There will be a beta effect against positive beta effects on the fees, offsetting the, in part, the negative beta effects on NII, and in our chain, case, let's say, propelled by all the investment we are doing in asset management, in protection, in payments, in advisory and capital market, in client risk management, et cetera, et cetera. That will bridge the gap further or compensate the gap, depending on the speed of pass-through flowing in our accounts. We are now... That's the revenue line. Below the revenue line, we have two other factors. One factor is cost. We're determined to keep our cost base down this year and flat or down next year. We said we had an ambition to still hit UniCredit Unlocked pre-inflation. That means our cost line still has further room to go down, and that, I think, is a competitive advantage, because when NII will reverse, people who have not managed their cost line will get a margin squeeze. People who have, will not. We will keep on driving this down. I think that's a competitive advantage, and we will deliver that. That could give us EUR 100 million-EUR 150 million of lift again. Then we have a cost of risk. Cost of risk, we're not anticipating a meaningful divergence between what the cost of risk will be for the whole year of 2023 and 2024. Why that? Even if we assume an increase in cost of risk underlying due to the deceleration of the economy, we think that the more conservative level of provisions that we have relative to benchmark and the release, the gradual release of overlays to bash down that peak, will allow us to remain at a cost of risk that is in the ballpark of what it will be this year given what we know today. As you see, revenues will go down a lot less or not, depending on what we do on the offsetting fashion. Costs will go down, that's a positive. Cost of risk remain the same. We have two other buffers that we believe we are unique in having. Number one, as a G-SIB fee, we have very significant reduction in systemic charges coming in next year. I think Stefano has indicated more than 1 times, that is several hundreds, millions of EUR 300 million to be the case. We also have, we have told you that this year, EUR 7.25 billion are done absorbing. After having expensed EUR 500 million of integration cost to support our efficiency gain. I don't have to do EUR 500 million integration cost next year. Theoretically, I have another EUR 500 million in there. When you pull it all together, you see that of course, we don't have a perfect picture of what the future will be, but based on what we do today and the leverage we have, that we control, we think we can remain broadly in line year-over-year, and everything is quite granularly explained, within our management team. Thanks for that. It It was very clear. Thank you. The next question is from Andrea Filtri with Mediobanca. Please go ahead. Yes, thank you for taking my question. I've got more of a question on the strategy of how you guide the bank. Uh, everything is going ahead at full steam, uh, for ten consecutive quarters. You continue to upgrade your shareholder remuneration, uh, and we're at a point where with the last fireworks, so the share price today is flat. Um, could you react to, uh, the eventual, you know, s-stale, uh, price, um, in sort of setting up a reaction function to the share price, calibrating share buybacks, uh, in a targeted manner, uh, to essentially take opportunity, uh, of this, uh, lack of, uh, sensitivity of share price to the results and to, uh, the way you see things, uh, evolving? Thank you. Well, if I had the answers, I would do your job. Andrea, what can I say? I do what I control. Let's look at the silver lining. number one, I'm never gonna sell a share, and number two, I am buying stock which is undervalued by the bucket load, and the people who are in it are gonna see explosive distribution yield. At some point, consistent, resilient, recurrent, repeated outperformance is gonna trickle in. Why is that today, now being serious? I have my personal understanding or my personal views, given my last job. My personal view is that the market has very few specialist investors in banks. How many of us are still left after a decade of drought? Not many. The money from specialist investor is limited, is long only, and moves very slowly, as it should. Most of the money that makes the difference is from generalists, and generalists, by definition, don't understand banks. What they do is they invest through the cycle on macro. Rates and rates are capped. They're going down. Cost of risk cycle, and at least looking at the past, which is the one way of looking at it, in my opinion, the cost of risk is going to explode. If you are looking at macro drivers, looking at past performance of European financials, that's what you're doing in order to buy banks, and you are seeing a substantial increase in share price, which has occurred anyway, you're not moving money into it, or you are reticent to move money into it. If on top of it, you're based in the United States, you're looking at your own system, which for once, is a lot weaker and less resilient than the one of Europe, but you don't know that from the standpoint of where you're looking at. That's my rationalization. All the management team can do is continue to prove people wrong every quarter by delivering on results ahead of expectation, if we can, and then at some point, hopefully it trickles into the, into the share price. Thank you, Andrea. Thank you. The next question is from Chris Hallam with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Good morning, everybody. My first question, it's a bit of a follow-up from Antonio's earlier question, just around the phasing of revenues. In prior quarters, you've talked about Q2 or Q3 this year being the peak for NII and for fees growth really kicking in from the second half of next year. Given what we're seeing on betas, as well as a more benign macro backdrop, are either of those time frames moving at all, i.e., NII peaking later or fees recovering earlier? That's my first question. Second, you talked about being a benchmark bank and RoTE for the first half, as you know, over 20%, at 13% Q1. There's clearly a lot of operating leverage in the business right now, given all the momentum in NII. I wanted to hear your thoughts about what you think a sustainable level of return on capital could now be for UniCredit through the foreseeable future, given the progress you've made on cost and capital efficiency? If that longer term ROT is higher than you previously expected, whether that changes where you want to take the business and where you want to invest capital? Peak NII. Peak NII is, we still feel is probably, as we said, between Q2 and Q3. Peak NII is driven by two factors, obviously. One is rates. When are we going to peak in rates? We all assume an increase in rates this week, and some of us assume there will be another one, but very few assume there will be yet another one after that. I don't know, but we are reaching the back end of a rates increase cycle. The second thing to which banks are now a lot more, let's say, sensitive to, is pass-through. As rates have gone where they are, pass-through is continuing to converge. As we said in the presentation, we see signs of normalization of pass-through outside of Italy. That is due to the fact that they have reached level that are, let's say, much more in line to what they were when rates were at this level in the past. In many cases, they have surpassed that, at that level, it normalizes. In Italy, not yet the case. We're still lagging behind, we're lagging behind because of the structure of the market and the structure of the client base. The progression is inevitable, we are conservatively assuming in our numbers that the pass-through in Italy will exceed what was the case at similar rates in the past. Given that rates are at the end of the increase and pass-through continue to grinds up, especially in Italy, we think that second to third is the peak. So far, we have been overly cautious on pass-through. I don't exclude that the peak is third to fourth, if the pass-through grinds up slower than we are anticipating this quarter, given that the rates are still going up. That's the order of magnitude, okay? The dynamic is that getting into next year, you're gonna have rates that, contrary to the past, we assume staying at higher level for a little bit longer than we were anticipating before, few quarters. That pass-through, given that the exit rate is lower than we had anticipated, takes a little bit more time to get to the levels we were anticipating before. The support on the commercial side of NII is a little bit better than before. On the non-commercial side, so let's call it the replication, and the commercial side, with volume growth, we think we can offset some of that. That's why the scenario is more benign than we were anticipating in 2024. Fees. Fees are progressing, and it depends on the factory, if you want to put it this way. I mean, if you look at protection, we're talking increases, depending on the reference time, of 50%, 70%, 90% volume growth. If you look at our market share in protection, we went from a low single digit to 14% of the market. That is occurring. Obviously, the base of start was low, but, you know, the base of start when you're growing volume at that rate does not stay low for a long time. It becomes visible quite soon. If you take asset management, we're still being grinded down, but at the same time, you know, that is giving us time to roll out our initiative, Nova, onemarkets, and other things that we're doing to internalize more of the value chain. That is something that is going to offset, and when asset management cycle comes back in, we think we're gonna grow faster than people expect because of this internalization. When we have payment, I think it's premature to look at the numbers, but I think it will be a contributor. Advisory capital market and client risk management has given us a lot of satisfaction, and we think that now it's plugged on our captive franchise and delivering. Let's see how the market goes. Life insurance, we are going to perform, in my opinion, a little bit less well than peer because we have a much more cautious view on Ramo Primo, which is high volume and high fees, and we are much more focused on unit linked, which is the market where we have a market share above 40% in Italy, and that we're looking to potentially internalize in time, which will take time for us to do that if Danish Compromise is confirmed. That alone will bring a significant portion of additional other income into our PNL. All of these things are small, incremental things that are increasing our fee and other income incidents on revenues that is currently a bit masked by the excellent performance on NII. The other one was sustainable ROTE. Yeah, that's really what I ask myself. If I take ROTE at 13%, and I take an environment of rates that is structurally higher than what we have seen, you know, in the last decade, and this is a very important point that I think is also missed. The rate cycle may be peeping out, but we're gonna go to, you tell me, 2%, 2.5%, 2.75%, 2.25% positive rates. For a commercial bank, going from -50% to those numbers, it's massive. You have 60%, 70%, 55%, whatever it is, of your PNL that is now in production and yields. That combines with a focused growth on EVA positive, has an incremental impact on your ROTE. Without, if you ask me a number of gut feeling, we need to aim something around 15% on a sustainable basis, with a real cost of, capital when everything stabilizes, 10%, 11%, these kind of numbers, maybe 12%, I don't know. We are determined to exceed the cost of equity and to exceed it by a margin, and I think we can do that. Maybe a couple of remarks. All right, thank you very much. You mentioned also the timing. The return on tangible equity, excluding the excess capital for this year, we guided for around 17%. Considering that we guided for a profitability for next year broadly in line, you can also draw the consequences in relation to the return on tangible equity for 2024. In relation to the fees, we are not expecting the growth in the second half, because all the elements highlighted by Andrea, so all the commercial actions, the normalization of the rates, and also an increased level of GDP with the positive impact on the client activity, is expected for next year, so for 2024. Great. Thanks, Stefano. The next question is from Giovanni Razzoli with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Good morning, thank you for taking my questions. another question on the profitability, the NII, and in general, the return on tangible, sustainable return on tangible equity. Can I summarize your detailed comments on the evolution of the profitability of UniCredit in saying that we should not believe that the NII peak should necessarily represent the peak of the profitability for UniCredit? If I take all the points that you have mentioned, seems like you do have several levers to, you know, 2024 and afterwards, to still grow your profit or maintain it at the same level with the profitability that is going to be more significantly above your cost of capital. I was wondering whether these short sentence can summarize your thoughts. The second question, on more detail on the 2024 cost base, if I'm not mistaken, you seem to assume that your ambition is to keep the cost base for 2024 as flat. That in my view, would be a great achievement. I was wondering, first of all, whether I got this correctly. Secondly, it seems like in Italy, there are clearly some pressure to increase the, you know, the cost of employees. I was wondering how to square this possible inflation in the salary in Italy with this target of stable cost base for 2024. Thank you. Peak NII and peak profitability. Our job is to try and offset the peak NII and reversal with other levers. I think that that, in our case, is the result, one, of good normalized delivery, but also all the actions that we're doing with UniCredit Unlocked. That means that without repeating all the things, we can offset some of the NII reduction from or some of the impact on NII from rates and pass-through, through more growth in volume of the segments of clients and products that we want. Better replication, because we were less replicated before, and that is adding. Better fees as we continue to invest in our factories, and we continue, and that will be significant. Lower cost, a cost of risk that, going forward, will be structurally lower than it has been in the past. To that, you're adding that when we are through with a lot of the actions, we are going to have run rating some EUR 800 million more between systemic charges and avoided or non, no longer necessary, integration cost that can support some of the gap. It is clear that the challenge is to keep it stabilized to this high level, over time, find a new growth trajectory. Obviously, the macro is better than I am telling you now. The upside exists, but at the moment, we see what we are. Cost. Cost is, if you look at what has happened in 2021, in 2022, and now in 2023, we have seen and attacked the inflation and attacked the efficiency of the group since day one, front loading and aggressively streamlining our organization. You can't just cut cost across the board, you need to cut cost in a disciplined and surgical fashion. We have done that. We have supported that with hundreds of million EUR on integration cost, and we continue to take down what? We take down a headcount significantly. Look at our headcount when we start and what it is today. We take down the non-HR cost, which are linked to all the contracts that we have. We had providers with 19 different contracts at UniCredit, now we go for one. That brings significant offsetting on cost reduction given volumes and other things. Cost has been an obsession of ours, but it has been an obsession of ours that is executed while keeping a very attentive eye to continued investment and to reinvesting in the front end and in digital, so that it doesn't affect negatively revenue, it actually supports the further growth. This approach has still quite a bit to run, certainly all of 2024. Sorry, certainly all of 2023 and certainly all of 2024. It's premature to see. What we do in Italy will be totally consistent with agreement with the trade unions through pre-retirement and through whatever the negotiation of a new contract is, which we have seen coming for a long time and we have already prepared for. Thank you. The next question is from Britta Schmidt with Autonomous Research. Please go ahead. Yeah, hi there. Thanks for taking my questions. Just two for me. Can you just confirm again, did you mention that you will start addressing the excess capital position at the end of 2023, I guess, depending on any inorganic investments you would like to undertake on some of your factories, or would this rather be left for a little bit later? Secondly, just coming back on the cost point, can you just reiterate what sort of cost savings you anticipate in your billions for 2024, and what underlying inflation trends you expect, given also the wage bargaining that's still outstanding in Germany? Thank you. Excess capital position obviously is dependent on how much capital we're going to distribute this year, which will be equal or in excess of EUR 6.5 billion. What we have said that we're committed to, is whatever the distribution will be, our CET1, that pro forma for total distribution was 14.9% at year-end 2022, will be no less, actually will be materially more. Whatever the distribution that we do, we will have materially more CET1 at the end of this year. That means that our excess capital, you can calculate, is about EUR 3 billion per point above 12.5%, 13%, and that's what we're carrying. Going into 2024, we are set to do exactly the same, i.e., we will have distribution that are broadly in line with the one of this year, given the condition that I have explained in terms of profitability and everything else, and organic capital generation. We will target again to distribute while not reducing the excess capital, so the CET1, that we will have accumulated at the end of 2023. If you look at the trajectory, we've gone from the 13.5% area, then we have climbed to 14.9%, we will be above 14.9%, and then we will climb again to above whatever numbers we have at the end of this year. That is what we are doing with the ordinary distribution. Clearly, it leaves us room to improve them, because we are, I think, one of the very few, if not the only one, to distribute and increase CET1. At some point, we're going to distribute and not increase CET1, then at another point, we're going to distribute and give back to shareholders the excess capital. Most peers are in the third phase. We are in the first phase, we need to flow through the other two, which gives us very strong confidence on the absolute amount of distribution being defensible for the long term. On cost saving, where is, where are we? Inflation, first, as a reference. Inflation in our footprint, 2023, about 7.1%, excluding Russia, 5.5% in Eurozone, 6.2% in Italy, 6.1% in Germany. Inflation in 2024 expected 3.1% in our footprint, 2.4% in Eurozone, 2.4% in Italy, 2.8% in Germany. This is the reference points that we're using. On the reference point that we're using, this year, we will decrease cost year-over-year from 2022 to 2023, and in 2024, the minimum we're aiming to do is to keep them flat. If we can, we're gonna go below. How are we going to do that? With continuous streamlining, simplification, way of working, debureaucratization of the organization, targeting processes that used to have 25 steps and no automation, and we are going to end-to-end automated process. It's a long, grinding hygiene that we roll and roll and roll, process after process, releasing resources and supporting these changes. Clearly, the X's of FTE are negotiated with every trade union in every market where we are, and are consistent with those negotiation. No more, no less. Thank you. The next question is from Ignacio Cerezo with UBS. Please go ahead. Hey, hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. I've got two. The first one is on Germany, around asset quality. I mean, it feels to me that it's probably the country that pre and post, the war has probably suffered the largest slowdown in terms of their macro environment, basically within the Eurozone. We are not really seeing any signs of deterioration, you seem to allocate actually a small portion of the overlays to the country. What gives you the comfort or how can you reassure the market, basically, around, again, Germany not being a negative outlier within the asset quality picture in the group? Then the second thing, shorter, if you can give us updated view on plans on Russia. I've kind of perceived a little bit of higher noise from the regulator around the need to get out of Russia for all the European banks. I mean, what is your view here? Thank you. Let me take Russia, while Stefano will take the rest. On Russia, facts, as opposed to perception, UniCredit has reduced 69% of our exposure in Russia since March 2022. That's EUR 4.3 billion. I don't think anybody else has done anything like that, okay. In this quarter alone, I think we have compressed locally another EUR 1 billion, continue to grind down. What we're doing there is to be consistent with local laws and sanction, and with the sanctions and the directives that Western governments give us. The strategy is identical to what we have said. It's a gradual, progressive, orderly reduction of our exposure towards the country. That's what we do, and it has been quite successful. We will continue to do that. In terms of added attention, I think the attention is the one that there has been since day 1, and it's maximum from everybody, and we continue to execute on that basis. Just as a reminder, you know, the impact from on capital of the local participation in the absolute worst scenario from extreme loss is about 30 basis points locally, and another about 10 basis points on what remains of our cross-border portfolio. The last thing that I would like to say so that you have an idea, if you look at net loans, so net of provisions at constant effects, our cross-border exposure to Russia has gone down in five quarters, 69%, and our local, 48%, for a blended 54%. I don't think you could ask from anybody to do something more decisively, within obviously regulation and laws and everything else. That's what we are going to continue to do, maintaining the risk under control. Germany, we are expecting for this year, a GDP negative, so slightly below zero, around 0.3. Next year, we are expecting to have a GDP growth. In relation to the quality of the portfolio, the portfolio is really good. If we look to the expected loss of the stock of the portfolio in Germany is 14 basis points. And also the origination, the new origination, the new business expected loss Q2 is similar to the one of Q1. With regards to the dynamic of the default rate, I was commenting today, the default rate of the group at 0.8, for Germany is below, because it's 0.5, and is remaining below 1. It was below 1 also last year. It was 0.5, Q1 is remaining 0.5 also this year. We are not expecting, in the case of Germany, for the forthcoming future, a meaningful deterioration of our portfolio. Thank you. The next question is from Delphine Lee with JP Morgan. Please go ahead. Yes, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. My question is, first one is on NII, just coming back to the deposit beta. I mean, your assumption does include a small acceleration in the increase in the pass-through. I was just wondering, you know, what do you think are the main drivers for that acceleration? My second question is, going back to excess capital. There's going to be a little bit of a gap on share buybacks between the second tranche of EUR 1 billion and the one you're going to run for full year 2023. Is there any possibility, given where your CET1 and then MDA buffer stands, to kind of, like, already anticipate a buyback ahead of, you know, full year results announcement? I mean, is there to start something that is maybe in the extraordinary buyback, we talked about complementing it. What's preventing you from starting that already now? Thank you. I'll take the excess capital and the SBB and everything else. There's nothing stopping us, and everything is possible. At the time being, it doesn't seem that the market is very sensitive to our distributions. Seriously, it's nothing is stopping us, and we are reassessing the situation. One thing is to be consistent with our sustainable ordinary distribution and getting to a level that we are confident we can support over time. The other thing is the correct judgment on two factors. One is how much cash dividend in the mix, and two is whether we should overlay earlier the return of the excess capital to our ordinary distribution or not. You know, we are reviewing those topics all the time. Obviously, the higher the excess capital, the more there is a let's say driver to consider extraordinary distribution on top of the ordinary one. For the time being, there is no decision. Nothing is stopping us beyond the shareholder approvals and obviously ECB approval, but we are relatively comfortable on those. On net interest income and dynamic, especially in relation to the deposit beta assumption, let's start from the current situation. The average deposit beta is around 24%. That's very differentiated by each country or geography. Italy is around 11%. In the case of Germany, we are above 30%. Central Europe is around 35%, and Eastern Europe is 25%. Andrea commented before in relation to the assumption for 2024, these are assumptions. We are assuming to have a general deposit beta above the historical levels, that for the group were between 30% and 35%, where we are assuming to be slightly below 40%. That means in every geography, we're assuming to be above the historical levels. To give you the sense, for example, in Germany and Central Europe, we're assuming to be above 40, while in Italy and Eastern Europe, to be above 30, in 2024. In each geography, we're assuming to be above the historical levels. The dynamic of the rates in terms of velocity was unprecedented. In some of the country, the increase of the deposit beta is normalizing, so is moderating, and in some other country, like Italy, is very low, is currently sticky and below the historical level. That's why we think it's appropriate in terms of a future projection to assume, let's say, a normalization towards the level that we had many years ago, and being conservative in terms of assumption. As already highlighted before, if the dynamic will be different in comparison to this assumption, we will have tailwinds on the dynamic of net interest income. All right. Thank you very much. We will now take our last question from Hugo Cruz, KBW. Please go ahead. All right, thank you for the time. Just a clarification on some of the previous questions and comments. First of all, on NII, I understood you will assume that the beta will continue to go up after the end of this year, so you're ending at below 40%. Where do you think the average in next year will be? Second, on the capital distribution, are you also considering the potential introduction of an interim dividend or interim dividends? Third, your comment on the sustainable RTE of 15%, is that net of the excess capital that you already have, so assuming, I would imagine a CET1 ratio around 13%, or is that with the excess capital included? Thank you. On interim dividends, I think it's premature for us. No, we've discussed before, let's call them interim share buybacks, that's possible. With respect to... That's on capital distribution and maybe on, you take the NII. Deposit beta. The average for this year will be slightly below 30 in terms of assumption, is assuming an exit rate in Q4 in terms of the deposit beta below 40, while for next year we were assuming slightly below 40. That's the average for the year. To be combined with the dynamic of the rates that is envisaging for next year a normalization. In terms of interest rate average, the average can be similar in comparison to the one of this year, but we are assuming to have a next year rate at the end of 2024, in terms of Euribor, lower than the rate that we are assuming at the end of 2023. Thank you. Thank you very much. That was the last question. I turn the conference back to the UniCredit management for the closing remarks. Thank you very much for your time, and we'll see you at the next quarter. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over, and you may disconnect your telephones.