Good morning. My name is Agnieszka Dowżycka, I'm Head of Investor Relations at Santander Bank Polska. I'd like to welcome you at the presentation of financial results of Santander Bank Polska for the first quarter of 2025. Today's presentation will be presented by Michał Gajewski, CEO, Maciej Reluga, CFO, and Wojciech Skalski, the Management Board member in charge of the Financial Accounting and Control Division. Before we start, I'd like to remind you that during the presentation you can ask questions through the link online and also by sending the email directly to my email address. Now let me hand over to our CEO. Good morning, Michał Gajewski speaking. Welcome at the presentation of the financial results after the first quarter. We have had good months, both in terms of financial performance and implementation of our strategy that brings tangible benefits to our customers, employees, and shareholders. Moving on to the results, in quarter one we generated the profit before tax of PLN 2.3 billion, while our tax and regulatory charges were over PLN 1.1 billion. The group's net profit was PLN 1.7 billion. Let's go to slide seven with general operational data. Just to remind you, as a group we provide services to over 7.5 million customers. The number of digital customers keeps growing. Currently, in the group we have 4.5 million such customers, and 3.7 million of our customers use our mobile banking application. In Santander Bank Polska alone, we have six million customers, and as I said, the number of digital customers has grown by nearly 7% year on year. We have a double-digit growth in the number of mobile banking customers, by nearly 11%. Customer deposits grew by 13% and amounted to PLN 237 billion. The gross loan portfolio year on year grew by 8% to over PLN 182 billion. Customer funds totaled PLN 314 billion and grew by 12%. The customer funds totaled PLN 262 billion, growing by 13%. In slide eight you can see key financial results and the key items. As I already said, the group's net profit in quarter one was over PLN 1.7 billion. The net interest income was PLN 3.6 billion, up by 6% year on year. Net fee income totaled PLN 748 million and grew by 3% quarter on quarter and year on year. The total income was PLN 4.4 billion, up by 7% year on year. Our capital position remains high. Return on equity for the group was 19.5%, and we have excellent liquidity. The consolidated LCR was over 209%. Slide 10 to 12, you can see there are our activities across all business segments and new products for our customers. I would like to go straight to slide 13 to talk a bit about selected business data. Let's start with retail banking. We operate 4.8 million accounts for individual customers, up by 4% versus the previous year, and we opened 113,000 personal accounts in PLN. Cash loans, very good sales performance, 15% more than in the previous year, PLN 2.9 billion of cash loans. Mortgage loans, we sold mortgage loans worth PLN 1.6 billion. It's a weaker result than the previous year, but we know that the market has been much weaker than in the previous year. When it comes to mortgage loans, it is worth saying that almost 97% of new sales was based on an adjustable fixed rate. The total share of loans with an adjustable fixed rate in the entire PLN mortgage loan portfolio grew to 44%. Just to remind you, in December 2024 it was 42%. In quarter one, net investment fund sales was PLN 500 million. Santander TFI fund assets at the end of quarter one were about PLN 24.3 billion. Our market share is maintained at the level of around 10%. In the SME segment, we opened over 20,000 business accounts, much more than in the previous year. We have also good performance in terms of SME loan sales, PLN 1.3 billion. Lease sales also recorded very good performance, PLN 1.2 billion to SMEs. When it comes to business and corporate banking, we have also double-digit growth. New credit limit sales up by 22%. Credit volume grew by 12%. FX income was also very strong. In the corporate and investment banking, we have a double-digit growth, 23%, in the ECM services. We also recorded a significant growth of 12% year on year in the treasury transactions. In slide 15, I have already talked about loans. In this slide, you can see individual business segments that contribute to an increase of 8% year on year and 1% quarter on quarter in gross loans at a consolidated level. Customer funds, slide 16, just to remind you, our customer deposits increased by 13%, which amounted to over PLN 237 billion at the end of March. Now slide number 17, net interest income and margin. In quarter one, net interest income was PLN 3.6 billion, growing by 6%. In quarter one, we had the slight decrease. Year on year, the interest income grew by 8%, while interest expense increased by 11%. The net interest margin in quarter two annualized on a quarterly basis totaled 5.14%, despite the slight decline is still high. It was negatively impacted by the growth in the balance sheet as a result of the inflow of the deposits with lower margins and the slight decline of income on assets in the foreign currency assets as a result of lower exchange rates. Slide number 18, net fee income. We record here growth, which makes us very happy. The net fee income totaled PLN 748 million, growing by 3%. Year on year, we saw really good growth in provisions for management fees, asset management up 14%, insurance fees, and brokerage fees, which grew by 80%. I also mentioned that we had good growth in account fees in quarter one by 11%, which is driven by the number of transactions made by our clients. This growth is worth noting, especially as we had not changed our prices at all. This is all driven by the level of activity of our customers. Total income, slide 18, it is PLN 4.4 billion, growing by 7% year on year. On a quarterly basis, the income is flat. Slide 12 presents operating costs. In quarter one, the cost totaled PLN 1.5 billion, growing by 40%. This is the result of higher contributions to the Bank Guarantee Fund. To remind you, in the last year, in quarter one, we paid contributions of PLN 206 million in that levy. That is the growth. If we compare to the previous quarter, the total cost, having excluded the regulatory cost, decreased by 2%. Of course, these costs were driven by inflation and salary reviews. The staff costs increased by 7% year on year. Despite that, the operational effectiveness ratio, that is, the cost-to-income ratio of the group, is 34.8%, and for the bank alone, it is 34.3%. It is a really robust one. Slide number 21 outlines loan loss provisions. It was a good quarter. The net balance of loan loss provisions on a consolidated basis was PLN 252 million. A year ago, it was PLN 232 million. The cost of credit risk is 60 basis points. The net balance of provisions in quarter one was 9% lower than the net balance a year ago. This is the effect of continuing good quality of our loan portfolios. We also saw part of our credit receivables worth nearly PLN 500 million, and the gain on that transaction was PLN 18.7 million. The risk indicators remain at a satisfactory level, in our opinion. The non-performing loans account for 4.3% of the total portfolio, and there were no one-off events that would have an impact on our net balance of loan loss provisions. Slide number 22 shortly summarizes the banking taxes and the regulatory costs. As I mentioned, the regulatory costs totaled PLN 1.1 billion in quarter one. To sum it up, slide 23, we think that quarter one was a really good one for the bank. We kept our interest income at a good level. We improved the net fee income. As I said, we are particularly happy with fees earned on the number of transactions our clients made, transactional fees, credit, and insurance fees. Let me reiterate that it was without any changes to our pricing. It makes us optimistic when it comes to the activity levels of our customers. When it comes to our business operations, we recorded good sales volumes, which indicate further development opportunities, and they bode well. That is my presentation. Now let's go to the questions and answer session. We have some questions. We have the first question. Michał, would you like to start? The first one, when it comes to the Swiss franc loans and the adequacy of our provisions for Swiss franc loans exposure, let me remind you that at the level of the bank, it is 137% and 126% for the group. In our opinion, this is adequate and sufficient level. It is worth stating we've also been tracking the number of lawsuits. You might not remember, but at the end of the last year, the number of lawsuits was 21,537, and now it's 21,519. The number is lower than at the end of quarter four. This is a clear decline. That's about Swiss francs. Now, the question referring to our Minister of Regional Funds and the windfall tax on banks, we do not comment what the politicians say, especially in the electional campaigns. We will not be commenting on what the minister said. Macroeconomy, Maciej. The one question refers to potential impact of trade tariffs on both loans and the quality of assets, as well as other elements. I am just sorry for being so chaotic, but it was just an English question. We are not changing our macro scenarios. Let us remember that the negative potential impact of the trade war, we have a positive impact of changes in the fiscal policy in Europe, especially in Germany. We cannot see any changes, and probably the risk is down. When it comes to corporate lending for a few quarters, there has been quite a decent growth that we recorded and quarter one is always a bit weaker. This is because we are optimistic about growing in upcoming quarters. From the risk perspective angle, we wouldn't like to suggest that it should be worse. We expect that this relatively low level that we recorded in the first quarter will continue. There shouldn't be any major changes. We should be within the ranges indicated in the strategy. Another macroeconomic question refers to the outlook for interest rates for the coming years and has a change in the recent three months. There is also a question about the changes in U.S. tariffs will have an impact on us. Our view on interest rate change in the short term, because since the last conference of NBP's Governor, Mr. Glapiński, the cap shifted, and we might see even the first cuts in next week in May. First, we expected that in July, but the cuts overall, we have not changed our outlook for the level. It will be rather sooner than much more or more deeper cuts. If the risks for the growth materialize earlier and the inflation outlook was different, then we might see deeper cuts. Our in-house view is that interest rates will be a bit higher than what is priced in by the market at the moment. Let's wait for another conference for the decisions taken by the Monetary Policy Council in May. Let's see what's next. We also have a question about NII and the sensitivity of the net interest income. There were a couple of questions about indicators, NII and the sensitivity of the net interest income. Every quarter, we provide the statistics on the share of fixed-rate loans in total loans. As you know, for a couple of recent quarters, our strategy of reducing sensitivity has been pursued. At the end of 2023, the share of loans with a fixed rate was in the order of 30%. At the end of March, it is 52%. It is over 50%. It has been growing bit by bit, quarter on quarter, for the recent couple of years. Of course, this is the result of a couple of elements. There is a bigger share of fixed-rate loans sold in current sales, and there is also the result of our strategy of hedging against the interest rate cuts. We do it via IRS. As a result, the sensitivity to interest rate cuts today is a little bit about PLN 300 million-PLN 320 million. I am talking about the cut of 100 basis points cut against the fixed balance sheet value. In the meantime, there are more questions. Growth in the loans portfolio. I have mentioned how the portfolio grew in quarter one. Today, we are not providing you with any forecast, but we have the pipeline of loans. We have a lot of credit agreements that we've been signing, so the demand is high. Of course, we expected that due to the EU funds and public-private investments. We can see also the same in the leases that the demand has been growing. We have been a strong leader in 2024 in this area, and we aim at keeping that top-one position. I think that in this area, we have a competitive edge over other banks. When it comes to our position with respect to the purchase of Santander by Erste Group, I can only repeat what we published in our comment. Banco Santander confirmed that a few entities have been interested in buying Santander Bank Polska, and that Banco Santander is in talks with Erste Group. Of course, it has been also highlighted that it is not certain whether the agreement will be reached. That is the only comment I can make today. If you want to read more, please refer to our communication. There was a question about the outlook for the bank for 2025. It is very good. Despite the turmoil in the worldwide economy, we think that the Polish economy is resilient, and Polish consumers and Polish businesses are able to manage their businesses also in uncertain times. We think that this translates into a positive outlook of the financial sector. Let's get back to interest rates because there have been a few questions about that as well. The long-term funding ratio, how much is it? At the end of March, it was 44%. Next question, what is the sought NII? Slightly above 4, 4.40, more or less. Has our hedging strategy changed given what is priced in by the market? One more question about deposits. What's the cause of an increase in term deposits? Has the bank implemented any special offer? Maybe hedging strategy, let's start with that. I told you what we've done in the first quarter. Our strategy remains flexible, so we are continuing that, and the scale of our activities depends on what happens on the market. We are very flexible in that matter. Growth in deposits. As Michał said during his presentation while discussing NIM, we had an increase in term deposits. We provide services to our customers in line with our offer. There was some increase. Of course, those term deposits are a bit more expensive. All of that leads to a lower margin, but we have not made any special offers. We had a special offer for savings accounts, but this contributes to interest income, and this contributes to better relationships with our customers. Do we have anything else? Sensitivity, once again. Do we have any more questions, Agnieszka? No, I cannot see any more questions. I think that you covered everything. Thank you. Please read the report for more details or contact us if you have any more questions. Have a nice long weekend.
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