Welcome to CGD's conference call. This call follows the First Half 2022 Consolidated Results Release, which took place last Friday. It is possible to follow the results presentation from the CGD website. The CFO, Mrs. Maria Carioca, the Head of Financial Markets, Mr. Marco Azevedo, and the head of IR, Mr. Nuno Pereira, will guide you through the presentation and a Q&A session will follow. Speakers, please begin. Good morning. I'm Nuno Pereira from Investor Relations, and I want to welcome you to this morning's First Half 2022 Results Presentation, which will be delivered by CGD's CFO, Maria João Carioca. Without further ado, I will hand the floor to Maria João. Thank you. Good morning, everybody. Let me start by thanking those of you brave enough to join us on a Monday morning on August 1. I will be brief, going through the highlights of what was our first half of 2022, just mentioning a couple of the topics that shape our results for the semester. Let me start precisely there. Our net income for the semester was EUR 486 million. That's consolidated net income for the group. It fundamentally evidences improvements in the cost of risk and in our international operations. Those grew significantly by around 77%, and that evidences the growth and the dynamics that we have in our P&L. Maybe walking us through what was our results presentation last Friday. If we quickly go to page 6, this shows the further highlight of what we were just mentioning about the nature of our net income this semester. On your left side, the significant, interesting contribution of our international activity. Then on the right side, the obvious highlight of what was the impact in terms of provisions and impairments concerning the evolution of our credit risk, which was a reflection of what we see happening in our credit portfolios, the good recoveries and better than initially expected performance following the harsh years of the COVID pandemic. We're also highlighting in our recurrent income for the domestic operation, the fact that this continues to be a heavily burdened setup for us in terms of what are the taxations and contributions required of the sector. In the wake of what has been some media attention to the topic, we're highlighting the fact that Portugal is indeed operating under a specific setup for these on these topics. Moving onward to some highlights on our performance. On page 7, we highlight the developments in our business volume. It has grown at about 2% on a rather balanced growth profile, reflecting both diverse geographic growth and also relatively balanced P&L development. We have both credits and customer resources growing by about 2%. That is sustaining, on page 8, what is one of our core focuses, of course, given our position in the Portuguese domestic market. We are retaining a number of our market leaderships in core categories, and we are also retaining what has been of the past few years of great effort in terms of achieving, sustaining and fueling solid and in this case, leading market positions in the services and investments side of our business portfolio. On page 9, we would like to highlight fundamentally what has been the development in our credit portfolio. We find those again, aligned overall with the 2% growth rate I was just mentioning, but definitely to be highlighted our performance in the SME sector. We have mentioned and commented before the fact that this is one of our strategic focuses moving forward. It's one of the segments that historically was not as deep in terms of our profit pools. It's been one of the focuses of our strategic program, so it's definitely good to register higher growth in the segments, particularly given the current economic context, of course. This growth in the credit portfolio is of course, you know, closely monitored and certainly the target of a number of our actions towards making sure that the quality of the portfolio remains steady and remains solid. On page 9, you have a reference to what has been happening with our mortgage loan portfolio. Again, the focus being on the fact that in one of the sectors where we have a leading market position, we're making sure that our clients remain within comfortable stress levels and have their credits securely backed by the respective assets, in this case, the homes that are supporting these mortgage loans. It's been solid development. We go back a couple of years to evidence that this has been a trend that has helped to our recovering of our mortgage leadership and rekindling of our vigor in this segment of the past few years. Going from the credit portfolio to deposits, page 11, continued growth. Again, Caixa continues to be the place the Portuguese clients go to whenever there's market volatility and when there is a rougher period going on in terms of how to manage your liquidity. We see that customer deposits grew across all segments. We also see, and this is also relevant for us to continue to highlight the fact that even though a number of the factors stressing the current cost of deposits are supposed to move away as central banks go through their monetary policy, still this currently contributes negatively to our financial, to our net interest income, and it's still a heavy toll on our P&L. The same goes for the regulatory costs we allude to on page 12. Not only a significant amount given the size of the domestic operations of Caixa, EUR 80 million in costs were registered for this first semester. Also significant growth, 25% growth. Again, one of those factors which are to some extent idiosyncratic to the current Portuguese circumstances, but that are indeed a heavy toll on our P&L. On a brighter side, on a better note, moving on to page 13, our engagement with clients on what are currently their preferred channels is continuing to progress significantly. We mentioned to you in previous occasions that this is again another one of our focuses in terms of strategic development for this present mandate. It's you know, we're glad to register that our client base continues to grow in terms of digital engagement and specifically on mobile, where we see that's the current strength in terms of client preferences lies. All in all, combining all these factors, some indeed exerting a heavy toll, but others as well are giving good positive notes of where we stand in terms of developing and moving ahead in our strategy. We come to page 14, which is the consolidated recurring cost to income, and that is evidencing overall good progress in terms of improved efficiency. The increasing income and the good cost discipline that I shall be mentioning a bit further down our talk today, producing decrease in the recurrent cost to income ratio down to 43.4% in this semester. I'll take a few minutes to talk a little bit more to the quality of our credit portfolio. That's definitely one of the highlights. It's certainly a major input into our semester's income. We wanted to make sure that it's very clear what is driving that. We are indeed registering a lower cost of credit in the wake of what was a very challenging and certainly a very uncertain setup in the pandemic years. Right now what we're seeing is a sound performance, certainly a much more benign performance than the one we had initially feared. We are bringing that to bear in our P&L and in our balance sheet. What you see on page 15 is what's been happening with our credit portfolios, and we show you both what's been happening in our overall portfolio, but also what's been happening in the part of our portfolio that was subject to a moratorium during the COVID period. We see that for both those portfolios, let's say, or for the overall and then this subset, where the relative sizes of the credits in the different stages, undergoing different degrees of expected difficulties and ability to perform, the relative weights are still positive, well, in the sense that Stage 1, the ones with least difficulties, are still dominant in our overall portfolios. Even more importantly, on the right side of the exhibit, you'll see that the changes to the development year- to- date on those portfolios has been positive. For the overall portfolio, you see decrease in Stage 3, so less credits in the more concerning parts of the segmentation. Very importantly on the credits that had the moratorium, you see that the movement currently is from Stage 2 into Stage 1. Definitely the right way to go, let's put it that way, but certainly the more positive impact in our P&L. It's this type of change together with what you see on page 16 in terms of changes in credit impairment due to reversals. The combined effect of the sound performance of the portfolio with the sound performance of our relationship with our clients in the sense that we are getting reversals and we're getting good recovery levels, and these combined effects are driving down our cost of risk for the semester. It's -58 points in the semester. A slight, well I'll call it slight, it's a EUR 150 million reduction in the stock of credit impairment, but this in the wake of what was the great rise in the levels of impairment that took place in 2021 in face of the market uncertainty. Coming up to the last few highlights on our results. These overall, you know, steady results are what we see as a steady performance of the credit portfolio is allowing us to ensure the payment of dividends. This is important, of course, still in the wake of what was a major recapitalization we had back in 2016, 2017. Right now what we're foreseeing in terms of continuing to align our dividend perspectives with our current dividend policy. What we foresee right now is that after having repaid already about EUR 1 billion of what was, you know, the timeframe that I just mentioned before, we are now expecting, given the dividend policy, to have generated the potential for a dividend payment of around EUR 200 million just on the part that refers to the first semester of this year. Again, steady dividend to the shareholder given the particular nature of our shareholder and very clear alignment with our dividend policy. To wrap up in terms of highlights, just to mention to what was our first green bond issue. We issued that within our issuance policy addressing what is our vision on how to best meet the MREL requirements that we have outlined, given the incoming deadlines for such requirements. It was an issue in, you know, you are very familiar with what's been happening in the market. Certainly an infrequent issuer such as Caixa, we used a very narrow, tight spot, a very close window to go in the market. It was still an issuance that gave us what we believe were savings in terms of funding costs in the longer term. It was our second ESG bond issuance, and this is also an important landmark, so to say. It's one of the areas where we believe that Caixa, given its relative position in the Portuguese market, should also have a leadership position here. Bringing this type of issuances into the Portuguese context is something that we're obviously proud of and very happy to have this evidence positive in-inputs in terms of our funding costs. This was our highlights for the first semester accounts. I'll just hop on and off with a couple of additional remarks in what concerns a bit of a deep dive into our accounts. I'll move quickly to page 20 just to give you a flavor of what's been happening with our ROEs. For the semester it's been, it's an 11.5% ROE, a recurrent 10.6%. We're still registering a number of transformation costs and non-recurring costs that yield a difference, but overall over the 10% landmark so to say. This in terms of semester is one certainly much closer to what we would like our ROE references given our current capital structure to be at. I'll give you an additional note of what is some of the components of this result. On page 21, in terms of consolidated net interest income, I think the highlight here has to do with the fact that even though reference interest rates have been moving quite sharply, our current semester net interest income is still reflecting mostly what's been happening in our international units, certainly, but also what's been happening with the end of the. Well, not actually the end, but the winding down, let's put it that way, of the TLTRO program. Overall, in terms of what's the repricing happening in our retail and in our business in the domestic market, that is still taking time to reach our P&L, but it's being a smooth evolution and a positive impact, but thus far a much smoother one than what we've been seeing happening in the market. That is precisely what page 22 refers to. We're giving you a bit of an historical, well, a few periods of evolution of what's been going on with our retail net interest margin vis-à-vis what's been happening in terms of the profile of the three months reference rates. This is our rates, let's say, buffering a little bit, the market harshness and bringing to our clients a much more stable retail net interest margin development. We do expect, as our repricing schedules take place, particularly in our Mortgage business, that this retail net interest margin positive evolution will pick up pace in the second semester. Thus far, this is what's coming out in our figures. I'll jump to page 24 to just give you a highlight of what's happening in our recurrent operating costs. We've already mentioned the positive developments in the cost to income, but I wanted to give additional highlights on what's happened to the operating costs. We see overall at consolidated level a growth of 5%. This has significant impact in terms of what's happened in our international units. We do see exchange rates changes and some inflationary pressures as well, impacting the overall costs at group level. In what concerns recurrent operating costs in the domestic operation, well you know, you're aware, we've been sharing with you where the focus of a number of our cost optimization and improved operating profiles, a lot of those efforts have been focused in our domestic profile. Thus far, we're still yielding a 0% variation in our operating costs. This is absorbing what has been the significant investment profile of the past few years. We do see an increase in depreciations and amortizations, but overall employee costs and other administrative costs on a recurring basis. Once you take out the programs for early retirements and the programs for cost optimization, you do see that overall it's a zero variation. We are absorbing thus far the inflationary impacts and the restructuring costs with operational efficiency measures. I'll skip to page 25 and just share with you a little bit more information on what we're doing in terms of making sure that this performance stays, you know, holds its course, let's say, particularly by being very attentive to what's happening with our credit portfolio. On page 26, just to very briefly share with you the type of measures we're putting in place to make sure that we kind of piggyback on what was the experience we gained with the COVID circumstances, where we took very positive learnings from the fact that we reached out proactively to our customers. We assessed with them, using, you know, both personal contact questionnaires and then some of our analytical tools to understand how does our customer base break down in terms of the degree of difficulties they can be expected to experience this time, not given COVID circumstances, but given the current macroeconomic context. We went through that same exercise. We went through the sectors that we believe to be the ones most challenged, and then through our customer base. Right now, what we find is that 85% of our customer base will be going through this, we expect, relatively smoothly. The remaining 15% we'll be monitoring carefully. There are no signs of stress at this stage, but those are clients that we want to be engaging with more proactively and more frequently to make sure that we address any incoming difficulties that we see as more likely. Again, on page 27, this comes together with, you know, our NPL ratios continuing to move favorably. I would highlight here the fact that our gross NPL evolution is also reflecting the continued good performance in terms of cures and recoveries. Whatever credits are coming into our recovery areas, they are being handled both by ourselves and of course, by our customers in a way that's allowing for a good pace of recovery. Again, this is what's coming down into the our cost risk positive development. NPEs and NPLs still on a positive trend, particularly if you look on page 29 to the coverage levels. We're still holding very solid coverage and, you know, very solid levels. If you look on the right side of the page to our specific impairment NPL vis-à-vis European banks average, that is 63.9 versus a European average of 44.9. Still holding very solid levels. We give you some additional visibility on the comparisons with European average, but all in all that's again moving very favorably in terms of what's going on, both with what's come into our portfolio and what's being dealt with. If you see on page 31 what's happening with our foreclosed assets still coming down, so still managing to, let's say, clean up the portfolio, making sure that it stays sharply within, the area that actually is yielding, solid income. Let me now move to page 32. Just some notes on our access to funding. We've held onto our EUR 5.8 billion of ECB funding, that being the TLTRO program. We still have a very solid cash and cash equivalents pool in eligible assets. No major needs there, still a pretty solid position. We wanted to also highlight for you on page 33, the current profile of our securities portfolio. We've put in place significant measures over the past year to de-risk it. What you see right now is a portfolio where our domestic sovereign Portugal sovereign debt is now well under the 50% weight in terms of our sovereign debt securities. In addition to that, what we've done over the past year was also bringing a significant, let's say a rather significant portion of our portfolio into the amortized cost bucket. That has, of course, to a large extent, immunized our P&L and has allowed us to better undergo this period of market volatility. Nevertheless, for the part that remains at fair value, we're still holding hedge accounting. Again, our public debt portfolio has been hedge accounted for, and again, that is bringing into our P&L and our balance sheet additional stability at this point. The duration of our portfolio remains balanced and relatively short, which again, in this current context, is part of our perspective on what's going on with the markets and how do we want that to be managed in our accounts. Very quickly onward towards page 34, just a very short note on an element of our funding that is still not quite where we would like it strategically to be. We're still holding on to 62%-63% transformation rates, but not quite where we'd like it to be. Again, a very solid liability structure, fundamentally still, based on what is our very steady customer deposit base. Wrapping up, from the last couple of notes, our liquidity position, not an issue these days, page 36. You're also very keenly aware of what is our current capital position on page 36, well above the current buffers. You also have a note on page 37 also covering and just to highlight, it seems like ages ago, but we did use our call on the AT-1. That was fundamentally a significant improvement in our cost of funding and part of our funding strategy, redesigned after what was a capitalization back in 2017. I would wrap up with just a couple of notes on our pension fund. We have revised a number of the settings for the pension fund. We have revised both the discount rate, but also the more in-depth assumptions for the fund. We've also revised on a conservative note the mortality tables, and we've also revised on conservative notes, acknowledging the current inflationary context, we've revised the salary and the pension growth rates. All in all, the pension fund is significantly covered. We're now at a coverage level of 126%, slightly above that. Very, very solid there as well. We took the opportunity to also take a more in-depth look at what are some of the core assumptions driving the fund. Of course, the current context is a challenging one in terms particularly of inflation rates. We do expect that, at the year end, we will be taking a closer look at these figures, and we will again be looking at some of these assumptions. I'll wrap up here, with just on page 40, a rekindling of the core messages. Very solid performance, EUR 486 million. You know, a balanced development in terms of our international activity. Good performance of our credit portfolio showing up in the P&L, but also, given what are the actual stages and recovery developments that we see happening. Good operational performance. Even though some hurdles remain in terms of costs, we are actually balancing the transformation costs with the additional efficiencies. Thus far, inflationary pressures have not come into our cost developments. We're still holding the domestic market at 0% cost development, which is of course, you know, coming into the cost to income ratios at a positive 43%. Again, asset quality steady, very robust capital position, which you're familiar with. We've already paid all our 2021 dividends and are really expecting healthy but within dividend policy dividends. Let me just finish by again highlighting our preferred, our senior preferred debt issued exclusively with funding MREL requirements. It's not a capital issuance, not a liquidity issuance, but it's MREL funding management issuance. That was a green issuance of EUR 300 million. The first for a Portuguese bank, which is, I think, a good note to finish on. Thank you very much for your time and your attention. We will now open up for any questions that you may wish to pose us. Thank you. Thank you. At this time, if you would like to ask a question, please press the star and one keys on your touch tone phone. You may remove yourself from the queue at any time by pressing the pound key. Once again, that is star one to ask a question. We'll pause for a moment to allow questions to queue. Once again, that is star one to ask a question. All right, speakers, we have no questions in the queue at this time. Okay. In that case, once more, I would like to thank you for taking time out to join the conference call this morning. Should you have any questions in the meantime, do feel free to reach out to the Investor Relations team. Thank you, and have a good day. Thank you for attending the conference call. 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