Good afternoon, good morning, everyone. On behalf of HSBC, I would like to welcome everybody to the Qatar National- This meeting is being recorded. I would like to welcome everybody to the Qatar National Bank's third quarter 2022 earnings conference call. With no further ado, I'd like to hand over the call to Mark Abrahams. Thank you. Thank you very much, Aybek, and the HSBC team for hosting our call today. Before we begin, it's important to remind you that this earnings call is for investors and analysts only, and any media personnel should please disconnect now. I will begin by giving an overview of the macroeconomic environment, then I will cover QNB's financial results for the nine months ended 30 of September, 2022, and finally open the floor for Q&A. Following the recovery from the pandemic, economic activity has gained traction globally on the back of robust reopening demand. However, the global environment has taken a turn this year, as excessive post-pandemic policy stimulus has given way to higher inflation and monetary tightening, which more recently has resulted in a marked slowdown in global growth. Geopolitical woes in Eastern Europe have added further uncertainty and volatility to the outlook. Supply chain constraints and geopolitical concerns have boosted energy prices and significantly propelled Qatar's fiscal and external revenues, further supporting the strong domestic macroeconomic backdrop. While the recent developments signal headwinds for the global economy and oil importers, it is a tailwind for commodity-exporting economies, including Qatar. As a result, the economic recovery is in full force locally, while the banking sector remains resilient and healthy, presenting significant growth, ample liquidity, adequate levels of capitalization, high asset quality, and robust profitability. The final stage of the preparations for the 2022 FIFA World Cup are driving strong growth in Qatar's non-energy private sector. Indeed, the Qatar Financial Centre's Purchasing Managers' Index, the PMI, has been indicating strong expansion since July 2020, which reflects a significant uplift in business conditions. Kicking off in November, the 2022 FIFA World Cup will be the largest sports event on Earth and the largest event ever hosted in this region. This is expected to boost economic growth across the economy. The event will further contribute to consolidate Qatar's position as a regional and international hub for business, investment, commerce, tourism, and culture. In the medium to long term, tailwinds from investment in increasing hydrocarbon production will drive economic growth. With six new LNG trains planned under the flagship North Field Expansion project, one of the largest capital expenditure projects in the region and industrial engineering projects in the world. This investment is expected to increase Qatar's LNG production by 64% to 126 million tons per annum, contributing to almost a third of global LNG demand. The project will include an equivalent expansion of Qatar's refining, downstream, and petchem capacity. Positive spillovers from these projects will combine with diversification efforts and structural reforms to boost economic activity and spending in the broader manufacturing and service sectors. Qatar is therefore laying the foundation for continued GDP growth over the medium and long term through investment, diversification, and stronger private sector engagement. I will now move on to QNB's financial results for the nine months ended 30 of September 2022. Key financial results are as follows. With net profit before the impact of hyperinflation at QAR 12.3 billion, or $3.4 billion, a robust growth of 20% compared to last year. The accounting for a non-cash hyperinflation adjustment impacted the profits. Nonetheless, despite the challenging conditions, reported net profit after the impact of hyperinflation was QAR 11 billion, or $3 billion, strongly up 7% compared to last year. Robust revenue growth has resulted in an increase in operating income to QAR 25.6 billion, or $7 billion, up 24%, demonstrating QNB Group's success in maintaining growth across the range of revenue sources despite current market volatility. As a result of higher revenue growth, QNB Group has continued to reduce the cost-to-income ratio, downwards from 22.5% in the last year to 19.3% as at September 2022. Total assets are at QAR 1.135 trillion, or $311.8 billion, up by 5% from the same period last year. Loans and advances reached QAR 763 billion, or $209.6 billion. QNB Group remains successful in attracting deposits, which resulted in an increase in customer funding by 1% from September 2021 to reach QAR 794.4 billion, or $218.2 billion. This improved the Group's loan-to-deposit ratio to 96.1%. QNB Group was able to maintain the ratio of non-performing loans to gross loans at 2.4%, a level considered to be one of the lowest amongst financial institutions in the Middle East and Africa region, reflecting the high quality of the Group's loan book and the effective management of credit risk. In addition, the coverage ratio on Stage 3 loans is at 121%. Total equity increased to QAR 106 billion, up by 5% from September 2021. The bank's capital adequacy ratio, at 19%, is comfortably higher than both QCB and Basel III requirements. Before we begin the Q&A, though we welcome all questions, in the interest of time, we would appreciate, please, if questions are limited to a maximum of three per participant. For any further and detailed discussion on results, you may directly reach out to our investor relations team. Thank you very much. We will now turn to questions and answers. Yes. Thank you, Mark, for your presentation. We'd like to now start the Q&A session. If you have a question, please raise your hand if you dial in through Zoom. If you dial in through the phone, please unmute yourself and ask the question. We have the first question from Rahul Bajaj. Please go ahead, Rahul. Hello. Hi. Can you hear me? Yes. Thank you. Yes. Thanks for taking my question. I have three questions, basically. The first one is on government repayments that we have seen through this year. Just wanted to understand, how is the management team thinking about the kind of flow of these repayments in the fourth quarter and into 2023? Should we expect these repayments to continue into the new year, or you think these would subside? Kind of linked to this question is, how confident is the bank management team around lending momentum picking up post FIFA? Is that something that you are pretty confident about? That's my first question. My second question would be around 2023 again. Any expectations or kind of early guidance you could provide on how you see 2023 shaping up, that would be very useful, especially if I think about the margin trajectory, which has been quite interesting in 2022. How should we think about the 2023 margin trajectory? Also in the international business, especially Turkey, where margins have inflated quite a bit in 2022. Should we expect a normalization, or you think this kind of run rate will continue? That was my second question. My third and final question is on dividends. How should we think about the dividend payouts in 2023 onwards in view of this hyperinflation accounting? Will the management team recommend dividend, post hyperinflation adjusted profits, or since this is a non-cash item, will they kind of adjust it out and then recommend the usual around 40% payout? That would be my question. Thank you. First question, government repayment. It will highly depend on oil prices. If oil prices continue to be at current level, we expect continuation on repayment of public sector loans, especially MOF. In terms of lending momentum, definitely 2023 will be better than 2022. We expected from the beginning of the year, and we have been telling investors that we think this year will be mostly focusing on finalizing the project that started in the last three to five years, and this is now happening. 2023, we will see a new momentum of new loans coming to the system. We are optimistic, and we have been in extensive discussion when we were talking about the budget for 2023, in order for us to define the momentum that we expect in 2023, which I will mention when we talk about 2023 guidelines. I will talk about dividends. I will go back to the guideline. Dividends payout, highly dependent on the board decision. It's very difficult for us to predict what's going to happen. What I can say is that hyperinflation will not impact dividends. Towards hyperinflation, it's a non-cash item, which should not impact dividend. Payout ratio will continue to be between 35%-45% of profitability, excluding hyperinflation. Nothing will change in terms of dividend or the payout ratio. In terms of the guidelines, these are preliminary guidelines because we have not yet finalized the budget for next year. In terms of balance sheet, I expect assets to be 5%-7%, loans to be 4%-6%, and deposits to be 5%-7%. Profitability, 6%-8%. Again, these are preliminary numbers, are not yet finalized. Roughly, these are the guidelines that we can give today for 2023. In the phone call on December numbers, I will give more updated numbers. Thank you, Ramzi. We have the next question from the line of Chiradeep Ghosh. Chiro, please unmute yourself and ask the question. Thank you. Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Yes. Yes. Hi, this is Chirag Ghosh from SICO. I have three quick questions. The first one is, we are hearing there has been a major currency devaluation that is happening in Egypt. As of now, your asset quality has remained quite robust. If you can throw some light on what would be the potential impact because of this? That's my first one. Second one is, in the past, you have said that the petrochemical project, despite heavy petrochemical spending that's happening in Qatar, QNB won't be a big participant in this, because, the yields are relatively low. If you can throw some light, has it changed or what would be a loan growth, sectors which will contribute into your loan growth? Third one is, I can see that, as you have said again in the past, that the provisioning, you want to build up on your tier 1 and tier 2, in a favorable year. I want to know how much more can you build on your tier 2, because it's already much better than most of your peers. These are my three questions. Okay. Currency devaluation in Egypt. We went through this five years ago. Currently, the book is much better structured than what we have previously. As you know, in Egypt, the bulk of funding and deposits are in Egyptian pound. The impact is different than Turkey if part of the portfolio that is in foreign currency. In Egypt, even with the devaluation, considering both sides of the balance sheet is in Egyptian pound, the impact is materially less. However, in terms of NPL, definitely it's something that we need to be careful about. We always worked hard to keep coverage ratio in Egypt more than 100%, and this is where we stand now. It's something we will continue to focus on in order to ensure no surprise is in the operation in Egypt. Loan deposit ratio will continue to be at a modest rate, not more than 60%, again, in order to ensure that no major impact of any devaluation on the operations that we have in Egypt. North Field participation, again, it really depends on the pricing. Historically, we participated in this project, but not in a very large amount, considering that the pricing of these loans were very low. To us, we prefer to focus on ancillary projects around North Field Expansion. These projects can provide to us a better margin. As you know, all banks in the world compete to participate in these projects, and that's why historically pricing is very low. To us, considering liquidity, we prefer to focus on other projects surrounding these projects. From what we have seen in the early stages, in the previous expansion of gas production, we were able to capture very good business from the projects that surrounded the expansion of gas production in Qatar. We expect the same this time. Provisions. Stage 2 now, coverage is 11%. We moved from 6.5% in December to 11.1% in September. We understand that we are higher than most peer group, but our capacity to continue to grow Stage 3 provision is extremely limited, and that's why we will continue to focus on ensuring that we have enough coverage in stage 1 and Stage 2. Cost of risk in September, QAR 104. Do I expect it to be close to that number in December? Yes. We're still keen to ensure we have enough coverage to protect the entity. We fully understand all the challenges that the banking industry around the world is facing. We want to generate good growth in profitability for our investors. In the meantime, we want to be very cautious about the challenges that we have and to ensure that we have enough buffer in our provisions to protect the entity. Thank you, Ramzi. Thank you, Chirag Ghosh. We have the next question from the line of Waleed Mohsin. Waleed, please unmute yourself and go ahead. Thank you much. Good afternoon. Three questions from my side as well. Apologies if I've missed some of your comments on these. First on the margin, this particular quarter, it's interesting that the net interest income actually expanded in your domestic business. The domestic business did well on that front. If you could please comment on what's driving that? It was a pretty good quarter in terms of domestic net interest margin. Linked to this in Turkey or the international business, we've not really seen much expansion despite that the environment in Turkey in particular has remained quite favorable. If you could comment on the trends in the local and international business, would be very helpful. Secondly, you commented on the loan growth expectations for next year. I was wondering if there's a scenario where repayments exacerbate, and then there's somewhat of a delay in new projects. Do you anticipate there is a possible scenario where loan growth domestically could be negative, driven by repayments next year? My third and final question is your expectations for monetary policy in Turkey. I know it's a very difficult topic. No one in the world can predict this, Waleed. That's why, Ramzi, I'm asking you. No, I cannot. There is no way anyone can predict this. It's extremely difficult and complex situation. That why we go back to your question on Turkey expansion. Again, with all the changes in the regulation, especially it was very obvious that the regulator wants to limit the growth in the business. If you want to grow, that means you need to invest in sovereign bonds. In QNB, in the first 6 months of the year, we materially saw excellent growth in loans and deposits. In the second half of the year, especially in the third quarter, we felt that it is enough for us in terms of expansion. We still enjoyed very strong numbers for the 9-month period. We're talking about loans growth of 80%, funding more than 100%. There's still growth, but definitely the second half will not be as strong as the first half. Of course, it's all dependent on the regulation. Now, margins. We always said that when Fed rate goes up, based on the structure of the balance sheet, local business will benefit. That's why we have seen good momentum in terms of margin. A growth of 10 basis points until September, which we have not projected at the beginning of the year, because we were talking about 5 to 7 basis points. 10 basis points is strong. The question is, will this continue? Definitely maintaining that level of margin will be a major challenge for the entity. We are keen to keep it around the 250 basis points, but there are multiple factors that will impact that margin. That's why I only can say that we will do our best to keep it around the 250 basis points, and let's see what's going to happen. Government repayment, can it impact our overall growth next year? Of course. If oil prices continue to be strong, that means the state is very liquid. Their investment in infrastructure projects, they're about to repay some of their loans. How aggressive they're going to be, no one knows. Having a negative growth number in loans will be doubtful, because we are optimistic that normal growth from the private sector and some government agencies in 2023 will be much better than what we have seen in 2022. Let's wait and hope for the best. Thank you, Ramzi. Thank you, Waleed. We have the next question from the line of Aaron Armstrong. Please go ahead, Aaron. Unmute yourself. Hi. Thanks very much for taking the question. Firstly, on loan growth, could you talk about government repayments, please, and how significant they have been? Perhaps if you could give an indication for how fast the loan book would have grown if there were no government repayments during the quarter. Overall, repayment for the government were around, for the nine months, they were about QAR 6 billion. You need to compare that with what we have seen last year in the same period, where there were growth in government loans. This is impacting the comparison between this year and last year. Now, most of the repayment took place in the last quarter of this year. We expect the same to happen in December. In December, I will not be surprised if the overall drop in government loans is between QAR 10 billion-QAR 15 billion. In overall numbers, considering the weak growth in the private sector business, so definitely, we do not expect loan to strongly grow during the year. We are very close to say that we are going to see close to zero growth in loans in 2022. Thank you, Ramzi. We have the next question from the line of Edmond Dantès. Please go ahead, Edmund. Hello. Hi. Can you hear me? Yes. Hi. Thanks for the presentation. Just to follow up, if I heard correctly, you expect no growth this year, we should not expect any strong momentum in the Q4. In loans. No growth in loans. In loans. Okay, perfect. The expectation for 2023, if I hear it correctly, is 4%-6%. Is this pricing and repayment into the first half of this year? Of next year, sorry. The 4%-6% is based on the projected number for December. Okay. I see. Okay. Clear. The second question I do have, it's on the hyperinflation. It's around QAR 551. It's higher than what I expected based on the CPI reading since June to September. Are you able to give some clarity what's included in the QAR 551 million of adjustment? This is too detailed for the phone call, Edmond. Please drop an email, we will answer you directly. Okay, perfect. The last one is on the staging. We usually give some guidance on how the Stage 2, Stage 3 will evolve over the year. Are you able to give any clarity into next year, it's still early? It's too early because I'm still working on the book. We have seen increase in Stage 2, during 2022. We started, especially in Stage 2. In December, we were QAR 43 billion. In September, we are QAR 56 billion. That's QAR 13 billion increase. Sorry, QAR 47 billion to QAR 56 billion. We talk about QAR 9 billion increase during the nine months. I expect another QAR 1.5 billion to QAR 2 billion to be in the fourth quarter. Are we going to see the same number next year? I doubt it. As I mentioned before, staging is highly dependent on how much cost of risk we want for the entity, which is again driven by the strength in our operating income. We expect this year, we end up the year with an operating income growth of close to 26%, after being very, very conservative and after a projected 105 basis points in cost of risk. Next year, if we continue to see these numbers, and of course, it's very, very doubtful to see again another 26% growth in operating profit. Again, you are going to see a cost of risk which is close to 100 basis points, because again, we need to try to manage the overall growth in the bottom line in order not to pay the price at a later stage in 3-5 years. For us to be able to have 100 basis points cost of risk, that mean that I have to move some loans from stage 1 to Stage 2 to allow me to build, and increase the provision against Stage 2. This is the momentum of how we're managing this. I don't think next year we are going to have the luxury to be as conservative as this year, but let's wait and see exactly what's going to happen. Okay. The view that from Stage 2 to Stage 3, it's possible to see migration into next year because you have built more Stage 2 coverage there. Correct? From Stage 2 to Stage 3? Yes, because you have very good coverage now on Stage 2, and Stage 3 is very high as well for accounting purpose. True. It will be gradual. Please also note that this year in Turkey, we have seen a major drop in non-performing loans because when you have very high inflation, especially on Turkish lira loans, most customers will be able to repay their loans. Next year, if inflation go back to normal, we expect we are going to see a material increase in NPL. We were cautious this year, and we strongly focused on increasing coverage ratio in Turkey. We kept coverage ratio, for Stage 3, around 120%, which is the highest in the country. More importantly, we increased Stage 2 coverage from 15.8 to 23%. Something, a number that I wish everyone to recognize. Today in Turkey, coverage ratio in Stage 2 is 23%. This is a number that is nonexistent in Turkey. This is built because we expect next year in terms of NPL, there will be an increase in Turkey once inflation go back to normal, we want to be prepared from now for anything that might happen. Okay? Thank you, Ramzi. We have a follow-up question from Aaron Armstrong. Would you like to go ahead, Aaron? Yeah. Hi, thank you. Two follow-up questions from me, please. Firstly, on the net interest margin side, could you talk about the different moving parts, please? You mentioned, kind of maintaining around the 250 basis points level. Could you talk about the impact of rising interest rates and the benefits that that creates to NIM versus what the headwinds are that has led you to give a kind of steady 250 BPS or to keep it around 250 BPS as the kind of base case? Secondly, could you talk a bit more about the cost of risk? You mentioned being conservative and kind of managing that cost of risk, as best you can, say, through the cycle. Could you talk about how you get to the right number? Why should it be 105 this year? Is there a certain kind of provision coverage that you have in mind, a certain number in terms of the provisions that you want to have on the balance sheet? Just kind of what you're working to, or what kind of you're solving for that leads you to these kind of 100, 105 cost of risk numbers. Being able to project your net interest margin under current conditions, whether it was in Turkey, Egypt, or in the 30 countries where we operate, and considering what's taking place on interest rates around the world, it's probably one of the most complex issue that any CFO have these days. There are several factors that impact margins. When you operate in several countries, some will be, an increase in Fed rate will be positive, and in other countries it will be negative. That's why projecting exactly what's going to happen is extremely complex. We always told investors that an increase in Fed rate improve margins for the group, especially for local operation and our operation in the GCC, because of how the book is structured. We always said that 100 basis point increase, you can generate more than QAR 500 million additional interest income. Of course, that's in the first increases. That doesn't mean that if 200% increase over a year, that means the QAR 500 will become QAR 1 billion, and if there is 150 basis point increase, that QAR 1 billion will be QAR a billion and a half. Of course not. After the first increases, other factors start to kick in that at the end will impact the overall. There will always be a lag between the pricing of your asset and liabilities, and there will always be challenges in many cases of increasing your rates on all your loans in the same momentum that we are seeing Fed rate going up without impacting the capacity of these customers to repay the loan in the longer term. That's why you try to manage that increase, especially if it was quick, in a way to ensure that the customers will be able to absorb that increase. That's why we need to take all these factors into consideration, because you need to work loan by loan, deposit by deposit, based on the maturity of the deposit, when it's going to mature, whether you need it, how costly it's going to be, how long you need these deposits for. All these factors make it extremely complex for me to tell you next year, we are going to have 250 or 260 basis points. What I said, and what we aim to, is to manage our margin in a way that we don't drop below the 260 basis points. It is materially challenging and very difficult and this put a lot of load on the treasury for them to be able to manage cost of funding, to get rid of some of the cost of deposit, to ensure that this lengthens the maturity of funding sources. Please note that when rates go up, the bulk of the customers prefer short-term funding in order to take advantage of the increase in rate. Again, this puts pressure on treasury to manage the overall funding profile of the entity. That's on margin. Cost of risk. Now, we said cost of risk will be close to 100 basis points. Next year in the budget, I'm not budgeting 100 basis points because definitely I'm not budgeting an increase on operating income of 25%. What I try to explain to investors, that cost of risk for the group is highly dependent on the engine. If the engine of revenue is strong and we have the luxury to be conservative, we will. We don't want to issue a growth and profitability of 15% next year, and the year after, a growth of 5%, and then 20%, and the next year, minus 5%. This is not QNB. QNB, I always said, is a very boring story. You are going to see a growth in profitability year-on-year, inshallah, of course, and that growth will be managed very carefully between the 6%-8%. This is the growth you are going to see. In good year, you are going to see nine. In perfect year, we are going to see 10. That's it. This is the way QNB is structured. We are a very conservative financial institution. At the same time, we do not like to give bad surprises to our investors. It's a very stable operation, steady, very well-structured, very conservative. Coverage ratio will continue to be more than 100%. Now it's 120%. This is where we wanted it to be. This is how we are structured, and this is how we are going to continue to operate. That's great. Thank you. Thank you, Ramzi. Thank you. We have the next question from the line of Sawsan Ali. Please go ahead, Sawsan. Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Just a quick question from my side. We saw corporate net interest income was quite strong in this quarter. Would appreciate if you could shed some light on that. Okay. Let me talk about local net interest income increase. Yes. Okay. Again, this is a reflection of the increase in Fed rate and success of treasury and the business units to manage cost of funding and our ability to charge the customers with some of the increases that we have seen in Fed rate. If you have seen that the QCB did not follow the Fed rate, in every single increase, there was a gap of around 25 basis points, we followed the QCB. This is the momentum that we want to keep. We still believe that interest income next year in local operation will continue to be strong to what extent we will be able to continue to charge the customer with the full increases, without impacting NPL ratio on the longer term, it is something that we need to be careful about. That's why we take all these parameters into consideration when we increase rates on corporate business. Okay. If you don't mind me asking another question. In addition to your strong core business, periodically you have gone for inorganic growth. Do you have any such plan, especially considering that the capital adequacy ratio is not substantially higher than the regulated levels as in the past? As of today, we are not looking at anything specific, which is material, that will materially impact our capital adequacy ratio. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. We have the next question from the line of Valentina Stoykova. Please go ahead. Valentina, I'm afraid we cannot hear you. Right. I think while we wait for Valentina to check her audio connections, I'll hand over the next question to Saneel Jain. Please go ahead, Saneel. Hi. Am I audible? Yes. Hi. This is Saneel Jain from JP Morgan. Thanks a lot for taking my questions. I just had one question on costs. In the first nine months, cost control has been very solid and cost-to-income ratio has dropped below 20%. How should we think about cost efficiency next year? I'm guessing there would be some slowdown in revenue growth. What kind of cost-to-income ratio we should be looking at next year, 2023? I will tell you how, based on the models that I have for the budget. Next year, I expect efficiency ratio to be between the 20.5 and the 21.5%, so there will be an increase. Whether we are going to reach the 22%, I doubt it next year. We aim to continue to be around the 21.5% and less. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Saneel. Right, we have one question from a participant, which is in the Q&A room. I'll ask to you, Ramzi. The question is about what influenced the increase in the Stage 2 coverage this quarter relative to the previous quarter? That is the first part of the question. The second part of the question is about your expectations about hyperinflation and monetary losses in the coming quarters. The questions came from Pushpita Ramalingam. Stage 2 increase this quarter is extremely simple answer. The auditors did not allow me to increase our coverage ratio for Stage 3 above the 120%. Based on the discussion that we had with them, we had to move to focusing more on Stage 2. Even next quarter, I don't think our coverage ratio on Stage 3 will continue to be 120%. The auditors will not allow this. I hope I will be able to convince them I will keep it around 115%. If that happen, that means that I need to move and focus more on Stage 1 and Stage 2. Very simple answer. Expectation of hyperinflation, it's impossible for anyone to project what is going to happen. If you take what happened in the third quarter as a base for the fourth quarter, you should be close. Mm-hmm. Thank you, Ramzi. We have another question which came in from a participant. That is Valentina Stoykova. I'll read out the question to you. There are two parts to the question. The first part is about your liquidity position, what is it like, as well as what are your issuance plans for the next year? The second part of the question is about the regulatory changes on the treatment of non-resident deposits, which impacted liquidity coverage ratio and NSFR calculations. Can you talk us through these ratios, LCRs and NSFRs? Where are they at the moment, and how do they look versus the thresholds in the third quarter of 2022? There's a follow-up from Valentina as well. Can you also comment on your issuance plans for this year and perhaps 2023? Shall we expect any green senior Eurobonds from QNB similar to what we saw at some of the UAE banks recently? I will answer on the LCR and NSFR. I will leave Mark to answer the second half of the question. LCR, based on the new regulation, at 106, so we are continuing to be more than 100%. NSFR, the changes that QCB did materially impacted, negatively impacted the ratio. Today, we stand at close to 96%. I will note today that the ratio is currently not Basel-based. QCB was extremely conservative in the new ratio, and it materially penalized banks on non-resident funding. For the last six months since the regulation came out, we have been working hard to improve QNB ratio, but it will take time. It will not be something that we are not going to be able to reach 100% in a month's time. Hopefully by December, we should be close to the 100%. Again, this is not Basel-based ratio. If we run the ratio based on Basel requirement, we are going to be more than 100%. This is QCB ratio. We fully understand where the QCB is coming from. They want to manage overall non-resident funding, and it is something that we are working on in order to ensure that we meet QCB regulation. I will leave it to Mark to answer the first half of the question. Hi there. Regarding our base liquidity, it remains very robust. The reason for that is a combination of the very, very diversified foundation that we've laid over the last few years. Secondarily, obviously, we are benefactors of the very significant revenue that's coming in through the elevated energy pricing at the moment in terms of State of Qatar as well for QNB. In terms of our base liquidity position, very strong indeed. That has an impact, again, upon the second part of the question regarding issuance and specifically green issuance. QNB has always been an opportunistic issuer. We've never been a bank that has laid out a formal funding program under the MTN program. That hasn't changed. The reality is that over the last few months, and even today, it is a very, very volatile market. Whilst, as you correctly point out, some of our regional peers have come to the market in a green format recently, they have paid significant new issue premium for that. As Ramzi alluded to earlier in the call, we are very, very focused on being as efficient as possible, managing our cost of funding. With regards to issuance this year and into next year, it is possible we could do something at the back end of this year, but unlikely. It really depends on the market and the available windows in that regard. The same goes really for next year. I do think things will normalize to a degree next year. I do think it is likely that you will see QNB come to the market in some format next year. Most definitely, due to having a strong established ESG framework in place, a green option would be viable potentially for us next year as well. Thank you. Thank you, Mark. Once again, I would like to remind everyone, if you have a question, please feel free to raise your hand. If you dialed in by phone, you can unmute your line and ask the question. We will pause for a moment to see if there are any questions. I think in the meantime, while we are waiting, I would like to, again, raise a question about the asset policy. Obviously, a lot of attention here from the investors. Looking at your write-offs, Ramzi, they tend to be quite low in the last five years. Given that you have raised your provision coverage so well, are you expecting to accelerate some of your write-offs in the medium term? Where do you see the write-offs that are coming? This is one item that materially penalized QNB against the peer group. If you compare our write-offs versus those of the peer group in the region, everyone will realize that our write-off is extremely small comparing to the peer group. This hurts our NPL ratio. The reason for that is that the Central Bank is extremely conservative and very hesitant to allow any write-offs. We have been in continuous discussions with the Central Bank to allow us to start writing off some of the provisions that is fully covered. We are very hopeful that this discussion will allow us to move forward with writing off some of the loans, especially the old ones, which is 100% covered for. This will not impact our ability to continue to follow the customer for repayment and to take all legal actions needed against this customer. It will allow us to free some of the NPL ratio so that we can move forward with proper classification of our loans among the 3 stages. Again, how much I expect write-offs to take place, it is extremely difficult to project because we don't know how the central bank will decide on this matter. Thank you, Ramzi. One another follow-up question from me. We definitely had some regulatory changes in Qatar, right? Favoring domestic deposits over non-resident deposits is one of them. In terms of the regulatory landscape, what other important changes should we be aware of? In the last year, under the new management in the central bank, we have seen several changes in regulation, and there were a lot of focus on the funding profile of bank sector, more focused on local funding. That is why we have seen major shift in the funding profile for banks. In QNB alone, we have seen a 20% drop in non-resident funding and 18% increase in resident funding. Major shifts are more focused on resident funding and decrease on non-resident funding. I'm not aware of any new regulation that will come very soon, that I can talk about at this stage. Thank you, Ramzi. It appears we don't have any other questions at this stage. I guess I would like to thank the Qatar National Bank management team and all the investors who dialed in for their participation. I would like to hand over the call back to Ramzi and Mark for any closing remarks. I want to thank everyone that participated in the phone call. This year was a very good year in terms of maintaining very strong momentum in operating income. We still believe there's still a lot of capacity for the Group to grow operating income next year. Hopefully, we will continue to generate good numbers for our investors. Thank you everyone for joining us. Thank you, Ramzi. Thank you. Have a good day. Bye.