Alpha Bank Stock

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I am Yota, your Chorus Call operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Alpha Bank conference call to present and discuss the first half 2026 financial results. [Operator Instructions]. The conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions]. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Alpha Bank management. Gentlemen, you may now proceed.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the presentation of our second quarter results. I am Iason Kepaptsoglou, Alpha Bank's Head of IR. Our CEO, Vassilios Psaltis, will lead the call with the usual summary and a few updates. Our CFO, Vassilios Kosmas, will then go through this quarter's numbers in some detail. Q&A will come up at the end of the call, and we should wrap up within the hour. Vassilios, over to you.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our call. Let's start with an overview of our results for the first half of the year on Slide 4, please.

The first half of the year saw us posting close to EUR 0.5 billion in profits. On a normalized basis, this is up 6.5% versus last year. Our net interest income is up 7.3% versus last year as we continue to benefit from growth in the loan book. Fees are up 34% on a headline basis or 24%, if one excludes dividends from our participation in [ Prodea ] as we reap the benefits of investments in the business and our proactive M&A strategy.

At 39%, our cost-to-income ratio has remained within guidance, showing the operating leverage of our business. Cost of risk continues to reflect the benign environment, up 42 basis points. and performing loans have grown at double digits, and we've reached 87% of this year's target for net credit expansion already in the first half of the year. Customer funds have jumped 7% in this quarter with corporate deposit inflows, strong AUM net sales and valuation tailwinds and we continue to post good levels of organic capital generation in spite of the quarter-specific headwinds.

Overall, we have delivered more than half of our 2026 target for net profit with the fundamental drivers of earnings growth and profitability performing better than expected. As a result, we are upgrading our guidance for EPS to EUR 0.41. We've also accrued EUR 273 million for distribution so far this year, and we intend to distribute circa EUR 124 million as an interim cash dividend in the fourth quarter.

The numbers demonstrate continuous execution. What is perhaps more important is the transformation taking place underneath those numbers. And I would like to take this opportunity to showcase how we have fundamentally upgraded our wholesale franchise starting with Slide 5.

Historically, Alpha Bank's wholesale franchise was built around lending excellence. Today, we are evolving towards a universal business bank model. We have deliberately expanded our product capabilities, strengthen specialized coverage and created a platform that allow us to capture a much greater share of our clients' wallet.

The objective is simple. Every relationship should generate value beyond lending, through transaction banking, investment banking, capital markets, trade finance, foreign exchange, advisory and cross-border solutions. This is precisely the model we will discuss in more detail at Investor Day, and it sits at the center of our ambition to deliver faster growth in capital-light fee income.

Turning now to Slide 6. The first proof point is transaction banking. Over the last 3 years, we have invested significantly in building dedicated transaction banking capabilities. We established a specialized group, expanded product expertise and broadened our offering in payments, cash management, foreign exchange and trade finance. As a result, transaction banking is becoming increasingly embedded into our corporate relationships.

Transaction banking specialists are now included in client teams working alongside RMs with clear incentives to deeper product penetration. This is allowing us to capture a larger share of the operating flows of our corporate clients and convert existing lending relationships into recurring capital-light fee income. In trade finance, where data is available for the system, we've increased our share by circa 10 percentage points in import letters of credit and more than 11 percentage points in foreign guaranteed issues. The result is a staggering 38% increase in the revenue generated by transaction banking.

Turning to Slide 7. This is the second proof of point in investment banking. A concrete example of how our M&A strategy is already translating into tangible commercial outcomes. AXIA is a particularly good illustration of the type of platform we set out to acquire. Our objective was to create a leading regional investment banking and capital markets franchise that would strengthen client coverage, deepen fee generation and expand Alpha Bank's capabilities across the advisory and capital markets value chain, allowing us to complete the wholesale product shaft. The results we are seeing today validate the strategic rationale.

During the first half of 2026, AXIA advised on 17 transactions across 10 different sectors with a cumulative transaction value exceeding EUR 10 billion. Activity remained broad-based across the market and demonstrates the strength of the franchise, its client relationships and its ability to originate opportunities in multiple segments of the economy. Importantly, AXIA has been active across the full spectrum of investment banking services. It participated both as a trusted financial adviser and as a leading book runner in landmark equity and debt capital market transactions serving Greek corporates, international issues and investors alike.

One of the most valuable capabilities that AXIA brings to the group is its ability to mobilize international institutional capital. Across multiple transactions, AXIA has broadened investor participation, attracted foreign demand and contributed to stronger execution outcomes for clients. This directly supports our ambition to become the preferred financial partner for Greek corporates seeking to access seeking access to international capital markets. We're also beginning to see the benefits of combining AXIA's expertise with UniCredit's international footprint.

Together, through the Alpha Bank Group platform, we have already participated in cross-border transactions, such as [ all wins ] EUR 550 million senior secured notes and [indiscernible] EUR 1.1 billion senior secured notes. These transactions demonstrate how partnership of this partnership extends our reach beyond our traditional markets and create opportunities that neither institution could capture as effectively on a stand-alone basis. AXIA has already strengthened our competitive position, accelerating the development of our investment banking platform and providing clear evidence that our disciplined approach to M&A is creating value for our shareholders.

And then finally, on Slide 8, the third proof point, and this is the partnership with UniCredit. UniCredit extends the reach of everything that we have built. It gives our clients access to upon European network, while giving Alpha Bank access to additional product capabilities, expertise and transaction opportunities from lending to trade finance to cash management, instant payments, markets and investment banking. The partnership has now moved decisively beyond its establishment phase and is delivering benefits across lending, transaction banking, trade finance, treasury products, cross-border lending, investment banking, and client servicing.

A good example is the launch of European gates. In practical terms, European gate gives Alpha Bank clients with subsidiaries abroad a seamless transaction banking presence in key UniCredit markets, allowing them to more easily access cash management services and manage liquidity, mass payment execution and cross-border account visibility through a more integrated network.

This is particularly relevant as instant payments become a more important part of corporate treasury and day-to-day liquidity management. And as a key challenge for treasury departments is the handling of multiple banking relationships or mass payment execution across different countries.

By combining Alpha's client relationship with UniCredit infrastructure and local market presence, we are broadening the solutions available to be corporates with international operations and reinforcing our position as the banking partner of choice for companies with international ambitions. At the same time, trade finance activity continues to grow strongly, with more than EUR 100 million of guarantees and letters of credit exchanged in the first half of the year, while joint financing opportunities are gaining momentum across both international and domestic clients.

More importantly, we're now moving from product-by-product cooperation to jointly targeting client flows. Alpha and UniCredit teams are increasingly coordinating around specific client opportunities including through road shows in the countries where the 2 groups have a presence so that we can originate more costs -- more of the business, capture a greater share of operating flows and convert our combined network into tangible commercial outcomes. These efforts have already included joint client engagements in Bulgaria, a strategically important market for Greek businesses with more than EUR 5 billion in bilateral trade flows and Greece, ranking as the second largest source of foreign direct investment.

Focus is on supporting our customers in one of their key markets, while capturing trade flows and increasing client access for both Alpha Bank and UniCredit through an enhanced cross-border offering in transaction banking, financing and investment banking. In the coming months, we will continue such joint initiatives supporting our clients' order ambitions and expanding our collaboration into other CE markets.

We are now seeing increasing benefits from our collaboration in markets, treasury and client risk management, where UniCredit has become one of our key counterparties across a range of products, including derivatives, foreign exchange and fixed income activities. These partnerships expand the solutions available to our clients while supporting the continued development of our own product capabilities.

In investment banking, the corporation has accelerated materially following the integration of AXIA into our platform. We have jointly participated in prominent transactions, and we are building a growing pipeline of cross-border advisory and financing opportunities. This collaboration enhances our ability to support [ Quicorp ] as they increasingly pursue international growth strategies.

Finally, for individuals and wealth clients, UniCredit strengthens our investment proposition by expanding our product offering, including through the one market from [ ALE ]. Since the launch of our partnership we have distributed circa EUR 1.8 billion of these products, demonstrating the strong client appetite for our enhanced investment solutions.

Overall, the partnership with UniCredit continues to create a meaningful competitive advantage for Alpha Bank. It expands our product capabilities, deepens our transactional reach, strengthens our dialogue with clients and reinforces our ability to generate sustainable growth. We remain confident that the commercial contribution of the partnership will continue to increase in the years ahead, creating further value for our customers, our shareholders and all of our stakeholders.

Taken together, these initiatives represent a fundamental transformation of our wholesale franchise. We have upgraded the product shelf. We have strengthened specialist capabilities. We have expanded our international reach. We are now evolving our coverage model to ensure clients are served holistically rather than crude-by product. Under the new leadership structure, we are bringing together relationship management, specialized product expertise and cross-border capabilities around the single client view.

The objective is straightforward. Higher product density, greater share of wallet, stronger fee generation and deeper client relationships. This is the next chapter in Alpha Bank's wholesale banking story and one of the most important drivers of our future now. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Yannis Emiris for leading our wholesale division, reestablishing it as the leading franchise in the country at a critical moment when the market returned to growth. [indiscernible] that has officially joined us as of yesterday from Bank of America, brings with him a wealth of international experience and has the right skill set to take this franchise up a level and lead the change in the coverage model.

Let's now turn to the outlook, starting with Slide 9. We have mentioned before that 2026 is a transitional year for us. We are as focused on integrating the acquired entities, but quite reasonably, we will not see the full benefit of the expected synergies from year 1. Commercial trends during the first half of the year have proven to be stronger than what we're originally expecting strengthening the case for better core performance. But at the same time, we have been burdened by a number of extraordinary events. Vassilios will give you more detail on 2026 later on, but the bottom line is that we now expect to deliver 13% growth in normalized earnings.

Credible recurring earnings growth is the natural outcome of our strategy and what we believe will continue to differentiate us going forward. We will be sharing more with you at our upcoming Investor Day in November. For now, on Slide 10, we present a model that is driving this credible recurring earnings growth. We've gone through this with our first quarter results, but it's worth repeating the main points.

The model rests on four mutually reinforcing pillars. First, Alpha Bank now combines deep plan relationships with advisory, capital markets and transaction banking capabilities in a way no domestic peer can replicate. Our advantage is that we capture a larger share of wallet. We are no longer just a lender. Through investment banking, transaction banking, trade finance and corporal solutions, we convert existing relationships into recurring capital-light fee income.

Second, we are moving retail banking beyond transactions and towards financial planning at scale. We have built a single wealth platform serving all client segments combining asset management structure products, discretionary mandates, pensions, [ bancassurance ] and international wealth capabilities.

Third, the UniCredit partnership accelerates both growth engines and provides a permanent structural advantage. And finally, all of this is supported by a performance-led operating model. Our investments are focused on delivering measurable commercial outcomes, while our people model directly lean development and incentives performance. Taken together, these 4 engines create a self-reinforcing system for earnings growth, deeper client coverage, capital-light fee expansion, structural acceleration from UniCredit and disciplined execution. This supports faster compounding of EPS, tangible book value and shareholder distributions while delivering greater diversification to a larger distribution from fees and from our international insurance and real estate businesses.

And lastly, on Slide 11. We've been deliberate and consistent in how we think about capital allocation and our framework and the era within remains very clear and unchanged. Our first priority is to fund profitable loan growth. Loan demand in Greece remains resilient, led by corporates and supported by a strong investment cycle. We continue to deploy capital where returns are attractive, while maintaining strict underwriting discipline and balance sheet optimization.

At the same time, we are expanding transaction banking, trade finance, asset management, advisory activities increasing the quality and durability of earnings through more diversified revenue streams. Second, our capital generation supports growing shareholder distributions. Strong earnings growth gives us confidence that payouts can continue to rise over time, supported by sustainable capital generation.

This is already reflected in our actions. We started dividends conservatively, increase them as confidence strengthened and have now embedded a higher payout in our capital planning. The interim dividend further underlines our commitment to predictable and growing shareholder returns while buybacks remain an important complementary tool.

Finally, our excess capital provides strategic flexibility. So far, this has been deployed through highly selective value-accretive acquisitions. Going forward, we will continue to balance shareholder distributions with opportunities to deploy capital into earnings enhancing growth initiatives, ensuring we maximize long-term value creation. And with that, Vassilios.

Thank you, Vassilios, and hello from my side. Let's first go through the P&L overview on Slide 13, please. Reported profits came in at EUR 316 million this quarter, while on a normalized basis, profit stood at EUR 275 million. So let's start with an explanation of notable items.

This quarter, we had an accounting recognition of circa EUR 120 million of additional deferred tax assets, the byproduct of liquidation of a subsidiary company. As you can appreciate, these [ DTAs ] are not accretive to capital, but we have created additional room in our P&L. This, in essence, crystallizes the so-called mitigating actions we have referenced in the preceding quarter, allowing us to offset a number of headwinds coming this year. The series of events this quarter have offset this.

First, we had a partial recognition of a legacy cash losses that has costs circa EUR 38 million net. Second, we have another EUR 17.5 million provisions for a voluntary separation scheme in [ Cyprus ], which is primarily the Envision restructuring charge for the acquisition of [indiscernible]. And last, we had a negative effect from a number of legacy items, mainly relating to the acellular perimeter of mortgages with first residence protection and the government legislation on the back of the Supreme Court decision.

The month pretty straightforward can lead to a net benefit this quarter. I would like to remind you that we had a couple of negative one-offs in the previous quarter and unlikely, and we are likely to see more voluntary contributions to various government programs in Q3. So net-net, that shouldn't change much when it comes to the outcome for this year's [indiscernible].

Speaking of which this is probably a good time to mention that our full year guidance for EUR 950 million in reported profit is reiterated. However, based on underlying drivers, we expect normalized profits to land a bit higher, as Vassilios mentioned at EUR 0.41. Clearly, there's 2 sides of that story. On [indiscernible], I think it's pretty clear that this year has been more burdensome than originally expected, mainly on account of government legislation on the [indiscernible], as well as the partial recognition of the legacy cash flow hedge.

On the other hand, underlying trends are undeniable, shaping up better than expected. Rates will in all likelihood land above our 1.9% assumption for Euribor. We've done circa 90% of this year's target for net credit expansion and 3/4 of the target for net sales of [indiscernible]. In revenue terms, the latest consensus of EUR 2.45 billion, EUR 0.46 billion, seems fair against our original guidance of 2.4%. On cost and provisions, there's not much to add. Once we account for the Q1 underperformance in associates, our pretax [ has ] land closer to EUR 1.33 billion. So taking into account one-off items, we should land circa EUR 950 million in reported with underlying earnings performing better.

With that, let's move to the next slide and look at the underlying trends in more detail. Operating income was up 7% Q-on-Q with growth in NII and fees. On costs, we had a more normal quarter with a quarterly growth mainly attributable to higher bonus accrual this quarter, while cost-to-income ratio landed at materially better than our full year guidance.

We had a slightly better quarter in terms of impairment losses coming in at EUR 44 million or circa 39 basis points. And obviously, Q-on-Q growth in the bottom line is reflecting opposite forces on one-offs each quarter plus not at informed. What has more significance is that the net profit for the first half accounts for a bit more than half of this full year guidance. So we are firm on this guidance.

Let's now move to the next slide and the balance sheet. What a spectacular quarter for performing loans, up 5% in the quarter with EUR 1.6 billion in net credit expansion. We already hinted that the high single-digit guidance for the year is likely to be outperformed. More important, the contribution of the RF envelope to this person has been low single digits in percentage [indiscernible].

So 2 things to note. One, the demand for loans is here, real present is not contingent on subsidized funding. Two, the envelope has created a good pipeline of projects have already been underwritten, and the net credit expansion in the coming quarters should be in excess of EUR 1 billion. For customer funds, headline picture on deposits is positively affected by a large single ticket on the corporate side. But even on an underlying basis, we had good inflows of deposits at EUR 600 million in net sales. Obviously, the June snapshot also reflected positive valuation effects, but more than reversed the Q1 underperformance. Tangible book value a bit more than 2% in the quarter and almost 7.5% year-on-year when adjusting for distributions. Last on capital, our CET1 ratio stands at 14.3%, down versus Q1 on account of RWA growth, the acquisition of Alpha Trust and DTA recognition.

On Slide 16, we show the 2 main components of revenues. Net interest income was up for another quarter, continuing the upward trajectory. Rates have started to play a part, but the real [indiscernible] having forced this quarter is volumes. We had a significant uptick in loans and now brought forward the security purchases, conducting more of the intended purchases for the year, most of the internet purchases for the year. The same is true for the liability side with incremental [ MREL ] issuance affecting funding costs and corporate inflows affecting the deposit side.

On the fee side, Brazil has already commented on the performance of the investment banking side, so no need to expand there. Real estate income as noted on this slide. I think the benefit from [ probed ] dividend and the fact of capital return, which is, however, offset by a negative revaluation of our participation with the trade line on account of a lower net asset value, positive contribution in the quarter.

On an underlying basis, income from real estate was on an upward trajectory for yet another quarter. Better quarter for carded payments on account of higher activity following the seasonally low first quarter, a bit weaker on asset management and business credit-related fees.

Turning to Slide 17 to look at loans and customer funds. Performing loan balances are hedging the EUR 40 billion mark up 5% in the quarter, EUR 1.6 billion in net credit expansion, a better quarter for disbursements at EUR 3.8 billion, with repayments normalizing down to EUR 2.2 million. Customer funds, deposit growth this quarter mainly came from corporate deposits, as mentioned, and likely to see part of it flow out in the coming quarters. [indiscernible] will convert corporate CapEx to further support the net credit expansion. On AUMs, very strong quarter for net sales, EUR 600 million and obviously, we have also reversed the valuation impact on the first quarter.

On Slide 18 and asset quality, BNP ratio came in 10 basis, lower at 3.6%. Coverage ratio is still at 55%. Not much to say here, the underlying cost of risk is 26 basis points this quarter. So the picture looks solid. We do not expect any meaningful surprises in the coming quarters, so we feel comfortable with the 45 basis points guidance for the year.

Let's turn to Slide 19 on capital to wrap it up. Holding, the CET1 ratio stands at 14.3% on a transitional basis. 71 basis points on organic capital generation in the first half of the year. As you can understand, there are a number of elements that justify the big decline we've seen.

Solid loan growth was translated into higher -- from a P&L perspective, the BPA accrual is not capital generative. And on top of that, we've seen also circa 45 basis points of negatives in the quarter. Three main pieces of this. The Alpha Trust shares acquisition around about 15 basis points. A closure of synthetic securitization round about 10 basis points to be resumed P&L one-offs of around about 12 basis points and the employee share buyback program accrual roughly 10 basis points. And then also, we have the payout accrual of 15% of reported profit, with [indiscernible] coming on top. This translates into 272 million crude or distribution so far this year. And as Vassilios mentioned, we intend to distribute circa EUR 124 million as an interim cash dividend in Q4, all the subject to regulatory approval. With that, let's now open the floor for questions.

[Operator Instructions]. The first question comes from the line of Noemi Peruch with Morgan Stanley.

I was wondering if you could share with us your updated thoughts on NII and fees, given the strong volume that we are seeing in H1, the pipeline for H2 and also the rates evolution. And then on [indiscernible] carryforward, so you wrote up EUR 120 million this quarter. And I was wondering, when do you expect to use them, so to turn them into capital. And if you foresee some potential write-ups also post business plan.

I suspect both of those are for our CFO. So H2 for NII and fees, potential for further write-ups of DTAs and users.

Good. Let me start with the [ BPA ], that's the most straightforward one. I mean effectively, what happens with BPAs is that BPA is written back into capital as we grow the capital base. So this EUR 120 million we've written up this quarter will slowly be converted into capital as a capital basis is going to be growing. I mean you've seen how much of all this DTA we're converting it into capital from a quarter-to-quarter basis.

So I would say around about every quarter, there is something in the tune of 30%, maybe a bit more million coming up on that front. On the NII guidance, I think we have reiterated that we're going to be landing around about million higher for the year. I think that's a matter of rates on the one hand. I remind you that our rate sensitivity for 25 basis points is circa EUR 20 million. And then an increase as we see for the year for the volumes, primarily on loans.

The rest be hedging or deposit cost doesn't really move the needle. There is a bit of offset, if you like, on funding costs or the very fact that the balance sheet is growing, but nothing to really make a difference on this front. on fees, I think we have explained a lot of the upside here is coming much on all fronts, I would say, be it transaction banking, investment banking, with increased capital markets activity. But also mutual funds, the first quarter and the quarters to come.

The next question comes from the line of Ben Caven Roberts with Goldman Sachs.

So just to drill in on the CET1 first. As you mentioned, there was a step down in Q2, how are you thinking about the CET1 building blocks through to the end of the year and what landing point you'd like to be running the bank at the convergence to a 13% CET1 still a mix of M&A, organic growth, DTC amortization and shareholder return? Or are there other particular headwinds you would call out similar to what you've had over the first half?

And then secondly, just to drill in again on deposits. Could you please elaborate on expectations for the deposit mix and spreads from here?

Again, I'm afraid all for our CFO.

On the CET1 evolution, I think it's very clear that the bank is very much accretive on an organic basis. We have generated around about 70 basis of capital for the first half, and there's no reason to believe that we're not going to be continuing doing that on the second half. Now the reason in the first half, we haven't seen some of that into the mix is twofold.

One is that the synthetic securitizations provide some volatility. So as I mentioned, there was one transaction which we closed this half, and we will be opening this in the second half, so you will see some benefit out of that in the second half. And second, when it comes to RWA growth, growth has been pretty firm on account of 2 things, as I mentioned, on one side loans, but also a real estate investment. So you see RWA growth being somewhat elevated in that front.

Our real estate portfolio is currently shy of EUR 700 million. We aim to grow it to around about EUR 1 billion. So until that happens, you see more at growth. We're very comfortable with this portfolio. Just to give you a hint, the [ Probe ] investment so far has yielded around about 40% or return on CET1. And generally, our total real estate book is yielding more than 25% on the capital that we employ before you go to the deposit is think we should to reiterate a couple of points on capital.

The first is that you should focus on the very strong organic capital generation. I think that's predominantly one of the key themes that we observed also this quarter and you should strip out the noise in order to anticipate that. That's number one.

Number two, you also asked about if our key choices in terms of capital would continue into the medium term. And I think the reason why we put an extra slide today is exactly to reiterate that. So our -- both are funneling in terms of priorities as well as the way that we do have thresholds for the inorganic, they definitely do hold.

On the deposit pricing, if I remember correctly, the question is all around how we would expect the deposit pricing coming up in the second half of the year. Frankly, so far, both time deposit pass-throughs and betas have been one tick better, I would say, pretty much where we would expect them to be. So it's hard for me to see that something will materially change for the rest of the year.

We're running on euro deposits, we're running a pass-through and that's a good level to continue for the rest of the year. And then on total split between time deposits and core deposits, we see ourselves in the 3 quarters to 1 quarter ratio pretty stable for the rest. So we don't see I would say, much of a pressure, if you like, on deposit spreads.

The next question comes from the line of Gabor Kemeny with Autonomous Research.

My question would be, firstly, on the reported profit guidance, which you left unchanged. And I think you flagged some potential contributions to the government's voluntary programs starting from Q3. Can you elaborate a bit on that and quantify the effect for the second half?

Is there anything else beside the school development program? Then the other one would be from the notable items you listed for the quarter. Would any of these have any recurring earnings impact or should we just these are one-offs all booked in Q2?

And my final question will be a broader one. Actually, I wouldn't like to front from the CMD. But if you are able to give us a flavor on how this holistic approach to your clients can potentially drive P&L benefit, what I'm talking about is how the cross-selling and the increased revenue streams is benefiting your P&L. If you can help us find out how that drives intangible benefit that would be helpful.

Gabor, I'll take the first one. Vassilios, will take the third one, but I'm afraid we're then going to ask you to repeat the second question because we really couldn't hear what you were saying, sorry. So on the first one in reported profit guidance, it is still EUR 950 million. I think Vassilios was pretty clear on what has happened so far this year that we did not expect. It's the partial derecognition of the cash flow hedge and the [ Casella ] impact.

We have been able to offset that through better organic performance. So you end up having the same reported profit guidance, but better underlying performance, which is what's driving the business going forward, leading normalized profits higher and upgrade. Both of those surprises came in the first half. So there's no incremental information with regards to one-offs for the second half. The main one is the Marietta Giannakou program, which should come through in Q3, but you all know that's very well for quite some time now. Vassilios, if you want to comment on the holistic approach and the potential benefits?

Yes. Well, it's not just potential there already flowing in. Well, listen, Alpha Bank is a bangle always has been the relationship bank in Greece as far as business lending is concerned. Constantly with market shares around 24%, 25%, 26%, depending if large tickets have been printed or not. We constantly enjoy that space in the market.

So we have been really looking forward to the further growth of the weak economy and what actually we corporates are needed because as they were growing, they needed both flow business, they needed alternative sources of funding and they needed advice. That's why in need of further beefing up the presence that we already had. We have been very early on working on that, and that's why we timely concluded on the one hand, the bolt-on acquisitions that we did. And on the other hand, we have deepened the relationship with UniCredit.

So this means that the thresholds that we've been having in terms of driving lending growth in terms of return on risk-adjusted capital is constantly increasing. Why? Because the flow of transaction banking and trade finance and treasury business in terms of low capital market business in terms of alternative financing sources and M&A fees in terms of advisory, they are for the same amount of risk-weighted assets, bringing more in.

And that's the whole thing. But in order to do that, you need to further upgrade your relationship with the respective clients you need to know them well, and we bank them for a number of years. Therefore, we are a natural partner to them. So now that we are feeling much more confident in the delivery of these products, all we need now is to streamline that under one unified coverage model.

We've already started doing that. And the new Head of Wholesale is one that has been practicing that model at a much larger bank than we are and he knows very well how to convert this holistic coverage model and how to deliver the whole bank in front of a client. That is our ambition. We've already --

Ladies and gentlemen, please hold the line. We will resume the conference shortly.

[Technical Difficulty]

Hello, everyone. Apologies for the technical issue. I'm not sure what happened there. Gabor, if you can repeat, if you're still with us, and you can repeat your second question, that would be very helpful. Otherwise, we can move to the next question.

I think you answered the first 2 questions. The last one was really just if you could quantify how this holistic approach drives Vienna benefit.

I'll think for quantifications, obviously, we'll need to wait for the Investor Day. So let's move to the next question, please.

The next question comes from the line of Andreas Souvleros with Eurobank Equities.

Congratulations for the results. I have one quick question regarding the costs, which increased about 14% year-over-year in the first half. Should we expect the cost run rate to moderate in the second half? And do you remain comfortable with existing guidance for the full year? That's my question.

Vassilios, if you can --

No. Thank you for the question. Indeed, you're right to say that it increased 14% year-on-year. One should take into account the fact that in the prior year numbers, we didn't have Alpha Bank, we didn't have AXIA. If you were to put that into perspective, you would see a number closer to 8%, which is pretty much on our peers. I think more importantly for us is the guidance. I think we've given the guidance of EUR 960 million for the year, and we remain fully firm and committed to this number.

[Operator Instructions]. Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the conference over to management for any closing comments. Thank you.

Thank you very much for participating at our first half results call. I wish everyone some nice relaxing vacations. Hopefully, a lot of you are going to be visiting Greece. Otherwise, we'll make sure that we're going to be meeting you a lot of you in September, weren't going to be London. Thank you very much.

Ladies and gentlemen, the conference has now concluded, and you may disconnect your telephones. Thank you for calling. You may now disconnect.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I am Yoda, your Chorus Call operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Alpha Bank conference call to present and discuss the first quarter 2026 financial results. [Operator Instructions] The conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Alpha Bank management. Gentlemen, you may now proceed.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the presentation of our first quarter results. I am Iason Kepaptsoglou, Alpha Bank's Head of Investor Relations. Our CEO, Vassilios Psaltis will lead the call with the usual summary and a few updates. Our CFO, Vassilios Kosmas, will then go through this quarter's numbers in some detail, and Q&A will come at the end of the call, and we should wrap up within the hour. Vassili, over to you.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our call. Let's start with an overview of the first quarter results on Slide 4, please.

This quarter, we have reported EUR 182 million of profit or EUR 221 million on a normalized basis. These numbers are down both on a quarterly and on an annual basis, affected by one-off items that do not reflect underlying dynamics in the business, relating to a Voluntary Separation Scheme and nonrecurring factors affecting the performance of income from associates.

On closer inspection, we are firing on all cylinders. Our net interest income is up 1% versus Q4 and 5% versus last year. Fees have increased 3% versus a seasonally strong fourth quarter and have jumped 29% versus last year. At 39%, our cost-to-income ratio has remained within guidance. At 44 basis points, the same can be said also for our cost of risk. Performing loans have grown up double digit versus last year and customer funds are up both on a headline and on an underlying basis. Asset quality remains benign, and we continue to post good levels of organic capital generation in spite of the quarter-specific headwinds.

Overall, the first quarter serves as a solid foundation to deliver on our guidance for the year, which remains firm despite the geopolitical uncertainty. And with that, let's take a look at the macro picture, starting with Slide 5.

Well, here, you can see that Greece entered 2026 with a macroeconomic profile that would have seemed highly improbable a decade ago, declining public debt as a share of GDP, sustained primary surpluses and resilient growth. The first chart here highlights the continued de-escalation of public debt, which reflects a combination of sizable and sustained primary surpluses, prudent fiscal management and the credibility gains achieved in recent years, combined with persistent headline inflation, mainly driven by services.

Sizable and sustained primary fiscal surpluses have strengthened the country's resilience to external shocks. Fiscal discipline over recent years has not yet reduced vulnerabilities, but has also created policy space, allowing the economy to absorb uncertainty more effectively than in the past. Greece's sovereign position has strengthened. The country now holds an investment-grade rating by all rating agencies.

Despite an environment of hate and global uncertainty, Greece continues to expand at the pace above the app the European average. According to the latest official data, real GDP grew by 2.1% in 2025, and this compares with a 1.4% average in the euro area. This performance confirms that the recovery has both momentum and depth. What is particularly encouraging is the change in composition of growth. For the first time since the pandemic, investment has become the leading contributor, surpassing private consumption. In 2025, investment contributed 1.5 percentage points to GDP growth, reflecting broad-based momentum across housing, equipment relating to logistics, industry and defense and construction.

Exports continue to grow, albeit at a more moderate pace of 1.7%, reinforcing the ongoing transition towards a more export-driven growth model.

Turning to the labor market. Unemployment fell below the 10% threshold for the first time in 15 years, marking a significant structural improvement, reflecting stronger job creation and enhanced labor market efficiency. Tourism remains a cornerstone for the Greek economy. Travel receipts reached EUR 23.6 billion in 2025, reflecting a new record year with nearly 10% growth. This underscores Greece's global competitiveness as a tourist destination. At the same time, the expansionary phase of the Greek real estate cycle continues with residential prices having surpassed the precrisis level.

Finally, economic sentiment remains robust. Although it has moderated over the past 2 months, amid hate and geopolitical uncertainty, the economic sentiment indicator continues to stand above both its long term and the European averages, signaling sustained confidence, especially in construction and services.

That said, moving now to Slide 6, improved fundamentals do not eliminate exposure to global stocks. The conflict in the Middle East adds yet another supply side disturbance to an already fragile international environment. For Greece, the impact of the war does not stem from direct energy dependence on Iran. The country does not import oil or natural gas from Iran, with oil energy supplies fairly diversified across a number of countries. However, price risk is global, not bilateral. For Greece, the transmission of this shock operates through 4 main channels.

First, energy. A supply shock, especially via the disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz translates into higher oil and gas prices, pass-through into consumer inflation and a potential widening of the trade deficit. This dynamic is already unfolding with oil prices remaining above $100 per barrel since late April, contributing to renewed inflationary pressures.

First, recent inflation forecast for the current year were revised upwards by 1 percentage point on average. As a net energy importer, Greece remains vulnerable to sharp increases in international energy prices. Oil, oil products and natural gas together amount for 61% of final energy consumption, one of the highest rates in the EU. Any sustained rise in prices would, therefore, affect inflation, production costs and the internal balance.

Second, shipping and logistics. Longer routes, higher insurance premium and increased freight costs affect maritime activity and disrupt supply chains. For a country with a globally significant shipping sector, this presents both operational complexities and pricing pressures. Ultimately, however, these dynamics imply an inflationary change reaction across global supply chains, allowing dominant operators to leverage capacity shortages to command premium freight rates -- freight rates.

Third, tourism. Tourism represents one of the highest direct contributors to the total gross value added in Europe, second only to Croatia. regional risk perceptions can interrupt inbound tourist flow, especially in the Eastern Mediterranean. Cruise activity is especially sensitive with potential pressures on travel receipts during peak seasons. That said, past experience points to a potential substitution effect. If the conflict remains geographically contained, Greece could capture market share from more directly affected destination as we have already seen during the Arab Spring in the early 2000s.

And fourth, uncertainty. Prolonged geopolitical ambiguity delays investment decision and leads to a broad repricing of risk premium. 2026 is the final year of the Next Generation EU program with strict milestones for the absorption of recovery and resilience facility funds. Delays will therefore, jeopardize timely fund absorption and reduce the programs intended macroeconomic impact. At the same time, this same timeline can act as a stabilizing force, incentivizing the timely completion of investment projects and supporting growth dynamics in the real term, as we have actually seen.

The key challenge at the current juncture is not the immediate job, but the duration, the scale and the spillover dynamics of the conflict. These factors remaining inherently unpredictable, particularly given the risk of renewed escalation of military actions in the region. Should the shock persist for several months, inflationary pressures could be emerge, through both energy prices and elevated transport costs, equating for probably on a smaller scale, the supply shock observed after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

For now, we have updated weights using the ECL calculation, increasing the probability of a downside scenario. Despite the downward revision to recent GDP forecast, the growth outlook currently remains positive with the Greek economy is still expected to expand by just under 2% this year. The healthy starting point, combined alongside the available fiscal buffer should allow the Greek GDP growth to remain in positive territory even in adverse scenarios outperforming our European peers. The ability to use physical space to caution the impact of hate and inflation, as has been the case in the recent past, provides some comfort for the asset quality outlook on individuals. While in the corporate space, healthy balance sheets with low leverage and ample cash buffers, particularly in the more exposed sectors of shipping and tourism alleviate any concerns.

And last but not least, we are positively geared to higher rates, both to our interest rate sensitivity of circa EUR 1 million per basis point as well as the current environment creates opportunities for reinvestments in our bond portfolio.

Despite this uncertainty, we have continued to build upon our track record of disciplined capital deployment and inorganic transactions, as you can see in Slide 7. FlexFin enhance our data-driven factoring platform, unlocking access to small businesses and lower tier SMEs with strong risk-adjusted returns and EPS accretion from year 1. AstroBank added scale to our presence instantly positioning us as the #3 bank in the country with circa 10% market share and doubling local profitability while remaining and being neutral and core equity Tier 1 line.

AXIA forms the backbone of our new regional investment banking and capital markets platform, bringing market-leading advisory capabilities and immediate scale in recent Cyprus. The combination of Altius and Universal, scaled and insurance presence in Cyprus, creating a top 3 player, strengthening our life, nonlife and health offering and materially expanding our distribution and cross-selling capabilities.

All of the above transactions are progressing swiftly towards full integration with a full EPS accretion visible from 2027. Across all these transactions, a clear and consistent strategic rationale emerges. We are selectively acquiring prudent factories increase in Cyprus, platforms that enhance our ability to originate, manufacture and distribute high-value products while simultaneously driving consolidation in our core markets, where we see structural opportunities to build scale. This disciplined approach ensures that every acquisition is earnings accretive strengthens our core franchise, expand fee-generating capabilities and deepens client penetration, ultimately, reinforcing the resilience and sustainability of our operating model.

This year, we have announced one more deal, which we can look at in more detail on Slide 8. The acquisition of Alpha Trust marks a decisive step in scaling our wealth and asset management platform, expanding our high net worth individual client base, enhancing product debt and offshore capabilities and delivering capital-light fee-based growth fully aligned with our disciplined M&A framework. Alpha Trust is a leading independent asset manager in Greece, managing over EUR 2.2 billion of AUMs, having delivered a roughly 19% CAGR between 2022 and 2025 across retail, private and institutional clients with a long-standing tradition spanning more than 3 decades.

Importantly, Alpha Trust benefits from a highly recognized and trusted brand in the domestic market. consistently earning best-in-class distinctions over time, reflecting the strength of its investment performance and client franchise. Strategically, the transaction delivered multiple balances. It broadens our client base, including a meaningful high net worth individual segment, accelerated AUM growth through the addition of a proven discretionary model. It also enhances our product offering, expanding our range of mutual funds, discretionary mandates and alternative investment solutions while supporting the development of our offshore proposition, including private banking initiatives outside Greece.

A key differentiator is the strong profitability of Alpha Trust Asset Management business with mutual fund margins structurally higher than the sector average, driven by a more active allocation towards equities, alternatives and higher-yielding products further strengthening our overall fee generation capacity. A key pillar of the transaction is talented. Alpha Trust brings a seasoned management team and a high-quality pool of private banking and asset management professionals significantly strengthening our human capital in a segment where expertise is scarce and difficult to replicate.

The founder and the CEO will remain actively involved post completion, ensuring continuity alignment and a smooth integration while playing a pivotal role in shaping the group's broader wealth strategy. The combination accelerates Alpha Bank's ambition to build a scaled, fee-based, capital-light wealth and asset management platform enhancing recurring income and reinforcing the diversification of our revenue mix. The transaction also brings group efficiencies in custody, transactional income and the optimization of operating costs.

From a financial perspective, the acquisition fully meets our group M&A criteria. It is expected to deliver circa 1% EPS accretion, a return on capital employed exceeding 15% and a return on tangible equity uplift of more than 10 basis points with a limited core equity Tier 1 impact of approximately 17 basis points. Completion of the transaction is expected by the end of the second quarter of this year, subject to regulatory approvals. We will keep investors updated as the process progresses in full compliance with applicable legal and regulatory requirements.

Overall, this acquisition represents exactly the type of growth we prioritize, scalable, fee-based, capital-light and accretive, reinforcing Alpha Bank's leadership in wealth management and positioning the group to capture long-term structural growth in private wealth, both domestically and offshore.

Let's now turn to the outlook, starting with Page 9. We need to be cognizant of the fact that 2026 is a transitional year for us. We're very much focused on integrating the acquired entities, both quite reasonably, we will not see the full benefit of the expected synergies from year 1. The bottom line is that we expect to deliver 11% growth in normalized earnings. Credible, recurring earnings growth is the natural outcome of our strategy and what we believe will continue to differentiate us going forward.

Now on Slide 10, we present the model that is driving this earnings growth. We're fortunate to operate in a conducive macro environment, yet our earnings growth is not simply driven by cyclical tailwinds or one-off optimization. Our structurally differentiated operating model is built around deep client relationships, capital-light revenue expansion and disciplined execution. That is what drives superior earnings growth. The model rests on full mutually reinforcing pillars.

First, Alpha Bank is evolving into the only truly universal business bank in Greece and the region, combining relationship banking debt with the breadth of our advisory, capital markets and transaction services that no domestic beer can replicate in an integrated way. The core advantage lies in share of wallet capture. Our offering extends beyond lending into investment banking, also transaction banking, trade finance, structured products and cross-border solutions, converting existing relationships into recurring capital-light fee income.

The AXIA acquisition gives us a vertically integrated investment banking and capital market platform, enabling clients to access M&A advisory and market-based financing in a single conversation, activities that historically migrated into -- migrated entirely to international banks. This structurally upgrades revenue mix and improves returns across the wholesale portfolio. Transaction banking is being strategically scaled to close the historic gap between our lending market share and fee penetration, transforming credit relationships into durable annuity type revenues.

Shipping in Cyprus act as proof points demonstrating that the model already works on scale, deep, long-standing relationships supported by multiproduct coverage, cross-border reach and disciplined balance sheet usage. Our corporate offering leads to higher fee income growth, improved capital efficiency and reduced volatility versus pure lending-led models.

Second, we are moving from a transaction-led retail offering to financial planning at scale. A single integrated wealth engine serves all segments, combining asset management structure products, discretionary mandates, pension, bancassurance and cross-border booking through Cyprus, Luxembourg and London. This democratizes private banking quality services while retaining operating leverage and cost discipline. The defining advantage is the introduction of a retail advisory capability and early mover in Greece. This allows our relationship managers to proactively advise clients, accelerating the penetration of investments in advisory mandates and shifting revenues from transactional to recurring fee-based income.

The model is built on a unified financial planning framework, ensuring consistent penetration across the existing and new client bases. Alpha Bank's existing best-in-class gold segment, investment penetration demonstrates both the credibility of the model and the remaining upside across underserved segments. Again, this second engine leads to fee income growth, lower RWA intensity and more predictable earnings through higher recurring revenues.

Third, our growth will be accelerated and amplified by our partnership with UniCredit. This is a permanent structural advantage we have and a structural accelerator embedded across both revenue engines. UniCredit provides proven factories, balance sheet scale and cross-border reach that is hard to replicate organically, immediately expanding the addressable wallet of both corporate and wealth clients. For corporates, it enables participation in large-scale cross-border and complex financings while also allowing Alpha Bank to bring international capabilities into domestic mandates that exceed local balance sheet limits.

For individuals and wealth clients, UniCredit broadens the investment product shelf and strengthens wealth capabilities, reinforcing fee growth without proportional capital consumption. Importantly, the partnership is positioned as enduring, embedded in daily client coverage, revenue generation and strategic planning rather than dependent on episodic initiatives. It leads to faster revenue scaling, higher value client engagement and enhanced competitiveness versus peers.

And fourth, our growth engines are funded and sustained by a performance-led operating model. We have already demonstrated delivery credibility, reducing our cost-to-income ratio from 54% to below 4%, with further productivity gains embedded in the forward plan. Our investments in technology focus, on measurable financial outcomes, process automation, cross-selling uplift through -- Next Gen action engines and risk reduction directly supporting revenue growth while protecting asset quality, but also a refreshed people model links career mobility, targeted learning and performance incentives explicitly to commercial outcomes with enhanced relationship management productivity treated as a core earnings lever.

The result is a model where efficiency gains fund growth in investments, preserving discipline while enabling scale. This model delivers structurally higher returns, operating leverage and sustained EPS compounding. Our earnings growth is driven by a coherent systems, deeper client coverage, capital-light fee expansion, permanent external acceleration and disciplined execution. This combination underpins faster compounding of EPS, tangible book value and shareholder distribution than peers, even where point in time profitability metrics temporarily converge rather than lead. It also comes with enhanced diversification, both in terms of an increasing share of fees, but also in terms of sourced assets due to higher growth in our international insurance and real estate businesses.

And last from my side, on Slide 11, on how we create and return value to shareholders. We have been deliberate and consistent in how we think about capital allocation. And our framework and [indiscernible] within it remains very clear and unchanged. Our first and foremost priority is to fund profitable loan growth. Loan growth in Greece continues to show solid resilience with corporate lending firmly leading the way. This is a reflection of strong underlying fundamentals, and active investment cycle and increasing corporate engagement with the banking system.

We are deploying capital where returns are attractive, while remaining disciplined in underwriting, particularly in a competitive large-cap corporate environment. This allows us to grow the balance sheet without compromising profitability, ensuring that capital is deployed where it generates sustainable value.

Beyond lending, our investments in transaction banking, trade finance, asset management and advisory businesses are strengthening the quality of our earnings growth with diversified revenue streams, enhancing the durability and visibility of earnings.

Second, our capital generation capacity supports higher and sustainable shareholder payouts. The strength of our earnings growth is giving us confidence that distribution should continue to increase over time, underpinned by strong capital generation through the cycle. As a result, we are currently accruing aligned with our objectives of delivering predictable and growing returns to shareholders. This is reflected in our actions. We initiated dividends conservatively, scale them rapidly as confidence grew and have now embedded a higher payout as part of our capital planning.

The introduction of an interim dividend further reinforces both our confidence in the outlook and our disciplined approach to capital deployment. Share buybacks remain an important complementary tool, particularly in periods of market dislocation, and we continue to assess the optimal mix between cash returns and buybacks based on market conditions and relative returns. And last but not least, our excess capital provides us with significant firepower and increased strategic flexibility. So far, this is come in the form of value-accretive M&A, but where appropriate, we may consider extraordinary distributions.

The recent bolt-on acquisitions are a textbook illustration of this approach, highly selective, strategically aligned, earnings accretive and capital efficient. This way, we can balance between rewarding shareholders with good returns, while at the same time, keeping firepower to grow EPS through M&A.

And with that, Vassili, over to you.

Thank you, Vassili, and hello from my side as well.

Let's go through the P&L overview on Slide 13, please. Reported profit came in at EUR 182 million this quarter, while on a normalized basis, profit stood at EUR 221 million. We have a couple of notable items this quarter that are worth flagging. First, as discussed during our full year results, in Q1, we have conducted the Voluntary Separation Scheme of EUR 47 million. The cost has come in above our original guidance of EUR 30 million. This is largely due to higher than anticipated participation coming in at circa 350 employees as well as to a lesser extent, a higher proportion of more expensive extended.

The higher the cost has come to a higher benefit of circa EUR 15 million, meaning that the payback remains at circa 3 years, outperforming similar product programs in the market. The additional gains of the program are fully aligned with the performance-led operating model described by Vassili earlier, front-loading part of the enveloping visits for the upcoming business plan.

Second, although not evident on the slide, income from associates is coming at negative EUR 6 million this quarter, significantly below the run rate required to reach our EUR 50 million annual guidance. This has come in part due to a goodwill write-down at Nexi and in part due to provision top-up in Romania. I need to make one thing absolutely clear, we have already identified mitigant actions to offset the negative ones that we had this quarter. So our full year guidance of EUR 950 million in reported profits and EUR 0.40 of EPS remains firm.

With that, let's move to the next slide and talk about the underlying results and the main P&L items. Operating income was up 1% quarter-on-quarter, with growth in NII and fees and solid levels of recurring client trading activity, partly offset by lower real estate related revaluation gains. On cost, we had a stellar performance with cost-to-income ratio of 39%, in line with guidance. Headline growth rates are affected by M&A. So on an underlying basis, excluding M&A, recurring operating expenses actually decreased by 3.1% versus Q4.

We had a normal quarter for impairment losses coming in at EUR 48 million or 44 basis points. It was already spoken about the bottom line. So let's move to the next slide and the balance sheet. Solid start to the year with performing loans up 2% in the quarter. and still with double digit year-on-year. Clearly, this is above our high single-digit guidance for the year. For customer funds, the headline picture is positively affected by a single ticket transfer, EUR 5.8 billion. But even on an underlying basis, we have inflows to deposits during what is a typically seasonally weak quarter and a good pace in net sales. Obviously, the mild [indiscernible] is affected by our valuation effects, but has since reverted.

Tangible book value, up 2% in the quarter and up 10% year-on-year. On capital, we stand at 14.7% in terms of fully loaded CET1, down versus Q4 on account of RWA.

On Slide 16, we show 2 main components of revenue. Net interest income was up for another quarter, continuing the upward trajectory. Looking at the quarterly performance, there are 2 effects that we need to keep in mind. First, we had 2 less calendar days, costing us about EUR 9 million. And second, we had Alpha Bank for another adding a bit more than EUR 5 million. So on an underlying basis, net interest income is actually up 2.2% this quarter.

Driving forces behind this underlying growth. To start with, performing loans continue to have a strong positive contribution on the back of volume growth, which is lost in this picture due to the calendar date effect. Deposits also had a small positive contribution on account of repricing. Contribution of the bond portfolio is also increasing, equally attributable to volumes and the increase of the yield of the book on account of reinvestments, something that has been flagged repeatedly.

So the only headwind this quarter has been the wholesale funding side due to increased issuance. From an interest rate perspective, we remain positively geared with earnings supported by the structural positioning of our balance sheet. Our sensitivity stands at about EUR 1 for every basis point increase in Euribor, million euros. When it comes to the securities portfolio, we have mentioned that we have space to increase it in size and additionally, we have EUR 3.5 billion of maturities over the next 2 years. In the current market context, characterized by a period of volatility, this approach allows us to selectively deploy liquidity at improved spreads supporting NII resilience over the medium term.

During the first quarter, and given the volatile environment, we maintained a defensive stance and refrained on front-loading purchases. This stance has paid off since both swap curves and NII spreads have widened since the beginning of the year. Now there are ample buying opportunities at the right levels.

On the fee side, the M&A impact is less pronounced, so we're still up 4.5% versus last quarter and up on, quite frankly, stellar 20% year-on-year. The underlying quarterly performance is even more striking if one considers that in Q4, we had a EUR 4 million performance fee in asset management and received a EUR 5 million dividend from Frode. We have been able to sustain a high level of business credit-related fees despite the natural drop in disbursements showing the breadth of our product offering.

Our asset management business has benefited from a higher starting point for AUMs, offsetting the impact of transaction activity from volatility in the markets.

Bancassurance is up to EUR 7 million, and you can get a first stage of benefit from having AXIA on board in our investment banking fees and other fees. Overall, very happy with where our core revenues are progressing and confident for our full year guidance above EUR 2.4 billion in operating income.

Moving on to Slide 17 to look at loans and customer funds. Performing loan balances reached EUR 38.2 billion, up 2%, with EUR 0.5 billion net credit expansion in the quarter. Disbursements amounted to EUR 3.2 billion, obviously slower than the very strong fourth quarter, but a solid start of the year in line with expectations.

On customer funds, we're back in the sectoral trend deposits this quarter with growth of circa EUR 300 million. On AUMs, we continue to see good underlying net sales up EUR 200 million this quarter despite the market turmoil. On valuation other, we obviously haven't defined gravity. The March snapshot was significantly affected by negative valuation effects that have since reverted. The reason that this doesn't show up in the numbers is that we had a nice inflow of a single ticket EUR 5.8 billion this quarter.

Slide 18 on asset quality. The NPE ratio came in at 3.7%, coverage ratio landed at 55%. The underlying picture remains solid, and we're not particularly concerned with flows that should be evident by the underlying cost of risk that stood at 29 basis points this quarter. Retail inflows were seen primarily reflect proactive restructuring actions to stabilize cash flows, which we expect to cure over the planned horizon. Coverage calibrated to involving risk profile and supported by continued strong collections in cures. We don't expect any meaningful surprises in the coming quarter and our 44 basis points, we feel comfortable with the guidance of 45 basis points for the year.

Finally, Slide 19 on capital. This quarter, we had 25 basis points of organic capital generation. RWA growth was slightly higher than expected in part as some SRPs are rolling off, real estate investments and an increase in market risk limits to capitalize on market making opportunities. Transaction-related impact here relates mainly to BSS. And then also, we have a payout accrual of 55%, including DC acceleration. All-in, CET1 ratio stands at 14.7% on a fully loaded basis or 15% on a transitional basis.

With that now, let's now open the floor for questions.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from the line of Ben Caven-Roberts with Goldman Sachs.

Just two for me, please. So to follow up on the fee comments and the strong performance in Q1. It didn't sound like there was anything nonrecurring there. So I just wanted to check if there are any more color you would give in terms of how you see that fee profile evolving over the remainder of the year and if there are upside or downside risks in terms of the shape of that trajectory?

And then secondly, just as a follow-up to your helpful comments on the macro situation. I recognize you highlighted the duration of the Middle East conflict is key. But following performing loans being up double digit year-on-year in Q1, is there any more color you'd provide on how conversations have been with clients on the pipeline for the remainder of the year and whether you'd expect any lengthening of the conflict to be more impactful to your 2026 or 2027 pipeline? And if there are any offsets that could help mitigate impacts?

Vassili to -- both Vassili, CFO to go first on the evolution of the guidance for the year and then from the CEO on the macro point.

No, you -- confirm your understanding on the business, not much of a nonrecurring item there. The only thing to note on Page 16 is that you will note real estate income will have some volatility. So we don't expect subsequent quarters to run at the EUR 4 million run rate per quarter, higher -- we expect a higher number than that. The reason is that what we call a property tax increase, it's called Enfia is typically printed in Q1. So you should expect this number to go up in the upcoming quarters. But the rest, as you rightly mentioned are recurring.

There is, obviously, seasonality. So typically, our Q4 numbers are higher than the rest, but other than that, there's nothing nonrecurring in the Q1 numbers.

And just as a reminder, the guidance for the year is for above EUR 600 million in fees. Going on to the macro. I think you would all agree that we are confronted with an unprecedented situation. And still, there are many things that the outcome can vary significantly. Our clients obviously couldn't be different in their approach to that. What we see at the moment is, number one, a very strong focus as the RF has come to an end and everyone was held on to meet deadlines. Not all of our clients made it, which means that there's going to be some tail, which would need to be financed from -- directly from banking sources.

Therefore, about 50%, that would belong to RF that would come to a good extent from bank financing that's for the short term. I think for the medium term, Greece is in the second trend, as we have seen over the past few years. Confidence has returned. So there are ample of investment opportunities in Greece and the confidence, both from Greek and foreign operators in specific sectors we expect that to continue.

Now the pacing of it, the timing of it may differ depending on the outcome, the final outcome, both of the events relating to the geopolitical crisis as well as also to the ripple effect that relate on the one hand to the inflation on the other hand, also to the reaction that we may see from the monetary authorities. So I think all in all, Greece, as I have said in the introduction, is well equipped on the one hand, for the public side and thus for the individuals through the significant fiscal buffers. And on the other hand, on the corporate side, through the significant cash buffers and also lowish leverage that they have. So let's see how this plays out.

The next question comes from the line of Gabor Kemeny with Autonomous Research.

The first question is on NII, please, on your updated rate sensitivity EUR 20 million. I believe this is a bit higher than it was before. Is this just a function of balance sheet growth? And are you taking any action to gear your balance sheet towards the expected euro rate hikes? That's the first one. On the -- another question on NII, on your securities. What sort of NII tailwinds sharing model from your securities portfolio? I think you talked about EUR 3.5 billion of maturities this year. I would be interested to hear how much of a support could you NII get from this portfolio in '26 and '27?

My other question will be on your fee income, and in particular, this EUR 5.8 billion of single ticket. Do you consider the sticky or rather transitory? And to what extent has the related fee income has been reflected in your first quarter performance? And my last question would be on politics and Cyprus elections are coming up in a few days. Do you have any view on how the outcome may impact your operating environment there?

Let me clear a couple of the things. Of the single ticket that has come in is what you call sticky or at least we expect it to remain with the bank, it has not had a material contribution to the first quarter results. It hasn't had any contribution to the first quarter results. But at the same time, given its nature, we don't expect to have a material contribution to fees.

On the rate sensitivity, although the easy part, which is the backward looking, it has increased passively on account of the inflow of floating rate assets on our balance sheet. And I'll leave our CFO to comment on the forward-looking aspects of whether we're gearing up for higher interest rates and on the securities portfolio, what is the tailwinds that we have to NII from there and then our CEO will take the question on politics.

Sure. Thank you, Iason. I mean on the NII, as Iason mentioned, what's happening is that the balance sheet is growing is typically wholesale lending, which are floating rate instruments, and we don't actively hedge them as with us to do that when the rates when the environment was different. I mean just to give you a sense, our fixed rate assets to liabilities have decreased from 84% to 71%. That's part of that is the balance sheet growth and another part of nonrenewing the interest rate swaps.

Now when it comes to the outcome, I would prefer to stay firm up the EUR 1.7 billion we've given you for '26 and when it comes to the outer years, it clearly depends on the level of rates that you assume. Obviously, if you remember, much of our base rate environment was assumed at the 2% for 2026. If I remember correctly, the base rates that other Greek banks have circulated for '27, '28, where maybe 20 basis points higher.

So if you try to factor in a higher interest rate for the planned horizon, that should give you a bit higher NII for the sector. Our sensitivity, as we mentioned, is around EUR 20 million for 25 basis points, and we expect this to increase a bit in the coming quarters, but not massively. I hope, Gabor, that answers the question.

On the final point -- on the final point on politics. Well, what we have heard from the Prime Minister is that the elections should happen in 2027 and they are scheduled to happen towards the latter end of the first half, but given that we're going to be having the presidency of the European Union in the second half, I think one sensibly would expect to have a later towards the first part or the first semester.

Now as far as news flow on that is concerned, what we're witnessing is an increased willingness from leaders to establish new parties. I mean this -- some of them are new faces. Some are not that new. But in any case, structurally, what this may mean is that the more parties you have participating in the elections, and that's the second condition, they don't make the 3% that means that the bar for creating a single-party government is going to be lowering from the 38%.

So I think if anything, that potentially may be a tailwind for the government parties. Now in terms of the impact on the operating environment, I think the clients -- our clients are much more focused on what will happen at global scale. So the politics -- in-country politics are not really something that we see them impacting in any shape or form. The agenda that obviously may change as we come closer to the announcement or when the elections may be announced, but I think we have some good breathing space to that point.

Was there a public discussion about the bank taxes?

In terms of banking taxes, if there's been any discussion.

Well, as you do know, devaluation and one-off taxes are those things that are never discussed before. What I can sense is that as it was the case in last year, the dialogue that we have with the government does not lead us to believe that we may be faced with such an adverse event. So in my book, there are no extraordinary taxes in sight.

And then we also do one answer on the securities book. So back to the CFO. What is the NII uplift that we expect from reinvestments and the growth there?

I mean, effectively, Gabor, there we keep going on the around about EUR 1.5 billion reinvestments per year for the planning horizon. The spread for this quarter has increased by around about 15 basis points on the securities book. So the very fact that we're going to be able to do these reinvestments at a better rate environment allows us to be more optimistic on the NII contribution from this book. So I would say, yes, there is a bit of a tailwind on these numbers as we move along.

The next question comes from the line of Alex Kantarovich with Roemer Capital.

Thank you for a very interesting presentation on the numbers, still good, revenue strong. Just a couple of follow-up questions. I noticed a nice increase in the international loan book. Can you please give us a little bit of color to what extent this is organic or any details that you can share. That's my first question. And the second, in the presentation, you mentioned extraordinary dividends. And could you please give us some more detail, if possible, and also refresh my memory, what levels of payout you are looking at in 2027?

I think both of those are for our CFO.

Thank you, Iason. Alex, the first one on international, I guess you're referring primarily to the Q4 number. So the international book has grown significantly from Q3 to Q4, and that is primarily the inclusion on AstroBank but more on underlying trends the book has grown by another EUR 100 million in Q1. This is -- this quarter, this is primarily on account of around about 2/3 of our Cyprus book and 1/3, the syndicated market on our wholesale book. So syndications we're doing with the likes of UniCredit in Central Europe. So that's more of the trend, if you like, on this book.

On the extraordinary dividend, by definition, I would say, this is something which is extraordinary. So not something I can give you firm guidance what we see is our current regular accrual of 55% allows us both to fund -- to keep our capital framework, as Vassili mentioned it, so allow us to fund our loan profitability -- our loan book to be able to give a very firm remuneration to our shareholders and keep flexibility for -- on capital for -- on account of new opportunities. So sorry to disappoint you, I'm not going to announce an extraordinary dividend on this call.

The next question comes from the line of Cihan Saraoglu with HSBC.

First one is with regards to RWA growth. You explained this pipe. I couldn't catch it completely. RWA growth seems to be much faster than credit growth in the quarter? So what's the reason for that? And then with regards to common equity Tier 1, I realized that in the last almost 12 months or so, Community Equity Tier 1 has been more or less stable, maybe it grew by low single digit or so despite very good profitability. So what seems to be the drag there, if you can shed some light on that?

And with regards to asset quality, cost of risk, you obviously changed your macro forecasts. Have you reflected those in your IFRS 9 model? So this 44 basis points of cost of risk, does it also reflect the change in macro?

Lots of work for our CFO there. So if you can repeat the comments on RWA.

Sure. Now on RWA growth, you're right to point out that the RWA growth this quarter was higher than the -- what would imply the loan book. There's 2 -- there's 3 additional elements there. One is that we've had an SRP, which has effectively phased out where we likely replenish it in Q3. So the benefit out of this RWA relief, we will sit back around about Q3. The second is that as we see also on our fee income line, there is significant growth in our rental income that requires real estate investments, and these also absorb a good part of the RWA growth this quarter.

Last but not least, as all of you are aware, this has been a pretty volatile quarter in the market. That has created market-making opportunities for our brokerage firm for our brokerage and AXIA business. Effectively, what we do there is that we increase limits so that we can provide more market-making opportunities in the market. So again, to be very clear, we do not take principal risk. We increased limits. We do not take any delta risk. We just are able to bridge in data are volatile, be it in the fixed income or the equity markets and there's some good trading gains there that we have posted this quarter.

So that sort of puts down what has happened on the RWA growth and how it's linked to the business. On your third one, as I remember the top of my head, the cost of risk in the IFRS model, yes, we have adjusted the scenarios. We have increased the downside scenario by 5%. We have decreased the positive scenario by equivalent amount. The cost of that has been EUR 10 million and is incorporated in our organic cost of risk. So fair to say that the -- the other part was even lower. We will keep continuing looking at the macro situation and adjust it, not necessarily in the next quarter.

Last but not least, on CET1, you mentioned that CET1 growth is not very high on a quarter-to-quarter basis. If I understand your...

Sorry, yes, my question was that CET1 growth over the last 12 months has been relatively subdued when I look at your numbers. Am I looking at -- Am I reading it correct? Or if I'm reading it correct, what's the reason behind that?

I think we should be taking some of that offline. I think much of that has to do with M&A. If you look at the year-on-year numbers, I don't have it in hand in front of me, but let's take it offline and hopefully be able to answer this question. But my recollection is that organic capital generation is pretty much on track and the very fact that we have been done doing some almost 100 basis points of M&A has obviously depleted our capital -- our CET1 ratio, all the investments we've done for AXIA, Astrobank FlexFin, et cetera.

The next question comes from the line of Mehmet Sevim with JPMorgan.

Just one question from me. And this is with regards to your recognition of some of the pain mortgages as Stage 3. I noticed that last quarter, you had about EUR 70 million. This quarter, the baton seems to be at EUR 219 million as per the footnotes. And you mentioned that it's as a result of a bank initiated reprofiling. I was just wondering what's driving this and given the number seems to have increased this quarter, whether you expect any further inclusions there and whether you would expect this to be recognized in the NPE balances at some point?

Sure. Thank you for the question. Not really. We don't expect it just to get the bottom it to be recognized in the NPE numbers. But let me take this opportunity to explain what is happening there. For starters, this is a book of fully performing mortgages. So these are clients that have been with us for 8, 9 years, fully season mortgages fully paying. Effectively, what we're doing with these clients is that we are taking a preemptive step to reprofile their debt so that what's happening nowadays, they are able to withstand to keep being -- paying customers, but basically converting floating rates to fixed rates.

Effectively, what this does from an accounting point of view is that it triggers a transition to Stage 3 loans but as I said, these customers have been paying, are paying, we think will continue to pay. So what you would expect to see in the coming years is a deflation of the Stage III loans, but you wouldn't see much movement out of that very minor movements in the NPE ratio, I mean, the decrease in NPE ratio. That hopefully answers your question.

The next question comes from the line of Miguel Dias with Golden Co.

Most of them have been already answered. Just have two final questions. One is regarding the Alpha Trust, you were guiding for EPS accretion of 1%. My question is, is this just for half year of 26 or for the full year '27? And the second one relates to VSS costs, just to try to get a sense if you are done bookings costs for the year?

On Alpha Trust, the EPS uplift that we are showing is on a fully integrated basis. So it's relevant for 2027. Given the timing of the deal, there's not going to be a very material contribution during 2026. And on the cost about VSS programs, Vassili?

On the cost of the VSS program, this has been a base program for Greece. It has closed. So we should not expect any charges for the rest of the year. I need though to remind people that there is an additional EUR 20 million charge that we have guided as restructuring charges for AstroBank and part of that will be VSS. But as I said, this is planned for Q2, maybe Q3. I think the most important thing, which I mentioned during my presentation on all these items is that these items are expected and even the bit is not expected the increase in the VSS.

In Q1, we have already a plan to fully mitigate this. So our guidance for EUR 950 million remains fully firm.

And if we can have a final question because we're -- we've already overrun.

The next question comes from the line of Luis Garrido with Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Three quick questions for me, if I may. First, on NII and the outlook in this after the Iran war. Do you have a good sense of what the net impact might be when you consider volumes and pricing? And then secondly, on the SRT point that you mentioned, could you give us some sense of what the impact would be on your capital if all of the SRTs were to drop today or at least give us some sense of how these transactions are phased across time? And finally, if you could give us some color just on how your shipping clients are performing, what they're telling you? Is it that they're simply benefiting from higher freight rates? Or is the picture a bit more nuanced by asset class?

Okay. Let's hear a couple of those. The SRT impact is about 50 basis points, and it's going to be a good number of years for that to drop off. I think it's 5, if I remember correctly. On the NII outlook around the world, we've mentioned that obviously, we have one side effect of the work is higher interest rates, we have a positive sensitivity depending on what you expect, you could see between 40 or a bit more in terms of NII. We've already said that we don't see any impact on the pipeline.

So for the time being, it would be a minor positive on NII. And with that, Vassili, if you want to comment on the shipping clients performance.

Well, shipping mood is utterly correlated with volatility. So this volatility, obviously, is playing well into their hands. Those that are energy-related tankers and LNG obviously have a much better situation, mostly tankers. But also, we have seen recently bulk freight as well as also container frames picking up. So I think they are in a very good mood. And that comes after a very dense, strict, of significant profitability that they've experienced over the past 4 to 5 years. So they are really, really in good shape.

Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the conference over to management for any closing comments. Thank you.

Well, thank you very much for your strong engagement and participation in this quarter results. And we are truly looking forward to speaking to you again with our first half results towards the end of July, where we're quite sure that plentiful of things would have happened up to that point. Thank you very much. See you then.

Ladies and gentlemen, the conference has now concluded, and you may disconnect your telephone. Thank you for calling, and have a pleasant evening.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I am Yoda, your Chorus Call operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Alpha Bank conference call to present and discuss the full year 2025 financial results. [Operator Instructions] And the conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions]

At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Alpha Bank management. Gentlemen, you may now proceed.

Hello, everyone. This is Iason Kepaptsoglou, Alpha Bank's Head of IR. Welcome to the presentation of our full year results. Vassilios Psaltis, our CEO, will lead the call as ever with a short summary, and then it's over to Vassilios Kosmas, our CFO, for the numbers. Q&A will come at the end of the call, and we should wrap up within the hour. Vassili, over to you.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our call. Let's start with an overview of 2025 on Slide 4, please. For 2025, we recorded EUR 943 million profit. This is up 44% versus last year. On a normalized basis, profit stood at EUR 907 million, up 5% year-on-year. Post AT1 coupon payments, earnings came at EUR 0.36 per share, and this is up 3%.

We're proud of the growth we have been able to deliver. On the one hand, we have defended against the fall of interest rates due to our prudent positioning of the balance sheet. On top, we have leveled up our fee generation capacity enhancing our product factories. But at the same time, we have kept costs well contained as we continue to optimize the way we work and we have managed to instigate a lower recurring cost of risk through management actions and the overlays taken at the end of the second quarter.

Growth has come with solid commercial trends. As you can see, net credit expansion reached EUR 3.5 billion for the year, and this is driven by corporates. Deposits were up EUR 4 billion for the year, and we have generated EUR 1.3 billion in net sales of assets under management.

Thus by asset quality was stable. Return on tangible equity stood at 11.9% on a reported basis and 13.8% based on a normalized profits, while organic capital generation reached 206 basis points. We continue to position the business to maximize the recurring value we can create for our stakeholders in a sustainable way.

And that value is increasingly distributed back to shareholders, as you can see on Slide 5. Here, you can depict that we intend to pay 55% of 2025 reported profits as an ordinary distribution, always subject to AGM and regulatory approval. That equates to EUR 519 million in distributions, which is a 6.1% yield on our current market cap.

Since the reinitiation of dividends out of 2023 profits, we have been able to increase the payout ratio from 20% to 43% and now 55% with ordinary distributions up fourfold in euro million terms. We intend to split the 2025 ordinary payout equally between a cash dividend and a buyback. At EUR 259 million, this means that total cash distributions for 2025 profits will be more than 3x those of last year. Given the EUR 111 million interim dividend paid in December, the final dividend should be EUR 148 million or approximately EUR 0.065 per share.

At EUR 259 million, the size of the proposed buyback is proportional to the one conducted out of 2024 earnings. It is also in line with feedback we have received from a wide range of shareholders. In 2025, we have also built a demonstrable track record of disciplined capital deployment in inorganic transactions, as you can see on Slide 6.

AstroBank added scale to our separate presence, instantly positioning us as a top 3 bank in the country with a circa 10% market share and doubling local profitability while remaining in being neutral and CET1 right.

Flexfin enhanced our data-driven factoring platform, unlocking access to small businesses and lower tier SMEs with a strong risk-adjusted returns and EPS accretion from year 1.

AXIA forms the backbone of our new regional investment banking and capital markets platform, bringing market-leading advisory capabilities and immediate scale in Greece and Cyprus.

All of the above transactions have now been closed, and we are progressing swiftly with full integration. We finished the year announcing 1 more deal which we can look at in more detail on Slide 7.

Alpha Bank has reached an agreement on the key commercial and legal terms for a transformational combination of insurance activities in Cyprus, bringing together Universal Life and Altius Insurance. The agreement comprises of 2 parallel steps. The acquisition of 100% of our Altius Insurance and the merger of Universal Life and Altius into a single combined entity in which Alpha Bank Group will acquire a majority stake.

To support execution and ensure continuity, we are forming a long-term strategic partnership with the Photos Photiades Group, Universal's Cornerstone shareholder. The Altius management team, which has delivered an impressive turnaround in the recent years, remains fully committed, and this is materially reducing any integration risk. Completion is expected towards the end of 2026, subject to regulatory approvals.

We will keep investors updated as the process progresses in line with all legal requirements. This transaction will create one of the top insurance group in the country with a leadership position in accident and health and a clear path to long-term growth. The combination creates a platform with over 400 agents and more than 100,000 clients more than doubling our cross-selling potential for banking products and boosting our asset management revenues.

It also allows us to actively shape the separate insurance market, building a powerful diversified insurance platform with strong positions across life, non-life and health. Universal brings an impeccable brand and deep expertise in life and health, whilst Altius contributes strong non-life capabilities, Bancassurance expertise and a high-performing sales force.

The combined strength of the 2 franchises unlock a clear winning proposition, a broader, more competitive product suite, a more extensive distribution network, a stronger ability to serve households and businesses and an enhance customer experience and digital capabilities.

These partnerships offers a rare opportunity to build the best quality insurance group in Cyprus, supported by exceptional talent from both Universal and Altius. It positions us as a major player in financial services with a scalable insurance platform, complementing our lending and wealth positions. It reinforces Alpha Bank's enduring commitment to Cyprus, a market where we already hold a strong banking presence and see attractive macro prospects.

From a financial perspective, the transaction is fully aligned with our disciplined capital allocation framework and exceeds all group level M&A criteria. It delivers an EPS accretion of circa 2%, reflecting a strong profit uplift from Cyprus, a return on tangible equity accretion above 30 basis points and a minimal cost for equity Tier 1 impact of just 23 basis points consistent with our commitments. This is exactly the type of capital-light fee-based growth we aim to prioritize, scalable, accretive, resilient and consistent with our long-term strategy.

Let's now turn to Slide 8, please. For yet another year, we have delivered on our promises. Results for 2025 have surpassed our original expectations. Revenues have come in line with guidance, and we have been able to counteract exogenous headwinds to our net interest income through a significant outperformance in fees. Costs have also come in line with guidance, showing our disciplined approach to cost management and cost of risk has been better than expected, as during the second quarter, we were able to reduce management overlays on provisions, releasing future cost of risk.

The bottom line is that on EPS, on returns, on tangible book value and capital generation, we have been able to surpass expectations. At the same time, capital has been invested through value-accretive M&A to boost future revenues.

Let's now turn to Slide 9, please. As you can understand, we're going to be a bit frugal with guidance this time around as our Investor Day is just around the corner. Vassilios, our CFO, will give you more details on the numbers in a minute, but I would like to highlight 1 or 2 things.

First, 2025 was a fantastic year for us. We have been fortunate to produce more than EUR 940 million profits for our shareholders. But admittedly, our recurring profitability stood closer to EUR 907 million. Secondly, we have -- we need to be cognizant of the fact that 2026 is a transitional year for us.

We are razor focused on integrating the acquired entities, but quite reasonably, we will not see the full benefit of the effect of synergies from year 1. The bottom line is that we expect to deliver 11% growth on normalized earnings. Credible recurring earnings growth is the natural outcome of our strategy and what we believe will continue to differentiate us going forward. The rest I'm afraid we'll have to wait until our Investor Day.

And with that, Vassili, over to you.

Thank you, Vassili, and hello from my side. I'll start from where you left and talk about the guidance for 2026, and then we can move to results. Starting with the bottom line, we expect EPS to reach circa EUR 0.40 in 2026. Remember that this is on a normalized basis post 81 coupons. To make things easier, this translates into profit of circa EUR 950 million or circa EUR 0.39 of reported EPS, in line with current consensus expectations.

Before we look at the recurring side, let's keep in mind of some one-offs to take into account. We have a voluntary separation scheme that we expect will cost us about EUR 30 million and we also need to take into account a EUR 20 million restructuring charge for AstroBank. So underlying profits are close to the EUR 1 billion mark. Just to be clear, it is before the full phasing of synergies from our positions. In terms of individual components, NII is expected to surpass EUR 1.7 billion.

We're cautiously assuming a 3-month Euribor of 1.9. Clearly, volumes will be a tailwind. We expect mid- to high single-digit growth in loans with circa 90% of credit expansion coming from corporates. We expect this growth to be funded by deposits with no real change in the mix between time and core.

We also aim to grow the securities book closer to the 25% mark of the asset base. The other, with EUR 1.5 billion of yield accretive reinvestments we have, the securities book will provide an additional tailwind. The stock of time deposits will also continue to reprice towards front book levels with a benefit of circa EUR 20 million from Q4.

All in, the cumulative benefit of the above equates to circa EUR 120 million versus Q4 annualized NII levels after we adjust for AstroBank. There are, however, 2 clear headwinds. The first is the cost of increased wholesale funding issuance as we grow the balance sheet.

The second and equally important is that we expect loan spreads to drift lower for the stock by another 10 basis points on account of competitive tension. Fees should land close to EUR 600 million mark versus EUR 510 million we reported for 2025. There are a couple of important things to note here.

In organic growth, mainly coming from AstroBank and AXIA should bring in about EUR 30 million more year-on-year. So the pro forma starting base closer to EUR 540 million, we expect to grow that at a double-digit rate. Growth in real estate income previously in other income should bring in more -- should bring in more than EUR 10 million year-on-year on account of recent investments.

The remaining EUR 50 million is split between lending and transaction banking, circa EUR 20 million on account of increased penetration and corporate-related fees as we continue to leverage our relationship with UniCredit. Growth in asset management with EUR 1 billion of expected net sales and higher year-end balances, bringing together an additional EUR 20 million; and finally, international business and expansion capabilities as well account for the rest.

Based on the above, fees should reach to above 25% of revenues. While revenues should land above EUR 2.4 billion, growing by just under 10%. First, we expect to extract some synergies from the AstroBank acquisition. Those are more likely going to materialize in 2027.

As anticipated last year, we don't expect a repeat of admittedly stellar performance for 2025. So underlying cost growth should revert to 3% or 4%, with a cost-to-income ratio edging towards 40%. No news on cost of risk. We still expect 45 basis points going forward.

Income from associates would increase to EUR 50 million and that brings the pretax of slightly above EUR 1.3 billion. Last, in terms of tax rate, we expect 26% going forward.

Moving to results on Slide 11. Nothing notable to report in terms of one-off items other than some tails, et cetera NPE transactions. Reported normalized profits at EUR 237 million and EUR 225 million, respectively, inching towards the EUR 250 million mark. In terms of full year numbers, as Vassilios mentioned, we have EUR 943 million of reported profits and EUR 907 million on a reported basis. This gives us a normalized EPS of EUR 0.36.

With that, let's move to next slide and talk about the underlying results and the main P&L items. Operating income was up 12% quarter-on-quarter, largely driven by more normal quarter for trading as well as the addition of AstroBank for 2 months. If you exclude the effect of these 2 items, growth was still respectable 5% in the quarter on the back of solid performance for fees and I will get into that a bit. Overall revenues in line with our above EUR 2.2 billion guidance.

At EUR 233 million costs saw a significant uptick versus third quarter due to the anticipated seasonal effects as well as the inclusion of AstroBank. Overall, we still landed well within our EUR 870 million guidance for the year. Not sure one can find many banks in Europe who have achieved a decrease in absolute OpEx during 2025.

Impairments came in at EUR 62 million for the quarter, bringing the cost of risk to 58 basis points for the quarter and 48 basis points for the year versus our 45 bp guidance. I've already talked about profit. So let's move to the next slide on the balance sheet.

On Slide 13, strong finish for the year for performing loans, up 5% Q-on-Q, including AstroBank or 3% if we exclude it. Year-on-year, that same figure came in at 8.3%, better than the original guidance. Customer funds were also up 4% in the quarter or 1.4%, excluding the AstroBank with a year-on-year increase at 8.4%. Tangible book value down in the quarter, but if we had the interim dividend in the amount spend of buyback, it's actually up 2.1% and then on capital, we stand at 15% in terms of fully loaded CET1 down versus Q3 on account of the completed acquisitions.

On Slide 15, we show the 2 main components of revenues. NII was up for another quarter, continuing the upward trajectory. Most of the increase is attributable to consolidation of AstroBank. On the remainder, we continue to have good tailwinds from volumes on the loan side, while loan spreads continued to be a headwind. Most of the increase in contribution of the securities book came from AstroBank this quarter. Deposits continue to be a tailwind on account of repricing. And then in funding, we have average balances for debt outstanding, where this is counterbalanced by lower cost.

On the fee and commission side, I should first highlight that we have introduced a new accounting policy that looks at income from real estate separately, given it has now gained more significance in our footprint. On quarterly basis, and again, excluding AstroBank, fees were up 19%. In Euro million terms, the biggest delta was business credit-related fees, but we've also seen a very strong result in both asset management as well as real estate income.

Moving on to Slide 15 and take a look at loans and customer funds. Performing loan balances reached EUR 37.5 billion. This is up 5% on a headline basis or 3% including AstroBank with EUR 1.25 billion net credit expansion in the quarter. Another strong quarter with EUR 4.2 billion of disbursements and similar partners before with corporates, including SME, driving growth evenly spread out across sectors.

Year-to-date, net credit expansion has reached EUR 3.5 billion, clearly outperforming our guidance. Spreads continue to be under pressure, but we remain disciplined in our underwriting criteria. As such, we will avoid deals or refinancings that do not meet our own credit criteria and are not accretive to our shareholders.

Turning to customer funds, another quarter of solid growth, bringing the total for the year to EUR 4 billion, half of that attributable to AstroBank. Note that most of the outlook for corporates relates to bond placements we led at the end of the previous quarter, something that we have flagged at the time. On AUMs, we continue to see good underlying net sales, EUR 300 million this quarter, brings the total for the year to EUR 1.3 billion and AUM growth to 21% once we include valuation effects.

On asset quality, Slide 16. With the NPE ratio flat of 3.6%. Coverage ratio has edged higher to 58%. The underlying picture remains solid, and we have no particular delinquency with flows as should be evident by the underlying cost of risk that stood at 40 basis points this quarter. We don't expect any meaningful surprises in the coming quarters. And at 48 basis points for the year, we feel comfortable with a guidance of 45 going forward.

Then on Slide 17 on capital to finish it up. This quarter, we had 52 basis points for capital generation organically, and this includes everything, P&L, DPAs, the usual BDC amortization and RWA growth. This brings the total for the year to 206 basis points.

As I mentioned, we have increased the payout to 55%. So the impact this quarter also takes into account the increase for the preceding 9 months, with a total for the year amounting to 213 basis points, including BBC acceleration. All in, CET1 ratio stands at 15% on a fully loaded basis or 15.4% on transitional. We're also showing here on the right-hand side, the main components that bridge the 130 basis point gap to our original guidance of 16.3%, 70 basis points attributable to acquisitions, 50 coming from management actions we took in Q2 on provisions, taking advantage of the positive one-offs we had and 20 basis points as a result of a higher payout.

FYI, we have also provided you with a separate slide covering the main impact on the P&L and balance sheet from the 2 bigger acquisitions. With now, let's now open the floor for questions.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from the line of Kevin Roberts with Goldman Sachs.

Just 2 questions from me, please. First, on fees. And then secondly, on costs. So on the fees, clearly, a strong print in Q4. Could you elaborate a bit, please, on the key drivers that you see looking ahead through into 2026 and where you're particularly focused as a management team? And then secondly, on costs, could you just discuss how you anticipate that mix of costs evolving over 2026, in particular, where you're directing that investment, whether it's in tech, personnel, other strategic builds?

Thank you. Let me start with fees first. I think fees -- on the fee side, there's, I would say, 3 engines that have driven growth in 2025, and we expect this to continue in 2026. This have to do with assets under management. The very fact that we continue exploiting the relationship with UniCredit along with the franchise means that more and more people trust us with their investments. We expect this trend to continue in 2026.

Secondly, on transaction banking, we had a mix effect in 2025, a stress, if you like, a headwind on retail transaction fees from the government managers, which we do not expect in 2026, as this has been already absorbed and a headwind on corporate transaction fee, the very fact that we are able to offer solutions to our clients, which are unique, accessing all the 13 plus 1 UniCredit markets, which we expect to grow -- to continue growing in 2026.

Last but not least, real estate. This is something that we have invested heavily during 2025. As I mentioned, there's another EUR 10 million coming out from this line even on the investments that we have already been completed in the 2026 numbers.

Going to the cost side, I think we mentioned quite a few times in the past that Greek banks do face service inflation, both in staff costs and G&A that have to do with main suppliers. The -- this inflation is somewhere in the tune of 6% to 7%. I think this is very similar to what our peers have been showing.

In our case, we have been managing to drive this down to 0 this year or, let's call it, 3% to 4%, our guidance for next year. The way we do that is we actively manage the refreshing of personnel through voluntary exit schemes, a reminder we're already underway for 1 month ago. And secondly, on the technology side, we're investing in new applications. But at the same time, we're very active in discontinuing the legacy applications, hence, not carry the burden of maintaining the old applications. These are the drivers who we feel will keep containing this line to 3% to 4% over the planning horizon.

[Operator Instructions] Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the conference over to management for any closing comments. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. Short and sweet, as I would prefer it on a Friday. Everybody enjoy the weekends. I know it's been a long reporting season for everyone, and we're going to come back to you soon with the dates on the Investor Day. Thank you very much.

Ladies and gentlemen, the conference has now concluded, and you may disconnect the telephone. Thank you for calling, and have a pleasant evening.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Alpha Bank Innovation Day 2025, an event dedicated to the transformative world of artificial intelligence. We are here today because AI is fundamentally reshaping how we live, how we work and how we do business.

Throughout this evening, we'll exchange perspective explore real applications and highlight how Alpha Bank is at the forefront of this shift. We are driving meaningful change and are strengthening our role as a leading force in a rapidly evolving economy. A special highlight, of course, of today's event is the final stage of FinQuest. Alpha Banks International Innovation Competition. Our finalists will pitch their AI-powered solutions across diverse sectors from Agritech to fintech and beyond showcasing bold thinking and actionable innovation.

Later, we'll celebrate and reward the winning ideas those with the potential not just to improve the future but to actually redefine it. Our purpose today is to strengthen the innovation ecosystem through idea change inspiration across industries and international perspectives. We are very excited to welcome here today representatives from all major Greek banks, leading reorganizations members of Greek government innovative startups, venture capital firms and partners such as Microsoft, IBM, EPAM -- Accenture and Endeavor Greece. Innovation Day has been designed to spark dialogue, foster connections and highlight where the true value of AI lies.

We are pleased to begin today's program with a welcome from Alpha Bank Group's CEO of Vassilos Psaltis. Please join us on stage.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests partners and friends. Welcome to the Alpha Bank Innovation Day. This is our inaugural forum that builds on the success of the FinQuest competition to shape a broader dialogue on how the financial and fintech acquisition can be forward new ideas for making sure that we all are going to be enjoying a better future.

This is where bright minds on the 1 hand and bold ideas on the other hand, do come together to shape tomorrow. This year's team, which is using AI power for the future of finance and all that, we're going to be doing this together. This, in my mind, perfectly captures the notion, the spirit of where we're currently living in. It's a time where artificial intelligence and fintech innovation are converging, not only to transform how banks operate but to redefine the relationship between people, technology and trust.

Just a few years ago, Greece was taking its first step as far as the innovation arena is concerned. And today, look where we are, we're marching ahead in full speed. According actually to Endeavor Greece, Greek tech ecosystem is now valued at about EUR 12 billion, which is quite something if you compare to where we were 2 or 3 years back. Greek founders have raised $1.3 billion, both in terms of equity just in 2024, out of which $400 million were actually related to start-ups that were established and were run here in our country. This milestone marks a dynamic and resilient ecosystem. The innovation engine is running at a fast pace. And Alpha Bank is quite proud to provide the fuel to it.

We are collaborating with Movil, one of Greece's most promising innovators. We have acquired Flexfin, which is a digital factoring that provides factoring for SMEs. Our venture capital arm has already invested something like EUR 16 million directly and indirectly into the fintech space. But at the same time, we're looking forward towards tripling it to EUR 45 million by 2027.

At the same time, we do actively test fintech solutions. For example, we have run over 15 pilots with emerging fintechs just over the last 18 months. Each of this step is part of a clear vision. We want to blend the agility of the start-up world on the one hand with a trust, scale and experience of a systemic bank. This is to create a more efficient model of banking that moves faster and most importantly, that moves faster than -- smart.

At Alpha Bank, we do pursue innovation in 2 complementary ways. At first, we're building an innovation ecosystem that brings together talent, technology, but also procure for partnerships. We cultivate future skills of people, develop in-house innovation and we collaborate with leading technology companies that place the customer at the very center of what we're doing.

Inorganically, through our dedicated innovation and partnership team, that look forward to forming partnerships in order to unlock new capabilities and value and on the other hand, organically by building from within. Through a defined methodology that we're using that brings customers into the innovation process from day 1, we are actually co-creating solutions with them. And this is something that resolves real-life problems. The myAlpha mobile app is a prime example to that. This was the first digital pocket money product that we have launched and that was an outcome of exactly that process.

The feedback that we got into practice and we got out with a unique product. And now it is already evolving into the next even more innovative version. This is how we view innovation not as a one-off disruption, but as a living process of learning and experimentation.

Today's forum, this is as much about fostering the ideas that can upscale innovation in our sector as it is also about leveraging technology to create new experiences that empower our customer base. At the center of this transformation is artificial intelligence, which is fundamentally redefining how banks think, operate but also connect to the customers.

AI gives us opportunity for radical repositioning. This practically means transforming banks from product providers into intelligent organizations that understand that predict and that respond to customer needs de facto in real time. That means that we are gradually evolving from being transactional to anticipating customer needs and proposing solutions standing as a true partner vis-a-vis our customers.

AI allows us to focus on what humans do best, and this is empathy, creativity and user judgment. As we become an AI-first bank, the way to ensure this is by remaining a human-first organization. At Alpha Bank, our purpose is to empower progress in the life of business for a better tomorrow and such progress in its partnerships.

We don't believe that progress can be made simply in isolation. We believe in fostering partnerships that combine perspective, experiences and ambitions to create new solutions. Today's initiative is pioneering because it aims to bring forward the power of collective intelligence.

We have come together today to exchange ideas, to share experiences and be inspired but what also other organizations are achieving, both within but also beyond the financial services industry. This forum brings together start-ups, industry leaders and technology partners to imagine what comes next, but also to make it real.

We are honored to host distinguished thought leaders and partners. From global technology giants as Microsoft and IBM, technology integrators like EPAM to senior banking executive from UniCredit, Eurobank -- Bank, National Bank of Greece. And this demonstrates our commitment to collective advancement of the quick financial ecosystem. And from Greece's broader ecosystem innovation leaders from EPAM, Kotsovolos, Movil and others, who are bringing transformation across sectors.

We're also welcoming academic partners from the Athens University of Economics and business, who ensure that we maintain the crucial link between research and practical application as well as venture capital firms like big pie, who bring ideas to life.

Special recognition goes also to Endeavor Greece, who has been an amazing partner in shaping this forum today, helping us to connect with broader parts of the innovation ecosystem.

And of course, a warm welcome to the FinQuest 2025 finalist joining us from Switzerland, from Israel, from Spain and Greece, outstanding team that represent the creativity, agility and global reach of the fintech world. The AI-driven solutions show us how technology can create value across borders and across industries.

Each of these individuals, they do bring unique perspective into how they can be used not only to create efficiency, but also to create meaning and long-term value. This spirit of partnership of openness and shaped ambition is what makes this initiative unique. Because the future of innovation would not be built behind closed doors, it will be built together across industries, across borders, across disciplines.

And we begin today's journey with inspiring discussions, visionary ideas and the FinQuest 2025 finalists. Let's keep one principle in mind. The true promise of AI technology is not -- does not lying technology itself, but rather in our capacity to use it wisely.

At Alpha Bank, we are committed to leading this transformation shaping a future where finance is not only smarter and faster, but also more human, more inclusive and more sustainable. We are committed to support Greece's innovation ecosystem as an investor as a partner and is a creative test that where innovative scale ups can be put to practice. Thank you for being part of this journey.

Welcome to the Alpha Bank Innovation Day and to the future we're building together. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Psaltis for sharing a vision uncoding purpose and innovation. And of course, a big thank you to all of you for joining us here today at a [ Assage ] and of course, via live streaming at home.

And now let's please welcome our keynote speaker, Dave Bannerman, AI Strategy leader and former McKinsey partner in a fireside chat with Mihales Chief Digital and Technology Officer at Alpha Bank. Please join us on stage.

So today, I have the pleasure of sharing the stage with Dave. Dave is one of the leading personalities regarding invoices regarding AI. It's one of those people that has shown how to translate AI from hype into real value and talking about that, you've been one of the key -- one of the leading voices in social media, talking about is it high, is it value? Dave comes with over 2 decades of experience in product management, in engineering, in strategic consulting, and he has helped leading global organizations navigate the complexity of AI transformation with truly human-centered approach. So, Dave, welcome. Welcome to Greece. Welcome to Alpha Bank Innovation Day.

Thank so much for having me. It's an absolute honor to be here, and thank you all for being here as well.

And I'd like to start our conversation exactly by touching upon this topic around value. So everybody is talking about AI. Is it high? Is it real value? I know you've spoken many times about the gap between what I can do and what it will do or what it takes to generate real value. So in your view, are we in a genuine value creation phase? Or are we in the hype and creating another bubble?

I mean it's a great question. And I think really, we're involved at the same time. I think there is a lot of genuine value creation. I think if you look at specific domains like personalization, like customer service, like pattern matching at scale, you're seeing real kind of business and enterprise use cases for AI that are driving real value. But at the same time, I'm sure you've all seen the numbers and reports, 75%, 90% of AI implementations are failing. And I think that's what's driving a lot of the hype. A combination of that plus a little bit of overpromising from vendors about the real capabilities and what's required.

Some of those vendors are on there -- in other words over proxy, right?

But I think the promising is interesting because I think if you take any topic in AI, like ADI, for example, you have a massive range of kind of estimations on time lines and disagreements between exit. So it's a world where nothing is concrete. And so I think that kind of adds to the hype cycle as well.

Okay. So you're saying, yes, there is an exaggeration. Probably there is a bit of a hype, but there's certainly real value to it.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Turning to another topic, which is about society and the workforce. When we talk about AI's accelerating capabilities, the conversation naturally expands beyond technology. And we are entering a phase where AI reshaping business models, it's reinventing ways of working, habits, what have you. Question is, as AI is becoming more mature and more capable, what do you expect to happen to the workforce? Should we be expecting a replacement and augmentation a redefinition of roles? What do you see coming?

I mean I really think it's going to be a combination of all 3. But I think ultimately depends on organizations like the ones here and the leadership of those organizations deciding what's the right ratio for that future workforce that we want to create. Because there definitely be areas where it does make sense to have AI taking a lot of tasks and automating tasks that might be manual and tedious. And there are many, many areas where it does not make sense to have AI doing tests. So I do think that there's a lot of kind of very kind of decision-making with conviction that's going to happen now that really determines whether it's augmentation or replacement or a combination of the 2.

Okay. So you're saying it probably is going to be a combination of all, right?

Yes.

Okay. Good. And then turning to society. I think the main question is, at the end of the day, do you think AI is going to be beneficial for the society or to make it even more specific since -- most of us are working for banks. How can we build AI systems and solutions that serve humans and communities and that not just maximize shareholder value -- is there a way to strike that right balance?

I think there is kind of -- and I've seen both sides. So my background, I was a software engineer for many years, I was within IT and technology team. So I was on the side where it was technology first. But kind of over time, it kind of really moved to, okay, how do we put the human at the center as kind of start to set at the beginning. And I think it starts with design principles. If you design from the principle of asking the questions of who could be harmed, what could the human outcomes be as a result of what we're building. You tend to really approach the way you design AI solutions very differently. You have very different teams. It isn't purely technical talent and engineers. You have different cut capabilities and decisions that you're making along the way. But you also kind of to think about the second and third effects of some of these systems, the decisions that you're making. And so I think it's all about the design principles that you start with that really determine the outcomes that you get to.

Okay. Right. So that's important to underline. It's not about focusing on the technology, but starting with the solution and the design and the kind of problem and the kind of objective that needs to sell through.

Yes.

Good. Turning now into another topic, which is about organizational transformation, organizational readiness or AI readiness as we call it. typically, bigger organizations like banks, for example, I'd like to think of ourselves as being quite ready for it. But that's not necessarily the case for the larger part of the industry, which is SMEs, for example, or medium-sized companies. What is your view on this? Did you see the industry, the broader, let's say, corporate world being ready for AI. And if you were to advise medium-sized stores, small and medium-sized -- prices. What would be your advice to the 2, 3 things they should start looking at in order to get themselves prepared for...

I think it's a good question. And I think the fact that we're in a room with a lot of people from banks, and banks have been at the forefront of this change for a long time. I remember the first bank I worked with on AI was 8 years ago, and it was a bank building machine learning and customer lifetime value models to predict customer behavior, but they also started building large data science teams and so on. So I do think a lot of enterprise can learn from what banks are doing. I think kind of programs like this are a fantastic way to really publicize, okay, not only here is what we're doing, but here's what we're learning and how. And I do think there are a lot of examples from how organizations that are in the lead do things can really kind of serve as a template. So I mean, if we take a practical example, in wealth management, an area that I've done a lot of work.

You're seeing a transformation where when you put that vision in place for what kind of future wealth manager look like augmented by AI, it's AI doing a lot of the manual data entry and summarization work that a wealth manager might do now, but leaving the wealth management more room to form deeper relationships with their customers to really look at helping customers through life transitions and so on. So a lot of those kind of deeply embedded human elements that require complex problem-solving and relationship management. And I think you can carry that across to other industries that also require those types of relationships to go. How can we do this, but also what are the foundations, what do we need from a data perspective, what do we need from an organization and cultural perspective. And so looking at you guys as a template for what they can start doing too.

Okay. I think that's good advice. Can we get a little bit more specific? I mean, one thing is to tell them to advise other companies to look at what bigger ones are doing. But in more practical terms, would you say that they need to invest in people? Is it technology that they need to invest in? Is it frameworks? And then looking at AI, would your advice be go to find problems which the 6 solutions? Is it to go maybe in certain domains? And think about -- we think the whole domain, how would you go about setting this up?

I think what we really see is that it's very rarely the technology, that's the biggest investment or that's the first thing that you need to do. I think if you look at the kind of percentage of companies that are really doing well with AI, what they tend to do is start with kind of what we call diagnostic honest team, really understanding where we are on data, where we are on our vision and strategy and using that as a foundation to then decide what do we need to do first.

And very rarely that we need to bring in technology first because a lot of the foundations tend not to be there for a lot of organizations. I think that's kind of the first thing. I think the second thing is really not taking like a use case approach and going, okay, where the AI use cases that we can actually begin but looking at held domain. So for example, looking at the marketing function of an organization and going.

Well, we have a lot of marketing people in the room.

Fantastic. So looking at the marketing function and going, okay, what is our future vision for that marketing function? And we look at what are the actual opportunities, what can AI do well? What can our people do well and then you put together a vision where you go, okay, it's not just about bringing in AI image generation and copy generation here, but going to a world where, okay, our function looks fundamentally different because there are a set of tasks that AI is handling. There are set of tasks where we're collaborating but there are also kind of a set of tasks where data has been kind of managed automatically and customers are being communicated to automatically on the one hand. And on the other hand, we are having more one-to-one relationships, for example. So it's really taking a slightly more visionary approach than individual use cases.

Okay. And final question on this. What about culture and leadership? Do you think there are opportunities, catalysts or obstacles when looking at the typical SME company or the typical medium-sized company wanting to enter into the AI space?

Yes. I remember seeing is that recently, and it shows that companies that have an innovation culture are 9x more likely to see benefit from AI initiatives and companies that don't. And that involves things like giving our employees kind of flexibility and room to innovate to actually experiment, it means kind of having feedback looks where employees can actually say, this is what's working and not working it means kind of co-designing with employees and people who actually know the problem space really well.

And also kind of being -- not being afraid to kill an initiative that isn't working because then you can divert resources to something that is working. And I think that all requires leadership conviction, but it all requires change in terms of culture because not every organization is set up this way. Some organizations are far more rigid, and it does require that change if you really do want to reap the benefits.

Yes. And I'd say this is not only typical for organizations, but in some cases, it takes a little bit of a low -- faith. That's how to move ahead before you can have full proof of the value.

Well, great. Day, it's been a pleasure talking to you. Thank you very much. and it was an honor having you.

Thank you so much for having me.

Fascinating insights, welcome on stage. I will now call our first panel of experts to have our first conversation regarding AI in banking. So please welcome on stage [ Les Terripol ] from National Bank of Greece. [ Harris Margarie ] from PS Bank. And connecting remotely from Italy, Alessandro Berardi from UniCredit.

The discussion will be moderated, but [ Jorgo's newness from me why ].

So hello. I'm really glad to be here, and I want to thank Alpha Bank for this invitation. This is the first panel I moderate and it has -- to do with banks. I have to tell you, I am a partner in consulting at Greece. Since a couple of months ago, I've starting a new career. At the same time, I am the Chair of the National Council for Chief Technology Innovation.

And for the past 8 years, I was a Director and the Chairman of the Board of [ MoCritos ], the last agent Center of Greece, which actually got to be totally transformed. From nuclear center into now the AI epicenter of this country.

So in my experience in their recent laboratories, it is breathtaking. The disruption that AI is bringing. It is breathtaking. The acceleration we see in various scientific fields is has never been seen the last decades. Anything from protein structure and drug discovery to telecommunications, to advance manufacturing. It's -- you see nobel price is one based on AI methodologists and machine learning methodologies.

So this is all great and I understand and I'm very excited about this. And of course, in my everyday life, if I use now, and I think I'm doing better and better, actually. I'm getting a little hooked one where you are.

But then when it comes to banks, when it comes to banks, things are more of a particular substance where we all feel very, very conservative about banks adopting new staff and you're adopting new things. And please just don't treat me as a moderator. Please treat me also as a bank customer. So be careful what you're saying.

In that sense, it's really very interesting to describe how things are developing in the banking sector, whether there is progress or not. And because we are all tied up to this exponential changes in technology, we have to keep on changing ourselves. We have to keep transforming. And I know you guys have finished big digital transformation the last 10 years. And we were very happy and very confident about this.

And now here comes in year round of AI. And of course, the very first question that goes to all 3 of you. I start with you, Mr. [ Saboo ], what do you think the challenge, how big you think the challenge is, how ready are the banks today and your bank in adopting AI and actually in adopting AI in the various layers from the administration to customer experience to security. And what steps should be taken further, where are we? And how fast do we move?

Right. Thank you. Look, I'd say the short answer is we're fairly ready because banks have been in AI for years, not generative AI or agent, primarily traditional AI, but we've been there. there's a lot of discussion about is it real? What we are listening about AI is the real value. We heard tell us about how 70% to 95% of AI projects fail or they fail to bring real value. But that being said, that does not mean that there's not real value.

When you look at analysts, they have split views. Half of them will tell you that the markets are exaggerating. The other half tell you know there's real value because we see the big companies leading that are producing huge profits. If you ask me, I have no view on the financial markets.

But what I can tell you from experience is that there is real value in AI, tangible value. We've seen that over the years. We talked about digital transformation. You're right. We have been running a lot of initiatives in digital transformation over the last few years. The majority of them have been concluded and now we are entering a new wave, as you said. And they have been concluded with success. For example, in our case, we've managed to digitize the vast majority of simple products and daily interactions with clients. We are close to 100%. We have 98% of transactions happening outside branches these days. Clients have very few reasons to visit the brands these days may be the main reason to visit the brands is to get advice, which you need a human to get. And we've managed to reach 30% sales of new products through the digital channels.

Now you'll ask me, but that's all about digital transformation. Where does AI fit into all these an underlying enabler for all the success has been AI because over the years, what it did is, a, we developed machine learning, NLP and NLU models, which we then leveraged to convince our clients to come and use the digital channels. This does not happen by chance. It's not that when you digitize something, you have people running to use it.

So you use technique, you use models, you use targeted and personalized communication you used advanced segmentation analysis to entice people to use your digital offerings. Then on the internal front, on the operational model front, we have been transforming the way we operate. So we started by centralizing activities, redesigning workflows and processes, simplifying those, automating. And now AI comes on top and AI is giving us the opportunity to drive additional value creation.

I'll give you some examples. Currently, we are getting ready to launch a number of AI agents. A good number of them are essentially chat boards. These are agents that have been trained to answer specific questions to our staff regarding policy documents, product manuals, digital banking services, HR matters.

There's another cohort of agents that are being produced that will execute certain tasks. For example, we are creating an AI agent that will support relationship managers in preparing for the next client meeting. We are developing an agent that will be helping audit when they are concluding an audit review to validate and conclude the report.

And another one that will be bringing together all the information and data for a credit underwriting standardized format. What all that means is that once you have a number of workflows standardized, you can then apply an agent that what it does is it takes the trivial daily administrative tasks from the human and it reduces the time spent on those tasks from minutes to seconds, or from hours to minutes. Then you talked about customer experience and service.

Another area of focus for us for years and especially these days. First thing we did is we used -- we leveraged NLP and to process the feedback we collect from clients. So every year, we collect through campaign mechanisms, hundreds of thousands of open text feedback points from clients. If we were to possess that with humans, we would need dozens an area of people to process that. Instead, we have deployed an algorithm. The algorithm contextualizes the feedback standardize process the feedback and turns that into actions, which we then take into our organization, and we execute on those actions to improve customer experience -- customer service.

We were among the first banks globally that launched AI-based chatbot beginning of this year. What we in our corporate side as a pilot. What we did since then is we expanded the knowledge base of the book. We embedded it into web and mobile applications. And what we're doing now is we're looking to connect that to the call center.

Essentially, what we are trying to do, where we want to get at is to have system of customer support and service, whereby customers will have seamless service, 24/7 support by using AI, report servicing and key managers. So if I were to summarize, I'd say digital transformation has been supported by AI. And now it's the time to scale it up and drive additional value by transforming the organization using AI at the core of the transformation initiatives.

Well, I'm impressed seriously. I don't want [indiscernible] customer experience this kind of transformation you're talking about. But indeed, this is a big progress. It is certainly the digitization, data, data, data, Mr. Kokas, you want to say as well about National Bank of Greece?

Thank you very much for the opportunity to be here and see friends and ex colleagues and current colleagues. So thank you very much. Yes. So continuing from where Michalis left. I'll say that data is very important. Okay. This is the underlying -- the foundation of all of it. So what we did is we centralize data. We've built on the enterprise data warehouse. We try to collect all sorts of useful and important information for the bank in one place.

And this is not only about the strictly bank-related data. We're talking about -- also about processes, circulars, all sorts of things that support also the bank to operate. So this is where we put the data. The next thing that we focus on I don't know if it has been a coincidence or is the natural evolution of things, but it was the digital transformation as we call it, where we digitalize a lot of the processes. We upgraded the systems. We are now at the final stage of this transformation by completing the core banking transformation we're doing.

And this has been very important. Why? Because by having the data centralized in one place, we can leverage Gen AI to build chatbots where we can get information from the silo ask questions, get the answers, et cetera. But by having a modern architecture, it will enable us to have agents that can act upon this information.

So not only -- I'll give a very simple example just for the audience to understand. We launched like the rest of the bank. Our own chatbot on the public portal. You can ask questions. You can get answers how can I get a credit card alone, what are the documents and it, et cetera. But then we saw that the majority of the interactions have been around certain areas. There are some things that, unfortunately, they still -- our customers, they need to do or they need to consult by going to a branch.

So they start asking about how do I book an appointment or I want to book an appointment. So what we did is we integrated the chatbot with the appointment booking application. So now they can book through the output, the appointment. So they don't get information when is the next appointment. They can actually book it. They can say for what purpose they want to go and get serviced. So in order to do this, we need to have the technology that will enable the integrations with all the...

How long has this process has been taking you?

Okay. When we talk about Gen AI, because it's part of the Gen AI, this is something that we've been working on seriously for about 1 year, 1.5 years, not just for the chatbot. It was -- what we did is we took a significant part of an existing team. We built an AI and innovation team. And from there we created NII governance framework, so there are principles that we have to bay. We have to prioritize the use cases to build the technology. And then we started producing -- materializing...

In your opinion, your own feelings about what you created.

I think there is a significant value being created for our customers, but also for the bank itself. I will put an asterisk here because I think it's the human nature not to trust it's over very easily. So imagine what happens when we have to trust digital colleague.

So real value is to be approved, but we're optimistic.

I think that we see the value we will see the value, but it is a matter of trust on the tools that we have or the tools that we are building, the digital agents, and we will see I mean, in technology, we see it immediately. We build software using Gen AI. And is it the most sophisticated or the best software engineer that you will find? No. But how many of those can you have? You cannot have.

So if you compare this to a medium software engineer, then you have the expert to supervise it, then that's where you get the real value. It is not only in technology. That's what we have to do in the rest of the process of the bank.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. And you, Mr. [ Lardis ] Bank, what are the steps -- what's the momentum there?

First of all, thank you very much, Mihali -- thank you for the opportunity to be part of this amazing discussion and congratulations on this great initiative. Under EU AI Act, I need to disclose the use of AI. So my responses have been prepared with the O3 open AI model. But I think for us, big systemic organizations in the banking sector, this wave. This new wave of technology is an amazing opportunity to improve the pace of innovation and the pace of change.

Clearly, we are not -- and we shouldn't be satisfied with the level of customer experience with a level of efficiency because there is a lot of legacy that we need to fight against. And the legacy isn't just technology, it's the mindset. It's the culture. And I think this is also very, very important. For us, we try to address this by being very clear about what we are pursuing in AI, what are our objectives, our objectives have to do with headcount reduction. They have to do with growth. They have to do with efficiencies. They have to do with improving our risk management practices.

So again, we have also followed a very methodical approach because if you don't have a solid foundation, you can't do much. So in all aspects, the infrastructure, the data, the governance. So we also invested a lot in that, and we were rate that this new wave of technology founders at a place in a place where we had done a lot of the groundwork to be able and move faster.

By the way, our chatbot -- if you ask the chatbot to tell you about how to get the credit card and apply as a pilot, you'd be surprised by the answer or in Experian English as well. So we are -- there are new things you can -- no one thinks about, but who knows they might be relevant to a new way of talking to customers.

And talent. -- skills and talent. Are you -- can you find talent easily to goals?

I mean I think -- everyone looks for the talented people. Actually, I'm very optimistic since yesterday, I was at the Gen AI summit and there was a hackaton, and there were some very bright, young students I think they were just finishing their the studies, and they were given a set of data reviews of the app.

And they were given 2 hours just were using a tool called Lava group to build something that would understand the insights, visualize it and what they were able to produce into our is amazing and the way they also presented and the level of their confidence there. So I'm very optimistic that we can -- if we -- I think if we focus a little more on connecting the industry with the academia. I think we will...

Are you happy so far with the production of talent by the universities the expertise that people get...

The supply still cannot match the demand. So we -- it is very important to be able and train and upscale your talent pool as well. And it's important for people to feel that they're part of this. And I think there was a study by Oliver Wyman, the banking sector, financial services and communication are people are the most afraid of this change. The people are afraid they will lose -- the terms of the percentage that it is 67% globally. So you need to -- if you want people to be on board and be pilots with you in utilizing this amazing opportunity, you need to address their fears.

Okay. Dr. Bard, I'm coming to you now. You hear us and I hope. So you've heard these steps. You hear the progress. And it didn't take that long like 1.5 years, 2 years what do you feel these incremental steps and this small success, the small wins, if you call it a small win, I was very impressed actually. Do you think this is healthy for the banks or they should go faster? Even for...

Continuing in -- a pleasure to be in this innovation day -- and I'm sorry if I'm not there with you physically. So it's a good point. I got this question from my management during last year. So when I start setting up this global team, leading artificial intelligence across the group. The question was, we are going to be follower our leader.

My experience during the last 5 years in UniCredit Group is that UniCredit as my colleague was saying before, as artificial intelligence in credits contributed with different local and significant impact in different -- of the bank, with predicted by deep learning, automation, computer vision and so on.

The moment AI -- with generative AI with large linac model revolution start. And give me the chance here to go in further in the future. The moment AI can start to create agents that can assist humans augment humans with some super powers it is not fair landing or agentic AI making our workforce as a population, how we will change the percent -- from tender office, but also the relationship with the final customer.

Going to your point, coming to your point. So in UniCredit, we start in the last 5 years building a lot of scattered use case across the group. We learn I would say, 2 years ago, this approach does not scale because if AI transformation is actually digital transformation cannot happen in a fragmented way.

So it requires end-to-end process redesign in the office to make processes are ready because today, some process are not even digital. So you need to review the process, redesigning the process to make the AI if you want to get the best out in terms of impact from artificial intelligence and agent, you need also a new pigment for customer interaction we may expect in the future that our customers will want to have with the bank and less live 24 hours, context our conversation with the bank as a customer, I would expect 1 day this to happen.

You need to have the right foundation in place. without foundation, okay, you cannot go fast. You cannot reduce the time to delivery with the technology that is evolving so fast. You cannot scale and you cannot have governance by design that in an organization like UniCredit with more than 10 countries. And with the regulation that is coming with the act, it's impossible to manage the scale up in a way that is sustainable.

So in UniCredit, we have built an internal group-wide artificial intelligence platform share standard to scale across country avoiding the duplication and the shrink initially compliance. So Yes, small winds can drive transformation, but only if they are connected to a bigger vision and they are backed by strong foundation. Otherwise, the risk is that you -- you risk a pilot trap and there is a long transition with, yes, scattered in partly where -- but have some doubts that this business case will turn now to be positive, okay, over the time.

Thank you so much. Back to you, Mr. Michalis -- yes. It's okay, but it is a formal setting -- all right, so all I know you must be one of the people in Alpha Bank filling most of the pressure to move fast from also -- and I know you -- we all feel one way or another the same pressure. Believe me, so it is not so easy, though. I mean you do -- you are banks, and we all expect that to comply with of all sorts of regulations and raise diversions. So how do you balance this? What's exactly the kind of dialogue you built?

Yes. Let me start with the positives. What we have going for us is readiness and technology and maturity. Why because of the things I mentioned. AI is not new to us. We are experienced agent is a natural evolution to traditional AI from an organizational perspective. Also, we have great partners, right? You have Microsoft, you have IBM, EY, EPAM you have huge technology providers that have been investing a lot of time in millions, if not billions of dollars or in not only developing the technology, but tailoring tools specifically for the financial services industry.

Why is that so? Because apparently, the potential value creation is enormous. So we have a lot of tailwind, if you like. On the other hand, as you...

The tailwinds are nice.

Correct. On the other hand, can we do that full speed without control? We cannot. We had Alessandro talked about foundation. Leveris talked about data. Let me talk about what I call foundation. In order to be able to scale AI and to do it in a productive and prudent manner -- the foundation that consists of 4 parts.

First of all, people, right? Right now, technology is progressing a lot faster than our people can catch up. So we need to make sure that we continuously educate and train and upgrade our people so that they do keep up with the progress in technology, number one.

Number two, cost controlling and real value realization. We talk about value, right? Value generation in any organization, especially in banks, it's not about the technology itself. It's about corporate discipline and about tight governance. So unless you do the right things in the right way, again, we had -- they talk to us about a domain-based approach, Alessandro also said the same thing, not go piecemeal case by case, but goal in a certain domain and we think we designed the whole way of operating that domain.

This is about design, about governance, it's about choosing what to do and how to do it. So you need to measure what you build, you need to measure what it costs, you need to measure adoption and usage. And most of all, you need to measure real value generation. So this is the second condition.

The third is data. You need to ensure that you have all sorts of data structured and unstructured that you have it validated, curated and readily available in a secure manner by all AI tools. And that brings me to the fourth point of the foundation, which is security and AI responsibility. So it goes without saying that unless your systems are fully secure and unless your data are fully encrypted and protected there's only so much we can do. So we are spending a lot of time and a lot of investment in elevating our defense systems against emerging cyber threats on one hand.

And on the other hand, we're putting in place the quality checks and controls that we need to have to ensure that AI is used responsibly. That models are unbiased. And in general, that we use the output of the models and the agents for creating value, not only for the organization, but also for our clients.

Now you're tempting me to ask a question that is not planned. So how about your quantum readiness, post-quantum...

How many hours do you have?

Just give me 2 words. Someone is ready for a quarter -- you don't want really...

[indiscernible].

It's not doing -- not really not yet.

It was one of the major -- the Singapore FinTech Festival [indiscernible]. I think were the top 1.

So maybe next year, we will be talking about this.

Maybe or the year after we'll see. But to conclude, you were 100% correct. These are opposite forces. On one hand, there is technology that -- and corporate pressure that pushes you to move forward fast. On the other hand, you need to have control in place to make sure that you do it in a productive manner, in a protected manner, in a prudent manner, okay?

A question from Mr. Koos. Maybe I go left Terry. So even though I suspect your answer, are you for strict regulation?

I think that regulation can provide clarity. So clarity on how we do things. We need to think of regulation as an enabler, not really an obstacle. So it can give us clarity. It can also help us have a level plan of things like risk management, for example. And of course, I'm not talking about only the Greek selling, but also on European setting. But somehow, we need to find the right balance, not to block experimentation, okay?

And the truth is that...

It's competition. This is why I'm asking which competition, it's the U.S., it's India.

The truth is that the world is so connected nowadays, okay. But even if it doesn't happen in Europe, it happens elsewhere. And it affects us.

Yes. So I mean, this is -- these days in the domain of defense innovation, everybody talks about a rapid adoption and there are regulations and ethics as well that are maybe even much more important to consider.

So I think that regulation needs to be in place. But we need to regulate more what is more important and less what is less important than we to follow a risk management approach. So where is the -- what are the big risks of leaving it totally free? So regulate that. But where are things that we don't mind if we fail somewhere. So we need to enable experimentation.

That's -- and the truth is that we see the U.S., we see Asia, we see China and Asia pushing it -- pushing experimentation with Gen AI, et cetera, in Asia and China, specifically, we have even open sourced the AI models. Because they are afraid of the criticism of what may be in the -- et cetera, yes, the black ops.

So things are moving fast. There is a danger of big banks in Europe just trying to regulate everything...

Any question for Harry now? Customer experience. I was reading an older relative and see who's trying to make a bank transaction over the phone. And skip saying, Atropos, Atropos. I want to be understood aspect to a real person. How do you think -- how society perceive, your customers? How are they responding and not only in their everyday transactions but for financial advice as well, which is the heavy stuff?

So I think customer experience is definitely the new frontier for all traditional banks because it's not just -- it's not just the people that are not so tech savvy people that are of older and they are now -- they need to do everything digitally and you need to explain to them and make it easier for them. It's also the -- I think the younger generation, they expect a totally different level of experience from banks.

And who knows, maybe in a few years, I think genes, they only use their AI assistant now for everything. They will use it for shopping, they will use it for who knows what in the future.

So there's the rest of us also.

And probably everyone shortly. So how do banks address this? It's not a trivial matter. And I think all the investments that we've done in the past, the infrastructure, their security, their trust. And of course, in banking trust is the currency. You cannot -- you spoke in the beginning about perhaps why are the banks innovating faster which I think banks are doing many things that are not visible perhaps to the wider audience.

But one reason is that you cannot jeopardize trust. And you need to find the balance. This is why this whole -- I think is why Alpha Bank is doing this program to try to innovate with young people, with partners but when the time comes to operationalize something, then you need to follow a much more rigorous approach.

So Dr. Balai, how ready as the customers to trust AI. Today, I mean, you think a bank can use as a marketing tool, the fact that they are utilizing AI models and they are advancing their AI technology. Is this going to be an attractive marketing approach?

Well, if there is -- yes, if there is clarity with our customer. So trust is not assumed commercial bank has integrated with other banks in a complex landscape with all the emerging fintechs trust is all for us. So we need to be transparent with our customers only using their data and that we are using the data to provide them in sight for offering them a customized or personalized service. We need to be transparent with the client. We need to be to start build transparents also with our employees and our frontline of our customer.

And artificial intelligence, we think now will not replace human but I think that the humans will be replaced by those humans that learn how to interact with agent. And so at UniCredit to start being also transparent with the population of the front office, we're using our AI copilot for bankers and start providing personalized digital experience for customers as my colleagues was saying before, so predicted in the past 5 years ago or more, 6 years ago, already power next best offer churn model, helping our colleagues in the branch, helping bankers anticipate needs.

So Agentic AI will take this further. -- because it will enable hyperpersonalized product, maybe when the real-time pricing, but transparency and explainability are not negotiable, not only for our customers but also for our front office. It happens to my team in the past to and more difficulties in having machine learning model outcome adopt by the front office than building -- a machine learning model set because whenever you are providing a tool to our customer to our front office in the branches, you need to explain the outcome of that model.

We identify that we'll be using this model as a tool will a matter of transparency and expendability will be even more important. The governance framework that we put in place also in line with the principle ensure that every, let's say, AI recommendation not directly to the customer, but to the front office before going to the customer is stress, fair and compliant.

So will customer trust AI? Yes, when it delivers no value and courage.

Sorry, I think we've run out of time. I'm giving notice that we over actually our time for quite a few minutes. Thank you so much for participating. It is true that the competition is going to be fierce. Resource is limited. The talent, very difficult to get. So I believe next year, I'm hoping to see you guys more involved with AI factories.

We will go back to light and code because there's...

There are many incredible startups being created that can be valuable alive for you -- and cloud severity, what you do with your data. All these are very -- and of course, post -- cryptography and cyber -- so see you soon for more discussion. Thank you very, very much.

Thank you all for this panel. Now a small change in the program. We will now invite the Minister [ Akston ] on stage to discuss on AI and how it reflects on society.

Good evening. And by no means an expert on fintech. So don't expect from me, advice on how we can develop AI applications in the banking sector. But I will try to guide you through the governance, technology, AI and digital strategy and how we have developed this since 2018. It is a pleasure to be here today, and I would like to congratulate Alpha Bank for convening us to discuss an issue that it's not only timely but also urgent.

A few days ago, I had the privilege to visit Singapore with the Prime Minister, a country, not larger than the Island of Catalonia, with double the GDP of Greece and the per capita income of $100,000 per year that has embarked on its digital journey 10 years ago.

As we were told by the ministers, digitalization and artificial in talents are not an option, they are a necessity for -- I was impressed by their broad support program for 250,000 small- and medium-sized businesses, aiming at their digital transformation and utilization of artificial intelligence.

I was also impressed by the government's strategic decision to create a strong mechanism for digitalization of the state in the field of Gastech, which employs nearly 4,000, 4,000 IT engineers and product developers as civil turbines, very well paid. Their mission is to transition the state and the economy into the era of AI in a way that leaves no one behind.

AI for the public good is their slogan, and it fits perfectly to the concept of responsible innovation that we also serve and apply here in Greece as our own national digital vision. In the context of government.

Responsible innovation is measured by how efficiently it distributes the tech dividend associated and economic benefits generated by technology across all citizens regardless of social class access to power or background. This aspiration is deeply rooted in our Prime Minister, [ Cacosmutot ] acquisition, one that has guided Greece from the bring of exiting the Eurozone only a few years ago to becoming one of the continent's best-performing economies today.

The results speak for themselves, which is now consistently outpacing the Eurozone in growth restoring fiscal credibility and building an environment where businesses can thrive and citizens can prosper. In an uncertain global landscape and while the Eurozone grew by just 0.9% in 2024, our economy expanded by 2.3%, more than double the average. And unlike much of Europe, our office anchored in fiscal discipline, creating a primary surplus of 4.8% of GDP in 2024, while the Eurozone remained in deficit and also the fastest declining public debt in Europe.

Fiscal stability and economic progress or is just one part of the equation. The state has undergone a profound digital transformation since 2019 with the launch of Gauge GR. We have digitized public services and made the interaction between the state, citizens and businesses seamless.

Building on this digital revolution, we are now implementing our AI strategy, a blueprint designed to help us leapfrog in sectors such as education, health care, innovation. It is no coincidence that Greece has been selected as one of the first countries to host an EU AI factory.

Over the last 6.5 years, Greece has moved through 3 interconnected phases of digital transformation. First, digitization, building digital rails, universal connectivity and a unified government portal. Second, productization, turning services into user-centric, digital products and mobile applications redesigning state services around citizens and not bureaucracy.

And now today, we enter the AI phase embedding artificial intelligence on top of this digital foundation to deliver proactive personalized and secure public services modernize the state, strengthened democratic capacity and above all, strengthen institutional trust.

These layers reinforce each other. Strong digital -- infrastructure enables applications and applications become exponentially more powerful when they are AI enhanced. We have executed one of Europe's fastest digital transformation by consolidating the state into one digital front door, Gap GR. Scaling from near 0 in 2019 to more than 2,500 services and 8 million users today.

Citizens can now access their certificates, prescriptions, tax services, material functions and licenses digitally. This front-end shift was supported by new infrastructure upgrades 5G coverage, I speak, 46% of fiber to the premises by 2024, enabled by EUR 3.3 billion under our RF Greece 2.0 digital investments plan, including major support for public sector services and SME digitization.

Greece's ICT market has grown to EUR 8.7 billion and is on track to reach EUR 15 billion by 2030. The country becoming a regional data infrastructure hub by attracting major cloud and data center investments by Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Data and others, which are establishing as we speak -- and more facilities Attica Saloniki Greece, leveraging Greece's strategic geolocation and upgrading digital infrastructure.

Greece is building also our own sovereign AI capabilities through Dedalus, an 89 [ petaflop ] national supercomputer and Claros, one of ops first national AI factories, EUR 30 million cost confounded with Euro HPC. These assets support research, support start-ups, public sector AI pilots and critical sector uses such as healthier education and civil protection in Greece is not only a consumer of global AI technology, but also a producer of sovereign solutions.

Greece is also transitioned from building portals, delivering scale digital products and AI-powered citizen service. In our digital government ecosystem that's a prominent place for our publicly produced digital identity and citizen services. The Gap GR wallet delivers secure mobile identity and verifiable credentials ID drivers, licenses, vehicle registries, health insurance, academic and disability IDs used by more than 4 million citizens. And this is the basis for a mobile-first state integrated with daily life and economic and transactions and secure by design.

Other AI applications in public services like wildfire, AI, a real-time AI time system via cameras and drones, identifying more than 100 wildfire events last year or AI legal checks for our land registry mechanism, which automates and cuts review time from 2 hours to just 10 minutes reducing costs from EUR 15 to EUR 0.14.

Finally, our newest baby government-owned AI incubator for in-house AI delivery like the Singaporeans are doing which is recruiting private sector technical talent to develop sovereign tools for the state. Its mission is to internalize AI production by building high-impact AI applications for national needs citizen interaction and policy delivery at a fraction of the cost at a fraction of the time.

But is it all rosy? No, it isn't -- the state is only one piece of this puzzle. The rise of artificial intelligence has revealed something unprecedented up to now, the concentration of extraordinary power in the handful of technology companies, power and capitalization that, in many cases, exceeds the strategic capabilities of nascent states themselves.

These firms operate digital nations in their own rights. They command vast compute resources. They set global information flows, they influence daily lives even the mental health of billions of citizens. The reach is immeasurable and their decisions, technical metal, ethical can have geopolitical consequences and can affect the fabric of our democracy. That is why we need strong modern independent state intents, institutions that are capable of understanding the technology that regulates fairly and keep the balance of power in check.

There's a fine balance indeed to be kept between other regulation, but sockets, innovation and complete deregulation that over dominates the public sphere by the interest of the very fuel and the very mighty. And we stand in the middle. We need the private sector, we need academia, we need cable society, and we also need a smart state.

Still, we are not blind to the challenges ahead. Greece and Europe have a long way to go. We do face fundamental questions. And some of these are the following. Will we remain as Europeans, consumers of technology or producers of technology will limit ourselves to being regulators, so we also be innovators. Will Europe lag behind? Or will we lead?

While the answers to many of these questions may seem obvious to those in this room, the reality is that institutional and regulatory roadblocks persist. The Euro single market is far from complete. Inter-European buyers act as a de facto tariff of 44% on goods based on the IMF report, and this is why deepening the capital markets must become a European priority.

For our companies to compete globally, they need access to deeper pools of interest of capital of more efficient cross-border investment and the regulatory environment that supports rather than constrained risk-taking. The idea of the 28th regime harmonized framework that coexists with national rules should be embraced as a practical step forward. It would also allow noted firms to operate seamlessly and across the EU without being burdened in 27 different sets of rules, accelerating growth, integration and innovation.

And here, I believe we do have a compass. Mario Draghis report offers Europe, nothing less than a road map for competitiveness in the age of technological disruption. This call for a more unified single market, greater investment in frontier technologies and the creation of a European scale set of champions must not remain words on paper. It must become our third agenda.

Greece is ready to contribute to this vision, leveraging our own reforms, our own AI strategy, our own digital transformation our own growing tech ecosystem to ensure that Europe does not merely adapt to the future, but actively shapes it. Ladies and gentlemen, artificial intelligence is no longer a distant promise. It is here. It is already reshaping all sectors of life, stayed in the economy, the financial sector -- of your sector at remarkable speed as well.

Across Europe and here in Greece, banks are integrating AI into risk management, lending, investment decisions, customer service, fraud detection and back-office operations. These technologies enable financial -- to process vast volumes of data take faster and more accurate decisions and automate high-cost procedures that once required extensive manpower.

The benefits are, of course, substantial reduces operational costs and increases productivity by streamlining onboarding, KYC services and compliance checks. But these opportunities also come with new risks. Complex to pay models, challenge transparency and explainability. Only designed algorithms may embed buyers or leads to inadequate predictions. And over reliance on automated decision-making can enroll human judgment and can enroll the trust in institutions.

This is precisely why the European Union adopted the AI Act, the world's first comprehensive regulatory framework. It promotes innovation while safeguarding citizens rights. For banks, it establishes clear obligations, transparency, risk assessment, accuracy, robustness and continuous monitoring of AI models.

Defense. I truly believe in the emancipating power of technology and artificial intelligence. But digital technology will remain aligned with the public interest only if its development is anchored in integrity in transparency, in accountability and a sense of higher purpose for the collective good. These are not abstract ideas. These are the gates which ensure that innovation expands opportunity rather than in quality. That innovation strengthens democracy rather than undermine democracy. And that innovation serves many rather than shaping it in ways we did not choose.

Thank you for your attention.

Thank you, Minister for honoring us today with your presence. And now it's time for the part of inquest, the pitch event, where innovation meets opportunity. focused by Alpha Bank is an international innovation competition that supports start-ups and scale-ups worldwide, fostering innovation in banking and beyond. This year, FinQuest 2025, focuses on artificial intelligence across 5 key themes: banking innovation, family ecosystem, travel smart living financial tools and employee training.

After carefully reviewing applications from over 20 countries, 7 finalists were selected to take part in a 2-month accelerator program where they received mentoring and guidance from Alpha Bank executives venture capital partners and experienced founders. Our 7 finalists represent the very best of this year's cohort. Visionary teams harassing artificial intelligence to redefine our technology empowers people and transform industries.

The top 3 teams will receive awards from our partners while the ground winner will have the opportunity to pilot their solution in Alpha Bank. Before we meet the teams, let's take a moment to introduce the FinQuest judging committee. The panel of experts who will be evaluating today's pitches. This distinguish professionals have dedicated their time and experience to assess some of the most promising driven innovations.

Let's roll the video and meet this year's judging committee.

[Presentation]

So please let's give a warm round of applause to our judging committee. We are honored to have you here today with us, and thank you for guiding the next generation of innovators. Now come on, let's clap everybody. This is the best part. Now let's get started. Please welcome on stage our first finalist -- Decode represented by Michalis -- the CEO.

Good evening, everyone. I hope you can hear me. Thank you for being here. My name is Michalis Calis. I'm CEO of Decode, the company that has built with AI. I have 25 years of experience in products, having worked in companies like Google and I'm an ex CPs of workable.

But tonight, for the next few minutes, I'm going to discuss with you the transformation that AI is bringing for the legal and the compliance teams for smaller and larger organizations and financial institutions. Before we dive in, just a quick word about our team. We combine deep legal experience advanced AI engineering and product leadership for over 100 years of collective experience across world-class companies such as McKinsey, Google, Ernst & Young, Amazon, Mastercard, interim to name a few.

So this blend is what is allowing us to build both reliable and innovative products at scale. Across Europe, regulatory and policy complexity is accelerating. Legal, Risk and operation teams face a consistent inflow of new EU rules. And at the same time, they need to accommodate internal mandates Board Director of decisions, policies, et cetera.

Most of this work is still unfortunately been done manually, which means that research, drafting and reviewing needs to happen by the teams by themselves manually. There is no unified source of truth. There is very little automation and no reuse of past work. The result is predictable as most of you have certainly experienced overloaded teams, long cycles, bottlenecks in procurement and credit, delays in strategic initiatives like M&A or portfolio transfers.

With these problems in mind, we designed I is the first AI legal assistant train in Greek and EU legislation. Video offers instant answers, drafting and compliance checks. It keeps legislation updated daily. It allows organizations to bring their own data, offers smart from libraries and supports necessary workflows for the work of lawyers and professionals things like translation of legal documents, and animization of legal documents or validation of the compliance, most importantly, it ensures enterprise-grade security with EU hosting, encryption and zero use of customer data for training.

For legal and compliance teams, DT accelerates legal research, automates drafting and standardizes reviews. This leads to up to 50% faster research and document creation, reduced external counsel hours and stronger compliance with fewer errors or penalties. When we are looking at other teams, operational teams, like procurement, credit, risk, treasury. Those teams handle heavy regulation workflows.

Vito enables them to bring internal data into AI workflows to collaborate in private workspaces and user donated red lining and approval checks. This results in shorter contract cycles, fewer policy breaches and faster, more consistent decisions across the organization. In large organizations, such as financial institutions, for example, significant friction often appears in strategic projects, things like M&As, carve-outs, portfolio sales and spin-offs.

For those type of projects, Vito can support cross Dutchmen research, can summarize obligations and risks that can enable structured collaboration. The outcome faster deal readiness, fewer legal emissions and optimized terms.

There are 3 key differentiators that make Vito unique. We have built the only self-updating legislative infrastructure for Greece. This means that the infrastructure we have built is also automatically co-define legislation, which is one of the big challenges, when it comes to Greek regulation, but it's also doing the same for you. So it's updating daily all Greek any legislation and core decisions. This allows ensures that the answers that the legal system provides are hallucination free.

Secondly, it provides rich workflow features, things that the modern lawyers and professionals need things like translation of legal documents, anonymization, red lines, policy checks, et cetera. Last but not least, it's built with the high security standards in mind. By support encryption everywhere, only you hosting capability anonymized documents, sensitive documents before publishing them and capability to deploy customer on-prem.

This is why organizations trust detail for mission-critical legal work. We have only been around since March 2025, so less than 10 months now. And things have scaled rapidly. Thanks to our lean but exceptional team. We have more than 12,000 right now, lawyers and professionals using VT AI, hundreds of companies of all sizes.

It has answered 0.25 million legal questions. And it's answering at a rate of 3,000 legal questions per day, which is close to what the Go AI, legal assistant also is answering.

We have also drafted tens of thousands of legal documents. But this is not the end of our story, probably just the beginning. In 2026, we plan to provide more tailored compliance features for SMEs, corporates and the public sector. We will launch AI-powered compliance as a service modules, starting with the AI Act and GDPR, which is being redefined now with the new -- with the new reality of AI data.

In order to allow companies to flow them from the compliance hassle and let them focus on growing and innovating. In 2026, we plan to bring this service to Southern Europe countries. In 2027, we want to add more compliance modules such as aura or the European Accessibility Act and expand across Central and Eastern Europe. And by 2028, we aim to have the full EU coverage for most of the compliance needs for all sizes of companies. Our mission is to give every organization a reliable, secure and deeply knowledgeable AI assistant to remove -- legal friction to accelerate operations and improve compliance at scale.

Thank you for your time. You can try VT AI. And happy to take any questions.

Congratulations. We will start with a question from Mr. Congratulations for the idea, the application, of course, your presentation. I have 2 fundamental, I would say, questions. The first one, which do you believe your competitive advantage in order to avoid a heavy competition by copiers, by followers of good ideas in the future. And the second one is why do you consider a bank, Alpha Bank in our is a good candidate for this participation?

Thank you. I will answer the first part of the question. Initially, for Greece, for example, we have built the infrastructure, which can update legislation automatically something which is not trivial. It has not been done before, and we hadn't actually months and months of and the manpower to actually implement this.

But going further and looking at further applications also in not only in Greece, we have a great experience when it comes to products, how to build, how to make things that are hard are not sexy, how to make them easy for organizations and remove the friction there.

So for example, AI is going to take everyone into a storm. It's going to impact all the companies. They are going to need and there are not any dissenters right now. They're going to need solutions which can help them offload this work easily without needing to spend hours and hours into deep diving into the processes and their documentation.

So we believe that our experience in product, which has already been tested, let's say, in the green market as well as the different applications, applications that we are able to build in order to provide a superior user experience. is what would differentiate us from the rest of the competition.

For your second question, we are actually in different stages with quite a few financial institutions when it comes to trying different use cases for our service. Different -- the compliance, the legal and compliance departments are probably the easiest, let's say, a scenario where there's not a lot of implementation, let's say, needed for those departments. They're able to check policy compliance of regulatory compliance for big volumes of data. They are able to ingest all of them the different contract examples that they may have or customer that may be able from out of those full reports and generate, I don't know, credit risks or things like that.

So there are different applications that can be used with this type of infrastructure, which is always up-to-date with the regulation is able to process large amounts of data and large amounts of company files and be able to process those into legal documents and artifacts.

One more question. Just let me -- I will go to Mr. Guides because he is a -- let me clarify the judges. We can have up to 2 questions, okay, from the team.

Congratulations based on the use of your system until now, can you report any productivity improvements or resource savings?

This is tough. It's a tough question because -- you need people to actually be able to measure those and report back and they need to already have this data available. So I could throw around numbers, but reality is that this is still early days, especially for larger organizations, they have larger sales cycles. We started 6 months ago.

So it's only the beginning still. So I don't -- we have anecdotal feedback that things have been much easier for them. But yes, you have to take my word or their word for that. We don't have any data has today.

Okay. a big round of applause for Decode. Thank you, Vitaly. Thank you.

So now let's welcome our second team Dry Runs represented by VideoLink by Jari Vere, Founder and CEO.

We will have 5 minutes, and I will try to make the best out of it. So I will share my screen and we can do it.

Okay. So what do we do at Dry Runs? It's actually very simple. We make people better. We believe AI is not going to replace us all and for sure, not in the upcoming years, but we believe that the opportunity or the real hidden -- opportunity in AI lies in making people better.

Let's start with the team. I founded Dry Runs just a bit like 18 months ago when the Gen AI started to cup. Before that, I created a different startup by the name of Justin. I was Co-Founder and CEO, and he sold it. some of the people from just that continual some are new. We are in a small nimble team from all over the world. U.S. people handling go-to-market and sales people from Europe, Sweden, We just hired a -- in Greece.

And we also have somewhat from Africa. We are really global in the teams that we are looking. We are going to continue to be nimble. I believe any start-up will be like that because we are all augmented. We are all using AI, not just to develop it, but as part of our job, and I think it's part of the promise.

Now what are we trying to solve in the world? You have salespeople, right? If a bank would have salespeople, you would have support people doing their job. Normally -- inflation will have quite a lot of people there.

How do we make them better? Well, to cut to the chase, I have 5 minutes, if you can bring a live coach to speak with them one-on-one, that would be great. They will understand what they're doing wrong, where do they struggle and they can give them hands-on treatment for a long period of time. That's amazing.

However, it's extremely costly, it's very expensive, right, to put a coach for every person, just a schedule of that. It's a normal -- so many organizations worldwide, and we're seeing it on a daily basis, have amazing plans of how to make their sales teams better, how to save cost on support. But it gets stuck rolling into the market. Another good example is think about communication skills.

Can you say to your manager be empathetic? And they will be empathetic? Can you say to your salespeople, just ask questions, make sure you ask more than you listen, you can say, but it will not happen. Why? Because there better employees just because it takes time and time is money. And the overall improvement of human beings at the workplace, of course, sales. We also see it in support. And we also work with a health care institution, which is less relevant for fintech and other industries is huge.

So what do we do? We have a simulator, an AI role simulator. So instead of talking with your prospect or with an end customer that cannot do something, you speak with an AI. You see freely in Greek or in any other language, and it responded not like an AI would respond in a mature coherent way, but as a customer. So you can -- when you make a simulation, you can create a disoriented customer and the customer will speak to in person or as an angry car person or I really love the passive aggressive ones that you always stick it to you, all of those guys, so you speak and people love it.

But the real thing, I don't have a lot of time, so I'll focus on the main thing. It's the instant feedback. We give feedback to employees on something like 20 different metrics. How much time did you speak versus the customer? How many questions are you asking that time on? How many filler works like did you use? So many other things, a lot about communication skill, your empathy level testing understanding, confidence level. All of those things are being reported back with suggestion how to improve it.

When we finish a Dry Run and simulation, you get missed opportunities, which is one of the future people love about as they go in, they clicked and missed opportunities. They see the transcript and what they can do better. And we have our abilities to help them create better sentences, et cetera, and they all do it on their own pace.

So if one salesperson is struggling with something like with a specific topic, they can get direct help on that. Some support person is struggling on a different topic, they will get their own support for that. And everyone learns on their own time based on their own tools and their own progress, making the promise of AI making people better a reality.

Let's talk a bit about the challenge behind the scenes. So when we created the Dry Runs, the first decision, the tech team, of course, really pushed for creating our own LLM. At the time, it was very we thought about it. Eventually, we chose to work with off-the-shelf large models, and I think it was a very good and economic decision.

The challenge, however, it is to use those heavily trained model to act against their nature. So you want the AI to be hungry. You want the AI to deliberately misunderstand what you're trying to say to make sure that you do it. And we do it all in live speech to speech, speech to speech. It's a very new technology. It's less than 12 years in the market. We cannot use live prompts because it's live. So the training that we can do for the model is very unique and we can do more unique things in problem-solving, et cetera. And that's really what's making our company successful from the tech point of view, where we are able to harness all the great features of the large models and really apply them for the simulation.

Some results. So what do you get if you use Dry Runs, you close more deals. I think it's very simple. If you have a large sales team, you work with us, you can do better objection handling, better report building across the teams. You make more calls for sales calls each time, more calls for a customer rep each time it's huge dollar saving. And we decreased the tendency to rely on your life coaches. Life coaches are still part of the puzzle, but they are not the TSE, they are not the main -- you don't need to schedule with this person and that person -- the invitation never ends. So live cost training costs, which are huge are out, all of the organization and travel time. You don't need to travel to the main office to get training. You can do it in your own place, at your own time where you have the time to train about what you need to train.

So this is what we do. We offer the technology. We empower the team within the bank or any other organization to create their own simulation on their own. We focus on creating the best tech this easy still scalable and, of course, the data part. And that's it. We have multiple customers today. We have launched something like 8 months ago. We are already working across multiple industries from multiple hospitals credit card companies, service food service companies and more. And if you would tell me 6 months ago that we will be in this place, even presenting to you guys, I would not believe it. And it's an amazing ride, and I'm very happy that be able to share it with you.

So this is everything I can have say in 5 minutes. And now I can answer any questions that you have.

Okay. Congratulation, Harry.

Thank you. So sorry, I wasn't there. Again, I have so many friends there in the audience, sorry. I'm really fine.

Okay. So let's please take 1 question because time is up. So Mr. Boulougouris. Thank you.

Congratulations for the idea and the products that have developed. I have answered the question. You said that you have -- you are 8 months in production. So 2 questions. How much time do you get to train this model for clients? So how fast they can put it into production? And also with this define actually the sales calls or all the education process that they are doing on their company. give us 1 concrete example from 1 industry that you have tried. What is the real return investment that they did using this solution?

Perfect. So I'll try to be as transparent as possible. If it's a model that we know like cold calling or selling something or an angry customer, you can create your own simulation in 5 minutes. If it's something new, we are now working on a new more high-end knowledge process where, for example, for doctors about making sure people when they sell to doctors, they know a new scientific article, et cetera. It's a new there are differences between this and the other models. Each model is a bit different. So we train the model in the backstage for quite a long time. But then when we reached the production for a user to launch a simulation in 5 minutes. Maybe 10 minutes if your first time, but it's easy and you can change it in an each time.

I will share with you a use case that is relevant for fintech for the second question. We are working with a large credit card company. You all know it and use it. Fortunately, I cannot use their name. They use that for 2 use cases. One of them they sold the loan. I cannot say what type of a loan, but the loan was a bit troubling for the local authorities, and they wanted to make sure that when they sell this loan, they don't be -- they're not to push -- they're not trying to really manipulate the users because the loan has multiple tricky parts, let's call it like this.

And they used our AI to certify their salespeople to make sure that the person that sells this new innovative, let's call it, loan is not being pushed AI hand towards the rules. We're talking about many people on multiple locations to do it manually or with the manager for each one would take months. It would be a very long and expensive process with us, they did it in 3 weeks, maybe 4 weeks, if I'm counting also some early trials.

So within 4 weeks, they have trained hundreds of people in this way. And if you didn't pass your certificate, you can do it over and over until you pass it and you get the feedback. And of course, you get better as part of it. So that's an example of how you can scale training. In this case, it was certification. It wasn't trained just to make sure that they follow the rules of that specific case.

Thank you very much, Jari. Thank you. Thank you. So now before we pass the next company, please know that we have 5 minutes for every beating and 2 minutes in total for the questions. okay? So now we are ready to have with us here the third team Netty represented by Richard Gugger, Co-Founder and Executive Director.

Hello. My name is Richard Gugger. I'm with Netty. For the first time in history -- for the first time in history, humanity doesn't scale. In fact, every day, every single second, we're losing billions of dollars, and it's not because of supply chain issues or interest rates. It's because of one simple unsolvable human problem, latency.

The gap between a need and the perfect human response. The banking industry also suffers the same kind of challenge, lack of availability of specialist resources, the reduced operational hours of the banks. This causes engagement friction and lack of personalization. When you couple this with the competition of online banking, only online banking and the high cost of operations, it becomes a real challenge for the bank industry.

What if we could scale humanity? Our creativity, our intelligence or empathy, not replacing people but extending them. At metal, we build digital human solutions that does exactly that. It shares the best of who we are, our knowledge, our values, our presence. Let me show you.

[Presentation]

So that's not just a demonstration, that is reality. Let me introduce you to Vesa. Vesta was the first digital human banking assistant ever deployed in Europe. She was deployed in 2021, and she is still active today. She's part of a larger solution that was deployed to the Slovak Savings Bank. It was an integrated solution that had a core conversational AI platform as the engine, and it was deployed to 3 different user channels. One was an online avatar that was used to report of campaigns and product launches. The other was a male bot that was deployed and synchronized with the bank's Genesis Contact Center. It actually delivers 85% of all incoming e-mails successfully, so hugely successful for the bank.

And the third channel was the digital Avatar. It was a 3D holographic image displayed at the bank in the branch and it provided a frequently asked questions and general guidance. It was also trained for transactional banking, meaning that it could block a stolen credit card for customers and also provide banking activities for that customer.

Our recommendation is for Alpha Bank to use a similar kind of solution and gain the same kinds of benefits. We would recommend a more measured approach, one that builds trust over time. we would recommend that the Avatar be deployed at the branch level as a meet and greet avatar, answering frequently asked questions, possibly scheduling appointments and even providing general guidance.

A Phase 2 could be extending the capabilities of that Avatar so that would have specialized support for operations and guidance at the digital corner. And ultimately, we would be able to extend that avatar even further for a specialized training or onboarding Avatar for customers and employees. We believe the benefits to Alpha Bank would be huge.

The 2 most important ones would be by deploying this really modern and innovative customer engagement experience, the bank with skyrocket in terms of brand identification and availability in the marketplace. But most importantly, most importantly, by deploying the solution, build once and deploy everywhere, meaning that not only are you maximizing the efficiency and the impact, but you're also maximizing the investment of the solution because you could deploy it to multiple channels and multiple branches at the same time, reducing costs as well. And this should be the music to the ears of every banker in this room.

A little bit about Netty. We are 3 -- we are 5 co-founders, 3 business -- or 3 IT people and 2 business people. It's the perfect blend of business -- IT expertise. Really pleased to be invited as strategic partners with some of the largest AI vendors in the global space, Google, Microsoft NVIDIA, also really proud of our customers who aren't only testing, but they're actually transforming their engagement models using our technology.

And finally, just an example of a couple of the platforms and form factors. Here, we have Digital Hollobox as a brand ambassador. We have a digital insurance agent or a broker on a mobile phone. We have a multilingual, multicultural Avatar that maximizes inclusivity. And my favorite here, a live digital avatar deployed to Joy TV, Adam was -- during the hockey World Hockey Championship in May. He was interviewed on a regular basis daily for over 2 weeks. It was a live Avatar interacting with the live co interviewers on the television screen, very, very impressive as well.

So I'd like to thank everyone, and I encourage and welcome Alpha Bank to join us on this innovation journey. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Richard. Thank you. Congratulations. Now let's start with a question.

Thank you for the presentation. A couple of questions from my side. how your product is -- how much your product is scalable across country because I'm from Italy, UniCredit. So I will be interested to understand also if you have a plan in this perspective. And also consider that competition you mentioned in the paper chat bots and similar solutions is very, very high. What is the real advantage that you see vis-a-vis your peers?

Sure, sure. So we can provide support for the 42 languages where our technology was actually built in 2018, 2019 before generative AI. So we had to use very good knowledge and data scientists on our team to develop our natural language proprietary engine. So we could actually integrate easily to the other languages in our region. We're LLM agnostic, so we can integrate with any kind of LOM. We have serious business domain expertise because we've been delivering to the finance space in the online consumer space.

So from a competition perspective, not very many people have that capability. Also our digital Avatar is also proprietary, very nicely synchronizing complementing our NLP engine, but most importantly, when it comes to interoperability and the innovation that we provide, nobody can do this. So we have speech defects, which is pretty common, but we also have gesture recognition, eye tracking recognition, we have a browser-based rendering model that increases scalability tremendously.

So we've already got pilots that we're working on that are tens of thousands of avatars across different markets. And we're also providing other capabilities in that space, emotional intelligence. And when you bring that entire solution together, nobody can compete with us. So we're really pleased about that. Thank you.

Okay. I see we have very, very little time for a very quick question.

What is the actual customer satisfaction beyond the element of surprise that the camera is facing avatar? And what are the actual gains in productivity and financial terms for an institute that uses this?

So much like some of the other guests that can share the actual numbers of some of our customers. But like I mentioned, the back-office Avatar actually successfully deployed or successfully answered 85% of all questions. But interestingly enough, Slovak Savings Bank, the largest bank in Slovakia, largest bank branch in Slovakia, largest bank in Slovakia, the largest customer base, but it was considered dinosaur -- it came to technology.

So from an anecdotal perspective, when we deployed this all of the other banks in our market and in our region started looking at this and they wanted something and within the year, they all had their own capable Avatar that were online, and some of them are actually experimenting with in brand avatars as well. And the feedback from the bank has been very positive. It's like I said, increase the brand identity in the marketplace. And now Slovak Savings Bank is considered probably the top 2 innovators in the market space. So from that perspective, it's great.

And as I mentioned, you can offset the capabilities of -- and you can extend the capabilities of your team because of the lack of availability of specialists, you can actually have the Avatar to the redundant recurring work and have the specialist actually doing the work. So you're saving time and money, and there's a lot of churn in the banking industry as well.

So you're able to save money from that perspective. if you deploy this also as a training and onboarding tool, you would be able to actually, like I said, create one logic engine with your business may knowledge and then actually deploy it to multiple channels. You can have multiple branches, you could have it in the back office training employees, you could have in the front office onboarding clients. So the potential is huge.

Let's welcome now, AgriNow, represented by Corina.

Hello, everyone. I'm very happy to be here and introduce you to my world. So from fruits, vegetables, to olives, in order for them to get to our table, they need care from human hands. And you know what farmers can do everything alone. They need help. And that's why they hire agricultural workers.

Can you imagine what happens when farmers don't have the stuff that they need? It's a disaster. In Greece, in 1 year, only from the Oliver farmers, we lost EUR 27 million. And this is a problem reported in other countries as well, such as Italy, Germany, France, U.K. across various crops. So you might be wondering why this happens? Well, there are 4 different aspects.

First of all, farmers still use outdated methods of finding workers such as phone calls. Furthermore, because those workers are coming from different nationalities, communicating in a different language is challenging for them. without proper communication and with different hiring process that they have to follow based on the nationality, it's very hard to navigate what to do for the paperwork.

And as you can imagine, without proper paperwork, we have informal payments. And how do we know all this? Because both me and the Co-Founder [ Cilacosare ] coming from farming families. Those were not just numbers and facts for us. It's the reality that we are facing every day.

So we decided to do something about it. we did research, thousands of interviews. And we combined our educational professional background across programming, economics and agriculture and meeting. And together with a team of -- were set to solve this problem in the simplest way as it was possible. I'm happy to introduce you to AgriNow, a conversational intent AI system, a place where farmers can find, hire and pay their stuff a place where workers can maximize deployment and feel safe. But let's see how it works.

Everything starts from its heart. Farmers simply have to explain what they need. And the job listing is created. They are automatically matched with a valuable vantage workers and language is no longer a barrier because everything is translated and transcribed in real time. Paperwork is streamlined and easy to follow steps that everyone can do it even if I have never done it before, but also the AI collects, checks and submit the document to the relevant public authorities, when it is time to pay. Again, it is 1 type way.

So just like that, we made hiring as simple as starting with a friend. Now AI can take care of the complexity and users have to follow it at. So far, we have gathered feedback for over 75,000 unique MVP users. We received the first place at Panofena, together with the support of Visa and Microsoft that supports our AI with the credits that they offered. We were featured in the Economist Magazine collaborated with the Greek Ministry of Agriculture and funded in cash by Google.

The market is huge. In the world, 1 out of 4 people work in agriculture, we focus on the European Union and especially in middle-aged people that use the Internet and particularly in the countries, Germany, Italy, France. But that's not it. Because according to this year's or future of job reports by word economic forum, it is projected that the #1 largest growing job for the next 5 years are going to be farm workers and laborers.

And this makes sense because as the population grows, so those are a need for food, medicine, clothes, all of which come from farms and there is also another aspect AI is silently replacing millions of jobs. And while some people will be able to get reskilled. Some of them will tend to occupations that it's harder for the AI to reach, which is laboring to us.

So what about Greece? Farmers pay its year more than EUR 1.2 billion in wages, but the stem supporting them are stuck in the past. So the majority of the payments are in cash. So that's like Uber that totally transformed the tax industry that it was premilarily cash. AgriNow is said to do the same thing and unify and streamline the entire hiring process, something that farmers and workers are eager to adopt. We are getting a fee for our services that includes the mass make and the paperwork and also the payroll transition, and we are here seeking a partnership with a financial institution or a bank in order to help people create bank accounts to exchange residences and get access to micro loans.

With the right partner, we foresee having EUR 60 million of revenue in the next 5 years. But what I want you to remember is that we're not solving only laboring problem. We are building the inference structure to bring banking services close to people that want to, but kept access it. We are reducing in qualities among different nations. We are promoting this unemployment on the fields, and we are ending the food waste that starts from the field. So because we are using AI to empower, not to eliminate our communities, we are backed already by 75,000 people and by major companies. We are here asking you for the FinQuest price because we help banks get to the bidding heart of agriculture. And we honestly believe that with your support, we can help thousands of people. But at the end of the day, bring the food to our tables.

Congratulations and the holistic approach. My question has to do with a specific segment, usually, the workers and the farmers. They are not so digitally savvy. So how do you plan to ensure adoption?

Thank you so much for your question. indeed. And that's why AI fits in because it can simplify complicated workflow. So it feels almost like talking with a human that's our competitive edge. And so far, we have much more than 1,500 job placements, which looks like we're on the right path to do something extraordinary.

We have time for a second question.

You presented congratulations. First, you presented yourself and your partner in building this excellent application. However, which is the team that supports that.

Thank you for your question. So we are a team of 9 actually. We have the background in economics and agricultural engineering, but we also have a team that helps in product, the UX design, legal, et cetera. So we offer a holistic approach to this problem.

Okay. Now let's move on to traveler.

Hi, everyone. My name is Jens Napas, I'm the Founder and CEO of traveler. The hyperlocal infrastructure for business travel, expenses and benefits powered by AI. I will tell you a little bit about our back story and how we are here today.

Starting from my childhood. I grew up in a family in a travel family, basically, a family-owned traditional travel agency, based in Athens, that was founded in 1974. My experience was there since I was a little kid. And my road took me to the U.S. to study economics and finance in Chicago.

On my way back here, actually almost calling me back. So I came here thinking business travel is a $3 trillion business -- global business, and it's working on fragment systems. So I was crazy enough to say something accepted. And I was lucky enough to find this amazing team, actually, out of all of them on lens here, but we pulled together decades of experience in travel and tech. We've all been basically traveling for life because of our different backgrounds and different works before joining all together the team.

And we've been rocking it according to us and according to some competitions in domestic competition and international ones as well. We've been certified by all the needed bodies to act as an infrastructure layer for travel. And we've been doing it since the beginning of last year.

Actually, in less than a year, we've achieved EUR 1 million in GMV in sales, and we have projected confirmed sales pipeline for next year of north of EUR 12 million, and we are still having 11 months ahead of sales.

But let's begin to deeper in the business model and our vision as well as our mission. So business travel is begging for optimization. It's a global problem that touches us all. We've all been needing to travel for work, also travel for leisure.

Problem is when traveling for work, lots of people in our organizations need to mingle in the process. So we need to research the travel restrictions, get approvals for it as well as pass by budget controls usually prices change using the old way, the traditional way, the ways of e-mails and calls.

At the same time, it's super frustrating. It's a complex thing that involves different providers, different vendors as well as suppliers. And it's very costly. So we need to outsource it to an agency, which means that we need to pay for fees or do it on our own, which is hours and hours and hours, free and post-trip.

At the same time, it's a huge opportunity because out of hundreds of thousands of SMEs and mid-market companies in our area of Mediterranean and Southeastern Europe, 3 out of 4 people are still using calls and e-mails to mamas travel internally in the organization until we were born. So we're presenting Traveler, the super app with 0 friction in travel in managing travel expenses and benefits all-in-one travel ecosystem.

We united business travel, corporate expenses and employee benefits into one single unified environment. And we do it in style. So it's the first AI-powered travel expense and benefits super app in SME in Southeast Europe and Mediterranean, reducing cost saving time and automating ESG reporting for the whole organization. we are so agnostic. So basically, we function as the infrastructure on which the whole ecosystem and the whole supply chain of travel works on. So hotel chains, airlines, ferries, transfer providers you name it. So we are providing the platform on which the value chain of travel builds on.

We have integrated reporting, and we are super user-friendly if an organization just to use us via are but our expertise and our specialty doesn't end there. We have some screens of the UI that you can see how simple it is to serve something or managed bookings, if you're a travel manager, and, of course, make sure that everything happens on budget.

We integrate with different third-party platforms as well. So we need to be working together with ERPs and HR platforms that organizations are using already and we are having a 2-way sync capability with those. Business model is very simple. So we are acting -- we're positioning ourselves as the infrastructure layer for suppliers, international suppliers and partners such as Alpha Bank as well as different partners on the supply side. And we meet them, we merge them together with end users, meaning people from different sizes of organizations, from SMEs up to mid-market as well as enterprise.

How do we reach them? Of course, that's why we are here. We're reacted by the AI agents that they come. So if people are working on Slack or Teams or Microsoft CoPilot they're using our APIs to serve travel content. How do we do that? By acting as the brain. So business benefits and expense all is embeddable by design into the traveler brain. So we are basically converging the brain for approvals, the brain for HR and expense into 1 embeddable AI brain that is being served to the company's via AI agent of their choice.

We combine global -- global product, sinking different providers from all around the world as well as our hyperlocal service network in Greece as well as the Mediterranean in ferries, et cetera. So superstars travel part, which is the breaking -- the backbone of our solution is that we are so agnostic, meaning that we can serve our travel content via all different AIs out there.

Competition is traditional travel agencies, but we are inviting also travel agencies via white-label solutions as well. And we are also in enterprise -- we're on the other side of enterprise solutions like SAP Concur -- BCD and TravelPerk, because we're the only solution in market with AI first design serving banks, fintechs as well as corporate of all sizes.

We have done [ 80 ] customers are already charging their travel buying through us in Greece as well as abroad. And we are a deal amount of north of EUR 12 million charging next year. revenues are coming from 3 sides. So supplier-side revenues, commissions based on the people on the companies that are participating in our ecosystem from the supply side. meaning airlines, hotels, et cetera. We have a subscription model for our clients and companies as well as a payment rate coming from interchange.

Market is huge. We have shown that already last -- in this current year, in a few months, we've toned north of EUR 1 million in GMV, having confirmed north of EUR 12 million for next year. And our mission is high and our cost is huge to be answering to a $3 billion market by 2030, achieving $1 billion sales by 2030.

I would like to thank you for your attention and that's so for my stress. We're building for travel. We're building for Greece. Thank you so much.

2 quick questions. The first is my impression is this is a very crowded market globally. You said something about Mediterranean, you need to explain to me why this is local. There are companies like obviously, SAP Concur or Ramp or Sensify, there are tons of companies in this space. That's the first question.

Second question is, when you say [ EUR 12 million ] GMV, this is total merchandise goes through your system? I mean what is your margin on that? I would expect very, very little...

That's the second opinion you have to wait for until I answer the first one. So yes, actually, it's a very competitive market. It's actually why our team is so passionate about working on this problem. It's a global problem. And lots of companies from different angles are trying to answer it. Expense platforms is one.

Ramp, like you mentioned, is one of the expense platforms Expensify Pay Hawk, there's all these different even revel business is doing that is actually trying to answer how to manage expenses for business categorizing them, auditing them.

But what they're missing is content. What they're missing is most of them, the brain behind the transactions. So we are positioning ourselves in front of them, actually -- sorry, behind them, serving them with travel content globally. So ramp is actually pulling from Travelers, PayHawk as well.

So we are in a position of serving that content and the brain that each company has of who is working in which department, who is approving whom who is checking who is the auditor of the travel budget of each department, that's information that has to live in a tidied up manner in 1 platform. And that's what we're doing.

Okay. Yes. And second question is, of course, profitability. Because it's been a boost up company since the beginning since our birth, we are very focused on being lean and having a really rock solid unit economics strategy. Actually, we have managed to be self-funded and client funded in some ways of changing the model from a credit facility, which is the norm in business travel to prepayment.

And we've been able to do that because of our value proposition. And of course, because of our competitiveness. We're keeping our margins low. It's a volume business for us. So we want to be the alternative for hotels and travel providers to big OTAs. So that's why when we are onboarding a hotel chain, or we are onboarding an airline. We don't take a big chunk out of their selling rates as Booking.com does, for example, which is something that they are very angry about. So we go in a more fair model. Thank you.

I believe we're an out of time. So thank you very much. Congratulations.

Okay. Let's have mining represented by Mikly Trela. The stage is yours.

Hello, everyone. I'm really happy to be here. My name is Mikly Trela, and I'm the founder of my team. My team is an ecosystem that helps Sports Clubs and academies to optimize their daily operations. Even that this has to do with registration of athletes. Either this has to do with communication with parents, coaches and the -- all the other stakeholders.

All this has to do with money collection, which is one of their main problems. Some things about our traction Until now, we have a bit more than 400 clubs that work and use our main application, my team. Among them, we have [ Panasias ] we have Eros Academy of Fodorisa Palocas. We have 160,000 profiles within the app and 100 different families. We have 20 million of GMV happening within the platform, and we managed last season to convert 1 million of this amount of subscription paid toward the clubs in online payments through our marketplace system.

And one other metric that is important for our business since the number of page views that we have on our mobile lab, which is about 2.5 million per month. It is similar to mid-sized news portal. Our team. The founding team is George Malamatlis and myself. We work with George more than 10 years together. We have worked in several tech business projects either with start-ups or with large corporations, even with banks. We have been funded from this is in Greece and abroad. We have raised until now EUR 1.6 million.

And in our cap table, we also have Rasmussen, who is the co-founder of Google, Google Maps, I'm sorry. And which is the problem that we identified. There is a huge market only in Greece and Cyprus, we have more than 12,000 potential clients, including academies, sports clubs, dance studios, pilates and stuff like that. And all these organizations use outdated systems to manage their daily operations. And they use not only outdated systems, but they do not interconnect these things together. They need to have one excel sheer for the registration, another one for the payments. They need to use Viber to communicate with the parents or the outlets. And I think that you get the point.

So what we decided to do, we decided to build an ecosystem where my team application is the operating system. It's where every detail goes, and it's spread among other applications and things where we serve knowledge and data. Where is the innovation and AI in our company? We use AI internally, of course. Our sales rep is an AI built system that sends more than 500 holding mails every day to potential clients. While we also have synthetic AI editors who create customized content for our users, either, it's an athlete, a parent or a coach or a sports manager.

But we also use AI to create product value like we do with the AI copilot that helps within the Mita, the users of the sports clubs to optimize the daily operations and create useful reports to talk to the AI agent and create trainings, create subscription, get remind us about payments and having an assistant that would otherwise pay even EUR 500 per month.

We also have Sports lab. Sports lab is the second application we created in our ecosystem that it's mostly focused on the athletic development of the kids that use my team. And it's sharing details based on their performance, analyzing them and then provide tips and tricks on how to develop their skills where it's needed.

Last sorry, another one application that is under development right now, it's Coach Lab, where we help coach is to optimize trainings. We do that by creating smart coaching plants, where they can add the number of outlets and the number of people that they're going to have in the training, the equipment and what they want to work on. And then they create the custom plan as you see.

And last but not least, it's the Mining Hub, which is a hub that we create customized content based on the user sport, age type different for outlets, different for coaches or sport manager. And it creates daily articles that we serve through our platform. Thank you very much.

Okay. Thank you, maybe. So let's have our first question.

Since I am a football fan. I believe I'm a fan of yours also. However, at the end, in which way do you believe that the cooperation with the bank will amplify your idea and your initiative?

Yes. There are many ways that we can work with the bank. The most obvious is the payment gateway. We already managed more than 1 million in online payments, and we expect this number to grow even more. We have seen opportunities like buy now, pay later. When a parent goes to pay for a comp, he might have to pay up from even EUR 1,000. We see even opportunities with something like a factoring system. When you have to organize a camp as a Sports Academy, you need money upfront. So there are a number of opportunities for my team to make a pilot with a bank.

Okay. Thank you. We still have time for 1 more question.

So I'm using your app. It was really interesting in terms of organizing when it comes to young children, especially getting important to the team. Apart from the organization and the logistics, I don't understand what is your value proposition in order to continue and be this bigger with regards to all the content that you said. What is your vision on the next day?

Okay. So our vision is not to sell just the initial product, which was a Software as a Service and was serving the sports clubs. Our vision is to become an ecosystem of interconnected applications that will provide information to my team and will help the whole ecosystem controllers of the sports community parents, outlets, everyone involved to be easily connected to find opportunities and easily manage their days. And also, we want to help more kids to be active and to spend time in the sports field instead of their mobile phones and tablets. In order to achieve this, we need to help these organizations to become sustainable. Thank you very much.

Now our last [ thing for ] today represented by [indiscernible]

Hello, everybody. My name is [ David Hiron ]. I am the CEO and Co-Founder at [indiscernible]. And I believe Mr. [ Saltiz ] said it best. With all this AI, banks need to innovate. We need to predict customer demands, but how can we do that if we don't understand the customer? Well, that's exactly what [ EFrontiers ] is doing.

But before I dive in, I want to highlight one of the biggest issues in the industry today. Today, over 67% of the world's population is financially [ illiterate ]. On the other side, financial institutions are spending over $90 billion every year, trying to promote products that people don't understand. So we have a massive disconnect. People don't understand their financial options, and financial institutions don't understand how to better reach them and educate them. Well, the key is in education.

So we created a [ gamified ] learning platform that makes it easy and fun to learn about money. You can think about it as a [indiscernible] of finance that is white labeled by financial institutions to promote financial education and boost customer acquisition. It follows a progressive learning journey where users will go unlocking levels, starting with the basics, going to more complex topics. Everything is built in a modular micro learning methodology so that users can learn at their own pace and at their own time. We have gamified the entire experience so that as users are learning, they're collecting trophies, achievements, and they collect points that allow them to compete in real competitions that offer real rewards sponsored by the financial institutions like critical points, loyalty programs like the bonus, for example, or even books.

Let's look at a real case study to understand how this works. We partnered with a large financial institution that was struggling with high customer acquisition costs and, of course, struggling with engagement. So the first thing they did is they select the features they want to include into their platform. We then build a curriculum that is tailored to their market and built around their financial products. And there -- our AI engine content allow us to create all the content optimized for our platform. But even better, we can leverage any of your existing materials, blogs, articles, videos to train the model and put that content into the platform. And in less than 2 months, we can be live.

Now we offer this as a stand-alone solution. It can also be implemented embedded. But what we've seen is that there's two main reasons to have it as a stand-alone. First, there's no tech integration needed to allow it to be fast and simple. But most importantly, for new users to avoid friction, if it is a stand-alone, people don't have to download another banking app from another competitor to start learning about finance.

What we've learned is that our partners by promoting our platform have seen up to 20x better performance of their marketing efforts. The best part is that once a user is learning about finance, they also start learning organically about the products of our partners. And now the real magic is what happens in the background.

Our platform is learning about users, studying over 100 different data points to understand better their goals, their needs and the future requests. And it's not just about new customers. It's also about your existing ones. What we have seen time and over again is that most clients have a [indiscernible] and a savings account, and they don't really understand any of the other products that you offer. Well, through education, we can help them find the right product for their financial journey.

And what we get is this result, an [ unfair ] advantage. While your competitors need to have market research, generic personas, we have a real-time data layer that allows you to understand your audience. For example, what's the demographic, what assets are they interested in? What are the goals? What's the risk appetite? And we take it a step beyond, and we actually narrow it down more granular to each user, understanding each user so that we can serve up with the content that they need so that they can improve their financial journey.

We have a straightforward business model, which have a licensing fee on a monthly basis and a performance fee based on number of users and conversions. Today, we have over 100,000 users across platforms. We have tripled our ARR over the last 8 months, and we're now working with 3 financial institutions. The best part is it's not just about business, but we're helping our partners achieve their social impact goals.

My co-founder, [ Harry Chan ], is a 2-time tech entrepreneur. He was building business simulations for institutions like Yale and MIT. My background is in wealth management and venture capital. Today, we are also backed up by 2 venture capital firms that are helping us with our growth. Today, we're here because we want to connect with more financial institutions who might want to learn and use financial education as the next big marketing tool. Thank you.

Okay. Okay. First question.

Okay. It's very clear what you do. And of course, you have a good success. My question is a bit different. Can you develop a system that actually can be used for training kids?

Great question.

In case we have a problem with financial literacy at that age.

Great question. So that's exactly what we do with our partners. What we do is try to understand what audience they want to target. And in some cases, they can say, well, we want an academy for the younger generation and one for an older generation. So what we will do is that our AI will tweak it, so they will make easier content. So something like Johnny has 2 apples and so on, right? And then for the older generations, we can use more typical content. So yes, we can tailor it.

Okay. I see we have time for one more question.

Congratulation for the application. The business case is clear. What is your ambition for the future? What is your goal for the next 3 years? What do you want to achieve?

Awesome. So today, we hit 100,000 users. We're very lucky. It's been an amazing year. I think next year, we're talking to some of the leading institutions in Europe, but I want to take this worldwide. I'm actually originally from Guatemala, and I built this with the ambition that we can actually let anybody in the world learn about finance. If we really want to get people out of poverty and from difficult situations, donations is only like a tape. It doesn't really solve the problem. We need to give them the knowledge so they can make better decisions and have a better future. So for me, it is to get to millions of people, especially in those countries that need it the most.

Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you.

A big round of applause for all our finalists. Our judges will now [indiscernible] to decide this year's top 3 winners, and we will take a short 10-minute break. Definitely because the best is still to come.

[Break]

Welcome back everyone. I hope you rested well. And now we will turn our attention beyond the banking sector. From retail to industrial goods sector, we'll explore how AI is redefining entire ecosystems. Please welcome our guests for the next panel. [indiscernible] from [indiscernible]; George [indiscernible] from [indiscernible] and Adonis [indiscernible] from [indiscernible]. This panel will be moderated by [indiscernible]

I feel the energy might be dropping a bit, which is normal after a break. But before we get started, and we go to our lovely guests that we have here, and we explore what's actually happening beyond banking, just to rewarm a bit the atmosphere. Let's give a huge -- warm round of applause for what we just saw from the company.

Fantastic propositions and from Alpha Bank setting up organizing the event. And for all of you, which you're still around waiting to see who's actually going to be in the finalist run. So the main goal of this panel is actually to a bit trying to understand the different types of views from different industries. So today here with us, we have [ Christos ] from [indiscernible]. I'm sure the [indiscernible] understand the difference in the industry between [indiscernible], let's say, George, who is representing [indiscernible], which is a technology company, and we can speak a bit about it. And obviously, Mr. Antonis [indiscernible], who is representing [indiscernible]. So very, very, very diverse group, very different industries, very different aspects of experiences.

So the first topic that we're going to try to explore, and we'd love to hear your reviews starting with [ Christos ], it would be around how has AI shifted, changed, transformed your industry, let's say, in the past 5 years?

Yes. I will start, let's say, with the bold statement that AI turns retail from a product-centric business into knowledge-driven business. So this is a totally different approach and fundamentally shift happening. So retail is being reshaped across every part of the value chain. And AI is not anymore an add-on, or a password, or even a tool that we need to use.

AI redefines every aspect and transforms the whole operation end-to-end. And I believe that it is a very powerful driving force that acts simultaneously on 3 layers. At the front end, we are witnessing the spectacular rise of agentic commerce. So people will know more, browse product by product. They're going to dedicate their journey into AI agents that search, compare, evaluate and comp on their behalf. This is a fundamentally different approach and change the rules of engagement.

In the middle, where we have the core operations, we've seen a shift. Actually, AI pushes retail operations into a real-time mode to be more specific. For example, forecasting is going to become -- became already actually, hyper granular. Pricing is becoming adaptive to individual level workflows regarding stock are self-regulatory, naming just some processes. And at the back, the third layer, let's say, AI opens new frontiers for retailers because open ups give the ability to pivot into different adjacent sectors. They give the ability to retailers to monetize data and knowledge. And in many ways, it's not just about optimization. Actually, it creates new landscape and new...

A new operating model.

Yes, exactly.

And [indiscernible], just a follow-up question on this. Have you seen any, let's say, tangible results? It doesn't have to be KPIs. I know we use the term quite often. But have you noticed from your organization perspective, when deploying those solutions, any tangible results as far?

This is tricky. Because -- I mean, the fundamental problem that all the businesses have is how you measure value, how you measure success, how you compare the value that you create against the cost? How efficiencies, let's say, is calculated in a way? To be honest, we are all the business, irrespectively of the states that they might exist. They are on the early stages of acknowledging and identifying the value that they have created.

So for us, it's a journey that started. Of course, we have started -- we believe that we are early adopters, but we are not in that position in order to measure and give specific tangible benefits.

Fantastic. George, from a technology POV, producing a product that actually goes into different lens of clients, from any type of industry, working with LLMs, [indiscernible] type of LLMs, which have very interesting, let's say, aspects you were saying -- [indiscernible] was saying to me earlier. Have you ever thought that people go in and type in [indiscernible] it's a good one. It's like [ Omega's Omicron ] and [indiscernible] everybody has a style.

So how basically AI as a technology has been, let's say, impacting, let's say, all of those industries that you're actually trying to serve from a product lens? And have you seen any sorts of difficulties in this initial kind of run over the past few years?

Yes, of course, 100%. First of all, thank you, everybody, for being here, and thank you to Alpha Bank for hosting this great event. So from my side of the equation, let's say, we are into, let's say, conversational AI and AI. So we have the privilege to work with those frontier LLM models every day. It's kind of a curious and a blessing, to be honest. It's a blessing because every day, we get to witness something extraordinary, but it's kind of a cherish because our industry, the AI industry and the providers, it gets disrupted like every month. There is something new that will have to adjust.

So what we say internally in the company is that we're building the product, we're building the car at the same time, we're driving it, okay? And this is a challenge of its own, of course. But the promises, most of them at least are true. AI, I think that many people compare it to the industrial revolution, but it's going to be -- it's going to have twice the magnitude and it's going to be 2x faster, okay?

So if you put this into perspective, maybe many people see that us moving a little bit slow right now, but it's going to move real fast, real quick. And this is why we see that the technology is improving at such a rapid pace that I think every company, especially in the banking and financial services sector, moved from a nice to have tool into a must-have. Like I need to have this because without it, I'm going to be left behind, and I'm no longer going to be relevant as a business.

And AI is not really new. It didn't come out with ChatGPT. I was doing my PhD in the U.S. working on machine learning and on the predecessors of ChatGPT on [indiscernible] and [indiscernible] And my brother and I were in the U.S. during that revolution before ChatGPT, and we saw it coming. We saw a big revolution coming, and we're like we have to build something. We have to build a product that truly transforms businesses. That makes them use the data that they have to automate, to personalize customer experiences. And that's how we started.

And now like fast forward like 4.5, 5 years now, we see this becoming truly a reality that we have deployed Gen AI agents to more than a 100 customers worldwide. We're serving more than 15 million users right now every month. And we're doing this with foundational technology that we build, and we build in-house. And we've seen the results in -- from customer service, let's say, automating from 50% to 70% to even 80% of the requests, to proactive use cases where agents go out and reach out to customers to get them to do something that is revenue generating for the company.

We've seen use cases in account receivables and debt collection that our AI agents are 20% more efficient than financial analysts. And this is like kind of the tip of the iceberg because the way we see it is AI is not really one single scope. It allows a bank because now we're talking about the financial sector to kind of like redefine customer experiences and use AI as the bedrock of the new infrastructure that they have.

100%. 100%.

So disruption is huge.

Huge, and thank you for giving a few examples in terms of measuring and trying to give us, let's say, particular use cases around banking as well. Now shifting to [ cement ], right, a very different, I would call it, like heavy industry. I wanted to ask [indiscernible] which is -- I don't know how many people would have this knowledge in here. So I think it's a good segue. How has this industry been transformed over the past, let's say, 5, 6 years? It could be from traditional [ MLAI ] to [ agent take to ]. But how this has been applied in your case, has transformed the industry affecting, let's say, [indiscernible] as well?

Thank you, [indiscernible]. And it's true that I feel like a flying in the soup here in the middle of service industries. I represent heavy manufacturing industry. But you would be surprised to hear that this sector is also being radically transformed by digitization. And in fact, it's not only the 5 or last 6 years. [ Titan ] started applying AI 9 years ago. We were probably the second company in the world that applied artificial intelligence in its manufacturing facilities in its plant.

And the transformation we see covers most of the value chain of a heavy industry like ours, primarily in the manufacturing sector. So how we produce the material in our factories, then on the supply chain, the distribution of the heavy material, very different from distribution of financial products, I can assure you, or even of white goods or electronics from the retail.

And then also in terms of the customer interface. We are a B2B company with a very particular, I would say, traditional client base that is currently now gradually adopting digital technologies. And [ Titan's ] experience is that we have seen the biggest impact so far on our operational -- our core operational domains. We have applied tools like optimization of the performance of our equipment in our cement plants. And to the earlier question, you said, can you give us numbers and metrics? I can give you very specific metrics.

You have me wondering.

I can tell you exactly how much we have improved the productivity of our cement assets, the cement production assets has improved by 5% to 10% in the last 5 years. It may not sound revolutionary, but I can assure you in a process that has been micro optimized and fine-tuned for the last 150 years, a 10% improvement is nothing short but revolutionary.

We have also increased our reliability by predictive maintenance and anomaly detection. On average, we are preventing something like 10,000 hours of downtime in our plants globally by predicting faults before they happen. We have reduced our energy consumption on average by 7%. That includes electricity as well as thermal energy. We have reduced 40,000 tons of CO2 emissions in the last 12 months. And going to distribution, we have increased the productivity of our concrete trucks by 9%, and we have increased the on-time delivery of our concrete to the construction site by 10%.

So if you put all of this combined, the business case for Titan and for the industry at large is a very compelling one. We have seen fantastic return on investment, and we are now moving towards transforming also the customer experience, by moving away from the traditional construction site where everything is being ordered by phone or e-mail, to modern digital portals and the ability to track your order and things that look very straightforward for any other industry, but they are totally transforming the way our customers operate.

I have to say these are very impressive results. Just a quick follow-up and just also looking at time. As this -- as you mentioned, I started 9 years ago. So doing the math, that was the a hyperscalers, [indiscernible] services, boom, boom, AI, ML, but this was primarily in the U.S., right? [ Greece ] was a bit behind on that.

How that -- sorry, I'm going a bit off script, but I was just curious.

No. Let's say the whole program was orchestrated [ from Greece ]. You're right in saying that our pilot plant was in the U.S. for the first time we tested the solutions, but we brought things in Europe quite fast. And it has been -- we are a global company, so we don't see ourselves as a Greek operation.

Fantastic. Okay. [ Christo ], from -- let's say, from experiments to POCs as all of our tech friends here would call them, which some hate them, some love them, some find the value, some not. But from experiments to what we call scale of AI technology, what have you noticed in your own organization? How does that work? Have there been any lessons learned that you could share with the group? Good ones, bad ones?

Yes. Of course. First of all, definitely as early adopters of Gen AI, because AI has been always around the business for retail, even for cement industries. But as early adopters, we started with POCs, even with [indiscernible], started some experiments in order to understand how things evolve and how can use LLMs, Gen AI under a new operating -- other new, let's say, systems and [indiscernible] experiences.

But what we have seen is that we should treat this new technology, not as an IT product, not as an AI tool, but as an AI collaborator. So our own knowledge, our revamped or updated manifest says that we should treat AI, Gen AI, through the lenses of [indiscernible]. So we think that this is a fundamental, let's say, choice in how we're going to implement, and how we're going to move forward in the future. Why I'm saying that?

Because for us, AI, it's not the next chapter of technological or digital transformation, but the beginning of organizational transformation. So we believe that we should put people in the loop by design and trying to create this shared accountability between AI tools and human. So we believe AI is a future collaborator. We implement the HR logic, and we have, let's say, created the term -- coined the term [ AI twin ]. What that means? It means that in the existing human organizational chart -- alongside this organizational chart, we create an AI organizational layer. So people -- get people, colleagues or teams get their own augmented collaborator. That means that next to a commercial buyer, we have a digital buyer. Next to a pricing analyst, we set up a digital pricing analyst. And that means that people should onboard the AI agents, should train them, should mentor them, and even promote them if they get new skills through this evolution of the LLM of the knowledge that they get. This is a totally different approach.

Indeed it is. It sounds like you're pretty...

It's a tough decision because...

It's a very interesting one.

But we've seen exactly as the colleague from [ UniCredit ] said, skated [ POCs ] and tools that act like black boxes with not controlled results. And this is not the way we will go forward, especially if we're talking about a customer-centric business like the one that we run. So this is a fundamental shift from the POC rationale, or the approach to build tools in order to improve efficiency. We want to create a totally new layer alongside to the existing human organization chart.

So what we hear from Christos, and thank you for saying this is an interesting approach because in terms of -- if you had to pick the 3 layers, so technology, organization, people, talent, et cetera, et cetera, you're putting on your strategy right on the core of it and you're saying, I'm defining my entire org chart, I'm putting AI in the forefront. I'm trying to define basically what sits right next to them and how to basically scale it up within my organization from part, not just do spot POCs and see what it works and then scale it up. Very interesting. George?

Yes. I agree with...

Now it's a section where we have to talk about the hardest parts of the...

Yes. I...

We can also...

It was one of our debates with [indiscernible], I think, at the beginning when we were trying to collaborate on that.

Yes, yes. So no, our job is to make [ POCs ] production, okay? And 100% of our POCs have gone to production. That's our job. But no, kidding aside, I think that to my friends, what I tell them is that you live in the epidemic of POCs, on gen AI. Everything is a POC, everything is a promise. Until, let's say, agent hallucinates and the bank executive sees this and like take it out. It doesn't work. I cannot trust this. It's not compliant. It's not safe. How am I going to deploy this on my web banking?

Well, you can't. If you treat the LLM as your product and you treat LLM as a black box thing that magically works, then you can't. And part of our job is to take this very powerful, very powerful but still an auto complete, glorified but auto complete, but still very powerful that we treat as an engine and we try to put it into a car, and we want to give the car to the bank, to the institution. Because at the end of the day, people care about the car. They don't care about the engine that you use.

And we're very good at creating engines. We're really, really good at it, and we have multiple different engines. But LLMs I think of them, they're starting to become sort of like a commodity, okay? What's the difference between cloud and GPT and Gemini? Okay. Maybe there are a few differences, but still, on average, they behave the same. So at the end of the day, at the space that we're in, enterprise practical AI, we're trying to build those vertical agents that have actual ROI for the bank and institution that chooses to work with us.

And when I said that we're living in the epidemic of POCs, maybe you've shared about the MIT study that 95% of the pilots never actually make it to production. This is insane. And still, even though there's been huge investments in Gen AI, many, many companies don't yet see positive ROI when they treat the LLM as the core black box product, okay? So that's exactly what we're trying to do, just basically give the product and take the POC and make it into production.

Fun fact, we're working very, very closely with Alpha Bank. Its one of our closest partners. And we started working with them through a POC because obviously, first, you want to see until you believe. We started with the POC with Alpha Bank and Alpha Bank became one of the first banks worldwide, to deploy a production Gen AI agent on their landing page and on their e-banking. And this is huge, okay? And we did it by closely working with them, closely trying to see that the data exists, the correct flows exist, and the agent is compliant. It's safe and it's applicable for customer-facing experiences.

So to your point, keeping up with the speed, not just reading it as a POC that if you leave it alone, it might die, but basically taking great value, take it great to production, try to scale it.

Exactly. It's not magic. It's not going to work by itself. Its garbage in, garbage out [indiscernible]

So shifting to you, [indiscernible], what has been the, let's say, the hardest part because 9 years ago, we heard the story, very specific numbers, by the way, impressive in terms of ROI. I think very few organizations can support a similar one.

But what has been the hardest part? Has it been talent, organization, technologies, lack of specific skills, adoption, training the people, making them utilize all of those capabilities, making them believe? What has been the hardest part?

So [ George ], industrial AI is a bit different in that it is not plug and play. The models and the solutions that optimize manufacturing facility typically are invented or developed for other industries. And then you need to take that and adjust it and calibrate it and connect it with the operating system of a plant, and adapt it to the way your engineers are working. So a proof of concept for us typically lasts more than a year where we have to take a model.

You say, wow, that's a difference, right? Great partner that exists here, friends and technology of banks, et cetera, that's a huge difference from an industry lens.

Back in 2017, our first optimizer took about 15 months to make it work. Our first predictive maintenance solution took more than a year of testing. Our logistics solution took the best part of 2 years. So that's, I think, the difference. And for us, making it work is the hardest part.

Once we are convinced that it works, that there is a business case for it. Then immediately, we switch from experimenting and doing multiple other pilots to industrializing the solution and rolling out fast. And we have built a dedicated organization that is dedicated to actually take the solution plant by plant, asset by asset around the world and deploy. Even a deployment for a mature solution takes 3 or 4 months. It doesn't take 3 days. So you need a whole organization around it to go around and make it happen.

And the final part here is that what we realized, and I think the secret sauce for us was that you need a matrix of capabilities to make industrial AI work. You need a data scientist that calibrate the algorithm and make it suitable for your facilities. You need a data engineer that capture the terabytes of data from your sensors and manipulate the data. You need the integrators to take this and put it into the machines of the facility. You need the project managers and then you need, of course, the [ change ] managers. And I think the right mix of skills was, in the end, what made us being able to [ productize ] and roll out quickly.

That's fantastic. And again, wow for the POC aspect of it, wow for the patients and trying to figure out the right matrix and wow for the level of tuning customization that needs to happen to be able to work for the particular industry, right? I'm sure it will take a lot of it. But to your point, once it's set, having the right, let's say, maybe not manual, but the right skill set and capability in terms of the people enables this.

So I haven't seen anybody bugging me about time. I see time is up. But if I can have one more minute and go to the reverse approach with [indiscernible], [indiscernible] and [indiscernible].

On [indiscernible] question, 1 minute for an answer from each one, if we can. How have -- we're talking so much about AI, Gen AI, everything AI, so many events AI. Sometimes I think even the technologies are being a bit contradicting themselves because of the numbers, it's a hard part, right? Because you mentioned, very difficult to measure and so on and so forth. And it's objective because we're humans.

So to your point, [indiscernible] earlier, you were talking a little bit about the journey, right, of Titan, which is very interesting. One question I have is, how have the, let's say, expectations from a customer perspective, B2B on your case have changed if and to what level, if you will, over the past, let's say, 5, 6 years? Have you noticed anything different? Is this shifting as well from a business to business? Or is it still, okay, you don't have to digitize everything? We can live with that?

So as I said in the beginning, [ George ], our customers are very particular types of companies. Most of them are small family-owned businesses, traditional in the way of thinking and valuing human interaction very much. So the way we have seen customer expectations and behavior change is, first of all, as they become more familiar in their personal lives by using digital platforms to do their daily shopping and commerce. They expect this also for their business. So I think one demand that came clear is that they want to interact with us on top of the telephone and the human touch with the electronic platform.

And the second thing, I think the industry and the product is slowly but very surely decommoditizing. People expect service on top of the material. They expect predictability of time. The expect consistency of the quality. They expect ability to flexibly change the times and so on. And all of this cannot be done without electronic platforms. So I think this service orientation is what is changing for us.

Fantastic. Thank you, [ Antony ]. [ George ], is the motor pressure, pressure on your side, technology? Let's put it out. Let's make it work properly. No mistakes. By this date.

Essentially, yes. There's a lot of pressure, a lot of pressure to move fast, a lot of pressure to innovate. Expectations are the highest they've ever been. Obviously, you play around with ChatGPT, you think it's [indiscernible], right? And you expect this kind of experience to give to your customers.

So expectations from the business, so our partners have risen a lot, I would say, but there is still a lot of unknowns to be figured out around compliance, safety, how do I make this not hallucinate, especially in areas like financial services. But also from the end customers' perspective, I think expectations have risen again. There's kind of like we are in the transition period sort of and transition periods are always kind of weird in the sense that many people have gotten used to talking to the IVR, or talking to the [indiscernible] chatbot. And when they see that it's an AI, they're like, oh, it doesn't work. I want to speak with an agent. Agent, agent, agent.

Human, human, human.

Human, human, yes. Which is it's kind of the [indiscernible] of the end customer, but I think this is slowly changing and it's part of the exercise to educate the market as well by giving them actually good experiences such that users will come back -- customers will come back and still want to interact with the AI.

100%. [indiscernible] same question. Are customers now expecting not the 3 clicks, not the 2 clicks, 1 click, I buy everything, give me my recommendation. Why should I search? Why should I do this? Or has it been aggressive on the retail side?

Yes. I think retailing is on a [indiscernible] moment. Customers actually will no longer browse. So the main question for retailers is, are we ready to be found or trusted by an AI agent in parallel or more than a human as a human does. So this is very crucial, changes everything. The old paradigm does not exist anymore. So we are in front of a totally different journey, a totally different operation. This is my view on that.

A 100%. Everyone, ladies and gentlemen, this is Mr. [ Christos ] [indiscernible], CEO of [indiscernible]; [ George ] [indiscernible], Co-Founder, Chief AI from [indiscernible]; and Mr. [indiscernible], Group Strategy and Digital Officer for [ Titan Cement Group ]. Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you [indiscernible] And now the moment we've all been waiting for. [indiscernible] awards. [indiscernible] Hello [indiscernible]

Hello humans. I heard the finalists came here today to try and beat me. Good luck. I run on AI, so nice try. I am here to assist with the awards for the top 3 companies of this years competition.

This is great to have you here [indiscernible] So let's get things started. Could you please help me with the third prize? And while [ Temi ] is going to bring the third price, I will just inform you that the third prize is a start-up award pack offered by Microsoft. I would like to ask now [indiscernible], Microsoft General Manager for Greece, Cyprus and Malta to join me on stage for the award presentation.

Hello [indiscernible] nice to be here. Good to have you here. Thank you. So now we are waiting for the award. Come on [ Temi ] with the award. And now the third prize goes to [indiscernible]

Now for the second prize -- now for the second price, we have it already here, and I will call on stage Mr. [indiscernible]. Please, Mr. [indiscernible]. Now [indiscernible], General Manager for Greece and Cyprus at ABM. The second price is a price of EUR 10,000 and it goes to [indiscernible]

Thank you very much. I'll be there soon.

And now, before we continue I want to remind you that all 3 winners will receive 3 weeks of [indiscernible]. Now [indiscernible] its time for the first awad. Could you please give us the first award here.

The first prize, which consists of EUR 10,000, along with the opportunity to run a pilot project with Alpha Bank

[indiscernible] And the first prize goes to [indiscernible] Congratulations.

So thank you, [ Tami ]. Congratulations again to all our finalists and of course, the winners, and to every innovator who dare to dream bigger. As we close, remember the purpose of this event with its Innovation Day, Alpha Bank and this year's [ Finquest ] Alpha Bank sparked meaningful innovation, brought together start-ups, industry and key ecosystem players into the same conversations on how to accelerate AI-driven transformation.

Thank you to all our mentors and partners, supporters and the [ Finquest ] community and of course, to you, our audience here today at stage and our audience at home via live streaming for being part of this celebration. Thank you. Of course, a very special thanks to my co-host, [ Tami ] and our sponsors. Now please join us to [indiscernible] for a celebratory drink. Good night, everyone. Thank you.

Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I am Jota, your Chorus Call operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Alpha Bank conference call to present and discuss the 9 months 2025 financial results. [Operator Instructions] The conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions]

At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Alpha Bank management. Gentlemen, you may now proceed.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the presentation of our third quarter results. I'm Iason Kepaptsoglou, Alpha Bank's Head of Investor Relations. Our CEO, Vassilios Psaltis, will lead the call with the usual summary and a few updates. Our CFO, Vassilios Kosmas, will then go through this quarter's numbers in some detail. Q&A will come at the end, and we should wrap up within the hour.

Vassili, over to you.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our call. Let's start with the usual overview of financial results on Slide 4, please. As you can see, reported profits for the 9 months stood at EUR 704 million, already more than what we have made in the preceding fiscal years. Earnings per share of EUR 0.27 are 73% of the target we have set for the year. This translates into a 13.9% normalized return on tangible equity.

We've also accrued EUR 352 million for distributions so far this year, already more than the distributions out of 2024 profits, and we intend to distribute circa EUR 111 million as an interim cash dividend in about a month's time. The main pillars of our performance remain the same. We have defended against the fall of the interest rates, seeing the second quarter of sequential NII growth. We recognize that the decline in interest rates will come less relevant in the coming quarters, but our ability to prudently position the balance sheet to maximize the value we can extract will remain relevant, be it on policy rates or spreads.

We see structural tailwinds to our fee income line coming from Asset and Wealth Management, alongside lending and transaction banking. Fee income growth is the product of the initiatives we have taken that are now bearing fruit, both from the corporate as well as the affluent side of the business. We continue to position the business to maximize the recurring value we can create for our stakeholders in a sustainable way.

Now allow me to spend some time on the strategic outlook, starting with Slide 5. Our strategic partnership with UniCredit continues to be a cornerstone of our transformation and growth agenda. As of last week, UniCredit has increased its stake in Alpha Bank to circa 30%, reinforcing the depth and commitment of our partnership. This is not just a financial investment. As UniCredit CEO, Andrea Orcel repeatedly stated, it's a strategic partnership, delivering tangible commercial, operational and systemic benefits for both institutions.

We've cooperated closely and successfully combined our Romanian subsidiaries in a record time frame on footprint and unlocking synergies in cross-border operations. Furthermore, our clients now benefit from UniCredit's European network across 13 countries. This uniquely positions Alpha Bank as a gateway to Europe and the bank of choice for over 5,000 wholesale clients in Greece.

In Wealth and Asset Management, the launch and expansion of the OneMarket funds suite has been a major success with close to EUR 900 million distributed to our customers. In Wholesale Banking, we have collat over EUR 300 million in letters of credit and guarantees through our transaction banking business and approved circa EUR 0.5 billion in international syndicated lending since the partnership began.

Additionally, bilateral FX payment volumes have reached EUR 650 million year-to-date, reflecting strong transactional momentum. In Capital Markets and Advisory, the integration of our investment banking platform is progressing well. Together with UniCredit's advisory franchise, we're targeting joint deal origination across various sectors.

Lastly, beyond commercial gains, we are also leveraging UniCredit's expertise in customer experience, process simplification, upskilling and reskilling programs, compliance and operational resilience, areas that are crucial to our long-term sustainability. This partnership aligns with Europe's vision for cross-border integration and financial stability. It supports the capital market union and enhances systemic resilience across Europe.

Looking ahead, we aim to scale further our syndicated lending, transaction banking and cross-border advisory and broaden the distribution of asset management products across UniCredit's network. Our partnership with UniCredit gives us a competitive advantage that differentiates us from the rest of the pack, one that we aim to fully utilize to enhance the value that we can create for the benefit of all of our stakeholders.

Our story remains intact, as you can see on Slide 6. Our strategic actions alongside our balance sheet tactical positioning will allow us to maintain an upward trajectory to our bottom line. Our defensive net interest income profile is now evident as we are amongst the first commercial banks in Europe to see growth in their net interest income line. We continue to dynamically manage our balance sheet, capturing the tailwinds of loan growth.

The structural growth potential of the regions where we operate will allow us to maintain a pace of net credit expansion above the EUR 2 billion mark. We are stepping up our efforts for incremental fee income generation. Our franchise is strongly positioned to benefit from the long-term uplift in the penetration of fee-generating services. And as mentioned above, we are leveraging the partnership with UniCredit to accrue tangible benefits quarter after quarter. Our profitability is on an upward path, and we see earnings growing by 12% beyond 2025, still notwithstanding the impact of any share buybacks.

Let's now move to Slide 7, please. The trends for 2025 and beyond allow us to maintain a differentiating positive EPS growth trajectory in the medium term. This differentiation should now be apparent vis-a-vis our domestic and European peers. EPS is expected to grow by 10% per annum over the planning period, above consensus estimate even before accounting for the effect of any buybacks.

And then on Slide 8, please. We have been diligent and clear on how we intend to allocate capital and our priority remains unchanged. Our first and foremost priority is to fund profitable loan growth and invest in bolstering our capabilities. Our capital generation capacity suggests that we ought to be increasing payout. Lastly, our excess capital provides us with significant firepower to do more.

Allow me to provide you with an update on these priorities, starting with loan growth on Slide 9. Loan growth in Greece continued to show resilience with corporate lending continuing to lead the way. We are seeing sustained momentum driven by a combination of strong economic fundamentals, a robust investment cycle and the structural support mechanism in place. Businesses are actively engaging with the banking sector to finance expansion, transformation and innovation, reflecting a deeper shift in the corporate landscape.

We expect this dynamic to persist fueling high single-digit growth for corporates. The mortgage market presents a more complex picture. Demand is evident, but structural constraints around supply and legacy portfolio dynamics continue to weigh on growth. Government support measures offer some relief and growth is now turning positive. As a result, lending to individuals will be a growth area in the coming years. We're operating in an environment of hidden competition, particularly in the large corporate segment, which has led to gradual compression in spreads.

We're actively defending profitability through prudent underwriting, optimizing risk-weighted assets and increasing fee and commission income. The commercial book remains resilient, and we are confident in our ability to navigate these dynamics effectively.

Overall, the outlook remains constructive. Corporate lending will continue to be the engine of growth, supported by a recovering economy and targeted investment flows. Whilst mortgage activity may be -- may be slow in picking up, the broader loan book is well positioned to deliver in our expectations. We remain confident in our guidance and continue to expect mid- to high single-digit growth over the medium term.

On Slide 10, you can see the revenue benefits from the investments we have made in growing parts of our core business. Beyond balance sheet growth, we have made important strides in diversifying our revenue streams and enhancing our cross-selling capabilities, which is a key pillar of our medium-term growth strategy. Trade finance and overall transaction banking fees have seen strong growth, achieving an 8% CAGR, boosted by our internal efforts to deepen our share of wallet with clients and also thanks to our partnership with UniCredit and the larger product pallet that they are now able to offer us to our corporate customers.

In Asset Management, fees and assets under management have both doubled since December 2022, with over 60% of this growth coming from net new money, complemented by positive market effects. The former highlights our growing distribution capabilities, capitalizing on our affluent and wealthy clientele whilst the latter demonstrates the outperformance of our products.

Mutual funds have taken the lion's share of this growth with net sales accounting for 75% of the total growth and a continuing bias towards balanced and equity funds. These are products that carry higher management fee margins, helping our fee CAGR in asset management reach an impressive 32% since the first quarter of '23. The outlook for these 2 areas remains very constructive. Our corporate customers, they are increasingly more sophisticated and their needs are expanding beyond vanilla lending.

As such, we aim to support them in their growth journey through an expanded pallet of transaction banking, trade finance, treasury and advisory product, the latter with our new larger business following the acquisition of AXIA Ventures. In Asset Management, Greece is at early stages of a new secular trend with rising disposable incomes and improving financial literacy among affluent customers, creating long-term tailwinds for AUM growth.

Moving on to Slide 11. Shareholder remuneration has been on a consistent upward trajectory, reflecting both our strong capital generation capacity and our commitment to sustainable value creation. We reiterated dividends with -- we started again paying dividends with a 20% payout ratio, increased this to 43% of reported profits last year, and we are currently accruing at 50% for 2025. This progression underscores our confidence in the robustness of our capital position and our ability to support higher distributions going forward.

Indeed, our capital generation capacity suggested the payout north of 50% is sustainable, aligning with our strategic objective to deliver predictable and growing returns to our shareholders. Cash dividends have followed a similar upward path, starting with EUR 61 million out of 2023 profits and rising to EUR 70 million for 2024. For the current year, the introduction of an interim dividend of EUR 111 million to be paid in the fourth quarter confirms the positive momentum and our disciplined approach to capital deployment.

Now when it comes to the split between cash dividends and share buybacks, our approach remains balanced and responsive to market conditions. While cash dividends provide immediate and tangible returns, buybacks offer flexibility and accretive value, particularly in periods of market dislocation. We continue to assess the optimal mix guided by our capital planning framework and our overarching goal of enhancing total shareholder return, cognizant of the change in the return of investment for future buybacks.

Let's now move to M&A and start with Slide 12, please. We view M&A as a powerful tool that can accelerate the delivery of our strategy. The 3 transactions we announced earlier this year, FlexFin, AstroBank and AXIA Ventures, they are fully aligned with our framework. FlexFin enhances our factoring capabilities and opens access to underserved SME segments. AstroBank consolidates our systemic presence in Cyprus, doubling its profitability. AXIA Ventures strengthens our advisory offering, elevating our dialogue with corporate clients with additional focus on cross-border capabilities in conjunction with our UniCredit partnership.

Moving on to Slide 13. As we have stated clearly, the financial impact of these transactions with a total 6% accretion to EPS and 60 basis points benefit to profitability in terms of return on tangible equity at the cost of circa 60 basis points of capital. Integration efforts are already underway, and we're working toward full rollout in line with our strategic road map.

To ensure seamless execution, we have appointed a dedicated Chief of Integration and Group Initiatives Officer, who oversees all aspects of delivery and sits on the Executive Committee. This governance structure ensures strategic alignment, operational discipline and timely execution. We will continue to pursue opportunities that fit our framework and deliver long-term value to our clients and shareholders.

And then finally, from my side, I'm pleased to announce that we are planning to host an Investor Day in the second quarter of 2026. We're close to the end of the period covered by our last event held in June 2023. So we believe it is time to update the market on the progress we have made across the group and explain our strategic priorities going forward. Planning is already underway, and we will be sharing more details in the coming months. At the full year results stage, you should expect to receive guidance for 2026, but with a 3-year business plan subsequently unveiled during the Investor Day.

And with that, Vassili, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Vassili. Hello to everyone from my side as well. Let's start with the P&L on Slide 16, please. Quiet quarter in terms of one-off items this time. We've had EUR 25 million well-publicized donation to the Marietta Giannakou program for the reconstruction of schools as well as a few transformation and NP transaction-related costs. As you can see, trading and other income was also particularly low this quarter, mainly stemming from the liability management exercise we did on our Tier 2 note back in July. That had a EUR 12 million impact.

As a result, our reported profit is a bit lower this quarter, while on a normalized basis, we're still cruising comfortably above the EUR 200 million line. Obviously, these 2 have implications for the full year guidance. Overall, we still expect to beat our original guidance of EUR 850 million in reported profits by a bit over 5%. We're still looking at EUR 2.2 billion of revenues, north of EUR 1.6 billion in NII and north of EUR 460 million in fees. Costs are still expected to be contained at EUR 870 million.

We're tracking very well against the improved cost of risk guidance of 45 basis points. Associate income would likely come in at EUR 30 million. Tax, excluding the one-off PTA recognition should around about 26%. And finally, in terms of one-offs, we're likely going to have a couple of negatives in Q4, bringing the total for the year to positive EUR 30 million. All in, that should give a normalized EPS of EUR 0.35, in line with the consensus.

With that, let's move to the next slide and talk about the underlying results and the main P&L items. Both net interest income and fees are growing sequentially. So the underlying core revenue picture remains solid. Operating income was down 5% Q-on-Q, solely attributable to trading, where, as mentioned, this quarter, we had a loss on the LME. Costs at EUR 214 million were flat versus previous quarter, and we're still trading better than expected.

We expect a significant uptick in the fourth quarter on account of some seasonality typical towards year-end and thus retaining the full year guidance of circa EUR 870 million. Impairments came in at EUR 45 million for the quarter, bringing cost of risk at 45 basis points, in line with guidance and reflecting a benign credit environment.

Finally, on the bottom line, reported profit after tax was down 36% as we had a large positive one-off in the previous quarter and a small negative this time. Normalized stood at EUR 217 million, almost flat Q-on-Q. So I still feel very comfortable with the full year guidance.

Next slide on the main balance sheet items. Performing loans are up 2% in the quarter and a 13% jump from last year. Customer funds are also up 4% in the quarter with a year-on-year increase of 9%. Tangible book value, up 1.3% in the quarter on goodwill recognition with the annual growth rate of 13% after adjusting for dividends. And then on capital, which stands at 15.7% in terms of fully loaded CET1. But as you might remember, we will have a 60 basis point headwind in Q4 upon completion of AstroBank, already completed and AXIA.

Let's move to Slide 19, where we discuss the 2 main components of revenue. NII was up for one more quarter, continuing the upward trajectory. At EUR 42 million, we're still seeing the impact of rate declines and to a lesser extent, the dollar depreciation. On the commercial side, with average rates still down in the quarter, we're seeing a lower contribution from loans. Even though rates appear to have stabilized, the lag effect of repricing means that we'll still have a headwind going into Q4.

Deposits and funding costs continue to improve, although the pace of rates decline means that time deposit pass-through are more elevated than expected. With rates now hopefully at the trough, we should see some improvement in time deposit spreads. On the noncommercial side, securities book hasn't grown, so there's no material improvement this quarter. On the fee and commission side, we saw a small decline in the quarter.

If we exclude the gain from the one scheme partnership with Visa in the previous quarter, third quarter was actually up 7% on a comparative basis. For yet another quarter, the star performance was asset management at EUR 32 million, being already currently running double the run rate of the 2022-'24 3-year average. Business credit fees came at EUR 33 million, up 2.3% versus the second quarter. Fees from cards and payments are seasonally strong in the third quarter. Overall, fees are up 10% versus the same quarter last year and even more if we adjust for the government initiatives, reinforcing the guidance we have given you for the year.

Now let's move to Slide 20 to look at loans and customer funds. Performing loan balances reached EUR 35.7 billion with some EUR 700 million of net credit expansion in the quarter. Another strong quarter with EUR 3 billion of disbursements and a similar pattern in the board, corporates, including SMEs, driving growth evenly spread across sectors. Some small contribution from retail at around about EUR 50 million.

Year-to-date, net credit expansion has now reached EUR 2.2 billion, while once we account for the negative FX headwind from the weaker dollar and the asset quality flows, performing balances are up EUR 1.6 billion. Net credit expansion is slightly better than expected and the repayment of a large circa EUR 300 million corporate exposure we were expecting in Q3 has yet to occur. This repayment has now been rolled into Q4, so do take that into account when forming your estimates.

Spreads continue to be under pressure, but we remain disciplined in our underwriting criteria. As such, we will avoid deals or refinancings that do not meet our own credit criteria and are not accretive to our shareholders. Turning to customer funds, another quarter of solid growth with circa EUR 1.6 billion of growth in deposits, almost entirely coming from domestic corporates. Please note that about EUR 0.5 billion relates to bond placement that we led at the end of the quarter, which has quickly reversed in Q4.

On AUMs, we continue to see good underlying net sales, EUR 400 million this quarter with circa 3/4 driven by OneMarket funds this time. Year-to-date, we have had EUR 1 billion net sales, reaching the year-end target a quarter earlier. AUMs have grown 17% versus last year, 1/3, as you can see, attributable to net sales and 2/3 coming from valuation effects, predominantly in equities. Contrary to the local industry, the dominant products we sell are equity and balance funds with good management transaction fees under the typical target maturity products that replicate time deposits. The above reflect the strength of the bank franchise.

Turning to Slide 21 on asset quality. NPE ratio was at 3.6%, mainly on account of circa EUR 70 million of retail net flows. Coverage ratio has thus edged to 55%. The underlying picture remains solid. We're not particularly concerned with any flows as should be evident by the underlying cost of risk that stood at 26 basis points for the quarter. We don't expect any meaningful surprises in the coming quarters and remain on track to deliver the full year guidance of 45 basis points.

To wrap it up, let's turn to Slide 22 on the capital. This quarter, we had 38 basis points of capital generation organically, and this includes everything that is business as usual. So P&L, DTAs, the usual DTC amortization, the semiannual AT1 coupon and RWA growth. Overall, we're still very much on plan for organic capital generation.

As mentioned, we have accrued a further EUR 93 million towards dividend, bringing the total year-to-date to EUR 352 million, whilst 37 basis points of capital you see here includes DTC acceleration. All in, CET ratio stands at 15.7% on a fully loaded basis or 10 basis points higher if you take into account pending transactions. Note that the transitional CET1 ratio stands at some 36 basis points higher at 16.1%.

With now, let's open the floor for questions.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from the line of Demetriou, Alex with Jefferies.

Just 2 questions from me. So next quarter, we see the AXIA and AstroBank deals close. So if you were to look across your current product offering and income lines, are there any other areas where you see gaps, you'd like to strengthen that could be supported by the bolt-on acquisitions or potentially supported through the partnership with UniCredit?

And just secondly, so on loan yields, when should we expect the yields to stabilize if rates were to remain flat from here and we start to see the end of the repricing lag that we are likely to see continue into Q4?

Well, Alex, it's Vassilios. I'll take the first one. On the area of bolt-on, as we have said in the past, bolt-on has been quite an efficient and effective way of doing 2 things. Number one is to quickly go to narrower areas where we spotted gaps or where we want to accelerate further our product offering and/or geographies.

And the second element that we have been fortunate to tie it so far is that we acquired with it excellent human capital, which is, as you well know, currently one of the biggest constraints that we have across the industry or across the industries, I should rather say, for growing further. So this, to us, being a proven strategy, which we do continue to scan the universe for areas like that. As I said, it's not just about gaps. It is also about progressing faster. There are such, and we're actively looking into that.

If I may add regarding your question for the closing of the announced transactions, Astro has closed. So in the fourth quarter, you will see its numbers in the group numbers. As far as AXIA is concerned, we expect closing in the fourth quarter of 2025.

If I can pick up on the second part of your question, if I understand correctly, you tried to assess what's the outlook for the NII. I mean the first thing to note here that we are still very confident on our total revenue projections for 2026.

Now as regards to the dynamics, you're right to say that some of the pressure that we had on the rates in Q3 versus Q2 will be abated. So you should expect a slightly better picture in Q4 versus Q3. So we continue this trend. But most of the growth in NII, we're going to be looking at it in the 2026 numbers, where effectively, we expect flat rates and the impact of volume growth on loans to come into play.

If I could just follow up. So if we think about the loan yields in a stable environment, when do you expect them to be flat and we no longer see that repricing lag come through and so kind of lower interest income, excluding like the volume effect?

No. I think we need to leave that for the full year state where we're going to provide guidance for 2026. I don't think we ought to be commenting on that at this point.

No, no, that's very clear. No worries.

I think given Alex's question, just hold on this point, I think it is useful perhaps to give a bit -- so sketching a bit on what may come our way for 2026 because I think the important thing for the market to understand is that for 2026, what we're going to be looking for is to capitalize on the strategic approach that we have taken so far. And as such, I think we're comfortable with market expectation vis-a-vis our total revenues. That is the point I would like to stress that Vassili has also mentioned before.

And so far, we have been building on holistic relationship, which are now proven to be the core advantage of our bank, and that allows us to be more adaptable as the demand for nonlending services, including asset and wealth management, et cetera, is picking up. So that -- I think that is a key takeaway, and that is what you should expect to hear more from us when we have our full year results looking into 2026.

The next question comes from the line of Kemeny, Gabor with Autonomous Research.

Can I please follow up on NII and specifically on corporate loan spreads, which I believe have been trending down. You show that on Page 29 of the presentation. Is this a trend you would expect to continue? I mean 2.4% corporate loan spread is still very solid. That's the first one. Second one, you mentioned that the deposit pass-through has perhaps been higher than you expected.

Indeed, you show a 55% deposit pass-through. Can you elaborate on the dynamics here and how the front book, back book of the pricing of the deposit portfolio looks like? And just lastly, a very comfortable capital position, even if we take into account the upcoming transaction closings. How do you think about raising your distribution above 50% from '25 results?

Let me try to pick on this, Gabor. Thank you for the questions. So starting with the corporate loan spreads, you're right to note that there's a bit of a linear 7 or 8 basis points tightening on a quarter-to-quarter basis. As we see the market, we're sort of leading the absolute level compared to our peers. So we're very happy with the mix that we have, that we keep some distance from the tightest situations. And as mentioned several times, we are walking away from situations that don't fit our return on investment criteria.

I think it's useful also to keep in mind that the strategy here when we're looking at the corporate relationship is not all around spread, but around the overall relationship. That's why you see much of what we see lower in NII from spreads to be recouped from trade finance. Trade finance for reference is around about a bit more than 30% corporate. Transaction banking fees from corporate is around about 30% higher this year than the previous year.

Now on the time deposit pass-through, I think you're right to note that pass-through is pretty much stable at around about 65%. We're sort of tracking the market on that one, to be frank with you. And what we see happening in the market is that as rates stabilize and mind you that rates practically have stabilized in Q3, the time deposit book takes around about 6 to 7 months in our case to converge.

So you should expect in the next couple of quarters, time deposit pass-throughs to go, maybe collectively 4, 5 points for the whole market, including us. I wouldn't give you that for the next couple of months. But as I said, it should take couple of quarters for this to materialize, assuming, obviously, that base rates are going to be at the same rate that they currently are at around about 2%.

Now on the point of -- if I may take it, Vassili, on the point of distribution, I think for 2025, it is clear that we expect to pay 50% of the reported profit. So that's close to EUR 450 million, EUR 111 million of which will soon be distributed as an interim dividend. And from where we see it, we clearly have the capacity to grow higher than that, and it's something we intend to do from '26 onwards, both in terms of absolute amount on account of earnings growth and obviously subject to regulatory approval on the back of a higher payout.

That's very helpful. Just a small follow-up on the 4, 5 points you mentioned, I'm not sure I got that. What did that refer to, please?

Time deposit pass-through, Gabor.

The next question comes from the line of Munari, Filippo with JPMorgan.

So I have 2 questions. The first one, I saw that you raised the normalized EPS target, excluding the buybacks to EUR 0.47 in 2027 from EUR 0.46, I think. So what's driving that? Is it better fees, better OpEx or a combination of things? If you can please give some color on that would be super useful.

And then second thing on the trading and other income side. I understand there is EUR 12 million of negative impact from the Tier 2 refinancing in the quarter, but that should explain only part of the weakness because the run rate would be still quite higher than that. So can you please comment if there were other negative factors affecting the trading line in the quarter?

If I quickly take the guidance, the EUR 0.47 is something that we have disclosed back in August with the second quarter results, and it's mainly on account of a lower cost of risk. Hopefully, you remember the discussion we had back then about the improvement we've been able to produce on the guidance with cost of risk sustainably. So that's the only reason behind the EUR 0.47 in 2027. And then on the other question, Vassili.

Sure. I mean, if you turn to Page 16, if I understand correct your question, you're asking us around the Q2, EUR 30 million of trading and other income versus the Q3, EUR 1 million. You're right to point out that around about EUR 12 million is the LME. The other element, which is noteworthy here is rental income, to be frank with you, which is classified as other income. This is the dividend from our 10% shareholding in Prodea. This was a EUR 12 million dividend, which was paid out in June.

And obviously, they don't pay such a dividend every quarter. I think more importantly, it's important for people to consider, and I think some of that is due on us, too, that when the bank is reporting around about EUR 460 million plus net fee and commission income, we're missing around about another 25-ish currently on an annualized base rental income, which other people used to report in this line.

So I think in the coming quarters, we should make this more clear because this is a recurring line coming in. On top of this, our risk appetite for real estate is growing. This is an investment that we are continuously stepping our feet. So we expect more to come in Q4 in terms of investment and more recurring income to come out of these investments in 2026. But obviously, hopefully, you have made some patience to give you a bit of a full picture around that in February.

The next question comes from the line of Kantarovich, Alexander with Roemer Capital.

My question would be on UniCredit participation, clearly a major factor affecting your valuations. And now that they have reached 29% and possibly going higher, surely, this would have -- this partnership is having a big strategic implications for Alpha. So my question is, how do you see this participation progressing in the near future in 2026, if possible?

Well, I think for something that you implied about the evolution of the stake since we are not the owners of the stake, I think I'm simply going to echo what Andrea Orcel has said on that. Now the way he and we view it is that we have an outstanding relationship at all levels with UniCredit. And this is not just a top management team, but a wide array of people at UniCredit that are regularly involved with people on our sites as we are going -- as we're doing so many things together.

We and they were all excited to do it because it is truly a mutually beneficial relationship, both in terms of commercial activity as well as exchange of know-how. And the partnership is outstanding, and this is progressing well on all fronts. And thus as a result of that, both as Alpha Bank, but I think also as a country, we have welcomed UniCredit to Greece. And as the saying goes, if it works, I mean, don't fix it. There is nothing more at the moment beyond the current state. All I can reaffirm is that we are deepening and broadening the things that we are doing together. And there's going to be more on that, that we will be able to report quarter-by-quarter.

Okay. Okay. Let's call it deepening, yes. My second question is on the effect of FX on loans. I think you used the phrase FX headwind in one of your slides. Can you elaborate?

Sure. Yes, I'm happy to take that one. Effectively, what we're saying is that the bank, I mean, rough numbers has EUR 36 billion loan book in terms of euro. On that, you should include something in the tune of EUR 3.2 billion, EUR 3.3 billion of USD-denominated shipping loans. And obviously, interest is charged in USD. So these 2 metrics stemming from the balances, right, and the NII do have an impact when the dollar has weakened some 15%, 16%, if I remember the numbers correctly from the beginning of the year. So that is the impact that we're discussing here. Does that make sense?

[Operator Instructions] Ladies and gentlemen, we have another question from the line of Novosselsky, Ilija with Bank of America.

I have 2, please. So first, on your Investor Day that should come in Q2. If you can just give us maybe a sneak peek of what would be the main topics that would be subject to discussion. And I also wanted to ask the reasoning behind the timing of the Investor Day because your previous one, which was in 2023, was at the time when there was a lot of change in rates, macro and so on. Well, now we are entering arguably a place of stability, and you also tend to give 3-year targets on your Q4 results. So I just wanted to ask about the reasoning for the Investor Day.

And second, maybe if you can comment a bit of your loan pipeline for Q4, if you can say whether it should be stronger, weaker compared to this quarter and whether it should be large corporates or there's some movements more into SMEs. And also, I'm seeing on Slide 40, which is showing your disbursements versus repayments. So this quarter, you had rather solid disbursements, but you had an increase of repayments and if there's a reason for that.

I'm going to take the first one. Ilija, I'm sorry, I'm going to -- afraid I'm going to have to disappoint you. Unlike movies, we're not going to be producing trailers for the Investor Day. You need to hold your breath until then. And hopefully, it's going to be nice. So no color whatsoever on what we're actually going to be publishing with the Investor Day.

In terms of timing, this has to do with Investor Relations planning and how we work internally. There's a specific cadence of events that's leading us towards the second quarter of next year, also taking into account the busy schedules that investors and analysts like yourself have. On the second question, Vassili?

Thank you, Iason. I mean, on the loan growth, if we start with Q3, as you rightly say, it was another strong quarter. Seasonally, Q3 is a good quarter because of the footprint on the bank. It's the bank typically has a much larger footprint in tourism and accommodation and both hospitality projects and trade around these areas is picking up in the summer. Hence, we had another good quarter.

To a lesser extent, just I'm talking for the quarterly numbers, it was construction and energy, very typical drivers of our Q3 of our quarterly evolution. Now when it comes to Q4, first of all, important to note that we have guided the market on around about EUR 2.2 billion net credit expansion for the year. We're already there in the first 3 quarters. Now when it comes to Q4, it's fair to say that we're going to be crossing our annual number, but I would be hesitant if I were you to put another EUR 600 million, EUR 700 million into this.

The reason has to do with what we mentioned during the presentation that there is a couple of large refinancings coming in Q4. This is a couple of transactions linked to M&A, where some of our competitors opted to go a bit more aggressively in credit terms. We didn't want to go there. So I would say you wouldn't expect -- you shouldn't be expecting any fireworks in Q4, still some positive mild positive growth.

Then on retail, what we have seen, which is pretty much in line with the market is that from quarter after quarter that we had negative inflows, Q3 was the first -- not the first, but one of the quarters that we had positive inflows in all segments, both [ SBs, ] which is typically our stronger product line, but also mortgages and consumer loans. We expect this to continue as retail is turning corner.

I mean, hard to imagine EUR 0.5 billion out of retail in the coming quarters, but still having like 50s or 60s rather negatives is a good number for us. I'll have to disappoint you on why the repayments in Q3 are in the tune of EUR 2.1 billion. Let's take it offline because honestly, I don't have it on top of my head.

We have another question from the line of Nigro, Alberto with Mediobanca.

Very 2 quick questions. One is on the bond portfolio. This quarter it seems that the repricing of the bond portfolio has been very minimal. Can you help us to understand when we should see the better yields coming through the NII? And the second one, if you can help us to understand the impact of AstroBank in Q4 for the P&L lines and if this is included in the full year guidance?

I'll take the second one. On AstroBank, we're only talking about a bit under 2 months. So there's not a very big impact, and it's already included in the guidance that we have provided to the market for this year. So minor impact from AstroBank. Obviously, we're going to be extracting some synergies next year, and you will see a more material impact thereafter, in line with the guidance that we have provided for a 5% uplift to EPS.

On the first question you had on the repricing of the bond portfolio and when we expect yields to improve there, we have yet again with us our CIO, Konstantinos, here to answer.

You've already seen the impact from Q4 and Q1 on the repricing of our bond portfolio, and you should continue to see that all the way into 2026, not only from the investments happened this year, but the upcoming maturities, which again are going to be reinvested that 1% or higher than the current back book yields. Obviously, on the last quarter, we didn't make any significant investments on all our maturities, and that's why we haven't seen any significant impact on quarter-on-quarter on that book.

Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the conference over to management for any closing comments. Thank you.

Well, thank you very much for your participation. We're looking forward to welcoming you again at the very last week of February where we're going to be releasing our full year results. Thank you very much.

Ladies and gentlemen, the conference has now concluded, and you may disconnect your telephone. Thank you for calling, and have a pleasant evening.