Banque Cantonale Vaudoise Stock

Okay. Good morning, everybody. Pascal Kiener, CEO of BCV speaking. Let me jump directly on Page 4 to comment what I consider are the key messages of our H1 results.

Basically, BCV is doing quite well with continued growth in all business sectors. Revenue are slightly up despite the negative or the low interest rate environment due to our, let's say, business model, which is quite diversified, the most diversified in terms of revenues of all cantonal banks due to private banking and asset management.

And then in this uncertainty world and also in this environment of, let's say, very low interest rates, we try to master and to control very tightly our cost. And you see that the overall cost, meaning personnel cost, operating expense as well as amortization are up only 1%. Basically, this results in a net profit up 5% compared to last year, CHF 225 million.

Then I go directly on Page 6. You see the different business volume, mortgage, other loans, deposits. So everything is up. In terms of deposits, you have to add the 2 elements, sight deposit and other client deposits in aggregate, this is +3%.

In terms of rating being financial -- extra financial ESG rating, financial rating, Moody's and S&P have confirmed their rating, which is okay. We didn't expect anything else, but I think it's good to say that. And in terms of ESG rating, you see that the notation, the ratings of BCV are quite good, very often on the second highest rating in -- for the different agencies and almost everywhere the best cantonal banking are among the best in terms of extra ESG rating. This is basically the result of, let's say, a long-term focus on governance issue, durability. This has started in the last 3, 4 years, but we started before 2010. Basically, it's written in the Canton of Vaud about BCV that we should care about durability on such issues.

Now back to business, retail banking, you see that the volumes are up, which is a normal growth. We have a target of roughly 4% for the mortgage business on a yearly basis, 2%, we are on track. And customer deposit is good. We were surprised by this number. I was expecting a bit less, but this is good. And in terms of revenue operating profit, this is due to the internal transfer pricing model for the time being, the savings, I mean, the 0 interest rates basically is not really favorable for the retail banking. Basically, the profit goes to the corporate center.

Okay. Corporate banking. Here, we have always to differentiate different segment. You have the small, medium enterprise focus is Canton of Vaud, 2% loan up and they report stable. The point I would like to make here is the COVID-19 bridge loans. I hope you're all familiar with what it was. It was a facility offered by the Swiss banking system of banks to corporate in Switzerland, where the bank would provide the liquidity, but the risk will be taken by the confederation -- by the Swiss confederation. So this started during the COVID crisis. And now a couple of years later, what can we say? We can say that 93% are paid back, 83% by the customer and 8% by the guarantee cooperative, which is basically the Swiss -- an extension of the Swiss confederation.

Now why I'm mentioning that? Because if you assume that the rest -- the 7% between 93% and 100% would also be completely lost not for BCV or for banks, but for the Swiss confederation, that would add up 8% plus 7%, 15%. When the program was developed a couple of years ago, we assumed 20% to 25% plus. That means basically that the Swiss economy and the Vaud, I think those numbers are the number for both, but this should be very similar in other compounds.

The Swiss economy is doing quite well, has been doing well in the last 5 to 6 years because all those companies were able to have paid back their own 85% at least probably more. I don't expect that the 93% to 100% or the 7%, the rest 7% would all be -- we lost probably 5% out of 7%, but not more than that. So that shows that the economy is doing not too badly.

Real estate is up, large corporates is always up and down depending on pricing and depending also on the window addressing end of June.

Trade finance, maybe one comment here. The geopolitical issues and here, we still -- we are still a very, let's say, cautious presence in this area even more after the political geopolitical troubles in the Middle East. So we don't expect to grow this business in the last -- in the next 2 to 3 years unless suddenly, the U.S. Iran war is solved, which I don't believe. And the same for the war between Russia and Ukraine, which also don't believe that it will be solved in the next, let's say, 1 to 2 years.

And in terms of credit risk, again, this is the same story for the COVID bridge loan. The economy is quite resilient. We have very limited number of new provision of new credit risk for the SME business in the corporate business in Swiss -- in the Swiss overall, sorry.

Wealth Management, again, those are aggregate figures. Here, you have the private banking of the motor company. You have also the institutional asset management business of the motor company. You have Piguet Galland, which is our small subsidiaries focused on private banking and also , Piguet Fund, which is a kind of fund management company -- fund administration company, sorry. So those numbers in a way they're all up, but we should give more detail that we don't want to give to be able to assess exactly what's going on at each level.

Anyway, trading, slightly up. I mean, 35%, 36%. I mean, this is more or less the same. Again, I repeat, this is a client induced trading, customer induced trading. There is no trading -- prop trading here. This is mostly ForEx and also the strong expansion in the structured product volume. This is clear that our rating, S&P and Moody's rating helped quite a lot in terms of being able to sell structured product to customers being retail customers or private banking customers or external asset manager or other small banks.

Okay. That's all in a way the business part. I hand over to Thomas for the financial results.

Okay. Hello, everybody. Let me be very short. Well, on Page 13, you see that basically the total income up CHF 14 million allowed operating profit to go up, because of careful cost management from [ corporate/residential], come back to that point. And nothing particular to signal with net profit up plus 10%, 5%.

On Page 14, different sources of income, which Pascal already described quite well. And we only had reversals on loan impairments as we had in H1 '25.

On Page 15, you give again the full transparency to understand net interest income, where you see that the net interest -- economic net interest income is at CHF 315 million plus CHF 2 million. And the balance sheet management is up CHF 1 million to CHF 10 million, which is basically the arbitrage, which you know. And we also know that this net income from BSM provides -- creates charges on the accounting and interest income and generates income on the trading line. So taking this correct way, the income, which is then really can be allocated to trading activity without BSM is up CHF 1 million to CHF 55 million from CHF 54 million.

As mentioned, operating expenses in a broader sense, meaning including depreciation and amortization is, we could say almost stable. Personnel costs evolve with salary increases. Other operating expenses are slightly up with operating cost of infrastructure and software licensing, software IT maintenance expenses. And as explained last year to you, we see now the amortization going slightly down.

Well, nothing to figure on the headcount, which is stable at the mother company and its subsidiaries. Total assets, while the mortgage loans and other loans have been described by Pascal, you see that we continue to invest into financial investments, which HQLA as liquidity reserve.

On Page 19, liabilities, the customer deposits are up CHF 1.1 billion. Actually, it's important to note that this is a net increase. There is one big [ factor, ] which actually has been drawing a lot of the deposits. So it's even more pleasant to see that net interest income that is interest -- net customer deposits are up CHF 1.1 billion. Well, the financing over -- be it over the Swiss Pfandbriefe and Tile or our own bonds work really well. So we increased here by CHF 0.7 million -- CHF 0.7 billion, CHF 700 million. And the accounting gain of first half year with shareholder equity only reflecting well, half year results and full year dividend payments.

Well, with the assets under management, so we are at CHF 142 billion, which 2/3 of this increase is market performance. So we are quite happy to see that at the end of the half year because remember, in the middle, like March, April, this was not sure. But there was a good effort and a good result in net new money in different areas from individuals, SMEs, institutionals. So we saw also overall good market development, good work at the front level.

Well, the capital ratios, they are detailed on Page 21. And as already mentioned, we had strong increases in mortgages. And so obviously, this caused risk-weighted assets and so it has a slight decrease on the CET1 ratio. Nothing particular on the leverage ratio.

LCRs on the Page 22 and NSFR on the Page 23 continue to evolve at a reasonable and comfortable level. So this is safe.

That's all I want to say. But looking forward to your questions. Pascal?

Okay. Let me finish this presentation by looking for the number on Page 25, basically, how do we see the economy going forward. We're still quite, let's say, not optimistic that would be too much, but we don't expect any recession or growth below 1%, maybe very close to 1% this year and probably slightly better next year. So basically, the Swiss economies are resilient. They've proven in the past for the last 20 years that they went through all those crisis without too much damage.

Now it's clear, everything depends a bit on the U.S. trade policy. We don't know exactly where we are. We are at 39 that it went down to 15. So I'm a bit lost here I cannot really follow exactly what's going on. I think there are still some negotiations going on. And of course, depending on the geopolitical situation, the Swiss francs might increase, and this is not very good for export, of course.

And one of the main business is real estate. So the mortgage business, basically, it carries on like that for a while. It is the same story as let's say the year previous -- or 2 years ago or 3 years ago, basically, we have ongoing growth of population driven mostly by immigration, which means something like between 1% and 1.5% increase. And we cannot build enough flats or houses.

And basically, the result is the vacancy rate going down. You see the number 0.87%, and we expect this dynamic to carry on for the next 2 to 3 years because I don't expect anything different in terms of immigration given the employment rate in Switzerland and given the situation of our main neighbor.

Okay. That's it, and we are ready to answer your questions. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions]. We have a question from Stefan Michael.

I have 2, please. The first one is on the wealth management deposits, which showed very good momentum, up about 10%. Is there anything particular to highlight anything driving this? Have you offered particularly good rates? Or is it coming with the net new money inflows? Or is it a change in investment behavior? Are clients moving into more cash and less securities would be grateful if I could add a bit of color on the wealth management deposit flows.

And also the risk-weighted assets, they are now up about 5%, almost 5% year-on-year compared to mid-2025. Is that something that is reasonable to expect to continue? Or is there anything that would make you think that maybe risk-weighted asset growth will be slower than this 5% in the last 12 months?

Okay. Concerning the first question, Wealth Management, I mean, there are different elements. I think element, one element, maybe one of the main driver is basically the growth in the institutional asset management business. You know that there is one competitor, which is Credit Suisse. So pension fund in Switzerland, especially in the French part of Switzerland used to have 3 to 4 banks being Credit Suisse, UBS, Pictet, or Lombard, and BCV.

And basically, the UBS and Credit Suisse are together now. So that means that those pension funds try to diversify their banks, and we were able to capture part of that. And this is an ongoing process because it's not like private client that after the merger with Credit Suisse or the Credit Suisse, UBS could decide very quickly to reallocate their wealth or their funds.

In pension funds, this is different. It takes time. You have Board members that need to discuss the whole thing -- so this is going on.

In terms of private clients, this is done. We were able to capture some new customer, some new fund from this merger 2 years ago, but that's done today. But for the pension fund, this is still ongoing, and we expect for the future to take advantage of this merger a bit more. That's for the wealth management.

Okay. Stefan, with regard to your risk-weighted asset question, I mean, there are 2 elements which have been driving risk-weighted assets if you take a 12-month period. One being, of course, the continuous growth in particular mortgages.

And secondly, we have an indirect cost of financing mortgages is that the [indiscernible], right? Basically, the last decade, every 5 years, needs to increase its capital. And this happened in the second half of '25 and created additional negative impact of CET1 of about 0.2%. So which means basically that the risk-weighted assets growth over the last 12 months period is above what you should expect with regard to the mortgage growth over the years to come.

Does it answer your question?

Yes, Kiener, pretty helpful.

We have a question from the telephone line from Andreas Venditti from Vontobel.

Maybe firstly, on the cost side, the in-sourcing of the IT, we had some impact on the cost -- on the depreciation line and the G&A. Is that process now over? So is this what we saw in the first half now a normal run rate? Or shall we still expect some impact from this movement?

Then maybe on -- in general, in the various businesses in the Canton of Vaud, you mentioned one impact on deposit growth from this UBS, Credit Suisse situation. Maybe you could comment a bit on the behavior of your competitor, what you see in the market and yes, what's going on there in terms of competition? And maybe, I mean, you mentioned yourself, you should give a bit more detail on the Wealth Management segment because it's so diverse. Maybe you could just highlight a few points there.

Okay. So IT -- no, I think let's say that the bulk of this integration of our IT activities, this is done. We don't expect much more here. This is done.

Your second question was the competitive situation. It's always difficult to talk about competitors. You see, I mean, the situation has changed for every company in [indiscernible]. You had 2 large banks, the Cantonal banks and Raiffeisen. Today, there is one competitor less. And the behavior and the competitive situation depends a lot on UBS. And for the time being, they are quite aggressive in the market. They want to rebuild market share, which I could, in a way, understand. So it's tough, especially in the mortgage business.

In the Wealth Management business, there are a bit more competitors like Pictet, Lombard in Lausanne. But maybe for us, the main competitor is UBS, and they are stronger than before since they are a bit bigger. Okay, I cannot comment any longer. I mean we try to -- I mean, we try -- we keep our market share. We want to grow with the market in the credit business, in the mortgage business. You see in the mortgage business, we have more than 30% market share. So it's quite difficult to get much more.

In the retail business, probably we are between 45% to 50% market share. So also it's difficult to grow faster than the market. And in the SME business, in the credit SME business, there is no official number, but we have some estimation, internal estimation showing that we have between 40% to 50% market share. So basically, again, it's difficult to grow much faster than the market.

Okay. And the last question was giving more information. No, look, we don't want to give more because it will be very, very complex. What I can tell you is that all entities, I mean, Piguet Galland, the mother company, Gerifonds, all doing quite well. Where we are a bit more this year than, let's say, last year is basically this institutional asset management, where we could gain some new money of pension fund that try -- to try diversify their portfolio. They split their assets among 3 to 4 banks. And here, we could take advantage of the merger UBS, Credit Suisse.

[Operator Instructions]. We have a question from Cajrati Ausano.

I have a question regarding again the topic of net new money and deposits. So if we exclude the increase in deposits and the cash from the net new money, is it a good normal growth rate for the core asset management business? Or how do you see the move there going forward?

You're right. It's a normal growth, nothing special.

So actually, the quite good net new money was mainly driven by the effects that you mentioned before on the wealth management extra deposits.

Yes. The bulk is that. I mean there are some other small things, but the main part is what I mentioned exactly.

Thank you. At this time, we currently have no further questions. So I'll hand it back to the management team for any further remarks.

So, I'd like to thank you all very much for attending this conference and Q&A session. And we see you probably in February next year. Bye-bye. Thank you.

Bye-bye.

That concludes today's webinar. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to BCV's 2025 Full Year Results Call. My name is Lydia, and I will be your operator today. [Operator Instructions]

I'll now hand you over to Pascal Kiener, CEO, to begin. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much. Good afternoon, everybody. Let me jump directly on Page 4, where I would like to highlight the key messages or the key points of our 2025 result. As you might see, we have an ongoing growth in -- across all business lines. Our revenue are stable.

Actually, this is, I think, minus 0.4%. I think the main point is to highlight the well-diversified business model of BCV. You will see when Thomas presents the financial result that we have a reduction in the interest rate revenues, more or less compensated by an increase in the commission business. I think this is the main point of our -- the strong point of our business model.

A solid net profit of CHF 430 million, which is 2% less than last year. I remember that 2024, '23, were a very good year. 2024 was the second best result in BCV story. So basically minus 2% given the environment of interest rate, and I think this is a strong result. And finally, we're going to propose a dividend of CHF 4.40, unchanged from last year.

Maybe I would direct lead to Page 6. So you see in the different business lines or volume categories being mortgage, other loans, deposit or AUM, you see an increase between 2% to 5%, 6% depending on the client segment. Basically here, everything is going quite well. In terms of ratings, the financial ratings being S&P or Moody's are totally unchanged and have been confirmed.

In terms of ESG rating, we have some good news. CDP is not on the chart, because Carbon Disclosure Project, they have increased their the notation. And you see that we have quite high rating in terms of non-financial ratings. Very often, this is the second-highest rating in their categories or in their ranking. And if you compare with other cantonal banks, I think we are among the top.

Now coming back to business. Retail banking, steady increase being deposit or mortgage loans, so quite a good performance. Here, it is clear there is one competition -- fewer competition since Credit Suisse is no longer in business. UBS remains a very tough competitor. But nevertheless, we could take advantage of this measure by getting some increase in this business, mortgage loan 5%, customer deposit 4%. And you see that in the revenues and operating profit.

Here, there are a couple of points -- I mean the volume growth plays a role. Then quite a lot of transaction of those retail customer being ForEx transaction or in fact, transaction in Switzerland. And finally, as you know, I mean, in a universal bank like BCV, you have transfer pricing between the corporate center and the division, and it is clear that the transfer price have increased for the Retail Banking division. Therefore, they have better revenues and a better operating profit. If you have specific question on that, Thomas will answer those questions later.

In the corporate banking business, basically here, I mean, it's almost nonsense to discuss the overall figure without going into the specific business lines. So SME basically up in terms of loan, and in terms of deposits slightly down, but this is the year-end figure. If we take the average over the year, this is more or less stable. One point I would like to make in those COVID-19 bridge loans, 90% have been paid off. Basically, 81% have been reimbursed by the customer and 9% have been reimbursed by the confederation.

As you know, maybe for those of you who are not aware -- or are not aware of those bridge loans, there is no risk for the Swiss banks. I mean the risk is there by the confederation that was clear from the beginning. And when we set-up the program with the Swiss federal authorities and a couple of banks, we sold, we would have something like 20% default, 20% loss actually. And now, we are at 90% reimbursed, 81% by the customer, 9% by the confederation.

So rest is 10%. Let's assume we have half-half, we have another 5% reimbursed and 5% by the confederation that would mean overall loss in this scheme of 15%, which is below what I would expect and showed also that the COVID-19 program was really a very good program for the Swiss economy.

Anyway, for us, there is no risk. I just wanted to mention that if you're interested, which shows nevertheless that the Swiss economy is doing quite well. I was expecting more write-off out of those COVID-19 bridge loans. Real estate firms, mortgage are up. So nothing to mention here. Large corporate is always kind of volatility. It depends on the price that we are making. So here, we don't look at volumes, we indicate volume, but this is more a kind of profit business, so we try to optimize profit and profitability, and not the volumes here. This is very clear.

Trade finance still operating at a very low level, I would say, given the geopolitical situation. And nevertheless, slightly up 8%, but this is really small. So we will carry on this way until, I mean, some geopolitical problems are solved, I don't know when. I hope soon, but it might take time. So trade finance will carry on more or less at this level, plus/minus 10% around the current situation.

And the economy in Switzerland and Vaud is doing still well. Although we have a slight increase in provision for SMEs, Overall, this is still low and the cases of default we have nothing to do with U.S. tariffs or economy doing not well or the strength of the Swiss francs, those are isolated cases for different reasons. But nevertheless, the level remained very low if you compare with the expected loss, which is a bit higher.

Okay. Wealth Management, again, here, you have different business here. You have the asset management part of the mother company of BCV. You have private banking part of BCV and you have also our small subsidiaries, Piguet Galland. So a typical small private banks in Lausanne and in Geneva, actually in the French part of Switzerland. Here, everything is up, which is quite normal given the current situation of the financial markets.

And trading, very good year, up. This is the trading room basically. Two main drivers. First of all, the ForEx business, where we have limited risk as it's a transaction induced trading. And the second pillar is structured products, which are back-to-back. And here, given the very good rating of BCV, we had a strong expansion in the French part, but also in the German part of Switzerland. I think there are not a lot of companies that can have a AA of offering the kind of structured product we are offering to the markets.

Okay, now for the, let's say, financial result, I hand over to my CFO, Thomas.

Thank you, Pascal. Hello, everybody. I believe very brief, just to point out points, which you might be your questions. I'm on Page 13. Well, while the key numbers are here, as you know them by them on the extraordinary income, nothing special to signal.

On Page 14. Well, let's -- you see again here the point of the composition of our bank revenue and the lower part of the chart, you see that our NII was basically before loan, impairments was basically down CHF 26 million. Here, you only have the volume and interest rate effects. And then we have slight variations in loan impairment charges, which remain very low, which means that NII is down by minus CHF 28 million.

At the higher part of the chart, you can see that commissions almost have compensated this by CHF 25 million as mentioned already by Pascal Kiener. Let we come to this chart, which is especially prepared for you guys. On Page 15, we always give you more in-depth understanding with regard to interest income. What is really interest income from the activity, and what is rather balance sheet management. Here, you see that the pure NII before balance sheet management is going down from CHF 627 million to CHF 596 million, is down minus CHF 31 million, which is probably already answering one of your questions. So here you see the full impact from the business side perspective.

Then you know that what we do is we do balance sheet management by taking typically in U.S. dollars, which create a charge on interest and doing FX swaps, which result into trading income. So the charges for this on the NII were by minus CHF 70 million, and the income generated by this was CHF 89 million on the trading side. So net CHF 19 million.

So we can see 2 elements here, which are important to see that, first of all, in year-to-year comparison, the balance sheet management charge was lower, right? And explain the evolution to CHF 526 million. And on the other hand side, you see also that the income from this was lower, which actually points out another point.

From an accounting perspective, trading income was CHF 195 million, stable. But from a business perspective, you can see that trading income is higher , CHF 106 million against CHF 99 million, okay? Of course, I will be there for your questions, if this was too complicated.

On Page 16, total operational charges with the 3 components are almost stable. Basically, you see a shift from other operating costs into personnel costs, because this is basically the last movement, which appears here with regard to integrating the resources for IT hosting, because first quarter 2024, they were still paid outside. And over 2025, they were fully part of BCV employees. So that is why personnel cost -- main reason why personnel costs are slightly up. And other operating costs are slightly lower. I just focus on this key element, obviously, there are a lot of movements going on.

Depreciation and amortization is stable. With regard to the headcount, nothing special to signal. It's more or less stable at the parent company, and its subsidiaries. With regard to total assets, obviously, the business developments of mortgage loans and advanced customers have already been explained by Pascal Kiener. I would like to focus on the elements that financial investments, which are purely there for liquidity reserve in the sense of HQLA, high quality liquid assets are up by CHF 1.3 billion, which is part of our financial strategy.

On Page 19, you see that the customer deposits are up by 0.6% and bonds and mortgage bonds are up by 1.7 million, which is basically coming from our Pfandbriefe Centrale mortgage capital loans, which are first mutualized company of the cantonal banks and our own bond issues. With regard to current discussions in newspapers, I really want to point out one thing, which has also been made by Martin Schlegel of the Swiss National Bank.

I mean we had no issue in funding at all over this period. And maybe it's also a little more further away from Switzerland, you must know that, for example, Pfandbriefe Centrale is this institute of Swiss Pfandbriefe, which issues mortgage covered bonds did record levels of issuing of CHF 14 billion gross issuing over 2025.

So I just want to make clear there is no funding issue, and I recommend you the lecture of the short paper, which Martin Schlegel of the SNB published yesterday or days ago, which makes us even more -- provides even more in-depth understanding of that point. Well, our shareholders' equity continues to rise, and is now almost at CHF 4 billion and -- logically it cross CHF 4 billion the next time we closed.

Now on Page 20, where it has all been mentioned, right, that the new -- net new money was CHF 3.8 billion, and this nice market performance, CHF 6 billion, we are up by 8%. So the net new money came has reflected our business mix of individuals, SMEs, institutions and large corporates.

With regard to CET1 on Page 21. Obviously, here, we -- as mentioned already quite -- for quite a while, it happened, right? Basel final had its positive impact even larger than we shared with you before of 1.4% or 100 basis points.

And then obviously, there are business volumes development. So we are at this nice CET1 of 18%, which gives a lot of place for further development because we consider this as an excessive CET1 rate. The LCR, as you see, is cruising at comfortable levels, with the mix, I already mentioned before between HQLA and liquidity and SNB.

On Page 23, the net stable funding ratio is also pretty much on the same level, as you can see on Page 23. So given this nice business development, but also given that we are in a situation where still a lot of macroeconomic geopolitical uncertainty, but we are also at a solid earning capacity, we will propose a stable dividend of CHF 4.40 to the AGM soon.

So basically, with this, we are at the historical average of payout. But I really want you to understand that, I only want to maybe make a point here also with regards to your first comments as a result. First of all, when we announced for 5 years dividend interval, this has nothing of a plan or an objective, nothing at all. This is an interval where we are convinced that, first of all, we will stay above the lower border.

Secondly, it gives some perspective of what potential we see without being completely in the sky. And certainly, we do a step-by-step, and once we've done dividend level, except a major structure of regulatory crisis, we will not go to a lower level. But there's nothing of an objective if we say CHF 430 million to CHF 470 million to be at CHF 470 million by the end of the horizon. We have never communicated like this. It's not the logic.

Our history has shown that we were able to do this for more than 15 years. We went through a lot of unexpected crisis, be it the financial crisis, be it euro crisis, be it negative interest rates, be it COVID, be it the Ukranian war. So we have shown that we are highly resilient. And obviously, if things become very positive, we will be rather at the higher end of the interval, but that's all. Okay. Maybe we will have more questions for this, but I think it's important to remind you of that. Thank you very much.

Good. Let me maybe just conclude very rapidly with 2 charts how we see the future going forward. I think that the fundamental of the Swiss economy are still strong. I know the Swiss franc is very strong. But on the other side, as can import goods cheaply or cheaper.

And we have a production growth. So the internal demand is quite good, low employment rate. So I expect that to carry on the economy in Canton Vaud and Switzerland is quite resilient, quite strong. They have proven that during all past crisis that Thomas just mentioned, it's clear that the U.S. tariff and the strength of the Swiss franc is not something that we like. But nevertheless, I expect the Swiss and the Vaud economies doing correctly in the next 2 years, something like 1% growth. I don't expect more than 1.5%.

I don't believe that, but I don't expect much below 1%. So probably maybe 0.8 that could not be excluded, but not below that. Those that means growth and not recession and not stagnation. One of the main business of BCV is the mortgage business and the real estate, you see the prices are going up every day, more or less, which is quite normal. I mean, low interest rates, but more than that is basically the ongoing growth of population being immigration of all basically more new kids than deaths of people.

Anyway, so basically, with a 1.1% to 1.3% population growth every year, which is something like 9,000 people, which means a need for homes, 3,700, 4,000, let's say, flats or homes, and we don't build that much. So basically, I expect those prices to go up again.

And I'm not saying this is very good because it's very, very high. But on the other hand, the economics, I mean, the fundamentals are just good. Those people need to sit somewhere. I don't expect immigration going backwards given the need for workforce in Switzerland and also some problems in terms of economics of our neighbors.

So basically, we will carry on being very, very cautious in this business, where we target growth between 4% to 5%, but really focusing on quality. We could grow probably faster, but we don't want. We want to make sure that we have quality growth, and we will target those areas where there's a low vacancy rate, because this average of 0.9 basically, if you take the Canton Vaud, this is between 0.3 around Lausanne, maybe to 1.82% in some areas.

Okay. I think that's it, and we are ready to take your questions. Thank you very much.

[Operator Instructions] We have our first question from Cajrati.

I have a question regarding the outlook. Why didn't you give any commentary on outlook or guidance or anything thereof?

Because, I mean, look, if you know BCV, you see this is a very stable business model, and basically, I don't see the point -- I mean how can I give a very bad outlook? Does that make sense? How can I give a very rosy outlook that doesn't make sense as well? So we are in a situation -- in an ongoing situation in the last 5, 6 years. So I don't expect something special, neither very negative, neither very positive.

I mean, we don't want to do it because then if there is a slight, let's say, deviation from the normal course, then we have to make maybe a profit warning being positive or being negative. And this is always huge discussion. And since the stability of the business -- BCV business model, if we were a high-tech company or a company with suddenly a launch of new product or whatever, I can understand that analysts require more or less a guidance.

But for a stability business like BCV, very diversified, I don't think this is necessary for analysts in order to make a, let's say, a good provision. I hope that answers your question.

Yes. But in the past, you used to give some outlook?

Yes. that's a good point. And we had problems. Once we were much better than we thought because we had some extraordinary items. And we had tremendous discussion with our legal team, whether we have to make a profit warning, a positive one. And you see no discussions for me, useless.

And at the end of the day, we say we don't do it. We will not make a positive profit warning, but that's the main reason, because I don't expect -- I mean, if we had a very special event, then we would do something, but I don't expect any special event, and I expect BCV to carry on showing similar results.

Now it depends then on the interest rate you see. Of course, if interest rate go up, then we will have better result. If they go down, probably that will reduce slightly, but up to a certain point, because now I mean we are at zero. This is, in a way, the worst situation for BCV I would prefer probably the SNB.

Just from a BCV point of view, I'm not sure this is good for the environment. But from a business point -- from a BCV point of view, if the SNB would reduce or go into negative territories, that will be better for us. So basically, I mean, either way, it's in a way better.

We have our next question from Stefan Stalmann.

I hope, you can hear me well.

Sure, very well.

Yes, I wanted to come back to the dividend decision. I hear you, Thomas. It's not a commitment to follow this 4.3 to 4.7 trajectory, but you did seem to behave differently last year. So last year, profits were down by more versus '23, and you still increased the dividend by at least 10, which seem to follow this trajectory to 4.7. And this year, profits are almost stable, minus 2% or so. And the dividend is flat and so on.

I guess, it's fair to wonder whether you're sending some signal here in any way or whether this is -- how should we think about next year really -- and is 4.7 still a plausible outcome for '27?

Stefan, I like your question, because it gives me the opportunity to explain something further. 2023 was an extraordinary record result. And basically, when we -- we applied the same logic as we would do for an extraordinary bad result, right? We basically wanted to stay somewhere in the middle. That's why we did the CHF 430 million, whereas we were -- which was the CHF 370 million distribution, whereas the result was CHF 470 million being that we had CHF 100 million we kept, which is excessive from this regard what we did previously before that.

So that's really the point. We had extraordinary net results. And basically, now we get back to something, which for the given environment is more typical. And we evolve it is CHF 4.40, right? That is a dynamic, which is really behind this move from -- going from CHF 380 million to CHF 430 million and not to -- we could have gotten to much higher to CHF 480 million, right, to CHF 470 million almost with that result. We didn't do it.

And now we evolved with something which is this environment, which we look at it with some prudence, okay? I think that's really the point. Then there's a question forward looking for Pascal?

Maybe, if I may add. I mean, look, we've been doing that for 17 years. I introduced that 2008, this distribution policy. At that time, that's quite new. Now you see some banks or some other companies doing something similar. I think this is totally normal for the business model we are in and the kind of economy we are in, which is not really growing by 10%, but rather by 1% to 3%.

So the point. So I think we -- I hope that you give us the credibility after 17 years. Now we will never go back. I will never blow up the dividend, that must be clear. Unless, I don't know if somebody, I don't know in 6 months, FINMA, Swiss regulator, asked for twice as much equity that is another story, but I don't expect that.

So I will never lower the dividend. That's first point. And we will always be between the 2, the floor and the ceiling we have set. Now going forward, it depends a bit on the interest rate. I mean, who knows what's going to happen to the interest rate?

So we had some -- we were cautious in putting the CHF 430 million. We said we don't know. We think probably that there is slight increase in the long-term rates, and maybe depending on the results next year, we will increase. I mean, going forward, if you take a kind of a midterm, long term, I think our result will increase because probably the interest rate will come back to normal level, I mean, to a certain level.

We will never decrease, and we will over time, increase. But we have those 2 numbers, the floor and the ceiling to say what is reasonable for the next 5 years. Now it's for the next 2 to 3 years or the next 2 years. Given the current situation, probably we will not be at CHF 470 million in 2 years. Now depending, why not, but probably not, but there is a good chance that -- I mean, the strategy of increasing steadily regularly the dividend is still the strategy, and we will carry on doing that for the next couple of years.

I hope that answered the question, because, let's say, in a nutshell, we are cautious. There is no signal. We are not signaling that we changed the BCV, the dividend policy or that we just know that we reduce, no, or that was stable. It was really to being cautious.

And by the way, I wanted to apologize for only turning on my camera. Now I didn't have the full functionality of mic and camera during the first half of the call, but now I do.

Could I maybe ask a related question? And I think it was you, Thomas, who said that 18% CET1 was excessive. Do you have any particular thoughts about how to bring it down to something less excessive? And where will that be?

Well, Stefan, you know us for quite a while, and we -- I mean, from a business point of view, we always said that this bank would be really from as an efficient machine, perfectly capitalized with something like 14%, 15%. And anything above that is excess capital. Or from a valuation perspective, you will basically say 14% to 15% is what I need from my operating value, and what above can add to it as an excessive value, right? That's the story.

And over time, the whole story of our dividend policy had also the idea, but it didn't happen. So that's why we don't insist on it, that we, okay, we keep some capital to take into account, part of the risk-weighted assets growth, but not fully enough so that the CET1 has it should go down over time.

Now as I have been taking this for 17 years, it never went down. I don't talk about it so much anymore. But we must also objectively consider that Basal 1, 2 -- rather 2 and 3 has been very positive for us. And the different moments along this time scale, we had uplifts by this, because as we came in as the kind of unwanted participants, they had put on us a very tough regime. And the first we went, they realized that we were really doing it very honestly, and so we have seen these opportunities to even lower our risk rates for that reason.

So if you don't take into account those discontinuities. So those years where we had suddenly an increase in the ratio based on those, let's say, regulation changes. I mean you will see that the Tier 1 ratio goes down slightly because we -- as Thomas said, if we would keep it stable, then probably we would have a lower dividend. We would need to retain more equity, but that's not the point. I mean the point is to use this in a way excess capital to increase over time, the dividend and to decrease the Tier 1 ratio. And we don't expect yet new. I mean, new regulation from FINMA. I think Basel III final is implemented in Switzerland. And here, we had a tick-up, I'm fine, but we didn't expect exactly that. We expected some positive news, but not as positive -- or so positive as they are today, but I don't expect those kind of changes in the next 5 years.

So roughly, probably given the growth in the credit business, so the risk-weighted assets, given the dividend policy of distribution, I expect this Tier 1 ratio to slightly reduced over time. I would like here to mention that I've been the CEO for now 17 years, CFO the previous 5 years. Since 2004-'05, we have, in a way, kind of excess capital. We will not use this capital to do bad things. So I don't expect any merger or acquisition just to use this capital. Capital will remain in the bank and will decrease slightly over time based on risk-weighted asset and distribution policy.

I don't know, can I maybe ask another one? Or should I step out and step in, again?

Yes.

AI. Obviously, a topic everyone is very high on the agenda. And I was wondering if you could just talk a little bit about how you're looking at it, whether you already have initiatives ongoing, how big they are, what the results could be, whether that changes the competitive dynamics, anything that you find important.

This is a huge question. We have time till 6:00. No, I mean, in a nutshell, Yes. No, I think this is something very important for the economy overall.

I see AI as a game-changer, like in a way, Internet, but it's going to take time. I mean, this is one thing to play with ChatGPT at home and to ask for summary to have a couple of things. This is another thing to implement that in a bank with all risk assessment done with a 100% of reliability, et cetera, et cetera.

And we have initiatives ongoing. Let me give you one example. I mean, I'll have a couple. For example, we have introduced an AI tool to generate leads for our customer relationship manager. So based on basically the situation of the customer, analyzing flows, analyzing the kind of product they have, the trajectory, et cetera. The system is able to suggest to the relationship manager, a couple of products that we could sell to that customer.

I mean, a human can do exactly the same. The AI tool is not better, but it's much quicker, much quicker. So we get some productivity improved. But here, we're talking some percent of people. So you cannot really get rid of some people based on that. Another implementation, we have 5, 6 implementation tools. Another one is to prevent fraud. You know that in the -- in Switzerland, this is the same probably in other countries.

You know that online payment. I mean this is incredible. Our people are naive, stupid and are being fraud. So here, we have implemented AI tool in order to, let's say, to better monitor the transaction of customers to try to get those wrong transactions or those fraud transactions, and to do that, let's say, at an acceptable cost because you could check every single transaction. But in payment, we have, I don't know, 30,000 to 40,000 payment by hour for each hour. So if you control all of them, that's impossible. So here, AI can help clearly. And I mean, that will carry on.

Now what I see in the market, not only banks, I think, AI is a powerful tool. Now taking the benefit in terms of more revenues and, let's say, less cost is not easy, especially for established companies and established business model. Probably, it's easier to start a new company based on AI and then maybe you can get the benefit. That will come, but that will take some time, but we will be part of this game. In terms of competition, I don't think that we -- for the time being, play a significant role that will sometimes change a bit the relationship and on the customer and ourselves, think about investment.

I think you are in the business of investment. So asking ChatGPT or I mean, asking a very good AI tool or asking a relationship manager for advice, who is best today, probably the man or the person, but in 5 years from now, I don't know. So probably expect, nevertheless, some productivity improvement due to AI in the mid- to long term, but not in the next 2 years.

It sounds like you don't expect this to drive any particular investment needs that you wouldn't have out of your ordinary IT budget.

No.

Could I ask one final from my side? I have been, I mean, I have been looking at the loan-to-deposit ratio, if you like to turn it the other way around in your reporting. And you have already commented a little bit on some of the funding topics that have been around more recently, let's say.

But even if I look at longer periods of time, 5, 6 years, your loan-to-deposit ratio has quite consistently trended up. And I was just wondering whether that's any concern to you at all, whether you mind, whether this is maybe just a bit of a random result of what happens in your corporate -- large corporate business in particular, between loan and deposit decisions? Or are there constraints where you say, I don't want to go above whatever 110 or 115 for particular reasons. And why do you think, by the way, that we have seen this move from 93 to 100, whatever, 10 or 7 over those 5, 6 years?

Exactly I mean, it depends how you look at the ratio. We tend to look at the other way around, but I mean, it doesn't matter.

No, no, no problem. But this is not a BCV trend. If you look at more or less all cantonal banks. So all, let's say, retail banks or universal banks, I mean, cantonal banks because UBS is something different anyway and private banks are also different. So if you look at cantonal banks or value or horizon, you see the same. And to be honest, I'm not sure I understand completely why. I mean, first of all, there is a strong demand for credit, being mortgage or be it commercial loan, this is clear.

And the demand is even stronger after the UBS and Credit Suisse merger. So that's one point. But -- okay, that's one point. Second point, I think the retail customer, although let's say, mostly, let's say, the individual. I'm not talking about SME. I mean they are more, probably, this is an assumption, I'm not sure. There are more possibilities, opportunities to invest or to deposit their money.

Okay, as I go, they would deposit in savings, and maybe they have some investment products. Today and in the crypto, there are so many opportunities in Switzerland, a broad -- so my guess is that part of the money is going to other, and investment channels, I'm not sure what I'm saying because we are trying to analyze that. But this is not a BCV trend.

Now it's clear that following your question or the last part of your question, I mean, we have a kind of a limit. I don't want -- I mean, if I take my ratio, my way of looking at ratio, probably at 80%, I start being EBITDA and ticking and probably for you, it would be under 20 or under 15, I don't know if we should bid the math. It doesn't mean that we're not going to be above that or below that, depending on the way you look at the ratio, but we have to think about it, what it means.

And that then we have to diversify, I don't want to be dependent on the financial market. This is a risk slightly, of course, but I would like to ask -- I don't know for example, 50% of my loans only covered by my deposit, that would be very dangerous. So we have to look at that. This is an ongoing trend for the last 5 years, you're right. But you see that is -- this is all retail bank, all cantonal banks have the same trend, more or less.

And if you look at some of them, one or two are already at level, which I consider they should start thinking about what they do, whether they carry on like that, whether they try to get other opportunities for financing, whether they limit the growth in the credit business. We are not that. We have time, but this is something that we have to look at and to understand exactly what's going on. It's a very good question.

I still want to remind, I just was looking for the chart, adjusted the chart recently. I mean, before 2015, we saw quite low loan-to-deposit levels, right? So we are still marked by this period of excessive liquidity, also linked to the negative interest rates, but the point which was Pascal was just making is completely the same. I just want to remind us of historic data.

[Operator Instructions] We have no further questions at this time. So this concludes our call today. Thank you very much for joining us. You may now disconnect.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Bye-bye.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the BCV 2025 Half Year Results Conference Call and Live Webcast. I am Sandra, the Chorus Call operator. [Operator Instructions] And the conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast.

At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Pascal Kiener, CEO. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you very much. Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to our H1 results conference.

Let me go directly on Page 4, with 3 key messages, which I believe are the main points of this first half 2025. So basically, we have a growth in all activities in all client segments, showing that the war environment or the Swiss economy is still doing quite well. Stable revenue, I think this is the main point showing once again the good mix of revenues at BCV. So we are the Cantonale bank with the more diversified revenue stream coming from interest revenue commission and trading revenues.

And the third point is basically due to this good diversification of our revenues and a good grip on costs. We could achieve a CHF 250 million net profit, which is slightly less than last year, 3% less. But on the other hand, you member, '23 and '24 were 2 record years. So basically, this is the third record of BCV history at a semester. So nevertheless, I think a very good result given the current interest rate environment. Page 5, I'm not going to mention. Page 6, you see the different main line of business. So mortgage up. Commercial credit also 7%, deposit up, AUM also being the market performance as well as some net new money the minus CHF 185 net new money. This is basically 1 large corporate, which decided to withdraw some money temporarily for treasury purposes. So this is not a big issue at all.

Okay. Page 7, I'm not going to comment. Maybe 1 point. So we still have a very good rating, financial rating, as you know, as well as ESG rating. So you can see the number from themselves. I don't have any specific comment on this slide. Now let's go into the different business lines. So retail banking is doing quite well. As usual, with mortgage loan up. You saw for the overall bank is 2%, but for the retail banking part, it's 3%, which is good. That would mean something like 6% on an annual basis. I think, as you know, there was a merger between Credit Suisse and UBS. And this is also a consequence of that some customers are coming to us due to this merger. Customer deposit is the same. So this is also very good. The revenue and the operating profit, I mean, it's going up, but you have the effect of some transfer pricing. If you want some more information, you can ask Thomas later in the Q&A session to understand exactly the dynamic.

Okay. Corporate Banking, again, here I have to comment the different business line within this unit. So SME slightly up, but basically quite stable. And the COVID-19 bridge loans 85% or a bit more are paid off. So this means that at least for the first semester, the SME Vaud Canton, we are doing quite well. They were also cash [indiscernible] since the deposit went up 1%. Big real-estate firm, very stable, nothing to comment here. Large corporate is always a kind of a seasonal volatility. So nothing special also to comment on this side. Trade finance, we are slightly up, but at a moderate level. I mean you remember that we decided some years ago to decrease due to -- to decrease our volume exposure due to the geopolitical situation. And also, we had to withdraw from Ukraine and Russian business which were quite a good part of the trade finance. So basically, we still operate at a very moderate level, but we are slightly up during the semester compared to last year.

And again, the credit risk are still low. Now we don't know exactly what's going. Maybe we can talk about that later with the current U.S. tariff that went 4 -- on 1 of August. For the time being, we don't see anything. I don't expect any trouble in H2 2025 since it is new 2026, maybe more question mark. We don't exactly know. I mean the negotiation are still going on. So it's very difficult to assess seriously what it means. But we should also not dramatic situation. We're talking about roughly on average, 20% of the company who export to the U.S. So this is not a big number which means that there might be some difficulty, but that will be very, very limited on certain industries, on certain corporate. So I'm not worried for the economy as a whole due to this bad situation.

Wealth Management, I mean, the market, we are quite positive in the first half. So you see that in the number here. So nothing especially to comment here. And trading, I mean, due to these trends and some other issue, the volatility was quite high in the market, in the ForEx market. And of course, we could take advantage of that. The second good -- I mean, the reason for the increase is basically the structured products business also due to volatility in the market. We were able to define some product for specific customer and you see here the impact. So quite a good year or a good first semester for trading unit.

I'll hand over to Thomas for the financial part.

Okay. Hello, everybody. I will be very brief on the first Chart 14. The key point you know is the stable total income and the operating net profit down by 3%. I'll just give more insight on what might surprise you on stable taxes. As a matter of fact, in 2024, we had some other income which was on the sale of a participation in a parking, which had no taxes on that line. So just to make sure to ensure you that we may still make our edge of core.

On Page 15, where you see these 3 sources of income. We have the interest income, which is down 8%. And I always like to look on the historic of the SNB interest rates. I mean it's just amazing to remember that first half 2024, SNB went down from 175 to 125 basis points. And this is really now far away we went down from 50 to 0 basis points over the first half. So you can see that the environment has dramatically changed. And you do just multiply the liquidity hold of the SNB and the short lag and you have already a strong interest income effect. So that's what's going on. Even though we do a good job on volumes with regard to mortgage volumes, which has evolved over the whole period from H1 '24 to H1 '25.

Nevertheless, it's down by CHF 22 million. Pascal mentioned that obviously, the environment was favorable for -- was good for commissions on wealth management, be it on valuations on transactions and trading outcome as well. I did see a little game for you with regard to what we are really in the interest income business from an economic point of view, being a net income before balance sheet management plus the balance sheet management. And well, I can answer it to your questions. But you see that this still is part of the game that we do this arbitrage to have interest -- supplementary interest income.

On Page 16, I mean the key point on that page is on the bottom of the page with loan impairment charges, which are basically negative. I mean there are reversals. That's why are positive. The -- it makes point, right? I mean our economic environment is positive. We might have a marginal increase in SME default rates. I've talked about margin. But at the same time, we have companies which were in impairment and which are back to the normal because they took a U-turn. So it's a positive development and positive market so far.

On Page 17, other operating expenses. I mean, -- so just to repeat 1 more time, we still had in the first half of 2024 for the first 3 months, the setup where IT hosting was with Kyndryl ex-IBM. Now the first half of '25 is fully integrated, and that explains why we have the swap or the switch from increased product costs and lower other operating expenses as we don't pay any fees anymore for an IT provider with that regard. Also with that regard, we had a slight increase half year against half year in depreciation which is a peak. And -- that's the point I want to make.

On Page 18, while headcount is evolved quite stably. With assets, while you can see that the loans and mortgages have evolved positively, Pascal handed it out. And we continue to build up our financial investments, which are only HQLA for LCR instead of having the money with BNS, we have here our AA, AAA bond portfolio. With regard to liabilities, you see the steady inflow in customer deposits. And as someone of you has pointed out, they have increased in quality. And we manage our NSFR. We manage our long-term financing. We continue to issue BCV senior bonds. We've continued to finance over the [indiscernible] and our needs were covered compared to a market which was more in transition with regard to funding spreads, the market has stabilized and the fund [indiscernible] does record issues in size.

Assets under management, yes, obviously, we had a positive effect of market performance of CHF 1.5 billion, and we had net new money in all business areas, nothing special here. On the capital ratios, obviously, this is a beautiful impact, which we preannounced basically, we prepare you that you would see a 1% increase. You see how prudent is our communication, right? It's a 1.4% increase due to Basel II. I remind you that we don't -- we're not hit by input floors or output floors given the prudent amortization of our models and the IRB scaler factor, which so far kind of provided prudence caution was taken out. So we are in the lucky middle. ATR is behaving nicely. NSFR as well which here precisely as you see that we structurally by purpose, right, seek to increase the length of our borrowing. And you can see the effect here. And also with regard basically, I should have mentioned to liabilities that we reduced borrowing from banks as obviously, you have seen. Thank you very much.

Good. So going forward, let's talk 2 seconds about the economy. First point, I think if you look at the Swiss economy, the fundamentals are very good, are still very strong, very low payment rates and recession under control. And basically, we have a steady population growth and inflow coming from other countries. So I'm quite very comfortable with that. Also those economies have proven their resilience during past crisis being COVID-19, the strong Swiss franc, the 2008 financial crisis, euro crisis. Now having said that, it's clear that the announcement of those U.S. tariffs at the level of 39% in addition to a decrease in the dollar of 10% is going to be quite tough for the corporate exporting goods towards U.S.

Now it's too early to be very clear about that. We understand the trend. It's clear that growth will be affected. It's also clear that those industries that will be -- that are concerned basically, there are going to be some difficulties, probably some companies going bust, why not and some employment. But my point is that it is quite limited. And there is still a negotiation going on for the whole, but also especially for the pharmaceutical industry. So it's quite difficult to assess. Now having said that, I'm quite convinced that there will be some problems if the tariff remains like that. But those will be marginal to certain sectors, certain companies. So I don't expect a recession in Switzerland due to that. I mean there might be other effect in the world economy. But if we talk about this aspect of U.S. tariff, probably, this is going to decrease growth by 0%, 3%, 4%. This is why you see those numbers 2025, 2026 estimate. Those are my numbers and not the official number, you can get different economic department in Switzerland.

We see -- I'm quite confident the economy is quite resilient. We are assessing that. But as I said, it's too early because they were introduced on August 1, but we are talking to those companies where we believe the situation might be more difficult. But for the time being, I have no, no bad sign. We'll see. You see all those companies are small SMEs. They are a way to go around. They will try at least. And since it is only, let's say, 15% to 20% of the export volume, they might also go to other markets. We'll see, but I'm quite confident that will not affect BCV in a very significant way.

Real estate still doing well. This is a key business for us. As you know, pricing are still going slightly up. Basically, with the demographics going up and interest rates going down, it's clear that the market will continue to be quite dynamic in terms of volume as well as price and you see also the vacancy rates going down for the fourth year consecutively.

Okay. That's it for me, and I hand over to the Q&A session. Thank you very much.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Stefan Stalmann from Autonomous Research.

Good afternoon, gentlemen. Thank you very much for hosting the presentation. I would like to start with a couple of questions on the topic du jour. So in particular, the tariff issue and maybe the dollar exchange rate, you have about CHF 6 billion of SME exposure. And I guess I mean the tariff trouble basically started in April. So you have probably done some preliminary screening and your comments kind of hinted at that identifying the counterparties that may be affected. Can you give us a rough sense of how much of this SME portfolio could be in an elevated risk category with respect to these tariff developments? And maybe also with respect to the strengthening of the Swiss franc against the dollar. And related to this, could you maybe remind me how the potential is for you to book precautionary reserves and provisions under Swiss GAAP on performing loans. So similar to the Stage 1 and Stage 2 provisions under IFRS.

And the second question relates to the dollar. Could you maybe give us a rough indication how much of your loans and deposits are actually dollar denominated. That would be great.

Okay. Let's start with the first one. Yes, of course, we started a bit earlier. But during this first assessment, we are talking about 10% to 15% tariffs. So basically, this was, I would say, not enough, but it was very low, especially knowing the fact that those companies -- I mean, you see Switzerland for the last 40 years, I've seen the same story. We have high salary cost, high labor costs, and we have a very strong Swiss franc. So the dollar or euro went down year after year compared to the Swiss franc. That means those companies to survive, they had to focus on high-margin products, very niche products, highly technical, highly sophisticated. Otherwise, they could not get the price and survive.

So given 10%, 15% tariff that was in a way no issue. 39% is a bit more. So the story is a bit more complicated. But you see, I cannot give you more than that today because it's so different from companies to companies. Some of them have already decided we stop exporting in the U.S. We will turn over to other markets, okay, fine. Others are trying to find a way to export in a different way. So it's very difficult. It's -- I could even go further saying that for the company themselves, for the corporate, this is not clear exactly what the future will be. So can you imagine for a bank trying to consolidate all those information, it's quite difficult. But I mean it's -- I mean we're not talking big numbers. And I do not expect, especially in H2 for this year to have any relevant impact.

2026, maybe -- but I mean it's almost impossible to answer quantitatively. I would say something wrong. So this is why -- but I'm confident. I don't see any major issue. So maybe we might have more risk cost than usual. That's possible. But it will not affect, let's say, our results in a tremendous way. I don't see that. We have probably more risk every year due to the trade finance business, which is more risky where you have no provision for 5 years. And suddenly you have a case. So this is why it's difficult to assess. But you see, I mean, the corporate book is not that big. It's mostly mortgage. You have also to know that we also have some mortgage with those SMEs, so on their properties, et cetera. So I'm not really worried about that. I don't want to be over optimistic. But for the time being, I cannot see a huge problem or even an average problem for BCV. Let's put it like that.

Now given your second question on provisioning. So what we do, we -- I mean, I give the word to Thomas better than myself. But we cannot say now we expect that we have a problem maybe in 6 months, and we put provision. We do that with the expected loss. I give the word to Thomas.

Yes. Stefan, I mean actually, that works through over the loss class, right, expected loss. And so for the risk-weighted assets, right, which is based on PD and LGDs. So obviously, I mean, if you see that there's more tension on a company, it may triple -- double, single A might become a BBB or BB. This will have an impact on risk-weighted assets. And as a matter of fact, we do provisioning of expected losses in a sense that they really, really noncomprised, they are expected loss of 12 months horizon. Those which are high risk, but not default, they are provisioned on lifetime cycle. And obviously, those which are default are obviously on the fully lifetime expected loss.

So it will walk through on that page, which you actually -- when I look at your comments from this morning, you have been looking at with regards to provisions of compromised and noncompromised loans.

And then the question on the dollar. So maybe I don't think this is the Swiss franc, which is strong versus the dollar. This is the dollar, which is weak because if you look at the exchange rate, Swiss franc, euro, it's quite stable. And don't forget that Switzerland, the main partner is not the U.S. it's the Eurozone. So that will be a stabilizing factor. So far, I don't know exactly the number you're looking for by heart. Your question was the exposure in dollar, is it correct?

Yes. That's a rough sense of how many of your loans and deposits are dollars, maybe more to get a sense of the translation effect.

Deposit is very low and loan, this is mostly trade finance. Yes. I mean you can -- I mean look but not all trade finance is in dollar.

When it's dollar, it's trade finance.

Exactly. So we don't have any credit for -- I mean, we don't have any loans in the corporate business outside Switzerland, nothing, 0.

Excellent, okay.

Only trade finance which is, as you know, which is a kind of fast move -- fast-moving business, so you can, I mean, stop very quickly. And those are transactions. So here, I don't expect any -- except a kind of a slowdown of the international trade due to those tariffs, that's clear. But otherwise, I don't expect any, let's say, problem in our trade finance business in terms of cost of risk due to the tariffs.

Stefan, I would like to take the opportunity that with regard to your comments of this morning, right, I know you are very good reader of our Basel III report. But I think there's one code, which is the increase in compromised loans or private banking, you missed one number. So if you look at the Table 8, right, in the Basel III report, it's less than you indicated in your comments. Just look carefully at the Table 8 of 2024 and 2025.

I don't want to take more time of other people. If you have more questions, you just call correctly, okay?

And then Gary, he gives me a hint. I mean, with regard to your idea that do we kind of forfeit lump sum provisioning. I mean, also in this context, just remember, we don't play with banking, real banking risk reserves, right? We always show our real result as it comes out and we apply systematic expected losses just explained before.

[Operator Instructions] The next question come from Ausano Cajrati from ZKB.

So I have one question regarding the competition among banks. What's -- how do you perceive the competition in 2025? And how do you anticipate the development of the margins for loans? And what are your expectations going forward for the net interest margin?

Okay. I mean, competition, you see it's quite different from business to business. Let's take retail and mortgage, which is probably your question. I mean competition is tough, but this is not new. So I mean there is 1 player less. So it means, in a way, the competition is reduced. But on the other hand, you have all those online platforms, you have other nonbanks provider like insurance. So in mortgage business, the competition will continue to be tough, but not tougher as yesterday or 2 years ago. I mean this is tough competition, this is a commodity.

Then if you take commercial loans, that's another story because here, clearly for those SME or small firms, I mean, they don't have a you choice. Either you go to UBS, you go to the local Cantonale Bank, ZKB, Vanguard, Geneva or [ Vaud ] or maybe to Raiffeisen for maybe smaller companies. And that's it. So this is not easy. So here, the competition, I would say, will be reduced. And on the -- also, you see the mortgage market is quite transparent. The prices are quite transparent. If you look at the SME business, I mean, the risk assessment is different from one provider to another one and the prices are not transparent at all.

Now if we go further, if we talk about wealth management, here, competition is quite tough. Credit Suisse has a good as a good position and UBS is trying to defend this position. But again, there is one player less. So that's quite a statement. And if you take, for example, the asset management, so the pension fund business, you see here, we have an opportunity to increase our market share. It takes time because those pension funds, they need time to decide, which is normal. But if you look at the structure, I mean, of almost all pension funds, they had an asset manager being Swisscanto or ZKB, being UBS, Credit Suisse, maybe Pictet, BCV depending on the counter. I mean the share of wallet to UBS, Credit Suisse will be reduced. I'm convinced about that. So that means the other player will be able to take over that share, being Swisscanto, being Pictet or Lombard Odier or BCV especially in Canton of Vaud.

So you see, I'm not sure we can say that the competition is tougher than before. I think we have to differentiate between segments. And that's the point of competition. Interest margin, you see -- I mean, what's going to play a role is not really the competition. It is basically the level of interest rates. I mean 0 is not very good for banks, as you know. And now how long that situation will last? Maybe interest will go negative. We don't know and look at the numbers during the negative rate period some years ago, and you will see -- so there will be continued pressure on the interest margin. I'm convinced about that.

We can compensate part of that with volume increase, but just part of that. So you can assume that the net income, basically will be less interest will go down corrected by the volume, but the volume will not compensate the effect of interest rates. So probably, going forward, exactly the same mechanics, same dynamic as we saw some years ago, net rate -- net interest revenue will go down. But on the other hand, the commission business should go up. So the total of that is difficult to assess right now.

We have no further no further questions from the phone. Back over to you for the written questions.

Yes. We have a question from the webcast. It's coming from Mr. Greschner from finance of Derschutze. So the first question is, although the operating expenses remained stable, the cost-income ratio increased to 55.6%. Could you explain why?

The second question is that we saw in the first half of the year, a smaller growth of 2% in mortgage loans is that due to restrictive credit lending? Or is it due to a stronger market position of UBS in the market -- in the mortgage loans.

And the third question is how far an evolution of the imputed rental value would affect this year.

Okay. Let's start with the first question. I think the revenue went down. I mean, this is a basic calculation. So I assume the numbers are correct. So the revenue went down.

I think Revenue stable.

No, they went down CHF 3 million or CHF 2 million slightly. Thomas, the question...

I mean I just look to number, but I mean, top line is stable and there is a slight increase in total operating costs.

From a slight decrease in revenues.

A slight decrease in revenues, yes.

So that explains Okay. Now second question. I don't know the strategy of UBS, but last year, UBS basically decrease or was less aggressive in the mortgage business. I'm not saying they are aggressive today, but they had a strategy of -- because they had some -- not liquidity problems. They had to reverse to give back some money to the SNB. So basically, I can say that. Basically, I would say UBS was very cautious in terms of taking new exposure, not from a risk point of view, but from a funding point of view. So that's the first point.

Second point, we had a very, let's say, very good growth last year in the different business, especially in the real estate fund business. And due to, let's say, the financing situation for banks in Switzerland, which were quite difficult -- which was difficult last year. It's going much better this year. We decided to be very cautious also from a funding point of view this year. So that explains the difference between the 2%. And I think last year, it was probably 4%, okay? Now 2%, which would be a 4% on an annual basis. And if you look at the retail business, we are rather at 3% is a very good growth, and I'm not strategically targeting more than 4% every year.

Now the question to the market position. So I don't think they have a stronger market position. I think they have decided maybe not to continue to be very cautious from a funding point of view. I think they have secured their funding. They have finished their paying back UBS. I don't know all the details, but this is what I can imagine. And they are back to the market, which is good.

And now the next question, of course, it will have an effect, but we cannot disclose any number. And it will take time because people will not do that overnight. Now it depends what's going to happen. We don't know. I think this is a very, let's say, open question in Switzerland, whether it's a yes or no, I don't know. But of course, if it happens, then people or some will pay back the their loans. This is clear. Now you see, if you look at the last 20 years, all new loans mortgages were issued at 80% value. So I don't think that all those people that got a mortgage in the last 10 years, they have the money to pay back so easily. So I don't -- I'm not worried about that. It will have a small impact. It will have a small impact, just to be clear, very marginal over time.

Gentlemen, we have a follow-up question from Mr. Stalmann from Autonomous Research.

I thought I'd take the opportunity if we stay at some time. But I wanted to follow up on your comment on the net interest margin where you expect maybe a bit more pressure. Your major competitor, UBS is actually providing a sensitivity that says if rates go down another 100 basis points, so into negative territory, net interest income in their business would actually rise and quite substantially. And as a result of basically floored loan rates, if I understand this well. Do you see something similar happening in your business? Or is that a very peculiar situation at UBS?

No, we agree. We agree. We have the same appreciation. I don't know the magnitude, but in relative terms. For us, the line on the 0 line is the worst case scenario. Given, I mean, the monetary policy of SNB with regard to this has 2 components, right? One is the negative interest rates. The second is using these exemption levels, right? And basically, when you get into negative rates, you basically get subsidized with regard you have with SNB. And there's that element, which then actually is revenue generating.

So if that flooring of loans also helps you, is it still reasonable to expect that the net interest margin contracts? Is that taking that into account?

Well, even the flooring of loans.

If I understand it correctly, UBS thing is that rates going negative will benefit the net interest income is because the loan rates -- the reference rate and the loan documents are floored at 0, so they cannot drop below 0. So the...

That's an additional component. Yes, you can add to my argument, which I just gave you, there's additional effect. As a matter of fact, analytically speaking, from a pure market perspective, mortgage rates would have -- in particular the short mortgages would have a substantial higher marginal commercial margin.

And yes, the overall net interest margin could still go down?

The overall -- let me confused. I put one more time systematically. I just put it systematically, right? If -- coming from 0, the short-term interest rates, in particular, up to 1 to 2 years, go into negative grounds, right? You have 2 interesting elements, right? First of all, put it that way, mortgage rates from 0 to 2 years would almost not change. That's how Swiss banks behaved in the past, and we think that will go on, which analytically speaking, means a significant higher margin commercial margin.

Secondly, we will make money as what we call arbitrage or being filling up the exception level, putting billions as the SNB at 0 and taking that money in being paid for taking it in.

See, I mean to answer also, I mean, 0 is the worst case for us, okay, for Swiss banks in this, not only for BCV is the worst case. Now for the next 6 months, probably that's going to remain at 0. And they were just introduced at the end of June, so you don't see the full impact during the first half. So from that point of view, probably there will be pressure on net interest income in the coming months. Now going negative, I think we share the appreciation of UBS, Thomas explained. Now the exact order of magnitude, I don't know, but I would prefer a negative interest rate for us than 0, 0 is the worst case scenario. So depending on the situation, how long will the SNB remain at this level? I don't know. If you look at the floor, et cetera, probably in September, they will remain that. But in December, depending on the economy, they might go 25 basis points down. We don't know. But I mean, let's assume the 0 will stay for a couple of months. Then for us, it's not very good. That's the message.

Yes. Okay. That makes sense. I understand that. And maybe a last one, if I may, and that's on net commission income, where most of your net commission income is coming from securities and investment transactions. And one of the metrics that I look at over time is how the income from securities and investment transactions relates to AUM. And that number, that margin has been coming down for a long time. But over the last 2 years, it has gone actually up. And I'm wondering if that is just a random combination of inputs or whether you have actually changed anything in the way that you run your business? Is there a different business mix on the AUM side? Is there a different pricing? Is there different client behavior that makes the margins go up.

I think you are a very careful reader. And we actually realigned somehow the setup of the investment funds for our clients, we simplified them, which means that we balanced part of funds and existing funds. So there has been a peak in transaction volumes, and I think that's what you found.

If you look also, I mean, we have a new head of Private Banking. He joined BCV, I think, 2 years ago and he was coming from Credit Suisse. And he had some ideas to, let's say, to change the way we were doing things, and this is a positive impact.

I see. As long as you don't sell any particularly FX deposits, I'm very happy about that.

We don't do product pushing.

We don't do that. We don't do that. We have really an open architecture and probably we are one of the most open architecture bank in Switzerland. So -- we don't do those kind of things, no, don't worry.

Gentlemen, so far, there are no further questions from the phone back over to you for any closing remarks.

Okay. Thank you to all for attending this conference. Thank you very much, and see you probably in February 2026. Bye-bye. Have a nice day.

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