Thank you, Adam. Good afternoon, everyone.

Thank you for joining us today to review FAB's financial performance for the fourth quarter and full year of 2025. The group's financial results were announced this morning pre-market, and all of our disclosures are accessible on the dedicated IR section of our corporate website as well as on the app.

Today's call is hosted by our senior management team, represented by our Group CFO, Lars Kramer, and our Group CRO, Chris Jaques. They will be answering your questions at the end of this short presentation.

Without any delay, I'll now pass it on to Lars for the presentation.

Thanks, Sofia. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us.

I'm very pleased to present FAB's financial results for the fourth quarter as well as for the full year of 2025. As usual, I'll go through the slides quite quickly, and this should allow sufficient time for some Q&A at the end.

Starting on slide four, which shows our key highlights. FAB delivered a group net profit of 21.11 billion dirhams, and this is up 24% year-on-year, and a group revenue of 36.68 billion dirhams, which is up 16% year-on-year.

This really does reflect multiple years of consistent progress in building both scale, resilience, as well as long-term value. The return on tangible equity reached 19.2%, and this is also well above our medium-term guidance and demonstrates our robust returns, which are also returns at scale.

Importantly, we exceeded all the elements of our full year '25 financial guidance, and in light of this outstanding set of results, the board has recommended a cash dividend of 80 fils per share for the full year of 2025, and this compares to 75 fils in 2024. This represents a total payout of 8.84 billion dirhams, and this is the highest cash distribution in the group's history, and reflects FAB's commitment to sustainable shareholder returns.

This dividend proposal is subject to shareholders' approval at the bank's upcoming general assembly meeting, which will be held on March the 11th of this year. Lastly, our balance sheet fundamentals offer a strong foundation for growth and RoTE delivery as we enter 2026 from a position of strength.

Looking at slide five, this slide highlights how our strength and profitability has enabled meaningful step-up in cash dividends. Over 2021 to 2025, cumulative cash dividends amounted to 36 billion dirhams, or nearly $10 billion, positioning FAB amongst the highest dividend payers in the UAE market, if not the highest.

This reflects our confidence in the durability of earnings, the strength of our diversified business model, and our proven ability to consistently deliver superior returns at scale and also through the cycle. Turning to the next slide, we've exceeded every element of our full year guidance, and this includes loan growth, cost of risk, the provision coverage, our RoTE, and CET1 levels.

As shown in the chart on the right, FAB has also consistently maintained RoTE in the mid to high teens over the past eight years through markedly different interest rate cycles, macroeconomic backdrops, as well as credit environments. We remain firmly committed to delivering RoTE above 16% over the medium term in line with our guidance.

Turning to slide seven, 2025 continued to demonstrate disciplined strategy execution, delivering broad-based growth across each division, strengthening our international franchise, accelerating AI deployment at scale, and operating from a position of clear financial strength. These are themes we've consistently highlighted throughout this year, I won't go through them in detail.

What I would emphasize, however, is the remarkable progress we are making on our AI journey. We're delivering measurable improvements in productivity and in efficiency, in our client experience, our decision accuracy, and turnaround times across multiple areas.

Today, every FAB group employee is AI-enabled, supported by a library of more than 1,000 copilot agents, and this is underpinned by a strong culture of continuous learning and an expanding pool of specialized AI talent. At the same time, we've launched a centralized AI innovation hub to support solution design, testing, and scaled roll-out, and over 30 agentic AI solutions are being advanced across the enterprise.

Some examples of this include in front-line enablement, we've enabled advisory tools which support hundreds of relationship managers; in trade operations, we have autonomous AI-driven workflows which are now handling the majority of document volumes; in payment processing, we managed large volumes of payment flows and streamlined these; and then we've also seen in court order automations the ability to eliminate legacy backlogs and to significantly reduce workloads through end-to-end AI processing. This acceleration is enabled by a modern, robust data foundation and a group-wide AI governance framework, anchored in responsible AI principles and ensuring we scale AI responsibly, securely, and efficiently.

We're also deepening ecosystem partnerships with industry leaders, including G42, Microsoft, and Bain, helping us execute at scale and in alignment with the UAE's ambitious national AI agenda. Now turning to slide nine, which summarizes our full year performance.

Profit before tax grew 27% year-on-year to 25.2 billion dirhams, while net profit rose 24% year-on-year to 21.11 billion dirhams, and this was driven by sustained revenue momentum, largely absorbing the impact of the corporate tax increase during the year. Operating income grew 16%, fueled by 4% growth in net interest income and an outstanding non-interest income performance, with non-funded income up 36%, underlining an improved revenue mix and a diversified revenue generation model.

We've seen strong balance sheet momentum at scale, with 17% growth in lending and 7% growth in customer deposits. Operating expenses increased 5% year-on-year, reflecting cost discipline and efficiency gains from technology and AI enablement.

Group cost-to-income ratio improved again to 22.4%. Asset quality metrics improved during the year, with NPL ratio now at 2.2% and provision coverage at 108%.

Finally, we maintained a healthy capital and liquidity position, with CET1 at 13.3% and LCR at 154%, both above minimum regulatory requirements. Turning to the next slide, where we look at net profit growth for the fourth quarter, which was at 5.09 billion dirhams, and this was up 22% year-on-year.

Profit before tax came in at 5.95 billion, up 28% year-on-year, driven by diversified revenue momentum with operating income up 17%. Operating expenses were up 8% year-on-year, with cost-to-income ratio at 23.6%.

Impairment charges were at 950 million dirhams, representing a cost of risk of 61 basis points. You'll note that tax expense was lower in Q4, and this was on the back of sizable foreign tax credits associated with certain investments.

Also worth noting that over the last quarter, we've refined the classification of certain hedge-related costs from net interest income to non-interest income to better reflect underlying revenue and margin dynamics. Prior periods have also been restated to ensure consistency.

Turning to the next slide, our diversified franchise continued to deliver broad-based growth across all divisions, supported by consistent execution as well as deeper client engagement across the group. In investment banking and markets, our revenue grew 16% year-on-year to 11.8 billion dirhams, and this was driven by strong volumes, including a 29% lending growth on the back of sustained client demand, as well as a record performance in global markets across both sales and trading.

Wholesale banking revenue increased 11% year-on-year to 6.4 billion dirhams, and this reflects strong origination across the key corridors, particularly the GCC, the US, and Asia. The business continued to expand wallet share across diversified high-growth sectors, while maintaining its leadership in transaction banking, with volumes rising at a double-digit pace year-on-year.

Personal, business, wealth, and privileged client banking delivered 10% year-on-year revenue growth to 12.7 billion, supported by strong commercial momentum and deeper engagement across key segments, leveraging enhanced digital capabilities. Retail CASA balances increased 16% year-on-year, adding 25 billion dirhams, while retail AUMs grew 28% year-on-year on robust inflows.

Turning to the geographic split, our UAE operations contributed 81% of group revenue, while 19% was generated from international markets. Finally, our revenue mix continued to strengthen, with non-funded income rising to 45% of group revenue, reflecting the scale and sophistication of the franchise, as well as efficient capital deployment.

FAB maintains the most diversified revenue mix among regional peers, providing a natural hedge against lower interest rates. Now turning to slide 12, net interest income reached 20.3 billion in full year '25, representing a four-year a 4% year-on-year increase, supported by strong volume growth across the balance sheet.

Net interest margin was at 1.84% in full year '25, and this was at the upper end of the guidance range between 1.80 to 1.85%, which we provided in earlier calls. In Q4 '25, the NIM was at 1.75%, 7 basis points lower quarter-on-quarter, driven by lower interest in suspense recoveries and the impact of lower benchmark rates.

Finally, on interest rate sensitivity, a 25 basis point parallel movement in interest rates is still estimated to impact the bottom line by approximately 200 million dirhams, assuming no offsetting actions from management. This is roughly stable compared to the full year 2024 number.

For full year '26, we expect NIMs to remain relatively resilient, supported by disciplined balance sheet positioning in a lower interest rate environment. Turning to the next slide, non-interest income continued its strong upward trajectory, increasing 36% year-on-year to 16.35 billion dirhams, with a structural uptick in non-funded income over the past few years reflecting a deliberate and a gradual shift to a more capital-light earnings profile.

Looking at various components, FX and other investment income grew 40% year-on-year to over 10.1 billion dirhams. This was driven by a record global markets performance, with global market sales revenue up 44% and trading income up 27% year-on-year.

This was helped by strong client flow activity across various products, including FX, rates, and commodities, as well as optimal market positioning. Treasury and other income also grew 50%, reflecting effective asset liability management.

In the fourth quarter, FX and investment income was 9% lower sequentially, primarily on account of softer trading income as a result of subdued hedging demand and lower monetization. It's also worth noting that Q4 tends to be a seasonally slower quarter, as visible on the chart.

Fees and commissions advanced 28% year-on-year, with Q4 representing another record high for the group. Loan-related fees rose sharply, up 33% year-on-year, from strong origination and deal execution across the whole franchise.

We continue to enable cross-border capital, trade, and investment flows for our clients, and driving a 17% rise in trade-related fees, while other fees and commissions were 31% higher, with asset management and advisory-related fees emerging as incremental growth drivers alongside higher custody income. The recent strategic partnerships with leading asset managers Amundi and T.

Rowe Price are also expected to strengthen our asset management franchise and support fee income growth over the medium term. Turning to slide 14, operating expenses were up 5% year-on-year to 8.2 billion dirhams, again reflecting cost discipline and efficiency gains from continued technology as well as AI investments.

The increase in staff costs reflect targeted hiring and expanded data and AI specialist capabilities. Operating efficiency remained robust, with group cost-to-income ratio improving to 22.4%, and this is down from 24.6% last year.

Revenue growth again outpacing cost growth year-on-year for the 12th consecutive quarter. Turning now to the balance sheet, total assets grew 16% year-on-year to 1.4 trillion dirhams, reflecting enhanced scale and continued balance sheet strength.

Net loans and advances grew 17% year-on-year, an increase of 87 billion dirhams, to reach 616 billion dirhams, with broad-based expansion across diversified sectors and counterparties. On the liability side, customer deposits rose 7% year-on-year, and this was up 58 billion dirhams to 841 billion dirhams.

This was driven by healthy growth across corporates as well as retail, partially offset by seasonal outflows among some government and GRE clients, which have already come back in January, it's well worth noting. CASA balances grew 9% year-on-year to 392 billion, representing 47% of customer deposits, while Islamic deposits also delivered a strong performance, up 39% year-on-year.

Overall, our liquidity position remains strong, with our liquidity coverage ratio at 154%, comfortably above the regulatory minimums. Turning to the next slide, we saw sustained improvement in asset quality during the year, and this was supported by a robust economic backdrop as well as subdued NPL formation.

Impairment charges were 3.4 billion, which was down 17% year-on-year, translating into a cost of risk of 57 basis points, well below our 75 basis points or lower guidance. NPLs reduced to 13.8 billion, implying a gross NPL ratio of 2.2%, which is down 120 basis points year-on-year and an all-time best for the group, also well worth noting.

Finally, provision coverage strengthened to 108%, with total ECLs at 14.9 billion. Looking at capital on the next slide, we closed the year with a pre-dividend CET1 ratio of 14.5% and a post-dividend CET1 ratio of 13.3%.

As you can see, organic capital generation was 330 basis points, with RWA growth consuming 195 basis points. Group RWAs rose to 735 billion dirhams, driven primarily by higher credit risk-weighted assets as a result of strong portfolio growth.

Operational risk-weighted assets were higher, which is led by an increase in group revenues, while market risk-weighted assets remained stable, and this represents just around 5% of the total group RWA, again underlining the prudent positioning in our market franchise. Other movements consumed 54 basis points of CET1 capital.

Total CAR and Tier 1 capital were at 16.9 and 15.2% respectively, and this was supported by the AT1 issuance in the fourth quarter as well as maintaining comfortable buffers above minimum regulatory requirements. As the minimum CET1 requirement at December end was 11.6%, and has risen to 12% from the 1st of January 2026, and this reflects an increase in the countercyclical buffer to 0.5% from 0.15%.

Let's now look at our macro outlook for '26, and we expect UAE real GDP growth to accelerate to around 5.6% this year, and this is up from 5.2% in 2025, and supported by the sustained momentum in the non-oil economy, as well as the continued benefits of economic diversification. On the oil price, we assume an average price of roughly $60 per barrel, which continues to underpin a healthy operating environment across the UAE and standing above breakeven levels.

On interest rates, our base case assumptions are that we expect a 50 basis points Fed cut over the course of 2026. Taken together, this macro backdrop provides a constructive environment for business activity as well as client flows, and we remain firmly focused on disciplined growth and sustainable returns.

Now turning to our guidance slide, we're guiding for low to mid-teen loan growth in 2026, and this is building on the solid momentum of 2025 as we continue to grow market share across diversified sectors and key markets. Our asset quality, we expect a cost of risk below 70 basis points, which is tighter than our '25 guidance, which was below 75 basis points, and with our provision coverage expected to be above 90% and reflecting our prudent risk approach.

From a profitability standpoint, we're reaffirming our medium-term RoTE of above 16%, and this is consistent with our commitment to delivering superior and sustainable returns through the cycle. Finally, on capital, we're maintaining our guidance for CET1 above 13.5%, striking the right balance between supporting our growth ambitions and preserving buffers comfortably above regulatory requirements.

Just to wrap up, we delivered outstanding results in 2025, and this reflects multiple years of consistent progress in building scale, resilience, as well as long-term value. The performance was underpinned by increased client activity, a more diversified income mix, well-managed expenses, and robust asset quality.

In light of this performance, the board also recommended a cash dividend of 80 fils per share, representing a total payout of 8.84 billion dirhams, and again reinforcing our commitment to delivering sustainable shareholder returns. Lastly, our strong balance sheet fundamentals enable us to enter 2026 from a real position of strength.

Now just before I conclude and opening the floor to Q&As, I'd just like to thank all the investors and the analysts on the call and who've been with us throughout the year for your continued support and engagement, as well as trust. Really, we look forward to continuing the dialogue in the year ahead, and to continue delivering some very strong performance and returns for you.

On that, I pass you back to the operator.

Hello. Hi, this is Rahul Bajaj from Citi.

Thanks for taking my question, Lars, Sofia. Thanks so much.

Two quick questions from my side. The first one is on capital.

I see the 13.3% post-dividend CET1 ratio, and if I compare it with your as of 1st January requirement, you're probably about 130 basis points over the minimum requirement. Just wanted to understand how comfortable the management team is with this kind of sort of buffer, which is just over the 100 100 basis points mark.

Would you want to have a higher buffer as you go into the year? Or I think you think that might be not super efficient, and you would want to maintain this kind of tight?

I'm just trying to understand, are there capital actions to kind of shore up capital that are on your timeline, on your plate, in the next 6, 12, 18 months? That's my first question.

My second question is actually on Wio, which I think FAB is an investor in. I just wanted to understand in terms of treatment, because Wio has been growing quite substantial in size, do you consolidate Wio numbers?

Or it kind of passes through as an associate profit on your P&L, or how does it work? Just the fact that since Wio has been growing so quickly, is there some sort of cannibalization happening between FAB's banking business and the Wio business?

How do you see that cannibalization? Thank you.

Rahul, hi. To take the questions.

On the capital buffer, yeah, clearly, we are very actively managing capital right through the year. You've heard us in previous calls, we're always looking at optimizing, we're looking at getting the right balance.

You've seen that we've just announced dividends as well. You can see the balancing that we do in terms of our growth versus our distribution to shareholders versus the capital buffer.

It's something that we're very actively between our risk function, our finance function, our treasury function. At the levels that they're at at the moment, they definitely are for the growth that we are projecting, and clearly the growth that we've managed to achieve in 2025, these are the sorts of levels that we are comfortable at.

In terms of capital actions, if we were ever going to do any capital actions, we would certainly signal that to the market, both to the analyst community and to the investor community in good time. As we sit here now, we're in a good spot.

Then in terms of Wio, look, Wio for us is an investment. It's not even an associate in terms of the stake.

It is something that clearly we participate, and we look at how they're performing in terms of also a bit of the technology that they're putting out there. This is really from our perspective not something that even gets incorporated in our bottom line, and it's not something that significantly certainly affects the group.

Oh, thank you. Done on the results.

First question, please, on loan growth. I think previously you've been maybe a little bit more cautious given your size and your desire to protect the margin.

I wonder what's changed in terms of your outlook and how do you expect that loan growth to break out across divisions? In the context of defending a resilient NIM, are you still thinking around 180 basis points for the year ahead?

That's the first question. Second question, please, is the impossible one, but could you try and help us think about where non-interest income, obviously in particular FX and investment income, might normalize this year as you see the outlook?

Then finally, could you just please make a quick comment on the tax rates, which I think is a bit lower than we might have expected again, and what rate we should expect for 2026? Thank you.

Yeah. Hi, John.

Thanks for that. Look, on loan growth, if you also think back to the guidance that we gave last year, we started off with a guidance which was sort of at the high single digits.

We then saw how things progressed throughout the year, and we came back mid-year, and we upgraded that guidance to low double digits. Again, the way to read this is clearly it's another upgrade, and one of the key drivers obviously is the momentum that we see in our own pipeline.

If you were to look at it more at the macro level, the expectation that GDP for the country is again expected to be at a higher level in 2026 than it was in 2024, which was at a higher level than 2023, that's really the momentum that, when it comes to the loan book, feeds into the loan book. You're seeing a lot of company formations in this country.

I'd say we have about a million companies in the UAE, and we're looking at potentially even doubling that. That gives you another driver of momentum.

We're also seeing demographics in terms of people in the country. That's another one where you see continued growth.

This will actually lead into what I would say loan growth expectations stronger than '25, but also, because you were asking about business divisions, pretty well spread across all business divisions. If you think about our retail and business banking, that has a lot of the new company formations as well as, let's say, population demographic in it.

Our wholesale division, which captures the private and the public sector corporates with all the diversification that's happening in the economy, there's good growth coming through there. Then also in terms of our investment banking and markets, you're seeing in terms of NBFIs, you're seeing growth, you're seeing growth in the sovereign wealth funds, you are still seeing growth in government as well.

It's pretty broad-based. In terms of NFI, I don't know if it's an impossible question.

Obviously, we can't pin down an exact number, but I think for me, really, if you go back over the last maybe 3 years or 12, 12 quarters, what you are really seeing is that our strategic focus and our strategic emphasis on growing our revenue streams and the multiple different revenue streams that we are trying to sort of stand up, it's really working, and it's paying off. Simplistically, you can see that in terms of the non-funded income percentage, which has now reached 45% of total revenues.

You turn back the clock a few years, and this was at 25%. We've made progressive, steady progress.

Every year, we've taken a structural step up. Clearly, it's not just one thing that adds to this.

We see it in loan origination fees, we see it in card fees, we see it in cross-border or trade fees. We have seen, in the last couple of years, it coming through on the global markets franchise.

More and more, as we become more sophisticated also on the investment banking side, you'll see more of it coming from advisory. As I've said, I think on a couple of the calls before, one of the new initiatives now is to really focus on building out our asset management and wealth franchise, and so therefore, you'll start seeing fees being captured off the back of a growing AUM base.

It really is in terms of direction of travel, I think if you want to sort of get a pointer into the future, it will continue to grow. More and more, we are clearly trying to make the repeatable component and the franchise component a bigger share of the contribution.

When it comes to tax rate, I'd say, for the last 2 years, we've clearly been adapting to and transitioning into having the new corporate tax rates being adopted in the UAE. This was really, I would say, the first full year of seeing how the new rates at 15% over here work through the system.

What we've also now been able to capture is really looking at where we can get all the optimization from in our entire network. In Q4, yes, the lower number was really off the back of us availing of certain tax credits that we'd earned, for example, on our Egyptian Treasury portfolio.

I think that was probably one of the key moving items. Again, looking forward, I'd still say a number of below 20% effective for the whole group is a number that we're working towards.

That's great. Thanks, Lars.

Hi. Yes, it's Naresh Bilandani from Jefferies.

Thank you so much for your time. Three questions, please.

You have a great and low credit RWA density of 46%. It would be very helpful if you could please, Lars, call out a few initiatives that you feel you still have to take to improve this credit RWA density, or do you believe from this point on, it is largely a function of how the asset mix develops from here?

That's the first question. My second question is, is it right to understand that your minimum CET1 could increase from the current 12% as the 100 bps countercyclical buffer is implemented in Saudi Arabia, given the pro forma calculation method which is applied?

Also, do you have meaningful exposures in any other international geographies where there is countercyclical buffer being implemented or increased? If you can please just share those, that would be helpful.

My third and final question is on the cost-to-income ratio, which has encouragingly dropped to a very good low of 22% for the year. While I'm sure you attempt to hold it or improve further, realistically, is this the best you can get to, or based on your current projections, you could see this improve even further from current levels?

Thank you so much.

Naresh, I'm going to ask Chris to talk to you about the RWA density, and I'll come back on the CET1 and the cost-to-income.

Thank you. On the RWA density, I think it's always going to be a combination of factors as we always look to optimize.

Across the whole stack of RWA, there are always going to be some elements that we can optimize every year. I think sort of the asset mix is going to be a material driver going forward for us around the credit risk RWA.

I think also to the short to medium-term outlook in terms of other levers will be the prescribed regulatory pathway as well. I think in terms of sort of more medium-term outlook, I think that will be potentially a big driver of the credit RWA.

That's not a timing that obviously we control or indeed have timings of today.

We do have various levers that we can still pull, I wouldn't say we're exhausted on this. In terms of the CET1, look, I'm not aware of anything in the pipeline that will take this level beyond the 12% minimum.

In terms of any sort of countries where we have sort of higher countercyclical buffers, again, nothing meaningful. You see, in terms of our network, I guess about 20% of the balance sheet, and therefore, by proxy, 20% of the capital is distributed around the network.

I'm not seeing anything that is sort of pressurizing that number upwards. We're continuously watching regulatory sort of evolution in the space.

In terms of cost-to-income ratio, also, I would never say never here. We are in a completely different, I would say, dynamic with AI.

I think we're all at the start of this journey. I've elaborated quite a bit on it in my earlier sort of intro, but it's definitely something which is surprising us on the positive rather than on the negative, and I feel that the more that we have our people engaging with it, the more creative ideas we'll get and the more, actually, we will be able to drive productivity and efficiency.

That's what I'd say on the cost lever. Clearly, we'll also be able to see better or find better revenue opportunities.

There's a lot of data that we're able to analyze and find areas that could potentially lead to revenue streams. I think never underestimate the improvement in customer experience and turnaround time and how that can also build out our franchise.

Then, of course, within the world of risk management as well, there's a lot that we can do, which can also improve things, both at the front door side of new origination as well as at the back door side of recoveries. We're not going to call the limit, put it that way.

Got it. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Thank you for taking my question.

Good afternoon, Lars and Sofia. This is Kunpeng of China Securities.

I have a follow-up on the loan growth and fee income, especially on the AI-related industries, because we know the AI-related CapEx and financing needs the sustainability of that need might be one of the most important thing for all the banks across the globe. UAE is a great hub for the data centers and AI chip manufacturing industries.

From the FAB side, could you please share us some color on the trend of the AI-related lending activities for 2026 from your pipeline, from your client engagements, any color on the trend of the AI industry-related lendings? Additionally, a lot of AI-related financing is handled on the capital markets.

That means fee income for banks. Could you please also share us some of FAB's initiatives to host that kind of direct financing needs from the capital markets, and should we have a higher fee income target based on those kind of strong needs for the direct financing of the AI industry?

Thank you.

Thank you, Kunpeng. Chris will talk a little bit about the loan evolution in the AI space.

Kunpeng, thank you for the question. Certainly, look, the AI as a theme is definitely something that we're seeing across our business opportunities and across our key client groups.

We're seeing that both sort of, what I'd say, directly into the data centers themselves, and that's obviously on a global basis, I would suggest that we're seeing those opportunities. Then obviously, there are various other products linked to that, as you say, whether that's into capital market takeouts.

I think also, what I would say is, I speak as chief risk officer, then obviously we're also looking through from our perspective as other correlations of this type of exposure across our portfolio, both from a lending perspective, but also a market perspective. It does present some interesting additional risk factors that we do take a look at.

I would say at the moment that certainly our sort of total exposure is not material from the overall network perspective.

I would say maybe another dimension of this is also looking more at how we are going to be evolving in the space of tokenization, in space of digital bonds. You've seen we've done a few digital bonds already this year.

We were, I think, the first in the Gulf to this one. I think this will be more the area.

We also came up with a stable coin development that we are partnering up with a number of partners here in Abu Dhabi to launch in the stable coin. I think these will be areas that are nascent, but over what I would say is a three-year window, they could definitely become more significant contributors to what is already quite a nice diversified revenue stream.

We're continuously, I would say, as a country, we're at the forefront of the evolution of this, and therefore, also as a bank, we tap into that evolution.

Thank you. Thank you both.

Good. Thank you.

Thank you for taking my questions, and for hosting this call. I have several.

One is on provisioning outlook. Your guidance remains quite a bit above regional peers.

My question is why. Guidance on coverage assumes no really build up in coverage this year.

What is fundamentally different in risk profile of FAB loan book for you to assume a higher cost of risk versus other peers? That's my question number one.

My other question is on lending. I see there was a very strong growth of government loans last year, 2025.

What exactly are these? I see that GRE loans, government-related entities, are actually different.

They are disclosed separately. What would be usually nature of this lending?

Is it short-term, long-term? How different interest rates are?

I assume you would be using zero risk weightings. Any color on this lending to government?

My third question is government deposits. They went down by 34 billion over a year.

Again, this is not the same as GRE deposits, I understand we need to separate here. If this is treasury money, with what does it usually correlate?

How do you in your business planning assume the evolution of this line for the next year? Thank you.

Olga, hi. Chris will talk to you a bit about the provisioning outlook, and I'll talk a bit about the government loans and deposits.

Olga, thank you. On the provisioning, look, I'm not really going to sort of try to compare ourselves to other banks.

I'll just sort of deal with that from our perspective. Obviously, we want to take the right, prudent, and conservative approach to the provisioning outlook.

I think if you look back at '25, we said that we would see sort of a pick-up in the second half compared to the first half. I think we sort of overall, we're 57 basis points, but it was sort of 51 against 62, if I look at the two halves of last year.

I think really that sort of some of the backdrop to how we think about the guidance that we're giving. Obviously, we will continue to review that and update that as we progress.

I think when it comes to government, clearly, the numbers are significant when they do move. Again, strategically what we have been working very hard at FAB is really to diversify both on the asset and the liability side, the customer base, the segments.

This was also part of the reorganization that we did last year. I think we've been pretty successful.

If you look at a country view sort of roll back over the last 5 years, and you see both on the loan and the deposit side, where has the growth been coming from, it has become more and more from the corporate side, the individual side, the international corporate side, and let alone the local corporate side. As a percentage of overall growth for the economy, less and less from the government side.

Now, this is also something that we've been trying to tap into and also change the profile of our organization. What I'm particularly pleased with actually is the growth that we did see in the corporate and the private sector on both sides of the balance sheet for the full year, but also if you see the Q4 movements.

What drives, let's say, government outflows, it really is what happens in terms of government budgets, what they tend to do. It tends not to have a sort of very regular pattern.

As I said during the earlier remarks, for example, the deposit outflow that we saw at the tail end of last year, again, we already saw quite a large part of that already coming back in January. It's not something that is that easy to predict, but also as a result, we are trying to effectively make our own franchise more robust on both sides so that we are able to absorb that sort of volatility.

That is the reason that we have a high liquidity coverage ratio. It is actually, if you look at this year's development, we've seen on both sides of the balance sheet, private and public sector, individual and company, by far outgrowing government and GRE.

This is really a very healthy evolution of the business.

Yes, hi. Good afternoon.

Thanks for the presentation, and congratulations on a strong set of results for the year. Two questions for me, please.

Firstly, on loan growth, I just want to circle back to the earlier question on, when we look at this year's growth, it's quite broad-based, but there's quite a bit of increase that's come in the fourth quarter from the government sector as you break it down. I just wanted to get again, is there a transitory element to this?

Is this more short-term or long-term? Secondly, related to this is that when you're guiding to mid-teens growth next year, what are the key drivers here in terms of key segments where you're looking at?

This year has been good both on corporate and retail. 11% growth on retail, about 14% growth on the corporate.

Is there any guidance that you can give on the specific segments, or where you see stronger elements in terms of growth? Second question is on the investment income.

First is that, I think, at the start of this year, you were kind of guiding towards a 2/3, 1/3 kind of split between sustainable and some of it which could be transitory. Are you holding on to that guidance for the full year number as well and for next year?

More importantly, I think, from our perspective, how should we think of this investment income going into 2026? It's been a fabulous year in 2025 on that count.

How should we think about this, when we're forecasting it in our model? What are the key drivers here?

Is there, maybe some more information in terms of business segments that are driving this investment income, or products that you can provide or looking to provide on this? Thank you.

Murad, hi. It's Chris.

Let me just discuss on the loan growth, and both in terms of where we've been growing and the outlook. Look, our objective really is to see some broad-based growth across the portfolio, across sectors.

It's not really that we're going to pick out any one sector or two sectors that we really think is going to drive it. We want to be very specific in the way that we address those sectors to really make sure that we're offering the right products and set to the client base.

It should be more broad-based that we would be looking at from that perspective. I think you asked around the government side, yes, there was sort of a reasonable change in the government in Q4, but I think it's when you look at it over year-on-year, then I think that increase is a bit more amongst the other sectors in terms of some of the growth rates.

Then maybe just going back to the non-funded income, yeah, this 1/3, 2/3 was sort of rough rule of thumb. I think if you look at it this year, it probably stacks up still as being 1/3, 2/3.

Clearly, we're trying to reduce the 1/3 component and increase the 2/3 component. If you want to say direction of travel, that is certainly where we're heading.

The other thing that we're trying to do is the overall bucket of non-funded income, which as I say has increased from 25% to 45% over the last few years, again, the direction of travel there is to try at least stabilize it at that level, but if not, try and go beyond that level. Really here, if you were to say, and again, I've referred to it earlier, some of the new areas that will only grow in volume and contribution in this space will be anything that we do in the space of asset management, in the space of wealth management.

It will also be potentially in the space of advisory, M&A. Those are areas that we're also looking at developing more.

Then clearly, you're asking about the loan growth, but the loan growth also underpins the fee growth. Then with our global transaction banking, this is also something where we can really leverage on the growth in volumes on cross-border payments and cross-border trade flows.

These are areas that also will contribute. Again, I think the term is diversification and broad-based.

I think we are very fortunate that we have this momentum for the economy in terms of the GDP again accelerating, but also that we have the momentum of the diversification of the whole economy into a whole lot of different sectors. I think the key sectors you can also read into the government-focused sectors in their planning.

Those are the sectors that also inform where we support and finance. Great.

Thank you, and all the best for next year.

Thank you. The

Thank you for the conference call and all your answers so far. Am I audible?

Hello?

Yes.

Thank you. Yeah.

I think I'll just probably follow up on one of the questions that was asked earlier. Non-funded income, right?

I think your investment case and the earnings outlook, it's not so much about what happens with the margin, right? It's about what happens with the non-funded income, right?

I understand why people are asking about this. Would you say that you are now in a new paradigm where if you think about your non-funded income as a percentage of your assets, right, you are now hitting almost 1%?

That was never the case before, right? Is that 1% of your assets that is generated by the non-funded income, is that a sustainable number, right?

Obviously, hard to get high confidence level because some of that component is driven by securities trading, you have a large book of fair value securities on your balance sheet, would really appreciate your color on this. Fee income growth has been really impressive, right?

So 100%, can't argue with that. You're making very good progress on the fee income, but I'm curious about the other non-funded income.

Thank you.

Yeah. Whether we are in a completely new paradigm, I'd say we're in a paradigm shift for the organization.

This is underpinned by I guess the evidence of the 25% NFI shift to 45% NFI shift. As I was saying earlier, for me, that shift continues because I'd like to see it go beyond 50% of the total revenue stream.

I think in that way, you actually also get a much more stable and repeatable revenue and not so much a hostage to your balance sheet, and this is also tied completely to, let's say, our philosophy of more capital-light revenue as well, as well as in our cross-selling. If that is the new paradigm, yes, we are in that new paradigm.

It is very much a capital-light, a cross-sell, upsell, focusing on all the ancillary fees and earnings potential that we can have, as well as then looking at building a few more revenue engines like the asset management. Also, I think where we can continue to start to see growth in this other investment and FX is definitely the global markets franchise, I would say is probably only 50% of the way through the journey in terms of what is possible, because here again, I would certainly say within the corporate space, there is a lot more potential and opportunity, both locally as well as in the international platform.

That's somewhere where we can still build out. Then that, as well, as I've said before, also enables us to do much better position taking in terms of our risk management of the flows, and that actually also leads to potential additional revenue streams.

Even there, this is not just prop trading. This is really taking positioning, whether it's interest rate positioning, FX positioning, commodities hedging positioning, off the back of an increased client flow in our global markets products franchise.

That really also gives us some more potential.

Thank you, Adam. Thank you all for attending the call today.

Obviously, as usual, if you have any further questions, the team and I are at your service, don't hesitate to reach out. I understand it's a very, very busy time for all of you because of earning season, in case you don't have the time to reach out, you know that there is an AI-enabled engine embedded in our website as well as on our app that you can query on our results, not only this quarter, but also for the previous quarters.

Thank you again for your continued engagement, and look forward to continuing the dialogue. Take care.