Thank you, Operator. Good morning from Port Moresby, and thank you for joining Bank South Pacific's 2025 full-year results presentation.

We released BSP Financial Group's 2025 results to the PNGX, the ASX, and the SPX earlier this morning, and I would like to welcome you all to our investor briefing. My name is Methuselah Wabiria.

I'm the Senior Manager here at BSP overseeing ESG and Investor Relations. Our presenters this morning are Mr.

Mark Robinson, our Group Chief Executive Officer, and Mr. Glen Skarott, our Group Chief Financial Officer.

Gentlemen, welcome. After the presentation, which should last about 30 minutes, there will be an opportunity for investor questions.

If you're joining from the webcast, you can submit written questions in the Q&A text box, and that should be showing at the bottom of your screens right now. For those of you who wish to ask their questions over the conference call, as the Operator just said, he will read out instructions at the end of the presentation.

Turning to slide 2, I would like to draw your attention to the legal disclaimer associated with this presentation, which is on that slide. I'll hand over to our Group CEO, Mr.

Mark Robinson.

Thank you, Met. Good morning, and welcome to our 2025 full-year results briefing.

I'm going to start with an overview of BSP and our full-year performance. Glenn will then walk you through the financial results in detail before I return to outline our strategy and the outlook, and we'll then move to your questions.

Turning to slide 5, I want to take a moment to remind you about the scale of our business, our track record, and the opportunity ahead of us in Papua New Guinea and the rest of the South Pacific. First, BSP is the largest bank in the South Pacific with market-leading positions in seven countries serving over 3 million customers.

We operate the most extensive distribution network in the region, spanning branches, ATMs, EFTPOS, mobile, internet banking, agent banking, and of course our relationship managers in the corporate bank and our business bank, extending access into rural, remote communities where few other providers operate. Our banking roots are here in Papua New Guinea with our origins dating back to Commonwealth Bank opening its first branch in Rabaul in 1916 or 110 years ago.

Over time, Commonwealth Bank's PNG business and then National Australia Bank's business in PNG became what is now BSP Financial Group, and in 2015 we acquired Westpac's businesses in five South Pacific countries. This has built a bank that is a well-governed and well-managed regional champion with a track record of delivering for our shareholders as well as our customers.

We have done that through a diversified revenue base with strong contributions from lending, foreign exchange, transaction banking, and life insurance. Importantly, we know there is more gas in the tank and we are investing for growth and performance through our Modernising for Growth program.

The opportunity is very clear. Economic and market growth in the region is being driven by a young and growing population, demand for agricultural commodities and fisheries, tourism, and the world-class endowment the region has in energy and mineral resources, particularly here in Papua New Guinea.

We are also growing by using digital channels to bring banking to the region's underbanked, and to help unlock more opportunities to champion prosperity in the South Pacific. Moving to slide 6, you'll see that BSP delivered a strong financial performance in 2025, underpinned by disciplined execution and a clear focus on long-term value creation.

Some highlights include net profit after tax, which increased by just over 13% to 1.17 billion kina or approximately 440 million Australian dollars. This was driven by revenue growth across all key businesses up over 14% to 3.41 billion kina or approximately 1.28 billion Australian dollars, reflecting growth in lending, foreign exchange, and transaction banking.

We are investing to modernize for growth, which saw an expected increase in operating expenses. However, we're continuing to manage costs tightly, and our cost-to-income ratio of 42.9% remains well within our target range and below that of Australian banks, for example.

A particular highlight is BSP's return on equity at 23.8%, which increased by 50 basis points, continuing our 20-year track record of an ROE above 20%. This is well ahead of international peers' ROEs and reflects our ability to effectively manage our operations and costs while reinforcing our scale in the South Pacific.

Our capital position remains strong with a capital adequacy ratio of 26.4% as of year-end, which is significantly higher than the Bank of Papua New Guinea's requirement of 12%. The bottom line is that BSP delivered strong operating results in 2025, and we continue investing in the future of the business while providing exceptional returns to our shareholders, many of which are Papua New Guinea and South Pacific institutions focused on the retirement needs of hundreds of thousands of people in the region.

Following this year's strong performance, the BSP Board has declared a final dividend of 1.38 kina per share, payable on the 27th of March 2026. That brings our full-year dividend per share to 1.88 kina, up 13% from the previous year.

Now, turning to slide 7, I'll talk a bit more about strategy at the end of this presentation, but I really want to make three points here. First, our history and scale mean that we have a deep understanding of the region.

This includes the role BSP plays in supporting nation building, strengthening economic resilience, and providing rural and remote communities with banking services that support financial inclusion, our ability to prudently manage risk across our region, and we understand the need to invest to continue to improve the customer experience and stay ahead of competition. Second, we have a clear strategy to be the South Pacific's international bank based on the six strategic pillars outlined on slide 7, including driving prosperity through convenient digital services for our retail and corporate customers; building a new business bank dedicated to supporting small and medium-sized enterprises that are the lifeblood of Papua New Guinea and the South Pacific economies; bringing greater focus to corporate and government clients by continuing to develop world-class capabilities and services in our corporate bank.

Thirdly, we are building a track record of execution through a focus on areas that will move the dial. Modernising for Growth is our 1.2 billion kina, 4-year investment plan to ensure BSP continues to deliver sustainable growth.

It's a program of improvement in every area of the business, and I'm pleased to say that we are delivering the program on time and on budget. In summary, 2025 has seen BSP deliver a strong financial performance, supported by a revenue base that is diversified by product, customer segment, and geography, and continued investment on a clear strategy and focus on execution.

I'll now hand over to Glen to talk about the financials in more detail.

Thank you, Mark. It's my pleasure to present these results to you, particularly given the quality of our numbers and the growth we are seeing in the business.

Starting on slide 9, FY 2025 was a strong year operationally, with solid growth in revenue and earnings, while we deliberately leaned into investment for the future. Group revenue grew 14.4% in kina terms, with broad-based momentum across net interest income, FX, and fees.

This was supported by lending growth, stronger investment income from the securities portfolio, and continued customer activity across transactional banking. Operating expenses increased 18.8% to 1.46 billion kina.

This reflects deliberate investment of 137 million kina into our Modernising for Growth program as we moved into the execution phase of transformation. Statutory NPAT increased 12.9% year on year to kina 1.17 billion.

Underlying earnings momentum was stronger at 19.7% once you adjust for the one-off items last year. Credit expense in FY 2025 reflects a normalization from an unusually low FY 2024 outcome, which benefited from the release of COVID-related management overlays.

The current year charge reflects portfolio growth and our continued prudent provisioning stance. Importantly, underlying asset quality remains sound, with delinquencies improving and provisions to loans stable.

Turning to slide 10, this highlights both the quality of our revenue growth and the operating leverage in the business, even as we materially stepped up investment. Net interest income increased 9.1%, supported by lending growth and higher income from the securities portfolio.

Net interest margin expanded 19 basis points to 6.41%, reflecting disciplined pricing and a modest portfolio shift towards higher-yielding assets. FX income increased 28.7%, driven by higher exporter and importer activity and the continued uptake of our digital FX offering.

Fee and commission income grew 14.5%, reflecting customers increasingly using BSP as their primary transactional bank and continued growth in our digital channels. Operating expenses increased 18.8% to 1.46 billion kina, driven by a deliberate increase in headcount, leading to higher employment costs and a planned step-up in technology investment.

Modernising for Growth investment of 137 million kina is now fully flowing through the P&L as we move into the execution phase of the transformation. Even with this step change in investment, operating profit still grew 11.3% to 1.95 billion kina.

That speaks to the underlying operating leverage of the franchise. Ex-transformation, the core cost base remains tightly controlled, and the business is funding its modernization program from organic earnings growth.

On slide 11, cost growth is deliberate and targeted, primarily people, technology, depreciation, and program delivery as platforms progressively go live. The CTR increased 160 basis points to 42.9%, remaining within our 42% to 45% target range and below the major Australian banks.

The increase in CTR was driven by investment in growth and capability: around 35 basis points from adding 200 roles to support growth and improve customer outcomes, 32 basis points from long-term incentives, 30 basis points from our M4G investment, reflecting that controlled investment in the business, and 9 basis points from CPI-linked salary increases. We expect CTR to trend higher in our target range over the next few years as the M4G program moves into its peak expensing and depreciation phase, with more platforms going live and further direct operating costs flowing through the P&L.

As major platforms stabilize and automation increases, we expect operating leverage to reassert and CTR to normalize to the lower 40s over the medium term. Moving to slide 12 on credit quality, we're pleased with how the portfolio is performing.

Delinquencies improved modestly over the year and remain low at 2.7% of total loans, reflecting continued stability across our markets. The FY 2025 impairment charge represents a normalization from an unusually low FY 2024 outcome, which benefited from the release of COVID-related management overlays.

The current year charge reflects portfolio growth and our ongoing prudent provisioning approach, not any deterioration in underlying asset quality. Provision coverage remained stable year on year, and we continue to apply a conservative approach to risk management across retail, SME, and corporate portfolios.

Importantly, we are not seeing any emerging stress in any single sector or geography, and our asset quality metrics remain well within our risk appetite settings. On slide 13, our balance sheet remains strong and conservatively positioned.

Total assets grew nearly 16% and deposits grew over 17% last year, reflecting strong franchise momentum and customer confidence in BSP across all markets. Demand deposits remain an important part of our funding mix, supporting a low cost of funds.

Gross loans grew nearly 8%, and that growth was fully funded by deposits, without stretching liquidity or our funding risk appetite. We are growing the balance sheet selectively and with discipline.

Slide 14 shows a stable and balanced loan book composition. Retail mortgage growth reflects housing demand across Pacific markets, particularly Fiji.

Business and corporate pipelines remain healthy and well diversified. Personal lending growth remains measured.

We are not trading credit quality for yield. Overall, the portfolio mix remains stable, with no material shift into high-risk segments.

Turning to slide 15, our key ratios highlight the quality of BSP's business. Return on equity of 23.8% reflects strong operational leverage and disciplined capital management.

Capital adequacy of 26.4% underpins our ability to absorb unexpected volatility across our markets, supports strategic flexibility, and remains comfortably above regulatory requirements. Return on assets remains attractive, demonstrating balance sheet efficiency.

This is a high return, conservatively capitalized balance sheet, not one built on leverage, un-leveraged. On slide 16, we continue to deliver attractive and sustainable shareholder returns.

As Mark mentioned, the Board has declared a final dividend of 1.38 kina per share, bringing the full-year dividend to 1.88 kina per share, up 13% year on year. This represents a dividend payout ratio of 75%, consistent with the past few years, providing shareholders with an attractive income stream while maintaining balance sheet strength.

Our 10-year total shareholder return of 413%, based on PNGX ownership, reflects disciplined capital allocation and consistent earnings delivery over the cycle. We're committed to a sustainable payout ratio that balances reinvestment, balance sheet strength, and shareholder returns.

FY 2025 demonstrated that BSP can grow earnings, invest in future capability, protect asset quality, and continue to deliver attractive returns to shareholders. With that, I'll hand back to Mark to talk through the outlook.

Thank you, Glen. I wanted to briefly recap that we have a clear focus.

We are the South Pacific's international bank. It's a focus driven by our commitment to champion prosperity for the South Pacific, its people, and communities.

It's also reflected in our strategic pillars, which I talked about earlier, each of which is a critical element in uplifting people, communities, and businesses across the region. Our Modernising for Growth program is improving customer experience, driving efficiencies in the business, and creating new opportunities for sustainable growth.

We are making good progress, and there is still upside for our customers, for our staff, and of course for our shareholders. The progress is already apparent.

Our monthly average digital transactions grew by 22.5% last year, as customers adopted modern banking channels, with transactions at our branches and agents relatively flat. As you see, digital adoption continues to grow, with more customers shifting to mobile banking, which grew at almost 22% compounded annually over the past 5 years.

Internet banking and EFTPOS grew at 33% and 18% respectively, compounded annually over the last 5 years. Over that period, ATM usage was flat.

That changed last year with our new ATMs that have more uptime and deposit-taking capabilities. Turning to slide 19, I want to share a few examples of the Modernising for Growth investments that are bringing the shift to digital to life.

In retail, we are bringing generation infrastructure to BSP customers, which is also saving time for our staff and our customers. We're upgrading our branches to bring our customers a better experience.

This includes [digital?] branches and [new?]

tellers helping [unclear] spend more time supporting our customers to use digital channels. We're also using data to better understand our customers and cater to them with personalized propositions through the launch of BSP First, BSP Gold, and BSP Green.

This year, we'll take a major step forward with the launch of our new digital experience platform, including new internet banking and mobile app experiences. We are also investing in business and corporate banking.

Our business bank was launched in April to provide dedicated service specifically tailored to small and medium-sized businesses. While there is a lot of focus on big projects, particularly in Papua New Guinea, the fact is that small to medium-sized businesses are the lifeblood of the South Pacific economies, and those businesses also deserve dedicated attention and support.

This market is also a significant growth opportunity for BSP. In our corporate bank, we've introduced new risk and portfolio management capabilities and online foreign exchange services, and we've invested in more targeted customer propositions, such as serving our financial institutions clients better.

This year, we will introduce new digital experience platforms for our business and corporate customers. Turning to slide 20, all this comes with a program of ESG work, which is aligning BSP with international standards.

Right back to our banking roots of 110 years ago, we have a focus on supporting the community and a focus on strong governance. This now includes supporting customers and the community as we witness the increasing frequency and intensity of climate events across the South Pacific.

Our ESG program of work looks to formalize all that we're doing across environment, social, and governance to help investors to better understand our work and align with international standards. As part of the 2025 annual report, we published our second sustainability report.

This report is based on a materiality-led approach that focuses on the issues that are important to the South Pacific. I encourage you to take a look at our annual report, which was released today, for more information about our ESG strategy and initiatives.

Finally, turning to slide 21, let me close by saying that BSP is delivering consistent growth and performance for our shareholders based on disciplined execution. With an ROE above 20% for over two decades, we are not only the leading financial institution in the South Pacific, we are also delivering attractive returns for our shareholders.

We are modernizing to create a better experience for our customers and staff, and we're investing to build stronger, more resilient communities. We enter 2026 with confidence.

We serve a region that spans almost 6,000 kilometers from our easternmost branch in Rarotonga in the Cook Islands to Vanimo in the Sandaun Province of Papua New Guinea. This is a region that is more connected than ever, with incredible diversity.

Our customer segments are diverse, from agriculture and fisheries with established domestic and international markets, to some of the world's best destinations for tourism, to world-class commodities and resources, including gold, copper, silver, and major reserves of oil, particularly major reserves of oil and LNG. With the investment we are making, the modernization of our infrastructure, our scale, and deep local relationships, I believe the best is yet to come for BSP.

Finally, I would like to express my sincere thanks to our nearly 5,000 staff across the region, without whom this result wouldn't have been possible. Thank you for your hard work, professionalism, and passion for BSP and our customers.

Let me now pass you back to Met, who will open the briefing for questions.

Thank you, Mark. We will now invite questions from participants.

As a reminder, if you're joining from the webcast, you can submit written questions in the Q&A text box, and that should be at the bottom of your screens now. The phone lines are open.

We're going to hand over to the Operator to read out the prompt for those who wish to ask questions directly via the conference call. Please note, for investor and analyst questions only.

I'll now hand over to the Operator.

Thank you. We do have limited time.

If we don't get to all questions, we'll get back to you in the coming days and we will, of course, post answers to any material questions on the website. While waiting for participants that have dialed in to join the queue on the conference call, we have received quite a few inquiries about the recent action by the Financial Action Task Force last week about the greylisting of PNG.

I'd like to invite Mark and Glen if they could start with a few comments on that topic, please.

Thank you very much, Met. The announcement was made on February 14th that Papua New Guinea has gone on to the grey list.

The grey list is maintained by the Financial Action Task Force. By way of background, countries are placed on the grey list after a detailed examination of laws, systems, and controls in the country to detect and prosecute a range of illegal activities, including, most obviously, money laundering.

FATF, or Financial Action Task Force, has previously placed PNG on the grey list in 2014. PNG exited the grey list 2 years later, in 2016, after the enactment of important laws, regulations, and amendments to the Criminal Code and the Proceeds of Crime Act of 2005.

The 2026 greylisting has followed an examination here in 2024 of the effectiveness of the money laundering laws and detection and prosecution systems. Now, the primary concern of FATF is that there has not been prosecution of cases of the various anti-money laundering laws.

Firstly, to say, with respect to BSP and for our customers, it's business as usual. BSP will continue to operate normally.

The main impact of the greylisting is likely to be increased reporting requirements in Papua New Guinea. Our customers may be impacted by longer processing times for some transactions and potentially higher costs.

Obviously, the greylisting highlights the importance of strong controls for all banks, including BSP. Controls and measures remain sound at the bank and the reporting obligations to the Bank of Papua New Guinea.

BSP continues to take these obligations very seriously. It will take some time to address the matters raised by FATF before PNG is removed from the grey list.

BSP is committed to working with the PNG authorities and as well as other financial institutions to support the efforts. I hope that's helpful.

Thank you, Mark.

We've received several queries, interest through the chat around the M4G program that was spoken about, particularly points that charge through around the span of that development and what the [unclear] is for that [unclear]. Glenn?

Thanks, Met. The M4G program, we announced late last year that we were committed to a spend of 1.2 billion kina over the next 4 years.

The majority of the M4G program will conclude at the end of that 4-year program. Obviously, the depreciation of a number of those items will continue to reflect after that time.

The program is a 4-year program for 1.2 billion kina. We anticipate our CTR ratio rising in the next 3 years, and we do believe it will stay within our target range between 42% and 45%.

Post the M4G program, we anticipate the CTR to come back down to a more usual low 40s number.

Thanks, Met.

Thank you, Glen. I'll now hand over to the Operator to check if there's any participants on the conference call waiting to ask questions.

Operator? Sir,

Okay. With that, we are at time.

I will thank the CEO, Mr. Mark Robinson, and our CFO as well.

That concludes our investor briefing on behalf of the staff and management of BSP. We thank you for your continued support.

All questions that weren't answered, we will reach out to you directly as well. Thank you.