Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Techcombank and Techcom Securities' first quarter 2026 financial results presentation.

Today's session will begin with the opening remarks from Jens Lottner, CEO of Techcombank. Following that, Alex Macaire, the CFO, will provide a detailed overview of our financial results and key business updates for Techcombank.

Afterward, Mr. Xuan Minh, Chairman of Techcom Securities, will share detailed insights on TCBS's performance, and we will then conclude with a Q&A session.

Our management will present in English, and a live Vietnamese translation is available via a separate link. As usual, there will be a dedicated Vietnamese call for retail investors on a separate session conducted tomorrow.

The session is expected to last approximately 90 minutes. With that, I would like to hand it over to Jens to begin the presentation on Techcombank.

Thank you very much, and good afternoon, everyone. I think it's probably fair to say that these are very interesting times and a lot of macroeconomic volatility and it's kind of hard to predict exactly how things are developing.

In the context of these things, I believe we actually have shown a very strong performance in the first quarter. If you take a look in the numbers, TOI, PBT, the growth is actually quite substantial.

We have done quite okay on the NII side as well as on the NFI side. Our return on assets and return on equity is in the range of what we had guided, and also CI ratio stands actually at a relatively low level of 28.3%.

At the same point in time, all the measures which are indicating the strength on our balance sheet, be it capital, but also NPLs and when it comes to loss coverage ratios, etc., are all market leading. I think we are very, very well prepared for any kind of uncertainties and volatilities which might still be coming in our way.

First quarter looked quite okay also from a macroeconomic perspective with 7.8% GDP growth. Again, as I said, there will be uncertainties along the way.

We will probably have a little bit more time to discuss those also when Alex will talk about the guidance. Overall, as I said, the first quarter, which was probably a little bit less affected from the turbulences we're seeing right now, showed a very robust performance and in line with our prior performances.

Again, I think we are on a good track. We are in the right segments.

We are with the right capabilities and positioned. With that, let me hand it over to Alex to go in detail.

Okay. Good afternoon, everyone.

We'll start as usual with an overview of key macro data points affecting banking conditions. As Jens explained, the environment is clearly complex, including on the geopolitical scale.

I think the key message will be largely similar to the previous quarter. The real economy remains very strong.

However, we see increased pressure on the liquidity side. As Jens also mentioned, the reading for the first quarter's GDP was quite commendable, +7.8%, supported by good progression of exports, +19%, and also FDI disbursements, +8%.

However, we could see some emerging signs of stress in other areas. Deposits only increased 0.4%, well below the growth of credit at 3.2%.

Meanwhile, inflation edged up a little bit to 3.5%, and interbank rates increased sharply, showing, therefore, a very tight situation in terms of liquidity. This explains why, broadly speaking, across the system, we're seeing pressure in terms of CASA and pressure in terms of funding costs.

All in all, I would say strong macro fundamentals supporting credit demand, which is good, but also tightness on liquidity, which is pushing up funding costs and, therefore, compressing margins. Jens mentioned it, the performance of the bank in the first quarter was quite strong, particularly in the context of the complex environment that we had to navigate.

PBT reached 8.9 trillion, which is +23% year-on-year, supported by a very robust increase in TOI, +18%. NII expanded 15%, including the impact of some NIM compression, and we will come back to that later.

We had a stellar performance from fees, +47% year-on-year. Cost of risk was well controlled, and provision expenses reduced by 14% year-on-year.

Overall, I would say this is a strong quarter, which confirmed that our earnings growth is coming from a good balance of volume, mix, and fees, and is not coming just from balance sheet stretching. We will go now to the usual focus on our wealth business.

The key message here is some temporary pressure on margin, which we will explain, but also continued expansion of and structural expansion of our franchise. Our AUM grew 74% year-on-year.

The number of affluent customers increased also double digit, +61%. TCBS continued to make progress on equity brokerage, increasing the market share to 9%.

We continue to dominate also the market on bond advisory with an 86% market share. The only area where we saw some quarter-on-quarter softness was investment banking fees.

The main driver here was margin in a context of higher deposit rates, but also some pipeline delays. If we look ahead, then I would say the trend and momentum are strong, and wealth in general remains one of our big bets and strategic pillar.

This slide is new and aims at shedding a little bit more light on our digital banking business, which we are using, as as leverage for operating model advantage. The key takeaway here is increased engagement driving efficiency as well as monetization.

The number of digital customers reached 13.7 million, up 23% year-on-year. Digital transaction value also increased 23% year-on-year, and our cost-income ratio reduced sharply to 27%, showing the ability of our digital business to scale at diminishing marginal cost.

I also wanted to highlight the fact that 95% of our retail transactions are today performed entirely digitally. In other terms, transaction banking and digital banking is continuing to be a critical driver of our CASA and a fee monetization strategy.

This slide provide a little bit more details on our margins. I know that the key point that you are interested in the net interest margin, we saw some pressure in the first quarter on that front.

We guided accordingly 3 months ago, if you remember, this is not really a surprise. The key message is that It's mainly temporary, including also some one-off effects which will not repeat in the second quarter, is therefore temporary and not structural.

The main reason was obviously the increase in our cost of funds to 4.2%, which is 60 basis points higher than the previous quarter in a context of intense competition in the market. On the asset side, the yields increased a little bit, but less than on the deposit side, +10 basis points.

The reason is essentially asset duration as well as the high-quality liquid asset buffer that we are maintaining. Those HQLA assets are essentially placed with the central bank, are not subject to any repricing, and that also explains why there is a lag in the increase of the yields on the asset side.

However, if we look at the last 12 months NIM, then it still stands at 3.7%, which is a very healthy position. Going forward, we believe that the shift toward lower duration assets and also the expansion into higher-earning products like unsecured lending will allow us to offset the cost of funding pressure that we're seeing.

Therefore, we believe that for the full year, and particularly in the second half of the year, there will be a significant recovery of the NIM, with a full-year level which should be broadly in line with what we had in 2025, which means I would say maybe a little bit below 3.6% to 3.7% would be my best guess as of today. Here, you see also how our credit books have developed.

I would say a healthy expansion led by retail. Consolidated credit grew 20% year-on-year, and within this, retail credit grew even faster, +33%.

Our medium- and long-term loans extended a little bit faster than short-term loans, which is due to the disbursements of mortgages and infrastructure in the infrastructure sector where duration is a little bit longer. During the first quarter, our growth remained quota-constrained, as opposed to demand-constrained.

However, as we enter now the second quarter, then we are free to expand our books by up to 12%, which is significantly more than the 3% that we had to maintain in the first quarter. Therefore, you can expect the growth in the second quarter of the year on the asset side to be on a very different trajectory compared to the first quarter.

This is another important slide which shows that we are staying on track and continuing to make substantial progress on our strategy to diversify our assets. The proportion of real estate credit in our total books reduced to 29%, which compared to 31% at the end of the previous quarter.

Most of the growth is coming from retail and SME with a broad-based contribution across a variety of products. As an example, unsecured lending increased close to 160% year-on-year.

Margin lending increased 47% year-on-year. Therefore, the key takeaway is that there is a continued shift at a high pace toward the direction which are set and which is meant to protect the NIM as well as control concentration risk.

This slide provides, as usual, an overview of the real estate market. As you can see, there is continued recovery with healthy fundamentals.

Our mortgage disbursements exceeded again 30 trillion. This was an area where some people might have had some concerns in terms of whether the increase in interest rates would have reduced the appetite of retail borrowers for mortgages, and the answer is no for the first quarter, and also no for what we're seeing in the first weeks of April.

Meanwhile, early repayments remained also within the historic range, pointing to good liquidity on the part of borrowers. Primary market in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh remained strong with a lot of transactions and continued upward trend on cost.

In other terms, the market is functioning very healthily. As we will see later, on the risk side, the health of our credit books in our mortgage space remains very good, which is giving us confidence in the resilience of our retail credit.

This slide focuses on deposits, and as this is clearly one area where the market has experienced some stress in the first quarter. The reality is that we had to defend our deposit balances, particularly deposit balances from the most affluent customers against very aggressive pricing from our competitors.

Therefore, we had to push up the rates on our deposits, which increased by around 70 basis points during the first quarter. Our CASA ratio reduced a little bit to 37.9%, and the reason is essentially the impact of the higher term deposit rates, which are essentially incentivizing customers to transfer their cash to a higher-earning product like term deposits.

However, on the positive side, our corporate CASA proved very resilient. Balances increased 3% quarter-on-quarter and 40% year-on-year.

If you look ahead, then you may probably know that on the 9th of April, the central bank initiated a concerted action to control the rates on term deposits, setting an objective to reduce 6-month and 12-month rates by at least 50 basis points. We acted promptly, proactively reducing our rates on these tenors by 50 basis points.

Beyond that, I would say that our focus is continuing to be on expanding our structural strengths in terms of deposit franchise as opposed to engaging into a pricing war with our competitors. As an example, in the household and merchant segment, we are seeing very good traction of our new T-Shop proposition, which is essentially an integrated proposition for sales and sales management and collection.

Similarly, in the mass affluent segment, we will soon be making some important announcements, which will also support the expansion of our franchise. Our base case for the coming quarters as regards deposits and deposit pricing is some further easing of the market-wide interest rate pressure, combined with continued expansion of our structural franchise on deposits.

Let's look now at our fee income. I mentioned that at the beginning, this is clearly an area where we had a stellar performance.

You remember probably that I mentioned it last year, that the performance on the fee side was largely impacted by accounting changes on cards and on trade services, and this somehow obscured the underlying momentum in the business. This quarter, we no longer have these effects, and you can see, therefore, quite visibly the strength of our business and fee services, which becomes more clearly.

Our fee income grew 47% year-on-year, reaching the highest level of record, and this performance allowed our return on asset to stay broadly constant at 2.3% despite the compression of our NIM. If we look into the details of our fees, then insurance had a remarkable performance, more than doubling TOI compared to the first quarter of 2025, which is largely attributable to the launch of full-scale operation of our life insurance subsidiary, TC Techcom Life.

On LC, cash, and settlement, we had a similar level of growth, +160% year-on-year more or less, which is credit to the effort we have made in terms of product innovation and also product digitization. Very strong performance as well on FX, which is the seventh consecutive quarter of growth.

We said there is one area, as I mentioned already, where we saw a little bit more softness, which is investment distribution. This is largely due to the competition from earning products like term deposits, which has forced us to reduce our distribution margin.

However, with the expectation of moderating interest rates going forward, then I would say the perspective for the coming quarters remains very strong, particularly the demand from customers for bonds in particular remains very high. Overall, I would say our fee performance illustrate the benefit of having a diversified business model, which helps stabilize the volatility of the earnings, particularly in a context where we see compression of margins in the market.

This is another slide shedding a little bit more color on our life insurance subsidiary, which, as came into full operations in January of this year around a very simple concept. First one is very limited range of products, mostly universal life and some riders, but very customer-centric and with extensive guarantees.

For example, we have the best and longest death benefit guarantee in the market. The second important differentiator is that it's highly specialized company.

It has essentially one market, one partner, and one distribution channel, which means it's able to really organize its products and product distribution approach to be fully integrated into the bank. As an example, we are able to process new policies end-to-end in less than 5 minutes in the majority of cases, which is quite impressive.

The third leverage is the fact that it's the newest and youngest life insurance company in the market. It has been designed from the very first day around a cloud-first and an AI-first architecture, which allows the company to be extremely efficient.

On that premise, it's not really surprising that the feedback and the reaction of the customers was extremely positive. Actually, it even surprised us on the positive side.

In the first quarter of operation, we therefore reached the number one position in the bancassurance market with a 21% market share, which is 5% five percentage points ahead of the next competitor, and we reached a 9% market share in the overall market. Obviously, we don't want to stop there.

We believe that this life insurance business has significant potential to scale. Beyond that, we also believe that there are very important synergies for the bank, particularly in terms of product cross-selling or customer acquisition that we will be able to leverage in the future.

The key point is that we have now access to a new engine of fees beyond TCBS, providing low-volatility, recurring sources of income. Moving now to cost.

We delivered a very strong performance in terms of cost efficiencies this quarter with a cost-income ratio of 28%. Cost reduced by close to 20% quarter-on-quarter, driven by adjustments on bonus provisions and adjustments also on sales incentives, but also some optimization of marketing.

If you look year-on-year, then the increase is +18%, largely driven by other operating expenses, which is a category where you will see the costs incurred by the group in the setup of the two insurance subsidiaries, but also some lumpy discretionary items like consultancy costs or conference costs. The overall point for me is that we are continuing to operate at a very high level of efficiency, and with the AI investments that we have initiated and we believe that this trend will accelerate, and therefore, we'll be able to enjoy in the future consistent positive jaws.

This is a slide now on our credit risk. As you can see, our cost of risk stayed broadly stable at 0.6%, which is quite low, and 0.4% if we include recoveries.

NPL edged up only slightly to 1.16%, and organic NPL, excluding the impact of the credit bureau, was mostly stable at 1%. Meanwhile, and Jens mentioned that, our loan loss coverage ratio continued to strengthen to 129%, which is well ahead of our competitors and provides significant downside protection on earnings.

Overall, the health of our credit books is very, very strong, and it's also stable. This slide, as usual, provides some transparency on our credit risk provisioning.

The point you can see is some Bucket 2 formation, which is ticking up. However, it's mostly early stage, and it's also, we believe, largely seasonal.

Therefore, at this stage, we're just monitoring the situation and taking some proactive recovery measures. The key points for us is that we don't see any signal of systemic risk emergence, and the risk environment more generally is in line with the guided assumptions.

Looking now at capital and the liquidity position. Our capital adequacy ratio strengthened this quarter to 15.2%, showing the benefits of the asset diversification strategy and the pivot toward retail books in particular.

Liquidity funding position remained very strong. Funding structure remains broadly stable despite the tight liquidity situation in the market.

We are not resorting more extensively to wholesale funding in order to finance our growth. Overall, our fortress balance sheet remains a critical pillar of our business model, which gives us optionality in terms of our credit underwriting strategy.

This slide shows how we compare to the rest of the banking market. As you can see, we continue to outperform our peers in most metrics.

We'll turn now to our forward-looking guidance. We're still bullish on the Vietnam economy.

As you can see, we are revising our forecast for GDP growth for the full year to 7% compared to 7.8% in the previous quarter. This is just to acknowledge the fact that the Iran war could have some limited impacts in three areas.

First one is manufacturing and exports due to weaker overall demand in the US and in Europe in particular. The second one is domestic consumption, which could be impacted if inflation was to rise, and as of now, we are currently expected inflation to be around 4.2% for the full year.

The third one is the impact of higher transportation costs on tourism, particularly international tourism. However, the government is still adamant that they want to achieve at least 8% growth for the full year.

Given that they have full control over a very important policy lever, which is the fiscal policy, I think we cannot completely rule out the possibility that the Vietnam economy still reaches 8% growth in 2026. This is now our forward-looking guidance in terms of 2026.

Obviously, credit growth will be in line with our quota. We believe we will receive a strong quota, given our business performance, our asset quality, and also the effort we're making to support infrastructure investment of the country.

Our cost of funds clearly is now coming to a point where probably it will not be able to go down again to the level achieved in 2025. However, we expect some moderation of the growth in the coming quarters due in particular to the concerted action initiated by the central bank, but also, as I mentioned, continued effort on our side to grow CASA, particularly in mass affluent as well as household and merchant.

Our CASA ratio, therefore, should improve from where it is now. The NIM, as I mentioned, might be a little bit below where it was in 2025, but still, I would say around 3.6%, 3.7%.

As a result of that, the NII growth would be significantly accelerated compared to what we had last year. Same for NFI, particularly given the fact that we were able to grow NFI by 47% in the first quarter.

Our cost-income ratio would be in the same ballpark as 2025. NPL as well and definitely below 1.5%, and credit costs will also remain around the level we observed in 2025, which is 0.6%.

Coming to the guidance we will announce and present in AGM on Saturday. We presented, as in the report which was attached to the resolution for the AGM, we guided on two possible scenarios, recognizing that we needed to be cautious.

It was early stage in the war and conflicts in the Middle East, and we didn't really know how long it would endure and also how intense it could be. At this stage, the numbers you see here reflect the base case and reflect our best assumption in terms of how the performance of the bank should develop in 2026.

Our profit before tax should hit at least 37.5 trillion, which is an increase of 18% compared to last 15% compared to 2025. At this stage of the year, we have already achieved 24% of this 37.5 trillion target.

I would say we're therefore on a good track to hit the target and hopefully exceed it. The outcomes of our strategy, I think, are also quite visible already in terms of earnings mix, in terms of efficiency, and in terms of risk.

Insurance, wealth, and digital are also continuing to show huge potential to scale and huge potential for efficiency improvements. I'm not even mentioning here the further upside which could come from the AI adoption in the bank.

On the things which are in our control, I would say we are quite optimistic in our capacity to deliver a very strong year. With this, I will hand it over now to Xuan Minh for the section on the performance of our Techcombank Securities subsidiary.

Thank you.

Hello. Basically, as we all know, that there are so many problems in in the world, with the war and then in the Middle East, and then the commodity price, and so forth.

Also in in Vietnam, we have a a a rising interest rate environment in the past few months. Despite that, our business continue to be strong, carry over from last year.

In the first quarter, our revenue has been growing about 37% in general. The profit The profit increased only about 11%.

Basically, the the main question here is why our revenue growth much faster than the profit, and the the short answer is that the financial expenses has been increasing because our cost of fund has been increasing in the environment, especially in Vietnam that we have the deposit and the lending rate in Vietnam has been increasing quite a lot in recent months. Overall, in terms of business, everything remains solid.

We continue to be the number one in bond advisory business. In first quarter, basically, we are the probably the only player in the market.

We control about 86% market share. We are number one in margin lending.

Our margin lending business has been growing very fast with the new funding the new equity funding from last year. We continue to see the ratio in terms of margin lending per equity is very low at TCBS, and we have a lot more room to grow in general coming to to the year.

We are number three still number three in terms of stock trading in general, and number two in stock trading in in Hanoi Exchange. Let me go through the the the picture on the capital market in the first quarter for Vietnam in general.

Basically, Alex talked about the macro. We we continue to have a strong macro picture in Vietnam.

We have good GDP. We have manageable inflation, even though we we we foresee that there's certain some increase in inflation going forward in the coming quarters because of the commodity price, the oil price, and so forth.

Overall, it's good. We have the interest rate environment has been not very favorable in Vietnam, the the funding cost is higher for most of the businesses in Vietnam in general from fourth quarter of last year and carry into this quarter.

The capital market is not too bad. We increased about 6% in terms of the index the VN-Index in in the first quarter.

The volume trading has been very good. We continue to see a lot more interest from the the the investor, both from foreign and and local investor coming to the market and trade more, the market become more more liquid in general.

We have the secondary emerging market status update. It's going to be official in September of this year.

It's not really a a new news, but in general, it it create certain sentiment for the market in general in the first quarter. Overall is good.

The bond issuance usually, the first quarter is a low seasonal low-end season for for the bond issuance in Vietnam because most of the corporate, they need to wait for the for the audited financial statement, audited annual report in general in the first quarter to be finished in order to be able to to issue more bonds. We can we will see the pick up quite dramatically in the second quarter and third quarter of this year, and and and that also reflecting in our our book building currently.

We will see a lot more bond issuance in Vietnam in in in second quarter. In terms of business performance, overall, investment investment banking business, especially on the bond issuance business, has been going strong.

We grow about 27% in the in the first quarter. The margin lending is strong.

It's it's currently about 50% of of the total income in the first quarter, but I expect that the the because the margin business is pretty stable in general. We have a a balance sheet or we have an AUM on the lending and it continue to earn interest quarter-over-quarter, it's pretty stable.

The bond distribution has been weak, especially weaker compared to first quarter of last year. I think mainly because of the higher interest rate environment in in the deposit, more more people would would tend to go into the deposit more.

We see we we don't see a significant drop. We we actually see an increase in distribution, in bond distribution, or or wealth product distribution.

The margin on bond, especially in the rising interest environment, we see is is is shrinking in the first quarter. Basically, we we make less money on the trading trading fee on on the bond business, bond distribution business for retails in in the first quarter.

I I I believe that the trend will will will get will get better in the second quarter and the fourth and the third quarter in general. Most of our bonds are floating, there's a lag of about 3 to 6 months in terms of interest rate, but then the bond will be reset to a new level, and we will making more money on on the bond distribution business in the second quarter and and and so forth.

Let me go go go have a deep dive into the the three major businesses. The bond corporate issuance, as as as I said, we have about 86% market share in the first quarter of this year, we we advised more than $1 billion in general.

This has been strong and will be going pretty strong in the second quarter and third quarter of this year. On the distribution, the volume is not too bad compared to first quarter of 2025.

Basically, seasonally, we have a long holidays as well in the fourth in the first quarter, but in the second quarter, we will see a a pick up in in in the volume, distribution volume, and also in the margin on the business in general. The market has not been very strong in general, we see we see a weakness in fund distribution.

Basically, we have a marketplace for all the funds, like a supermarket for funds in Vietnam that we distribute funds from many asset management companies as well. We see a slow demand so far in the in the first quarter.

I think mainly because of the uncertainty in the stock market. The market has been, very volatile in general, and also the global geopolitical situations that also impacting into the the performance of the market, people tend to be reluctant to to put money into into funds.

They they tend to prefer to put into fixed income or term deposit. Brokerage Brokerage and margin lending, our market share has been increased about 1.4% in terms of market share, 140 basis point if you compare with the first quarter of 2025.

In general, the the retail trading market share at TCBS has been increasing quite strongly. The the The only thing that impact our first-quarter market share is the institutional trading.

We we don't have a lot of institutional investors in general trading with us. Most of them are retails, and that somehow impact the market share, overall market share of TCBS.

That's why we are now in the first since the first quarter, we have been moving into serving the institutional investors as well. We we start to introduce new features that other competitors don't have to offer the institutional investor.

For example, we launched dark pool for for our big institutional investor clients who want to trade without swinging or without getting notified in the market in general. That has been received quite well by some of the funds that are trading with us.

We we launched prefunding. We launched the Bloomberg connection so that the institutional client can trade easily via the Bloomberg platform.

Margin lending in general has been strong. We continue to see the the the stronger trend in in in this, and we still have a lot of room for more margin lending in general, we see that we carry continue to carry very strongly in in the second quarter and third quarter of this year.

In terms of cost, our our cost stay similar to last quarter. In general, we we don't expect a lot of cost in staff, for example.

Most of the cost that has been increasing mainly in the absolute term on IT expenses. We have been moving very aggressively together with Techcombank into the AI space, and we try to bring AI to to all the employees in in in TCBS to use and to try to cut down on the inefficiency in general and improve our productivity.

That has been the trend, and we continue to be very strong. We continue to invest very strong into into AI in this year.

This is probably one of the main strategy that we we we move in this year at TCBS. In terms of the balance sheet of TCBS, is very straightforward and simple.

Our margin lending per equity is about 1x, we have about another 1x to go. In in Vietnam, the maximum you can lend is about 2x of your equity, currently it's only at 1x, we have a lot of room to offer more more more more margin and more lending to to our investor in general.

Capital structure, our debt-equity is also less than 1%, the balance sheet has been very strong. I think the the keynote on the structure of the balance sheet is that we have been trying to move some of our lending to offshore.

We we do syndicated loan with Asian investors in or Asian banks in general and increase that portion somehow to to hedge against the potential uncertainty in the very high interest rate environment in Vietnam. We see that in the past when in a low liquidity and high interest rate environment, then the domestic bank in Vietnam tend not to give out credit to financial institution like TCBS, we try to hedge that and increase the offshore lending so that to make sure that our our lending business, our margin lending business will stay stable in general.

The negative impact on that is somehow the interest rate and the hedging cost because we fully hedge all of our lending our our borrowing in general. We don't want to have any exposure in the FX risk in general, we fully hedge all the loans we have with with international banks.

That the cost has been quite high in general compared to last year or 2024, and that's also impacting into our financial expenses and therefore, the profit growth has not been strong as the revenue growth in general. Award, we continue to be emphasizing and and pay a lot of attention into AI, how to institutionalize or democratize AI into the daily work of our all our staff in in in TCBS, and we also received some some award on that on that area as well.

Outlook for 2026, basically, our we expect that we need to we expect that the 2026, we will grow about 26% in terms of revenue. In in terms of profit, it will be about 18% to 20% is the base case.

Of course, there's a lot of uncertainty, but also there are certain opportunity for us. The macro picture in Vietnam has been very strong, and if it continue to be very strong and continue to have a lot of demand in terms of funding in in Vietnam, then this is a a very base case for us in general.

On the on the negative side, if there's certain negative development in the world and the uncertainty on oil price, on some commodity price, then and the environment interest environment in Vietnam continue to be high, then it could be some downside. I think this this these are the the target that pretty much achievable for us in in the year 2026.

Both in the investment banking area, we we do have still a lot of demand from the corporate in terms of bond advisory. The wealth distribution, we expect it to be strong and probably stronger than last year starting from the second quarter of this year.

Margin lending business is very solid, and we continue to earn quite good size of profit in general, and we continue to see an increase in margin lending book for us in 2026, and so forth. Funding, I mentioned about the diversification of funding for us.

We we try to have more offshore offshore loans to balance out the domestic loans from domestic banks in general so that we we manage our our our our lending book better in general. Technology and AI, we this year, we spend we we continue this is probably the year that we start to expand into many other new businesses within the financial service space, for example, the crypto, the digital gold, the P2P lending, some of the new structure products in general.

We also try to set up a subsidiary in the new IFC center in Ho Chi Minh City, TCBS subsidiary, the the securities license in the IFCs as well. With that, the strategy is that to to maintain the the the current level of of staff and employees, but we will invest heavily into AI to increase significantly our productivity and to be able to to expand into more more businesses without having having, hiring a lot of more people in general.

That has been the the strategy of this year, and we will be doing this. With that, thank you.

I I will turn back to the team and we open up for Q&A. Thank you.

Thank you, Jens, Alex, and Xuan Minh. Before we move on to the Q&A session, I'd like to highlight a few notes.

Based on feedback, to keep the sessions flowing smoothly, we'll skip those questions related to financial guidance or requests for detailed financial metrics that have already been covered in the presentation just now or will be addressed at the upcoming AGM this Saturday. We kindly ask that you refer to those presentations, which will be posted online shortly after today's event.

Of course, the IR team will be available to answer any further detailed questions once you've reviewed those materials. With that, let us begin the Q&A session.

The first question is for Jens on the macro outlook. In the context of heightened global geopolitical tensions, does Techcombank have an internal assessment or outlook on the Vietnamese government's GDP growth target?

How does this outlook translate into expectations for credit growth across the banking sector?

Thank you for the question. Yes, of course.

We would not be doing our job if we would not look into the scenarios. I think the scenario which Alex presented is basically our base case.

The base case would say at 7%, probably took off 0.8%. The internal assumptions which we had were around 17% credit growth for the market.

That would bring it down maybe by 1%. Let's say 16% would be the base case scenario for the market, which is probably roughly in line with what the central bank has guided.

Again, there are some uncertainties in it because, as Alex rightfully mentioned, there is a big unknown, which is the efficiency of the fiscal policy of the government, and there's a lot of room for spending. There's a lot of funds available.

If really the government comes out and goes with a very expensive fiscal policy and supporting a lot of projects as a new government and is coming into place, there might be, again, upside, right? The downside scenario, which is, again, if you're saying 60% is maybe the base case, there is a chance that things might not be turning out as hoped.

That would be really a protracted situation in the Middle East. The flow of oil would be disrupted, more uncertainty.

The markets would probably react with higher interest rates. The Fed might find it a little bit harder to really lower interest rates.

There might be a flight to the US dollar, depreciation pressure on some currencies, etc. If you put that together, we might be ending up in a scenario of maybe around 5.5% GDP growth.

Again, that would assume that the oil price per barrel Brent would actually stay at an elevated level of maybe at around $100 per barrel for a longer period of time, which would mean a substantial uptick from the $65 before we went into the war. That would actually probably bring down credit growth rather maybe to a 12% trajectory because just then there will not be so much demand.

As I said, the transmission mechanisms in here would mostly be cost-push inflation because a lot of the inputs, especially also in infrastructure projects, but close to everywhere, fertilizers, agri products, even ship production, and the dependency on the Middle East and the oil production is actually tremendously substantial. We would have cost-push inflation as well as probably higher interest rates and more elevated foreign exchange depreciation pressure.

That would then translate into different sectors. Let's go maybe sector by sector.

Of course, real estate would be, to a certain extent, affected. On both sides, one, demand might actually be going down a little bit just because interest rates are getting higher, but then also, at the same point in time, input costs might be a little bit higher.

Again, I don't think this will be so tremendous because I think there is still actually a lot of good positive momentum. As Alex has said, where even despite the high interest rates, we saw actually demand, so that would actually be okay.

Industrial real estate, that might be coming down a little bit. FDIs might be the main reasons because maybe if global demand is really weakening, are you expanding your production capacity, etc.?

If FDIs are coming a little bit down, industrial real estate might be affected. Construction and companies, same.

I think today there were already some information in the press, for example, Long Thanh Airport, where it becomes harder and harder to find people while at the same point in time, the input costs are actually increasing. Key export-oriented services or industries, they might also be affected if global demand is reduced.

If you take a look at the latest forecast, we are basically 20 bps down. If you take IMF forecast from global GDP growth, 3.3% to 3.1%.

That is still assuming base-case scenario. That is not assuming really this protracted situation, which would then bring it further down, which would all mean apparels, electronics, all of that would be coming down.

Then plastic, automotive sectors might also be affected, while at the same point in time, probably EV cars, which are quite important also right now for Vietnam, might actually see even more demand, especially if fuels are coming down. I think it's a little bit of a mixed picture.

Again, when we look into this downside scenario, as I said, it might be 5.5% GDP growth, maybe then 12% kind of market growth on the credit side with constant pressure on pricing and probably also NPLs might be going up as some companies might actually struggle with the surrounding environment. That is the main reason why we basically then put another scenario forward for the AGM and said, okay, if we're getting into that scenario, it might be difficult to hold the 37.5.

This is not our base scenario. Our base scenario is exactly what Alex has presented with even still upside to that scenario, depending on if it really gets over relatively quickly and the very expensive fiscal policy is coming out.

We could actually see a different scenario which goes closer again to the 8% up. Again, that's then an upside scenario compared to the base scenario which we're talking about.

Thank you, Jens. This next question is for Alex.

What is the bank's view on the outlook for the USD/VND exchange rate and domestic interest rates? Has Techcombank revised its net interest margin forecast for 2026?

Yeah. Thanks for this question.

As we mentioned, there is a level of pressure at the moment in terms of funding for the banking system in Vietnam, and this somehow also reflect the overall monetary situation of the country, right? What we have at the moment is also some pressure coming from the higher cost of imports, particularly for fuel, like for oil and gas.

This combines with potentially also a relative slowdown of the growth of exports, and therefore, the trade surplus of Vietnam could be a little bit more constrained in 2026 compared to 2025. Then overlaying this context is the interest rates and particularly now the perspective that the Fed could keep rates stable or even increase them in light of inflationary pressure in the US.

Investors are taking that into account as well. They are revising their scenarios, and we believe this could put some pressure on the value of the dong.

That's the basis for us to expect maybe a 2% depreciation of the dong versus the US dollar. Your second question was on the level of interest rates in the market.

I will not come back to the NIM, but focus just on the level of interest rate in the market. As there's been some very rapid escalation of the pricing competition between banks in Vietnam.

We estimate that interest rates on deposits probably increased around 100 basis points in the fourth quarter of last year and 140 basis points, that's for new deposits, 140 basis points in the first quarter of this year, including negotiated rates, which are maybe a little bit more difficult to capture if you're just observing the quoted rates on internet. As I mentioned, an important development was the decision by central bank to implement a concerted action to bring cost down by at least 50 basis points at the 6-month and 12-month tenor.

In addition to that, we can see that the central bank is very willing to inject liquidity in the market to avoid any situation of extended stress through open market operations or through foreign exchange swaps. This is essentially the basis for us to currently assume that interest rates will moderate a little bit in the remainder of the year, maybe reducing by 30 30 basis points, 30 to 40 basis points.

Thanks, Alex. Let's bring in Xuan Minh for a bond market question.

With market deposit rates remaining high around 8% to 8.5%, corporate funding costs are elevated. How does TCBS assess the outlook and capacity for underwriting corporate bonds this year?

Are smaller issuance sizes becoming more common as companies explore alternative funding channels?

Basically, there are two components: the demand for volume, the demand for more corporate bond issuance in general. We see and we actually are having the booking in general, and the pipeline has been very strong.

A lot of demands from corporates in general. In terms of the interest rate, basically, that's somehow, I believe, that also impact on the demand in some degrees as well because with the raising interest rate, then, basically, all the bonds we do issue, we always have a floating rate.

It's usually the deposit rate plus certain margin, 4%, 5% in general. Of course, when corporate now issue bonds, then they will need to pay for higher interest rate for us to be able to sell to our investors in general.

Net net, the demand for corporate bond issuance has been continued to be strong in general for us. We don't see a decline yet in terms of book building for us in this year in general.

High interest rate, then the corporate bond interest rate will be also high in general. In the long term, if the interest rate remain very high in a high interest rate environment in general, in the long term, it may impact.

I believe in the current environment in general, if you borrow 12%, 13%, even 15%, then it's very hard for business or for corporates in general to make good money or to make good margin because the financial expenses is pretty high for them in general. We believe that the interest environment would come down.

Hopefully, will come down somehow in the second half of this year, but remain to be seen in general. That's the situation.

For us, the demand is still very strong from the corporate side.

Thank you, Mr. Xuan Minh.

Back to Techcombank. This one's for Jens.

What is the bank's liquidity strategy under scenarios of increased market volatility? Have market risk management frameworks, particularly foreign exchange risk and interest rate risk in the banking book, been reassessed or adjusted?

I think from a risk management perspective, that is a little bit business as usual for us. I don't think we need to readjust the frameworks or the governance principles.

I think what we need to adjust is ultimately the parameters against which we are stress testing. Of course, if you have a situation like with US dollar development or oil price, we need to assess that.

In general, we're really keeping a lot of our market risk very, very limited. For example, if we're doing foreign exchange lending, we would actually hedge the entire position from an FX perspective, but even from an interest rate perspective.

We're also not gapping very much. We're really matching short-term and long-term funding.

Of course, there needs to be some kind of translation, but ultimately, a lot of our loans are floating, and so we can adjust the interest rates so that we can actually really have a match if we need to adjust our funding because most of that is 3- to 6-month term deposits, which then, if interest rates are increasing, we basically also translate that on the corporate side. From that perspective, again, we don't need to change any of the frameworks.

We look into the interest rate of the banking book, and we have changes in equity values and what are the risk if one basis point changes, how would this translate into our overall position, etc. All what you would expect from a bank to have under SBV regulations, but also under Basel III regulations is actually available, and we're using it.

Then the last point I would like to make is, as Alex has said, we have a very, very conservative stance towards liquidity. We are probably having the highest buffer in terms of highly liquid assets, which we can at any point in time basically take to the central bank for liquidity, and that costs, to a certain extent, a lot of money, but I think it really keeps us in very, very good standing.

Therefore, yes, we're seeing the volatility, but we don't expect that this will affect us in a major way, even if the volatility might even increase.

Thanks, Jens. The next question is for Alex on customer impact and portfolio exposure.

To what extent has Techcombank's customers been affected by the geopolitical conflicts in the Middle East? Have recent market fluctuations had any noticeable impact on asset quality?

In a higher-risk environment, does Techcombank prioritize growth or balance sheet safety?

Yeah. Thanks.

The short answer is that we do not expect any significant impact from the developments in Middle East on our customers. We have looked at the proportion of our customers who are in the oil and gas sector, in logistics, or in sectors directly related to oil and gas.

Then what we have found is that this proportion is very small, like 0.6%, which supports our estimate that the impact would be insignificant in the short term on our books. As you've seen during my presentation, the current health of our credit books also supports this view.

In terms of our underwriting strategies, obviously, we are particularly vigilant with regard to those customers who are operating in sectors particularly exposed to the Iran war conflict, either from the point of view of their imports and inputs or from the point of view of their sales and, therefore, markets. At this stage, we are not seeing any significant situation requiring action.

We are just, I would say, tightening a little bit our underwriting policies, maybe also staying ready to step in proactively if there was any early situation of stress. However, I would just highlight that we are only a few weeks into this conflict.

There is also a possibility that solution might be found in the short term, and therefore, we do not believe that it would be appropriate to make drastic shifts in our underwriting and risk approach just now. I think it's just too early.

Thanks, Alex. Now back to TCBS.

Xuan Minh, could you please update us on the licensing progress and launch timeline for tokenized assets?

Basically, a lot of people apply. Far, we have short-listed of five companies to be considered.

I believe our applications as well among them are being considered by various ministries in general. The timing, I wouldn't know, but I expect that it will be probably in the third quarter of this year.

From our side, basically, parallel with the application, we also develop on the platform, on the back end, and prepare everything on the processes so that we can be ready in terms of operation and open for business probably a day after we get the license. This is the status.

We are continue to work on developing our platform and the exchange and some of the systems to be able to run the business and to start the business as soon as we get the license.

Thank you, Mr. Xuan Minh.

Let's now turn back to the bank-specific topics. Alex, could the bank share the current mortgage lending rates?

Please also comment on the change versus the beginning of the year. In addition, what is the average floating rate of the existing real estate loan portfolio, and how much has that declined from peak levels in 2023?

Very happy to do so. Overall, when we set the rates on our mortgages, we would look at the competition, because the reality is that even though we have a significant market share for mortgages, we are price taker, we are not price setter.

Therefore, we would look to always maintain a competitive position while ensuring that the return on risk-weighted assets would meet our criteria. I think the difficulty with mortgages is that, as you have a fixed-rate period usually at the beginning, and therefore, when you set the rates, you have to take into account the possibility of further increases in the coming months after you underwrite the loan.

The current level of interest rates on new mortgages is around 10.3% for the initial fixed-rate period. We would set the rate for 12 months, let's say, at around 10.3%, which compares to 12.5% in 2023 and around 7% at the end of last year.

Interest rates, as I mentioned, on new term deposit rates increased by 240 basis points, and we adjusted the rates on mortgages broadly by the same quantum, taking into account also the possibility of a further increase during the interest-fixing period. As regard the floating rates or those mortgages which are in the floating-rate period, then the rate currently is on average 12% in our books, which compares to 13.3% at the peak in 2023.

Thanks, Alex. Next question is on TCBS.

Xuan Minh, could you update us on TCBS's pricing strategy for margin lending in the current high-rate environment? Will you prioritize maintaining NIM or lowering rates to attract clients?

Basically, currently, TCBS is number one in terms of margin lending in the market. Even though that, we only have about 11%.

Our target is always that we need to reach about 20% market share level in general. The strategy has been that we try to continue to increase our margin lending and using a few strategic advantages or strategic direction.

Basically, we try to be very competitive on margin rate in general, and therefore, agreeable on lower NIM for us in general. Basically, we try to do a very competitive rate to win customer from the market because our market share is only 11%.

We still have so many other room to grow our market share, and also providing additional and unique services to the customer that is using our margin in general. Of course, at the same time, we try to be more strategic on the funding cost.

The idea is how to continue to drive down the funding cost in general, especially in this environment. The funding, I think, two two key factors that we need to pay attention to: the stable funding sources, that's why we try to diversify into offshore lendings as well, offshore borrowing as well, to make sure that we have a stable funds for our investor and therefore, winning more market share, especially in the current environment in Vietnam where liquidity is somehow pretty tight at the domestic banks in general.

We try to take advantage of that. We try to take advantage of borrowing lower interest rate from international bank compared to our competitors as a competitive advantage to win more market share on the margin lending.

As I mentioned before, our margin lending size per equity for us is only less than 1 1x. In Vietnam, the maximum you can do is 2x of your equity in general.

Most of our big competitors actually reaching that level. We still have a lot of room for growth, and we also try to take that advantage to win more market share and win more business from our clients.

Thank you, Xuan Minh. Staying with TCBS, another question on funding and financial expenses.

TCBS's financial expenses increased significantly. What drove the increase in cost of funds?

For the US-denominated borrowings, could you update on pricing versus domestic loans, the rationale for foreign borrowing, and how hedging is managed?

I mentioned before, we try to balance the funding source from both domestic and international markets as well. International market, basically, you can borrow at lower cost in some degree, but more importantly, at a longer duration or tenor in general.

In Vietnam, if a financial service like TCBS borrowing from domestic bank, you can borrow very short term in general. That somehow create certain uncertainty, especially on the tight liquid environment in Vietnam like a couple of months ago.

Therefore, we prefer to choose a safer side to manage our borrowing. We try to increase the offshore funding.

For example, we just recently signed up a 500 million nearly $500 million syndicated loan from offshore, which is good and that would provide us a very stable income in the next few years, stable loans and funding in the next few years and somehow to fund for the growth of our margin lending business in this environment. Basically, that's the strategy.

Currently, the hedging cost is high, and therefore, that somehow impact our financial expenses. For the long term, I think it's a good strategy, and I think it's a much safer and more prudent strategy for us to pursue this business.

Thank you. Now a hedging policy question for Techcombank.

Alex, could you please elaborate on the hedging policy applied to US-denominated borrowings and confirm whether the hedges fully cover the tenor of the underlying debt?

Thanks. I can indeed confirm that our policy is to cover our FX exposure, and therefore, we have a very low appetite in that area.

The FX exposure is managed by the treasury function and the business as part of the first line of defense within the bank's risk appetite, and then is also subject to the control of the risk function as second line of defense. As I explained, our approach is in general to cover our FX exposure.

We use foreign exchange swaps, which are consistently rolled over. We would sometimes keep an open position depending on liquidity requirements and depending also on market situations.

As an example, as of today, we have a residual open position of $100 million, which is a long US dollar position. Overall, I can indeed confirm that we are not taking any meaningful risk on FX or foreign exchange interest rates.

Thanks, Alex, for confirming that. The next question for you is on mortgage credit risk management.

Against the backdrop of deposit rates trending upward again, how does Techcombank assess the debt servicing capability of mortgage borrowers? What is the outlook for potential NPL formation from this segment, and what is the provisioning strategy to address these risks?

Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity to get back to that important point.

As I mentioned, there was a question mark, right, from investors, and also something we wanted to see, which is the impact of the higher interest rates on the mortgage market. As I mentioned during the presentation, today we can see that the market is operating well.

There is no real sign of stress. Our disbursements remain high, both during the first quarter and during the first weeks of April.

Same for repayments. There is no really sign of deviation.

What we can also observe is that within the mortgage borrowers, there is a higher proportion of people who are taking a mortgage to buy a property to live in the property, for a real housing need, as opposed to buyers who would be more speculative and seeking capital gains. This is obviously positive in terms of the overall health of the mortgage market.

In terms of the NPL, therefore, we do not currently anticipate any significant increase, right? We believe we will stay broadly in the same ballpark as of today, and same goes for provisions.

With regards to provisions, we are strictly applying the policy of the central bank, which is a very prescriptive and formulaic in terms of how much provisions you need to book based on how much collateral you have and also based on the number of days past due.

Thank you. A follow-up for you, Alex, on the mortgage portfolio.

Is there any observable difference in credit quality between primary and secondary mortgages? Does the bank have a target allocation for these segments, and what is the split between owner-occupied loans and investment-related mortgages?

Thanks. Basically, around 60% of mortgages are primary mortgages, and therefore, 40% are secondary mortgages.

I would say there is no significant difference in terms of behavior between these two types of mortgages. If anything, primary mortgages are probably a little bit less risky.

The NPL rates would be maybe at 1.7% instead of 1.9%. This is due to the profile of the borrowers.

We are usually talking of relatively higher segment properties, therefore with a different kind of profile of borrowers. Also, we are working in close coordination with the developers, which have been working with us for a number of years, which also gives us more opportunities to proactively manage any situation of stress.

With regard to the proportion of speculative buyers versus end-users buying for housing needs, I would say more than 50% of our mortgage borrowers are seeking to buy a property in order to live in it. Right, the exact proportion is difficult to determine, but a majority, and as I mentioned earlier, an increasing proportion of them are essentially buying to live in the property rather than buying to speculate.

However, I would say there is still a proportion of buyers who are also looking to make capital gains. This is not specific to Vietnam.

I think it's a feature in Asia. People do buy real estate properties for asset accumulation, for wealth preservation, also for inflation protection, even though they are not making any significant investment return because the rental yields are not very high.

In any case, what we would do is that we would look to combined three criteria, which are repayment capacity, the borrower needs to have a clear plan to repay the loan in terms of liquidating another property, inheritance, asset disposal, whatever. They need to have recurring income and therefore the capacity to service the debt.

Three, the loan-to-value would be set at a conservative level, typically 70%. This is the combination of criteria which ensures that basically, we are able to maintain the NPL and the cost of risk at a very manageable level on our mortgage portfolio, whatever the segments we're looking at, whether we're looking at speculative buyers versus home buyers and end-users, or whether we are looking at primary mortgages or secondary mortgages.

Thanks, Alex. Next question is on TCBS.

Xuan Minh, could you update us on TCBS's plan to develop and grow your institutional client base?

I mentioned before that we see the trend of institutional investor coming to Vietnam increasing and increasing. We believe that is a right timing for us to start to come into that market place and try to serve our institutional investor in general.

We have been trying to develop certain features and certain services that is unique to us, and we don't want to be me-too, following the traditional and the same way that many other peers are doing. A few things, for example, we develop our dark pool.

We try to connect with many service providers and trading platform so that our client or the fund, can easily trade very low touch in general with very high speed for us in general. For example, dark pool, we are developing that.

We are DMA. We develop a lot of connectors that can connect directly with the trading platform of some of the big institutional funds in the world so that the trader can trade very easily and transparently with high speed.

We develop certain prefunding feature with very high prefunding allowance or services or size so that the institutional client have more room for their investment into Vietnam in general. Basically, we are trying to come into that space, and we hope that we can increase more market share in general from the institutional investors in general going forward.

Thank you, Xuan Minh. Now shifting to insurance.

This one's for Jens. Could you share more about Techcom Life, how do you expect its contribution to fee income to evolve, and what milestones should investors watch as indicators of progress over the next strategic cycle?

Thanks again for the question. I think Alex has already shared a couple of points, but maybe it's good to reiterate on some of those.

First one is, I think the reason we set up the insurance business is that we believe it's really very critical going forward as kind of a lot of questions of an aging population, but also a richer population, is coming up, and what kind of products are required. I think insurance is critical to those.

I think at this point in time, the expectations we had for that business are probably over and above what our own initial plans were. As Alex said, more than 20% market share on the bancassurance side, being the fifth largest insurer or growing insurer when it comes to an APE.

I think that all speaks for the fact that there probably is a need for an insurer like ours. What does it mean?

First one is we try to be very, very customer focused, don't have such a broad product range, really be very focused on protection, on certain accumulation, certainty, just reliability. I think that's what our customers actually like.

At the same point in time, we're trying to deliver that through a very, very modern platform. The fact that we have set up this company in a very short period of time, but also that 95% of all the insurances are actually straight-through processed in a very, very short time and policies can be issued is all due to the fact that we actually have a very modern technology platform.

In addition to that, we are completely leveraging all the data technologies and the data tech stack which we have built in TCB and can be leveraged in TC and LI, but also actually in our general insurance business. That means these companies from the onset are AI-ready.

As Xuan Minh actually has said, we are pushing very, very hard to shift these whole models right now on the AI side, not just for productivity. I think that's one point, but I think also creating completely new value propositions in terms of understanding customers and being able to serve customers around the clock, giving advice, etc.

From our perspective, we have shown 400 billion APE, and I think the overall income of that is around 440 billion in the first quarter. As we had said, we believe that probably in 5 to 10 years, and we believe that this business probably can be as large or even bigger than what TCBS is right now.

The real things to watch out for is actually ultimately are we continuing to grow at the current level? What's the product penetration?

I think internally, we're measuring a lot of questions like customer satisfaction, how are we delivering straight-through processing efficiency ratios and all of that. Ultimately, we have relatively an aggressive acquisition targets, penetration targets, but also persistency targets, which means that are we selling it in the right form that people really using that product as a long-term investment and protection vehicle and not what we've seen in 2023, unfortunately, that a lot of these persistencies were actually very, very low.

Therefore, again, I think when we submitted the original plan, there were some targets for the growth. I think that is probably the lower case on what we had submitted, and we might actually be even more aspirational.

It's very clear we want to be probably over the next 5 years, and from a stock perspective, it's a bit hard because others have been let's say more advanced or longer in the market, and so therefore, they have a bigger amount of total premiums, premium volume. Again, I think from our perspective, in kind of 2 or 3 years, we want to be the fastest-growing insurer from all insurers in the market.

Right now, we're number five, we want to be on the APE side to be number one in bancassurance. Again, I think we are at the 20%.

I think we would like to be somewhere in the 30% range because we believe there's a lot of opportunity still for us. Then I think what you will also see and what you should be looking for is we will expand our distribution range.

You would expect us probably to set up agency networks, but in a very, very different manner. I think we will not set this up in the way how it's currently seen in the market, but probably much more as professional financial advisers who are very much focused on these insurance products.

It will not be quantity, which will make a difference here, but actually the quality. That is in our plan, probably already for next year.

We're testing and targeting these models. Again, as I said, 30% market share on the bancassurance side, and plus being probably in 2 or 3 years the fastest-growing overall insurance company in the market.

That's what you should expect.

Thank you, Jens. Next question is also for Jens on new digital payment initiative.

Regarding the launch of MobiFone Digital Payments, where the bank is a strategic shareholder, could management update us on the business objectives and Techcombank's role going forward?

Again, I think rightfully, we are a minority shareholder, we're having an 11%, probably it's more for MDP to comment on these objectives. Again, I think what is out there in the public domain is that MDP really tries to be and creating a new backbone for the digital payment infrastructure.

As Vietnam goes to digital 4.0, there's a lot of demands on really real-time digital payment infrastructure, being able to have a multimodal connectivity across all the different participants: fintechs, banks, consumer finance companies, merchants, ecosystem partners. At the same point in time, having a much higher level in terms of services when it comes to reconciliation, anti-money laundering, etc.

I think that is what MDP tries to provide. It's not that NAPAS is not a stable provider of these services, but I think there was the feeling that there are probably certain services which are required in the market which are not provided, and the feeling was that this company, MDP, could actually provide those maybe in a faster and more effective manner.

Our role ultimately is that a little bit of adviser, but also lead customer. We are the largest user of NAPAS, our market share on NAPAS transactions is around 16%.

If you would think about a super user for such a payment switch, it probably would be us. Our role is, to a certain extent, saying what is needed, and at least from a banking perspective, one of the largest transaction banks in the country.

The systems are very much kind of basically taking up these requirements, and are geared towards that. Then at the same point in time, we are also receiving the benefits of these new systems because as we're going on them and will channel a lot of our transactions through these systems, we will actually be the beneficiary of all these new services coming up.

At the same point in time also, we are providing expertise how to build systems at scale, right? Because our own systems, we have increased our transaction volumes on our systems over the last couple of years by four times.

We know actually how to build scalable systems and how we can actually make sure that these things work relatively seamlessly, stable levels, quickly. Again, it's advisory functionality, and at the same point in time, kind of being a super user who helps to fine-tune these systems.

Again, right now, we are on the system, and we are basically clearing with one other bank already quite a lot of our transaction across that system. It performs actually as expected very well.

Then as we start rolling it out, we believe there will be benefits for us as a user of this system, which we can then give to the ecosystem, to merchants, and also financial institution partners.

Thank you, Jens. Finally, a shareholder return questions, which we have received multiple times.

Could the bank share the dividend payment plan for this year and the key principles guiding the dividend decision going forward?

You're absolutely right, and I think this question comes up often. I think usually, I give the same answer.

This time, of course, it will probably be even maybe a little bit less urgent because we have the AGM in 2 or 3 days, and then I think it will probably be very clear. Let me share what I believe, again, the considerations are, and what we might most likely see.

We are seeing a very strong performance of the bank. We see that our capital is very strong.

It's close to double that of the regulatory minimum. If we look into Basel III, if we would cut over to IRB systems, the capital would be even higher.

I think capital-wise, we are very, very well equipped. The earnings momentum is strong.

As I said, we have in the past said that we can have a dividend policy which would justify going forward to pay dividends should the board decide to do so. At the same point in time, with all these uncertainties, right, which we're having right now, the question is, are you let people participate through stock dividends, or are you doing cash dividends, or what is the perfect mix between these two?

Again, I think the board will probably deliberate on an overall mix between these two instruments. Then I would expect that to be coming out, as I said, over the next 2 or 3 days should they decide to do so because it needs to be announced before the AGM.

Again, I think from the core conditions where we said enough capital, enough earnings momentum, we need to internally finance our credit growth, all of that in place, I think there is room to do stock and cash dividends. Again, ultimately, this is up for the board to decide.

Thank you, everyone. On behalf of Techcombank, Techcom Securities, thank you to Jens, Alex, Xuan Minh, and the broader management team for today's insightful updates.

Thank you to all analysts and investors for your questions and continued support. This concludes our first quarter 2026 financial results presentation.

As mentioned before, the presentation materials and replay link will be posted on the IR section of our website shortly. If you have any follow-up questions, please feel free to reach out to the IR team.

We look forward to continuing our dialogue and delivering sustainable value to our shareholders. Have a great rest of the day.