Thank you, Sergen, and also a very warm welcome to everybody who is listening in to our full year conference call 2025. We follow our usual procedure.

That means that Peter Bosek, our Chief Executive Officer, Stefan Dörfler, our Chief Financial Officer, and Alexandra Habeler-Drabek, Chief Risk Officer of Erste Group, will lead you through a brief presentation highlighting the main achievements, especially the financial achievements, of 2025 and in particular also of the fourth quarter of 2025. Before handing over to Peter, my usual reminder on the disclaimer on forward-looking statements of which there will be quite a few, as usual.

With this, I hand over to Peter for the presentation. Thank you.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome again to our full year 2025 results and at the same time fourth quarter 2025 conference call.

I'm on page 4 now. 2025 was an exceptionally successful year for Erste Group.

A lot of good things happened to the bank and a lot of good things happened to shareholders of Erste Group. Allow me to briefly dial back to a year ago.

The discussion back then and, to a certain extent, still today were all about share buybacks and dividends and somewhat subdued business outlook for 2025 on the back of rate cuts in the eurozone and a mixed macro outlook for Europe. What a difference a year makes.

We at Erste found a better way to solve excess capital challenge. We invested in growth, in profitable growth, and with this, we have substantially expanded our growth footprint in the fastest-growing region of Europe.

In the meantime, the acquisition of a 49% controlling stake in what soon will become Erste Bank Polska has closed on time and from the first quarter of 2026 will be fully consolidated in our accounts. This is just half of the story.

The other half is about our strong performance in 2025. Quarter by quarter, growth momentum improved.

This enabled us to repeatedly upgrade our financial outlook and, in the end, even outperform our upgraded guidance. We are particularly pleased with revenue momentum, not only in terms of quantity, but more importantly, in terms of quality, because quality brings with it sustainability.

Translated into numbers, this means we posted record revenues in 2025, driven by our core income lines, net interest income and net fee income, and we closed the year in style with another set of quarterly records for these items. We are also in track in terms of costs.

We were running somewhat above our 5% target in the first three quarters, but thanks to cooling of cost inflation and adjusted for the booking of some integration costs for our Polish acquisition in the final quarter of the year, we managed to deliver on our guidance. Risk costs were on the margin a bit higher in 2025 than in the previous year, but fully in line with our upgraded guidance, with CEE shining again in terms of asset quality.

Clearly, other result was special in 2025 as well, as it evolved, all of flattering our reported net profit, despite safety banking taxes included in this line item. To be concrete, other result in 2025 benefited from net positive one-offs in the amount of about €270 million pretax and some €250 million post-tax.

Stefan will give you the details later. Accordingly, underlying net profit would have been more in the order of €3.3 billion rather than reported €3.5 billion.

Either way, no bad figures and comfortably historical records and, clearly, very helpful in delivering capital build beyond anybody's expectation, including our own. With a CET1 of 19.3% at year-end 2025, we are well positioned for first-time consolidation of Erste Bank Polska and arguably beyond.

I, therefore, think it's not overdone to say that we got most of the decisions right last year and, at the same time, set a clear ambition for 2026. It's our firm intention to stay focused and do the same in 2026.

Ladies and gentlemen, throughout this presentation, we will make reference to our expectations for the business of Erste Group, including Erste Bank Polska, in order to give you the best possible idea of how new Erste will look like. We will also detail all relevant extraordinary items that come with first-time consolidation, to almost all of which tax and minority shields fully apply.

In order to allow for a better like-for-like comparison, we will provide an outlook for Erste excluding Erste Bank Polska, the profit guidance for 2026 that we already repeatedly communicated, we hereby confirm that's a return on tangible equity of about 19% and the year-on-year increase in earnings per share more than 20%, taking our adjusted 2025 net profit of €3.3 billion as a starting base and adjusting expected 2026 net profit for extraordinary items. This should translate into a net profit of somewhat above €4 billion on a clean basis in 2026 as opposed to somewhat below €4 billion on a reported basis.

With this, let's now move to page 5 of our key P&L performance benchmarks. Obviously, this very much reflects what I just talked about.

Without a stable margin backdrop, consecutive quarterly NII records would have been difficult to achieve, and without improving cost dynamics, it would not have been possible to report a cost-income ratio of below 48%. We delivered on both fronts.

Strong margins, among others, supported by good balance in loan growth and healthy competitive environment, but importantly, by strong deposit pricing power, particularly in Austria, and improving deposit mix overall. Risk costs at 21 basis points were in line with our improved full year guidance, as already mentioned.

Trends very pretty much unchanged in this respect, with continued low risk costs in the CEE region, while Austria saw most of the allocations, although in the final quarter of the year at a slightly lower level than a year ago. If one adds banking levies reported under other operating results as shown in the lower left-hand chart with those reported under taxes, then the banking levy burden reached a new all-time high of almost €440 million in 2025.

Irrespective of this, earnings per share adjusted for the AT1 dividend climbed to a record level of €8.24 per share. Finally, return on tangible equity increased to 16.6% from 16.3% a year ago, quite a good achievement, bearing in mind the strong capital build through the year.

When we look at the development of balance sheet on page 6, we see a picture that is evidence of net strength of the Erste business model, a business model that is geared towards superior organic growth in customer business. A perfect case in point is the performance in 2025.

Both on the asset and the liability sides, balance sheet growth can be explained by the expansion in customer business. Customer loans grew by almost €14 billion or 6.4% in 2025, while customer deposits were up by more than €11 billion or 4.7%.

In context of both, we can, without exaggeration, talk about high-quality growth. Loan growth was driven by the retail business in CEE on the back of a solid demand for housing finance, while deposit growth was also better than average in the retail and SME business.

Austria, and in particular the savings banks, made a solid contribution to loan growth, while deposit growth was solid in both Austrian retail and SME segments. With volume momentum being good across the franchise in 2025, we see no reason why 2026 should turn out any worse than 2025 did.

Consequently, we target organic loan growth of higher than 5% in 2026. That is for the business of Erste excluding Erste Bank Polska.

Including Erste Bank Polska, we also expect an underlying growth rate in a similar ballpark. By the end of 2026, loan stock for the combined entity should be higher than €285 billion.

The key highlight when looking at our balance sheet metrics on slide 7 are our regulatory capital ratios. Having said this, the other parameters are also excellent.

We can again report an ideal loan-to-deposit ratio of 91.7%. The growth rates of customer loans and customer deposits show good momentum, and finally, asset quality, although we saw the other improvement, with the NPL ratio improving both quarter on quarter as well as year on year.

Generally, asset quality situation remained very good across the CEE region and, importantly, stable in our Austrian operations. As usual, Alexandra will provide more detail on credit risk later.

Liquidity and leverage ratios were, as usual, apex in quality. As for our capital ratios, year on year, we recorded a massive rise in CET1 ratio of more than 400 basis points to 19.3%.

Stefan will lead you through the drivers later. What is important to me as a CEO is that this puts us in a perfect position for first-time consolidation of Erste Bank Polska.

A year ago, when we promised to the regulator that despite the 460 basis point CET1 ratio drawdown resulting from the Polish acquisition, we will always maintain a CET1 ratio of higher than 13.5% and we aim to reach our new target CET1 ratio of 14.25% during the course of 2026. Above 13.5% and 14.25% the CET1 ratio will certainly be when first consolidated Erste Bank Polska in the first quarter of 2026.

Let's now briefly scan the macroeconomic environment and, in particular, the outlook for 2026 on slide 9. Our economists predict better economic growth for six of our eight core markets than we saw in 2025, and in the two markets for which they project consolidation, this is expected to happen at a very healthy levels of between 2.5% to 3%.

I'm specifically talking about the Czech Republic and Croatia. The new country in our portfolio, Poland, will provide further growth impetus with real GDP growth estimated at 4% for 2026.

Good news are also coming out of Austria, where the past three years economic growth was almost nonexistent. For 2026, a modest recovery is predicted.

In this forecast, we have not modeled any material tailwind from German fiscal expansion, as this seems to take longer than initially hoped for. All in all, this is a very good starting point for the commercial banking business and with a fertile ground for profitable loan growth.

The other macro forecasts are equally encouraging. Inflation is forecasted to retreat in most of our markets, while labor markets are expected to stay strong.

When it comes to external and fiscal balance, the picture is mixed, as in many other places around the world. I'm tempted to say Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland, and Hungary usually enjoy neutral or positive current account balances, while the Czech Republic is perennial poster child in fiscal prudence.

As far as the interest rate outlook is concerned, we assume only minor cuts in countries like Poland, Hungary, Romania, and Serbia, while rates in the eurozone are expected to stay flat. This, as well, will support profitable banking business in 2026.

Talking about profitable banking business, let me share with you a couple of performance highlights of retail business in 2025. To cut a long story short, retail business was a clear growth driver in the past year.

I'm on page 10 now. Retail loans were up by 8.1% to €115.4 billion.

Growth was reasonably balanced between housing and consumer loans, and the quality of the retail book remained very good. Retail deposits also showed good growth dynamics, with retail deposits climbing by almost €5 billion to €173 billion in the final quarter of 2025.

Retail current account deposits grew the fastest quarter on quarter. Year on year, current accounts and savings deposits were up by 7% to 8% each, while term deposits declined by almost 6%.

We also saw continued growth in off-balance sheet customer funds. Security savings plans, having enabled customers to build long-term wealth in an easy-to-manage digital format, crossed the 2 million mark at the end of the year and generated gross sales in excess of €1.5 billion in 2025.

George, our digital platform for retail clients, continued on its growth path. The number of onboarded users reached 11.4 million by the end of the year, and the digital sales ratio in the retail business inched up towards 67%.

Moving forward, our ambition is unchanged to develop George into a fully-fledged financial advisor in order to give even larger parts of our client population access to high-quality financial advice. In the corporate segment, I'm on page 11 already, loans were up 5% year on year and 0.8% quarter on quarter.

The slight growth slowdown in the final quarter of the year was attributable to weaker demand in large corporate business after a strong performance earlier in the year, while the SME and commercial real estate business lines continued to exhibit solid growth. In terms of products, demand for investment loans continued to be more pronounced in the fourth quarter, while year on year, there was a good balance between investment and working capital loans.

On the liability side, corporate deposits also enjoyed good growth, and here as well, current account deposits grew faster than term deposits year on year. The market business also delivered strong performance in 2025, with our ECM and DCM teams successfully executing 360 transactions with an issuance volume of €211 billion.

In asset management business, after passing the historical €100 billion milestone in the third quarter, dynamic growth continued. Assets under management reached €104 billion at the end of 2025.

This bodes well for the future fee growth. On the digital front, the corporate business also progressed well.

Client migration to George Business has been completed in Austria and Romania and is progressing well in the Czech Republic. With this, by the end of 2025, some 76,000 corporate clients across our region are using George Business.

With this, I hand over to Stefan for the presentation of the fourth-quarter operating trends in the reporting segments.

Thanks very much, Peter, and good morning also from my side. Please follow me to page 13 and let me start by saying that for 2025, I'm particularly pleased with our loan growth performance.

We achieved an acceleration in loan growth to 6.4%, up from 4.9% a year ago, at the same time when we needed to speed up our capital build. To accomplish these two competing goals concurrently is testament to the strength of this organization.

As far as loan volumes by country are concerned, the Czech Republic was the standout performer producing consistent double-digit growth throughout the year. As highlighted already in previous quarters, Czech growth was well balanced between retail and corporate business, but within retail, mortgages led the way.

Of the more than €5 billion worth of net loans we added there, mortgages contributed roughly 50%. Growth in Hungary was equally driven by a massive increase in housing loans, admittedly from low levels, but still, due to the introduction of a government-subsidized mortgage scheme as of September 2025.

Having said this, demand for consumer loans was also quite robust, while corporate lending momentum trailed. Growth in Slovakia and Romania was more or less in line with the group average, and in the former driven almost exclusively by strong momentum in the mortgage business, while in the latter, growth was mostly registered in consumer loans.

In Austria, as Peter already mentioned, we saw mixed trends. At the savings banks, growth momentum improved noticeably towards end of the year.

Interestingly, growth was better in the corporate than the retail business, and within retail clearly attributable to housing loans. In Erste Bank Austria, however, growth was generally subdued.

On an aggregated level, in the corporate business we saw a good growth balance between investment loans and working capital facilities, while in the retail business housing loans in absolute terms made a better growth contributions made better growth contributions, especially in the final quarter of the year. Thanks to this thanks to this growth momentum in 2025 and a constructive macro outlook, we target organic growth in 2026 of more than 5%, both for Erste with and without Erste Bank Polska, resulting in a net loan stock of higher than €285 billion for the enlarged group by year-end 2026.

On the liability side, the favorable mix towards cheaper deposits continued in the fourth quarter of 2025, as you can see on page 14. This we observed in our core retail, SME, and savings banks deposit base, which rose 5.5% over the past 12 months to €209 billion, but also in our corporate business line.

In both, overnight deposits increased, while term deposits declined year on year. Consequently, the cost of deposits fell again in the fourth quarter of 2025, with corresponding positive read-across to net interest income.

In terms of total deposit volumes, we are up 4.7% and 2.1% year on year and quarter on quarter, respectively. As far as geographic segment highlights are concerned, we saw strong retail inflows in both Austria retail and SME segments in the final quarter of 2025, while the quarter-on-quarter decline in the Czech segment was attributable to volatility in non-core deposits.

In conclusion, we benefited from strong volume momentum, and that's true for both assets and liabilities, not just in the fourth quarter, but throughout the year 2025. Let me now move to net interest income on page 15.

As those of you who follow us for some time will remember well, ever since the end of the rate hike cycle in September 2023, we talked about NII plateauing, even when rates were cut in half between mid-2024 and mid-2025. Now is the time to officially start talking about the next leg up, because we are right in the middle of it.

Most of the moving parts that are relevant for NII performance point in the right direction. Macro is somewhat supportive.

Volume momentum is strong. Deposit mix is improving.

Pricing power of Erste Group is intact. Last, but certainly not least, we have an interest rate environment that, bar any dramatic changes, is at least not unsupportive of bank profitability.

Consequently, we produced the second consecutive record quarterly NII print, with NII first time topping €2 billion. That's a year-on-year increase of 4.6% or a plus of 2.7% quarter on quarter.

If we look at the annual performance, we started this year let's say the year 2025, of course, with a flat outlook and closed it with an increase of 3.5%, resulting in NII of almost €7.8 billion. A key development in this context was the stabilization of NII in Austria as the year went on, followed by a trend reversal towards the positive in the final quarter of the year, essentially driven by a better deposit mix and continued deposit repricing.

One could say that we have turned the NII tide in Austria. This is not insignificant, as the Austrian retail and SME segment will still contribute more than a quarter to NII even going forward.

It bodes well for the outlook for 2026, to which I will come in a minute. We also saw continued good performance in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, where a combination of deposit repricing, upwards refixations of mortgage loans, and of course, good volume dynamics, all helped.

The other segment principally benefited from higher allocations of income earned on local excess capital, mainly from money market and government bond investments. A final comment on NII 2025, and also at the at this point in time, our sensitivity to rate cuts has declined further to about €170 million for a 100 basis point instant downward rate shock, with the full impact expected at the minority-owned savings banks, actually no big deal for you as our shareholders.

Now for the outlook for 2026: we target net interest income north of €11 billion for this year. This incorporates an organic growth assumption of about 5% for the Erste excluding Erste Bank Polska, strong contribution from Erste Bank Polska, the non-recurrence of interest earned on the purchase price of Erste Bank Polska, round about €7 billion as and the amortization of about €170 million gross, that's about only €60 million net, of positive fair value adjustments recognized on debt securities and derivatives on first-time consolidation.

Let's now turn to another success story of 2025, and frankly speaking, the past couple of years, and that's fee income on page 16. At €850 million, we posted another record in the final quarter of the year, up 9.1% year on year and 6.5% quarter on quarter.

The drivers are, in the meantime, well known: securities business, which includes asset management, continued to perform exceptionally well amid a helpful market environment and customers' increased propensity to invest in capital markets; payment fees also made a good contribution when adjusting for the shift of loan account fees from payments to lending fees as of the first quarter of 2025; and insurance brokerage fees benefited from the usual end-of-year performance bonus payments. If we look at fees from the annual perspective, the story is very similar to what I've just said about the quarter.

Net fee income reached nearly €3.2 billion, again a new record. This means that fees grew by 8.6% in 2025, comfortably above the target we set for the year.

As for the growth drivers, we again talk about securities business, payment services, and insurance brokerage. Honestly, it's hard to highlight individual country segments in the context of fee performance because, as you see from the charts of the side page 4 page 16, all of them made great contributions in 2025.

Therefore, the main task for us is now to maintain the momentum going into 2026 as the bar is clearly moving high even higher. With an organic growth target of higher than 5%, you see that this is also clearly our goal.

The inclusion of Erste Bank Polska should result in a combined fee income of about €4 billion in 2026, whereas the where we have to look at the final print that will also depend on the allocation of local FX income from Poland either to the fee or the trading line. Over to operating expenses now.

I'm on page 17 already. Let me start with a quick summary on 2025.

We were clearly running above our 2025 cost inflation guidance of about 5%, you all remember our discussions in the quarterly calls, until the third quarter as we invested in efficiency projects, but in the end and in the end still managed to come in right on target when adjusting for booking Polish integration costs in the amount of €38 million to be fully transparent. This was only possible because of a significant year-on-year slowdown in cost growth in the fourth quarter, mainly driven by a stabilization in personnel costs and a moderation in depreciation and amortization charges as well as office expenses.

Quarter on quarter, we saw the usual seasonality, no surprises there. For 2026, it is our target to build on the solid performance of the fourth quarter and limit organic growth inflation to 3% as we should now benefit from efficiency gains and the downward inflationary trend in our countries.

Even Austrian inflation numbers came down recently. But 2026 is not only about better efficiency in Erste's pre-Poland business, but all about consolidating Erste Bank Polska.

In this respect, there will be two absolutely very relevant topics: first, and we have been talking about this in the past already, we can be more specific today, integration costs; secondly, is intangibles amortization. While the former will mainly impact 2026, the latter will stay with us for the next decade.

Our refined estimate of remaining integration costs now stands at €180 million. The net impact will be dependent on the final split between Vienna and Warsaw, but a good portion can be assumed to be booked locally, based on the recent announcements of our colleagues from Erste Bank Polska in relation of rebranding costs.

The amortization of intangibles, essentially it's about customer relationships, will be based on the value of customer stock for 100% of Erste Bank Polska of €2.1 billion and consequently have an outsized impact on the cost line of €210 million annually. As opposed to this gross amount, the bottom-line impact at about €70 million will be significantly lower, as tax and minority shields fully apply.

This is a non-cash charge and irrelevant to regulatory capital, as already fully deducted. Taking all of these items into account, we target operating expenses of about €7 billion in 2026 for the enlarged Erste Group.

Next up is operating result, and I'm already on page 18. At almost €11.7 billion, we posted record operating income in 2025, and at almost €3.1 billion, we also posted record operating income for the quarter.

The reasons we have discussed already in detail. We saw high-quality revenue growth driven by our core income lines, net interest income and net fee income, or put differently, we enjoyed strong core business momentum.

With cost performance being in line with expectations, we saw records for both annual and quarterly operating results. As cost growth was a touch higher than revenue growth in 2025, the cost-income ratio was slightly weaker in 2025.

However, much better than anticipated at the beginning of the year. When it comes to the outlook for 2026, and we just look at the Erste business excluding Erste Bank Polska, then based on what we already said about macro, interest rates, and business momentum, there's only one conclusion, and that's positive operating jaws, or translating this into concrete numbers, a further improvement of the cost-income ratio towards 47%.

While, obviously, this is a somewhat theoretical statement, as our 2026 financials will fully include the financials of Erste Bank Polska as well as the special effects in NII and operating expenses. Given the industry-leading efficiency level that Erste Bank Polska is operating at, that will only lead to a further improvement of these efficiency metrics.

Our best guestimate and guidance at this point in time is around 45%. With this, over to Alexandra for more details on credit risk.

Thanks, Stefan, and also good morning and welcome to this call. I'm now on page 19.

In the final quarter of 2025, we booked risk costs of €159 million or 27 basis points. This is better than a year ago, even though FLI and overlay releases in both quarters were more or less comparable.

As shown on the left-hand chart, we continued to book risk costs in our Austrian retail and SME operations, Erste Bank Oesterreich and savings banks, but the asset quality situation in Austria has definitely stabilized, thanks to somewhat lower NPL inflows in 2025 versus 2024. Fourth-quarter risk cost bookings in Central and Eastern Europe continued to be very low.

Looking at 2025 overall, at 21 basis points, we came in right in line with our improved full-year guidance. As in the previous year, again EBOe and Sparkassen, savings banks, accounted for the largest part of net allocations in the context of an exceptionally strong performance in the CEE region.

However, again both at Erste Bank Oesterreich and at the savings banks risk costs improved compared to 2024, in line with trends seen in the broader Austrian banking industry. As far as FLI and industry overlay provisions are concerned, we now hold a stock of approx €350 million, down by €109 million compared to the third quarter, on the back of FLI and overlay releases.

For 2026, we currently project further releases of roughly €60 million. When it comes to the risk cost outlook including Erste Bank Polska for 2026, we forecast 25 to 30 basis points as risk costs tend to be somewhat higher in the Polish market.

This is adjusted for the already previously communicated one-off ECL provisions of €300 million gross, with a net impact of €120 million, that is required by IFRS 9 on first-time consolidation. For Erste excluding Poland, we would see risk costs similar to 2025 levels, somewhere between 20 to 25 basis points, given the generally robust macro backdrop.

Let's now turn to asset quality on page 20. The group NPL ratio improved both quarter on quarter as well as year on year to 2.4%, thanks to a stable NPL stock and a dynamically growing loan book.

The stable NPL stock resulted from lower NPL inflows as well as higher recoveries. Let me again comment on Austria in this context as it has been and still is in the spotlight.

For Erste Bank Austria and the Sparkassen, asset quality metrics are perfectly acceptable and have improved in 2025. We saw lower NPL inflows, higher NPL recoveries, and importantly, we saw hardly any new entrants into our early warning list.

We expect more of the same in 2026 as the Austrian economy is recovering slowly. In Central and Eastern Europe, the asset quality performance remained excellent.

It is hard to single out a country for doing better than the other, whether we talk about the Czech Republic or Hungary or Serbia, because all of them did really well. In Romania, you might recall where we saw some NPL inflows earlier in the year, the situation stabilized.

We sold some NPLs, and with this our NPL ratio in Romania is once again below 3%. In terms of projections for year-end 2026, we expect that the group NPL ratio will stay more or less at current levels, and that applies to both Erste with and without Erste Bank Polska.

NPL coverage is projected to slip slightly, but only slightly, and should stay close enough to 70%. With this, I hand back to Stefan.

Thanks, Alexandra. Let's turn to page 21.

To top off an exceptional year, other result also turned in a tremendous performance in the fourth quarter, again benefiting from positive one-offs in the form of real estate selling gains and releases of legal provisions, particularly in the Czech Republic and Romania. When looking at other result from an annual perspective, we saw the best print since 2007.

Thomas had to go back that far in analyzing the data to find a better print. To put this into context, back then, banking levies or resolution fund contributions, which today run into the hundreds of millions of euros annually, were unheard of.

As a result of this extraordinary performance throughout 2025, one thing must be clear: this is a one-time event that is very unlikely to be repeated in 2026. We estimate that the net positive one-time items amounted to approximately €270 million, as Peter already mentioned, pretax, and that in 2026, other result will more closely mirror regulatory charges, which based on higher banking levies in Hungary and Romania should be in the order of approximately €450 million.

Typically, we already expect one or the other positive or also negative print there. For the first quarter, we are anticipating a better print due to the closing of the Erste Card Club transaction in Croatia.

Based on what you heard about record annual and quarterly operating performance as well as quarterly and annual other result, and I'm on page 22 in the meantime, it follows that quarterly and annual net profits were comfortably record prints as well. One could argue somewhat inflated, obviously to the benefit of capital and capital ratios, no complaints here, but still, therefore it is only fair to adjust net profit for one-time items.

If we do this, clean net profit prior to AT1 dividend deduction, as Peter already mentioned, would be closer to €3.3 billion rather than the reported figure of €3.5 billion. By extension, the same comments apply to reported earnings per share and return on tangible equity.

Both benefited from one-off-supported net profits. If one adjusts reported 2025 EPS of €8.24 for this, then underlying EPS would amount to €7.72, and ROTE would be closer to 15.5% as opposed to the reported figure of 16.6%.

When it comes to the outlook for 2026, we confirm everything we have said since the announcement of the Polish acquisition on 5th of May 2025. We expect a significant improvement on return on tangible equity to around 19% and an earnings per share uplift north of 20%.

These targets are based on reported net figures adjusted for extraordinary items, with €3.3 billion serving as a basis for 2025 and a figure of greater than €4 billion being the target for 2026 adjusted. With this, let's move on to wholesale funding and capital starting on page 24.

Stability and competitive advantage are the name of the game when it comes to funding. Highly granular and well-diversified retail and SME deposit base remains key source of long-term funding.

Wholesale funding volumes decreased year to date as higher stock of debt securities was more than offset by decline in interbank deposits. The stock of debt securities was pushed up primarily by issuance of covered bonds and senior preferred bonds.

On to page 25 in order to look in more detail at our long-term wholesale funding: my short summary would be that we successfully completed our 2025 funding plan and that we had a busy and successful start to the 2026 funding year. Next to several transactions of our subsidiaries, we have issued a Tier 2 and a senior preferred note, €750 million each, on group level in January.

Overall, we expect similar funding volumes this year as in 2025 and we'll have more focus on MREL instruments compared to covered bonds. Let's now move to regulatory capital and risk-weighted assets on page 26.

In the context of other result, I talked already about a one-time event, and I think this is also a fair statement for the development of regulatory capital and risk-weighted assets. We saw a massive build-up in capital and, at the same time, a massive reduction in risk-weighted assets in 2025.

Of course, most of this did not happen by chance, but was the result of a well-executed strategy that was instrumental in funding the acquisition of Erste Bank Polska exclusively from internal resources. To give you an idea about the scale of the achievements: we grew loans by about €14 billion in 2025, as already discussed, while risk-weighted assets were down by almost €10 billion.

The main drivers for this were the increased use of securitizations, positive portfolio effects, and last, but not at all least, Basel IV implementation also came in handy. These factors more than offset the volume growth-related updrift.

The strong growth in CET1 capital by €4.5 billion during 2025 is rooted in strong profitability and temporarily increased profit retention. The former also benefited from positive one-offs, as detailed earlier in the presentation, but was mainly driven by strong business momentum, while the latter was supported by suspension of the share buyback we already announced earlier in the year and a lower dividend payout from 2025 profits.

The result of these massive moves you can see on page 27, our CET1 waterfall: a 408 basis point increase in our CET1 ratio in 2025. Viewed differently, one could say that we absorbed almost the entire expected CET1 drawdown expected from the Erste Bank Polska acquisition within one calendar year.

I can only repeat what Peter said: we have far outperformed all capital commitments that we gave to the regulator in the run-up to the transaction. That's the CET1 ratio floor of 13.5% and a new increased target ratio of 14.25% to be achieved during the course of 2026.

When it comes to capital distribution, we will stick to our communicated dividend policy for 2025, resulting in a payout of 75 cents per share. I think it is also evident that we have the full capacity to return to our pre-transaction dividend policy of 40% to 50% and, possibly, even put share buybacks back on the menu if this is in the best interest of shareholders.

When it comes to the CET1 ratio outlook for 2026, the triangle of profitability, loan growth, and shareholder distribution will determine the extent and speed of any further build-up. In any case, we have created space for many options for future growth.

With this, over to you, Peter, for concluding remarks.

Thank you, Alexandra, and thank you, Stefan. Let's take a step back again and look at the bigger picture.

What emerges in front of us you can see summarized on page 29. It's about strong organic growth momentum in Erste's business without Erste Bank Polska.

On a like-for-like basis, we expect loan growth of higher than 5%. We project mid-single-digit net interest income growth.

We, once again, target fee growth of north of 5%, and we aim to push cost inflation down to 3%. With this, positive operating jaws and an improved cost-income ratio are firmly on the agenda for 2026.

Risk costs are also expected to stay at a very agreeable levels. Even if other result will be more in line with the banking levy burden, reported net profit should at least be on par with what we achieved in 2025.

Add Erste Bank Polska to the mix, and the future will be brighter still. Growth opportunities will multiply by having access to the largest market in the CEE region.

On the back of a better macro backdrop, we therefore project loans to surpass €285 billion for the combined entity, or new Erste, if you prefer. We see net interest income north of €11 billion, fees at about €4 billion, and costs in the order of about €7 billion.

Risk costs will inch up to 25 to 30 basis points, being aside the one-off related to first-time consolidation. All of this is set to result in a significant increase to return on tangible equity of 19% and an increase in earnings per share of more than 20%.

Despite this very robust financial outlook, we are not getting carried away. Our full focus and attention is now on integration of Erste Bank Polska and rebranding.

At the same time, you can rest assured that we will not lose sight of strategic opportunities, which we expect to open up in front of us as the year progresses. Superior profitability and, consequently, fast capital build will enable us to choose from a number of good options, ranging from increased capital return to further M&A, all of which had the potential to create significant shareholder value.

This, ladies and gentlemen, concludes our presentation remarks. Thanks for your attention, and we are now ready to take your questions.

Good morning. Thank you very much.

Could you just give us a quick update on the integration timeline for Poland? What are the big steps in terms of systems migration or other big things, and when do they happen?

Then second question: you've talked about the various options that you've got for growth. Could you talk a bit about both organic and M&A opportunities, what your priorities are, where you see opportunities presenting themselves?

If I may start with the integration in Poland, we plan to be done with the integration when it comes to IT and technology within 24 months. We, of course, already started to work with our colleagues in Poland.

This is a lot of work in front of us, but we have on both sides very experienced IT people, we know what we have in front of us and we will be able to manage it. A second also very important part is the rebranding, which will take place in the second quarter.

We have more than 400 branches we have to rebrand. We have a lot of ATMs.

We have credit cards. We have papers.

A lot of things in front of us, but very much looking forward to use the opportunity to build up a very strong brand in the Polish banking market. When it comes to growth opportunities and potential M&A, this is very much depending on market situation.

I think it's much too early. I would like to just remind you, although we have very strong capital position now, we just had closing on 9th of January, yeah?

Again, now we are very much focused on integrating Poland. If something pops up where we think it's a business opportunity and is creating value to our shareholders, we will definitely look at it.

Great. Thank you.

Yes, hi. Thanks for walking us through this intricacies of the Polish consolidation.

My first question is actually on the business business ex-Poland and the NII guidance there, which 5% growth you guide for, which is decent. It's actually similar to the Q4 run rate.

It implies similar NII to the Q4 run rate, I believe. What makes you assume that NII would not grow sequentially from here together with loans?

Then the second question would be on costs. You expect cost growth to halve practically on an organic basis.

Can you walk us which is a significant improvement. Can you walk us through what you actually expect to to drive this slowdown and perhaps give us some quantification of of those drivers?

Then finally on on the capital deployment options, yeah, how do you think about your options for for this year, including if you could comment on on the on the possibility of of raising your stake further in the in the Polish bank? Thank you.

Now we are unmuted. Morning, Gabor.

Let me start with the remark on the NII for 2026. I understood you right, you wanted a reply to, let's say, on our growth expectations on the former Erste Group, I would call it.

Look, let's not forget there are a couple of points that we need to observe when it comes to the translation of loan growth into NII. We all know that this is a build-up throughout the year, if we expect better growth on the loan side than in 4-5%, then this will only get into NII numbers over the year, not only for the first quarters.

The second element is, and I mentioned it on a side comment when running the presentation, we have paid €7 billion for the acquisition of Erste Bank Polska, so that's in a simple calculation around €130 million that we simply have less of interest on excess liquidity. It's not a huge amount given the overall dimension of NII nowadays, but it's not to be completely ignored, and it's a certain churn on our growth year on year.

Last but not least, the interest rate environment should be still okay-ish and kind of supportive, but definitely we will not have tailwinds or tail storms from the interest rate environment. We have put ourselves in a position that is quite neutral to interest rate developments.

From that end, we shouldn't expect too much of an uplift. If you look at the 2025 developments, we've had a good momentum still from our investment books.

This is still there, but significantly slowing down. I would say, at the end of the day, we are back into a game which is mainly depending on growth, you're perfectly right, but it's not a one-on-one translation of loan growth into NII.

I think if we can deliver 5% on existing group, I would be very satisfied. The other point was on cost growth.

Look, this is very simple. Inflation is now really sharply coming down even in the countries like Austria where we saw after really super elevated prints, we saw in January now a 2% number.

That will help the negotiations for collective bargaining are ongoing. We hope that there will be a reasonable behavior on all sides like it was in other industries in this country.

In the other countries, we see wage inflation still around, but significantly lower than in the past. That's the external element.

The internal element: we have always communicated that the impact of the efficiency investments that we started already in the end of 2024 should have a first-time impact in 2026, and that is also something we are committed to deliver. This in combination would land around this 3% level.

Of course, a lot of integration efforts will be there, but you were asking about the core group. Then I think capital deployment: look, Peter already made it clear in his answer just before.

We are evaluating all options, but we are also not deviating from our super focus. We got everything very well done.

We were achieving not only the signing, but also the closing in a very, very smooth manner. I really want to praise the teams here on all sides who guaranteed very smooth operations day one already across the group, and we will build on that.

Let's not forget this integration will still occupy a lot of resources, and therefore, we will evaluate very, very precisely how much we have still in our pockets to invest into, let me say, new adventures. I think you know the markets that we look at.

There are some of the markets which are able to do transactions, for example, on themselves if there are options opening. We will analyze them, but I think it's much too early to say.

Last comment, since this is obviously also part of your question: we will not comment at this point in time about any kind of precise dividend indication for 2026, but it's natural that we have full capacity to at least, at least, let me stress this, at least get back to the capital distribution that you were used to up until the year 2024. All clear.

Thank you.

Hi, thanks for taking my question. I only actually have one.

It's just on the growth in the corporate center NII that's was very strong last year, effectively doubling. I think you mentioned the securities portfolio that tailwind perhaps tailing off a bit this year, but any guidance around NII in the corporate center for 2026-2027 would be helpful.

Thank you.

In short, it's going to be slightly up, not as strong growth momentum as you rightly observed for '25, but certainly also not falling from the cliff. Slightly up is an indication that I can give you.

Thank you.

Yes, hi, good morning, and thank you for taking my questions. The first one is on capital.

What's the current outlook on balance sheet measures going forward, SRTs, etc.? How much did you achieve in 2025, because if I look at the credit RWAs, they declined by almost €4 billion quarter on quarter.

If you could highlight that and also the costs associated with that SRT in 2025 and how should we think about that in 2026? Then the second one is you have provided very clear 2026 targets.

How should we think about medium- to long-term targets for the group? Is that something we can expect to be provided during 2026?

Are you planning a capital markets day at some point for the combined entity? Last one, if I may, on loan growth: are you seeing any pick-up in corporate loan demand in the various geographies, and is there any assumption you are making around benefit from the fiscal stimulus in Germany and infrastructure spending for countries like Austria, Czech Republic, please?

Thank you.

I take the first question and then hand it over to Peter. First thing, the costs, not to forget, around securitization round about €60 million, and that's in the fees.

Maybe let me use this opportunity to say two sentences about fee development, which I'm very impressed from. Colleagues do a great job there.

We have had already costs for securitization during the year 2025 in fees. That's even more remarkable to see the results, and that will be round about €60 million in the year 2026, first point.

Second point, I want to be precise on what I said on the fee trading stuff when it comes to our €4 billion target. We have observed a little bit of a different treatment in the Polish market around FX trading revenues, and we will analyze in the next weeks whether we can also show this on a group level in fees or whether we have to put it in trading, just that you can put my remark there in perspective, because it fits to this point.

Last but not least, in terms of planning for 2026: so nothing tremendous being planned at this point in time for securitizations in 2026. We will do two, three further transactions for sure, as we use this toolbox ongoingly, but significantly less than in 2025, since the effort here was directed to the capital optimization effort in 2025.

Peter, please.

When it comes to mid-term outlook, as we mentioned already before, I think this year on the one hand we are heavily focused on integrating Erste Bank Polska. That's very clear.

That's very obvious, and we see sort of say the full positive impact in terms of P&L, of course, in 2027. On the other hand, it's also fair to say that we are again very strong building up capital, which gives us a lot of opportunities.

This is exactly the other part for this year to make up our mind and see how markets are developing and what kind of opportunities are popping up in terms of M&A or further increase in our stake in Erste Bank Polska, also depending on the Polish scheme, how we are able to increase. There are still a lot of things we have to think through, but you can be assured that we are very well aware, and I think we are in a luxurious situation in terms of our strength being able to build up capital.

When it comes to your question about capital market day, this is something we are making up our mind on. Thomas, Stefan, Alexandra, myself, we are, of course, discussing.

What is also very obvious that we would go for a capital market day if we have something to tell you which is worth the effort of you and your colleagues to join. However, when it comes to potential impact of Germany, this is something we are waiting for already one and a half years.

Of course, we expect a positive impact in countries like Czech Republic, partly Slovakia, Poland, even Romania, but the political procedure in Germany just takes longer as we expected, and therefore, we didn't take it into consideration as mentioned during our presentation in our P&L for this year, because we are sounding a little bit like broken records every time telling you there will be an impact, there will be an impact, there will be an impact, and so far we cannot see it.

good morning, and thank you for the presentation. I have three questions, please.

The first one would be a follow-up on your comments, Stefan, on fee growth. I understand the uncertainty around the treatment of some of the FX commissions or FX fees in Poland.

For the rest of the portfolio, putting that uncertainty aside, is there any reason why fee growth shouldn't be in the high single digit given your track record, given strong volume growth, given good traction with the securities business, and so on? That's the first one.

The second question would be just a clarification, please. Could you clarify what exactly will be added back to get to the adjusted net profit in 2026, i.e., the amount slightly above €4 billion?

Is that the €240 million intangibles amortization and the €180 million integration costs, or it's only the integration costs? That's the second question.

The third question is just a I guess conceptual one, perhaps for Peter. The outlook on retail lending: very, very strong performance in 2025.

Retail growth, and within that, housing loan growth in the CEE region is very strong. Could you talk about expectations whether that momentum can be maintained in one or the other country, be it Croatia, be it Czech, be it Hungary, or we could see some moderation here and there?

Also in that context perhaps, what is your expectation in retail growth in Austria? Thank you.

All right.

Let me take the number question first. We talk about roughly €350 million that you should consider in this, to say, adjustment logic, and this is the sum of ECL impact, the integration costs as you rightly assumed, and the intangibles.

Honestly speaking, we really try to manage and I think we have kind of got 80-90% there to absorb everything as much as possible in 2026. You heard the question before, the earlier question to Peter regarding integration costs.

That's also what we have been discussing internally. While we will be busy with a couple of the things on to '27, '28 when it comes to really absorbing most of the matters in P&L representation and so on, I would say, given the dimension of the numbers, everything that comes there after 2026 with the sole exception of the depreciation of the customer list, I would personally from a CFO perspective say you can pretty much forget, right?

It's €50 million here, €30 million there, for sure not numbers to be ignored in a bigger sense, but the way we look at, for example, NII of a base €11 billion plus, yes, I have an item here in 2027 impact of €80-90 million, but frankly speaking, a small change in interest rate environment also does a much, much bigger impact, as you very well know. Fee growth: to specify the dimension that we are discussing here with the Polish colleagues and also with the auditors is €200 million, just to be precise.

It's about €200 million to be allocated rather to fees or FX, so that is in around the four if you map it to the €4 billion total, it's around 5% difference, not to be ignored. Of course, it doesn't do anything to the total operating income.

It's pretty clear, and that was the reason why Thomas and the board discussed which guidance should we give. Otherwise, we would have been coming up with greater than and four.

Now we are around four. We will clarify that, and by Q1 we will be very clear about where to book this.

When it comes to growth, thanks for your confidence in our growth potential. I do not disagree.

However, if we look around at what happened the last two, three years, let's also be fair. We had quite strong supportive factors.

Not that least, a positive inflationary environment, which, of course, by indexation of payment fees and so on, not only for us, but for the whole industry, was supportive. If we now go significantly down with our growth expectations on costs, it's also consequently clear that some of the tailwinds are slowing down on the fee side.

That's point number one. Point number two, as you know better than anyone else, if we have such a supportive capital market every year as we had it the last two, three years, is also not a given.

Some, not all, but some components of the income here on asset management fees and securities business are depending on that. Do I rule out that we come up with higher than 5%, I think you said upper single digit, again in 2026?

No. Do I want to guide for it at this point in time?

Also, no. Peter?

Thank you, Stefan. When it comes to mortgage business, when we talk about volume, it's very much about Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, yeah?

We don't see any or we don't expect any change in the demand in Czech Republic, I think the market is still going strong, or we hear from our colleagues there. I would expect even a little bit more positive momentum in Austria, yeah, because demand has come back already over the last 12-18 months, and we saw it clear correlation that demand was already picking up when interest rates were coming slightly down.

In Slovakia, I think we are doing very well in terms of balancing between mortgage lending and consumer lending, yeah? Which was true also for the whole year in 2025 to have a healthy balance between these two product lines.

Good that you asked for Croatia, because we took special effort in Croatia and set up an initiative to improve our mortgage lending there, because there, I think it's fair to say that we, from our perspective, really been underpenetrated when it comes to mortgage lending. Is an area we would like to take more efforts to improve the situation.

Very helpful. Thanks so much.

Thanks. Thanks a lot for taking my questions.

Two or three if I may. The first one is on the NII guidance.

You are running in Erste standalone a couple of billion per quarter in Q4. Say before any growth you could land in €8 billion region without being too sophisticated.

Then Erste Bank Polska reported kind anywhere between 750 and 800 million in Q4. That could be another say €3 billion or so more or less.

Before growth you would be already in the €11 billion ballpark, and this before, again, loan growth is always kind. I just want to understand why and you also say Stefan, if I'm not mistaken, that expect kind of a supportive policy rates environment if I got it right during the call.

I was wondering if there is no margin pressure and if the growth stays as it is as you plan, what could prevent you to go well above the €11 billion, and more than €11 billion could mean 11 and a half in your mind? Then again on growth: you're growing at 6.4% before Poland.

Macro is expected to be improved, maybe you're going to have an impact from the fiscal stimulus in Germany. RBI says 7%, and they are pretty good when they make their projections.

Why 5% when the macro is improving and you're exiting '25 at 6.4%? The other question I have is on common equity.

Year-end at 19.3%, take out 460, you land at 14.7%. €4 billion divided by two, it's another €2 billion.

Risk assets, say 180, 150 from you, 30 30-something from Erste Bank Polska, is another more than 100 basis points. As it is today, you would land anywhere between 15 and a half and 16.

The question here, I just want to connect it to what Jeremy asked right at the beginning of this call: what's the priority here? Is the priority more M&A, or is the priority returning capital to shareholders as you have to integrate Poland, which is after all a large transaction?

Because the numbers do not add up, just don't add up between the numbers and what you say. Just sorry to say so, but I think the market needs a little bit of clarity on that.

Thank you.

First, unfortunately, the sound was very bad, let's make sure that we got everything right, because you started by saying three questions, I only identified kind of two and a half. Anyway, the first one is very clear, and I completely can follow your thinking: €8 billion here, because you guys are already at €2 billion in Q4, and then simply extrapolate that and then add the €3 billion from Poland and there you go, 11 plus the growth, why don't you talk about 11 and a half?

That's, in a nutshell, what you said. Look, it's not exactly that easy this time, for sure, at least from today's perspective.

Number one, again, we have a clear subtraction. This is super simple calculation of €130 million from the non-recurrence of the interest on our paid capital.

It's not a huge element, but not to be completely ignored. Secondly, and I give you the precise description, we have €170 million, and we always talk about the gross figures here, right?

As I said, talk about the gross figures, because your 11, 11 and a half is also, of course, the gross NII for 2026 in the whole group. €170 million impact from hedge accounting adjustments and the debt securities, both round about close to €100 million adding up there, and there's a little bit of a counter-effect on other positions.

It's a total of €300 million, please, Riccardo, that you have to take This is not something which is kind of a question of optimism or pessimism. This is just a fact, and this is 100% clear that this will be booked this way.

Have to take this into consideration, because then with your expectation somewhere between 11.2 to 11.5, we're already talking a little bit of a different story. The rest, yes, the rest is a question of interpretation if everything goes fully our way, if interest rate environment is as supportive as we expected, and therefore, we decided to go for a greater than €11 billion guidance, which I think is leaving also upside.

Us, then when we have more evidence for better development, we will adjust the guidance. At this point in time, I think it's a task to get there with all the moving parts around the first-time consolidation.

On capital, look, I think referring back to the first part of 2025, I don't believe it's really helpful, because you know that we were negotiating the deal at that point in time. You guys know much better than anyone else how strict capital market communication is on indicating anything that is not really watertight in terms of insider what the hell.

Therefore, yes, I was also not my most pleasant quarterly call on the 30th of April 2025, I very, very much remember, and we were dancing around how we deploy capital. I agree, this was not a pleasure, but at the same moment it was a pleasure then making very clear what we do with the capital one week later.

It's not the case this time, this I can assure you. We are not in any whatsoever kind of negotiations or so.

What we are in is analyzing our opportunities, both legally, Peter already mentioned it, but also in terms of how we can manage a step-up in Poland in an efficient manner for our shareholders and in a way that we are not endangering, to say, our economics. Other countries, I think, have been commented on by Peter and me already.

I think it's fair to say, looking at my colleagues, that after the first quarter, we will have a little bit more clarity. However, to satisfy everything of your expectations, what we will do with the excess capital, it might still not be enough, and it's going to be a question of the next couple of months to evaluate the deployment.

We try to do the best with the excess capital, but there are many moving parts. I think there was a third kind of question, but I didn't get it from the sound.

Mr. Rovere, you are still in the line.

Let's move to the next question, please.

Yep, thanks a lot. Good morning, everyone.

I would have also a question related to Poland. Your colleagues from the new subsidiary, right, they indicated a kind of new strategy in coming months.

Maybe at this stage, can you tell us just the key parameters, right, in terms of loan growth, in terms of NII year over year, and what is actually the interest rate which you incorporate, because currently it's 25 to 50 basis points let's say difference within consensus where the rates will end up in Poland and how the sensitivity is? Also from this perspective, if you can share what would be kind of cost-income ratio in a longer-term horizon, because Polish subsidiary or Polish bank kind of has significantly lower cost-income ratio compared to your current subsidiaries.

If you could also remind us what's the agreement on Swiss franc provisioning? Q4, in my view, in Poland was a bit below expectations in terms of kind of adding to the current outstanding volumes, but what's the position at this stage in your case?

Thanks a lot. If I may start

in terms of strategy, please don't expect too many changes in terms of strategy in our Polish subsidiary, because from our perspective, strategy is already very much aligned, yeah? We have a very similar approach in retail banking, we have a very similar approach in corporate banking.

I think there is a lot of added value, of course, in the corporate area, because there the pure size of the economy in Poland is fantastic, and the way how this economy, in terms of economic infrastructure, was built up over the last decades. I think this is a huge opportunity also for the rest of our group, and we see also kind of network value related to it, because there is a lot of money flow between companies within our region now, and a lot of Polish companies operating in other parts of our group and vice versa.

There we have very positive client feedback. When you refer to cost-income ratio, of course, it's great how our colleagues are managing efficiency.

Of course, it's always kind of very supportive when you have relatively high NII margins when it comes to cost-income ratio. Please, we ask for your understanding that we don't want to comment too much on local entities, especially when they are stock-listed in terms of financial sensitivity details.

Thank you.

That also, if I may add, Peter, that also holds true for the strategy of the local bank when it comes to Swiss franc. I think the colleagues are commenting on that.

The read-through to the group is well known, there's nothing to add to that, nothing has changed on that side, and all the rest is decided by our local colleagues and will be also communicated by them in their capital market communication.

Great. Thanks a lot.

If I may add one, it's maybe of a minor importance, but still your positioning in Hungary on rate cuts or further rate cuts and also in Romania, how would it affect, let's say, group NII?

No, happy to take this in a very short manner. We saw the rate cut yesterday or the day before yesterday, I guess, in Hungary.

We expect, overall, a relatively stable development of key interest rates for this year, at least for the next two, three quarters. The policy of the Romanian National Bank.

Further later in the year, there might be some changes depending on inflationary environment and so on, but at the moment we do not see an aggressive rate cut cycle of either of the two national banks.

Appreciate. Thanks.

Thanks a lot.

Thanks. Just for a quick follow-up on the previous one on loan growth: why 5% when you are exiting the year at 6.4% and the macro is supposed to get better and maybe you're going to have some boost from Germany fiscal support?

Then on bank taxes, if I may, if you can shed some light what should be the situation in 2026 and, if possible, onward. Where do we stand?

If I may start with loan growth, from our perspective, we were even a little bit more aggressive than last year in terms of giving you the guidance, because we say loan growth above 5%, right? As Stefan rightly mentioned already during his presentation and during one of his answers, loan growth is accelerating over the year, yeah?

You don't have the full impact immediately in the P&L in the first two months of the year, but be assured that we strongly believe in loan growth above 5%.

What was the other question, Riccardo? It's very hard to understand.

Bank taxes? It was just on bank taxes, what should we expect for 2026 on bank taxes in general?

The existing ones, I think you know precisely. It will go up in numbers a little bit, and then you know the situation in Poland, which again is to be commented mainly by our local colleagues, but we, of course, consider in our assumptions the elevated corporate income tax in Poland of 30% for the year 2026, which, it's in the law, go down to 26% in 2027 and then to 23% in 2028.

Those are elements that we have to consider, which all are in our guidance that we mentioned today. Other than that, forecasting or, to say, making any kind of assumptions around political decisions, I guess, is definitely not my task, and I think, Peter, you also don't want probably to say too much, right?

No, and

I would not expect any kind of material impact during 2026, but the long-term trends are very hard to predict, very much depending how budget deficits in all the countries will develop over the upcoming years, from my perspective. We don't see any kind of hint that there will be additional taxes for this year.

Very clear. Thank you.

Good morning, everyone, and congratulations on the results. Sorry if I make a repeated question, because I joined later during this call.

I have two three questions actually. One, on the adjusted net target, what are the adjustment actually?

Is this only the integration cost or also the fair value adjustments? That's question number one.

Question number two: the 3% OpEx growth target for '26, does it include the indexation to wages? How do you manage this?

Question number three: I've spotted that the NII in Hungary, in Romania were relatively flat-ish despite great quarter-to-quarter loan book growth. What is it related to?

Does it mean that you had to compromise a bit on the pricing of loans? Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. You indeed were touching upon some of the stuff we discussed already, but no problem.

First answer, I specified already before, it's around €350 million of adjustments. It includes the integration costs, but not only.

It's also the one-time booking of the IFRS 3-related ECL CLAs and the intangibles, as you rightly assumed. That's a correct assumption.

Those three components play into there. When it comes to wage inflation, I mentioned in an earlier answer, it's supposed to come down.

We see inflation coming down now even in Austria and other places, and that's what will certainly drive the levels of, let me say, wage and personnel costs increases down. I also mentioned that is an other element of our guidance there is that we will benefit from efficiency gains that we invested into in '24 and '25.

Last but not least, you're right, we had a slower development in Hungary and Romania, and it is partially due to quite some pricing competition in these markets, which we usually do not take part in as aggressively as competitors, but we cannot exclude ourselves completely. That's certainly a driver of the NIMs in those two specific markets.

Just adding that in Hungary we always say, please don't analyze this market line by line. You will not get anywhere.

Look at what our fantastic colleagues there have achieved in bottom-line delivery, and that's actually the measure that we look at.

All clear. Much appreciated.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, for taking your time. Thank you very much for your questions.

What I would like to mention is that, as our Annual General Meeting will take place on 17th of April, and results for the first quarter of 2026 are on 30th of April. Thank you very much.

Bye.