Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our results conference call. First quarter net profit stable year on year at €162 million despite the higher tax rate by 2 percentage points.

Revenues up by around 4% year on year at €343 million, with all product areas contributing positively. Banking up by around 2% with higher deposits volumes more than offsetting the lower interest rates.

Investing up by 8% thanks to the volume effect. Brokerage up by around 5% thanks to the higher stock of asset under custody and the expanding active investor base.

Operating costs were under control at around €95 million, increasing by around 5.2% year on year, excluding the additional cost related to the growth of the business. Cost-income ratio was equal to 27.7, confirming operating leverage as a key strength of the bank.

Our capital position confirmed to be strong and safe, with a common equity tier 1 ratio at 23.34% and leverage ratio at 5.14. Moving to our commercial performance, we are experiencing a material step-up in our growth.

This is driven by our unique positioning, capturing long-term structural trends, and by our execution on several initiatives. The impact of this acceleration is clearly visible in our numbers.

The first quarter net sales increased by 44% year on year. In April, net sales at €1.3 billion, plus 6% year on year, with around €600 million deposits, around €320 million assets under management, and around €320 million asset under custody.

Brokerage revenues estimated at a solid €22 million. New clients continued to grow at a strong pace, up by 18% year on year in the first quarter.

In April, new clients were equal to 17,500, up by 16% year on year. Now coming to the guidance.

Upgraded outlook for our 2026 and 2029 plan, confirming the quality of our diversified business model. The better outlook is driven by combination of better than expected net sales and clients growth, very strong brokerage expected to grow further, highest interest rates environment.

No change on investing guidance 2026. We expect all the product areas contributing to higher revenues thanks to the acceleration of our structural growth.

We expect net financial income rising thanks to deposits net sales and the new rates environment. Investing, a solid year on year increase in asset under management net sales.

Brokerage, we expect another record year. Banking fees, stable year on year.

Cost, we expect growth by around 6%, not including around €10 million additional costs for growth initiatives and around €5 million for the pan-European platform setup. Let's now move to slide 7 and start to dive on the quarterly results.

Net financial income is up 1% both quarter on quarter and year on year, led by the positive volume effect on deposits and by the higher reinvestments yield of our bonds running off. This performance is particularly remarkable when considering that the quarter-on-quarter comparison is affected by fewer calendar days, lower rates versus first quarter 2025.

Let me reiterate the quality of our net interest income. It is capital light and industrially driven by our clients' sticky transactional liquidity.

Deposits come to our platform for the quality of our services, not because of aggressive commercial campaign on short-term rates. This translates into a cost of funding close to zero.

As a results, even a small, banking-only client is profitable. Down on the right, you can see the very strong dynamics of our deposits net sales in the first quarter.

Deposits grew by 32% year on year before clients' investments. Those dynamics were even stronger in April, with around €700 million deposits net sales.

Let's now move on slide 8. Investing revenues increased by around 8% year on year, driven by the growing volumes.

The quarterly comparison is characterized by the usual seasonality: PFA costs related to FIR and Enasarco that are higher at the beginning of the year; other commissions in the fourth quarter of 2025 due to operating efficiency achieved by Fineco Asset Management, which are booked for accounting reasons in the fourth quarter; and fewer calendar days. On the right, you can see the drivers of our investing revenues growth: mainly the higher year-on-year asset under management volumes, where 53% is represented by explicit fees solutions.

On the other hand, let's move on the slide 9 for a focus on brokerage. Let's move to brokerage, one main pillar of our business model, a business that is growing strong, highly profitable, with an high operational gearing and with a clear market leadership.

The two charts on the slide highlight the long-term correlation between brokerage revenues and the stock of asset under custody. The brokerage business represents the best sign of how fast the structure of the financial markets is evolving.

Technology is driving a quick change clients' behaviors, thanks to the demand for higher transparency led by AI. For this reason, we consider the brokerage Italian market significantly still underpenetrated, and we see a strong opportunity to grow.

Finally, we are rolling out new initiatives to further unlock the potential from our asset under custody, which we will deep dive later. Now let's focus on slide 11 on our capital ratios.

Fineco confirmed once again capital position well above requirements on the wave of a safe balance sheet: common equity tier 1 ratio at 23.3% and the leverage ratio at 5.14, with risk-weighted assets at €6.3 billion; total capital ratio at 39.27; liquidity coverage ratio over 950%; and net stable funding ratio over 400%; high-quality liquid assets on deposits at around 80%. Let's now move to slide 13.

Fineco benefits from a unique marketing positioning, fully capturing its long-term growth opportunity. On the left, we show our market share on the addressable financial wealth, which is still very small.

On the right, we summarize the key structural trends that are reshaping the financial services industry and reinforcing our strategic positioning. First, AI disruption, which is driving for higher transparency in financial services and higher productivity.

Fineco is already well-positioned thanks to its market positioning and state-of-the-art platform. Second, the massive generational wealth transfer: new generations are looking for efficiency, transparency, and convenience, all core elements of Fineco's value proposition.

Third, the consolidation in the banking industry, with traditional banks not focused on customer experience. Fineco sits exactly at the crossroads of these three big structural trends.

Moving now to slide 14, we show a clear example of our distinctive positioning compared to the industry, focusing on the investing business. Fineco is a clear outlier in the Italian market, with a value proposition based on efficiency, transparency, and convenience.

This is reflected in a great quality of our investing revenues: our revenues are mostly driven by recurring management fees based on a fair pricing, with no performance fees and a negligible component represented by upfront fees. This is marking a clear difference in the long-term sustainability of our investing revenues compared to the system.

As you can see on the right, other player are not just applying performance fees on the top of highly expensive investment solution, but also clearly pushing stronger on upfront fees. Fineco clearly sits on the other side.

Moving to slide 15, you can see how all this is leading to the inflection point of our growth. Our most recent numbers are clearly showing a material step-up in the magnitude of our growth in net sales and new clients.

Let me reiterate that total net sales remain the most important KPI to evaluate our growth, on each component of the mix contributes positively to our revenues and net profit: asset under management leads to higher investing growth; asset under custody net sales are a key driver for our brokerage revenues; and transactional liquidity, which is gathered with a cost of funding close to zero, contribute to our capital-light and industrially driven net interest income. Let's now move to slide 20, guidance.

Upgraded outlook for 2026 and 2029 plan, confirming the quality of our diversified business model. The better outlook is driven by combination of better than expected net sales and clients growth, very strong brokerage expected to further growth, higher interest rates environment.

No change on investing guidance 2026 on investing. We expect all product areas contributing to higher revenues thanks to the acceleration of our structural growth.

We expect better net financial income thanks to positive deposit net sales and the new rates environment. Investing, solid year on year increase in asset under management net sales.

Brokerage, another record year thanks to higher asset under custody and active investor base. Banking fees, stable year on year.

Operating costs, we expect growth by around 6%, not including around €10 million additional costs for growth initiatives and around €5 million for the pan-European platform setup. Cost-income, we expect hit comfortably below 30% thanks to the scalability of our platform and strong operating gearing.

The cost of risk was equal to 9 basis points thanks to the quality of our lending portfolio, and is expected in a range between 5 and 10 basis points. Finally, payout ratio is expected for 2026 in a range between 70% and 80%.

On leverage ratio, our goal is to remain above 4.5. I'll now hand to our Deputy General Manager, Paolo Di Grazia.

Thank you.

Thank you, Alessandro, and good morning, everybody. On slide 21, we focus on the initiatives to fully unlock the value of our asset under custody and increase our brokerage revenues.

First the securities lending platform, we plan to launch by the end of this June, and will be a marketplace for institutional counterparties, giving direct access to our high-quality and fast-growing stock of asset under custody. Let me remind the quality of our AUC, asset under custody: highly granular, well-diversified across classes and geographies, and retail-driven, which adds significant value in the securities lending market.

Importantly, more than 40% of the stock is already opted in. Combined with the expected growth of AUC, the opportunity can be very relevant.

Second initiatives, the AutoFX, which is now live on all our client base, and the AutoFX gives clients a leaner customer experience with no exposure to forex risk. At the same time, it presents a structurally more profitable setup for the entire bank, improving both revenues generation and client satisfaction.

Finally, our activity as systematic internaliser and market maker. We are positioning Fineco to benefit from the shift of European brokerage market toward a more quote-driven model, increasingly similar to the United States.

In the future, we expect growing volume to be internalised across multiple asset classes, and also we will expand our activity as issuer and market maker for a wide range of products. Finally, this activity is a backbone of the launch of our future pan-European platform.

Down in the slide, we show the strong upside potential of these three growing initiatives to our brokerage revenues. Their contribution today is progressively building up, and we are very confident that will become increasingly important going forward in the future.

Let's now move to slide 22 to dive on ETFs. Fineco is uniquely positioned to capture the strong client-driven shift toward ETFs.

For a player like Fineco, the business represents a strong growth opportunity and a new revenue engine for brokerage both and investing, thanks to two main pillar. The first, our very efficient trading platform that is building up strong in volumes on the ETF side.

Second, our distribution model based on advanced advisory solution with an explicit fee, where ETFs are synergetic with no significant harm to margin and profitability of the bank. As a consequence, on the left side, you can see the strong acceleration in revenues from ETFs over the recent years.

The stock on our platform is quickly on the rise and is now close to €18 billion, gaining strong traction both among clients supported by financial planner and among direct clients. To further monetize ETFs, we are acting on several levers, both on brokerage and on the investing side.

On the brokerage side, first, growing clients engagement means higher turnover and higher brokerage fees. Second, ETF are very well in demand for securities lending, and it's a strong opportunity for our internalisation engine.

Finally, the platform fee agreement with a selection of ETFs issuers will be in place by the end of this half, adding a further recurring revenue streams. On the investing side, we see the strong clients interest means a big volume for our advanced advisory services, resulting in stronger revenues.

Second, FAM, Fineco Asset Management, is live with its active ETF range. For plain vanilla ETFs, is entering in a co-branding partnership with one of the leading issuer.

Finally, ETFs accumulation installment plans are now fully available on our investing services. Let's quickly move to the slide 23.

The plan for the deployment for our pan-European platform are progressing as expected. We confirm that by year-end, we will launch our first friends and family phase, which will follow the full launch on early 2027.

Finally, moving on the slide 24, we summarize the deployment of our artificial intelligence across our proprietary platforms. As a reminder, our AI-driven initiatives are already starting to deliver results.

As an example, personal financial advisor constantly using the AI platform saw an increase close to 20% of their commercial proposals. Finally, let me now briefly summarize the most recent artificial intelligence initiatives.

First, we are live with the customer relationship management for our financial planners, a key step to increase their productivity. It's fully integrated with Fineco platform and data, and allows our network to better clusters client and identify priority actions.

Second, we are in the friends and family phase also with the brokerage copilot that will improve the awareness and the engagement of our direct clients. The AI tool allows clients to screen securities, analyze portfolios on relevant news, and is fully integrated in the execution engine.

Thank you for your time, and we can now open the call to questions.

Yes, good morning. Thanks for the presentation and for taking my questions.

First question, I just noticed that there was a small drop in management fee margins over the quarter. I suspect this might be related to the fluctuation in markets and the mix.

Can you perhaps help us to understand a bit what drove it? Perhaps would be helpful to know, for example, what proportion of your AUM was in equity or let's say high-margin product at the end of March relative to the beginning of the year, so that would be helpful for us to understand how the margin may evolve over the coming quarters.

The second question, I noticed that there's a very very good trend undergoing on your salary, pension transfer. I was looking at your slide where you show the money coming in from these.

On average in Q1, for example, your bank transfer and salaries have increased by 13% year on year, compared to the same quarter last year, despite average clients having increase only by 9%. The same trend applies to 2025.

It really looks that either your existing clients are giving you more money, are transferring the back book, or the new clients on average have higher initial transfer compared to the historical one. Can you maybe give us some KPI, I don't know, perhaps how many clients are you seeing using only Fineco or Fineco as their main bank, is the trend increasing?

Because clearly this looks like a very positive trend. Then finally, on NII, I appreciate that you don't provide a very specific guidance, but if I look at consensus currently expects about 6% increase year on year, that looks pretty pretty light.

One of your competitor just reported and they revised their guidance up, they now expect 15% growth year on year. Can you just give us a ballpark figure even based on current deposit levels and forward curves?

I think it would be very helpful just to get a sense of how NII could evolve. Thanks.

Thank you for your questions. Let me start by the first one on the small drop in management fee margins.

As you are correctly underlining, is really very, very small drop. Clearly there is a combination of change caused by the market effect, because clearly when you have a negative impact caused by the market, clearly this tends to drive down also the margins, because is impacting.

Clearly, still there is the largest component in terms of net sales represented by fixed income solutions, but again, as we are continuously repeating, we are not particularly focused on the very small evolution on the margins, because at the end of the story, what is for us it's important is the combination between volumes and margins, at the end of the story, the evolution of revenues, because clearly we have been always extremely transparent on this point. We think that, generally speaking, on the asset under management side, the industry is expected to keep on experiencing some kind of pressure on margins.

What is important that is you are able to keep on growing decently and robustly, and at the end of the story, delivering a good evolution of the revenues. At the moment, the proportion of asset under management in equity is probably in the region of 35%, more or less that, and we didn't see any significant change at the end of the first quarter 2026, and we don't expect any significant change in going forward on the short term.

On the good trends on salary and pensions, clearly this is a combination of new clients that they are entering into the bank, using the platform. Clearly, what for us it's very important to underline the way we are gathering clients.

Fineco is not gathering clients throughout aggressive offer or paying very high rates. Fineco is gathering clients because the clients are truly interested in using our services, because they are considered state-of-the-art.

Clearly, in the evolution of the crediting of salary by clients, there is clearly a great contribution by the new clients, but we have also the clients we acquired in the past that they are becoming more familiar with the platform, and so they are deciding to credit their salary with us. It's a kind of increase of the share of wallet in terms of experience of our clients.

Clearly, what is important is to look to say if Fineco is yes or not the main bank for our higher clients, the answer is that this is clearly yes. This is perfectly demonstrated when we look to what's going on on the private banking side.

Fineco is growing three-time faster than the industry. This is the segment in which we are growing the most in terms of speed of acquisition of assets exactly for this reason, because the more the generational transfer is progressing, the more the clients are realizing the quality of our offer, and the more we have clients that they are using, upper-end clients, they are using more and more Fineco as their reference bank.

Consensus expected 6% increase on our net interest income, and clearly we think, the reason of the upgrade is because clearly we expect more. We are confident on that because, on one hand, there is the very clear evidence that the growth that the bank is experiencing is very well ahead of our expectation.

By definition, a growing net sales is bringing together higher deposits as well, the same story for the client acquisitions. This is the main driver.

In terms of change of the interest rates environment, we took an conservative approach. Clearly, now we are expecting an forward rate curve that is higher respect the forward rate curve we used for preparing the plan, but is remaining definitely below the actual forward rate curve.

The expectation in terms of evolution net interest income is clearly above this 6% increase, but remains, let me say, reasonably cautious. We are not bringing an book of dreams.

Hi there, thank you for taking my questions. My first question is just around the upgraded guidance outlook.

Obviously the numbers have been very good, but this is quite fast given guidance was only given 2 months ago. I was just wondering if you're able to quantify how much stronger this is versus your expectations.

Then on the net sales and client growth in particular, I was just wondering what you think the drivers are of this. I'm just wondering if this current growth is sustainable or if it's all been driven by recent volatility and marketing spend.

My next question was also just on the update on the Germany launch, just wondering if there's anything to say there around timing, when in H2 or H1 next year, and anything on variable costs. I guess how you're also thinking about the competitive environment, given commentary from recent peers.

Thank you.

Quantifying precisely the upgrade of the guidance, it can be extremely difficult, just to give you an example, because if we look, for example, as I was saying before, we are using a prudent approach in considering the impact of the interest rates on the interest rates environment. It's difficult to say exactly, because what can be the real dimension of the increase of the financial income for these reasons, because clearly if we consider the actual forward rate curve, clearly it can be definitely much higher than we can have if we are considering just an small uptick respect the initial forward rate curve we used for our plan.

This is the reason why. What is important to underline, what is driving the increase of this guidance is, as we say during the presentation, what is key as a KPI to keep in mind is the evolution of the total financial assets, of the net sales.

Because, considering the business model and the positioning of the bank, every single component of the mix is contributing positively to the increase of the revenues, at the end of the story, profits, because deposits, it's pretty clear, considering that these deposits are gathered in an extremely healthy way, and this means that the most part of these deposits are characterized by an zero beta, and so clearly this are incredibly profitable. Second, the asset under custody, as we showed during the presentation, there is a very evident correlation between the dimension of the asset under custody and the progression of the brokerage revenues.

Clearly the more asset under custody we gather, and the more you can expect that the floor of the brokerage revenues is going to keep on moving up. This is the reason why we are confident in expecting for another record year on the brokerage side exactly for this reason.

Asset under custody, it's a great business: so very profitable, fast growing, and with margins that they are not too different by the margins we have on the asset under management. Finally, there is asset under management that it's extremely easy to explain why is profitable.

The growth, yes, it's absolutely sustainable. We think on the other hand that we are in the position to keep on accelerating even more the growth of net sales and clients.

Regarding the marketing expenditures, what's very important to underline that the growth is not a direct consequence of the marketing expenditure. The growth is a direct consequence if you are spending your marketing budget in the proper way.

The concept is, I think that probably Paolo can be even more precise regarding when you're spending in marketing, it's very important that there is an high probability that someone is listening to you. Because, for example, if you are a bank that is not correctly positioned and you are transferring the concept that you are a great bank, doing a great service for your clients, this is a completely waste of money.

On the contrary, if you are a bank that is perfectly positioned currently with the messages that you are delivering, the more you spend, and the better is. Clearly the real reason behind this growth is the positioning of the bank and that is exactly capturing perfectly the incoming trends.

Paolo, if you want to spend few words on the German launch?

Yeah. As we said, we expect to launch the initiatives by the end of this year in a friends and family phase.

It really will depend on the friends and family phase. For now, we stay for the final launch to open for everybody in the first quarter 2027.

Again, the friends and family phase will give us the exact launch date. We'll have more details by then.

Thank you.

Hi, good morning, Alessandro and Paolo. I have a couple of questions.

One is related to the securities lending platform launch in June. Maybe can you give us an order of magnitude of revenues that you expect in a, let's say, full year of operation, 2027?

Is that going to be a significant contributor to revenues in your view? It's quite a new one because it's also for institutional, it could be interesting to understand.

The second question is on the total financial assets breakdown. There has been a slight decline for the private banking.

Of course, it has been impacted by the market performance, but I was wondering if there is any other specific reason for the slight decline, and if you still expect this part of the business to grow significantly in the future, and yeah, what are your expectations on the, let's say, private banking part in terms of net sales and future evolution? Thank you.

On the on the securities lending, clearly is what the bank is preparing is an is a is a is an extremely efficient platform, because clearly the the so the the the success of the securities lending business is going to be driven by two components: one, the dimension of the of the asset under custody business; and second, by the efficiency of the platform, in the in the meaning that the platform has to be able to deal with the broadest possible range of counterparties. Because on security this platform is going to interact with our internal clients, asset managers, hedge funds, market makers, prime brokerage desks, and so on.

This has to be a platform is going to be a platform able to give real-time interaction with all this extremely broad range of players. It's clear that it's we we are moving in a kind of we are extremely confident.

It's clear that until so far, the contribution of securities lending has been pretty small, and we we remain quite positive. In our plan, as we said, we we took an a reasonable, conservative approach, because we are entering in a kind of uncharted territory, a very promising uncharted territory, but in any case, it remains to be tested.

We it's we think that to give to you a precise numbers by the year-end is In the In the guidance, we we are giving, just to to be extremely transparent, in the in the just recent upgraded guidance for 2026 and and and the plan, we are not embedding in any gigantic contribution by the securities lending, but not because we are not confident that we can achieve that, because it's a brand new activity that we are entering. The combination of the dimension of the asset under custody we have, the granularity of the business we're running, because this is another very important component, and the the usual state-of-the-art capability of the bank of building up very efficient platforms is making us extremely positive and confident on the evolution.

On the private banking, as you is exactly what you are well underlining, is is just been driven by the market performance, because it's clear that the the small clients, by definition, they have a percentage of liquidity that is is is much tends to be much bigger than the the big clients. By definition, when you have when you have decline in markets, by definition liquidity is performing well.

This and so we don't expect so the trajectory in terms of growth of private banking is remaining absolutely intact and very promising.

Thank you. Going back just to understand, to the securities lending, from what you're saying, the assumptions underlying also in your mid-term guidance are not particularly aggressive, so that could be an area in which if things go in the right direction, there might be some potential positive news flow.

Is that correct,

as a

understanding?

Is exactly that.

Thank you. Thank you.

Hi there, thanks for the presentation and for taking my questions. Two from my side, please.

Just, firstly, on the AI enhancements that you've talked about, can you just say a bit about what usage you're seeing on those so far and how will you incentivize that usage among your own advisors? Relatedly, what KPIs should we look out for to see that those tools are having the desired impacts on the business?

That's question one, please. Secondly, just on this theme of competition within European brokerage and distribution, why do you think that's less evident for you in Italy versus some of the listed peers over the first four months of this year?

What do you see as the main structural barriers to competition that will support your business over the next few years, please? Thank you.

I don't know, Paolo, do you want to start with the AI enhancements and so giving some colors and...

In terms of usage, right now, we delivered the AI platform just to the financial planner, and they are able to use it to build a portfolio, check portfolio if they're in line with the MiFID, for example, or with the risk profile of the client. They can use it to check on the news that have an impact on the client's portfolio.

They can use it to build a pitch for new clients or maybe new portfolio, new allocation for clients they already have. They can do multiple things with the AI right now.

The usage is just massive. 90 and more percent of the net used already used the system, the engine.

Every day, we see a growing number of financial planner, they get used to the platform, they keep on using more and more and more. We were, of course, we're very happy with that.

It's, as I said many times, probably one of the highest adoption we experienced in our journey here in Fineco since the beginning, it's quite impressive. In terms of how we incentivize the usage, actually we, until now at least, didn't incentivize much, because they just used spontaneously the platform.

Also, having said that, we have a training program for the financial planner in place here in our academy, training hub that we have here in the headquarter. We plan in the future to train more financial planner using the AI that we releasing every month, more or less, new pieces of the platform.

As I said before, we just released the AI CRM for the financial planner, which is, in my opinion, is going to be even bigger in terms of impact than we already have in place. In terms of KPI, we monitor a list of different KPIs.

One of the KPIs is one of the one I mentioned during the presentation is the number of proposals that financial planner using AI are proposing to the final client, which is the number is quite impressive, it's 20% and more. This is a clear sign that they have a higher productivity, they're more active, they use the AI to be much more in contact with the final client.

Then we use also another KPI, very important, is the number of new clients that financial planner using the AI are having. Different KPIs, still in my opinion, it's too early to share all these KPIs.

They're all very good. We're very happy with what we're seeing.

Again, we need to wait for at least probably 6 months, a year since the launch, and give the possibility to all the financial planner to get use and use everyday the technology.

Thank you for raising the point on the competition in the EU brokerage arena. It's not completely correct saying that the competition has not come in Italy, because the competition has come in Italy by many years.

Because here in Italy, we we have all the by many years, we we have here in Italy all the most aggressive players in the brokerage arena. We have Trade Republic that is operating in Italy.

We have flatexDEGIRO that is operating in Italy by many years, Revolut as well, Interactive Brokers on the other hand. There is all the all the broad range of the most significant and aggressive players operating all around Europe are here in Italy by many years.

Is not So for which reason we the Fineco model, it's it's it's is keeping on growing and it's a great business? We have several reasons.

Number one, clearly there is the concept of the one-stop solution. Fineco is offering to the clients an extremely broad, horizontal experience.

This clearly it's extremely important for making the big clients very sticky. Because the the big clients with the big money that they are using the brokerage platform, clearly they are appreciating a lot the fact that Fineco is offering a such a kind of broad and great experience.

Second, the the the the experience we are giving, it's incredibly robust. It's because at the end of the story, what is very important to underline that for a client, it's it's important, it's very important, for example, the the reliability, the robustness of the platform, because clearly when you have particularly a fast market and so on, it's very important that everything has to be very strong, and Fineco has an incredibly robust infrastructure.

Third, and this again is driving back to the concept of the big clients, only or in any case, of clients with a decent amount of money, Fineco is the only one player among the most relevant brokerage players in Europe that is, at the same time, is a significant bank. Fineco is the only one.

All the other platforms are small, and so this clearly it's it's important for clients, being sure that you can get your services by an extremely robust, solid, trustful bank. Then also the on the in terms of offer, pricing, Fineco is incredibly competitive, because we, as during the presentation, we we stressed the point that how Fineco is advanced in the in direction of a a business model similar to the US one, in which you are managing the flows.

Fineco is internalising a lot of the activity, it means that we are able to offer right now a quite significant range of solutions characterized by zero commissions, for example. Because I think that the and this is a is a is a fast-growing component of the business.

I'm just thinking about to the, but we, I don't know, Paolo, it's...

This is totally true. The product most used from traders, for example, the most aggressive, the CFDs are commission-free, the ETFs, a basket of ETFs are commission-free, certificates where we are issuer, fixed-leverage and variable-leverage certificates are commission-free at our own we internalise it, our own products.

On the trading side, a big range of clients are already commission-free, they're already profiting from the model that we have, that we are able to internalise flows and give commission-free business to the final client.

Summarizing, it's a unique combination where you can get a very broad experience and a great services, robustness, provided by a large, significant, and trusted bank, with a level of commissions that are absolutely incredibly favorable and can match also the most aggressive offer by the, let me say, neo-brokers, something like that. This is what is making our position incredibly strong and continuously growing.

The competition is here, we are facing this competition by many years. We have some of these players that entered Italy going back in 2014, going back to 12 years ago, offering, for example, zero commissions.

Thanks for those very detailed answers, much appreciated.

Hi there, morning, thanks for the presentation. It's Oliver Carruthers from Goldman Sachs.

On the kind of recent comments from your international peers, I think that the marketing comment and the cost of marketing per unit return, I think it's been well covered by you. I think one of the other interesting comments we got from another one of your peers is they were making the point that the cost of software is coming down, in part due to AI, making international expansion easier.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on that, what you're seeing, and really how you're thinking about domestic and international growth priorities for your retail brokerage platform with that in mind. Second question, could we potentially double-click on the comments you made around growing the systematic internalisation and your market-making activities, really, what's driving this?

It sounds like that's a little bit incremental today as well. If you move to becoming more of this principal-agent model in brokerage, are there any capital requirements associated with this that we should be thinking about?

Thank you.

The first question answer, on AI clearly is making much easier the international expansion. I remember that a few years ago, there was a big hurdle represented by the CRM, for the languages and so on.

Now clearly it's something that you can manage incredibly well and easily, because theoretically you can build a CRM that is speaking a local language with also with a local dialect, and without having the need of a physical person. I don't know, Paolo, if you want to make some comments also on this point?

Yes, everything is easier with AI, not only for the expansion abroad, but for sure for the expansion abroad, the translation of the front ends was quite a problem a few years ago, and now we can translate our front ends in as many language as we want in seconds, it's much, much easier, that's for many different reasons.

Also has made incredibly easy to navigate through the a little bit different regulations, because we know that we are in the European Union, but, for example, the way compliance is working is not exactly the same. Few years ago was a mess, because was necessary having in place a team of people considering the different kind of compliance requirements in the different regions.

Now this can be done really in few seconds by artificial intelligence. Clearly, and so the timing of our decision of moving abroad has come also thanks to the confidence now we have thanks exactly to the presence of the artificial intelligence.

On the growing internalisation market, this is a worldwide trend, because if you look to the US market, now the US clearly is a completely quote-driven market. It's a market where when you see the prices splashing on the screens are the price is provided by the market makers that they are collecting the orders.

That is different by what has been until so far the prevailing situation of the European market where you have an order-driven market, with the client. In US now, practically this model is the results that the brokerage industry is an industry which practically there is the numbers of players that they are charging zero commissions is incredibly large, and the most part of the revenues are coming from the management of the flows.

This clearly an extremely easy, also very easy to be understood by clients, process. In Europe probably this approach is even more robust, because in Europe there are extremely strict rules on the best execution side.

This means that you don't run the risk to have a little bit the situation which you get an zero commission trade, but there is a question mark on the quality of the execution. In Europe, you can get both: so zero commissions and, at the same time, an extremely fair and transparent execution.

This is the reason why this approach is growing popular. What is key in order to play big in this arena?

Number one, having the right kind of clients, retail clients are perfect. Second, you need to have also the dimension, because clearly this is a business of dimension: if you're big, you can play this game, otherwise there is no way.

Third, technology and infrastructures: try to imagine what does it mean to just in a small fraction of seconds match clients' orders, fulfilling perfectly the best execution requirements, and so on. This is what is driving the growth, and so this is going to be the market of the future in Europe.

This is one of the main point of strength on which we can leverage in our, for example, plan of expanding abroad. This is what is making us extremely confident.

This is going to make our offer extremely distinctive. In terms of capital requirements, no, not at all, because this is a kind of, let me say, smart market making that it's not implying an usage of capital.

It's a completely capital-light activity.

Thanks a lot, really appreciate the detailed answers, thank you.

Yes, thanks, sorry, just a small follow-up. In one of your slides talking about ETF, you say that you will have a platform fee going live the first part of this year in 1H 2026.

Can you just clarify, is this the fee that you will charge ETF manufacturer to distribute their products on your platform? If that is the case, are you able to just give a rough quantification of how much that is going to be and how many players have already agreed to pay this?

Thanks. On the,

at the moment the arrangement is going to include probably what are the, can we say, the three largest players in the industry. We cannot give you an disclosure on the dimension of the agreement, because, as you can imagine, this is an extremely delicate point, we sign an nondisclosure agreement with them.

Because this is an inflection point in the industry of ETFs, because is marking the point in which clearly the industry is recognizing that more and more who is on the driving seat of this business are going to be the platforms. Because clearly the ETFs world is an ocean.

Just to give you an idea, on our platforms, we have 400 different MSCI World ETFs, it's for clients that apparently are all the same. Clearly the way the clients are navigating the platform is key, and so on.

The issuers are fully aware of this. This is an incredibly important point in the evolution of the industry, and we are extremely positive on the fact that clearly we are in that kind of position.

Again, it's a business of scale, it's a business of volumes, and clearly the more we grow in terms of volumes, and the more clearly we can leverage on that. This is going to become important and relevant and giving us an edge.

Is going to be in the region of, as a starter, of several millions of euros, but clearly we cannot give you an precise numbers right now. Clearly, these numbers are going to keep on evolving, because is not going to be a number that is going to be fixed this year for the future, is going to continuously being managed and negotiated with the counterparties accordingly with the evolution of volumes and the business.

I don't know, Paolo, if you want to add a few words on this point?

We cannot say much more, as Alessandro said, we have a very hard NDA signed, we cannot say much more, so, yeah.

That's very helpful. Just for clarity, these additional millions will be booked under brokerage commission?

We will see that as part of brokerage commission?

Yes, yes. I'm looking to the CFO because she is in the driving seat of the for the accounting of the...

Thank you for attending our results conference, thank you for the usual extremely interesting questions, and as usual, everyone of you that is interested in deep diving a little bit more in numbers, concepts, please call us anytime for a follow-up. Thank you again, and see you soon.

Thank you very much.