Thanks very much, Seb. Hello and welcome, everyone, to our second quarter results call.

As usual, I'm joined on today's call by our Group CEO, Vakhtang Butskhrikidze, and I'm also joined by our new Group CFO, Guy Stevens. Welcome, Guy.

As usual, the call will begin with a presentation, and then we'll move into Q&A. With that, I'll hand over to Vakhtang.

Thank you.

Thank you, Andrew, and hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us today.

As Andrew mentioned, today's call is also an opportunity to welcome our new Group CFO, Guy Stevens. We are delighted to have Guy join the team and wish him every success in his new role.

Now, listening to our second quarter results, I am pleased to present another strong quarter for TBC. Our profitability remains consistently high.

In the second quarter, group's net profit reached 386 million lari, up by 12% year on year, with a strong return of equity of 23.6%. This is driven by a good momentum in revenues as total operating income increased by 10% year on year, while our focus on managing our cost base helped us to reduce the cost to income ratio by almost two percentage points quarter on quarter to 38.8%.

Lending volumes remained robust, with the loan portfolio growing by 12% year on year, with Georgia in particular posting strong 14% year-on-year growth, while our Uzbekistan portfolio stabilized in the second quarter and is starting to return to growth. The continuous improvements we are making in our mobile banking services is bringing in more customers, particularly in Georgia, where we added over 50,000 digital MAU in the second quarter.

In total as a group, we now have 7.2 million digital MAU, a 6% increase year on year. Our strong financial performance and a solid capital position have enabled us to declare a second quarter dividend of 1.75 lari per share, bringing the total dividend for the first half of this year to 3.5 lari per share.

On the next slide, you can see the contributions made to the group by our different businesses, with our Georgian core currently contributing the majority share both in terms of balance sheet and the profits. Now turning to Georgia, Georgia's economy continues to post excellent growth, with real GDP growth accelerating to 7.9% in the first half of this year.

While the conflict in the Middle East has made a minimal impact on the Georgian economy as a whole, it does continue to impact inflation, which increased to 5.8% in June. We expect inflation to remain at this level for the rest of the year, which suggests the National Bank of Georgia would keep interest rates on hold.

Our real GDP growth outlook remains unchanged at 7.4%. We continue to strengthen our market-leading franchise in Georgia.

Our gross loan portfolio grew by 14% year on year, with particularly strong momentum in unsecured consumer loans, which have increased by 36% year on year, bringing us further gains in market shares. We are continuously refining our digital customer experience and product offerings in retail, with cash-secured loans and overdrafts launched in our mobile application in the first half of this year, which will help us to support the strong growth in the coming quarters.

As we remain the dominant bank in the market in a number of key market segments. In affluent retail, we have over 50% market share in loans and customers, with the number of Concept customers breaking through 200,000 in the second quarter, up by 30% year on year.

Meanwhile, in CIB, we are the leader with 44% market share in loans. On the next slide, you can see how our focus on the best-in-class digital financial services is bringing more customers to our platforms.

Digital MAU is up 19% year on year, and our DAU/MAU ratio has reached 50% as more customers interact with us on a daily basis. Evidence of the progress we have made can be seen as TBC being recognized by Euromoney as the best digital bank in Georgia for 2026.

We are also strengthening our retail banking team, and I'm delighted to welcome Sandro Rtveladze as a Deputy CEO who will head up retail banking in Georgia. Sandro brings over a decade of leadership experience across retail and digital banking, including as chairman of OTP Ipoteka Bank, and previously CEO of TBC Uzbekistan.

It's a great to have him on board. I'd also like to point out that we are also receiving industry recognition for the AI initiatives that are part of our natural business development.

We have won several awards within not only Georgia, but also in CE region. Our in-app chatbot, for example, now handles more than 6,500 customer queries a day, 60% of which are resolved without being passed on to our call center, while we are using AI across a wide range of business functions, from mortgage property valuation, AML, KYC checks to invoicing and contract workflows.

Now let's look at Uzbekistan. As in the case in Georgia, Uzbekistan economy continues to deliver remarkable growth, with real GDP growth expanding by 8.5% in the first half of this year.

Importantly, inflation has been declining over the past couple of years, reaching 6.4% in June, and is expected to remain broadly stable in the second part of this year. Lower inflation supports the local currency, which is important as all of our businesses is in Uzbek som.

Turning to our business, we are seeing strong dynamics across our core verticals. Our daily banking products continue to scale rapidly, with Salom card issuance more than doubling year on year to exceed 1.2 million, while Osmon credit card issuance has surpassed 210,000, and now credit cards accounting for 10% of our loan book, up from just 4% a year ago.

At the same time, payment activity remains very strong. In the first half of this year, total payment value reached $3.2 billion, up by 54% year on year, supported by Payme's continued leadership position in the market.

The growth of our payment franchise is feeding into the renewed growth in our fee and commission income, which rose 15% quarter on quarter in the second quarter. Now let's move on Slide 13.

Our Uzbekistan loan book stabilized in the second quarter and is starting to return to growth. An increasing in business, credit cards, and BNPL lending now more than offset the decline in unsecured cash loans.

Our deposit portfolio declined by 7% quarter on quarter as we optimized our liquidity position and decided to cut deposit costs. While we welcome starting to turn the corner in loan growth, we recognize that we still face challenges in asset quality, with NPLs and risk costs remaining high as we continue to provision older loan vintages, as well as start to adapt the changes being introduced to the auto-collection system.

We continue expand our product offerings in Uzbekistan. In the second quarter, we launched auto loans and secured SME lending, both important launches for our ambitious future growth.

I'm also pleased to announce that in late July, we completed the acquisition of OLX, the leading classified platform in Uzbekistan. This transaction further extends the reach of our digital ecosystem and creates a new opportunities to deepen customer engagement as TBC Uzbekistan plans to offer financial and payment services through OLX.

I firmly believe that we are building a great long-term business in Uzbekistan, and the strength of our digital platform has been recognized as the best digital bank in both Uzbekistan and Central Asia by Euromoney. Thank you for your attention, and I will now hand over to Guy.

Guy, please.

Thank you, Vakhtang, and thank you all for joining the call today. As new Group CFO, it's a real privilege to be presenting the group's results for the very first time.

I'm very much looking forward to meeting our shareholders and the research community in the coming weeks and months. Turning now to our financial performance, the group delivered another solid set of results in the second quarter and first half of 2026.

Starting with profitability, I'm pleased to report that in the second quarter, we continue to generate strong profitability. We achieved a net profit of 386 million lari in the second quarter, up 12% year on year.

This brought first-half net profit of 751 million lari, up 13% year on year. In Georgia, net profit was up 14% year on year for the quarter.

Return on equity remained strong at 23.6% in the quarter and 23.5% in the first half, in line with our target of 23%-plus 2026 to 2028. This is the 14th consecutive quarter where the group's ROE has exceeded 23%.

Now let's deep dive into our profitability drivers. Revenues grew well in the second quarter.

Total operating income increased by 10% year on year, with first-half operating income growing at a similar rate. This growth has primarily been driven by net interest income, which increased by 13% year on year in the quarter.

I'm also pleased to report that we are seeing fee and commission income recovering in both Georgia and Uzbekistan, with 14% quarter-on-quarter growth driven by general business expansion in Georgia and strong payments growth in Uzbekistan. As you can see on the right-hand side, our margins remained resilient in the second quarter, with our group net interest margin at 7.1%, slightly higher than in the first quarter.

Georgia saw a second consecutive quarter of margin improvement, helped by growth in our unsecured retail loan book, the higher-rate environment in Georgia, and putting our strong liquidity position to work. Overall net interest income in Georgia was up 19% year on year for the quarter.

Meanwhile, in Uzbekistan, the NIM appears to have turned the corner, and we expect to improve gradually as the loan book returns to growth. Turning now to costs, on the cost side, our focus on efficiency is bearing fruit.

The cost to income ratio fell by almost 2% in the quarter to 38.3%, which demonstrates the evidence of good cost control in both Georgia and Uzbekistan. Turning now to asset quality, as you can see on the right-hand side of the page, group cost of risk was 1.6% in the second quarter and 1.5% for the first half.

This is consistent with our performance in 2025. Asset quality remains largely stable and robust in Georgia, as reflected by a 70 bps cost of risk in the second quarter.

However, on the left-hand side, the level of NPLs increased by 0.3% in the quarter to 3.3% at the group level. This was driven by an increase in the level of NPLs in Uzbekistan.

This reflects three things. Number one is an extension of the write-off period that we have applied in Uzbekistan from 270 days to 360 days, given we are seeing material recoveries beyond the previous cut-off point of 270 days.

Secondly, there is some ongoing deterioration in credit quality for older vintages. Thirdly, the contraction of the loan portfolio over the past year.

This of course reduces the denominator of the ratio. I would however note that our NPL provision ratio in Uzbekistan remains solid at 114%.

As for the outlook for the third quarter, we expect some upward pressure on the cost of risk in Uzbekistan, in part due to ongoing changes being implemented to the auto-collection system for overdue loans. However, we expect to see a more positive trajectory from the fourth quarter of the year.

Turning now to our balance sheet dynamics, growth remained robust during the second quarter. Gross loans increased 12% year on year on a constant-currency basis, led by a strong performance in Georgia, where loans increased by 14% year on year.

As Vakhtang mentioned earlier, the loan portfolio in Uzbekistan stabilized and is now showing signs of growth. Customer deposits increased strongly, rising by 15% year on year on a constant-currency basis.

The growth was broad-based across retail and SCIB segments in Georgia and is supported by the strong customer acquisition outlined earlier by Vakhtang in Georgia. Turning now to our capital position, we continue to maintain robust levels of capital in both Georgia and Uzbekistan, comfortably above regulatory requirements.

We had previously indicated a new regulatory framework was going to come into effect from the 1st of July for consumer loans in Uzbekistan. Today we have learned that this has actually been paused and is not currently being implemented.

We will keep investors informed as we learn of developments. Had the previously communicated change in the risk-weight framework for consumer loans in Uzbekistan been implemented, we still would have maintained material buffers above the regulatory minimums for our capital position in Uzbekistan.

Which brings me to capital returns. The group's strong profitability and capital generation continue to support attractive shareholder returns.

As Vakhtang mentioned earlier, the board has declared a quarterly dividend of 1.75 lari per share for the second quarter. This brings total first-half dividends to 3.5 lari per share, which is up 8% year on year.

Finally, I'd like to close today's presentation by summing up the key takeaways for the first half of 2026. TBC maintained strong growth and profitability in the first half of the year, with a 23.5% return on equity.

This sets us up well for the second half of the year and keeps us on track for our financial targets. In Georgia, strong customer acquisition and engagement is helping drive mid-teen loan and deposit growth.

In Uzbekistan, we are delivering on the recalibration of our business. We're seeing signs that the loan portfolio has stabilized and is beginning to return to growth, while momentum across payments, cards, and the ecosystem remains strong, although we do recognize the ongoing challenges on asset quality.

Then finally, our strong capital position continues to support both future growth of the business and attractive returns for our shareholders. Thank you for your attention.

At this point, we would now be happy to take your questions.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to ask a question, and congrats on solid results. My first one would be on NIM in Uzbekistan.

What level of NIM expansion do you basically expect in Uzbekistan, given that you gradually diversify away from higher-margin cash loans? That's the first question.

The second question is on Georgia, fees and commission. If this interchange fees cap would be implemented at some point, what sort of impact would you expect to have on your fee and commission income?

That's it for now, and maybe I'll ask follow-ups. Thank you.

Thank you, Dmitry. On our Uzbekistan NIM, and as I said, we're seeing signs that the NIM has turned the corner.

Given what has happened on the asset side of the balance sheet with the contraction of the portfolio, we have had an excess liquidity position. That's something that we have focused on.

Now that the portfolio is returning to growth, we expect to see that's going to help in terms of our NIM going forwards. We are more optimistic on the outlook for our NIM.

I think in terms of the situation in Georgia, and I'll let Vakhtang expand on this, I think at the current time, there is no sort of certainty that there is going to be a change to the interchange fees. I'll let Vakhtang expand on that.

Thank you, Dmitry. To answer the question about fee and commission income for Georgia, there are some kind of the discussions going on, but I want to remember there was such a case two years ago, three years ago.

I think we are ready for any kind of the scenario, but for us the base scenario that next year we are planning to have a growth in fee and commission income. If the situation will go worse on the base scenario, probably there will be growth, but one-digit numbers.

Otherwise, we're forecasting growth has to be around 10%.

That's very clear, thank you.

Thanks very much, Dmitry. Next up is Ross from Peel Hunt.

Ross, please go ahead.

Afternoon. Thanks for taking my question.

Thanks for the additional detail you provided around that increase in provisions in the Uzbekistan business. Can you give a bit more detail about how you see the asset quality evolving here into H2 and beyond?

Then secondly, on Georgian NIM, it's pleasing to see the expansion in Q2, obviously helped by the increase in base rates. Again, how do you see the NIM in Georgia evolving from here into the second half and beyond?

Thanks.

I think on asset quality in Uzbekistan, I think it probably makes sense to give a little bit more kind of color to what we saw in the second quarter. As I mentioned, the increase in NPLs was driven by three factors.

One was the change in the write-off policy, and that was driven by us actually recovering material amounts of loans post the 270-day cut-off. I mentioned the impact of the portfolio in terms of the portfolio being 10% lower as at 30th of June relative to year end, so that obviously changes the denominator.

To come specifically to your question in terms of how we see the outlook, we did see a deterioration in or a seasoning of older vintage of loans, loans that are originated 12 to 18 months ago. That had some impact in terms of the cost of risk.

Where does it kind of take us through in the third quarter? I think we will continue to see those older vintages come through in terms of seasoning.

We also have the developments around progressive changes in auto-collections for overdue loans, which is effectively a sort of kind of similar to a sort of direct debit. If someone doesn't pay the loan, you can automatically collect through the card payment system.

Those have been well signaled in terms of the potential changes. As of now, there isn't clarity on that, but we have prepared well.

We have been working on our collections. What it all means in terms of where we're heading in terms of the cost of risk for the third quarter, we do expect an increase in the cost of risk in Uzbekistan taking us to low mid teens.

I think going in then into the fourth quarter of the year, we do see a more positive trajectory. That's on the asset quality in Uzbekistan.

I think in Georgia, I think in terms of where we've seen the NIM, there's been two consecutive quarters of improvement. Drivers of that, I think, I outlined, we've been helped by our liquidity position.

You'll see that our net loans as a proportion of assets has increased as we've deployed liquidity, which has helped us. Also in terms of the NIM, we've been helped by the very strong growth of our retail business.

As Vakhtang mentioned, our unsecured retail book has grown very, very significantly, 36% up year on year. That has been positive on NIM.

I think in terms of the outlook from where we go from here, I think the NIM certainly stable. There is potential upside to it.

I think we're kind of pleased with what we have achieved in Georgia, and we sort of expect more of the same. In a sense, the messaging would be that, as we continue to see retail grow, we should be seeing that flow through into the NIM.

Very clear. Thank you.

Thanks very much, Ross. Next we have a question from Rahim from Cavendish.

Rahim, please go ahead.

Hi. Thanks for the chance to ask a couple of questions.

The first was just in terms of the Georgian business. Obviously, delivery continues to go very well there and consistent, and credit growth is strong.

I was just wondering if you saw any particular areas that are doing particularly well and anything that you'd like to kind of draw out in terms of the focus there. Then on Uzbekistan, congrats for getting the OLX deal completed.

Just be useful to hear your views on where the long-term sources of value are from that transaction and how we should try and monitor the success of that going forward.

I will try to answer this question about the Georgian. As we mentioned in our presentation, we have a very strong growth, 14%, and that growth will be continued in the second part of this year.

Key priority for us, as Guy and also I mentioned in the presentation, to increase retail business. Because we see we are in comfortable growth in CIB.

We have more than 44% market share. We have a comfortable level of market share in SME.

Now our priority in Georgia to grow up faster our mass retail and retail business. Especially we are doing well, as we mentioned, we increased number of our monthly active users by 50,000, and we have a much more ambitions to do better in the second part of this year.

On the OLX, that was strategic move from our side. This is very important because, as we showed in our presentation, monthly users of OLX today is more than 5 million.

It's a good opportunity for us to increase leads for our retail customers in Uzbekistan. Plus in addition, as we are growing up our business in micro and SME, and we believe that is a good opportunity for us through OLX to bring more leads to our TBC Uzbekistan bank and to crop our loan portfolio and also payment business.

Very helpful, thank you both.

Thank you, Rahim. Next up, we've got a question from Dan Mikhaylov.

Dan, please go ahead.

Hi, this is Dan from Vergent. Congratulations on the results.

Two quick questions on Uzbekistan. The first one is we saw a sequential improvement in loans in the second quarter of '26.

What kind of loans growth should we expect in Q3 and Q4 to get us to a certain year-end number now that we're back in positive territory? My second question is a follow-up on the earlier question on OLX.

Could you elaborate on what kind of products you expect to be offering through that deal to try and understand better how a classifieds business sort of ties into the lending side of your business? Okay.

Why don't I take the first part of that, and I'll ask Vakhtang maybe to do the second part. I think in Uzbekistan, as I said, portfolio down relative to year end, but we did see growth in the second quarter, 0.4%.

We've continued as managed to see a contraction in our instant cash loan business as planned, but we did start to see nice growth coming through or continuing growth coming through on the business loan side, buy now pay later, credit cards. We expect that trend to continue.

In terms of the outlook for the year, I think given the profile of the business and given what we have seen in the past, we always expect to see volume growth to be strong in the fourth quarter of the year. I think where we are hoping to land up is when we get to the end of '26, we will see a portfolio that will be of the same size or have increased relative to the end of the year 2025.

Strong growth coming through towards the end of the year so that actually when we reach the end of the year, we won't have seen a year-on-year contraction in the portfolio in Uzbekistan.

To answer on the second question about what kind of product. This is the standard products such as auto loans, BNPL.

Once more to iterate, we just closed the deal a few weeks ago, and we are in the process to adapt and to understand how to develop that product. Probably that could become material for our operations in the payments and in the leads and generation of the loans probably from the second part of 2027.

All clear, thank you.

Thank you, Dan. Next up, it's Simon from Citi.

Please go ahead. Hi, thanks.

Thanks for the opportunity. A few questions for me.

Just wondering if you have a new kind of normalized risk cost idea for Uzbekistan going forward and when you think you'd get there, because I understand that you think risk cost will rise again next quarter before it starts to normalize. That'd be question number one.

Also just interested in the fee outlook for the second half and going forward. You had very nice fee growth in Uzbekistan.

Is that expected to be maintained? Also interested in the tax rate or the outlook for tax for Uzbekistan, because you've had positive tax in the first quarter or first half actually, even though you had positive PBT.

Then maybe the same on cost outlook and the FX income outlook. Thank you.

Sorry, a lot of questions, I know.

Thanks, Simon. I think, Uzbekistan, we are in a sort of recalibration, transitory mode that we're delivering on.

Third quarter, I think, the expectation is that we do see the peaking of the cost of risk, and as signaled, we're expecting that to be low mid teens. As we get into the fourth quarter, hopefully we've got clarity by then around the progressive changes around auto-collections.

We will be seeing hopefully growth coming through in terms of the portfolio as we continue to implement the recalibration. As I said, we are seeing good growth and a change in the composition as SMEs loans, buy now pay later, credit cards come through in terms of the growth.

I think, fourth quarter, we're going to be in a different position hopefully to the third quarter. I think it's too early to say kind of what the kind of run rate is going to be thereafter.

I think the next two quarters for us are very important in terms of showing that we can execute. I think, post that fourth quarter, we're going to be in a better position to give a view in terms of the normalized cost of risk.

As I said, I think the view is that the third quarter is going to be the peak. I think in terms of the fee outlook, if you kind of decompose it into two parts, Georgia, we have benefited from very good volume growth from both our retail and CIB business, and that has helped us in terms of our fee and commission growth in the second quarter of the year.

I think, as I mentioned, you picked up on it in terms of how our payments business is doing as well in Uzbekistan. That gives us some positivity.

I think, for the full year in terms of fee and commission income, we expect to be sort of flattish for the full year. Obviously, first quarter was impacted by investments that we were making in terms of our cards and our loyalty program in Georgia.

I think the message for the full year, year on year, will be flattish. Obviously, we saw growth in the second quarter, and we expect to see growth over the next two quarters.

Tax rates, I think, there was also the issue around tax in the first quarter in Uzbekistan, two aspects to that. One was the ability to utilize the deferred tax assets and a tax credit.

I think going into the second quarter, we don't expect to see anything kind of unusual. I think these should be considered as one-off.

Then the final question I think was on one of kind of costs. As I said, the second quarter was positive in terms of there is good focus in terms of cost management both in Georgia and Uzbekistan.

I think we will continue to see that. I think the first quarter was a sort of one-off in terms of where we were.

I think where we were in the second quarter would probably give a better feel as to where we're heading for the full year.

Super. Very clear, thank you.

Thank you, Simon. We don't currently have any...

oh yes, we have a question. Nikolai, please go ahead.

Hi there. Yes, can you hear me?

Yes.

A couple of questions from me. On OLX, historically that's been more of a classifieds type of business, and I was wondering about your plans for that platform.

I know you have a partner there, but is the idea to keep the business model as it is currently, or you want to migrate it to one that is more of a marketplace that is similar to what Uzum is trying to do? The second question is on SME lending in Uzbekistan.

I was in Uzbekistan about two to three weeks ago and understand that there's a lot of demand for SME loans in dollars as well. I was wondering what you see on your side in terms of what the demand is comprised of in terms of currency.

Related to the SME question, as you repositioned the book, to what extent the SME origination will be new origination versus reprofiled consumer loans? Then finally, I know that you have an AT1 that is becoming callable in November, a couple of months from now, and I was wondering what your plans are regarding that.

Thank you.

I'll try to answer the first question, and afterwards Guy will continue. On the OLX side, our strategy to continue be there as a classified business, not to go to the marketplace, because we believe that in being in classified and the brand that's a very good knowledge in Uzbek market will create the value for TBC operation there once more just to increase number of the retail and micro and SME customers.

Our answer is that we'll keep the business as it exists today, classified business. Then

I think on the SME side, the business line is a separate business line. There is, I think, perhaps a less clear distinction in terms of what is a kind of an SME in Uzbekistan versus a retail customer in many jurisdictions.

I think from our perspective, what we're seeing is that this is a new kind of customer segment, a new profile of customers. It's not a question of kind of substituting one classification for another classification.

This is a different profile of customer. As of today, the demand is largely in local currency.

I think in terms of the AT1, I'm not going to get into specifics around that at the moment. Obviously in the context of our capital, we have our capital stack, we have our minimums, we have our buffers.

We are mindful of the AT1, and we obviously have plans to ensure that we continue to have a comfortable level of AT1. I think, as and when we're in a position to make an announcement on that, we will.

Excellent, thank you.

Thank you, Nick. I don't think we have any other questions on the Zoom line.

Seb, do we have any on the phones?

Good afternoon, everybody. I've got a couple of questions on Uzbekistan.

If you could just confirm, I think you mentioned that the risk-weighting changes aren't going ahead, if you can just confirm that I understood that correctly. Sort of allied to that, could you just describe what is the regulatory decision-making process in Uzbekistan?

Seems like some of these decisions are coming a little bit out of the blue. If you can just help us to understand how much visibility you're getting on rule changes, and at which agency are the decisions actually being made?

Is it the Central Bank or the Finance Ministry or coming at presidential level? How much consultation there is in that whole process with the banks?

That's the first question. Then second question just on the potential changes to auto-collection.

You're saying mid low low mid teens cost of risk in Q3. Is that including potential changes to auto-collection, or if those don't come about, would that guidance potentially be lower, just to understand that?

Thanks.

Thanks, Piers. Why don't I take the first and third parts, and I'll ask Vakhtang to take the second part in terms of the kind of engagement with the regulator.

In terms of what was proposed as the new framework for consumer loan risk weightings, that had been very kind of clearly indicated as coming into effect on the 1st of July. It was news to us today we were communicated with the other banks in Uzbekistan that that framework is not going to be applied at the current time.

This is fresh for us because it's obviously a positive, but in practice, we still would have been very, very well comfortably capitalized in Uzbekistan. At the moment, we don't have any kind of updates as to if and when it will be implemented.

The messaging to us has been that at the current time it is not being implemented, we consider this as a potential pause. As and when we have more information, we'll obviously let you know on that.

In terms of the kind of auto-collection process, again it's something that's been very well signaled over a period of time. There have been in anticipation of this coming into effect progressive changes that have been implemented by the card companies, the card infrastructure in Uzbekistan that we have responded to in terms of how we've looked at the cost of risk.

We've responded as well in terms of what we're doing on the collection side. I think in terms of we don't anticipate any sort of negative surprise because we have planned very, very well for that.

However, clearly if there was a sort of backtracking in terms of the discussion around auto-collections, that might have some impact. At the moment, our assumption is that these changes will go into effect.

There is an ongoing process in terms of consultation with the regulator in terms of what the changes would be, and so again, I think we have a pretty clear view as to what could happen. That is factored into our guidance in terms of the cost of risk for the third quarter.

In terms of kind of interaction with the regulator and relationship, maybe Vakhtang, you could say a few words on that.

I think we build it very good relationship with the regulator. Personally, me, minimum two or three times I'm meeting the governor of the National Bank.

On the management level, there is a weekly, monthly meetings. Good sign is that last one year we have seen that also regulator is before introducing any regulations are in discussions not only with us, but also with commercial banks and the debates are going there.

Are you with us, Piers?

Yes, I am. Sorry, I thought the line had cut there.

No, that's very clear. Thanks for the answers.

Thank you.

We don't have any other questions. Just to say thank you everybody for joining our call.

As ever, we are open to meeting you whenever works for you, and look forward to continuing to engage in dialogue with you. We will see you at the third quarter numbers in November.

Thank you very much, and have a good day. Bye-bye.

Thank you. Bye.