Good afternoon. Thanks for attending the conference call of H1 2026 results, which will be presented by our CEO, Mr.

Giuseppe Castagna, and our Joint General Manager, CFO, Edoardo Ginevra. All the material, presentation and press release, are available on our website under the investor relations section.

Of course, as usual, please limit yourselves to maximum two questions each, and now let me hand over to Mr. Castagna.

Thank you.

Good evening, everybody. Happy to be here to present a very strong set of results of our first half of 2026, which allow us, first of all, to boost shareholder returns and to announce a new commitment of remuneration going up from €6 billion to €7 billion over the plan horizon up to '27.

We will go further into detail immediately. Let's say that the performance of this first year, and in particular of Q2, was really fantastic.

We have a record profitability in terms of net income with the highest level of net profit at €1,060 million, improving revenue mix, cost/income, and cost of risk; record asset quality, going below 2% for the first time ever in terms of gross NPE ratio; and record capital generation, which allow us to have a CET1 ratio at 14.40%, 140 basis points versus plan minimum threshold and 240 bps in the last 18 months since year-end 2024. These results allow us to confirm and to increase the net income guidance for '26 above €1.95 billion for a total expected of DPS equal or higher to €1.

Let me remind that with these results, which is, of course, in line with the plan target, but this year we will overcome practically of €100 million the results of the original plan because of the external headwinds that you may remember come from the fiscal law and the Banca Progetto deal, which amounted for €100 million and were not taken, of course, in consideration when we did the original plan. Let me say that we will also raise the interim dividend guidance to €750 million, which means €0.50 of dividend per share, up from €0.46 last year, meaning €700 million of distribution.

This give also us room to enhance remuneration of our shareholders through a mix of buyback and additional dividends, which will be announced officially after we will have the ECB approval. Let me say that through this combination, we will have a cumulative remuneration target which, I would say, go back to €7 billion in the plan horizon from €6 billion, which is back to the plan maximum level before the Anima transaction.

You may remember that we announced in the first time in February '25 the possibility to distribute €7 billion if the goodwill of Anima wouldn't be deducted from our capital. Very well that then we didn't obtain the Danish Compromise, and we were obliged to reduce dividend distribution to €6 billion.

Nowadays, we can be able again to raise this target to €7 billion, which from now on will be the target that we have for the cumulative four years, which means €4 billion in the next two years, '26 and '27. This is thanks, on page 7, to a very sustainable and constant long-term value creation.

We have again a first-half net income record, and we wanted to show you the progression of these results through the difficult years of the restructuring after the merger of the bank, the consolidation after the pandemia, and the starting of the new transformational strategy started in 2023 with the taking on board the new product factories: in '23 related to bancassurance; in '24, the new Numia deal for payment system; and in '25, the acquisition of Anima. Since then, we have been increasing our net profit from €650 million in '23, €770 million in '24.

Let me remember that in '24 we had 170—1.74% Euribor higher than the current one. Notwithstanding that, now we have reached €1.077 billion, €1.060 billion stated, which means a strong increase through the non-NII interest.

We will come back soon also with some more detail, which means a net income adjusted CAGR of 18% since 2023 and again the capability to offset more than 100 basis points of reduction of Euribor with always stronger net profit results. Let on page 8 to talk and to show you how our total revenues changed during the last two years.

In '24, we had non-NII revenues for €1,070 million, which represented 38% of the total revenues. In '26 first half, we are having almost €600 million of non-NII revenues on our total revenues, which represent 52% of the total revenues, with an increase of 55% on a two-year time.

An important increase year-on-year comes from the product factory that '26 on '24 first half grew €77 million, which is 10% higher than last year result. Of course, this revenues increase was coupled with a very strong cost control, both in terms of cost/income—we went down from 48% to 43% in first half '26—and a cost of risk, which went down from 38 basis points in '24 to 31 basis points this year.

Talking of NPE, let me remind that we were able since the merger to reduce the gross NPE ratio from 24% to below 2%. We are now 1.96%, which net is 1.03%.

Let me remember, without any share issue during this 10-years period. Excluding the NPE with state guarantee, we have now a net NPE ratio of 0.53% and a net bad loan ratio at 0.1%.

Very good performance also in the default rate, which is down to 0.73%, down from 0.84% last year, and we are also able to reduce the share of Stage 2, which now represent 7.4% of total performing loan versus 8.1% last year. The strongest impact comes from the capability of the bank, through profitability and management action, to build up a strong capital position.

We now reached 14.4%, which means 240 basis points higher than in the last 18 months. We position also the reduction we had to absorb in 2025 through the acquisition of Anima without the Danish Compromise.

This accounted for 240 basis points, which, coupled with regulatory headwinds, add to 300 basis points of deduction that we had to rebuild during these 18 months. As a matter of fact, being at that level, we now think there is room to enhance shareholder remuneration through allocation of buyback or dividends to be determined exactly following ECB approval and, of course, shareholder meeting approval.

We will be able to maintain our target level of CET1 above 13% threshold thanks to the, again, internal capital generation, the DTA reduction still to come in the next two years, and managerial action, which were always able to manage in order to build up more capital. On page 12, let's have a look to the Q2 results.

We have an increase in net interest income Q-on-Q of 4.6%, slight increase in net fee and commission, and an increase of 3% of core revenues. If we go after net financial results and other net operating items, the total revenues grew 9% Q-on-Q and 7.7% year-on-year.

Operating costs were down year-on-year 1.2%, up on the last quarter 2.9%, bringing pre-provision income at 13.8% and 15% higher Q-on-Q respectively and year-on-year. We had also a very good result in terms of loan loss provision, which amounted to €76 million, with a decrease year-on-year of 14%, which contribute to have a pretax profit 18% higher year-on-year and 15% higher on last quarter, and going down, of course, you will see also net income adjusted 13% higher year-on-year and 23% higher Q-on-Q.

The evolution of the Q2 results are shown in the right side of the page, where you can see the last two second Q quarters in '24 and '25, you can see how our strategy implemented all the main figure in order to get the final results. Total revenues grew 22% in two years.

Cost/income down from 49% of Q2 '24 to 42% in Q2 '26, which is our best ever results. We already talked about loan loss provision, and pretax profit grew 52% from €600 million to €900 million.

Let's go through some detail of the profit and loss. Net interest income back to increasing Q-on-Q 4.6%, with, of course, an Euribor which is growing Q-on-Q of 15 basis points, and a contribution is coming both, mainly from commercial banking activity, but also from the govvies portfolio.

We were able to manage the increase of Euribor very well, especially in liability spread, which grew more than Euribor average, which brought our liability spread from 1.44% to 1.60%, reducing only 2 basis points the asset spread. The total commercial spread grew from 2.89% to 3.03%.

No main news about the sensitivity. More or less, is the same of last quarter.

We are still with the small increase of replicating portfolio vis-à-vis the target of €25 billion, but it will be reduced in the second part of the year. Meanwhile, we started to reduce from 37% to 35% the indexed current account in view of the increasing Euribor environment.

Another very good news comes from lending volumes. We are continuing commitment to support our clients, even though preserving our loan book quality, as I mentioned before.

The new lending in first part of the year is €13.8 billion, of which €7.6 billion in Q2, which is 22% higher than Q1. The loan book is growing 1.8%, which is exactly in line, even higher than the total growth for '26, and this growth is coming especially year-to-date from the non-financial corporates, which grew almost 3%.

The quality of the portfolio is secured by the location of our clients—72% are located in North of Italy—and by the collateral and guarantee which support our stock—47% is secured basically half and half through state guarantee and collateralized loans. This 47% grew to 61% if we talk about SMEs.

On the right side of the page, you can see the record level of €7.6 billion, which is the best new loan growth that we are experiencing, but I have to say that July was even better. In only one month, we were able to grant €3.3 billion.

A good news comes also from the profitability coming from the new loans, which grew from 1.42% of the new loans granted in Q2 '25 to 1.57% linked to the new loans granted this first part of the year. Net fees and income from insurance, also in this case, we are at a record level of €1.5 billion, the 3.2% higher than last year, of which 51% are represented by product fees from investment sales.

On the right side of the slide, you can see that the investment product fees grew 70.5% versus first half '25 and almost 15% vis-à-vis Q2 '25. This growth comes from the very strong and solid results from Anima, which grew 15%, and also, I would say this is quite new for us, a very good performance in terms of running fee, which grew 5% vis-à-vis first half of '25.

Also in terms of investment product placement, we were able to overcome the very strong results of H1 '25, reaching €12.2 billion of sales. Notwithstanding, there was an increase also in the placement of BTP, which is, of course, considered apart from the €12.2 billion of asset management products.

Also for the other fees, meanwhile, we have a reduction 1.8% year-on-year due to the reduction of the ecobonus, which, of course, this year is much lower than last year. If we compare Q2 '26 to Q2 '25, we have a growth of 3.8%, coming particularly from the increase that we have from the product factories, 4%, and a strong recovery of the specialized activity, which mainly are represented by structured finance fees and trade finance fees, which grew respectively 34% versus Q1 '26 and 20% versus Q2 '25.

All results are growing and leave us room for better results in the second part of the year. Let's talk about the other side of the balance sheet, total customer financial asset.

We grew €7.6 billion in Q2 versus Q1, €4 billion year-to-date, of which €1.1 billion in current account and the rest in indirect funding, for which we registered a positive net flows of almost €2 billion, meanwhile the rest, of course, is a market effect. These results are bettered also by the Anima performance, as we mentioned before.

Anima contribution to total revenues of the group is 18% higher than the pro forma of '25. You remember that we brought on board Anima only in Q2, but we have pro-formed as it was here in the Q1 '25.

And 27% of net income, at €145 million, higher than the first part of '25. Total group customer financial asset, adding on our own and Anima's, excluding, of course, €55 billion in Anima which are coming from BPM, is very close to €400 billion of total financial asset.

Let me pay some attention to slide 17. This is the real change that we did during the last couple of years.

As you may remember, we built up the strong activity in product factories starting from '23, starting having results basically from the first half of '24. In the first half of '24, we reached €456 million of the contribution from product factories.

This amount is now, after two years, €822 million, completely targeting what and overcoming the target '26, which the average half-year was €800 million, and very close to the target that we have for '27, which is €860 million. The share on total revenues of the product factory grew from 16% of '24 to 26% of this first part of the year.

On the right side of the slide, you can see how we are a sort of unicum amongst our competitors. We have only one competitor which has a share of net fees and insurance very close to our 47%.

The other peers are very much with the figure which are very much smaller than ours, from 42% to 32% of contribution on net fees. How much is important to have a solid contribution from fees independent from the volatility of interest rate.

Coming to the cost side, again, cost/income 43% in six months and 42% in Q2, is a 1.6% lower of first half '25 thanks to the staff cost reduction of 4% year-on-year, which take benefit from the Solidarity Fund saving of last year, which reduced the cost of personnel of €49 million, only partially offset by €10 million of new labor contract cost. We can envisage that second part of the year will not that different from the first part of the year.

In term of other administrative expenses, we have an increase of 2.9% because we have accounted some extraordinary costs in the first part of the year. We envisage a better second part of the year in order to reduce the increase year-on-year.

We already spent some words, but it's worth to mention, the very strong results in terms of credit management. Cost of risk down to 31 basis points, NPE ratio below 2%, NPE coverage up to 48%, and if we exclude the NPEs with state guarantee, we have a coverage which is almost 60% as total coverage and more than 81% in terms of bad loans coverage.

Let me hand the word to Mr. Ginevra, which will continue on the financials.

Thanks a lot, Giuseppe. Also the contribution of our financial business to the results has been really excellent in this half-year.

On the left side of this slide, you see that the contribution to capital of reserves has improved. Now we have negative reserves of €256 million, down from negative reserves of almost €300 million at the beginning of the year.

This in parallel with the derisking, reduction in the risk of the government bond portfolio, whose basis point value went down from €2.4 million to €2.15 million in the first half of the year. Derisking has interested also Italian government bonds, down from €0.83 to €0.69 million.

Debt securities are at €47.6 billion. 29% is fair value through other comprehensive income, 71% is amortized cost, with very limited exposures in terms of capital to market fluctuations.

Italian govvies' share on the total of the banking book, or govvies and supranational, to be more precise, is 38.4%. Improvement has been reported also in the yield of this portfolio, which is now at a level of 255 basis points in the first half of the year.

On the right side, net financial results that, as shown in the previous slide, improved 62.3% in first half of the year, both thanks to the contribution of cost of certificates, which went down from €92 million to €58 million thanks mostly to the declining rate scenario, Euribor, but on top of it, also had an improvement of our own credit spread. The other NFR components improved their contribution from €180 million to €202 million.

Half of these element is represented by dividend on MPS. It's flat versus last year.

The improvement in general is driven by the contribution of global market activities and by dynamic management of market positions. Liquidity and funding has improved both in terms of cash and unencumbered assets, which is now at €53.5 billion, back to the level of December, basically, and in terms of direct funding, which went up from €133.7 billion to €144.1 billion in the quarter, mostly driven by increase in the items of repo financing.

LCR is at 143%, and NSFR is at 123%, with high-quality liquid assets at a very comfortable level of €31.3 billion. The position in June has been already illustrated in the first part of the presentation.

The walk that leads us at this level is illustrated on page 22, where you see how we started from 13.59%. P&L performance is 98 basis points.

Dividends reduced the level of capital by 83—of CET1 ratio by 83 basis points, bearing in mind that here we have a level of dividend implied in this calculation of €840 million, higher than the one that we have said is the level of interim dividend, which creates additional comfort to our capital position. Fair value through other comprehensive income and DTAs improved CET1 ratio respectively of 60 and 30 basis points.

Business dynamics implies a reduction of 24 basis points. RWA now at €68.8 billion.

MDA buffer is at a very comfortable level of 487 basis points. MREL, including the Tier 2 issued in July, the buffer is at 468 percentage point.

As usual, we have also highlighted the future contribution to capital coming from progressive reduction in deduction from DTAs and fair value through other comprehensive income net reserves. This contribution is as high in the future as 150 basis points, of which 70 basis points are expected to mature in the plan horizon, in the next 18 months.

Now I hand over again to Giuseppe for the conclusion, for the final remarks.

Thank you, Edoardo. Please go to slide 24, a brief sum up of the results we announced.

We have a very strong set of profits from continuing operation, growing 32% in the last two years, and the results of this first half of the year is already above the half-yearly average of 2027, which is our plan target of the four-years target we presented. Also in terms of net income, we are growing massively and constantly because if you adjust '24, '25, and '26, we will see that there is a growth of almost 10% again also in '26, because we have to remember that the guidance of €1.95 billion is considering €100 million more of cost, which without them would have represented a growth of almost 10% vis-à-vis 2025, giving us a good pace to reach also our target in 2027.

The very good news is on the left down side of the page, in which we have basically reached the composition of the net income that we envisaged in the presentation of the strategic plan. You may remember we started with wealth management protection 24% of net income, specialty banking 11%, and 65% coming from commercial banking.

Nowadays, we have 35% of wealth asset management protection, which is already in line with the target of '27, 9% versus 10% of specialty banking, and 56% versus 50% to 55% of commercial banking, and ROTE is going up from 16% on '24 to 20.3% of this first half of the year and more than 21% next year. All this set of results enable us to upgrade the guidance, but more important, to boost shareholder remuneration.

The combination of main drivers like higher revenues, improved efficiency, and lower cost of risk give us the confident to overcome the €1.95 billion of results, which is ahead of the strategy plan, notwithstanding the €100 million, give us the opportunity to upgrade the dividend guidance to equal or higher of €1 per share, starting from the interim DPS, which grow from €0.46 to €0.50, meaning a total interim dividend coming up from €700 million to €750 million. More important, we have been authorized from our board to start all the regulatory procedure to increase the distribution target through further remuneration of share buyback, which will bring from €6 billion to €7 billion the total remuneration of the plan.

Again, this would mean to distribute €4 billion in '26 and '27, after '27 results. Frankly speaking, we are very happy to show this figure because, again, once we had the disappointment about Anima, not deduction from capital, we were obliged to reduce from €7 billion to €6 billion, but we always say that if we would have had the opportunity to build up more capital, we would have returned to the €7 billion target.

This is the case that we are very happy to announce to you. Thank you very much.

I leave the floor for your Q&A session.

Good afternoon to everybody. I have two questions, actually two clarifications.

The first one is on the evolution of the lending portfolio. The new business origination was extremely strong in the quarter, reaching the highest level since many quarters now.

Still, I do see the stock of loans at the end of the period up only 1% if I look at the end of the period data. I was wondering whether there are other components like maturities, financial components, which penalized the end of the period data, or, for example, if there are, I don't know, some state-guaranteed loans which came due in this quarter and in the 2026, which penalized the trend of the stock.

The second questions is on the fee income and especially in the trend of the first half. We've seen a strong acceleration, a very good performance.

If I'm not mistaken, there was also a relatively strong contribution from the performance fees of Anima in the first half. If you can please elaborate about the trend that you would expect in the second half for the second half of the year in terms of evolution of the fee income.

Thank you.

Thank you, Giovanni. Let me say that as far of lending, of course, as June and December we have the vast majority of maturity of loans, with the different installments which are concentrated in these two maturity.

For instance, in June, we had already accounted, of course, in the number I gave to you, €2.2 billion of maturity, meanwhile in March were €1.5 billion. There is always something more, which, of course, depress a bit the second quarter and the fourth quarter results in terms of loans.

Again, with a 1.8% year-to-date, we are very happy because we have this target for the whole year. The pace of the loans is growing.

I mentioned the €3.3 billion in July, most possibly we can envisage a better results also for '26. Don't forget that there is a balanced combination in which we have to grow, but we have to maintain a very good credit quality, and at the same time, we have to try to increase the spread.

As I mentioned, year-on-year, we increased the spread of the new issue in 15 basis points. All in all, is a part of our results which we, frankly speaking, like very much after some year of very slow growth in loans, if not reduction.

In commission, we have, of course, strong ambition in our plan. Let's say that we think will be much better than last year this year, and we have a further growth of more or less €100 million for next year.

I don't think there is room for upgrading because we already have very strong results, basically €78 million better this year from last year and another €100 million for next year, which will come again from the setup and full power of the product factory and the good pace we are having in the financial product sales.

Thank you.

Yes, good afternoon, and thank you for taking my questions. I got two two questions.

The first one is on your credit quality because it was one of the best surprises in my view in this set of results. I was wondering about your guidance for the cost of risk for this year and if possible, for next year too, if there are some changes considering the positive evolution that you are experiencing.

The second question is again a follow-up on commissions because I see also from the results of your peers that there is a contribution of placement fees in this first half. What is the outlook for this component, which cannot be considered as much as recurrent for the second half of the year?

Thank you.

I'll start with the first question, then please can you repeat exactly what you need to understand better of the commission side. For cost of risk, of course, we are doing better than the business plan.

Of course, the business plan was done with a sort of, let's say, prudent approach on terms of default rate, which now is being constantly below 1% for the last four, five years, and every time I think all of us think that could be a deterioration. Maybe we are too much prudent also in that because the capability which we now spend in managing, granting the loan, monitoring the watch list, detecting the early warning allow us to be very efficient in timing and capability to sell and dispose and starting to reduce exposure where we feel to be at risk.

All in all, I can say that for sure we will do better than the business plan guidance, which were, if I remember well, 43 basis points for '26 and 40 basis points for '27. Also because, as you remember, having now a stock which is so low and almost very much guaranteed from the state guarantee, it's very difficult to envisage cost of maintenance, and only cost will come from default rate increase.

Can you repeat on commission, sorry?

Yes, sure. My question was referring to slide number 15 in the sense that you have investment product placements.

They were basically stable in the first half of '25 and the first half of '26 too. I was wondering about the outlook for the second half of the year for this small component, and also if I may add, if you consider a significant amount of upfront fees also for the second half of the year.

Thank you.

No, not really. I mentioned before that we are very happy to show that we are basically having a first half of the year with upfront fees which are in line with last year and coming exactly from the same investment product placement amount, which is around €12 billion.

Meanwhile, we have an increase of 5% year-on-year of running fee, which for us is very important. In terms of second half, again, we expect a bettering year-on-year '26 on '25.

Investment fees account now for more than 50%, for sure we will have a good results. Let's remember that it's impossible to double for two, because of course, in the second half, there is August and December, which are always slower than the other part of the year.

This, of course, is for investment product. Meanwhile, we think we can be very good, as I mentioned before, in covering from the other commission, as we did Q2 on Q1 in many of these items that I mentioned before.

Thank you very much. The

Thanks so much for taking my questions. I have two questions.

The first one is in terms of capital distribution. Could you help us to understand a bit if there could be other measures besides capital distribution in order to improve the operating profitability, such as additional early retirement programs or any other efficiency measures?

Linked to that, you have improved the cost-to-income by around 3.5%, 4 percentage points in the last 12 months, which is a remarkable performance. How much do you think you can continue improving that cost-to-income in the coming quarters?

Thank you.

Ignacio, thanks for the questions. Capital distribution, if I understood correctly, the question is about if we can continue to implement actions, managerial actions, to improve capital position and generate additional efficiency in capital absorption.

Definitely, we are very active, as you know from also previous presentations, in the area of synthetic securitizations. On top, we are deploying a number of levers to help generating additional capital not only from P&L, but also from other sources.

I underline again the 70 basis points that we have out of a total 150 of additional capital to be generated over the plan horizon from DTAs and fair value through other comprehensive income reserves. We are in a position to be very confident we can tackle further opportunities to generate additional excess capital, which already is, I would say, quite significant when you compare the 14.4% we have to the 13%, which is, I would say, very conservative threshold, and with almost €69 billion of RWA.

Just these numbers is very close to €1 billion if you make the maths. On cost/income, if it's all right for you,

the— No, I was also thinking whether you could use the excess capital and the very strong capital position for other things that could improve further the cost-to-income by early retirements if you see a space on the cost side linking to the second question.

No, I think that we are very focused on distributing excess capital and using efficiently for managing expectation of our shareholders. At the same time, we are extremely confident that the process of generating excess capital is still ongoing and may continue to give us additional flexibilities going forward until at least the completion of the plan.

If we have in front of us opportunities to deploy capital differently or to use it for restructuring, we are confident we can have it. For the time being, we're not planning additional usage for this excess capital.

Coming back to cost/income, of course, is very much better than our forecast, mainly due to staff cost reduction, as I mentioned before. We have some further possibility to reduce the other administrative costs, we are confident that we can beat the anticipation we gave.

Again, 43% is a record for us, is better than the plan, but notwithstanding that, we did 42% in Q2. I don't know, if we are able, as we did, to maintain cost at the level they are, as it looks like to be possible for this year, increasing revenues will give us a better cost/income.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for taking my questions.

My first one is on NII. There was this impressive increase in the liability spreads from 144 basis points to 160.

This actually means that liability costs essentially remain flat despite the higher Euribor. I wanted to ask you, how did you manage to keep these deposit costs flat?

Whether there were any strategic actions? Going forward, how do you expect the liability spread to behave?

Maybe more generally, if you could also update the NII guidance for 2026, please. Then my second question is related with M&A.

There has been plenty of speculation about the potential combination between Crédit Agricole Italia and Banco BPM. I wanted to ask you whether you think this combination could result in value generation to Banco BPM shareholders.

How do you assess the government attitude towards the potential move by Crédit Agricole to take control of Banco BPM? Do you think it's a transaction that can be politically acceptable?

Thank you.

Good evening, Luis. Thanks for your questions.

On NII, a few observations. Yes, correct.

We were effective in preserving liability spread. This and also on the asset spread is important to note this point.

There are also some second-order effect in terms of delay in cost of indexed instruments to adjust to the behavior of rates. On top of that, needless to say, we've been very effective in, how to say, steering the deposit base to take the maximum of opportunities in an environment of declining rates.

You can observe, for example, as we reported in the presentation, that we have now indexed current account at 35%. This number was 37%, if I'm not mistaken, six months ago, and of course, the share of indexed on total is the most expensive in our deposit base.

Guidance for the rest of the year is we prefer to be prudent. Even without factoring a further increase in base rates from ECB, still, of course, we can have improvements versus the second quarter, both in the third and in the fourth.

These improvements can be even more evident in case of ECB raising rates in the next meetings, in forthcoming meetings. Giuseppe answering for the second part relating to M&A.

Let me say, first of all, that all this speculation starts maybe from the fact that there was emphasized a sort of declaration from Crédit Agricole that they didn't see value on the transaction we should have done with Monte. Let be clear that the decision of not going ahead in the potential opportunity represented by a merger between us and Montepaschi was decided only by the board of the bank.

The board of the bank, of course, as include four board members appointed in a list supported by Crédit Agricole, and this was unanimous. Everybody decided for this decision.

I explained in our press release that after months of waiting, we were not able to understand which kind of transaction, with which kind of number, with which kind of value for our shareholder this transaction, which we consider very important and profitable opportunity, unfortunately did not materialize. At that point, we decide, also because after our letter, as materialized also the official offer from Intesa, we decide that for timeframe limits, we were not anymore in the position to pursue in August or September maybe a transaction which would arrive before the Intesa Sanpaolo public offer.

I don't think any of the interpretation of Crédit Agricole about our transaction with Monte are true, but of course, you can ask them. As far as the declaration related to us, that they would prefer to have a merger with us, this always been a possibility that since, I don't know, two, three, four years, since they became our shareholders, was a potential opportunity on the table.

We would examine this potential opportunity if becomes true and possible in the interest of all the shareholder of the bank. I have to say that from an industrial point of view, I think that is a very solid merger.

Of course, we have to find a solution that make happy all the other shareholders of BAMI if this transaction would at a certain time materialize. I don't know, frankly speaking, about the position of the government.

There are rules and opportunity to respect, and I don't want to enter into such things that are not related to what I can try to decide.

Thank you very much.

Good evening. Thank you for taking my questions.

The first one is on the increase of shareholder remuneration, where you came back with the additional €1 billion. You indicated that you have the choice between increasing the dividend payout and the share buyback.

Can you provide some color about which will be the rationale for you in selecting between an increase in the dividend payout and the share buyback? Under which situation do you think could be preferable one case or the other?

The second question is on Anima, in particular, I want to ask you if you can provide any update on this front, in particular, considering that the stake listed is still at 10%, you retain 90%. Clearly, we have seen what happened with Monte, and if this could in some way change a bit your position regarding what to do with the minorities of Anima.

Thank you. Okay.

Basically,

we announced the increase, borrowing a popular joke, 6, 7 in the total plan horizon, but at the same time, we need to abide to the rules from ECB that say that announcements of buybacks can be done in an amount only after an authorization is granted in case, as the one we're talking about, of a buyback on top of ordinary payout distributed by the bank. Basically, this is where we stand now.

We need to start the authorization process, and once we obtained the authorization, we will be able to disclose the amount, and in due course, we will communicate to the market. For Anima, of course, let's start from the second part, which, of course, is very important also for the first part of your question.

What happened to MPS and Anima? We have a contract lasting up to 2030.

We are confident that Montepaschi stand-alone or Montepaschi in whatever situation will end up will respect the contract that they have with us. Let's remember that this not a wholesale deal, but is a B2B2C business in which, of course, there are, I don't know, hundred of thousand of clients in Monte who buys our product, Anima product, and I am sure that whoever will be deciding what to do will have attention and care in not disappointing their client, obliging or forcing them to change the investment product they are used since, I don't know, 15 years, 20 years to use.

We are very confident about that until 2030, and then we will discuss with whoever will be in charge at that time. For the 10%, of course, let us understand better where Montepaschi will be at the end of this consolidation, the offer process, and of course, we will decide consequently.

Thank you.

Hi, thank you for the time. First, a question on capital.

You had this 60 basis points of benefit from the fair value OCI reserves. Was this all from Montepaschi and mark-to-market, and was there any impact from hedges that I think you have related to this stake?

That's my first question. Then going back to the buyback topic, can you confirm that if you do a buyback, would you cancel the shares?

If you do cancel the shares, mechanically, that would increase Crédit Agricole's stake. What do you think about that implication?

Finally, also the timing is almost €1 extra billion of distributions, even versus consensus, I think it's an extra €800 million. Would you do it in one go or would you split it between '26 and '27?

Thank you.

Okay. This improvement in fair value other comprehensive income, you probably have seen that in the slide where we presented the contribution of the financial components to the results, slide 20, negative net reserves have been reducing.

This is the contribution of fair value other comprehensive income on top of which you have to add the DTA component. The remaining part that adds up to the 60 basis points is mark-to-market of MPS, of MPS, of equity holdings that we have in fair value other comprehensive income, including, but not limited to MPS.

A couple of additional points to note. You asked about the hedging contribution.

The hedging contribution has been, no surprisingly, negative in this quarter. We have some protections from the downside, which is already included in the P&L.

The total net financial result would have been higher in case of absent hedging, but of course, this has been much lower than the capital contribution of MPS. The only point is the asymmetry between MPS capital contribution, which is directly in other comprehensive income, not going through P&L, and negative contribution of hedges, which goes through P&L in the financial results.

On timing of potential share buyback, if we get the authorization, then, as I said, we will be able to communicate an amount and timing. We expect this, given this is our inaugural transaction of this case, will take a few months.

Difficult for us to say end of this year or early next year, but this is the best expectation we can provide at this stage. In any case, it's €4 billion in two years, whenever will be.

Let me say about the share buyback cancellation, of course, we'll do the cancellation. Of course, all the shareholder will be, I would say, more or less 3% higher in terms of their stake.

I think, whatever will be the kind of shareholder remuneration, we will make happy all the shareholder, including Crédit Agricole, which is always been declared to be an happy shareholder of Banco BPM. We don't think to put in any embarrassment anybody if we do this kind of transaction.

We don't know if they stay at the current level, 29.2%, or they would grow to 29.9%, they already had the authorization. We don't know exactly what is the figure for which we could avoid if we have a share buyback Agricole to increase.

Practically speaking, they will be in the same position of today. They will find themselves maybe above 30%.

If they don't want to launch, they have a certain period of months in order to reduce the participation. If they want to launch a compulsory offer, they will do, as well as they will do if they stay at 29.9%.

I don't think anybody will be embarrassed, but I hope all the shareholder, including Agricole, will be happy of this further remuneration, which shows the strength of the bank in rebuilding capital and make profit. If I may add the technical point, the impact of any share buyback on the ownership of the bank depends on the amount, which is currently undefined, given that we will need to wait for the authorization of ECB for that.

Great,

thank you very much.

Yes, hi. Good afternoon.

I have two questions, please. One is on the fees.

Running fees are basically stable quarter-on-quarter, and I've seen the AUM is up 5%, probably because of market performance. I was wondering, basically, the margin is down a little bit.

What is driving that decrease? Is a asset mix?

Is just to understand that decline. Then on capital, can you remind us the sensitivity of the OCI reserve to the BTP?

Thanks.

Reserve sensitivity to BTP, I have to dig a little bit. I don't have it on top of my mind.

As far as running fees are concerned, this is in part matter of composition, but basically, we are increasing the component of running fee from mutual funds. There is a small reduction in assets under administration that explains the stability.

I'll come back soon with the number of the sensitivity.

Thanks.

Good afternoon. I have a follow-up on the additional remuneration because you say it could be a mix between dividends and buyback.

When it comes to the dividends, would you consider increasing the ordinary payout, or are you just thinking about an extra dividend? Then on capital, for the second part of the year, and sorry if you mentioned this before, I was wondering about the moving parts, how much the benefit of the DTA would be, and also if you can remind us some capital headwinds maybe and a potential SRT benefits.

Thank you.

Said what we said. We are going to increase up to €7 billion the total shareholder remuneration.

I think we have been quite open to make you understand which kind of authorization we're going to ask. We don't have so much time to think what will be in case there would be a different form of remuneration.

Let's stand to what we have said already. On H2 guidance for capital, let's say that we expect to stay stable, apart from any impact from authorizations in buyback.

The ordinary part will be stable, meaning that capital creation from DTAs, which will be similar linearly to what happened in this quarter, and from retained earnings is compensated by expansion in business. SRT, yes, we are planning to proceed with one additional transaction.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. First question is on the BMPS stake.

Can you just remind us how the capital is impacted by this stake? I guess by now, it's in deduction.

If the shares go further up, you don't have any impact on capital. At the same time, you have the hedging impact in your P&L.

Can you also remind us what type of hedging you have? How much of it is hedged?

This is the first question. The second question is on the traditional banking fees.

These were down year-on-year in the first quarter, but they recovered quite a bit in the second quarter. What's driving this, and what's the outlook for this line in the coming quarters?

Thank you.

Didn't understand, sorry, Marco, the second part of your question.

The second part was about the traditional banking fees, the banking fees. I was just wondering, they recovered quite a bit in the second quarter if I look at the year-on-year number.

What's driving, and what do you expect in the coming quarters?

Okay. No, I would say Montepaschi is a financial stake below 10%, and I can go back to CRR rules and explaining that these stakes are risk-weighted up until the moment where the total of such stakes is below 10% of total capital.

Any additional amount is deducted from capital. This is calculated net of short positions.

Hedging that we have help reducing the total level of the stake to be included in the calculation. The only point I can add are structures that are quite out of the money, far away from the current market price, and designed on purpose to be like that.

Of course, the dynamics of the price of this asset is such that when it increases, we have a capital benefit. At the same time, we could have either an increase in risk weight or an increase in the deductions, depending on the total level of financial participations below 10%.

Marco. For commercial banking fees, as we mentioned before, we are recovering very much vis-à-vis Q1 and also vis-à-vis Q2 '25.

There's been a strong recovery in what we call specialized activities, which mainly are structured finance, trade finance, and investment banking, which basically recover all the gap vis-à-vis the first half of '25, with a strong increase in Q2 on Q1. Let's say that the situation now is doing very well.

Product factories' contribution is good and will continue to be good. The only, let's say, backfire is that in the second part of the year, normally, including August and December, there is normally a small reduction in total fees, but more on investment fees rather than in commercial fees.

We expect a tenure of all these different item.

Thank you.

Hi. Here is Sofie from Goldman Sachs, and thanks a lot for taking my question.

It's very helpful that you gave the net income guidance for 2026, but I was wondering why did you put only €1.95 billion? It looks quite unambitious if you look at the €580 million that you already printed this quarter and close to €500 million in Q1.

The full-year run rate is already kind of above €2 billion. Maybe if you could just talk why you didn't put a more ambitious net income guidance for 2026?

Similarly, how should we think about the 2027 target? That also looks quite low considering the numbers that you printed.

Then my second question would be on going just back to net interest income. You give very helpful guidance that your rate sensitivity is €150 million for 100 basis points parallel shift.

How quickly do you see this rate sensitivity come true? Is it within 12 months or 24 months?

If you could just kind of talk about the dynamics on how quickly you kind of can reprice the asset side. Thank you.

As far as the NII, basically, this is a quarter where we will see more clearly the impact of increasing Euribor in the asset side because most of our index loan portfolio, which is more or less 2/3 of the total, reprices in June. The level of rates, 3 months, 6 months Euribor in June will drive the repricing of index part of the portfolio in the second half.

Part of the repricing is reiterated in the third quarter, but most, as I said, of the portfolio is priced twice a year, now in June and in December.

Sofie, for the first part of the question, no, you don't have to be so negative. It's normal, and if you compare also the results done by the other banks in the first half, they are not replicating the double the second part of the year.

Of course, in Italy, especially in Italy, I would say, there is August and December, which accounts a lot in terms of fee production. For us, on top, there is also the situation that in April we have the dividend coming from Montepaschi, which, of course, is not replicated in the second part of the year.

Let give me this advice, try to compare last year second half and make something on, and you will find that you will be happy of the total results.

That's very clear. Thank you.

Coming back to previous question on sensitivity to BTP of our reserves, I think that the key number is already provided in the presentation, actually, which is this €700k, 6.9—€690k basis point value for Italian government bonds in fair value other comprehensive income component.

Thank you.

Thank you very much for—sorry, there is somebody else? No,

Okay. Thank you very much.

Have a great holiday period, and we'll see each other in September. Thank you.