Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our fourth quarter 2025 results conference call.

In 2025, net profit was flat year-on-year at €647 million and revenues at around €1,317 million, supported by our non-financial income. Investing up by around 10% year-on-year thanks to the volume effect and the higher control of the value chain by Fineco Asset Management.

Brokerage is up by around 18% year-on-year thanks to the enlargement of our active investors and stock of assets under custody. Operating costs well under control at around €356 million, increasing by around 6% year-on-year by excluding costs related to the growth of the business.

Cost-income ratio was equal to 27.1%, confirming operating leverage as a key strength of the bank. Moving to our commercial results, the underlying step-up in our growth dynamics gets crystal clear month-by-month.

This is underpinned by the positive tailwinds from structural trends, and we are leveraging on this solid momentum through a more efficient marketing. The results of this acceleration has been clearly visible in our most recent numbers.

Recorded our third record year in a row for new clients at around 194,000 new clients, up by 27% year-on-year. In January, new clients were 22,000, hitting the best month on record, up more than 70% year-on-year.

Second, our net sales recorded a new high at €13.4 billion in the year, up by a strong 43% year-on-year. In January, total net sales saw a further continuation of this trend at around €1.1 billion, up by 21% year-on-year.

The mix was, as usual, characterized by the monthly seasonality for assets under management, with around €260 million net sales, up by 16% year-on-year, assets under custody at €1.1 billion, and deposits at around -€207 million, as our brokerage clients were active on the platform given market volatility, thus resulting in solid brokerage revenues estimated at around €22 million, up by 7% year-on-year. Our capital position confirmed to be strong and safe, with a Common Equity Tier 1 ratio at 23.3% and the leverage ratio at 5.07%.

We are very pleased to propose to the next annual general meeting a dividend per share of 69 euro cents, increasing by 7% year-on-year. On our 2026 guidance, this year we expect all the business areas to contribute to the revenues growth thanks to the acceleration of structural growth underlying our business.

We expect a further acceleration in both total net sales and new clients, another record year for brokerage revenues, a cost-income comfortably below 30%. More details will be provided during the Capital Market Day on March the 4th, 2026, together with the multi-year plan 2026-2029.

Let's now move to slide 5. Before moving in the details of the presentation, let me stress that month after month, Fineco is recording a continuous acceleration of its growth dynamics, supported by very sound underlying quality.

As our business model relies on a diversified and quality revenue stream, allowing the bank to deal with any market environment. On the banking revenues, our net financial income is a capital-light one, with lending being only an ancillary business, and it's driven by our clients' valuable and sticky transactional liquidity.

Let me remind that deposits are joining our platform for the quality of our banking services and not due to aggressive commercial campaign on short-term rates. That's why our deposits are so valuable and our cost of funding is close to zero.

Our investing revenues are recording a sound and future-proof expansion as they are already aligned with clients' rising demand for transparency, efficiency, and convenience. This approach is mirrored in the quality of our revenues mix, which is almost entirely recurring, with a very low percentage of upfront fees and no performance fees at all.

Finally, our brokerage is clearly experiencing a step-up in the floor of the business, thanks to the capability of our platform to structurally add a higher number of active investors, leading to structurally higher stock of assets under custody. This is driven by an increase in clients' interest to be more active on the financial market and is building a bridge between the brokerage and the investing, which we are the only platform able to scoop given our market position.

Net financial income was up 3.1% quarter-on-quarter, led by our valuable positive deposit net sales and the higher reinvestment yield of our bonds running off. Let me quickly remind you that the quality of our net interest income, which is capital-light and driven by our clients' sticky transactional liquidity, that's why our deposits are so valuable and will be the driver going forward for the growth of our net financial income.

Let's now move to slide 8. Investing revenues increased by around 10% year-on-year on the back both of growing volumes thanks to our best-in-class market positioning and of the higher efficiency of the value chain through Fineco Asset Management.

Let me remind you the great quality of our investing revenues, mirroring our transparent and fair approach towards clients. Our revenues are mostly driven by recurring management fees with very low upfront and no performance fees at all.

Let's now move on slide 9. In this slide, we are representing the two main sources of growth for our investing business going forward.

On one hand, Fineco Asset Management is progressively increasing the control of the investing value chain. Its contribution to the group net sales has been consistent over the cycle thanks to its incredible time to market in delivering new investment solutions aligned with clients' needs.

The contribution of Fineco Asset Management out of the total stock of assets under management has been steadily growing and it's now equal to 39.3%. On the other hand, being a platform, Fineco is the best placed to catch the latest trends in terms of clients' investment behaviors.

There is a clear change underway in the structure of the market, with clients increasingly looking for efficient, transparent, and convenient solutions. All of this is channeling a strong demand towards advanced advisory services with an explicit fee, where Fineco is by far the best positioned in Italy, as you can see down in the slide.

Let's now move on slide 10 for a focus on brokerage. Brokerage registered a record year with around €256 million revenues, driven by our larger active investor base and growing stock of assets under custody.

January further builds on this with €22 million estimated revenues. Let me stress that the revenues of our assets under custody are expected to grow as we roll out our new initiatives on securities lending, out-fx, ETFs, and systematic internalizer.

Average revenues in the year are around 10% higher versus 2020, which match healthier underlying dynamics. This is driven by the structural increase in clients' interest to be more active on the financial market and building on a clear bridge between the brokerage and the investing world.

The brokerage business represents the best sign of how fast the structure of financial market is evolving, as technology is driving a swift change in clients' behaviors thanks to higher transparency. For these reasons, we consider the brokerage Italian market still very underpenetrated, and we see a strong opportunity to grow despite already being the market leader.

Let's now move to slide 12 for a focus on our capital ratios. Fineco confirm once again a 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 a very sound 5.07%, while risk-weighted assets were equal to €6.2 billion, total capital ratio at 31.37%. As for liquidity ratios, coverage ratios is over 950% and net stable funding ratio at over 400%, while the ratio high-quality liquid assets on deposits is at 80%.

Going forward, we confirm that we will continue to generate capital structurally and organically thanks to our capital-light business model. Given the strong acceleration in our growth, we are taking more time to have a clear view on deposit net sales going forward as the underlying dynamics are strongly improving.

If, despite the strong acceleration in our growth, there will remain excess capital, we will decide on the best way to return it back to the market. Let's now move to slide 18.

Fineco enjoys a unique market positioning to catch the long-term growth opportunity resulting by the huge Italian households' wealth and the fast-changing clients' behaviors. We are now representing our market share on the addressable market, on the stock of financial wealth of Italian households.

As you can see, our market share is still small and the room to grow is huge. We are very positive on our future outlook as we have no competition on our market positioning.

Fineco is the only big player with a service model fully based on efficiency, transparency, and convenience. Moving now to slide 19, the step-up of our growth trajectory is clearly materializing, as you can easily see in our recent clients' acquisitions.

On top of the slide, you can see the impressive acceleration of new clients, which in 2025 recorded the third record year in a row and saw a record month in January, just before the launch of our most recent marketing campaign. This acceleration is very sound because it's based on the quality of our offer and not on aggressive marketing campaign with short-term rates remuneration.

As a result, all our new clients are improving the metrics of the bank by bringing more deposits or more business for brokerage and investing. This value is recognized by our clients, as shown by our client satisfaction of 96% and on our Net Promoter Score way above the industry average.

Let's now move to slide 22. Let's now focus on our assets under custody, a component of our business that is sometimes undervalued by the market, but that is the real cornerstone of our fee-driven growth.

This is true for investing, as assets under custody remains the main source fueling our assets under management net sales. As around 90% of our growth is organically driven.

As a consequence, new clients tends to show an asset allocation more skewed towards assets under custody, and the job of our financial advisors is to improve the mix into assets under management. For brokerage, the expansion of assets under custody and the growing base of active investors are key factors leading to a structurally higher floor in our revenues, which we expect to grow as we roll out our new initiatives on securities lending, out-fx, ETFs, and systematic internalizer.

Finally, the fast-growing ETF space, we are exploring new revenues opportunity, which we expand moving on the slide 23. Fineco is uniquely positioned to capture the strong client-driven shift towards more efficient investment solutions, such as ETFs.

The stock is quickly on the rise and now exceed €16 billion, with ETFs accounting for half of the assets under custody mass. Thanks to our focus on efficiency, transparency, and convenience, we are the only player capable of fully recognizing and monetize this structural trend with no harm on our profitability.

The growing interest in ETFs is generating a positive volume effect for our investing business. Thanks to our advanced advisory wrappers made of ETFs, we can move in the investing world clients that are not interested in traditional mutual funds, thus with no cannibalization risk on the distinct fund business.

At the same time, our leadership in ETFs retail flows make us the main gateway for issuers in the Italian retail market. While we currently manage all costs to end clients without recurring retrocessions, talks are underway with our partners to find a fair balance.

Finally, Fineco Asset Management is going to play a big role in the ETFs world. Our Irish firm already launched active ETFs and more are going to be introduced.

Thank you for your time. We can now open the call to questions.

Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions.

I wanted to start with private banking, if possible. You're clearly growing very nicely.

I notice, however, that the average asset per private banking client is at €1 million, which is roughly the same level it was one year ago, even if clearly 2025 was a period of very strong market rally. In a way, I would have expected maybe a growth in the average asset balance per private banking clients.

Can you please maybe explain a bit the dynamics there? Is there a bit of dilution?

Maybe new private banking clients that are coming in that are a bit less wealthy, offsetting the growth in assets of the others, or anything else that would be helpful? Also related to private banking, would you be able to give us an indication of how much of the growth is coming from recruiting?

Of the new advisors you're bringing in, how many of them are particularly strong in the private banking segment? Then if I may go on the other end of the spectrum, can you just give us an update on the trading-only platform, how many clients you have, and perhaps if you can attribute the very strong growth in customer this month to this feature, to this offering?

Thank you.

Let me start by the the private banking average assets for clients. This is clearly it's perfectly coherent with the distribution of the Italian wealth, because Italy is characterized by an and significantly high median wealth.

This means that the the the most part of the wealth is is extremely is much more broadly distributed than we we respect to what we we have in other regions. This is absolutely consistent with that.

There with there is no dilution. It's absolutely that.

It's if so this the this so this is the main reason. We don't expect any significant change in the short term in terms of average assets per clients, exactly driven by this, because this is the the the the juice of the private banking business is in the in the in a in an area of probably between half million up to let me say 5, 10 millions, but clearly this is bringing to an an average an average portfolio for clients that is this.

Is as as as probably is very well known, our growth is mostly driven is mostly organically driven. It's for us, recruiting is playing an an a small role, because is in the during 2025, recruiting in terms of gathering new assets has accounted for not more than 10% overall.

Is and this is absolutely coherent with our long-term strategy. We we our strategy is to keep on getting clients, getting more clients that they are interested in our services instead of buying clients throughout recruiting.

We think that is is a much more healthy approach. This is going to continue.

On the trading-only clients, the the the growth is extremely is keeping on accelerating, is extremely robust. I don't know if Paolo wants to make a few comments on on this point.

Paolo? Brokerage-only account is a great product.

We have large amount of client that are entering and so it gives us a good contribution to the revenues of the brokerage. We don't give usually the number of brokerage-only account, but is a very strong inflow of new clients.

Thank you. Sorry, if I may go back one second to the private banking aspect.

In terms of the recruiting, because recruiting is growing nicely at 88, I think, advisor experience over this year. Do you see any change in the quality of advisors that are coming to Fineco?

I appreciate that you don't pay them to join. They join because they like the proposition.

I was just keen to know if you see maybe more private banking advisors that are joining Fineco or if the mix remains roughly the same?

In terms of which are the new financial planners joining Fineco, we have two clusters. The two cluster for which we have preferences.

Number one is represented by experienced financial planners, but characterized by an evident and significant room for keeping on increasing their productivity. We are not interested in taking on board financial planners that they're not giving any interesting future evolution in terms of growing productivity.

Because again, we don't need to recruit financial planners just for sustaining the net sales, because the net sales are building up incredibly strongly thanks to the positioning of the bank. The senior financial planners has to be clearly senior financial planners that they are truly interested in the business model of Fineco.

This means that they are interested in keeping on their business for still many years to come and also that they have the ambition to grow. This is the driver.

If there is an large, big financial planner that is only interested in getting an upfront premium and moving, we are not interested in hiring that kind of financial planner. The second cluster is represented by the young people that we are onboarding in the bank.

We are preparing for the future activity. This is an investment initially, because before an young person becomes productive, takes usually 4, 5 years, but it's paying off, because the new generation of financial planners that we brought in the bank in the past years is now performing incredibly well.

Also because these young people are perfectly aligned with the values of the bank, that again characterized by efficiency, transparency, and convenience.

Yes, thank you for taking my questions. The first question is about your leverage ratio, because, yes, it is well above the 3% requirement, but it is slightly down versus previous periods.

I would like you to elaborate a bit more on it. Then I have another question about your direct deposit outflow in January.

Probably it is linked to negative months seasonality, which is quite common at the beginning of the year, but I would like just you to confirm it. If you can say something about your expectations for direct deposits trend this year.

Finally, a question on systemic charges. Would you expect an increase in systemic charges, probably relating to some specific case within the banking sector?

Thank you.

Yes, thank you. On the leverage ratio, clearly this has been has has gone slightly down because the driven by the increase of deposits, because the increase of deposits by the year end has been signifi- has been very strong.

This is the reason why we we are maintaining the same wording on the evolution of our capital position, because on one hand we we are going to we are expected to keep on generating additional organic capital, because the thanks to this incredibly capital-light business model. At the same time, clearly the bank is more and more entering in a new dimension of growth.

We are more and more moving throughout, let me say, very positive, uncharted waters thanks to the positioning. Clearly we have to be we prefer to keep on waiting in order to to look the how is going to evolve the growth that we expect as we we were reiterating during the guidance, we expect to keep on accelerating.

We we prefer to take our time. It's and so this is the so this is our our is our thoughts on the on the on that.

It's regarding the deposits outflows in January, this is absolutely perfectly aligned with the seasonal with the seasonality of the month, because just consider that in the during the month of January, you have the you have and all the the for example, all the expenses made by the clients through through the credit cards during the the month of December. It is a month of the expenditures are clearly charged on January.

It's so we are not it is even better respect, for example, last last year, because last year the seasonality has been definitely stronger than this year. It's we are not absolutely surprised by this.

It's perfectly aligned with the so and our expectations for the for deposits during the full year is clearly they are going to keep on growing. This is going to be clearly driven by the continuous client acquisitions, because as we explained during the presentation, the clients that are entering the bank are clients that are not attracted throughout aggressive campaign, short and short-term proposal, are clients that are truly interested in using the platform.

This means that every single additional client we are adding to the platform, also a small client, is contributing in increasing the transactional liquidity of the bank, the liquidity that is there for functional reasons. For this reason, deposits are going to keep on growing throughout throughout the 2026, clearly according with the usual seasonality that characterizes, and clearly you can have you can have also temporary effect caused by the activity of clients on the brokerage platforms.

This but clearly but overall, the trend is up. On the systemic charges, I'm leaving the floor to to Lorena, our CFO, for giving a little bit more colors there.

Thank you, Alessandro. Good morning to everybody.

On 2026, our expectation regarding the systemic charges are that we are estimating a contribution in the region of €10-€15 million, because we have to consider a possible additional contribution in case of the increase of guaranteed protected deposits, or in the event of bank's failure. We have to take into consideration that based on the most recent news flow regarding one small Italian bank under special administration, we have to take a prudent approach on that.

Thank you. Just if I follow up on this, we expect this to occur only in 2026 or to go on in the next years, too?

Thank you.

We have to expect the final decision elaborated by the Fondo Interbancario di Tutela dei Depositi, but we expect a distribution along 5 years. Distribution of the contribution in 5 years.

Thank you.

Hi, good morning. Just one question for me.

On the AI that is rapidly reshaping operating models across the financial sector, from your point of view, what do you see as the most material opportunities AI will create for models like Fineco in terms of productivity, client engagement, advisory, and risk management? What are the key risks you are monitoring, and how do you expect the AI to reshape the competitive scenario in Italian wealth management and brokerage over the next 3, 5 years?

Thank you.

AI is going to be an absolutely game-changer in what's going on in our industry. Fineco, as we explained, is by far the best-positioned player for exploiting the huge advantage by artificial intelligence for a very simple reason, because I don't want to spend too much time because this is going to be a section that is going to be extremely very well in depth treated during the Capital Market Day, because this is a very important chapter.

Because in AI world, what is key are two components. One, you have to be able to get easily access to a high-quality base of data.

Second, you have to be in the position to really build up your agents in order to create something that makes sense. Clearly this is much easier for and less and less expensive for an organization that is a tech company in full control of the technology.

It's a different story, for example, if you are relying on outsourced services, or your process are managed by external system integrators. We are asking you to be a little bit patient, because on the AI space, we are going to bring something very interesting presentation during the Capital Market Day.

Thank you, Alessandro.

Thank you, everybody, for attending to our financial presentation. As usual, if you have some more interest or you want to deep dive in some numbers and concepts, please call us anytime for a follow-up.

Thank you again, and see you on March the 4th for the Capital Market Day. Thank you again.