Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Erste Group Full Year 2025 Results Conference Call. I'm Sergen, the Chorus Call operator. [Operator Instructions] The conference is being recorded. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Thomas Sommerauer, Head of Group Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thomas Sommerauer: Thank you, Sergen, and also a very warm welcome to everybody who is listening in to our full year conference call 2025. We follow our usual procedure. That means that Peter Bosek, our Chief Executive Officer; Stefan Dorfler, our Chief Financial Officer; and Alexandra Habeler-Drabek, Chief Risk Officer of Erste Group, will lead you through a brief presentation, highlighting the main achievements, especially the financial achievements of 2025 and in particular, also of the fourth quarter of 2025. And before handing over to Peter, my usual reminder on the disclaimer of forward-looking statements, of which there will be quite a few as usual. And with this, I hand over to Peter for the presentation. Thank you.

Peter Bosek: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome again to our full year 2025 results and at the same time, fourth quarter 2025 conference call. I'm on Page 4 now. 2025 was an exceptionally successful year for Erste Group. A lot of good things happen to the bank and a lot of good things happen to shareholders of Erste Group. But allow me to briefly dive back to a year ago, the discussion back then and to a certain extent still today were all about share buybacks and dividends and somewhat subdued business outlook for 2025 on the back of rate cuts in the Euro zone and a mixed macro-outlook for Europe. What a difference the year makes. We at Erste found a better way to solve the excess capital challenge. We invested in growth, in Polish growth. And with this, we have substantially expanded our growth footprint in the fastest-growing region of Europe. In the meantime, the acquisition of a 49% controlling stake in what soon will become Erste Bank Polska has closed on time and from the first quarter of 2026 will be fully consolidated in our accounts. But this is just half of the story. The other half is about our strong performance in 2025. Quarter-by-quarter, growth momentum improved. This enabled us to repeatedly upgrade our financial outlook and, in the end, even outperformed our upgraded guidance. We are particularly pleased with revenue momentum, not only in terms of quantity, but more importantly, in terms of quality because quality brings it with sustainability. Translated into numbers, this means we posted record revenues in 2025, driven by our core income lines, net interest income and net fee income, and we closed the year in style with another set of quarterly records for these items. We are also on track in terms of costs. We were running somewhat above our 5% target in the first 3 quarters, but thanks to the cooling of cost inflation and adjusted for the booking of some integration costs for our Polish acquisition in the final quarter of the year, we managed to deliver on our guidance. Risk costs were only marginally higher in 2025 than in the previous year, but fully in line with our upgraded guidance with CEE shining again in terms of asset quality. Clearly, other result was special in 2025 as well as in the fourth quarter, flattering our reported net profit despite hefty banking taxes included in this line item. To be concrete, other result in 2025 benefited from net positive one-offs in the amount of about EUR 270 million pretax and some EUR 250 million post-tax. Stefan will give you the details later. Accordingly, underlying net profit would have been more in the order of EUR 3.3 billion rather than reported EUR 3.5 billion. Other way, no bad figures and comfortably historical records. And clearly very helpful in delivering capital gen beyond anybody's expectation, including our own. With a CET1 of 19.3% at year-end 2025, we are well positioned for first-time consolidation of Erste Bank Polska and arguably beyond. I therefore think it's not over to say that we got most of the decisions right last year and at the same time, set a clear ambition for 2026. It's our firm intention to stay focused and do the same in 2026. Ladies and gentlemen, throughout this presentation, we will make reference to our expectations for the business of Erste Group, including Erste Bank Polska in order to give you the best possible idea of our new Erste will look like. We will also detail already on the extraordinary items that come with first-time consolidation to almost all of which tax and minority fits fully. And in order to allow for a better like-for-like comparison, we will provide an outlook for Erste excluding Erste Bank Polska profit guidance for 2026 that we already repeatedly communicated, we hereby confirm that's a return on tangible equity of about 19% and a year-on-year increase in earnings per share more than 20%, taking our adjusted 2025 net profit of EUR 3.3 billion as a starting base and adjusting expected 2026 net profit for extraordinary items. This should translate into a net profit of somewhat above EUR 4 billion on a clean basis in 2026 as opposed to somewhat below EUR 4 billion on a reported basis. With this, let's now move to Page 5 of our key P&L performance benchmarks. Obviously, this very much reflects what I just talked about with a stable margin backdrop contributed quarterly NII record would have been difficult to achieve. And without improving cost dynamics, it would not have been possible to report a cost-income ratio of below 48%. We delivered on both fronts. Strong margins were not only supported by good balance in loan growth and healthy competitive environment, but importantly, by strong deposit pricing power, particularly in Austria and improving deposit mix overall. Risk costs at 21 basis points were in line with our improved full year guidance, as already mentioned. Trends very pretty much unchanged in this respect with continued low risk cost in the CEE region, while Austria saw most of the allocations in the final quarter of the year at a slightly lower level than a year ago. If one adds banking level reported under other operating result as shown in the lower left-hand chart with those reported under taxes, then the banking reached a new all-time high of almost EUR 440 million in 2025. Irrespective of this earnings per share adjusted for the AT1 dividend climbed to a record level of EUR 8.24 per share. And finally, return on tangible equity increased to 16.6% from 16.3% a year ago, quite a good achievement, bearing in mind the strong capital build through the year. When we look at the development of balance sheet on Page 6, we see a picture that is evidence of the strength of the business model. The business model is geared to our superior organic growth in customer business, a perfect case in point is the performance in 2025. Both on the asset and liability side, balance sheet growth can be explained by the expansion in customer business. Customer loans grew by almost EUR 14 billion or 6.4% in 2025, while customer deposits were up by more than EUR 11 billion or 4.7%. And in context of both, we can without exaggeration talk about high-quality growth. Loan growth was driven by the retail business in CEE on the back of a solid demand for housing finance, while deposit growth was also better than average in the retail and SME business. Austria, and in particular, the savings banks made a solid contribution to loan growth, while deposit growth was solid in both Austrian retail and SME segments. With volume momentum being good across the franchise in 2025, we see no reason why 2026 should turn out any worse in 2025. Consequently, we target organic loan growth of higher than 5% in 2026. That is for the business of Erste excluding Erste Bank Polska. Including Erste Bank Polska, we also expect an underlying growth rate in a similar ballpark. So, by the end of 2026, loan stock for the combined entity should be higher than EUR 285 billion. The key highlight when looking at our balance sheet metrics on Slide 7 are our regulatory capital ratios. Having said this, the other parameters are also excellent. We can again report an ideal loan-to-deposit ratio of 91.7. The growth of customer loans and customer deposits show good momentum. And finally, asset quality also reported an improvement with the NPL ratio improving both quarter-on-quarter as well as year-on-year. Generally, the asset quality situation remained very good across the CEE region and importantly stable in our Austrian. As usual, Alexandra will provide further detail on credit risk later. Liquidity and leverage ratios were as usual. But now to our capital ratios. Year-on-year, we recorded a massive rise in CET1 ratio of more than 400 basis points to 19.3%. Stefan will lead us later. But what is important to me as a CEO is that this puts us in a perfect position for first-time consolidation of Erste Bank Polska. A year ago, when we promised to the regulator that despite the 460 basis point CET1 ratio drawdown resulting from the Polish acquisition, we will always maintain a CET1 ratio of higher than 13.5%, and we aim to reach our new target CET1 ratio of 14.25% during the course of 2026, well above 13.5% and 14.5% Tier 1 ratio will certainly be the first consolidated Erste Bank Polska in the first quarter of 2026. Let's now briefly take the macroeconomic environment and particularly the outlook for 2026 on Slide 9. Our economies predict better economic growth for 6 out of our 8 core markets than we saw in 2025. And in the 2 markets for which they project consolidation, this is expected to happen at very healthy levels of between 2.5% to 3%. I'm specifically talking about the Czech Republic and Croatia. The new country in our portfolio, Poland will provide further growth in with real GDP growth estimated at 4% for 2026. Good news are also coming out of Austria, where the past 3 years, economic growth was almost nonexistent. For 2026, a modest recovery is predicted. In this forecast, we have not modeled any material tailwind from Germany fiscal expansion as this seems to take longer than initially hoped for. All in all, this is a very good starting point for the banking business and with further ground for profitable loan growth. The other macro forecasts are equally encouraging. Inflation is forecasted to retreat in most of our markets, while labor markets are expected to stay strong. When it comes to external fiscal balance, the picture is mixed as in many other places around the world. I'm tempted to say Austria, Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary usually enjoy neutral or positive current account balances while the Czech Republic is preventing a poster child of fiscal prudence. As far as the interest rate outlook is concerned, we assume only minor cuts in countries like Poland, Hungary, Romania and Serbia, while rates in the Eurozone are expected to stay flat. This as well will support profitable banking business in 2026. Talking about profitable banking business, let me share with you a couple of performance highlights of the business in 2025. To cut the long story short, retail business was a clear growth driver in the past year. I'm on Page 10 now. Retail loans were up by 8.1% to EUR 115.4 billion. Growth was reasonably balanced between housing and consumer loans and the quality of the retail book remained very good. Retail deposits also showed good growth dynamics with retail deposits climbing by almost EUR 5 billion to EUR 173 billion in the final quarter of 2025. Retail current account deposits grew the fastest quarter-on-quarter. Year-on-year, current account and saving deposits were up by 7% to 8% each, while term deposits declined by almost 6%. We also saw continued growth in off-balance sheet customer funds, security savings plans that enable customers to build long-term rates in an easy to manage digital format approached the EUR 2 million mark at the end of the year and generated gross sales in excess of EUR 1.5 billion in 2025. George, our digital platform for retail clients continued on its growth path. The number of onboarded users reached 11.4 million by the end of the year and the digital sales ratio in the retail business inched up 67%. Going forward, our ambition is unchanged to develop George into a fully-fledged financial adviser in order to give even larger parts of our client operation access to high-quality financial advice. In the corporate segment, I'm on Page 11 already loans were up 5% year-on-year and 0.8% quarter-on-quarter. The slight growth slowdown in the final quarter of the year was to weaker demand in large corporate business after a strong performance earlier in the year, while the SME and commercial real estate business lines continue to exhibit solid growth. In terms of products, demand for investment loans continued to be more pronounced in the fourth quarter, while year-on-year, there was a good balance between investment and working capital. On the liability side, corporate deposits enjoyed good growth. And here as well, current account deposits grew faster than term deposits year-on-year. The market business also delivered strong performance in 2025 with our ECM and DCM teams successfully executing 360 transactions with an issuance volume of EUR 211 billion. In Asset Management business, after passing the historic EUR 100 billion milestone in the third quarter, dynamic growth continued. Assets under management reached EUR 104 billion at the end of 2025. This bodes well for the future fee growth. On the digital front, the corporate business also progressed well. Client migration to George business has been completed in Austria, Romania and is progressing well in the Czech Republic. With this, by the end of 2025, some 76,000 corporate clients across our region are using George business. And with this, I hand over to Stefan for the presentation of the quarterly operating trends in the reporting segments.

Stefan Dörfler: Thanks very much, Peter, and good morning also from my side. Please follow me to Page 13, and let me start by saying that for 2025, I'm particularly pleased with our loan growth performance. We achieved an acceleration in loan growth to 6.4%, up from 4.9% a year ago at the same time when we needed to speed up our capital build. To accomplish these 2 competing goals concurrently is testament to the strength of this organization. As far as loan volumes by country are concerned, the Czech Republic was the standout performer, producing consistent double-digit growth throughout the year. As highlighted already in previous quarters, Czech growth was well balanced between retail and corporate business, but within retail, mortgages led the way. Of the more than EUR 5 billion worth of net loans we added there, mortgages contributed roughly 50%. Growth in Hungary was equally driven by a massive increase in housing loans, admittedly from low levels, but still due to the introduction of a government-subsidized mortgage scheme as of September 2025. Having said this, demand for consumer loans was also quite robust, while corporate lending momentum trailed. Growth in Slovakia and Romania was more or less in line with the group average and in the former driven almost exclusively by strong momentum in the mortgage business, while in the latter, growth was mostly registered in consumer loans. In Austria, as Peter already mentioned, we saw mixed trends. At the savings banks, growth momentum improved noticeably towards end of the year. Interestingly, growth was better in the corporate than the retail business and within retail, clearly attributable to housing loans. In Erste Bank Austria, however, growth was generally subdued. On an aggregated level, in the corporate business, we saw a good growth balance between investment loans and working capital facilities, while in the retail business, housing loans in absolute terms made a better growth contributions -- better growth contributions, especially in the final quarter of the year. Thanks to this growth momentum in 2025 and the constructive macro-outlook, we target organic growth in 2026 of more than 5%, both for Erste with and without Erste Bank Polska, resulting in a net loan stock of higher than EUR 285 billion for the enlarged group by year-end 2026. On the liability side, the favorable mix towards cheaper deposits continued in the fourth quarter of 2025, as you can see on Page 14. This we observed in our core retail SME and savings bank's deposit base, which rose 5.5% over the past 12 months to EUR 209 billion, but also in our corporate business line. In both, overnight deposits increased, while term deposits declined year-on-year. Consequently, the cost of deposits fell again in the fourth quarter of 2025 with corresponding positive read across to net interest income. In terms of total deposit volumes, we are up 4.7% and 2.1% year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter, respectively. As far as geographic segment highlights are concerned, we saw strong retail inflows in both Austria retail and SME segments in the final quarter of 2025, while the quarter-on-quarter decline in the Czech segment was attributable to volatility in noncore deposits. In conclusion, we benefited from strong volume momentum, and that's true for both assets and liabilities, not just in the fourth quarter, but throughout the year 2025. Let me now move to net interest income on Page 15. As those of you who follow us for some time will remember well, ever since the end of the rate hike cycle in September 2023, we talked about NII plateauing even when rates were cut in half between mid-2024 and mid-2025. Now is the time to officially start talking about the next leg up because we are right in the middle of it. Most of the moving parts that are relevant for NII performance point in the right direction. Macro is somewhat supportive. Volume momentum is strong. Deposit mix is improving. Pricing power of Erste Group is intact. And last but certainly not least, we have an interest rate environment that bar any dramatic changes is at least not unsupportive of bank profitability. Consequently, we produced the second consecutive record quarterly NII print with NII first time topping EUR 2 billion. That's a year-on-year increase of 4.6% or a plus of 2.7% quarter-on-quarter. If we look at the annual performance, we started this year, let's say, the year 2025, of course, with a flat outlook and closed it with an increase of 3.5%, resulting in NII of almost EUR 7.8 billion. A key development in this context was the stabilization of NII in Austria as the year went on, followed by a trend reversal towards the positive in the final quarter of the year, essentially driven by a better deposit mix and continued deposit repricing. One could say that we have turned the NII tide in Austria. This is not insignificant as the Austrian retail and SME segment will still contribute more than 1/4 to NII even going forward. And it bodes well for the outlook for 2026 to which I will come in a minute. We also saw continued good performance in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, where a combination of deposit repricing, upwards fixations of mortgage loans and, of course, good volume dynamics all helped. The other segment principally benefited from higher allocations of income earned on local access capital, mainly from money market and government bond investments. And a final comment on NII 2025 and also at this point in time, our sensitivity to rate cuts has declined further to about EUR 170 million for a 100-basis point instant downward rate shock with the full impact expected at the minority-owned savings bank. So actually, no big deal for you as our shareholders. Now for the outlook for 2026. We target net interest income north of EUR 11 billion for this year. This incorporates an organic growth assumption of about 5% for the -- excluding Erste Bank Polska, strong contribution from Erste Bank Polska. The nonrecurrence of interest earned on the purchase price of Erste Bank Polska, around about EUR 7 billion, as you know, and the amortization of about EUR 170 million gross, that's about only EUR 60 million net of positive fair value adjustments recognized on debt securities and derivatives on first-time consolidation. Let's now turn to another success story of 2025 and frankly speaking, the past couple of years, and that's fee income on Page 16. At EUR 850 million, we posted another record in the final quarter of the year, up 9.1% year-on-year and 6.5% quarter-on-quarter. The drivers are in the meantime well known. Securities business, which includes asset management, continued to perform exceptionally well amid a helpful market environment and customers' increased propensity to invest in capital markets. Payment fees also made a good contribution when adjusting for the shift of loan account fees from payments to lending fees as of the first quarter of 2025. And insurance brokerage fees benefited from the usual end of year performance bonus payments. If we look at fees from the annual perspective, the story is very similar to what I've just said about the quarter. Net fee income reached nearly EUR 3.2 billion, again, a new record. This means that fees grew by 8.6% in 2025, comfortably above the target we set for the year. As for the growth drivers, we again talk about securities business, payment services and insurance brokerage. Honestly, it's hard to highlight individual country segments in the context of fee performance because as you see from the chart of the slide, Page 16, all of them made great contributions in 2025. Therefore, the main task for us is now to maintain the momentum going into 2026 as the bar is clearly moving even higher. But with an organic growth target of higher than 5%, you see that this is also clearly our goal. The inclusion of Erste Bank Polska should result in a combined fee income of about EUR 4 billion in 2026, whereas where we have to look at the final print that will also depend on the allocation of local FX income from Poland, either to the fee or the trading line. Over to operating expenses now. I'm on Page 17 already. Let me start with a quick summary on 2025. We were clearly running above our 2025 cost inflation guidance of about 25%. You all remember our discussions in the quarterly calls until the third quarter as we invested in efficiency projects, but in the end, still managed to come in right on target when adjusting for booking Polish integration costs in the amount of EUR 38 million to be fully transparent. This was only possible because of a significant year-on-year slowdown in cost growth in the fourth quarter, mainly driven by a stabilization in personnel costs and a moderation in depreciation and amortization charges as well as office expenses. Quarter-on-quarter, we saw the usual seasonality, so no surprises there. For 2026, it is our target to build on the solid performance of the fourth quarter and limit organic growth inflation to 3% as we should now benefit from efficiency gains and the downward inflationary trend in our countries, even Austrian inflation numbers came down recently. But 2026 is not only about better efficiency in Erste's pre-Poland business, but all about consolidating Erste Bank Polska. And in this respect, there will be 2 absolutely very relevant topics. First, and we have been talking about this in the past already, we can be more specific today, integration costs. Secondly, is intangibles amortization. While the former will mainly impact 2026, the latter will stay with us for the next decade. Our refined estimate of remaining integration costs now stands at EUR 180 million. The net impact will be dependent on the final split between Genna and Warsaw, but a good portion can be assumed to be booked locally based on the recent announcements of our colleagues from Erste Bank Polska in relation of rebranding costs. The amortization of intangibles, essentially, it's about customer relationships, will be based on the value of customer stock for 100% of Erste Bank Polska of EUR 2.1 billion and consequently have an outsized impact on the cost line of EUR 210 million annually. As opposed to this gross amount, the bottom-line impact at about EUR 70 million will be significantly lower as tax and minority shields fully apply. This is a noncash charge and irrelevant to regulatory capital as already fully deducted. Taking all of these items into account, we target operating expenses of about EUR 7 billion in 2026 for the enlarged Erste Group. Next up is operating results, and I'm already on Page 18. At almost EUR 11.7 billion, we posted record operating income in 2025 and at almost EUR 3.1 billion, we also posted record operating income for the quarter. The reasons we have discussed already in detail. We saw high-quality revenue growth driven by our core income lines, net interest income and net fee income. Or put differently, we enjoyed strong core business momentum. And with cost performance being in line with expectations, we saw records for both annual and quarterly operating results. As cost growth was a touch higher than revenue growth in 2025, the cost/income ratio was slightly weaker in 2025. However, much better than anticipated at the beginning of the year. When it comes to the outlook for 2026, and we just look at the Erste business, excluding Erste Bank Polska, then based on what we already said about macro, interest rates and business momentum, there's only one conclusion, and that's positive operating jaws or translating this into concrete numbers, a further improvement of the cost/income ratio towards 47%. Well, obviously, this is a somewhat theoretical statement as our 2026 financials will fully include the financials of Erste Bank Polska as well as the special effects in NII and operating expenses. But given the industry-leading efficiency level that Erste Bank Polska is operating at, that will only lead to a further improvement of these efficiency metrics. Our best guesstimate and guidance at this point in time is around 45%. And with this, over to Alexandra for more details on credit risk.

Alexandra Habeler-Drabek: Thanks, Stefan, and also good morning, and welcome to this call. I'm now on Page 19. In the final quarter of 2025, we booked risk costs of EUR 159 million or 27 basis points. This is better than a year ago, even though FLI and overlay releases in both quarters were more or less comparable. As shown on the left-hand chart, we continue to book risk costs in our Austrian retail and SME operations, so Erste Bank Austria and Savings Banks, but the asset quality situation in Austria has definitely stabilized, thanks to somewhat lower NPL inflows in 2025 versus 2024. Fourth quarter risk cost bookings in Central and Eastern Europe continued to be very low. Looking at 2025 overall at 21 basis points, we came in right in line with our improved full year guidance. As in the previous year, again, EB Group and Sparkassen savings banks accounted for the largest part of net allocations in the context of an exceptionally strong performance in the CEE region. However, again, both at Erste Bank Uusterich and at the savings banks, risk costs improved compared to 2024, in line with trends seen in the broader Austrian banking industry. As far as FLI industry overlay provisions are concerned, we now hold a stock of about EUR 350 million, down by EUR 109 million compared to the third quarter on the back of FLI and overlay releases. For 2026, we currently project further releases of roughly EUR 60 million. When it comes to the risk cost outlook, including Erste Bank Polska for 2026, we forecast 25 to 30 basis points as risk costs tend to be somewhat higher in the Polish market. This is adjusted for the already previously communicated one-off ECL provisions of EUR 300 million gross with a net impact of EUR 120 million that is required by IFRS 9 on first-time consolidation. For Erste excluding Poland, we would see risk costs similar to 2025 levels, somewhere between 20 to 25 basis points given the generally robust macro backdrop. Let's now turn to asset quality on Page 20. The group NPL ratio improved both quarter-on-quarter as well as year-on-year to 2.4%, thanks to a stable NPL stock and a dynamically growing loan book. The stable NPL stock resulted from lower NPL inflows as well as higher recoveries. Let me again comment on Austria in this context as it has been and still is in the spotlight. For Erste Bank Austria and the Sparkassen asset quality metrics are perfectly acceptable and have improved in 2025. We saw lower NPL inflows, higher NPL recoveries. And importantly, we saw hardly any new entrants into our early warning list. And we expect more of the same in 2026 as the Austrian economy is recovering slowly. In Central and Eastern Europe, the asset quality performance remained excellent. It is hard to single out a country for doing better than the other, whether we talk about the Czech Republic or Hungary or Serbia because all of them did really well. In Romania, you might recall, where we saw some NPL inflows early in the year, the situation stabilized. We sold some NPLs. And with this, our NPL ratio in Romania is once again below 3%. In terms of projections for year-end 2026, we expect that the group NPL ratio will stay more or less at current levels, and that applies to both Erste with and without Erste Bank Polska. NPL coverage is projected to slip slightly, but only slightly and should stay close enough to 70%. And with this, I hand back to Stefan.

Stefan Dörfler: Thanks, Alexandra. Let's turn to Page 21. To top off an exceptional year, other result also turned in a tremendous performance in the fourth quarter, again, benefiting from positive one-offs in the form of real estate selling gains and releases of legal provisions, particularly in the Czech Republic and Romania. When looking at other results from an annual perspective, we saw the best print since 2007. Thomas had to go back that far in analyzing the data to find a better print. And to put this into context, back then, banking levies or resolution fund contributions, which today run into the hundreds of millions of euros and annually were unheard of. As a result of this extraordinary performance throughout 2025, one thing must be clear. This is a onetime event that is very unlikely to be repeated in 2026. We estimate that the net positive onetime items amounted to approximately EUR 270 million, as Peter already mentioned, pretax and that in 2026, other result will more closely mirror regulatory charges, which based on higher banking levies in Hungary and Romania should be in the order of approximately EUR 450 million. Typically, we already expect one or the other positive or also negative print there for the first quarter, we are anticipating a better print due to the closing of the Erste transaction in Croatia. Based on what you heard about record annual and quarterly operating performance as well as quarterly and annual other results, and I'm on Page 22. In the meantime, it follows that quarterly and annual net profits were comfortably record prints as well. And one could argue somewhat inflated, obviously, to the benefit of capital and capital ratios, so no complaints here. But still, therefore, it is only fair to adjust net profit for onetime items. And if we do this, clean net profit prior to AT1 dividend deduction, as Peter already mentioned, would be closer to EUR 3.3 billion rather than the reported figure of EUR 3.5 billion. By extension, the same comments apply to reported earnings per share and return on tangible equity, both benefited from one-off supported net profits. If one adjusts reported 2025 EPS of EUR 8.24 for this, then underlying EPS would amount to EUR 7.72 and ROTE would be closer to EUR 515.5 as opposed to the reported figure of 16.6%. When it comes to the outlook for 2026, we confirm everything we have said since the announcement of the Polish acquisition on 5th of May 2025. We expect a significant improvement on return on tangible equity to around 19% and an earnings per share uplift north of 20%. These targets are based on reported net figures adjusted for extraordinary items with EUR 3.3 billion serving as a basis for 2025 and a figure of greater than EUR 4 billion being the target for 2026 adjusted. And with this, let's move on to wholesale funding and capital, starting on Page 24. Stability and competitive advantage are the name of the game when it comes to funding. High granular and well-diversified retail and SME deposit base remains a key source of long-term funding. Wholesale funding volumes decreased year-to-date as higher stock of debt securities was more than offset by decline in interbank deposits. The stock of debt securities was pushed up primarily by issuance of covered bonds and senior preferred bonds. On to Page 25, in order to look in more detail at our long-term wholesale funding. My short summary would be that we successfully completed our 2025 funding plan and that we had a busy and successful start to the 2026 funding year. Next to several transactions of our subsidiaries, we have issued a Tier 2 and a senior preferred note, EUR 750 million each on group level in January. Overall, we expect similar funding volumes this year as in 2025 and we'll have more focus on MREL instruments compared to covered bonds. Let's now move to regulatory capital and risk-weighted assets on Page 26. In the context of other results, I talked already about a onetime event, and I think this is also a fair statement for the development of regulatory capital and risk-weighted assets. We saw a massive buildup in capital and at the same time, a massive reduction in risk-weighted assets in 2025. Of course, most of this did not happen by chance, but was the result of a well-executed strategy that was instrumental in funding the acquisition of Erste Bank Polska exclusively from internal resources. To give you an idea about the scale of the achievements, we grew loans by about EUR 14 billion in 2025, as already discussed, while risk-weighted assets were down by almost EUR 10 billion. The main drivers for this were the increased use of securitizations, positive portfolio effects and last, but not at all least, Basel IV implementation also came in handy. These factors more than offset the volume growth related up drift. The strong growth in CET1 capital by EUR 4.5 billion during 2025 is rooted in strong profitability and temporarily increased profit retention. The former also benefited from positive one-offs as detailed earlier in the presentation, but was mainly driven by strong business momentum, while the latter was supported by suspension of the share buyback we already announced early in the year and a lower dividend payout from 2025 profits. The result of these massive moves, you can see on Page 27, our CET1 waterfall, a 408-basis point increase in our CET1 ratio in 2025. Viewed differently, one could say that we absorbed almost the entire expected CET1 drawdown expected from the Erste Bank Polska acquisition within 1 calendar year. And I can only repeat what Peter said. We have far outperformed all capital commitments that we gave to the regulator in the run-up to the transaction. That's the CET1 ratio floor of 13.5% and the new increased target ratio of 14.25% to be achieved during the course of 2026. When it comes to capital distribution, we will stick to our communicated dividend policy for 2025, resulting in a payout of EUR 0.75 per share. I think it is also evident that we have the full capacity to return to our pre-transaction dividend policy of 40% to 50% and possibly even put share buybacks back on the menu if this is in the best interest of shareholders. When it comes to the CET1 ratio outlook for 2026, the triangle of profitability, loan growth and shareholder distribution will determine the extent and speed of any further buildup. In any case, we have created a space for many options for future growth. And with this, over to you, Peter, for concluding remarks.

Peter Bosek: Thank you, Alexandra. Thank you, Stefan. Let's take a step back again and look at the bigger picture. What emerges in front of us, you can see summarized on Page 29. It's about strong organic growth momentum in the Erste's business without Erste Bank Polska. On a like-for-like basis, we expect loan growth of higher than 5%. We project mid-single-digit net interest income growth. We once again target fee growth of north of 5%, and we aim to push cost inflation down to 3%. With this positive operating jaws and improved cost-income ratio are firmly on the agenda for 2026. Risk costs are expected to stay at a very level. And even if other will be more in line with the reported net profit should at least be on par with what we achieved in 2025. Erste Bank Polska to the mix that the future will be brighter still. Growth opportunities will multiply by having access to the largest market in the CEE region. On the back of a better macro backdrop, we therefore project loans to surpass EUR 285 billion for the combined entity of new Erste, if you prefer. We see net interest income north of EUR 11 billion, fees at about EUR 4 billion and costs in the order of about EUR 7 billion. Risk costs will inch up to 25 to 30 basis points, leaving aside the one-off related to first-time consolidation. All of this is set to result in a significant increased return on tangible equity of 19% and an increase in earnings per share of more than 20%. Despite this very robust financial outlook, we are not getting carried away. Our full focus and attention is on integration of Erste Bank Polska and rebranding. At the same time, you can rest assured that we will not lose sight of strategic opportunities, which we expect to open up in front of us as the year progresses. Superior profitability and consequently, fast capital build will enable us to choose from a number of options ranging from increased capital return before further M&A, all of which have the potential to create significant shareholder value. And this, ladies and gentlemen, concludes our presentation remarks. Thanks for your attention, and we are now ready to take your questions.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] And the first question comes from Jeremy Sigee from BNP Paribas.

Jeremy Sigee: Could you just give us a quick update on the integration time line for Poland? What are the big steps in terms of systems migration or other big things? And when do they happen? And then second question, you've talked about the various options that you've got for growth. Could you talk a bit about both organic and M&A opportunities, what your priorities are, where you see opportunities presenting themselves?

Peter Bosek: If I may start with the integration in Poland, we plan to be done with the integration when it comes to IT and technology within 24 months. We have already started to work with our colleagues in Poland. So, this is a lot of work in front of us, but we have both sides very experienced IT people. So, we know what we have in front of us to be able to manage. The second also very important part is the rebranding, which will take place in the second quarter. So, we have more than 400 branches, we have to rebrand. We have a lot of ATMs, we have cards, we have papers. So, a lot of things in front of us, but very much looking forward to use the opportunity to build up a very strong brand in the Polish banking market. When it comes to growth opportunities and potential M&A, it is very much depending on the market situation. I think it's much too early. I would like to -- just to remind you, although we have a very strong capital position now, we just had closing on of January. And again, now we are very much focused on integrating Poland. But if something pops up where we think it's a business opportunity and is creating value to our shareholders, we will definitely look at it.

Operator: The next question comes from Gabor Kemeny from Autonomous Research.

Gabor Kemeny: Thanks for walking us through the intricacies of the Polish consolidation. But my first question is actually on the business ex-Poland and the NII guidance there, I mean, 5% growth you guide for, which is decent, but it's actually similar to the Q4 run rate. It implies similar NII to the Q4 run rate, I believe. So, what makes you assume that NII will not grow sequentially from here together with loans? And the second question would be on cost. I mean you expect cost growth to half practically on an organic basis. Can you walk us -- which is a significant improvement. Can you walk us through what you actually expect to drive this slowdown and perhaps give us some quantification of those drivers? And then finally, on the capital deployment options, how do you think about your options for this year, including if you could comment on the possibility of raising your stake further in the Polish bank.

Stefan Dörfler: Let me start with the remark on the interest rates for 2026. I understood you right. You wanted a reply to, say, on our growth expectations on the former Erste Group, I would call it. Look, let's not forget there are a couple of points that we need to observe when it comes to the translation of loan growth into NII. First of all, we all know that this is a buildup throughout the year. So, if we expect better growth on the loan side than 4%, 5%, then this will only get into NII numbers over the year, not only for the first quarter. The second element is, and I mentioned it on a side comment when running the presentation, we have paid EUR 7 billion for the acquisition of Erste Bank Polska. So that's in a simple calculation around EUR 130 million that we simply have less of interest on excess liquidity. It's not a huge amount given the overall dimension of NII nowadays, but it's not to be completely ignored and it is a certain churn on our growth year-on-year. And last but not least, the interest rate environment should be still okay-ish and kind of supportive, but definitely, we will not have tailwinds or tail storms from the interest rate environment. We've put ourselves in a position that is quite neutral to interest rate developments. So, from that end, we shouldn't expect too much of an uplift. And if you look at the 2025 developments, we've had a good momentum still from our investment book. This is still there, but significantly slowing down. So, I would say, at the end of the day, we are back into a game which is mainly depending on growth. You're perfectly right, but it's not a one-on-one translation of loan growth into NII. So, I think if we can deliver 5% on existing group, I would be very satisfied. The other point was on cost growth, look, it's very simple. Inflation is now really sharply coming down even in the countries like Austria, where we saw after really super elevated prints, we saw in January now a 2% number. That will help the negotiations for collective bargaining are ongoing. We hope that there will be a reasonable behavior on all sides like it was in other industries in this country. In the other countries, we see wage inflation still around, but significantly lower than in the past. So that's the external element. And the internal element, we have always communicated that the impact of the efficiency investments that we started already in the end of 2024 should have a first-time impact in 2026, and that is also something we are committed to deliver. And this in combination would land around this 3% level. Of course, a lot of integration efforts will be there, but you were asking about the core group. And then I think capital deployment. Look, Peter already made it clear in his answer just before. We are evaluating all options, but we are also not deviating from our super focus. We got everything very well done. We were achieving not only the signing, but also the closing in a very smooth manner. And I really want to praise the teams here on all sides who guaranteed very smooth operations day 1 already across the group, and we will build on that. But let's not forget that the integration will still occupy a lot of resources. And therefore, we will elevate very, very precisely how much we have still in our pockets to invest into, let me say, new adventures. I think you know the markets that we look at. There are some of the markets which are able to do transactions, for example, on themselves. If there are options opening, we will analyze them, but I think it's much too early to say. Last comment, since this is obviously also part of your question, we will not comment at this point in time about any kind of precise dividend indication for 2026, but it's natural that we have full capacity to at least -- let me stress this, at least get back to the capital distribution that you were used to up until the year 2024.

Operator: The next question comes from Ben Maher from KBW.

Benjamin Maher: I actually have one. It's just on the growth in the Corporate Center NII was very strong last year, effectively doubling. I think you mentioned the securities portfolio, that tailwind perhaps tailing off a bit this year. But any guidance around NII in the Corporate Center for 2026 to 2027 would be helpful.

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

Operator: The next question comes from Amit Ranjan from JPM.

Amit Ranjan: The first one is on capital. What's the current outlook on balance sheet measures going forward, SRTs, et cetera? How much did you achieve in 2025? Because if I look at the credit RWAs, they declined by almost EUR 4 billion quarter-on-quarter. So, if you could highlight that and also the costs associated with that SRT in 2025? And how should we think about that in 2026? And then the second one is on -- you have provided very clear 2026 targets. How should we think about medium- to long-term targets for the group? Is that something we can expect to be provided during 2026? Are you planning a Capital Markets Day at some point for the combined entity? And last one, if I may, on loan growth. Are you seeing any pickup in corporate loan demand in the various geographies? And is there any assumption you're making around benefit from the fiscal stimulus in Germany and the infrastructure spending for countries like Austria, Czech Republic, please?

Stefan Dörfler: I'll take the first question and then hand it over to Peter. So, first thing, the costs, not to forget around securitization, around about EUR 60 million, and that's in the fees. Maybe let me use this opportunity to say 2 sentences about fee development, which I'm very impressed from colleagues do a great job there. We have had already cost for securitization during the year 2025 in fees. It's even more remarkable to see the results. And that will be around about EUR 60 million in the year 2026, first point. Second point, I want to be precise on what I said on the fee trading stuff when it comes to our EUR 4 billion target. We have observed a little bit of a different treatment in the Polish market around FX fees or let's say, fixed trading revenues rather. And we will analyze in the next weeks whether we can also show this on the group level in fees or whether we have to put it in trading. So just that you can put my remark here in perspective because it fits to this point. And last but not least, in terms of planning for 2026, so nothing tremendous being planned at this point in time for securitizations in 2026. We will do 2, 3 further transactions for sure as we use this toolbox ongoingly, but significantly less than in 2025 since the effort here was directed to the capital -- I wouldn't call it rebuild, but the capital optimization effort in 2025. Peter, please?

Peter Bosek: Yes. When it comes to midterm outlook, I think as we mentioned already before, I think this year, on the one hand, we are heavily focused on integrating Erste Bank Polska. It's very clear. we will see the full positive impact in terms of P&L, of course, in 2027. On the other hand, it's also fair to say that we are very -- again, very strong being up capital, which gives us a lot of opportunities. And this is exactly the other part for this year to make up our mind and see how markets are developing and what kind of opportunities are poping up in terms of M&A or further increase in our stake in Erste Bank Polska, also depending on the Polish scheme, how we are able to increase. So, there are still a lot of things we have to think through. But you can be assured that we are very well aware. And I think we are in a luxury situation in terms of our strengths being able to build up capital. When it comes to your question about the Capital Market Day, this is something we are making up our mind. Stefan, Alexandra and myself, we are, of course, discussing it. But it's also very obvious that we would go for a Capital Markets Day if we have something detailed to you, which is worth the effort of you and your colleagues to join. When it comes to potential impact of Germany, I mean, this is something we are waiting for already 1.5 years. Of course, we expect a positive impact in countries like Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Romania, but the political procedure in Germany just takes longer as we expected. And therefore, we didn't take it into consideration, as mentioned during our presentation in our P&L for this year because we are sounding a little bit like broken record every time telling that there will be an impact, there will be an impact, there will be an impact and so far we cannot.

Operator: The next question now from Mate Nemes from UBS.

Mate Nemes: I have 3 questions, please. The first one would be a follow-up on your -- Stefan, on fee growth. I understand the uncertainty around the treatment of some of the FX commissions or FX fees in Poland. For the rest of the portfolio, putting that uncertainty aside, is there any reason why fee growth shouldn't be in the high-single digits given your track record, given strong volume growth, given good traction with the securities business and so on? That's the first one. The second question would be just a clarification, please. Could you clarify what exactly will be added back to get to the adjusted net profit in 2026, i.e., the amount slightly above EUR 4 billion. Is that the EUR 240 million intangibles amortization and the EUR 180 million integration costs or it's only the integration costs? So that's the second question. And the third question is just a, I guess, conceptual one perhaps for Peter. The outlook on retail lending, very, very strong performance in 2025, retail growth and within that housing loan growth in the CEE region is very strong. Could you talk about expectations whether that momentum can be maintained in one or the other country, be it Croatia, be it Czech, be it Hungary? Or we could see some moderation here and there? And also in that context, perhaps, what is your expectation in retail growth in Austria?

Stefan Dörfler: All right. So let me take the number question first. So, we talk about roughly EUR 350 million that you should consider in this, so to say, adjustment logic, and this is the sum of ECL impact the integration costs, as you rightly assume, and the intangibles. Honestly speaking, we really try to manage, and I think we have kind of got 80%, 90% there to absorb everything as much as possible in 2026. So, you heard the question before, the earlier question to Peter regarding integration costs. That's also what we have been discussing internally. While we will be busy with a couple of the things on 28 when it comes to really absorbing most of the matters in P&L representation and so on, I would say, given the dimension of the numbers, everything that comes there after 2026 with the sole exception of the depreciation of the customer list I would personally from a CFO perspective, say you can pretty much forget, right? So, it's EUR 50 million here, EUR 30 million there, for sure, not numbers to be ignored in a bigger sense. But the way we look at, for example, NII of a base EUR 11 billion plus, yes, have an item here in 2027 impact of EUR 80 million, EUR 90 million. But frankly speaking, a small change in interest rate environment also does a much, much bigger impact, as you very well know. Fee growth. To specify the dimension that we are discussing here with the Polish colleagues and also with the audience is EUR 200 million, just to be precise. So, it's about EUR 200 million to be allocated rather to fees or FX. So that is around the -- if you map it to the EUR 4 billion total, it's around 5% difference, not to be ignored. Of course, it doesn't do anything to the total operating income. It's pretty clear. And that was the reason why Thomas and the Board discussed which guidance should we give. Otherwise, we would have been coming up with greater than 4. Now we are around 4%. We will clarify that. And by Q1, we will be very clear about where to book this. When it comes to growth, thanks for your confidence in our growth potential. I do not disagree. However, if we look around at what happened in the last 2, 3 years, let's also be fair. We had quite strong supportive factors, not the least, a positive inflationary environment, which, of course, by indexation of payment fees and so on, not only for us, but for the whole industry was supportive. And if we now go significantly down with our growth expectations on costs, it's also consequently clear that some of the tailwinds are slowing down on the fee side. That's point number one. And point number 2, as you know better than anyone else, if we have such a supportive capital market every year as we had in the last 2, 3 years, is also not a given -- and some not all, but some components of the income here on asset management fees and securities business depending on it. So do I rule out that we come up with higher than 5%. So, I think you said upper mid-single digit again in 2026? No. Do I want to guide for it at this point in time? Also no. Peter?

Peter Bosek: Yes. Thank you, Stefan. When it comes to mortgage business, when we talk about volume, it's very much about Czech Republic, Austria. So, we don't see any -- or we don't expect any change in the demand in Czech Republic. So, the market is still strong I would expect even a little bit more positive momentum in Austria because demand has come back already over the last 12, 18 months, and we saw a clear correlation that demand was picking up and interest rates are coming slightly down. And Croatia, I think we are doing very well in terms of balancing between mortgage lending and consumer lending. So, which was true also for the whole year in 2025 that we have between these 2 product lines. Good that you asked for Croatia because we took a special effort in Croatia and set up an initiative to improve our mortgage lending there because there, I think it's fair to say that from our perspective, we are a little bit underpenetrated when it comes to mortgage lending is an area we would like to take more efforts to improve the situation.

Operator: The next question comes from Riccardo Rovere from Mediobanca.

Riccardo Rovere: Two or 3, if I may. The first one is on the NII guidance. I mean in Erste stand-alone a couple of billion per quarter in Q4. So, say before any growth land, you could land in the EUR 8 billion region without being too sophisticated. And Erste Bank Polska reported kind of anywhere between EUR 750 million and EUR 800 million in Q4. So that could be another, say, EUR 3 billion or so more or less. So, before growth will be in the EUR 1 billion ballpark and this before, again, loan growth. So, I was kind of -- I just want to understand what -- and you also say, Stefan, if I'm not mistaken, that you expect kind of supportive policy rate environment, if I got it right during the call. So, I was wondering if there is no margin pressure and if the growth stays as you land, what could to go above or well above EUR 11 billion and more than EUR 11 billion could be EUR 11.5 billion in your mind. Then again, on growth, I mean you're growing at 6.4% before Poland. Macro is expected to be to improve. Maybe you're going to have an impact from fiscal in Germany are at 7% and pretty good when they make their projections. So why 5% when the macro is improving and you're exiting '25 at 6.4%. The other question I have is on common equity. I mean, you end at 19.3%, take out EUR 460, you end at EUR 14.7 billion divided by 2, it's another EUR 2 billion, risk assets, say, EUR 180 million, EUR 150 million from you, 30, 30-something from Erste Bank Polska is another more than 100 basis point. So, as it is today, we will land anywhere between 15.5% and 16%. So, the question here, I just want to connect to what Jeremy asked right at the beginning of this call. What's the priority here? Is because the share price suffered quite a lot on in early 2025 when there was uncertainty about capital use. So just to be clear, what's the priority here? Is the priority more M&A? Or is the priority returning capital to shareholders as you have to integrate Poland, which is a transaction? Because the numbers do not adopt just don't adapt with the numbers what you said. Just to say so, but I think the market needs a little bit of clarity on that.

Stefan Dörfler: So first, unfortunately, the sound was very bad. So, let's make sure that we got everything right because you started by saying 3 questions, I only identified kind of 2.5. But anyway, the first one is very clear. And I completely -- I completely can follow your thinking EUR 8 billion here because you guys are already at EUR 2 billion in Q4, then simply extrapolate that and then add the EUR 3 billion from Poland and they go EUR 11 billion plus the growth, why don't you talk about EUR 11.5 billion. That's in a nutshell what you said. Look, it's not exactly that easy this time for sure, at least from today's perspective. Number one, again, we have a clear subtraction. This is a super simple calculation of EUR 130 million from the nonrecurrence of the interest on our paid here. It's not a huge element, but not to be completely. Secondly, and I give you the precise description, we have EUR 170 million, and we always talk about the gross figures here, right? I said it -- talk about the gross figures because 11, 11.5 is also, of course, the gross NII for 2026 in the whole group. EUR 170 million impact from hedge accounting adjustments and the debt securities, both around about close to EUR 100 million adding up there, and there's a little bit of a counter effect on other positions. So, it's a total of EUR 300 million, please, Riccardo, that you have to take. This is not something which is kind of a question of optimism or pessimism. It's just the fact that this is 100% clear that this will be booked this way. So, I have to take this into consideration because then with your expectation somewhere between EUR 11.2 billion to EUR 11.5 billion, we are already talking a little bit of a different story. And the rest -- yes, the rest is a question of interpretation if everything goes fully our way, if interest rate environment is as supportive as we expected. And therefore, we decided to go for a greater than EUR 11 billion guidance, which I think is leaving also upside. And you know us then when we have more evidence for better development, we will adjust the guidance. At this point in time, I think it's a task to get there with all the moving parts around the first-time consolidation. And on capital, look, I think referring back to the first part of 2025, I don't believe it's really helpful because you know that we were negotiating the deal at that point in time. And you guys know much better than anyone else how strict capital market communication is on indicating anything that is not really watertight in terms of insider what the hell. So therefore, yes, it was also not my most pleasant quarterly call on the 30th of April 2025. I very, very much remember, and we were dancing around how we deploy capital. I agree. This was not a pleasure, but in the same moment, it was a pleasure then making very clear what we do with the capital 1 week later. It's not the case this time. This I can assure you. We are not in any whatsoever kind of negotiations or so. But what we are in is in analyzing our opportunities, both legally, Peter already mentioned it, but also in terms of how we can manage also a step-up in Poland in an efficient manner for our shareholders and in a way that we are not endangering, so to say, our economics. Other countries, I think, have been commented on by Peter and me already. I think it's fair to say, looking at my colleagues that after the first quarter, we will have a little bit more clarity. However, to satisfy everything of your expectations, what we will do with the excess capital, it might still not be enough. And it's going to be a question of the next couple of months to evaluate the deployment. We try to do the best with the excess capital, but there are many moving parts. I think there was a third kind of question, but I didn't get it from the sound.

Operator: Mr. Rovere, you're still on the line.

Riccardo Rovere: Let's move to the next question please.

Operator: The next question comes from Jovan Sikimic from ODDO BHF.

Jovan Sikimic: I would have also a question related to Poland. I mean, your colleagues from the new subsidiary, right, they indicated a kind of new strategy in coming months. But maybe at this stage, can you tell us just the key parameters, right, in terms of loan growth, in terms of NII year-over-year? And what is actually the interest rate which you incorporate because currently, it's like 25 to 50 basis points. Let's say, difference within consensus where the rates will end up in Poland, how the sensitivity is? And also from this perspective, if you can share what would be kind of cost/income ratio in the longer-term horizon because Polish subs or Polish bank kind of has significantly lower cost-to-income ratio compared to your current subsidiaries? And if you could also remind us what's the agreement on Swiss franc provisioning. I mean Q4, in my view, in Poland was a bit below expectations in terms of kind of adding to the current outstanding volumes. But what's the position at this stage in your case?

Peter Bosek: If I may start in terms of strategy, please don't expect too many changes in terms of strategy in our Polish subsidiary because from our perspective, strategy is already very much aligned. So, we have a very similar approach in retail banking. We have a very similar approach in corporate banking. I think there's a lot of added value, of course, in the corporate area because the pure size of the economy in Poland is fantastic in the way how this economy in terms of economic infrastructure was built up over the last decades. I think this is a huge opportunity also for the rest of our group. And we see also kind of network value related to it because there's a lot of money flow between companies within our region now and a lot of Polish companies operating in other parts of our group and vice versa. So there, we have very, very positive client feedback. When you refer to cost-to-income ratio, of course, it's great how our colleagues are managing efficiency. Of course, it's all kind of very supportive where we have relatively high NII margins when it comes to cost/income ratio. And please, we ask for your understanding that we don't want to comment too much on local entities, especially when they are stock listed in terms of NII sensitivity.

Stefan Dörfler: And that also, if I may add, Peter, that also holds true for the strategy of the local bank when it comes to Swiss franc. I think the colleagues are commenting on that. The read-through to the group is well known. So, there's nothing to add to that. Nothing has changed on that side. And all the rest is decided by our local colleagues and will be also communicated by them in their capital market communication.

Jovan Sikimic: Great. And if I may add one maybe on -- it's maybe of a minor importance, but still your positioning in Hungary on rate cuts or further rate cuts and also in Romania. How would it affect the group NII?

Stefan Dörfler: No, happy to take this in a very short manner. We saw the rate cut yesterday or the day before yesterday, I guess, in Hungary. We expect overall a relatively stable development of key interest rates for this year, at least for the next 2, 3 quarters. You know the policy of the Romanian National Bank. Further later in the year, there might be some changes depending on inflationary environment and so on. But at the moment, we do not see an aggressive rate cut cycle of either of the 2 national banks.

Operator: We have a follow-up from Riccardo Rovere from Mediobanca.

Riccardo Rovere: And just a quick follow-up on the previous one on loan growth. Why 5% when you're exiting the year at 6.4% and the macro is supposed to get better and maybe you're going to have some boost from Germany fiscal support. And then on bank taxes, if I may, can you shed some light what should be the situation in 2026 and if possible, onward, where do we stand there?

Peter Bosek: If I may start with loan growth. From our perspective, we were even a little bit more aggressive than last year in terms of giving the guidance because we see loan growth above 5%, right? And as Stefan mentioned already during his presentation or answers, loan growth is accelerating over the year. So, you don't have the full impact immediately in the P&L in the first 2 months of the year. But be assured that we believe -- strongly believe in loan growth above 5%.

Stefan Dörfler: What was the other question, Riccardo?

Riccardo Rovere: Just on bank taxes, what should you expect? What should we expect for 2026 on bank taxes in general?

Stefan Dörfler: The existing ones, I think you know precisely. It will go up in numbers a little bit. And then you know the situation in Poland, which again is to be commented mainly by our local colleagues, but we, of course, consider in our assumptions the elevated corporate income tax in Poland of 30% for the year 2026, which is expected to go down, not expected, it's in the law, to go down to 26% in 2027 and then to 23% in 2028. Those are elements that we have to consider, which all are in our guidance that we mentioned today. Other than that, forecasting or so to say, making any kind of assumptions around political decisions, I guess, is definitely not my task. And I think, Peter, you also don't want to probably say that.

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

Operator: The next question comes from Robert Brzoza from PKO BP Securities.

Robert Brzoza: Congratulations on the results. Sorry if I make a repeated question because I joined later during this call. I have 3 questions, actually. One on the adjusted net target. What are the adjustments actually? Is this only the integration cost or also the fair value adjustment? So that's question number one. Question number two, the 3% OpEx growth target for '26, does it include the indexation to wages? How do you manage this? And question number three, I've spotted that the NII in Hungary and Romania were relatively flattish despite great quarter-to-quarter loan book growth. What is it related to? Does it mean that you had to compromise a bit on the pricing of loans?

Stefan Dörfler: Thank you very much. You were touching upon of the stuff we discussed already, but no problem. So, first answer, I specified already before, it's around EUR 350 million of adjustment. It includes the integration cost, but not only. It's also the onetime booking of the IFRS 3 related ECLs CLSA and the intangibles, as you rightly assume. So that's a correct assumption. Those 3 components play into there. When it comes to wage inflation, I mentioned in an earlier answer, it's supposed to come down. We see inflation coming down now even in Austria and other places, and that's what will certainly drive the levels of, let me say, wage and personnel cost increases down. But I also mentioned that another element of our guidance there is that we will benefit from efficiency gains that we invested in '24 and '25. And last but not least, you're right. We had a slower development in Hungary and Romania, and it is partially due to quite some pricing competition in these markets, which we usually do not take a part in as aggressively as competitors, but we cannot exclude ourselves completely. So that's certainly a driver of the NIMs in those 2 specific markets. Just adding that in Hungary, we always say, please don't analyze this market line by line. You will not get anywhere. Look at what our fantastic colleagues there have achieved in bottom line delivery, and that's really the measure that we look at.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] There are no more questions at this time. I would now like to turn the conference over to Peter Bosek for any closing remarks.

Peter Bosek: Yes. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, for taking your time. Thank you very much for your questions. What I would like to mention is that our Annual General Meeting will take place on the 17th of April and the results for the first quarter of 2026 are on 30th of April. Thank you very much.

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. You may now disconnect your lines. Goodbye.