Bank Leumi Le Israel (BLMIF) Q2 2026 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Good day everyone, and thank you for joining Bank Leumi's conference call for the second quarter of 2026. Joining me today are Mr. Hanan Friedman, President and CEO, and Ms. Hagit Argov, CFO and Head of the Finance Division. The presentation accompanying this call is available on the Bank's Investor Relations website. At the conclusion of the presentation, we will have a Q&A session. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that the conference call may include forward-looking statement, while actual results may be different. I would also refer you to the disclaimer on slide two, which applies equally to this call. I will now hand it over to Mr. Hanan Friedman. Hanan, go ahead. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. We concluded the second quarter with strong results. Net income reached above 2.8 billion shekels, marking the highest quarterly net income ever recorded by an Israeli bank. Our ROE in the second quarter was 16.3%, among the highest in the sector. Every quarter we present our results and discuss our strategy, which is built around technological leadership and the adoption of AI that enables us to differentiate ourselves from the competitors. There was one figure in our second quarter results that in my view clearly reflects the impact of the consistent execution of this strategy. I'm referring of course to Leumi's efficiency ratio which was especially strong and stood at just 24.7%, 24.7% This is the best efficiency ratio ever recorded in the Israeli banking system, and one of the best globally, if not the best globally. Our second quarter efficiency ratio reached a record level, reflecting the strength of our operational model. While the efficiency ratio may naturally change from a quarter to quarter, we expect to remain among the most ef...