BFF Bank S.p.A. (BFFBF) Q1 2023 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Good afternoon and welcome to BFS Banking Group First Quarter 2023 Earnings Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be the opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on a touch-tone telephone. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would like to turn the conference over to Massimiliano Beningheri, Group CEO, and Piergiorgio Bicci, CFO. Please go ahead. Thank you. Welcome, everybody, for joining us for the first quarter result presentation. We are happy to report a strong first quarter in terms of adjusting the profits, actually our highest quarter on record. And this is an important result given that the dynamics of our balance sheet means that in a rising interest rate environment, our liability rate rises faster than our asset. The net interest income is being driven by factoring and lending, which has shown a 22% growth year over year, driven in particular by the increase of the LPI stats to the rate, which was 8% until December, and from the 1st of January has moved to 10.5%. Given the increase in the ECB reference rate, that will increase already. today's rate from the 1st of July at 11.75%. So another step up will happen in the second half of the year. The balance sheet remains solid, both in terms of quality of assets, but also in terms of funding. We have maintained a good loan-to-deposit ratio of 75%, and we have a net positive inflow of retail deposits in Q1 2023, $200 million. we were a year before. Overall, we've managed the balance sheet, so to decrease the level of total assets while increasing our loan...