Gloria Couceiro Justo
Management
…Chief Executive Officer of the Group; and Jaime Sáenz de Tejada, BBVA Group CFO. As in previous quarters, Onur will begin with a presentation of group results and 2020 achievements, and then Jaime will review the business areas. We will move straight to the live Q&A session after that. Onur Genç: Thank you, Gloria. Good morning to everyone. Welcome and thank you for joining our call. I will now be saying it for the 4 quarters in a row now, but I really hope that everyone is safe and sound. You and your families are all healthy and safe. I'll start by highlighting some of the key achievements of the year. So I'm on Page number 3. We have successfully, in our view, navigated through the crisis by focusing on the right things. For example, by extending €63 billion of support to our clients through various means; second, I think it was a year that has reaffirmed our strategy. Our leadership in digital, we have been putting so much focus on to this for so many years, in our view, it has given us an edge in this environment. For example, again, as noted in the page, 56% digital client acquisition increase in 1 year. Third, in terms of financials, we have been able to deliver excellent financial results in our view, in these extraordinary times. 11.7% increase in our operating income in constant euros versus 2019. And lastly, in this page, it is important, very important to note our ample strategic optionality after the sale of BBVA USA. After the deal, €8.5 billion of capital generation that will be in our books when we complete the deal. So all of this in our view will allow us to offer sizable distributions to our shareholders in 2021 and beyond, which I will elaborate further in my presentation. Slide number 4, in terms of management of the COVID crisis, very quickly. I mean, we had 3 main priorities from the first day. First and foremost, to protect the health and the safety of our employees, our clients, and the community in general. Second priority, we are an essential service, so we have to continue providing that; in December, for example, 97% of our branches were opened with dynamic staffing to serve our clients. And the number of visits to our global apps have increased by 43% post-COVID. And that high engagement we are seeing that is here to stay. So there is some clear stickiness in that changed behavior. And the third priority, as I mentioned, has been to provide financial support to our clients all around the world, as I mentioned, again with €63 billion in total, €63 billion to our clients all around the world. Slide number 5, if you go to Slide number 5, and our leadership in digital, I did talk about it a second ago, it has proven to be essential and differential in this context in our view. Again, we talked to you too much about this in these calls, but we do think it is important to talk about. We do think that our industry is going through a disruptive change, and we have been embracing this change much earlier than others, with much more investment than others. And we believe the strategy is paying off. Jaime Sáenz de Tejada: Thank you, Onur, and good morning, everybody. Let me begin with Spain. GDP growth expectations for 2020 improved to minus 11%. And for 2021, BBVA research now expects GDP to grow by 5.5% and by 7% in 2022, supported mainly by the next-generation European recovery fund. Loans have increased by almost 1% year-on-year in 2020, above expectations, driven by the strong growth across commercial segments and very small businesses, supported by the state guaranteed program. For 2021, we expect the loan growth to be broadly flat. In 2020, as you can see in the slide, operating income increased by 4.7% versus a year ago, a solid performance in the current environment. The increase is mainly explained by both core revenue growing almost 1%, leveraged by fees, thanks to the good performance of asset management, account maintenance fees. And also by a remarkable decrease in operating expenses, down over 6%, above expectations, which allows the cost-to-income ratio to improve by a further 2.8% versus 2019. The operating income growth in 2020 has been more than offset by higher impairments, mainly explained by the significant frontloading of COVID-related provisions in the first half of the year and also base effect, as 2019 included the provision release from a mortgage portfolio sale. Having said this, cost of risk continues. It's improving triangle on the year to 67 basis points and in line with our guidance. For 2020. For 2020, we expect core revenues to continue growing, supported by fees, that will increase by high-single-digit. NII might decrease slightly versus 2020, between 1% and 2%, due to the Euribor repricing and the lower contribution from the ALCO portfolio. Our cost control will continue as we expect that expenses to decrease again in 2021. Finally, on cost of risk, we expect to improve to levels around 50 basis points in a still uncertain environment. Let's now turn to the U.S. Loans have been flat in the year as growth in commercial loans supported by the Paycheck Protection Program and the use of credit lines by corporates is more than offset by lower demand from retail segments. Regarding the P&L, the U.S. showed an outstanding performance this quarter with net attributable profit above €300 million. Pre-provision profit in Q4 increased by 30% versus last year, supported by both core revenue growth and expenses decreasing. On core revenues. NII was up 6.8% year-on-year, boosted by the significant improvement in the cost of deposits explained by a better deposit mix. This is more or less true all across the footprint. Demand deposits now represent 88% of total deposit balances in the U.S. but also on the excellent price management in the U.S. Fees are up by over 13% year-on-year, due to higher CIB and mortgage origination activity. Additionally in Q4, we had provision releases, due to the positive impact from the IFRS 9 model calibration but also by provision releases in retail portfolios. Cost of risk ended the year at 118 basis points, clearly better than the 135 basis points guidance. Let's now move to Mexico. We have slightly improved our GDP expectation for 2020 to minus 9.1%, after the positive evolution of the economy in Q3. For 2021, we now expect growth to reach 3.2% and 3.8% for 2022. During 2020, the loan portfolio decreased slightly, but we saw increased activity in retail in the fourth quarter, especially in mortgages and credit cards. Having said this, in 2020, we continue gaining market share over 68 basis points to reach 23.6%. So an excellent year in terms of activity in Mexico. For 2021, we expect loans to grow by mid-single-digit. Moving now to the P&L, in 2020, our pre-provision income has shown a strong resiliency in the current environment, down only 1%, supported by both expenses and NTI. NTI growth by over 50% year-on-year, thanks to the good performance of both the global markets and some ALCO portfolio sales. With expenses growing only 0.7%, better-than-expected and significantly below the inflation rate in the country. Our resilient pre-provision profit has allowed us to absorb the increase in impairments. Cost of risk ends the year at 402 basis points, fully in line with our revised guidance. Thanks to the good client payment behavior once deferrals expire. The NPL ratio increased in Q4, mainly explained by entries in retail portfolios and very much in line with our expectations. Most of them are retail deferred loans that became NPLs when the deferral expired. On average the coverage ratio of these NPL retail portfolios stand at 80%, 85%. So they are already very well covered for 2021. And according to our current tax scenario, we expect that the following trends first, NII to grow by mid-single-digit, growing slightly above activity due to the expected improvement of customer spread, as we will continue to focus on price management. Cost of risk in 2021 should improve versus 2020 levels to around 380 basis points. And then, regarding the NPL ratio, we expect to end the year below 2020 levels as all retail deferrals have already expired and retail NPLs will be written off fairly quickly and with limited additional provisioning needs. Let's now focus on Turkey. On the macro. We've improved also in Turkey, our GDP growth expectation for 2020 to plus 1%. And we now expect a 5% growth rate for 2021. The TL loan portfolio grew by over 30% year-on-year and due to the high loan demand especially in the first half of the year, while foreign currency loan continued decreasing year-on-year. Turkey delivered a robust pre-provision profit growth in 2020, over 30% year-on-year in constant euros, and up 7% in current, supported by the strong revenue generation and the focus on efficiency. NII was up by 25% year-on-year. Thanks to both TL loan growth and a significant improvement in TL customer spreads. In the fourth quarter though, TL spreads contracted significantly due to the increase in the cost of deposits on the back of rising interest rates in the country. For 2021, we expect NII to grow at mid-single-digit. Very good performance of NTI, thanks to FX results, but also gains from some security sales and a higher contribution from the global markets area. While expenses grew only 7.3%, significantly better than the 12-month inflation that stood at over 12% that allowed the efficiency ratio to reach the historic level of 28.8%. This strong pre-provision profit enabled us to absorb the increase in provisions, with strength in our coverage ratio by over 4% year-on-year, and cost of risk ended the year at 213 basis points and in line with our guidance. All in all, excellent results with a net attributable profit increasing by 41% in constant euros, over 11% in current. The main trends expected for 2021 are: first, we expect TL loan growth at mid-teens and shrinkage in foreign currency loan portfolio to continue; NII to grow at high-single-digit, supported by loan growth and despite the contraction of TL spreads; and on cost of risk, we expect an improvement versus 2020 to levels around 180 basis points. And finally, South America, BBVA Research has slightly improved its macro prospects for the region for 2020, followed by a significant recovery in 2021 of 10% in Peru, 6% in Argentina and 4.8% in Columbia. Now, some color on the main countries. Colombia increased its operating income by 6.2% year-on-year, thanks to gross income growing by almost 5% and controlled expenses. With the loan portfolio up 4% year-on-year. In Peru, loan growth was up over 20% year-on-year. In this case, supported by the state guarantee program, which affected clearly customer spreads. In Argentina, a very positive contribution, €89 million in 2020, even after the inflation adjustment. And now, back to Onur for some final remarks. Onur Genç: Thank you, Jaime. So it's the annual discussion and presentation, so maybe we have taken more time than justified. So I'm just going to quickly go through the rest. Basically on 29, I'm just going to highlight the 11.7% growth in operating income. I'm going to highlight the ample strategic optionality that we have after the sale of BBVA USA. €8.5 billion of capital generation in the year in 2020, thanks to the sale, is a treasure, in our view, in this environment. And we are going to make the best use of it. If you look into Page number 30, you see the macroeconomic outlook. Again, let's not spend time. Our footprint is expected to grow 4.7% in 2021, which is going to be a huge growth as compared to what we have seen in 2020, so 4.7% growth in footprint. Weighted average is a very good figure. So, maybe final pages, 2021 outlook. Jaime has already shared the country-by-country details. But for the broader full group on core revenues, we expect to continue to grow with improving mix, price management, fee income as the key levers. So you would see us delivering again growth in core income, core revenues. On costs, we expect to grow less than inflation, so real negative growth in the costs, as always. And as a result of this we keep saying it every quarter, but operating income pre-provision profit growth is a key management discipline at BBVA. So we will continue to deliver on this promise using these 2 levers. Cost of risk, we partially talked about it. Obviously, there are uncertainties, but we expect 2021 to be below 2020 levels in every single country that we operate. And finally, our strong capital position will allow us to offer higher and sizable distributions to our shareholders in 2021. With this, I conclude the presentation. Back to you, Gloria, for the Q&A.