FNBKY (FNBKY) Q2 2026 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

This is the Chorus Call conference operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the FinecoBank Second Quarter 2026 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Alessandro Foti, CEO and General Manager of FinecoBank. Please go ahead, sir.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our results conference call. First half adjusted net profit up by 8% year-on-year at around EUR 343 million, revenues up by around 11% year-on-year at EUR 713 million with all product areas contributing positively. Banking up by 8.5%, thanks to higher deposit volumes, investing up by 11%, thanks to the volume effect. Brokerage up by 15%, thanks to the higher stocks of assets under custody and expanding active investor base. Adjusted operating costs well under control at around EUR 193 million, increasing by around 6% year-on-year, excluding the additional costs related to the growth of the business. Cost/income ratio at 27%, confirming operating leverage as a key strength of the bank. Capital position confirmed to be strong and safe with a common equity Tier 1 ratio at 23.18% and a leverage ratio at 5.02%. Among the main events, we have signed with CNP Assicura, a 4-year exclusive partnership for the distribution of life insurance products. The deal improves both the quality of products and services and Fineco marginality. Moving to our -- moving now to our commercial performance. We are experiencing a material step-up in our growth. This is driven by our unique positioning, capturing long-term structural trends and by our execution on several initiatives. The impact of this acceleration is clearly visible in our numbers. In the first half, net sales increased by 35% year-on-year. In July, estimated net sales at EUR 1.7 billion, around 40% higher year-on-year with around EUR 0.4 billion assets under management, around minus EUR 0.3 billion deposits and around EUR 1.7 billion assets under custody. Brokerage clients were very active buying the dips, leading to very solid brokerage revenues estimated at EUR 23 million, up around 20% year-on-year. New clients continued to grow at a strong pace, up 26% year-on-year in the first half. In July, new clients are estimated at around 21,000, up by around 40% year-on-year. Now move to the guidance. Further upgraded outlook for our 2026 and 2029 plan, confirming the quality of our diversified business model. The better outlook is driven by a combination of better-than-expected net sales with all the mix components contributing positively to the revenues, combination of deposits, net sales and interest rate evolution, slower growth of operating costs going forward compared to the CMD expectation. We are redesigning the backbone of the bank with artificial intelligence that is gradually moving into the execution phase 2026. We expect all the product areas contributing to higher revenues, thanks to the acceleration of our structural growth. We expect net financial income growing, thanks to the combination of positive deposit net sales and rates. Investing, a solid increase of revenues, thanks to the combination of resilient net sales and mix improvement. Brokerage, we expect another record year. Banking fees, stable year-on-year. Cost, we expect a growth by around 6%, not including around EUR 15 million additional costs for growth initiatives and around EUR 5 million for pan-European platform setup. Compared to the previous guidance, we are embedding a EUR 5 million increase related to the marketing in additional cost for growth as clients are very responsive to our value proposition, and we see a clear opportunity to further accelerate. I now hand to our CFO, Lorena Pelliciari, to start diving on results.

Thank you, Alessandro, and good morning, everybody. Let me start with Slide 7. Net financial income in the first half increased by around 8% year-on-year and [Audio Gap] supported by a positive volume effect [Audio Gap] highlight is the quality of revenue [Audio Gap] income is capital-light and is industrially [Audio Gap] deeply connected [Audio Gap] This allows us to generate profitability across our entire client base, including small banking-only clients. On the right-hand side of the slide, you can see the solid dynamics of our liquidity despite the significant level of client investments during the period. Let's now move on to Slide 8. The slide provides a deeper view of the nature of our deposit base. Our liquidity is not opportunistic or rate driven. As just said, it is transactional, granular and deeply connected to the daily use of our banking platform. Clients use Fineco for their everyday financial needs, and this creates a highly stable deposit base. On the right-hand side, we provide benchmarking based on Pillar 3 disclosures. Fineco enjoys the highest level of stable deposits with the median ticket equal to around EUR 4,000. Around 54% of assets under management is already represented by explicit fee solutions. Overall, investing pretax margins calculated as total investing revenues divided by daily average assets under management volumes stood at 57 basis points in the first half. Let's now move on to Slide 10 for a focus on brokerage. Brokerage confirms its role as a highly profitable and scalable pillar of our business model. In the first half, brokerage revenues increased by around 15% year-on-year, confirming a structurally higher revenue floor. This performance is supported by the continued growth in assets under custody, reinforcing the long-term relationship between brokerage revenues and assets under custody volumes. The growth in assets under custody is driven by 2 main factors. First, technology, transparency and the increasing use of digital tools, including AI, which are reshaping client behavior and supporting higher retail engagement. Second, we continue to enhance our service offering, which Paolo will discuss in more detail shortly. Importantly, pretax margins on assets under custody calculated as total brokerage revenues divided by daily average assets under custody volumes stood at 51 basis points in the first half. This level is not far from those achieved on assets under management, underscoring the strategic value of the asset under custody business for a platform like ours. Let's move on Slide 12 related to capital ratios. Fineco once again confirms a solid capital position, well above requirements, reflecting the strength of our safe balance sheet and the capital-light nature of our business model. Liquidity is also extremely solid with both liquidity coverage ratio and net stable funding ratio, well above regulatory requirements and among the highest levels in Europe. Overall, we continue to combine growth, profitability and a very conservative risk profile while maintaining one of the strongest capital and liquidity position in the sector. Thank you for your attention. Now I'll hand back to Alessandro.

Thank you, Lorena. And let's move now to Slide 14. Fineco benefits from a unique market positioning, fully capturing its long-term growth opportunities. On the left, we show our market share on the addressable financial wealth, which is still very small. On the right, we summarize the key structural trends that are reshaping the financial services industry and reinforcing our strategic positioning. First, AI disruption, which is driving for higher transparency in financial services and higher productivity. Fineco is already well positioned, thanks to its market positioning and state-of-the-art platform. Second, the massive generation of wealth transfer, new generations are looking for efficiency, transparency and convenience, all core elements of Fineco value proposition. Third, the consolidation in the banking industry with traditional banks not focused on customer experience. And Fineco sits exactly at the crossroads of these 3 big structural trends. On Slide 15, we show a clear example of our distinctive positioning compared to the industry, focusing on the investing business. Fineco is a clear outlier in the Italian market with a value proposition based on efficiency, transparency and convenience. This is reflected in the great quality of our investing revenues that are driven by recurring management fees based on fair pricing with no performance fees and negligible amount of upfront fees. This is marking a clear difference in the long-term sustainability of our investing revenues compared to the systems. As you can see on the right, other players are not just applying performance fees on top of highly expensive investment solutions, but also clearly pushing strong on upfront fees. Fineco is positioned on the other side. And moving to Slide 16, you can see how all this is leading to the inflection point of our growth in net sales and new clients. Total net sales remain the most important KPI to evaluate our growth. Fineco is a unique platform and answer to a broad range of clients' financial needs, which results in a very solid profitability across all our product areas regardless of the asset mix. Transactional liquidity contributes to our capital-light and industrially driven net interest income. Asset under management leads to higher investing growth and assets under custody net sales are a key driver for our brokerage revenues. Finally, down in the slide, we show a very remarkable results. We coupled the strong acceleration in new client acquisition with a better quality on pro-capite net sales. I'll now hand over to our Co-General Manager, Paolo Di Grazia.

Thank you, Alessandro, and good morning, everybody. On Slide 22, we focus on the initiatives to fully unlock the value of our assets under custody and increase our brokerage revenues. First, the securities lending platform, which has been just launched. It's a marketplace for institutional counterparties, giving direct access to our high-quality and fast-growing stock of AUC, assets under custody. Let me remind that the quality of our asset under custody, it's highly granular, well diversified across asset classes and geographies and retail driven, which adds significant value to the securities lending market. So importantly, around 40% of the stock is already opted in, combined with the expected growth of AUC, the opportunity can be very relevant. Second, the Auto-FX, which gives clients a leaner customer experience and represent a structurally more profitable setup for the bank. Here, we have -- we're already seeing a better-than-expected increase in volume. And finally, our activity in extracting value from our client flows, the internalization that we have. We are positioning Fineco to benefit from the shift of the European brokerage markets toward a more quote-driven model, increasingly similar to the United States market. We are working on increasing the volume and percentage of order internalized across multiple asset classes. Also, we expand our activity as an issuer and market maker for a wide range of products. So finally, this activity is the backbone of the launch of our pan-European platform. So down in the slide, we show the strong upside potential of these 3 initiatives to our brokerage revenues. The contribution today is progressively building up, and we are very confident they will become increasingly important going forward. Also, we have recently extended possibility to trade on U.S. securities with the activation of the premarket session and with the extension of the after hours. And yes, let's now move on to Slide 23 to dive on ETFs. Fineco, as you know, is uniquely positioned to capture the strong client-driven shift towards ETFs. For a player like Fineco, this business represents a strong growth opportunity and a new revenue engine for brokerage and investing, mainly thanks to, one, our very efficient trading platform that is building up strong volume on the ETF side. Second, our distribution model based on advanced advisory solution with an explicit fee where ETFs are synergetic with no significant harm to the margin and profitability of the area. And on the left, you can see the slide, you can see the strong acceleration in revenues from ETFs over the recent years and in the first half. The stock on our platform is quickly on the rise and now exceed EUR 21 billion, gained strong traction both among clients supported by personal financial adviser and among clients that are using the platform directly. To further monetize the ETFs, we are acting on several levers. On brokerage, first, growing clients engagement means higher turnover and higher brokerage fees. Second, ETFs are very well in demand for securities lending and are a strong opportunity -- and it's a strong opportunity for our internalization engine. Third, the data platform fee agreement by the beginning of the second half 2026. And on the investing, the strong clients interest means a big volume for our advanced advisory service, resulting in stronger revenues. Second, Fineco Asset Management is live with its active ETF range for passive ETF, has a co-branded partnership with one leading issuer. Finally, ETFs' accumulation installment plans are now fully available in our investing services also through the application. So let's -- now let's quickly move to the Slide 24. The plan for the deployment of our pan-European platform is progressing as expected. We confirm that by the year end, we will launch the family and friends phase, with a full launch in early 2027. Moving on to the Slide 25, we summarize the deployment of our artificial intelligence on our platform. So our initiatives are already starting to deliver. For example, PFA constantly using the AI platform. So an increase, as we already said, around 20% of their commercial proposals. And let me now briefly summarize the most recent artificial intelligence initiatives. So first, we are now live with customer relationship management for our financial planners. It's a key step to increase their productivity. It is fully integrated with Fineco platform and data and allows our network to better cluster clients and identify priority actions. Second, we have already -- we are already live with the brokerage Copilot that will improve the awareness and the engagement of our direct clients. And this artificial intelligence tool allows clients to screen securities, analyze portfolios on relevant news and is fully integrated in the execution engine of the Fineco platform. So we are -- here, we are already seeing -- start to see the first evidence that this tool is leading clients to the order execution. So -- and now thank you for your time, and I'll hand it back to Alessandro.

Thank you, Paolo. And let's now move to Slide 26, guidance. Further upgraded outlook for 2026 and 2029 plan, confirming the quality of our diversified business model. The better outlook is driven by a combination of better-than-expected net sales with all the mix components contributing positively to revenues. Combination of deposits, net sales and interest rates evolution, slower growth of operating costs going forward compared to the CMD expectations. We are redesigning the backbone of the bank with artificial intelligence. That is gradually moving into the execution phase. For 2026, we expect all the product areas contributing to higher revenues, thanks to the acceleration of our structural growth. We expect better net financial income, thanks to the combination of positive net sales and new rates environment. Investing, solid increase in revenues, thanks to a combination of resilient net sales and mix improvement. Brokerage, another record year, thanks to higher assets under custody and active investors. Banking fees, stable year-on-year. Operating costs, we expect a growth by around 6%, not including EUR 15 million additional costs for growth initiatives and around EUR 5 million for the pan-European platform setup. Compared to the previous guidance, we are embedding a EUR 5 million increase related to marketing in additional cost growth -- for growth as clients are very responsive to our value proposition, and we see a clear opportunity to further accelerate. Cost income, we expect it comfortably below 30%, thanks to the scalability of our platform and strong operating gearing. The cost of risk was equal to 7 basis points, thanks to the quality of our lending portfolio and is expected in a range between 5 and 10 basis points. Finally, payout ratio is expected for 2026 in a range between 70% and 80%. On leverage ratio, our goal is to remain above 4.5%. Thank you for your attention, and we can now open the Q&A session.

This is the Chorus Call conference operator. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] The first question is from Alberto Villa of Intermonte.

The line was not good during the call, so I missed a good part of it but you came to it. We have the slides, so I'm stating my question on that. Specifically on the guidance, you have further upgraded the guidance, which is qualitative as before. I was trying to figure out what could be the implication of the revision, especially on net interest income, including all the items and then the adjustment below the method of the one-off. I was wondering why you present the number in this way and where the EUR 3 million of the one-off is included, in which line item of the P&L?.

Thank you for the questions and sorry for the bad quality of the line. So -- and so the upgraded guidance clearly is moving on, is a continuous and steady upgrade that is current with the evolution we are experiencing. As we explained, the main -- the most relevant KPI to look at for having an idea of the possible evolution of our revenues and also profits is the progression on the net sales because as we explained during the presentation, we -- the net sales, whatever is the mix, is contributing in a big way to the revenues of the bank. At the same time, we have some quite evident -- very clear evidence that what we are doing in terms of redesigning the backbone of the bank using technology and artificial intelligence is starting or emerging as paying off. And so we are extremely confident that going forward, we can expect a material impact on the evolution of the operational cost. And so this is the reason why we also introduced an additional guidance in which we expect the beginning of the deceleration of the growth of the operational cost happening definitely before than we presented during the plan. Finally, then there is an excellent combination of evolution of deposits and interest rates because clearly, its -- the rates are evolving, they are higher. At the same time, despite the higher rates, deposits are emerging extremely resilient, and we expect keeping on growing. And so this means that clearly, it's -- if we put all of these components, all of them together, it's clear that we have the evidence that the -- of a material improvement of the results we expect to generate throughout the plan. On regarding the 15%, you are referring to the increase of the -- Lorena, this was the...

The second quarter 2026 compared with the second quarter 2025.

This is the net interest income.

Net interest income.

Yes, net interest income. So clearly, we cannot give such precise numbers because, as you know better than me, clearly, there is a component that we are not controlling, that is the level of rates. But clearly, what we are absolutely sure that the continuous growth of the net interest income is going to continue. And this is clearly -- is mostly driven by the quality of our deposits because I would like to remind that the quality of our deposits means that our -- the beta of our stable deposits is practically 0. So this is making everything working incredibly well. On the operating cost, as explained, answering to the updated guidance. So again, we are extremely confident that the growth of the operational cost going forward is going to keep on going down and more rapidly than we were expecting in the -- we were expecting when we presented the plan. For the adjustments of net profit, I'll leave the floor to Lorena.

Yes, thank you, Alessandro. So you can see on Slide 6, the P&L adjusted with the net profit adjusted, in which we have reported a dedicated line item lines related to nonrecurring expenses, net of taxes, which are equal to EUR 3 million. And we have a detail in the same slide on the bottom side of the slide, in which we have reported the fact that this amount corresponded to EUR 4.6 million expenses gross, and is related to the termination agreement with an executive occurred in the second quarter of 2026, connected to the reorganization of the bank.

Okay. If I may follow up on another topic, which is the net inflows and the stronger net inflows, also in July mean assets under custody was probably the second record month in terms of the assets under custody. Is this a trend of investments by clients that you expect to continue also in the coming months or was related to some specific reasons?

The reason is related to the unique positioning of Fineco. Fineco is offering the only one and powerful brokerage platform available on the Italian market. So if you are a client in Italy that you want to deal with a very powerful platforms offered by a robust, significant and trustful bank. The only place in which you can move is in Fineco. Fineco is offering a unique combination of robustness, reliability and also quality of the platform. So this is making the -- particularly the most interesting clients interested in dealing directly with the markets moving to Fineco. So -- and this trend is accelerating for the reasons we explained because the disruptive impact of artificial intelligence is making progressively clients more and more aware, more and more demanding in terms of quality, transparency, fairness. We are observing a very fascinating trend that is now we are starting on attracting -- accelerating and attracting directly private banking clients that are entering just for using the platform. So this clearly is signaling and progressively accelerating change in the structure of the market. So we expect this trend is going to continue and reinforcing.

The next question is from Davide Giuliano of Equita.

The first one is on the partnership with CNP. Can you provide us more color on the details of the partnership and how much margin accretion we can expect over the coming years? The second one on the German pension reform, the new reform significantly opens the system with a more flexible and, I would say, market-friendly approach. In light of the upcoming entry into Germany, have you already made any consideration on how to capitalize on this opportunity? And can you provide us with more color on this? That would be appreciated. And the last one on cryptos. We have seen some operators authorized by regulators in recent weeks. How are the discussions with the regulator progressing? And when do you expect to receive the authorization?

Yes. Let me start by the partnership with CNP. So now clearly, this partnership -- that is a partnership that has a 4 years horizon, clearly, is a partnership that is going to allow us to be more efficient in providing to our clients higher quality services. So -- and second, clearly, according with a decent development of the volumes is going to be -- is going to create -- is going to generate higher margins. So because the partnership is absolutely great because CNP is an incredibly efficient partner. So we have been keeping on working with them by many years. And so -- and we are sharing with them the same value proposition because the insurance wrapper, if they are provided to clients in a way that is fair, transparent and efficient are great solutions. And on that side, we are on the same line. We -- in our agreement, we cannot give a precise indication of the conditions. And so -- but clearly, it's -- for sure, this is respect what we were doing until so far is going to generate higher margins for the bank. On the German market, I don't know, Paolo, if you want to elaborate. So because -- honestly speaking, what we are -- our plan on Germany is not driven by the pension reform. This is nice to have, but it's not -- we are not moving there for that reason.

For sure, the new pension reforms are going to go in our direction. So every time we have something that goes in the direction that you have to use efficient products, you have to use funds, ETFs, assets under custody, that for us, it's perfect, just perfect. So as Alessandro said, we're not 100% concentrated on the pension reforms in Germany. We know that in Germany, there is a huge opportunity for -- not just for us, but for many players. We know that the majority of the assets are still in the traditional banking system, not just in Germany, but almost everywhere. And this is something that for us is just gold. So it's -- yes, that's it.

Crypto. Also crypto, if you want to.

Yes. The crypto, we are processing quite well. We are in, I can say, final talks with the regulators. At the same time, we are organizing the backbone and the infrastructure that will be the one, the platform, our clients that they're going to use. So I'm quite confident that is going to be live not -- probably first months of 2007 (sic) [ 2027 ] or so. So we're still talking to the regulators.

The next question comes from Adele Palama with UBS.

I can definitely hear you. Anyways, I'll try to ask the questions. So one is a follow-up on the NII. I mean, I understand that you haven't provided NII guidance but just a question. So can you remind us the NII that you had on improving rates? And then which is the expectation for the position of NII in 2027, in the assumption that you have rates in your guidance? Then second question is on the management fees margin. So I think that there has been a small increase in margin stability. I'm just wondering if you have a guidance there on the evolution of the margin going forward, and if that is like the reason behind that small increase. And then the last question -- sorry [indiscernible] I guess I couldn't probably hear the answer before so that's -- so you are expecting to get savings from the implementation of the AI earlier than the [indiscernible] but the guidance year-on-year, its [indiscernible] growth has not changed, staying around 6%. So I was just wondering that the improved guidance, is it really more to a saving of -- because of growth, which is going to be more likely to be 2027, or how do you look at the total growth, of course, including the cost for the growth initiatives?

So sorry again for the bad quality of the line. So -- and so I'm trying to give you some -- so let me follow up on the net interest income. So the -- clearly, the positive expectation on the future evolution of net interest income is a combination of the expected evolution of rates and also the expected evolution of our base of deposits. Clearly, there is -- so just to give you an example because there is a very clear correlation. During the month of July, for example, we had more or less a negative deposits for -- in the region of EUR 300 million. That clearly this is -- clearly is negative for the evolution of net interest income, but this has been driven by a significant rise of interest rates. And so if you put the 2 components of them together, the month of July, for example, has been definitely positive for the future evolution of the net interest income. So we -- our expectation in terms of rates are clearly that we are embedding in our -- when we are making the fine-tuning of the plan is remaining more conservative with respect to what is -- what you have in the forward rate curve because we prefer to be cautious. Nevertheless, this is clearly showing the clear evidence that the net interest income is going to continue to progress and is going to keep on growing. And again, the main reason is that the quality of the base of deposits. So the presence of such large amount of stable deposits means that clearly, also when you have a significant increase of rates, the impact on your base of deposits tends to be not such as big. On the other hand, you are capturing an interesting chunk of the evolution of rates and so on. So this is the -- so then on the question on the management fees margins, yes, we are -- this is aligned with the previous guidance where we were guiding for relatively stable margins, management fees. And going forward, considering the kind of actions we are taking on the -- in terms of how we are guiding our network of financial planners, we are confident that progressively, the mix of our assets under management sales is going to progressively improve. And this clearly is boding well for the -- at least the maintenance of stable margins. But clearly, we think that we cannot rule out that there is room for also some modest increase of the margins. And so we -- so it's -- so this is more or less. On the guidance for cost going forward, as we were saying, we started now our activity driven by the usage of artificial intelligence and is progressing very rapidly because I would like to remind that Fineco is a tech company. So for us, it's extremely rapid and easy to put at work the dividend represented by artificial intelligence and what is emerging as a clear evidence that the room for accelerating the reduction of the growth of the operational cost going forward is clearly emerging. Clearly, it's difficult to see -- to give you a precise exactly phasing of this process, but we are extremely positive on that side. And probably going forward, approaching the year-end, probably we are going to give an even more precise indication from a numbers point of view, but clearly there. And so this is on the cost.

On the NII, I didn't see the rates because I didn't catch the answer.

So on NII, clearly, we remain positive on the continuous growth of the NII going forward. The reason is a combination of the outlook on rates and the quality of our deposits because clearly, when you have rates going up, clearly, you can expect some pressure on deposits. But the pressure we expect is clearly pretty low because as we showed during the presentation, Fineco has the highest percentage among the European banks of stable deposits. So this means that on the vast majority of our deposits, the beta of this deposit is 0. And so this means that you have a significant positive impact generated by the rise in rates. We are using in making our revision of the plan, a conservative approach because we are not using the forward rate curve, but we are using a curve that is more conservative than the forward rate curve. I don't know, Lorena, if you by -- so we can say by how much is more conservative.

But we can speak on average by 30 basis points.

Yes. So we are on average 30 basis points below the forward rate curve. So this is what -- so this is the assumption.

The next question is from Marco Nicolai of Jefferies.

Can you explain us a little bit better what are the implications in terms of EPS growth? Because you guided during the plan to double-digit EPS growth. So what are we looking at now? So can we say are we getting closer to 15%? Or where do we stand? This is the first question. Then do you have an update on the securities lending platform? How is that progressing? And what volumes do you expect to reach by the end of this year and perhaps by the end of next year? And then a question on the senior issued -- senior preferred bonds. So what are the funding needs for the business going forward? So Should we just tap the market again, say once per year, or you are okay for a few years now?

I don't know, Paolo, do you want to elaborate both on the EPS growth ambition and update on securities lending platform? And then Lorena, then you will give a little bit more color on our funding needs.

So yes, on the EPS growth ambition, yes, we are very positive. Of course, we confirm what we said to the Capital Market Day, but we have also new information that we are very positive we can probably do even better. The initiatives are going very well. One of the initiatives that you mentioned, the securities lending, now we are fully operated. So now we are concentrated in -- on one side, bringing new counterparties in the platform. And so I remind you that the new platform is a new marketplace where we can share securities with external counterparties. So the more counterparties we have, the better is for the platform. And so on one side, we will keep on onboarding new counterparties, institutional counterparties interested on our AUC that we mentioned is very valuable in terms of granularity and the fact that it's retail AUC. And on the other side, we keep on pushing on having the permission from our clients to use their securities to lend to the platform, to put into the platform. We have a very high percentage of permission, almost 40% and is already quite big. And on the other side, we push on the gathering assets under custody from the outside. So from new clients or existing clients, and we're doing a great job on this. So the more AUC we have in the platform, the better it is for the securities lending platform. So -- by the end of this year, we will start seeing some results, and I think we can start sharing some significant numbers. But for now, we are just concentrating and keep on onboarding new counterparties and gathering as much AUC as possible in the platform.

Paolo, I just want to give more color on the -- excuse me, EPS or ETF?

EPS.

EPS growth ambitions now. So -- sorry, excuse me because I got wrong, so I confused EPS with ETF. So sorry but your question was not on ETFs, clearly, it's much more relevant, so the EPS growth ambition now. Yes, clearly, now the ambition has gone up because we made 2 upgrading in the evolution of our -- in our outlook for 2026. And at the end of the story, clearly, the final landing point of the upgrading is an improved EPS growth. Yes, clearly, it's clear, we are not giving yet any precise numbers. But clearly, now it's -- the ambition now is definitely higher currently with what we are experiencing. But again, honestly speaking, it's not a surprise because as we are continuously repeating, so if you want to have a proxy that is suggesting to you the future evolution of our revenues and EPS, look to the evolution of our net sales. The more we have net sales coming on board and the more we are accelerating on net sales and the more you can expect a continuous acceleration in the growth of EPS. So this is the -- but clearly, now the outlook is clearly higher than we had when we presented the plan. Lorena, if you want to spend a few words on this. Senior preferred.

So as you know, in May, we issued EUR 500 million of senior preferred. In -- these issuances were made because in October, the issuance of EUR 500 million of senior preferred issued in October 2021 will not be any more eligible from an MREL point of view and will be recalled. Now, we have on the market EUR 1.3 million (sic) [ EUR 1.3 billion ] of senior preferred. But in October, we will come back to an amount of EUR 800 million. And our expectation is that this amount is fully compliant for the following years. So we will probably issue a new senior bond, a new senior preferred in 2028 for the substitution of the issuance made in 2023.

The next question is from [indiscernible]

[indiscernible] can you hear me?

[Operator Instructions] [Audio Gap]

[Audio Gap] the extremely important questions you raised. And thank you for joining our conference call, and feel free to make us a call for any follow-up. Thank you again.