Turkiye Garanti Bankasi AS

IST:GARAN.E

Earnings Call Transcript 2022-Q2

[Operator]

[Audio Gap]

[Operator Instructions]. The presentation will now start. So I leave the floor to our presenters.

[Handan Saygin, executive]

Hello, everyone. Thank you for being with us at our First Half 2022 Financial Results Call. We're happy to be able to continue generating outstanding results. But let me first briefly touch upon the macro backdrop we had operated in the last quarter, where the main highlights are that the economic activity remains strong. That, along with continued loose domestic policies pressure inflation, presenting upside risks on the inflation front. In the meantime, exports and tourism revenues have been supportive to the Turkish economy.

On next page, notice that the GDP growth continues, surprising on the upside, despite tighter global financial conditions. After a post-pandemic growth of 11% in 2021, first quarter 2022 growth was realized at 7.3%. And for second quarter of the year, our big data indices suggest an even upward trend in the second quarter versus the first.

So first half performance alone, which had visible contributions from consumption and exports show the economic resilience and likely will trigger upward revisions to the annual GDP growth estimates for Turkey.

On the other hand, regarding inflation, risks remain on the upside, given the continued supply side problems, loose policies and higher-than-anticipated growth, such that the prevailing 70% levels may persist at year-end, despite being helped by the base year effect.

Moving now to our first half financial results on Slide 5. First half net income was almost quadrupled that of the prior years. And we booked TRY 21.2 billion of net income in the first 6 months of the year. Quarterly income growth was also an outstanding 56%, and this was without much added support of the CPI-linked securities.

Pre-provision earnings threefold growth year-on-year to TRY 32.4 billion in one half the year, indicates the high-quality nature of our earnings. Our solid revenue streams of net interest income and net fees and commissions growth were 161% and 68%, respectively. On top of these, subsidiaries income growth was a strong 80%, with growing contributions largely coming from our international subsidiaries, fleet management, securities business and pension business.

To summarize our solid stance as of first half 2022, in terms of growth, profitability as well as capital provision and liquidity strength, I would like to highlight the figures here on Slide 6. Turkish lira loan growth in the first 6 months to date was a well above anticipated 36%, taking us to #1 spot among private peers in Turkish lira lending.

We were able to get on board more than 1 million new customers in the first 6 months alone, indicating significant pickup in pace and customer acquisition. Profitability at this time surged to double the level of last year's.

Return on equity registered was 43%, and return on average assets was 4.3%. This high profitability served to further strengthen our capital and capital adequacy ratio improved to above 15%. This was without the forbearance measures of the BRSA and the free provisions we have on balance sheet.

Free provisions, total of TRY 7.5 billion on balance sheet, were kept the same. If all were accounted as part of capital, along with forbearance, our capital adequacy ratio would have been 17.4% on a consolidated level. Liquidity buffers as well for both Turkish lira and foreign currency remained at very strong levels.

Now diving in details and starting with the asset side on Slide 7. Our consolidated total asset size now exceeds TRY 1 trillion. To reach our desired outstanding performance, asset growth and composition are strategically managed. Accordingly, customer-driven aspects weigh more as our priority has always been core banking and generating sustainable revenues.

Turkish lira lending in the first half reached 36%, the growth. There was a record TRY 52 billion net nominal increase in Turkish lira lending in the second quarter. Turkish lira loans weight in total assets is the highest among private peers, contributing to our superior core banking earnings performance. Foreign currency lending growth, on the other hand, shrank in the quarter, as expected.

On the securities front, we added both CPI and fixed rate securities to the portfolio. CPI purchases done in the quarter was largely to replace the upcoming CPI redemptions. You may notice here the extraordinarily high 54% Turkish lira securities growth year-to-date. But this figure is actually inflated by the mark-to-market and IRR differences of the CPI-linked portfolio, where the difference was even more visible, especially in the second quarter. Including this accounting difference, the CPI book size is currently at TRY 63 billion, up from TRY 53 billion in the prior quarter.

Continuing with loans, Turkish lira loans, the book reached TRY 360 billion as of the end of the first half. In the pie chart, you see the balanced breakdown of our Turkish lira loan book with a slightly higher weight of business loans versus the beginning of the year. Short-term and selective business loan growth in nominal terms continued at the same pace when adjusted with the credit guarantee fund lending in the first quarter. There was an 18% growth in the second quarter, on top of the 28% booked in the first quarter. This growth translated into a year-to-date market share gain of 61 basis points in business banking loans.

In consumer lending, the growth was more visible in the second quarter versus the first, with the front runner being general purpose loans at rational price levels. Consumer demand remained strong in the quarter as the inflation mounted and inflation basically pulled forward the demand and its impact was even more visible in the credit card volumes, with 22% growth in the second quarter.

Moving to how we fund the assets, notice on Slide 9 that it is predominantly with deposits. Deposits, both time and demand deposits, and deposits like Turkish lira bonds issued and merchant payables, fund more than 70% of the assets. The share of demand deposits remain to be at very attractive levels, funding along 1/3 of the assets. This funding strength manifests itself very clearly in our much higher level of free funds versus peers as well as our margin outperformance.

Borrowing share and funding assets is further reduced down to around 10%. Total external debt stood at $6.5 billion, the breakdown of which you can see in the pie chart on the bottom right-hand side. Against this debt, our foreign currency liquidity buffer was $10 billion as of the end of first half. Funding contributors clearly display that our actively managed funding sources remain to be the main differentiator for guaranteed EBITDA.

Detailed look into the deposits on Slide 10 show that this quarter, continuing liraization efforts through foreign currency protected Turkish lira time deposit scheme leads to further shrinkage in foreign currency deposits and growth in Turkish lira deposits. Year-to-date, Turkish lira deposit growth reached 55% and year-to-date shrinkage in foreign currency deposits was 9%.

What is substantially and sustainably more favorable at Garanti BBVA is its high share of demand deposits in total it stands at an enviable and eye-catching level of 49% and compares very favorably to that of the peers. For instance, within TL deposits, 27% is zero cost demand deposits versus peers average of 21%. And in foreign currency deposits, this variance is even much higher. And it tells us clearly that growing number of customers prefer Garanti BBVA as their main bank.

Also a validating figure is that Garanti has the highest Turkish lira deposit base, both in time and demand among private banks. This favorably differentiated deposit base, along with the strategically managed asset growth, contribute noticeably to our margin performance. In terms of the margin performance, there was further expansion of 108 basis points on top of the high base of the last quarter.

Isolating the contribution of CPI revenues, which in our case, added only about TRY 300 million quarter-on-quarter, this minimal quarterly increase was due to us using 45% CPI reading for our second quarter CPI linker valuations after using 40% in the first quarter. The main contribution to the margin expansion came from the further 181 basis points increase in Turkish lira loan-to-time deposit spreads, which was the natural outcome of lending growth that is rationally priced, lowest average duration gap that allowed repricing as cost pressures mounted in the period, active management of funding sources, along with increasing level of free funds, largely demand deposits.

Accordingly, core net interest income in just one quarter went up by TRY 2.5 billion. And on a cumulative basis, core net interest income was up by TRY 10 billion, taking cumulative core margin to 4.8% from 3.1% in the prior year, and the total margin, including the contribution of the CPIs to 7.2%.

Moving on to the topic of asset quality on Slide 12. We are committed to manage a healthy loan portfolio and do proactive staging. Out of TRY 654 billion of gross loans, TRY 89 billion or 14% is in Stage 2 and TRY 19.9 billion or 3% is in Stage 3, namely NPLs.

In depth, currency impact isolated look at Stage 2 shows that there is a net TRY 5 billion reduction in stage 2, owed to the strong recoveries booked in the quarter. Despite this improvement, we continued to further strengthen our Stage 2 provision coverage to 18.3% from 17% in March.

As for the NPLs on next page, we see that there is no out-of-anticipation move. Net -- new NPL inflows as well as the collection performance, more or less, was similar to that of the first quarter. The net new NPL inflow, excluding the currency impact, was a limited TRY 141 million. Helped also by the lending growth in the quarter, NPL ratio at the end of first half was 3% with a further increased NPL coverage of 69%.

Both the NPL trends and the coverage levels that you see on the line chart suggest a very strong picture moving in the right direction. And just for your information, if we had not written down the 100% provisioned loans since year 2019, our NPL ratio would have been 4.7% and the NPL cash coverage would have been a significant 79%.

Now how this translates into risk costs or provisions, you can see on the next slide. So far, the net cost of risk is faring much better than our guidance. First half net cost of risk was down to 1%. Regardless of the minimal net new NPLs, we make no compromise on our disciplined and prudent provisioning. In the second quarter, we increased our net provisions by another 8%.

Moving on to the topic of net fees and commissions. First half net fee generation exceeded TRY 7 billion. Year-on-year growth was 68%, where the base always represented the highest in the sector. The strong fee generation further solidified our unrivaled position. Main contributors were cash loan fees, money transfer fees and payment systems fees.

Higher-than-expected economic activity and solid growth resulted in lending-related fee growth of 68% and payment systems fees growth of 84%. Money transfer fees registered a striking 120% growth on the back of digital empowerment and best-in-class customer experience as 97% of money transfers go through digital. And in money transfer fees, Garanti BBVA, by far, ranks #1. And this is another clear strength and indicators that customers prefer Garanti BBVA as their main bank.

Moving on to the operating expenses. Year-on-year OpEx growth was 67%, of which 19% was due to the currency depreciation that is fully hedged. Therefore, adjusted net OpEx growth affecting bottom line was a below CPI, tightly managed OpEx growth of 48%. Overall, because the revenue growth was much higher than the OpEx growth, we could significantly improve our efficiency ratio. Cost income decreased to an all-time low level of 25% from 38% last year, whereas the fee coverage of OpEx increased to 64%.

Regarding capital, we sustain our strong capital buffers and our capital generative growth strategy continues to strengthen the capital base. Net income generation alone added 256 basis points to our solvency in the first half. And our capital adequacy ratio, without the BRSA's forbearance, increased to 15.1% from 14.1% in the beginning of the year. We currently have TRY 25 billion of excess capital calculated on a consolidated level and without the BRSA's forbearance.

And as a secondary buffer, we have TRY 7.5 billion of free provisions. Notice that free provisions, if were to be included as part of capital, would add nearly 1% to our capital adequacy ratio. On top of this, if we were to include also the BRSA forbearance impact, it would add 140 basis points, technically carrying our consolidated capital adequacy ratio to 17.4%.

Now in light of this outstanding and much stronger-than-anticipated performance, we felt the need to revisit the guidance we shared in the beginning of the year. Higher-than-expected growth in the economy in the first half, along with newly introduced macro prudential measures, had major impact in our performance line items. And therefore, the bottom line ended with a significant beat to guidance already in the first half year.

GDP growth impact was evident in Turkish lira lending growth. We have already booked 36% Turkish lira lending growth in the first 6 months. Even after we take into account tightening biased regulatory changes that should slow second half Turkish lira lending growth, we still expect to grow our Turkish lira loan book by more than 50% this year. In foreign currency lending, we still expect shrinkage due to continuing redemptions and the cautious stance of corporates against currency risk.

In terms of net cost of risk, even though the first half net cost of risk was only 100 basis points, we would like to maintain our below 150 basis points guidance due to our typical model recalibration in the last quarter and prudency. The magnitude of all-inclusive margin expansion, meaning CPI and swap costs included, will be dependent on the October inflation reading. We may see margin expansion of higher than 400 basis points.

So far in core margin, we had booked 172 basis points year-on-year expansion. We think we can keep a similar expansion by year-end, despite the macro prudential measures pressuring funding costs and relatively lower lending growth in the second quarter -- in the second half, actually. Fee growth, which is again a function of high economic activity, likely will end the year above 60%.

Given our tight OpEx control measures and efficiency gain, we target to manage the operating expense growth to below average inflation by year-end. So all in, ROE for the year will likely end above 45% versus the above 20% guidance we had in the beginning of the year.

Now let me share with you some of our nonfinancial strengths as well. As Garanti BBVA, we continue to be the sector leader in digitalization. Our investments in digital transformation since the late '90s carried us to the forefront with being the top choice of the customers, and we positioned mobile as the main gateway. Our mobile active number of customers exceeded 11.7 million as of June end, and this represents the highest digital and mobile customer base among peers.

Our main focus is customer empowerment through digital and mobile and the numbers show that we're clearly in the right path. Our net active customer growth in mobile has exceeded the growth in digital customers since end of 2019, with a net increase of 4 million in a period of only 2.5 years.

Now with more than 86% of total sales going through digital channels, the share of branch and customer transactions has come down to 2.5% levels from what it used to be, 5.8%, pre-pandemic. Customers' monthly mobile logins have increased a remarkable 132% versus pre-pandemic levels. On digital, our market share speaks for itself with mobile financial transactions market share of 19%.

And lastly, it's worth mentioning that as Garanti BBVA, our efforts are always to create value beyond banking in our customers' lives. With My Ecological Status app, we help our customers track their carbon footprint and support them with our suggestions in reducing it. And we are the first in the Turkish banking sector to implement Digital Slip, reducing paper consumption and carbon footprint of our customers. We translate our technological strength into a benefit to touch the lives of people and society and contribute to a sustainable future.

Moving on to the update on sustainability on Slide 21. As Garanti BBVA, our sustainability commitment is to build a strong and successful future. Our parent group BBVA committed to provide EUR 200 billion in financing to combat climate change and support sustainable development by year 2025. And likewise, at Garanti BBVA, we also pledge to contribute increasing amounts of financing towards the same goal.

This year marked the seventh consecutive year earned to remain listed in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. And we are the first and the only Turkish bank that could get qualified to be included in this index. Garanti BBVA has been a carbon neutral bank since 2020. We have actually reached our greenhouse gas reduction target 15 years earlier.

Highlighting our ESG efforts and starting with climate change action plan. Last year, we announced our coal phaseout plan, with the target of reducing our risk portfolio for coal-related activities to zero and completely abandon this sector by 2040.

And we became a signatory to the UN convened Net-Zero Banking Alliance, committing to align our lending and investment portfolio with net-zero emissions by 2050 or sooner. We're the first and only Turkish bank to do both.

We have also adapted PACTA methodology to manage our Scope 3 emissions and to reach net zero target. In order to manage our portfolio's carbon-intensive sector's risk, we will set sector specific thresholds for power, auto, steel and cement sectors by using benchmark scenarios, the metrics of the current situation and the target for decarbonization through 2040.

Our sustainable finance -- on sustainable finance, we're using the power of finance towards a more sustainable future. Our sustainable finance mobilization in first half 2022 was TRY 14 billion versus TRY 8.8 billion in 2021, and climate finance mobilization was TRY 7.1 billion in first half versus TRY 6 billion last year. We have committed to contribute EUR 7 million to EUR 10 million to sustainable finance until 2025. And also, in terms of funding, 25% of our wholesale's funding base consists of ESG-linked funding.

On the governance side, we were recognized with having the highest corporate governance rating score by Corporate Governance Association of Turkey. And we will keep making progress on this. Important highlights and developments on this front is that we have 25% Board of Directors female representation targeted by the end of 2025. Secondly, the ESG target embedded in group KPIs effect Garanti BBVA's premium eligible criteria for employees at all levels. And finally, sustainability is at the core of each and every decision taken in day-to-day operations.

Now this ends our presentation, and we leave the floor to you for questions. Thank you for listening.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions]. Our first question comes from [indiscernible].

[Unknown Attendee]

I have a couple of quick questions. The first one is, I couldn't find the -- I'm not sure whether we were provided it or not, but I couldn't see the inflation accounting ROE that you have for first half. Your peers had some slides on that. So if you can give us that number, if you have it?

The second question is, how do you expect funding costs to behave in the second half of the year? And how do you think your lending spreads would look like in the second half of the year?

Third question is, what is the inflation assumption that you use for your full year net interest margin calculations for your CPI linkers? And the last question is about the FX protected deposits. What sort of rollover ratio do you expect from corporate FX protected deposits in the coming months?

[Recep Bastug, executive]

Okay. Thank you, [indiscernible]. The first question, inflation accounting issue and the related ROE with it. We didn't put it because tomorrow BBVA, the holding, is going to announce their first -- second quarter results. So you will be seeing that, our ROE impact. But I want to make a small comment on that. In Turkey, as you know the regulator has not announced the timing of the hyperinflation accounting. So locally, we didn't make any such about it. In case -- in our case, our parent BBVA will have to consolidate the inflation adjusted results for Turkey and Argentina.

So even though in local figures, Garanti BBVA's first half profit is TRY 21.2 billion, there will be -- you are going to see tomorrow, there will be no contribution to BBVA's profit due to this inflation accounting. So we expect '22 year-end ROE higher than 45% if there is not any inflation adjustment. So inflation will wipe away the nominal profits seen and ROE will not look as attractive. So our number will be around what our peers announced. But as I said, tomorrow, you will see the net number with BBVA's presentation.

The second one, funding cost, as I understand this, CBRT is committed with this policy rate to the year-end and maybe to do election. So deposit rates have stayed more or less stable, around 17%. Maybe there may be a slight increase on that, but it will be negligible as long as this policy will continue.

But due to regulationary issues, the loan rates have started to go up because there are extra burden arising from the regulation. So we reflect those burdens, those costs to customers. So loan rates are going up. So as a result of that, there will be slightly positive improvement in the spreads, but the reflection to customer sites will be much more than -- much more due to the regulatory burdens.

The third question, the -- I think the last one, rollover ratios for corporate site. The net answer to your question, I think, will be in the mid of August because the big chunk will mature in August. Up until now, retail and corporate, together, rollover ratio is around 75% to 80% levels. But as the corporate site program started in the -- at the end of the first quarter, so the biggest chunk will be in -- will be matured in August. We will see that number at the end of -- mid October.

So it is not easy to answer what is happening in the corporate side because they have not get their maturity yet.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from [indiscernible].

[Unknown Attendee]

Yes, very quick one. Slide #9, you have a chart saying that the FX liquidity buffer is $10 billion, and that includes the FX reserves under reserve option mechanism, swaps and some other stuff as well. What is -- can you give us a guidance, what is that figure if we exclude the reserve option mechanism and the swaps with the CBRT? Number 9, Slide #9.

[Recep Bastug, executive]

Let us give you the breakdown of this $10 billion, roughly 50% maximum, some -- fluctuates, but between 40% to 50% levels of those liquidity buffer are in CBRT swap mechanism. $2 billion foreign currency unencumbered securities, and rest is in money market. This is a disbursement of our liquidity buffer.

[Operator]

We have a written question from Thomas. He's asking, akin to your peers, could you please let us know what could be your ROE adjusted for inflation?

[Recep Bastug, executive]

I think we answered to this question.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions]. Seems like we don't have any questions left. So I leave the floor to our presenters for closing remarks.

[Recep Bastug, executive]

So thank you. Thank you all for participation. As Garanti BBVA, we pursue a customer-driven balance sheet growth, and this strategy will continue. Bank has already showed its agility in adapting to the inflation environment. And going forward, we will maintain our successful high-quality performance. Thank you for your support and trust in us. I wish you all the best, and look forward to address you again with another set of great results in the next quarter. Have a nice day.