Banco Santander SA

MAD:SAN

Earnings Call Transcript 2020-Q1

[Sergio Gámez Martínez, Global Head of Shareholder & Investor Relations]

Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining to this First Quarter 2020 Earnings Presentation for Banco Santander. First of all, on behalf of the Santander team, I hope you and yours are well under the extremely challenging current circumstances. The call should take around, as usual, one hour. Our group CEO will address the first quarter highlights and then our group Chief Financial Officer will address the group business and areas to review as every quarter, and then the group CEO will take the mic again to address a bit in detail and give you a bit of color on what we are seeing in our different markets, well, after the Q1 close before jumping into the Q&A. So again, thanks for being here with us today, and obviously, right after the call, the entire IR team will be at your disposal for any follow-up you might have. And now please, Jose Antonio.

[Jose Antonio Alvarez Alvarez, CEO & Vice Chairman]

Thank you, Sergio. Good morning to everyone. I hope you find well in the middle of this health crisis, you and your families and relatives. Well, this quarter has been a strange quarter. We've been in business as usual until the late -- till the last 2 weeks, the COVID-19 outbreak, has produced an unprecedented worldwide health crisis. This is a health crisis that -- which is resulting in an economic crisis, where the financial system, I think, is more resilient and banks need to be an important part of the solution of the COVID-19 economic situation. Since the crisis started and with some anticipation, we implemented in our geographies, specific measures to take care of our employees, customers, shareholders and investors in order to protect them and to mitigate the economic and social impact. I will talk more about this in the last part of my speech. Starting with the quarter. Let me to follow how the quarter has -- the figures have behaved. In volumes, we grew significantly, more at the end of the quarter than the beginning. The loan book grew EUR 26 billion. The pickup was basically in the latest part of March due to the drawdown of the committed lines by the large corporations. Deposits grew 6% with jump also in the second part of the month of March. Our customer digital activity reached record figures, that is not strange. And the growth in the group digital customer base doubled that compared with the previous quarters. As regard to results, we recorded a provision overlay of EUR 1.6 billion to cover the expected deterioration of the macroeconomic conditions arising from the health crisis. As a result, attributable profit was only EUR 331 million. Excluding this charge, underlying attributable profit amounted EUR 1.977 billion, 1% higher than the same period in 2019, 8% excluding the exchange rate impact. In the current environment, our credit quality and liquidity remained solid in all geographic areas you have in the numbers. We continue to generate capital organically out of the quarter. The growth and risk-weighted asset has been approximately 3x the ordinary growth. The consumption of capital due to growth of network as it was 21 basis points in the quarter that were offset by the non-dividend payment. And the result -- as a result, the capital -- the core equity Tier 1 ratio at the end of the quarter was 11.58%. Going to the geographic areas. The resilience of the underlying performance of results is based in our diversification and scale. By region, we can see growth in loyal customers, increasing loans and customer funds, notably in the Americas. In Europe, profit and profitability were dampened by the already complex economic environment before the crisis due to low interest rates that become low in some geographies, particularly in U.K. and therefore more by confinement measures in many European countries in March. North and South America, on the other hand, record strong profit growth and improved profitability. Going to the global business, performance has been stable. We grew both in CIB and Wealth Management, a 21% profit -- underlying profit in the quarter. CIB grew strongly, particularly in the last few months as well in the funding needs of our customers. These were reflected in greater utilization of existing credit lines in March alone, more than EUR 15 billion, an increase in deposits. Wealth Management and Insurance recorded also very high profits due to strong activity levels early this year, which slowed down at the end of the quarter due to the impact of the crisis in the market. Going to the P&L. Well, first thing to say is exchange rates play a significant role, has a negative impact of 5 percentage points year-on-year. If we take a look at constant euros, it will reflect the underlying operating trends, we see customer revenue growing at 3% with cost management and growth in provisions partly driven by higher volumes, not yet for the economic crisis that we expect from the health crisis. As a result, underlying attributable profit amounted, as I said before, EUR 1.977 billion, 8% higher excluding the exchange rate impact compared with the first quarter 2019. The nonrecurring charge of EUR 1.6 billion correspond to the already mentioned in provision overlay and the remaining amount of restructuring costs that you have more detail in the appendix. As regards to the provisions, as you know acknowledged by the ISB and other regulators and supervisors, it is likely to be difficult at this time to know the specific effect of the health crisis and government and central bank support measures. Nevertheless, in the first quarter, based on the information on the environment at the quarter end and following the regulatory guidelines based on the expected deterioration of the macroeconomic conditions, a provision overlay will be recorded conceptually, reflecting the permanent impacts from the COVID-19 in the medium and long-term arising from the expected cautioning of the portfolio's credit quality and avoiding the negative effects from profitability and volatility of the IFRS 9 in the very short run. In this environment of extremely high uncertainty, the macro variables considered here are very much in line with those published by the IMF. It's not exactly IMF on a country-by-country basis, but we have a situation of country-by-country, where the main items that affect the provisioning -- the potential provisioning level going forward are GDP growth, unemployment and house prices, in our case, also the new -- the car sales. So it's important how deep the recession is, but it's probably more important in accounting for how long the recession or the recovery or when the recovery comes. Going into the revenue. In the first quarter customer revenue grew 3%, boosted by the Americas, as I said before, and our global business. Net interest income grew due to greater volumes, combined with active management of deposit cost in an environment of falling interest rates. In net fee income, where our global business, wealth management, plus 6%, CIB plus 20%, which account for more than 44% of the group total fees generated. We are confident that we will continue to deliver quality revenue growth. I will further discuss this at the end of the presentation in the conclusions. On cost, cost 3% lower in real terms. In Europe, as you know -- as we were indicating to you in our efficiency plan, cost dropped significantly in all countries, notably in the Spain, minus 8%; U.K., minus 6%. This performance comes from the efficiency plans we are executing in all this geography. This enabled us to obtain the expected synergies in the quarter needed to deliver our target for the year. Good management in North America, where costs have no material change. In South America, of particular note, was Brazil with a 2% fall in real terms. This performance allow us to remain leader in efficiency among our peers with an efficiency ratio of 47%. Our goal is to continue to making progress regarding operational environment and cost management adapted to the new environment. We continue to pursue our targets, as we indicated to you in our investor update. Credit quality. While the quarter was in line with the traditional trends, still the NPLs coverage ratio and cost of credit remained basically stable with the same trends you've seen before. On capital, well, we continue to strengthen our capital ratios. In the quarter, we generated -- we once again generated capital organically. With -- combined with the favorable impact from the dividend measures taken, resulted in an increase of 36 basis points in the quarter. The increase took place in a context marked by strong growth in risk-weighted assets, 21 basis points in the quarter, 3x the ordinary increase, mainly due to the higher lending and some market volatility that affects the risk weighting of the market positions. On the other hand, we had significant nonrecurring negative impacts. As you can see in the slide, 19 basis points for corporate transactions that were already announced, Allianz, Elavon and the minorities of creditor concessionaire -- Ole concessionaire in Brazil; 15 basis points from regulatory impact and all that we were expecting is the majority of what we are expecting for this year and 9 basis points from markets, basically the mark-to-market of the ALCO portfolios in Mexico and Brazil. We are comfortable with our capital levels. We maintain our 11% to 12% capital target in the scenario we foresee in the coming quarters, with the aim of being on the upper side of the range. Finally, and before handing to José to comment the performance of our main markets, I would like to highlight the resilience of our profitability ratios, both in terms of underlying return on tangible equity and return on risk-weighted assets as well as the TNAV per share will remain above EUR 4 per share, although suffered some impact from FX from the exchange rate. I hand over to José to elaborate about the different units and regions.

[José Antonio García Cantera, Group Chief Financial Officer]

Thank you, Jose Antonio. Good morning, everyone. As for the performance by region and country, the Americas increased their weight as a percentage of total profits to almost 60%. So we remain very well diversified. As previously mentioned by Jose Antonio, North America and South America grew at double-digit rates, while the performance in Europe was impacted by the economic environment. Also, our global businesses increased at double-digit rates, which helped to strengthen our local franchises. Taking a look at volume, we also had a positive performance in the quarter and covered our customers' funding needs. Loans grew 7% in nominal -- in real terms in -- excluding exchange rate year-on-year, mostly driven by South and North America, which grew at double-digit rates across all markets. In Europe, 4% growth, with increases in all countries except Spain, as I will explain later. Customer funds were also up in 9 markets. Deposits 6%, while mutual funds fell 2%, mainly driven by the drop in equity and fixed income markets. In Spain, we had positive commercial trends, especially in March, when loans increased by nearly EUR 3 billion, driven by SMEs and corporates. This trend accelerated in April as the ICO, the ICO lines became available. March was also a month of intense digital activity. We operated most of the month with 50% of our branches opened and recorded the highest month in the number of digital customers, almost 5 million digital customers interacted with the bank. The number of new contracts signed with digital signatures tripled, accounting for more than 50% of the bank total sales. We had slightly lower net income, although profit before tax was up as cost savings offset the drop in total revenue. Net interest income was down 8% due to smaller ALCO portfolios and lower average assets -- earning assets in wholesale banking. We are in line with our cost savings plan, as Jose Antonio said, delivering 8% drop in costs. Nonperforming loans fell 41 basis points year-on-year and provisions remained also under control. In Santander Consumer Finance, the business was the first to be impacted by the health crisis. First in China, where, as you know, we have an operation and later in our units in Italy and Spain. New car sales in Europe dropped 26% in the first quarter, while new lending in Santander Consumer Finance fell only 5% due to the strong performance in January and February. In the last few weeks of the quarter and driven by the confinement measures, the declines were sharp. New lending in Italy and Spain was at 10% to 20% of the usual volumes, so the drop of 80% to 90%. In Germany, the levels were 50% to 70% of normal levels, and only the Nordic countries remained our precrisis levels. These declines were reflected in our results especially net fee income, which fell 12%. On the other hand, and due to the good performance at the beginning of the quarter, net interest income increased 5%.Costs rose due to the new alliances that we signed in the previous -- in the quarter and in the previous 12 months. Excluding the change in perimeter, they fell 3%. Provisions were higher, mainly driven by lower portfolio sales compared to the first quarter of last year. The underlying profit, as you can see here on the upper hand -- upper left -- upper right of the slide, it's -- it fell 5%. Moving to the United Kingdom. Volumes grew at good rates. Loans increased 5% year-on-year in the quarter and driven by mortgages, loans grew 2%. However, in April, new mortgage applications fell 80%, while the demand for mortgage repayment holidays amounted to around 50% of the total mortgage portfolio. Revenue was affected by lower yields on new production and the continued SVR attrition. Also, fee income was lower in part due to the reduction in overdrafts. However, we had a good performance in the P&L. Costs were reduced by 5%. Provisions fell 20% and cost of risk remained at very low levels. In Brazil, we kept our good momentum going, which continued to show recurring profit generation even in the more adverse current circumstances, current environment. In volumes, lending increased 18% year-on-year, with all segments growing, notably corporate and CIB. Consumer funds rose boosted by demand and time deposits, up 31% and 17% year-on-year, respectively, both partly favored by foreign currency balances, the depreciation of the real. The return on tangible equity rose to 22%, following the 10% increase in profits, as you can see in the P&L. Net interest income increase driven by higher volumes, which offset margin pressures due to the mix effect, the negative impact from the fall in the SELIC rate in the interest rates and the limit on the overdraft interest rates. Net fee income grew driven by payments, ComEx and Forex. Strong efficiency improvement year-on-year and the cost of credit remained stable. In the quarter, profit rose 8% due to the strong fall in cost and provisions, seasonally higher in the fourth quarter, which obviously favors the quarter-on-quarter comparison, and which more than offset the fall in net interest income due to lower spreads and net fee income. To finish, in Brazil, let me give you some color of the activity in recent weeks. The acquiring business is down 15% relative to pre-crisis levels. Cash withdrawals down 30% and auto loans down 40% to 50%. In the United States, we had a strong volume growth in the quarter, driven by both corporates and auto, which do not yet reflect the falling activity recorded in recent weeks. Underlying attributable profit rose 46% year-on-year with an adjusted return on tangible equity of 12%, backed by higher revenue and cost control. As you can see on the page, profit rose strongly quarter-on-quarter, driven by seasonally lower provisions and costs in the first quarter. In Mexico, loans and customer funds grew at double-digit rates. New lending to corporates and CIB more than doubled in March compared to a regular month. They went back to usual levels in the first weeks of April. Profits rose 22% year-on-year, backed by positive performance of income and lower noncontrolling interests. Costs were higher due to increased amortizations and technology investments. However, efficiency improved by more than 1 percentage point. We also had good asset quality with all metrics improving. Compared to the fourth quarter of 2019, underlying attributable profit fell due to high gains on financial transactions in the previous quarter. And to finish, I will make some quick comments on the corporate center, where underlying attributable loss decreased 16% compared to 2019, mainly due to the combination of 2 things. On the one hand, in total income, positive impact of around EUR 93 million in gains from financial transactions mostly coming from foreign exchange -- foreign currency hedging; and two, costs, which improved 13% year-on-year, reflecting the positive impact from streamlining and simplification of our processes carried out in previous quarters. And with this, I'll turn it back to Jose Antonio for his -- for the third section of the presentation.

[Jose Antonio Alvarez Alvarez, CEO & Vice Chairman]

Thank you, José. I'm going to elaborate basically on the actions we're taking as a result of the COVID-19 crisis and I'm going to provide you the latest data available to give you the facts, how the business is performing till the data I'm providing to you in this section until the 22nd of April. So starting with the -- how do we match the crisis. Well, this is -- crisis has produced an unprecedented situation. So the end of the first quarter was very, very conditioned by the spread of the virus. We had to match the business in a total different way. We've been monitoring since the beginning of the situation and activated all the necessary protocols to ensure business continuity. We implemented different measures, taking into consideration also the authorities recommendations. Well, the central banks have been acting. And we take these measures in order to protect our stakeholders and to fulfill their expectations in our actions. As the pandemic has evolved in each market, the group has reevaluated the situation and rolled out measures in line with the specific needs of each country. I would like to explain in more detail on how do we manage the crisis. In crisis situation, preserving our critical functions is key in order to provide service of high standards to our customers. Different action plans were implemented in different corporate areas and the counterparties in all the countries. These action plans cover the 4 dimensions included in the slide: Health and prevention. We follow a large-scale strategy to work from home. Currently, more than 110,000 people is working from home. This was combined with keeping 70% of our branches open and their employee work in shifts. Our ATM's are fully functioning, and most of our employees in contact centers are also telecommuting. We've been proactive regarding internal and external communication to be as transparent as possible. Our aim is to keep our people, customers, shareholders and investors informed of all the times and providing advice if needed. And we are monitoring risk and liquidity day-to-day. Well, measures. We took also measures for the community in which we are working. Our -- one of our main priorities is to contribute to the well-being of the society as a whole. We have implemented actions and mobilized resources together with governments and institutions to help the society. We already raised EUR 100 million to combat the pandemic. Some of the main initiatives are the creation of Solidarity fund, which already amounts EUR 54 million, financed by reduction in remuneration and voluntary contributions from the bank employees. We've been pretty active in Spain, one of the most affected countries in this pandemic. The bank has donated several millions of protection masks, respirators, hospital beds and blankets and other things that were in high demand in these days. In Santander University, we reallocated EUR 30 million to fight COVID-19 and various local units are supporting with volume of goods with EUR 16 million. We are working with third parties to facilitate donations and to help where this is needed and is required from us. Let me -- to talk a little bit, one area of the bank that has become crucial in this situation and is the T&O, it has been key through this process, allowing us to continue to running the bank and serve our customers remotely. We increased, as you may expect, our network capacity, our bandwidth and the -- increased the maximum number of users supported by the VPNs. You have the figures in the slide. In Q1, naturally, as a natural reaction of the confinement, we had dramatic increase in the operation through digital channels. We doubled the number of the increase in the digital customer base. The digital sales increased significantly. Record quarter in number of assets. The behavior of the group was more accentuated in the countries -- in some countries, particularly Spain, Poland and U.K. Let me to go through the figures. Already, José mentioned some of the figures in relation with the activity. Well, we have also adopted measures to facilitate, well, our customer life during the crisis in all regions. We provide payment holidays or referrals in most markets. You have in the slide some figures, temporary option to increase credit card and overdraft limits, proactive support for vulnerable customers, being proactive and trying to cover their needs, reduction and suspension of some fees. With regards to the payment holidays, we received applications or requests, both relating to the government programs as well as the Santander options. On the slide, you can see the number of applications for the largest customers and how they are well above 1 million. Also, you can see the weight as a percentage of the total portfolio at -- as of 22 of April. This process is still underway, as you can imagine, and we think that we could end up affecting 15% to 20% of the mortgage book in Europe, 5% to 10% of the consumer book in Europe and 20%, 25% of the consumer book in the U.S.Another feature of this crisis is the government has been -- the governments in different countries have been particularly active in establishing programs for SMEs and corporates, whose aim is to provide liquidity and credit facilities with favorable conditions for business facing hardship. You have in this screen, some of the programs established by the different governments in Europe and the U.S. and South America. Perhaps, well, I'm giving you the figures on the right side that are related to Spain. Spain has approved 2 tranches of EUR 20 billion each. We were assigned with some of these warranties lines. We already approved 60,000 operations, EUR 9.6 billion, of which EUR 7.2 billion are warranted by the government. The figure is spread across different segments. We reach all the sectors from large corporates to self-employed. We provided EUR 7 billion for the smaller-sized companies across 59,000 operations. Additionally, you have granted. We continue with the ordinary activity. Since mid-March, the ordinary activity has been progressing well according with our expectations. In this context, if we look at the loan book, in different segments, what you see is kind of stable, slightly up individual-related business, being mortgages and consumer. It's too early. So at the end of the month. I will provide you figures for the applications in April. And SMEs in corporate, you see in March, a significant increase in the size of the loan books due to higher demand and drop-downs, particularly in the CIB space, where the book grew in the month of March, EUR 19 billion. So if you go to the trends, José mentioned some of them. You have here in this slide, the new mortgage lending, how it's evolving. When we refer to new mortgage lendings, it's payments, actual payments that goes into the stock, we were -- the daily average in the different regions, well, fell 60% in mortgages. While the applications, and you have on the right side, this goes from minus 80% in Spain and U.K. to a smaller impact still in Latin American business. In consumer lending, you have the same figure there, minus 25% in new consumer lending and applications falling differently depending on the countries and regions and businesses. This is the -- well, it's a summary of the behavior of the individuals vis-a-vis -- in the middle of this crisis. When it goes to the corporates and CIB, we have a totally different picture. We have -- we see the opposite, new SMEs and corporate lending grew already in March, and much more in April due to the use of the government programs. The daily average went from EUR 500 million to EUR 600 million in February. That is probably the normal level to close to EUR 700 million in March and more than EUR 1.1 billion daily average in April. In CIB, it happened the same, while was -- the massive drawdowns of existing credit facilities in March, while in April, the balance sheet is fairly stable. This -- I hope this gives you a sense of what's going on in the business in these days.Just to finish and to allow you to have time to ask the questions you may have, let me do share with you a couple of points. We think the best way to support our shareholders is to prioritize the health and safety of our employees and our top priority as a way to help customers and communities and ensure profitability for the shareholders. This is the best way to act in this scenario. We are confident going forward because we have a strong starting point, both in terms of balance sheet, liquidity, capital and in terms of P&L. Our pre-provision profit is one of the strongest in the industry. Finally, our business model is very resilient. And you have seen year after year in the stress tests that we are -- tend to be less affected because the resilience of the balance sheet. And we are activating management actions in revenues and costs that could mitigate the negative impacts that will be derived from the COVID-19. Firstly, we reiterate our EUR 1.2 billion cost reduction commitment. We will take additional action on costs, including detailed analysis of our process in the new operating environment. From the revenue side, where we are managing cost of funds to reflect the new interest rate environment. The cost of deposits has been reducing over the past few quarters. We still have some levers to continue this trend going forward. And also on a case-by-case, we will try to design an efficient pricing strategy on the asset side to reflect the deterioration in risk profile. However, it's too early to be conclusive about the macro and financial effect of the current health crisis. As stated during the latest AGM, the medium-term strategic objective will be reviewed once the economic impact of the crisis is clear. In the meantime, considering the high level of uncertainty and lack of visibility, the situation recommends to be prudent. And at this stage, we are not in a position to provide a guidance that with the levels of certainty required. To conclude, I would like to reassert that the pillars of the group strategy remain unchanged: improving operating performance; optimizing capital allocations to the regions and business that generate the highest returns; and accelerate the group transformation -- the group digital transformation. That's all on our side, and we will be ready to answer the questions that you may have. Thank you.

[Sergio Gámez Martínez, Global Head of Shareholder & Investor Relations]

Thank you, Jose Antonio. Indeed, we have now the rest of the hour for Q&A. So operator, can you proceed with the questions?

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Alvaro Serrano from Morgan Stanley.

[Alvaro Serrano Saenz de Tejada, Lead Analyst]

I have a few follow-ups, hopefully very short. Can you give us the breakdown of the EUR 1.6 billion provision overlay? I can't reconcile with the divisions. And the 2 follow-ups to that is, if I take the EUR 3.9 billion total provisions you've taken in the quarter, is -- should we annualize that? I've heard you, José Antonio, say that it's very uncertain and you're taking IMF. But at what circumstances should we annualize it? Should we not annualize it? Could it be worse? Maybe some color there. And the last point related is one of your competitors or peers, I guess, in their results, were saying that their provisions were consistent with saying that 50% of the payment holidays would ultimately result in being default -- in being a default. Can you give us a color? I know the provisions don't strictly work like that, but can you give us a color of what you think the payment holidays today, ultimately, how much of that could result in defaults based on your modeling? What do you think about the quality of those payment holidays?

[Jose Antonio Alvarez Alvarez, CEO & Vice Chairman]

Okay. So a couple of different questions, Alvaro to answer all at this point -- at this juncture. The breakdown of the overlay, we don't have a specific breakdown. We went by segments using a global scenario that is not exactly, but is close to IMF scenario, and we don't have any specifics at this stage, a specific breakdown that I can provide to you on a country-by-country basis, as I understood, you were asking. We made EUR 3.9 billion provisions in the country -- in the quarter, sorry. Should this number -- can this number be annualized in these terms? Well, I will say, generally speaking, my thinking of this and don't take it as written in stone, we are matching the scenarios. We tend to look back and to try to assess what has happened in different countries in scenarios like this. We have the real estate crisis in Spain. We have the recession in Brazil in the other side. If you look -- if you look backwards in the real estate crisis in Spain, the group as a whole, we were running in the 1.4, 1.5 cost risk at this time. If you look backwards in Brazil, when the recession hit the country and the GDP fell by 10%, the cost of risk went from the current -- a little bit lower than EUR 400 million to EUR 500 million. So those are the kind of figures that we will have in our mind. And well, payment holidays and not -- you mentioned how much of this is going to be default. Well, you need to look at the book. So 40% of our total book as a group are mortgages, yes? So we do not expect significant defaults in the payment holidays related with mortgages. The payment holidays, the majority of the payment holidays related with mortgages have a financial advantage to the customer and make sense from the financial point of view, the customer to take these payment holidays, and we think that many of them are taking because -- some of them because they are facing a difficult situation, some others because it's an advantage. Having said that, the main factor behind potential defaults here and when I mentioned before, GDP, unemployment, house prices, the house prices, how did they develop, not in 2020, it's more 2021 and 2022, is the most important factor in relation with potential default in mortgages. So I do not expect mortgage. The majority of payment holidays are mortgage, and I do not expecting a bad outcome there. In consumer, we need to elaborate on a country-by-country basis. You've seen that and José provided information and in the latest figures I provided to you. In consumer in Europe, we have like 4 countries that the production collapsed and the other 4 countries, half of the business still performing relatively well; Germany, Nordics and countries around this. So we do expect different outcomes according with this kind of situation. So in the -- particularly in the U.S. that in SCUSA, extensions that we provide you, the number of extensions, it's business as usual. The number of extensions we do on a normal amount without having a crisis is in the region of 15,000 amount. Yes. So now grew dramatically, but it's part of the business as usual, and it's difficult for us to assess how much is going to end up in higher cost of risk.

[Operator]

And it comes from Francisco Riquel from Alantra Equities.

[Francisco Riquel, Head of Research]

Just a follow-up on the previous questions. So you mentioned that the scenarios that you are managing are in line with past crisis in Spain, you mentioned of the recession in Brazil. So what -- I mean, this time, the economic recession is going to be bigger overall, not only in those countries, but worldwide. So what makes you confident that the cost of risk should not be bigger than what you have been mentioning for those scenarios in past crisis? So that's a general question. So -- and then specifically, I wanted to ask you about Brazil. You mentioned that the cost of risk in the past recession, 2015-'16, went up from 4% to 5%. So at that time, you went through the recession in Brazil in a fairly good shape. What -- how do you expect now the Brazilian bank to perform in this crisis given that you have grown relatively fast? And how confident are you of the risk taken in the last few years?

[Jose Antonio Alvarez Alvarez, CEO & Vice Chairman]

Paco, the first question, why this time is not going to be bigger? As you know, provision is related with expected losses in a medium, long-term period. What matters here is we have a new kind of crisis this time. It's a crisis that we've never seen. For that reason, it's extremely uncertain the outcome. But if you look at the different scenarios, not necessarily only IMF, well, overall, all the scenarios have a strong impact in 2020 and relatively rapid recovery in 2021 and 2022. So if that's the case, the level of defaults is not that high. So remember, the last crisis, when I spoke before in Brazil, the GDP fell 10% and the recovery is still ongoing, okay? So 3 years later, still not recovering this. In Spain, the top 2 -- the bottom was around now 10%, 9%. I think it took 4, 5 years to recover. The kind of crisis we have in front of us is a crisis in which we have a deep recession with very short duration. Short, meaning months or maybe 3 months, maybe 6 months, maybe 9 months, depending on the kind of scenario you want to -- the kind of V or the kind of U scenario you can -- you want to choose. But in any case, relatively short period of deep recession that follows a relatively rapid recovery immediately after. This is not a very bad scenario for -- if this happens for the cost of risk. The longer the recession lasts without -- even if the intensity is lower, the higher penalization, I mentioned already, the mortgages in which is not that -- what matters, it's not that much how deep the house prices fall immediately, it's how long it takes to recover the prices afterwards. So this is the general thinking on this. And for that reason, we remain relatively confident that if, and it's a big if at this stage, the scenarios behave like the ones we are seeing from the different economies, not -- and we have a relatively quick and rapid recovery afterward, the scenario is workable, I would say.You said Brazil, well, in the last crisis, we had -- you said yes, that we had a different portfolio that we grew a lot in the last couple of years. It's true. But well, our franchise now is a much better franchise than it was 4, 5 years ago, much more resilient with much higher profitability, with much more capacity to take management actions. I'm fairly positive on the trends in Brazil. Naturally, the cost of risk is going to go up, sure. We are suffering right now and you see in the NII, the impact of the overdraft, the charges that were reduced significantly, yes. But the underlying trends are pretty good. Yes. So we continue to see our strength across the board is significant. And we are -- I think we are well prepared to face the headwinds that we're going to suffer in the coming quarters, and we feel confident that we're going to be able to match in the range I was telling you, well, not exactly don't take the numbers, take the range as a potential outcome in the coming quarters.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Carlos Cobo from Societe Generale.

[Carlos Cobo Catena, Equity Analyst]

Carlos Cobo from Societe here. The first question would be on the FX hedging policy. If you could update how much of the currencies you've hedged and for how long that hedge is in place? What would be -- if we still -- we're fully seeing the impact already in Q1. And what would be the phasing of that hedging running off?And secondly, if you could confirm that the EUR 1 billion cost-cutting target for Europe is being reiterated, I think Antonio said, and whether you see any risk of -- is in the -- coming from investment related needs in the context of the COVID-19? I would like to understand your thoughts around any room to beat the previous guidance on costs now or on the contrary to meet the targets you now need to make in a stronger effort.And finally, on capital, if we should still maintain the 12% year-end 2020 target? Or how should we expect the capital evolving from here?

[Jose Antonio Alvarez Alvarez, CEO & Vice Chairman]

Well, I will take the second and the third question. I will pass to José the first one, the FX hedging policy. Target for EUR 1 billion cost cut in Europe remains in place. It's reiterated. I'm fairly optimistic. You see the numbers in the first quarter, fairly optimistic as we are getting there. Probably in the short run, we're going to have, as I mentioned before at the end of the presentation, we're going to take management actions, management actions on revenues and costs. On costs, we have capacity to reduce the cost further from our targets in this environment, yes. Capital -- then 2020 capital, I said that we also expect to remain inside the range of our target. Remember, our targeting capital was -- is 11% to 12%, and we will expect to be in the upper side of the range at the end of 2020, taking into account all that has been said in this presentation. José, FX hedging.

[José Antonio García Cantera, Group Chief Financial Officer]

In terms of hedging, we have 2 different policies for capital. For the capital ratio, we fully hedge the capital ratio, and we do that on a monthly basis. So any exchange rate volatility does not affect the capital ratio directly. And in terms of profits, we hedge basically based on our expectations for exchange rate movements. And to go into the details, this year we have the Mexican peso, the sterling and the U.S. dollar fully hedged. We have the real partially hedged. So we -- in the next few quarters, if the exchange rates remain where they are today, we will still see some negative impacts on our numbers.

[Operator]

The next question comes from José Abad from Goldman Sachs.

[José Maria Abad Hernandez, Executive Director]

I have 3 questions. First one is whether your EUR 1.6 billion post-crisis impairment taken today, does this include the positive impact from the warranties in the different countries that you operate? The second question is on the profitability. One of your European peers actually mentioned in a conference call, which was taking place in parallel to yours, that they expect to take 0 profit from the government-guaranteed lines. Is this also the case for you in Spain or in other countries?And the last question is, given that actually only in Spain, 2 tranches have been approved up to EUR 40 billion. You've granted EUR 9.6 billion. So based on this, should you expect actually this to go up to potentially EUR 25 billion in cumulative incremental corporate lending until potentially Q3?

[Jose Antonio Alvarez Alvarez, CEO & Vice Chairman]

Okay. When you are referring to the EUR 1.6 billion including warranties, this include warranties, do not include guarantees because we are assessing the portfolio that was in our books as of 31st of March. So -- and this new lending started in April. So does not include government guarantees. How much profit we expect to reap, understand the profit in the overall lending related with government guarantees, I don't -- really, I don't expect to make profits out of this. So we're going to get some revenues, some cost of risk. But overall, it's going to be difficult to make profits. We may make some profits, but not significant at all, yes.The government guarantees, you extrapolate the -- as you know, in Spain, the government established a kind of coupon for each bank based on the market share in the overall credit market. And our case was, I think, 18.5% or something like that. And as you know, we have -- we finished the assignment of the lines we were granted to -- that were granted to us 1 week ago, and we still have pending demand. That's something that you may expect given the fact that although our participation in the overall credit portfolio, the market share is 18.5%. Our participation in the SMEs corporate space, that is the ones who are demanding more loans in these days. It is in the region of 25%. For that reason, we have significant demand. Well, it's up to the government to give -- to go from the EUR 40 billion to EUR 100 billion, they match this. And well, what I can tell to you is we have still demand pending for these kind of facilities.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Sofie Peterzens from JPMorgan.

[Sofie Caroline Elisabet Peterzens, Analyst]

Sofie from JPMorgan. When I look at your Stage 2 and Stage 3 exposures, they fell quarter-on-quarter, although very marginally. But how much -- or what movement should we have expected in your Stage 2 and Stage 3 exposures if the EBA wouldn't have had the new rules out on forbearance? Would that have had any impact on your Stage 2 and Stage 3 exposures?And then my second question would be, clearly, COVID-19 has different impact in different countries. But overall, which countries are you most concerned about in terms of the outlook and which countries are you the least concerned about?And then my final question would be, if you could just remind us of your rate sensitivity given that we are seeing lower rates both in Brazil, Mexico, the U.S. and so on? So if you could remind us of your rate sensitivity?

[Jose Antonio Alvarez Alvarez, CEO & Vice Chairman]

Well, I will answer the first 2 questions. I pass the third one, the sensitivity to rates, to -- well, José is going to take this one.

[José Antonio García Cantera, Group Chief Financial Officer]

The third one? Do you want me to take it now?

[Jose Antonio Alvarez Alvarez, CEO & Vice Chairman]

Yes.

[José Antonio García Cantera, Group Chief Financial Officer]

Okay. So the interest rate sensitivity to a drop of 100 basis points, is around EUR 500 million. EUR 176 million, more or less in Spain. Very, very small sensitivity in Latin America. But overall, for the group, it's around EUR 500 million, more or less.

[Jose Antonio Alvarez Alvarez, CEO & Vice Chairman]

So the other 2 questions, Stage 2 and Stage 3, it's too early to go into this detailed analysis in the next -- we have plenty of moving parts there. The first one is the scenario that very likely we're going to have more in the Stage 2 and Stage 3. Second, we have the government guarantees that are going to offset partially what goes to the Stage 2 and Stage 3. And so the uncertainty is so high that at this stage I can elaborate very little on this. The overall, which countries will be more affected? More than this country side, I will tell you ex-government guarantees, the segments that I see potential higher effect. The first one is all the SMEs, self-employed, the small corporate segments, on top of the traditional sectors that everybody has in mind, yes? You know the sectors. Everybody speaks about the sectors, yes? But by segments, this is the segment that probably is going to be significantly affected. The second one is some pieces of the consumer lending, not necessarily cars, probably direct lending more -- much more than car -- auto lending, is the second, I see potential more impact. And at this stage, and I may be wrong because this depends on how the house prices evolve, I don't see a significant impact in the mortgage books because the interest rates are so low that affordability ratios and the loan-to-value ratios in our books are relatively low. Interest rates very low, so affordability ratios are relatively high at this point. You combine the affordability ratios with the loan-to-value ratios, I do not expect a big impact overall in the mortgage book.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Adrian Cighi from Crédit Suisse.

[Adrian Cighi, Research Analyst]

This is Adrian Cighi from Crédit Suisse. Three follow-up questions from me. On the EUR 1.6 (sic) [ EUR 1.6 billion ] provision overlay, can you maybe provide us some key sensitivities around your base case scenario? You mentioned GDP, unemployment and house prices as the key variables, just to judge if these get better or worse, what we could expect? On the capital, can you maybe help us think through the potential impact you expect from the risk migration, given the increase in PDs and LGDs? And then the third one, just a clarification. Thanks for the disclosure on the mortgage and consumer payment holidays on Slide 30. Can I just clarify that you're still accruing net interest income on all the loans in all geographies on these?

[Jose Antonio Alvarez Alvarez, CEO & Vice Chairman]

Well, the EUR 1.6 billion, the question was exactly...

[José Antonio García Cantera, Group Chief Financial Officer]

The sensitivity.

[Jose Antonio Alvarez Alvarez, CEO & Vice Chairman]

The sensitivity to the base case. Well, this EUR 1.6 billion comes from the combination of 2 scenarios. One scenario that is kind of V scenario that is relatively mild. And one scenario that we call internally U scenario that is much, much worse. And overall, much -- it takes longer to recover. The -- some of the variables that are behind these expected losses, particularly, as I mentioned before, house prices. So if house prices, let's say, fall 20%, and it takes more than 3 years to recover, the impact is much more intense than if we have a stronger GDP fall in the short run and a recovery immediately after than, otherwise, will be the case. So these are the -- the base case we are using is a combination of V scenario with U scenario that give us, and I mentioned before, kind of IMF on a country-by-country basis. In some countries, it's more intense than IMF. In some others, it's less. But overall, as an average, we are basically there.Capital impact of the rate migration (sic) [ risk migration ]. Remember, we have 50% of the portfolio is standard model. The other 40% is mortgages that while migration -- rate immigration (sic) [ risk migration ] is not significant and this rate migration (sic) [ risk migration ] affects broadly to 10%, 15% of the portfolio that is related more to the kind of CIB business and some corporates. So the impact should be relatively minor, yes? So we're going to have some, but relatively minor in our case, given the fact that the standard model still plays a big role in our capital numbers that we've been telling you. And the third one is consumer. The third one was?

[José Antonio García Cantera, Group Chief Financial Officer]

[indiscernible] holidays.

[Jose Antonio Alvarez Alvarez, CEO & Vice Chairman]

Holidays, payment holidays, we don't accrue. We accrue in the majority of the case, although there are some cases that the government initiatives, the payment holidays force us not to accrue for 1 month or 2 months or 3 months. It's not significant, but it has some effect, some -- in a limited number of cases because it doesn't apply to the overall portfolio, that's applied to specific people that has a very, very low income with vulnerabilities that we cannot accrue interest, but this is really, really minor. What this has in the other cases, is the financial effect because we have translated interest into the future, in the future principal payments and thus has some financial advantage for the borrowers, yes.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Marta Romero from Bank of America.

[Marta Sánchez Romero, Director and Analyst]

I've got 3 questions. The first one on capital. You've mentioned your UN to be at the upper end of your 11 to 12 target for fully loaded core equity Tier 1. However, given that 2020 is kind of a lost year, dividends are more or less banned and you still have legacies from the previous crisis. Would it make sense to clean up as much as possible in 2020? i.e., would you be willing to bring your fully loaded core equity Tier 1 just in line with the MDA thresholds around 9% after CRD V?The second question is on your ALCO strategy. How attractive do you think current sovereign yields in Spain, Italy and Portugal are? Are you willing to increase your exposure to the periphery? Do you believe the ECB backstop will be effective and hence, it makes sense to load up on periphery bonds today?And finally, on Santander Consumer Finance. Thank you very much for the color you provided on recent activity levels, how that translates into revenue outlook for the rest of the year? And just to be -- on cost of risk, you've given us lots of details and you've tried your best, of course, given the uncertainty. But where do you see the cost of risk in consumer -- in Santander Consumer in Europe progressing over the next 2 years?

[José Antonio García Cantera, Group Chief Financial Officer]

Yes. Okay. So Marta, it's José. I'll take the first question. I'm not sure I understand what you're saying about legacy issues from the previous crisis in terms of capital beyond the IFRS 9 transition period. So we can take that offline and discuss that, but I don't think we have any legacies whatsoever coming from the previous crisis in terms of capital. Having said that, you have to remember that we no longer have a capital conservation buffer in the U.K., which gives us 20 basis points. So the capital requirement has been lowered by at least 20 basis points. We have fully reached the AT1 and Tier 2 buckets. So any new issuance of AT1 we do -- will go against P2R. So if we issue in the market this year, we will create more space and higher MDA, and we would expect to demonstrate that our capital continues to be extremely resilient even in the worst-case scenarios. We've -- in the different stress tests that had been conducted by the EBA and the ECB, we've always come as the least affected bank. Those were paper crisis. This is a real crisis. But what we are saying is that our capital, which I would agree that it takes time for us to build up capital because of our model. Our model also is extremely resilient when withstanding the shocks of crisis, and we will demonstrate our capital, we'll withstand this crisis again extremely well.

[Jose Antonio Alvarez Alvarez, CEO & Vice Chairman]

Okay. Second question was related with ALCO strategy. So yes, why not? If we plan to buy Spanish, Italian sovereign bonds in order to hedge the current accounts. Well, what I can -- well, this ALCO meets monthly. What I can tell you, we are probably at the lowest level in the last 6, 7 years in the portfolio of ALCO in -- you are referring to the parent company. We are at the lowest level in the last probably 6, 7, 8 years, I don't know, for a long time.Finally, revenue outlook for consumer finance. This is going to have an immediately affecting the fee income. You saw at the end of the first quarter, we mentioned because fee income in the new origination plays a significant role there. Fee income coming from the loans and fee income coming from insurance business that we do at the origination. This is going to be the main effect in the very short run. You mentioned the cost of risk. I already elaborated that we do expect much significant higher impact. We are relatively positive in auto lending. We expect higher impact in direct lending. And direct lending, well, the main -- the biggest portfolio is Germany, and somehow Spain, but smaller size, Nordic countries. And naturally, these -- those are the portfolios. The business is 1/3 auto lending -- sorry, 2/3 auto lending, 1/3 other business, credit cards and direct lending. And this 1/3 is where I do expect higher cost of risk. And the portfolio by countries is, well, Germany is the largest; second is Spain; Italy, we have some lending although it is guaranteed by the payrolls, it's the probability of default is relatively low. And Nordic countries where we have credit cards and direct lending, where I do not expect a significant increase. Going forward, you mentioned in the medium term, well, in our scenario, in the medium term, the cost of risk will go up, but not in a dramatic way.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Ignacio Ulargui from Exane BNP Paribas.

[Ignacio Ulargui, Analyst]

I just have 2 questions. One on the capital, coming back to how do you see the capital evolving in the coming quarters? I think that the 1Q has been a bit of the trough of the year, is quite uncertain, but if you can give us some color on how you see the capital moving onwards?The second one is on the government reactions in Latin America has been a bit lower than the -- than what we have seen in Europe and in the U.S. How do you see this impacting the banks there, particularly interested in your thoughts in Brazil and Mexico?

[José Antonio García Cantera, Group Chief Financial Officer]

Well, the capital, in the first quarter, we had, as you could see, 15 basis points from regulatory and accounting charges and 19 basis points from perimeter changes. We wouldn't expect to see more significant perimeter changes in the coming quarters. And there might be some regulatory charges, but they are not going to be of the nature and the amount that we saw in the first quarter. So going forward, I would expect -- we would expect the capital to evolve in line with our capital generation, which we think could still be in the region of 10 basis points per quarter on average.

[Jose Antonio Alvarez Alvarez, CEO & Vice Chairman]

Okay. Government reactions, your question was the reaction of Brazil and Mexico was slower. Well, this is probably European view. You take into account how these societies, where is the -- in economic terms, where the societies in economic terms are with the informal economy playing a big, very big role and the resilience of the population in terms of the resilience to a confinement of these populations is much, much lower than it is in Europe. You will understand a bit better why in some countries, they've been reluctant to take strong measures of confinement. Having said that, they are taking measures. And this is going to affect our -- the performance because this is lower reaction of the governments. Well, it will depend basically the kind of actions they will take in protecting or guaranteeing the lending to the SMEs. Having said that, you take the figures. The figures are pretty small. When I look at the SME book in Mexico, that in our case is more than 50% already has guarantee from the government, from an institution called Nafinsa, more than 50% of the book. We already bought guarantee for this book at the origination time when the book was originated. And you see in Brazil, the size of this book is relatively small. So the governments are reacting. In Brazil, there is plenty of measures that the government and the central bank already took, and we feel comfortable there. And while in relation with how they are handling the health crisis, I am not an expert on this. I am not a -- there is plenty of controversy about how to manage this. Even in the Europe and the States, there has been controversy about this. I am not in a good position to make you an analysis of this.

[Sergio Gámez Martínez, Global Head of Shareholder & Investor Relations]

We have time for 1 last question, please.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Fernando Gil de Santivañes from Barclays.

[Fernando Gil de Santivañes d´Ornellas, Research Analyst]

Just a follow-up question on the ALCO portfolio. Just to get through the strategy on the ALCO portfolio, I see that the volume has come down quite significantly in the quarter. What should we expect in terms of size and the disposal on the TLTRO programs on the ECB. This is one. And the other one is, on RWA inflation, I mean you have disclosed on this pages 30, 31 and 32, the increase in loans in April so far. How does this effect on the RWA mix and inflation going into quarter 2?

[Jose Antonio Alvarez Alvarez, CEO & Vice Chairman]

So the ALCO portfolio size, well, this depends on the decisions related with interest rate. We reduced the size of the portfolio. Well, it's up to the ALCO to decide if we want to increase or not, is to -- and I cannot elaborate on this. And the TLTRO, well, the draw of TLTRO depends very much on the overall liquidity in the market. At this stage, the overall liquidity is quite good. Our liquidity position, in fact, our LCR, since we started the crisis, has been going up. Deposits are growing fairly rapidly, stable deposits coming from customers. And the liquidity position is, as I said, is improving almost on a daily basis.Risk-weighted assets inflation because the lending, I show you there, the lending goes to corporates and CIBs, the lending going to SMEs, the majority of this has government -- kind of government guarantees. So the weighting is very, very low. It's maybe in the region of 10%, 15%, depending on the country, but it's very low. So I don't see that much inflation there. The other growth that we had was in CIB, but was already in the first quarter. We do not expect another jump in the second quarter in the CIB companies drawing the committed lines. So we expect a more normalized behavior. So overall, with the individuals, I don't see in this quarter coming back to normalized levels in Europe. And with the majority of the lending going to SMEs being guaranteed by the government and with CIB being fairly stable, I don't see any particular inflation in risk-weighted assets, other some come from ratings, some of your colleagues have said before, is not that important. Here, the government guarantees plays a role. Unfortunately, origination with individuals is fairly low. So overall, I do not see and we will stick with our targets, as José said before. So...

[José Antonio García Cantera, Group Chief Financial Officer]

And if I may, we have very -- relative to others, very limited market risk. So...

[Jose Antonio Alvarez Alvarez, CEO & Vice Chairman]

Yes, that's right.

[José Antonio García Cantera, Group Chief Financial Officer]

Okay. So that will also not impact our risk-weighted assets significantly.

[Sergio Gámez Martínez, Global Head of Shareholder & Investor Relations]

I'm afraid, we need to leave it here guys. Thanks very much for your time today. Obviously, myself and the entire IR team will be at your disposal for any follow-up from now on. Thank you, keep safe.

[Jose Antonio Alvarez Alvarez, CEO & Vice Chairman]

Thank you, guys. And take care.

[José Antonio García Cantera, Group Chief Financial Officer]

Thanks a lot. Bye.