Banco Bradesco S.A.
Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 7 Feb 2024

[Marcelo Noronha:]

Good morning, I am Marcelo Noronha, and I'm here live speaking from Cidade de Deus, it’s 10

[Andre Rodrigues Cano:]

Thank you. [indiscernible] would be a pleasure to work with you closer to Marcelo, Casino, the whole management. So I'd like to thank already for the support during the transition period. It will be a pleasure to take on this new role.

[Marcelo Noronha:]

Thank you. All right. So now we will begin the Q&A session for analysts and investors. We have Ivan Gontijo, CEO, insurance group also joining us online. He will be participating in the Q&A.

[Q - Thiago Bovolenta Batista:]

[indiscernible], Andre. Good luck in your new roles. I have two questions. First in our strategic plan, you indicated 8 percentage points, that would be an ROA of about 400. This is only the ROE will not go to be the cost of capital. It will be close to the cost of capital. People use between 14 and 15. So you just want to go back to the cost of capital? Or could we expect an ROE above the cost of capital. That's number one. Second question regarding loan income segment. We in the Morgan have the perception that the segment is having negative returns. How are you addressing this point in your strategic plan?

[Marcelo Noronha:]

Tiago, thank you for the question. It is a pleasure to be speaking with you. So first ambition is not to deliver just the cost of capital, this is an indication of ER, so we have a number of indicators, ambitious indicators. Some things we haven't spoken about here, we are not going to be talking about to the market. But we want to deliver -- our main goals to deliver superior profitability and return. And we want to grow step by step, quarter after quarter. But in a five-year time frame, we want to be in a different game level. I don't want to promise. I prefer to surprise you rather than promise and not the liver. One expectation we have is that naturally follow along the quarters of 2026 perhaps on one of these quarters, we will be surpassing the cost of capital. We have a high ambition regarding operating efficiency, and we will make this happen. We have growth, particularly reevaluating our footprint. To me, operating efficiencies cross-cutting, it is in our strategic plan. And perhaps this is the biggest lever for operating efficiency gain. As for retail, what we have seen with the consulting firm, and I'm not going to get into too many details is that we have clusters. In some clusters, we are profitable. We have a significant share of wallet I spoke about our incapacity. The secret here lies in the cost to serve. That's why we want to review our footprint. We tend to reduce it, but it's not binary 100% physical under percentage No, of course, will migrate to digital. I have to know in which channel to operate, at least remembering, Vitesco Espresso. We have one department which is B2B2C. And I said, we implemented a new system with tablets to our merchants. They serve clients. They do business, providing customer credit, selling cards, opening checking accounts and having transactions as well. So they have the ability to serve clients. So we do enjoy some advantages that I don't see in other competitors. They have other advantages that we might not have. I respect competition a lot. I think we have very competent people in Brazil, both in the incumbent banks and in the new commerce in stages. But we have the largest correspond banking system in Brazil with more than 38,000 points of service, and we can compete very well in the low-income segment. In addition to the cost to serve, we have the credit risk. We are monitoring this closely with good credit modeling to capture what is necessary and to be profitable in most of these clusters. There might be a cluster here and there that we don't want to work with. Okay, Tiago. That's the rationale, but we can compete. This is what we proved in our own internal diagnosis. It's really important that we mention it is. And over time, we will be delivering these results. Thank you, Thiago. Our next question, Daniel Vaz from Santander.

[Daniel Vaz:]

Thank you, Firetti. [indiscernible] as the new CEO of the bank coming in with a good challenge of putting the strategic plan into place. Good luck, Firetti and Andre, I'd like to explore the culture and targets for the high levels, C-suite for the bank and others with this kind of control, more agile, more efficient, and we see experiences outside of Brazil or throughout Brazil that this target for C level is essential. So if you can talk about the changes that you're working on or outlining for this. Thank you.

[Marcelo Noronha:]

Thank you, Daniel. During the presentation, I said that we've been working on a new plan for human resources that will be discussed in February and delivered in March. That takes into account this new structure precisely. And I talked to all of the bank's leadership team showing the new plan, those who work directly with us at every step of the way, had already seen it, that we are going to deliver a new performance assessment methodology, depending on the level, the weights are different, and we are going to recognize and compensate that that's in the run the bank and the team that's going to change the bank as well. We're taking excellent people to change the bank because that's crucial to us. We are going to deliver a new payment scheme for the executives of the bank. We have that already in many departments, and we're going to replicate it to the entire organization with a greater flexibility for some positions that somehow were kind of socialized when we were to hire or pay those variable income, and we're changing all of that. This is all well based. We are going to make progress, and you will be able to see that over time. But our expectation is to approve this quarter so that we can implement it after that with our team. Moving on to the next question, [indiscernible].

[Unidentified Analyst:]

My first question is about the credit quality. NPL is dropping, but that's based a lot on write-offs. So starting 2024, how do you see the credit quality of the new vintages and how is that translating into originations, especially for no income. And second, it's more strategic. What are you thinking about in terms of the team you want to attract for the stage this phase for the company? I know it's the perspective. What do you think will Help you succeed?

[Marcelo Noronha:]

First, we are monitoring very closely all of the new vintages. We're working with much better ratings for individual loans and for SMEs as well. So all of the VPs are involved. We didn't focus only on the credit people and the segment people, but everybody is involved, and we are monitoring this very closely. We're seeing good vintages. We still need to improve some lines to improve our mix and help us in this growth of NII, client NII, it's step by step, but it is going to happen. You can be certain in this last quarter, I saw the inflection point of this curve, both for individuals and micro, small and midsized companies. And we are working on during the year, we'll maintain traction to grow during 2024 with controlled vintages. So I think that here, we also have an important quick win in this new credit structure that we can capture value for other initiatives that we're implementing as well. Now the team that we want to attract, and we have a headhunter doing the election for us in discussing debating. We had an assessment process in our team since starting in December. So we've been working, creating development plans for our leadership colleagues who will remain with us either unchanged or on run. So [indiscernible], we will attract people with different skills from what we already have people with flexibility, with an easy relationship and person that can deliver digital skills with our colleagues at Next, Bradesco and Dico as well, and who can also bring more knowledge. And in human resources, we also want to change our paradigms to be more aligned with the market, having growing ambitions for our organizational development. I can also tell you another concern that we had since you talked about the team, and I think it's very important. We are giving recognition without increasing the operating cost. As I said, we're actually reducing this cost. And this is also an example for the organization. We were only able to set aside the team for change and the team for run because we reduced the layers and change the spend. Otherwise, how were we going to do that with departures and taking people or change the bank. It was difficult to run this business with the directors leading. So of all supporters, five of them are owed to replace me to be in the succession plan as well as the Vice President, and those who have been recognized new executive officers who will continue to run their departments not being replaced. There's also five of them with the age and background to replace any of the vice presidents who are here as well as myself, take on my seat in the dual time toward the association. Thank you, Renato. Next question Bernardo from [indiscernible].

[Bernardo Guttmann:]

Marcelo, we show a lot of success in your new role. Building on the prior question on incentives, and I ask a question, but in a broad way regarding the transformation process of tides you've been in this role for a little time noon. You've had different positions at the bank. And in the presentation, it's clear that we have a wide diagnosis of the necessary changes to be made. But I'd like to focus on one specifically. Bradesco has a very traditional culture that has been very well worked on over the years in terms of robustness and cost. But the new environment is quite competitive. And the moment that the bank is dealing with brings about a different sense of urgency. You need to have different agility to react into change of housing. How has this initiative being received in the bank regarding the adjustments that need to be made? And what paradigm do you still have to break because that will give me an idea of the priorities of your agenda of transformation.

[Marcelo Noronha:]

Thank you for the question. This is a big question. What I can tell you is, number one, I think that we have to learn from the past. We did have some conviction. And when we sit and we deeply debate each topic, it's almost like you opened up your kimono and you see what you need to do. So without beating around the bush, I'll go to the answer. The Board of Directors gave me autonomy and has been supporting me in 100% of the changes. We also wouldn't have changed the [indiscernible]. I wouldn't be telling you that I'm in the process of hiring a C level for HR and a C level of food digital. And in other levels of the org structure as well, we are in the process of hiring a lot of people. So I have the support of the Board of Directors, 100% support. And this has been really nice, the kind of debate we are having. The Board of Directors is aware and we put everything on the table. We were very pragmatic. It's no use of the laser. There's a sense of urgency. We have to change. We have to do it. And that's kind of my style on this file up some colleagues here of the executive management. We go straight to the point Bernardo. Little philosophy, a lot of pragmatism. I think we were able to break down the main paradigms. The other paradigm is the compensation that we are delivering now. There was no time been to 60 days since cover. And in order to do all the ad, we just didn't work during Christmas night, Christmas Eve New Year's. Other than that, everyone, including the consulting France, have been working long hours on Sundays, I've been working on Sundays with my colleagues to deliver this urgently with this level of depth because if you look at the whole thing we're doing, it's not [indiscernible], and you're already executing because that's crucial. It's no use having a notable book, promising things are not doing them, but we are doing it. Already. Our next question comes from Mario Pierry with Bank of America.

[Mario Pierry:]

I have a question about cost and efficiency. You talked about improving the efficiency ratio, but when I look here, your provision is BRL570 million this quarter to restructure branches. So I'd like to understand what that means in the short term. And what are you thinking to get to this efficiency ratio target. How do you think about your headcount number of branches because you think when we look at the bank today, the bank has about 86,000 employees with about 2,700 branches, 32 employees per branch, it seems to be very high, high number. How are you thinking about this metric? That's my question.

[Marcelo Noronha:]

Thank you for the question. So let me answer it. I'll ask you to recalculate the metrics because you can see 2,700 is. But in fracs, we have 7,000 weeks of sale, 7,000. Even with the reductions 7,000, we have two additional branches. We have points of service, which is like mini branches. So it's -- we have even smaller than mini branches. So we have set of branches with different characteristics. So you would have to divide the number of employees by 7,000 and up by 20. Having said that, we are reviewing our first and will deliver some basis. We had an expectation, in line with the new plant, we changed our expectation. We have been more ambitious, more strict. And events two things. The idea is not to reduce the sales force, but rather to gain efficiency. The second thing I told you, we're going to be hiring 3,000 to 4,000 people in technology. So we're exchanging expense lines. Personnel lines will grow, but we would reduce operating expenses with the hiring of cars parties. So perhaps that's the main point in terms of efficiency gain. But this is a cost-cutting initiative in the organization. We are discussing some areas. We are discussing the existence of the points of sale, the scale, we will automate the processes and execute this much faster. It's all mapped out. The whole operating efficiency project is divided into several initiatives, not just one. The one I mentioned here is the largest. But periodically, we will be updating you showing our evolution and our performance quarter after quarter -- quarter-by-quarter. So more towards the end of the year, beginning of next year, we will be seeing some important changes in the organization. Well, in addition to everything you mentioned on sale, we should not get the restructuring of the affluent segment. A lot of the sales force will be allocated to improve our account loading and the way we will manage such important clients for the bank. In terms of branch efficiency, it's a lot more corporation there has to do with operating synergies among the different departments at the playing. So under this big framework, there will be a reallocation of people and that is fundamental for us to have change initiatives and the run initiatives, working continuously and going in the same direction. Let me add to what Cassiano said. [indiscernible] that I can have a branch with one manager serving mass retail, and this would not make sense as the manager could be managing SMEs. So we will be reallocating the salesforce, it's all mapped out, and we are now refining it so that we can start executing. Next question, Tito Labarta, Goldman Sachs.

[Tito Labarta:]

A couple of questions on the strategic plan from just looking at Slide 13, some of the comments you made, right, that the market represented $1.3 trillion in post risk revenues, 30% to 40% in retail and that the biggest challenge is the cost to serve and you mentioned for the entire market. I mean, just I could argue that, that's really the biggest challenge for the incumbent banks, right, for the fintechs have a much lower cost to serve, right don't have the brand to network, to have the employee base that you have -- excuse me, employee base that you have. So what can you do to get your cost to serve down? Does it mean that you will need to invest quite a bit in the business first, we look at your expense guidance above inflation. I mean, do you think that continues for some time before you're able to bring down the cost to serve? And then somewhat related on that same slide, a couple of bullet points later. You mentioned that credit is the primary anchor and challenge for fintechs, which represent less than 3% of the market. But you can argue they're also gaining share at least one or two are gaining share very rapidly. So just to understand your ambition to get to that 15% to 19%, given that you could argue that the market has gotten more competitive in the last few years, what can you do to really capture that market share given that other competitors are also growing very fast.

[Marcelo Noronha:]

What we have here to compete in this market, as you asked. The revenue I mentioned, you mentioned it again. And then you said about their retail... 40% of total revenue, how can we compete with the cost of fintechs? It's a fact that our main challenge is the cost to serve, of course, that the right credit model for that, but cost to serve is key. And as I said, we assessed or evaluated clusters, and we found out that in some clusters, we are able to compete, and we have a significant share of wallet, but we are going to have to reduce the cost to serve. And we identified exactly where we have to get to. And now we're detailing this. But let me tell you other things that are worth mentioning. First, Bradesco has high penetration in this segment. Not all incumbents have that. But this principality, as I said, is again around 60%. Not all incumbents have that. Bradesco has, in its DNA, the relationship with this type of customer. We need to change the cost to serve. We have Bradesco Espresso as a very important competitive lever, not only as a channel, but I also told you we can serve those customers with a variable costs instead of having fixed costs and some points of sale around throughout Brazil. So we have different competitive levers that can allow us to compete in this market. But look, Tito, know that we have a market of 30% to 40% of the total revenue of banking business in Brazil. And it's a market that can be divided with three or four banks or fintechs and everybody can hold 20% of share and be big. That's another important thing here to have scale. We have scale to serve this market and to be able to compete in this market. That's how I see it. There is room for those will serve in a certain way. And there is days for those who will serve in a more connected way. That's what I think for Bradesco over time, and we're going to show you that. And then I think you asked about the side how we're going to grow. Yes. We are going to grow effectively with good models. We have the capacity to do that with good credit models, a good follow-up portfolio management, and we are going to have portfolio management looking at the entire expanded portfolio from the retail bank to a wholesale sale bank, how we're going to operate capital allocation. That's obvious. But we have distribution capacity. So I believe that today, competition is a lot more among the incurrent banks rather than fintechs. They still have a small share. So of course, they have opportunity, and they will grow a little bit more, but we have the levers, and we have the capacity to distribute in growth, depending on our models. That's what I showed in the last quarter, we had that inflection point for the curve, both for individuals and SMEs. Thank you. Thank you, Tito. Our next question Jorge Kuri, Morgan Stanley.

[Jorge Kuri:]

Yes. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking the time to do this and progress Marcelo on the new goal and best of luck. I wanted to ask about the return on equity that's embedded in your plan and your ambition, your return on equity based on the 2024 guidance, it's going to end up roughly at 10% to 11%. That's half of what the guidance for Itau, which is your biggest peer is. I wonder how long do you think it's going to take you to close the gap vis-a-vis and your best-in-class peers, five years out, if you execute your transformation program, where should the ROE be? That's my first question. And first question I'll ask my second one later.

[Marcelo Noronha:]

Thank you for your question. As I mentioned, our ambition, our main target is to grow our profitability over the next five years quarter by quarter. We have an opportunity to show better ROE maybe at some quarter during 2026.As I mentioned, I believe in the first question that was asked. That's when we probably will be able to exceed that cost of capital. And the idea is for us to grow during these five years, delivering comparable returns with our shareholders' expectations and compatible with our expectations. That's our ambition. There's no date and time. There's no deadline-specific date for this delivery -- thank you, Jorge, for your question. But this is what we pursue as the main goal of our strategic plan. Thank you.

[Jorge Kuri:]

Thank you, Marcelo. And my second question is about the C-level compensation package and particularly your compensation package, what type of targets is it linked to? Is it return on equity? Is it market share? Is it stock price? Can you walk us through how the success of the bank and your success are tied together?

[Marcelo Noronha:]

Okay. So look, we are reviewing this plan. We're preparing, as I said, a new human resources plan to be implemented by the end of this quarter. We'll discuss it during the month of February. And the idea is to approve it in March in order to implement it. And then the C-level will be connected to this total compensation that we're going to determine. Of course, we already have references and benchmarks in the bank. We are still working with the previous policy, but I believe that we are competitive enough to bring C-level individuals to our organization with competitive compensations. And we'll compensate both people who are on the rate bank and those on change the bank, recognizing their respective roles here. And then look, you talked about the indicators, so the indicators will depend on each of the departments, right? Where they are. We have indicators related to the plan, and we're going to have indicators department by department for digital, of course, physical to effectively implement this new human resources plan. Of course, the higher the level of the executive more linked to the whole they are, the higher the hierarchic more relationship it has with what they effectively do and deliver. Next question from Eduardo Nishio with [indiscernible].

[Eduardo Nishio:]

I wish you a lot of success in the new strategic plan [indiscernible]. My question is more related to the cycle and how this should change with the new strategic plan. In this past cycle, in my own assessment, you had three big challenges if we can call them that. treasury, market NII, there was way below the peers, ALL, particularly in the low-income segment, which negatively impacted the results of the bank. And your digital strategy, which was then restructured and now is under the bank. So if you could speak about these three points, what will they be like with a new strategy? I know you have very few days, just 60 days since you took over. But do you see any structural change in these three pillars?

[Marcelo Noronha:]

Thank you, Nishio for the question. I will divide the answer with my colleagues. So I won't be the only one speaking here. I'll ask my colleagues to begin, and I will add to their themes. Cassiano and then Firetti, feel free to contribute.

[Cassiano Scarpelli:]

Thank you. The market NII, as you said, suffered in 2022, '23. 2023 recovered almost €1.7 billion compared to 2022, and it became positive. In 2024 in our guidance, it's basically the natural levels that we had in prior years. So that's a phase that is behind us. The whole loan book originated in the prefixed area and did well in our trading desk and client desks working strongly. So for the treasury, we believe that we now are handing the baton from the difficult period to a more normalized period of 2024 onwards. That's for ALL. Marcelo mentioned we had ability to pay, particularly low-income cards, and as Michel mentioned, in our numbers, we see the important means that all delinquency curves are reducing, which is very good. All our testing in the new cohort puts us in a very good position regarding additional ALL allowance for low lawsuits. So this still poses a reduction in mass retail. This has been happening in growth given the growth of the loan book, the nature of the loan portfolio with different types of clients. With more risky clients, we need more provisioning. So this year, that's when we will be paying the bill this past bill and study in 2025, we will have a more natural cycle in terms of gallons for loan losses. As for the ALL as Marcelo showed, we recognize that we have adjustments to make, not only in ALL but in the whole credit cycle, which is reflected in our credit business unit, they will look at credit in an integrated way. The loan book, quality of credit approval. So these structures in our view, will give a lot more effectiveness to credit management. We will also be making adjustments in terms of credit modeling. I think that modeling has always been a strength in this bank. But there's always room to evolve and cost improvement. So we do acknowledge the need for adjustments in this part of the strategic plan. And Nishio, let me add, digital. Strategic paths are not limited to one. You can choose different paths through different paths, different organizations who can achieve common goals with both initiatives being successful. We decided in the past to better next DG. And then we saw that the values, the prices of the business changed in the market with a decent growth. So now we brought this close to Bradesco because it's a core business for us. But there are a lot of lessons learned in value here embedded in Devon NEXT. Our client base continues to grow. We continue to do things differently. I've that DG is an important laboratory for us also in our strategy for visco digital. So everything is closer to us, whether we're going to integrate the platforms or not, well, we've seen so many interesting things with the new diagnosis. That perhaps will integrate next, keep the brand. So we have beyond bank. Our market place. We brought it from NEXT. We just delivered it for friends and families here at Bradesco. So we are testing this introduction with Bradesco-based but also connected to NEXT. We have another part of Beonbank, which is agribusiness, another marketplace. So this theme of beyond bank is quite often. So we do some business for us to move around. So this goes to serve mass retail, low and middle-income clients that can potentialize our business with multi-brand, this is not totally defined yet. We can take on path. We're different path. Secondly, regarding market NII, they've talked about this. We have good expectation of a normalization along 2024. Thirdly, ALL allows for loan losses, we could have a higher cost in 2024, which I consider to be a transition year because we have a substantial growth of the loan portfolio. To expected loss. This is called ALL. If we were flat in growth, we would have less ALL. But we are putting efforts to have client NII with adequate losses in the new cohort vintages. Next question from Rafael Frade with Citi.

[Rafael Frade:]

Wish you a lot of success to all of you in your new roles. I wanted to tap into [indiscernible]. We have a lot of discussions in the market in terms of how the low profitability of Patisaran the last two years was linked to a structural issue or related to the context. But this has more exposure to smaller companies and lower income segments. But I think there's also a market element, but you're also saying that you have a lot of opportunities to improve your operations. We talk a lot about lower-income segments. I'd like to understand more about SMEs. Marcelo, at the beginning, you said that Bradesco is a leader in the SME segment. It is an important part of your profitability, it's a part that had an important portion of the NPL formation in 2023. So what have you identified in neurodiagnostics that could be quickly improved, something that could be deficient? Perhaps you could elaborate on the diagnosis for this segment of SMEs.

[Marcelo Noronha:]

Thank you, Frade. Good to see you again. All right. SMEs. As I mentioned, we are leaders in the SME segment. We have a significant share, but Frade, we have to admit. I think we had a credit policy, which was perhaps a little more open is red, perhaps we stopped granting credits a little later than we should have, have to admit these things. But Bradesco despite of the Brazilian social pyramid in lower income and SMEs, we're very present in these segments. So when there's a delinquency issue, we tend to suffer more proportionally or in absolute trends than peers regardless of having higher leverage as we should have stopped before earlier. That's a given. This bill is being paid. But when I look at the segment, it has the right size, it is profitable. And I'll tell you, most clients and SMEs are paying their loans. They are not the language. Most of them are okay. They have been paying off their loans, and they have been making doing business with us. So we are leaders. We have new credit moves. We have new credit policies, these credit policies. Are they more restrictive somewhat more restrictive than in the past? Yes. We are a little more conservative than that we got less conservative in the transformation of the bank, but more conservative in managing credit risks based on the new modeling. But we have a new opportunity of quickly reversing because NPLs dropped, delinquency is dropping. That's under control. We went back to growing. Like I said, we had an inflection point in Q4. So the number is under control. Yes. What are we doing in this segment? We are creating 122 platforms in as I mentioned in a presentation. We have delivered some on the end of the year. We'll deliver 122 platforms in 2024 as quickly as possible with the team fully dedicated to this target of clients, Tier 1 between 3 and 5 million in the main cities. But you see, we started working with some radius, but we are increasing this segmentation as to putting this client base when we have a complete network of platforms. For the target from 0 to BRL3 million, we improved the whole work on remote service. Also for micro-entrepreneurs in terms of digital, physical service, and remote online service. So we increased the first of sales or sales cores in the segment of seaway because we see this opportunity. Besides in order to get more traction and more safety, we brought in some credit analysts to work more specifically close with these platforms. We have been doing some good testing which ensures to us most... Because part of this credit rent is judgmental. And we have a different management model different than what we had implemented in our client management or we started with that segment of 50 million with a different way of managing the performance, now we are trying to educate and train managers. We'll have to be monitoring this in the central line fashion so that we can do all time management and monitoring of the portfolio, so we can make decisions regarding risk management regardless of centralized portfolio management. These are operational details. So I do risk assessment. The contracts? And how do I monitor... Because if you get their first enjoy benefits. So we have models and indicators to manage this, just like we do in other segments. So here, we are improving this management model so we can be a lot more competitive here in terms of delivering good customer service and experience and in terms of managing our credit risk regardless of other people and other tools managing the portfolio. Added to that, we have the public acquisition offering of Cielo, what we call OPA. We want to bring payments and other synergies with this SME segment, which is highly profitable and should double in size in the next five

[Arnon Shirazi:]

[indiscernible], welcome to this position. My question is more related to 2024 to talk about your guidance. You gave an expectation of the increase in the loan portfolio, but I'd like to understand where this growth is coming from. If it's more individuals, more companies, and also about the rate for '24, I think it changes the perspective that the analysts have for the year.

[Marcelo Noronha:]

I can answer in terms of growth, I believe I can say that we're going to be growing in our main lines very closely. As we've been saying, we're accelerating credit origination in retail. This origination has been significantly growing. It's still not overflowing to lead to portfolio growth as the portfolio hasn't responded yet. But the main driver for growth includes personal lines, on wholesale, retail, and small and mid-sized companies where we're also accelerating. This growth will accelerate during the year as the guidance includes 7 to 11, we have significant growth in in line or above the market, of course, the average portfolio grows less, and that's what translates into the margin guidance that's slightly lower. In terms of the rates, you can consider between '16 and '18 as a reference, the tax rate. Yes, the idea is to grow the entire portfolio with the expanded portfolio as Firetti mentioned. Thank you, Arnon. Next question Yuri Fernandes, JPMorgan.

[Yuri Fernandes:]

Good morning, good luck with the management of the company and the plan. My first question is about the bank's capital generation. I believe Bradesco has good capital [indiscernible] it's not a matter of funding. But when we think about ROE, as you mentioned, no, maybe in 2026, it will exceed the cost of capital. And we look at the 2024 guidance, it should be a rate of 10%, 11%, maybe slightly higher, but with the portfolio accelerating, as Firetti mentioned. And in the past years, we're looking at you maximizing the benefits of IOC. And the bank has been paying relatively good dividends, but that implies a smaller capital growth. My doubt is how should think about this choice between growth and capital and how to fund growth. Considering it may take until 2026 to improve profitability a little bit. The capital cost may be broad in this plan for you to get to that 15% to 19% market share. So if you can talk a little bit more how to think about the payout and this dilemma between investment growth and capital would be my first question. And the second, very quickly, Norona, about Cielo. If you can give us more details about the strategy behind it, if there's any discussion and about this public acquisition if there's any discussion about the select rate around the price of the software. Dividends was very clear. You have a relevant focus on Cielo, but there is no -- it's not clear whether there's a correction for the Selic rate.

[Marcelo Noronha:]

Thank you for the question. Cassiano, I believe if you could begin and I'll add and talk about Cielo.

[Cassiano Scarpelli:]

Thank you, Yuri. It's a pleasure to see you here again. On the capital side, we understand here that our projections are all considering sufficient capital to maintain the credit growth. Of course, in our strategic plan and even for the new approach for the Central Bank's operating risk that we've been discussing in some of the brands, and we can talk about it in person. And to grow, and it also makes capital more robust. So the strategy, as Marcelo said, our transformation pattern is to seek growth of our profitability growth in our net income that are also a significant part of our capital composition. And we see it as natural to continue to work the basic benefit of IOC for as long as it exists. And this year is no difference for the moment from everything we're seeing with our business cases and the planning and the budget process. We understand that at least over the next few years, we will be comfortable in terms of capital to support the transformation process and the bank's growth.

[Marcelo Noronha:]

Yes, Judy, that's what Casciano said. We ran all projections with the expected growth levels, and we have sufficient capital to do it, and we're comfortable with that. In terms of Celano, you asked two questions. So first, whether there's going to be a correction. That's not the information we have. That's not what we have in mind for the time being. We don't have that perspective about this direction [indiscernible], and the second is about Cateno, there is no discussion about separation from Cateno at this time. We are offering these stocks to the markets, the public acquisition offering because there are some important strategic points that I mentioned in our plan. And on Banco do Brasil's size, they also have good penetration on legal entities. And for both of them, the strategic aspect is essential because then that gives us greater strategic freedom to review our value proposition here for SMEs and even for larger companies since Cielo can also penetrate larger companies in their acquiring business. And on Banco do Brasil, we won't get into their strategic decisions that they don't get into ours, but we'll have the liberty to do that. There are already separate commercial teams in the company, but it's a closed capital company that effectively allows us to move faster, make faster decisions because we need to do that now. And then a question that may originate from your question, and I'd like to add here is that so if it's a closed capital firm, are you going to be able to have the governance to do that? The answer is yes. And it is, yes, because we have other partnerships with Paco Brasil, ALL Livelo. And there, they are all delisted companies. And we have this view of one and the other, and we have very good management, each one of us driving our channels and making the business development. It's not going to be any different in Cielo's case. Thank you, Yuri, for your question. Next question by Pedro Leduc with Itau.

[Pedro Leduc:]

Thank you, Firetti. Welcome, [indiscernible], I wish you a longer of success in this new chapter of your lines. That's a quick question. Just to clarify regarding the outlook for efficiency. We see the EMA and OpEx of this year running above inflation. Well, this is a period of investments and other costs that come with the transformation. I guess we could imagine as G&A growing then inflation in 2025, 2026? Or should we think that the efficiency ratio would improve because of revenues, while investments are kind of multiannual in a sense?

[Marcelo Noronha:]

Obviously, we want to grow revenues a lot but the adjustments that we will be making in terms of reducing the cost to serve in our structure will be implemented partly along 2024, and flat should start giving us higher effects in 2025 in terms of reaping the panned, improving the efficiency and evolving those line items. Now when we look at our expenses for 2024, administrative and personnel expenses will grow basically in line with inflation in our projections. There's slightly more pressure on the line item others because of provisions for civil claims and other provisions that are part of that line item. But in administrative and personnel line items, we already have a good level of control for 2025, we'll start capturing benefits. So this is summarized. Revenues are important. But of course, the biggest capture will come from reduced expenses.

[Pedro Leduc:]

If I may ask a question about SMEs. We're discussing its strategy to assume growth in retail. And I know that SMEs are a relevant segment for Bradesco. It's a profitable portfolio. So what is the turnaround strategy integrated with the recent announcement of Cielo if you could elaborate for SMEs, it would be welcome.

[Marcelo Noronha:]

As I mentioned, Pedro, I've been dividing SMEs into three segments

[Paulo Gomez:]

Again, good luck in this new stage and really good to see Andrea back, [indiscernible]. I had two questions. The first one goes back to capital. Could you give us the potential impact of the proposed tax reform on your capital ratio in the sense that the DTAs will probably be impaired it is passes it is now, what would happen to your capital where would that 11.7% Tier 1 go? And also related to that, what -- I mean, you said you have an adequate level of capital, but what is the level that you want to maintain in the coming years? And my second question is more generic. I mean, in your new strategic plan, one of the assumptions is that you are going to broad market share. That's unusual for a large bank like yours, what makes you think that Bradesco can significantly increase its size in a very competitive market?

[Marcelo Noronha:]

Okay. Thank you for the question. So from the standpoint of capital, the impact of tax credit is about 0.8 to 1 percentage point starting in 2025 in terms of tax-credit operations. This is what we've seen. Now obviously, we'll still have a year, the Central Bank of resell. But looking at this as a whole. So there might be some changes in terms of the capital, some buyers in terms of capital. If there are no specific assessments for the banks, the impact should be between 0.8 to 1 percentage point. One had to that, there are a number of changes underway. There's resolution 29. It changes the capital requirement for operational risks. That's the impact of 0.8 percentage points on capital. There's also the IVA reform. It will be implemented very, very gradually. It will have a little impact on capital. And there is a third front here, which is the income tax reform. This has not been submitted yet. It will probably be submitted in March and then we'll be able to do our assessment. Having got the details on the table to evaluate this. So this impact is for deferred taxes or for recovery is 0.8% to 1% percentage point, it's differed. And this regards the market share gain. I think that I'd like to remember that in this past year, because of a reduction in risk appetite to control delinquency, we ended up losing some market share in some markets where we can play an important role. So in resuming credit origination coupled with our initiatives and our strategic plan, we see room to regain this market share that was lost that happened because we reduced our risk appetite. And also, the strategic plan brings some initiatives that will increase our competitiveness in the credit market by integrating the credit process or through those initiatives for SMEs, for example, and the whole positioning that we are reviewing in our retail operations. We believe that this resumption and market share increase will come naturally, given our positioning at this moment. Let me add to what you said regarding the affluent segment, high net worth clients that Marcelo mentioned in the strategic plan. It's very important. We have 1.7 million clients a very important potential share of wallet. We believe that by doing all this reformation of delivery of content in relationship building with Apple, we have the possibility of expanding our share of wallet and naturally get a market share of these high net worth client. May I just add. We have centres in different segments as the SMEs in retail business, with low-income clients. We have a strong penetration there, but we have many strengths in wholesale banks in affluent or high-income clients, SMEs, as I mentioned, we are leading in SMEs. We have an important penetration in Moove country with different value propositions with different segments inside of SMEs. So we believe that we have strong distribution channels to improve our loan portfolio maybe in 2024, but over the next few years over the next five years, that is the plan. Thank you very much for your question. Now I would like to thank everyone. We are going to close this video conference call. And I remind you that all of the questions that were not answered during the meeting will be answered by our Investor Relations department. May I just make a final comment here. This is my first conference with all of you. And I would like to say that I thank you all for your attention here today. We already have, as I said in the beginning, we already have some meetings scheduled with international buy-side meetings to investors tomorrow, local buy-side colleagues, sell-side colleagues, and we are open to talk to explain with more details all of these plans for the future, not only myself, but my colleagues here as well from the Investors Relations department to give you more detail, not only this week, but even later. I am open to welcome you here. It will always be my pleasure to talk to all of you. Thank you, Firetti. Thank you. Once again, thank you, everyone, and this concludes our video conference. Thank you very much.