Itaú Unibanco Holding S.A.
Q3 2021 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 4 Nov 2021

[Operator:]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Itaú Unibanco Holding conference call to discuss 2021 third quarter results. . As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded and broadcasted live on the Investor Relations website at www.itau.com.br/investor-relations. A slide presentation is also available on this site. Before proceeding, let me mention that forward-looking statements are being made under the safe harbor of the Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results -- actual performance could differ materially from that anticipated in any forward-looking comments as a result of macroeconomic conditions, market risks and other factors. With us today in this conference call in São Paulo are Mr. Milton Filho, CEO; Alexsandro Broedel, CFO; and Renato Lulia Jacob, Group Head of Investor Relations and Marketing Intelligence. First, Mr. Milton Maluhy will comment on 2021 third quarter results. Afterwards, management will be available for a question-and-answer session. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Mr. Milton Maluhy.

[Milton Filho:]

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our third quarter 2021 earnings conference call. First of all, I would like to talk about our numbers. Our managerial result was BRL 6.8 billion with a growth of 3.6% in the quarter, and we had a 38.8% year-on-year increase in our profit. When we look to our managerial return on equity, on the consolidated basis, we are posting a 19.7% return on equity. And in Brazil, we are having 20.5, which is an increase of 1.1 points in the return on equity. The most relevant highlights, I would say, on the credit portfolio, we grew 5.9% in the quarter. We especially had a very good quarter in credit cards, 9.8% growth. On our individual mortgage, 12.2%. SME is 10.3%. So we delivered a very good growth in the general portfolio of the bank, and that resulted in a very good margin with client grow of 4.7%, where we got to BRL 17.6 billion. On the issued card, we achieved 4.7 million credit cards. It's an important increase even comparing to the last quarter, which was a very good one. On commissions and insurance, we grew 2.1, achieving BRL 11.6 billion, and our efficiency ratio calculated in the way we believe it's the proper way of doing that. We achieved the most 42.1% in Brazil, which is the best in the segment with comparable banks, which is a very good achievement. Looking about -- talking about iti, our digital bank, we achieved 10 million total clients in September '21. We still have a challenge to achieve 15 million by the year-end, knowing that in this last quarter, we achieved 2.2 million new clients. But it's worth to mention that 85% of those clients are no account holders. On the other hand, we grew 109% credit card sales quarter-on-quarter. Another important figure is that we acquired 5.7 million clients digitally in the third quarter of 2021. We had a very good quarter last one, but in this one, we still increased 21% in what we call O2O, which is online to offline. We achieved BRL 14 billion in volume in the 9 months of this year, and this is -- has to do with our strategy of investing a lot in what we call phygital and omnichannel we experienced that I will give more detail later on. On the next slide, it's very relevant to mention the numbers and the achievement we've been having on digital sales, in our digital channels. So when you look in terms of share, you will see on the left-hand side that we achieved a 62% in market share in our digital channel, growing 2.8x what we had in the third quarter of 2019. And our engagement hits and user per month, it's increasing as well. So clients are using more per month our digital channels than they used to. It's a 30% increase in 2 years. When we look at the sales in all digital channels in credit, we grew 2.5x. In insurance and premium bonds, we increased 2.6x third quarter of 2019. In investment, 2.8x. And in cards, 5.2x. In all of them, as you can see, we are achieving a very important share in the digital channels. More important than that is that we say that we are a one-stop shop, and we should have by the year-end '21, 100% of products in mobile. So this is how we see that, and it's very relevant for our strategy. On the next slide, talking about phygital, this is the way we believe we should have related to our -- serve our clients and having a footprint, a physical bricks-and-mortar branches and also having the digital channels. So this is very relevant for our offer. This is by conviction. So when we look, we're talking about a new way of serving our client, single point of contact to access all products and service offer at the branches, a more modern and tech-based environment, a new way of being present. As you can see here, we have a click to human. So any time a client is going through navigating our digital channels, he can click and migrate and start talking to a human. We have 100% of the channels capturing automated leads. And then we -- whenever we know the information about the client where he is going through and what channels, what he's simulating. We have an important conversion when we transfer this lead to the manager sales. We have a hit ratio of 25%, which is very relevant. Nowadays, we have 75% of our products within omnichannel experience. 50% reduction in managers' time to action and a 75% reduction in new offers launch time. So this is how we are serving on our phygital way our clients. When we go to the next slide, you can see this is Itaú BBA at a glance. So the idea here is to share with you a little bit more about our Itaú BBA wholesale operation. First of all, we support 20,000 clients in this segment. We have 4 major segments

[Operator:]

. Our first question comes from Mario Pierry with Bank of America.

[Mario Pierry:]

Let me ask you two questions, Milton. First one is, we're getting some concerns from some investors about your strategy, right, to be accelerating loan growth now, especially in non-collateralized products when the outlook for the economy is deteriorating, right? I think your economists have one of the most bearish outlook for Brazil next year. So we're getting some concerns from investors about the outlook for asset quality in the next year and for provision charges. So if you can discuss them a little bit the strategy, why -- what are you seeing that makes you comfortable in accelerate growth in non-collateralized products at this time of the cycle? And then the second question I have is related to your net interest income. You showed that the bulk of the growth in net interest income of clients is coming from volumes. The credit spread is still stable. So I wanted to understand from you is, your ability to improve credit spreads going forward, especially in a rising rate environment, some of your competitors, I would assume, is going to be having a bigger challenge with funding costs. So if you can talk a little bit then about how do you see the competitive environment and your ability to increase our spreads as rates rise?

[Milton Filho:]

Thank you very much, Mario, for your questions. First of all, talking about the growth of the portfolio. It's very important to say that as I said last year, we had a very important loss in terms of production and market share due to the pandemic crisis. So if you remember that we were producting -- just to give you figures here, 11%, 12% of market share in the production of some products. We moved to 6% to 7%. So the market still was delivering good growth, and we were producing 7% to 8%. So we lost market share, as you remember. And here, the idea is not to grow the portfolio just for the sake of growth. We have been evaluating a lot about our clients, what is the portfolio, what type of clients we are growing. So we didn't change our risk appetite. It's very relevant to mention that. What we are doing is to reoccupy the space, I would say, this share or our fair share in many segments. So when you compare, we've been -- we had 4 to 5 quarters when we were decreasing our margin with clients and with our growth much behind our -- the market in general. So what we did is, clients that we have more than 2 years in terms of relationship, clients that have more than mid to high income, so relevant clients, we've been able to reoccupy the space that we lost last year, well by design, I would say. So of course, we are forecasting. If you go back to our perspective for the economy for 2022, even though now we believe that the economy should go flat or including a -- decrease a little bit on the GDP. When you go back 3 or 4 months, you wouldn't see a much different figure. So we were not very positive about the growth of next year anyway. So there is not a major change in the economic projections that caught us worried about that. So it's a very healthy growth. We are very confident about that. Of course, we have challenges in Brazil about the economy, but we believe that this growth is very healthy due to the type of clients, level of relationship and historical information that we have from them. So this is how we are viewing that. So this is on the growth side. Talking about the margin and the NII, we don't believe there is room for increase a lot in spread. So we may see that in a specific portfolio, but in general basis, there is a tough competition. We don't believe that the portfolio should grow the same way that we grew in 2021. We believe there should be reduction in growth naturally, but we believe that we won't be able -- of course, there are some portfolios that are impacted by the increase of Selic in the first moment. So when we look to the payroll, Consignado, INSS, you have a regular fee. You cannot charge more than a specific rate because it's a regulated line. On the other hand, your cost of funding start to grow. So you have to wait for some changes on this market so then you can catch up any spread. On the mortgage side, we know that the new, what we call, account is paying 70% of the Selic. When we look to the other -- just a second. Are you listening to me?

[Mario Pierry:]

Yes. We're here. We're here. Yes.

[Milton Filho:]

Sorry about that. So we see some pressure here on the funding side. But whenever we are able, we make the reprice of those credits to the client. So I don't believe there is going to be a lot of room to increase the spread by next year. So this is my view now.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from Jorge Kuri with Morgan Stanley.

[Jorge Kuri:]

Congrats on the results for the quarter. I hope everyone is doing well. I wanted to maybe drill down a little bit more on the previous question. Your credit portfolio will decelerate in 2022 versus 2021. That's kind of like what you are suggesting, probably not a meaningful deceleration, but certainly a deceleration. On the flip side, you could potentially get better net interest margins given the doubling of the average Selic rate next year versus this year. And so I wanted to see if -- how do those 2 things add up in -- your NII will probably end up growing around 10% this year. So when you put those things together, lower growth next year, but better Selic rate, potentially better margins. How do you think your NII could perform next year relative to this year? So that's the first question. And the second one is related, which is on the expense side, I'm guessing -- and I read from some of the news articles about the comments you made in the Portuguese call that you expect expenses to be flat for next year. So if you are able to grow your NII in, hopefully, the low double digits and expenses are flat, is it reasonable to anticipate your operating profits to be up in the high teens maybe? So that's sort of like the question I wanted you to help us figure out.

[Milton Filho:]

Thank you, Jorge. Thank you very much for your question. So just to go through. So I think you are pretty much right in many of the topics you mentioned. So we do believe that there will be a decrease in the portfolio. We'll not be growing the same way we are, but it's still we're going to be growing portfolio for next year. It's one part. The second one, the Selic, yes, will impact our working capital, and this will bring impact here in the financial margin with clients. But not only this, but also the average balance of our portfolio will be different in 2022 than it was in 2021. So this will be positive for the margin with clients as well. So it's important to highlight that you are correct. I'm not going to anticipate here the guidance, we should be discussing this in the next quarter, but I believe we're going to be growing the margin with clients for the 2 reasons I just mentioned here. One is the Selic and the other one is the average balance of the portfolio because if you take into consideration that we had an important acceleration this last quarter, we're going to have at least 12 months next year of those portfolios that were built in these last 2 quarters. So this is very relevant for the margin with clients. We do believe there should be an increase in the cost of credit. It's -- we believe that this is reasonable to expect, to be very honest. But also, you cannot forget that we had some provisions made last year to the COVID that were not consumed by now. So that means that if there is an increase and if there is an increase in the delinquency, we still have a very good level of provision that will be consumed by -- throughout the year of 2022. So I'm not going to anticipate next year. In terms of costs, what I can tell you is that when we talk about flat, I'm talking much more on the core costs of the bank, okay? As you can see here, we are having a 1.1 in Brazil grew. But when you look at the core cost, there is an important reduction of BRL 700 billion -- BRL 700 million when you look 9 months of 2021, but we keep investing in the bank. We have a very inflationary pressure as in many other places, but here are very strong numbers. But we still have the focus to deliver a flat or why not a reduction in the core cost by next year. So this will compensate an important part of the investments we are making. I'm not saying that's going to be 0 at all. What I'm going to say that we're going to be delivering a cost below inflation next year on a consolidated basis. This is our view. So I'm positive somehow about all those elements that I just mentioned. The only topic is that we're going to be facing a different and challenging macroeconomic environment, and this is important. We are in Brazil for many years. It's not going to be the first time, but it's an election year. So we may see more volatility in the market next year, and this is how we are preparing ourselves if there is, I would say, worsening the economic environment and the impact it may bring. But in general, we are more positive than negative.

[Jorge Kuri:]

Milton, congrats again.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from with UBS.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

I would like to hear more from you about iti because the digital bank had about 3 million clients at the end of the last year, and the current expectations detailed in your presentations for reaching at 50 million clients at the end of the next month. So it is basically a net addition of 12 million clients this year. Remember that it was launched at the beginning of 2019, if I'm not wrong. So could you please share more information of what has been done during this 9 months to record this remarkable expansion. If it was related to investing the cash back, the launch of a large variety of products, more market expenses. What can you share with us about this expansion during this period?

[Milton Filho:]

Look, there is a new important change in the value proposition of each throughout the period. So we were at the very beginning, talking about payment account, then we decided that it should be a digital bank, much more than a payment account. And we've been working a lot in the fundamentals of this new business, especially on the technology side, client experience, user experience, we are investing a lot on that. And then we started to invest naturally on a marketing performance in marketing, also new marketing to give much more awareness to iti and what is the value proposition. So iti has an important role within Itaú Unibanco. It's not only a business where we can achieve low income or young people, but also it has this role as well for our segment of the branches of the bank. Why? Because for many clients, it's a much more cheaper way of serving the client. And we can, of course, offer these to clients that today we don't have a very cheap way of serving some clients of the pyramid. So this is basically the strategy. We were delivering new functions and new products to iti throughout this period, which is very important. And we've been investing in client acquisition as well, even though we've been investing -- our cost of acquisition is very cheap when compared to many others. So we are very happy to the achievements we've been making. We have the member get member strategy, and it's working very fine. So it's a new product, a new business that we've been able to deliver and to grow a lot. We have, yes, 50 million. It's that challenge by the year-end. I'm not sure if we're going to get to the 50 million, but this is not a hard go and where we should get there, whatever it costs. We are always evaluating the cost of acquisition, the activation, the loyalty, the new functions, the new product that we offer to the client, and this is what will generate the stickiness in the long term. So we are happy to what we deliver up to now. So we still have a lot of work to do and many things to be delivered throughout this platform, not only for the clients, the new clients. So 85% of the clients are new customers for the bank, but also it will have an important role to our client base -- actual client base of the bank as well.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

This was very, very helpful, especially to understand the transformation considering 2019 and 2020 in terms of payment plan to digital wallet then to digital bank at once. Just to make a follow-up on the digital transformation of the bank, but now shifting the topic to ion, the investment platform. As seeing the slides of the bank, there is a large potential in regards to this platform, especially considering the increase in the guidance for specialists because in the last quarter, I believe that you guys mentioned about 1,500 specialists into the next year. And during this presentation increased to 2,000 specialists into the next year. So I have 2 aspects to understand here about ion. The first, would you like to share with us the goal of customers with dedicated service for the next year and confirm to me, if I'm not wrong, but in this quarter, there were more than 500,000 customers using the app. And my follow-up question on this is about the market positioning of the app within the scenario with a bunch of investment providers for apps. Where do you believe, Milton, there are peaks on this landscape, thinking about the customers' profile or market share in terms of volumes or other metrics that you think are strategic.

[Milton Filho:]

Look, we made this decision to have a different value proposition to the clients that invest with us. We used to have the manager, the relationship manager taking care of all the relationships. So we were talking about banking, credit and investment. And we thought that with the new change in the investment environment that those clients needed a very unique investment consultants. So that's the reason why we brought so many specialists to the bank. We have now up to date 55 -- 53 regional offices where we have assessment and investment teams dedicated. We should have around 500,000 customers that are going to be using this service and this investment approach. But we still -- I would say, it's not a pilot because we are already growing a lot. The results encourage us to keep growing this business, but we're still learning a lot and how many clients should we have under this -- I would say, this area. What we know is that we also have -- need to have a platform when the client will serve himself without the need of specialists because the level of investment that the client needs and his needs are not relevant enough that justify having this unique assessment or investment service. So the idea here is to have ion as a platform serving much more than 500,000 clients. At this moment, we have 500,000 clients working with a specialist, and in the near future, we will analyze if we have to scale up and generate more. We are not looking to a market share in terms of autonomous to compare ourselves to the industry. We are much more looking to the KPIs and OKRs that we define here to guarantee that we are achieving what we wanted to. If this is the case, we're going to be scaling the model and the business. But we are very happy to what we have up to now. This is the reason why we are still increasing the offices and growing the area.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from Tito Labarta with Goldman Sachs.

[Daer Labarta:]

I have a follow-up on expenses. All right. If we look at expense growth, noninterest expenses are up 2% on the quarter, but personnel expenses were up 6%. Admin, up 8%. And you had a big decline in provisions from lawsuits and labor claims. And then to think about this growth for next year, you mentioned you want to keep expense growth below inflation, but you can get the full impact of the salary adjustment, which you only saw one month in this quarter? So how do you think you'll be able to keep costs growth below expenses next year? Is it cutting back on these third-party and marketing expenses that picked up a bit in the quarter? Do you expect those provisions to fall a lot more again? What levers can you pull? Just to understand what's going to drive that reduction in cost growth next year or keeping the cost under inflation. And then I have a second question after that.

[Milton Filho:]

Okay. Tito, thank you for your question. Look, in fact, in this third quarter, we have some seasonal events. The salary readjustment, yes, it has an impact. As we were talking about the provisions we have, we are only doing the ones that were finalized and judged. So there is no risk of discussing here. So we are being very conservative, I would say, in terms of reversions in those provisions. So whenever we have a process that it's finalized, we don't have any reason why we shouldn't keep or maintain the level of provisions we had previously. So this is what we are doing. In terms of the program -- efficiency programs, we have 1,300 initiatives under this program, just to give you an idea. So there is not only one bullet -- silver bullet for that. It's very difficult to tell you what, but we are working throughout the whole bank. So since very small and tactical activities that to very structural changes. Just to give you an idea, we have a change in our retail model of operation. We used to have 2 separate structures taking care of the branches. So there was the operational guy and also the commercial guy responsible for client sales and so on and so forth. What happened is that we integrated those forces, and this had an important reduction also in employees we have. Also throughout the pandemic, we made many decisions about footprint. We made decisions about the buildings we have. We made decisions to reduce the number of buildings and places that we had. So there's a lot of things being done. Broedel is very focused on that, and this is how his main goal. But we are doing things -- very small things to big things, but we still believe that even with this inflation pressure, we should be delivering at least on the core cost 0 or including a negative pace. What we still be doing is investing in technology, investing in business. Some of those investments came not in the January, so we're going to have the full year of those costs. So we still believe we have to, on the investment side, on the retail side, on the wholesale side, there's a lot of opportunity of growing the business, and we are doing that. But on the core cost, I'm still very confident that we can deliver a 0 cost by next year. And Broedel is here by my side. So it's much more than an impression, it's a task that he will take in first person.

[Daer Labarta:]

Okay. Great. That's helpful. If I can ask a follow-up question. Somewhat related, maybe a little bit more conceptual, though. Given sort of the competitive landscape and all the investments in IT and becoming more digital, if you were to start from scratch and you got the opportunity to build the bank starting today, how would you go about doing that? I mean would it be fully digital? Would you still do branches? Are there certain products that you will go into or not go into? Just to think about the sort of evolving competitive landscape and how you kind of see that sort of how you would do it?

[Milton Filho:]

Yes, it's a good question. I think the way we would approach it is the same way we are doing iti. So you first start with a very digital platform, a very unique customer experience. You learn how to work with those clients, and then you start to scale up. I believe, in the past, you know that footprint was very relevant for our business when you didn't have all those digital channels. So it's impossible for anyone to replicate what we have, but we've been seeing many digital companies increasing their footprint -- physical footprint, not only in Brazil, but in many places. And we do believe that this is a competitive advantage. Why I believe that? Because we've been having good results. The clients -- when we measure, the client that opens an account in a brick-and-mortar branch and opens on a digital channel, even though you have the cost of the physical branch, you will still have and you have much more results with those clients than you have when you do on a digital channel. So it's very relevant. It's more than twice the number, just to give you an idea. So it's a completely different way to talk -- to interact with the client. So it would be very impossible for us as a digital -- if I would create from scratch a digital bank to have a footprint because it demands a lot of investment. You have to -- it's difficult to scale that, but we have this already. So now we can optimize that in the best way we believe. So if there is any need to adjust the number of branches, we will do it, but it's still going to be more relevant. And we have much more capability of cross-selling, have the branches then don't having the branches. So the advantage that iti has, it will be working with a client or segments that don't need necessarily to go to a branch. But whenever they need to do a much more complex product, they will for sure need some individual attention. And then we're going to have a very good footprint to help those clients as well. So I believe that this digital approach is much more relevant. And you can see by profitability. You can see the digital profitability and the bank's profitability. And I think this has to do with our capability to cross-sell and to penetrate more products and more relationship with the clients.

[Daer Labarta:]

Okay. Great, Milton. So if I understood, you would start digitally, but then eventually, sort of maybe having branches. You do see some benefit to that to sort of...

[Milton Filho:]

Yes. It depends on how much you can invest. But if you can invest, I do believe that the physical branches will be relevant, is still be relevant in the long term. We have that capability already. So I think this is an advantage at the end of the day.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from Yuri Fernandes with JPMorgan.

[Yuri Fernandes:]

I have a question regarding deposits outlook. If we look at this quarter, deposits are growing about half of loan growth, right? Like 7 versus 14, more or less. And I know you had a very good funding in 2020, you and the entire system. But looking ahead for 2022, how do you see funding growth? I guess you still have an advantage on brick-and-mortar, the relationship with companies, but have Selic moving up. And I guess the message you are providing that maybe loans will accelerate a little bit, but given inflation, we may continue to see strong loan growth in nominal terms. So my question is, I guess, is it more like a topic for the industry as a whole? How do you see funding in Brazil? Disposable income coming down with higher inflation, higher rates. And I don't know, everybody is growing. So what should we see for funding in 2022?

[Milton Filho:]

Okay. Yuri, thank you for your question. Look, as you perfectly mentioned, in 2020, yes, we had this phenomenon. We had a huge increase in our deposits. It's coming especially from the wholesale as well. Many companies were asking for credit lines, but they were not using their credit lines. So what really happened at the end of the day, they got the credit, but they invested the credit within the bank. So the reason why is that whenever they needed the funding, if there was any need in the future, they could redeem that investment and use that as working capital, whatever they need. So this is a strong phenomenon in 2020. When you look to 2021, with the -- and then 2020, on the retail side, especially with the low interest rate, there was an important migration of portfolio to funds, to equities, to other investments, so everybody looking for yield. As we see now and in this quarter, you see this phenomenon, we see important change. So we start to see migration from equities to other funds that has more risk to more fixed income products and the banks and treasury products will make an important role on that. You can see our figures in terms of liquidity as a whole by the LCR and the NSFR. And you can see in both ratios that we are well above the regulatory and the minimum regulatory level. So we are very confident about the liquidity we have, but we should see a migration to fixed income product as the interest rate increase in the coming months. So this will be -- and also with more -- with an election coming, more uncertainty, more volatility, we should see clients playing more safe. In the corporate side, I don't believe there's going to be a huge increase in investment, but not necessarily, they will be redeeming all the investments they have. But -- and as the portfolio should grow a little bit less or less than what we had and observed in 2021, I think this ratio will work much more in line than we used to look in the past.

[Yuri Fernandes:]

Super clear. But do you think like for the industry as a whole? Like I guess you as a big bank, you have some advantage that not sure if everybody has. So do you think like this is going to be the same story for everybody? Or do you see like funding costs in addition to the Selic, Selic is moving up, capital expenses -- Yes.

[Milton Filho:]

I think it will depend pretty much in the growth of the portfolio. As I believe, there's going to be a reduction in portfolio as a whole for the system, and maybe we'll put less pressure on the funding cost. And also, there is going to be migration -- natural or migrate -- because you need to pay more whenever you need to migrate more from equities and other funds. So you need to pay more to the market. As I believe, there's going to be a reduction in the credit in general. And also on the other side, the natural migration, I think this won't put so much pressure in the funding cost for next year. This is my view now.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from Carlos Gomez with HSBC.

[Carlos Gomez:]

Two very separate questions. One is, if you could comment on your relationship with the Corp Group in Chile. If you currently have exposure? If it is provisioned? And how you see your investment in CorpBanca evolving in the future? We know you have made a large capital contribution. Do you expect to have more of the company in the future than you have to? And do you expect to continue to have the partnership with Corp? The second refers to your loan growth and what do you expect for the next 3, 4 years? I mean it's a little bit of a contradiction that we have seen so much growth over 20% and 28% in individual, if you are really expecting a slowdown next year. And how do you see Brazil evolving? Is it time for you to expand the portfolio? Or this is a one-off and you will have less loan growth in the next 3, 4 years?

[Milton Filho:]

Thank you, Carlos, for your question. Talking about the first one, I cannot go into specific clients, and I cannot tell you specifically about the relationship with Corp Group. What I can say, there is commercial relationship. We are partners. We run a bank together, and it's all fine. So this is what I can tell you right now. There is a public event going on. It's the Chapter 11, as you know, from Corp Group. And whenever they have public information, they will be releasing and providing to the market, but I cannot go through that right now. Talking about Itaú CorpBanca, we are very positive about the bank. We are supporting the increase of capital. As you know, we already announced to the market that we're going to be not only subscribing our shares, the 40% roughly that we have, but we also acquired from Corp Group the 16.5 that are the shares we have in guarantee for the bank, and we as well subscribed at the 16.5. We don't have the book. We're going to have, I would say, a Directors meeting, Board of Directors by the end of the day today. And there, I will be as a Director who have the information about the book, and what will be the new, if there is any, change on the new participation that we have in Itaú CorpBanca. Whenever we have this information, we should release to the market an information telling. But there is still discussions about this process that they are conducting on a local level. I will have more details by the year-end today, but we are positive. And I will -- I believe the bank is doing the homework. The team is very focused. We are having a very good year in 2021. We have challenges in Chile economy as we have in many other places in LatAm, as you know. But we are positive about the enhanced and the benefits that we've been seeing for the transformation we've been doing for many years in Chile now. So this is how I see. Talking about the credit portfolio, it will depend about many things. So next year, I think it should be -- there should be a slowdown in general, and Fibra has been saying that. So it's a tough year. Economic growth won't be there. There is an election year. Talking about 2023 and '24, will depend on the new government, the new agenda, the new economy approach. So as you know, in Brazil and in many other countries, we should be cautious. We do believe in the long term. We should be growing the business as we always did, but we should be paying attention to economic cycles. There are good ones, not so good ones. So this will somehow impact the pace of growing the bank for the coming year. So it's very difficult now to give you our guidance looking for 3 years, but I believe we should be more positive than negative, but we still have to wait and see what are the news coming from the coming months.

[Operator:]

This concludes today's question-and-answer session. Mr. Milton Maluhy, at this time, you may proceed with your closing statements.

[Milton Filho:]

Okay. Gentlemen, thank you very much. Very happy here to do this call with you today. We are positive. I think we delivered a very good quarter. Solid quarter, I would say. And for the coming quarters, we'll be meeting individually or in the next quarter. And I hope to be talking more about our cultural transformation, the digital transformation of the bank, but a good level of energy here and everybody very positive about the future and the challenges we have. So thank you very much for coming.

[Operator:]

That does conclude our Itaú Unibanco holding earnings conference for today. Thank you very much for your participation. You may now disconnect.