D. Carlos Torres Vila - Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA
Management
Okay. Thank you, José. Thank you for the congratulations as well. No doubt that the situation in the U.S. associated with the election and the messages coming from the new administration have already had an impact on Mexico through the depreciation of the peso, as I already mentioned, mostly. And we have already indicated in past meetings that the economy was decelerating. We just saw the numbers of the quarter yesterday, 2.2% growth, 2% for the year 2016. Going forward, we are seeing lower growth in Mexico, around 1%, but then we expect the economy, which is young, vibrant, to continue to grow afterwards. It is uncertain what the policies will do to Mexico. Of course, they're talking about NAFTA maybe being renegotiated. They're talking maybe about tariffs at the border. They're talking about things that will have an impact on trade potentially or they could have an impact on foreign direct investments. Given all of that, which are things that I think the market is factoring in, it is also true that the U.S. and Mexico are very linked economies, and they have a trade among them of more than $500 billion and such linkage will not be stopped going forward, no matter what we believe, so that, to the extent that prospects for the year's economy are also more positive given the stimulus that the new administration seems keen to introduce around the fiscal policy of various types, it is true that if the U.S. economy goes well, we believe Mexico will be doing well as well. They're just so linked. In terms of our prospects and our guidance for the year, again loan growth will be lower but decelerating to high-single digits, we believe, with NII growing in line with that. Fees and commissions, around mid-single digits. We will continue to improve our jaws, so expenses will grow less than revenue in 2017 for Bancomer. We're looking at asset quality that will be relatively stable around the 350 basis points. And all of that would give a bottom line, which is high-single-digit growth. And then the FX, as you know, we have coverage hedge of around 50% of the P&L for 2017. So, those would be the numbers for Mexico. The U.S. would be the other side of the coin. Things are looking in the U.S. more positive with the rising rates and with pickup in volumes. So, for us, that would mean slight loan growth. We would continue to focus on profitability over capital. So, focusing on the more profitable segment, we would be changing our mix more towards retail, consumer loans and secured loans. And with all of that, NII would be growing around high-single digit. We, as you know, have very high sensitivity to rising interest rates. And the cost of risk would be around 50 basis points, so slight uptick, but explained by the change in mix primarily.