Good afternoon, everyone. I am Yu Sung Hun and I'm in charge of IR. I would like to thank all of you for participating in the Q3 earnings conference call. We will now begin the Q3 earnings report. Today we have here with us Vice President Yee Yong Jo who is in charge of Strategy; and our CFO, Min Jung Kee; and Mr. Jang Dong-ki who is in charge of Finance. We will first open up a conference call with the presentation from our CFO Min Jung Kee and after the presentation, we will be taking questions. I will hand the microphone over to CFO Min.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Jung Kee Min and I am the CFO of Shinhan Financial Group. First of all, I would like to thank all of you for attending our Third Quarter Earnings Conference Call. All of the investors, analysts and press, both domestic and foreign, thank you very much for your interest. Now I would like to take you through our presentation that summarizes the key points of our third quarter results. Please turn to Page 6, which covers the group's income. During the third quarter, the net income of Shinhan Financial Group was at KRW 523.2 billion. Year-to-date, it was KRW 1,559,500,000,000 which is a 5.8% decrease quarter-on-quarter and a 22.5% decrease year-on-year. Compared to the previous year, our credit cost has stabled and SG&A has been maintained in an appropriate level. However, our interest income decreased due to lower NIM as well as a fee income decrease in both on the bank and card side. This has resulted in a decrease on the earnings side. Quarter-on-quarter, we have successfully maintained our credit costs and SG&A on a quarter-on-quarter basis, but there was some interest income one-off factors that did not continue on the third quarter and this resulted in a slight decrease of the net income. By sector, as you can see, the interest income for the group decreased by 7.2%. Year-on-year, there was a decrease of 19 bp on our NIM resulting from a lower base rate. On a quarter-on-quarter basis, won loans increased by 0.8%, and the group NIM overall increased by 4 bp quarter-on-quarter and this overall contributed to a slight increase in our interest income. On the noninterest side, there was a decrease year-on-year of 8.6% year-on-year on the noninterest side due to fee income continuously decreasing due to…

Now, we will take your questions.

[Operator Instructions] We will take the first question. The first question comes from Mr. Jun Song Kim [ph] of SG Security.

I have a question on Shinhan Card. You said that the roll rate for delinquencies have improved and that the new delinquencies are also stabilizing in the pace of buildup. When I look at other major credit cards, their new delinquencies are decreasing, but their recovery of existing delinquencies are dropping is what I hear from other major credit card companies. Do you see a different trend on your credit card operation and if you do, how can you explain this difference in trend? Because I think some people read a moral hazard effect on the credit card side, also the checks card or the debit card, some people are saying its cannibalizing their credit card side. Do you see any impact of the so-called check cards on your credit card operation ?

Regarding the Shinhan Card business, if I may answer that question, our 2-month roll rate currently is 0.45% and is maintaining a stable level around that range. For 2-month plus delinquency roll rates, actually the delinquency roll that has decreased slightly quarter on quarter. So overall, our recovery rates have not decreased largely. I think we can explain that in twofold. One is that in Shinhan Card, the cash advance, which is relatively higher risk, the cash advance has been decreased based on our strategy. So the cash advance in our total operating asset is around 12%, it's about KRW 2.4 trillion. Since 2008, we have been decreasing the share of cash advances in our asset, because in 2008, it was up to 24%, twofold of the share current. So relatively, I think one way of explaining it is that our relatively high-risk asset share has been decreased. The second way of explaining our situation is the fact that our current credit card growth strategy is not an aggressive strategy for growth, so Shinhan Cards focuses more on the fact that our market share is 22.4% -- 22.3% and maintaining that level and we have not engaged in aggressive marketing. So I think relatively speaking, we have a less increase on the lower credit rating customers, and I think that once again, explains the fact that our recovery rates have not dropped as much. About the impact of check cards. Check cards, yes, has been increasing. In terms of our overall volume turnover, it accounts for about 11%, a bit above 10% of our business is check cards. Whether it will be profitable and if so, how much and whether it will help our overall business was your question. There are various factors we have to consider, because check cards have no credit risk. And so in terms of our soundness or loan or in terms of our credit cost, there is a contributing factor there. Also if you look at the financial group level, one of the reasons why our margins have been stable is because we have been be able to track the merchant settlement accounts and also the credit cardholders' personal accounts and that has been a source of our low-cost deposits, which helps keep our NIM healthy. And so in that sense, there is a plus factor. Maybe it will not help much on the credit cards bottom line, but we believe that check cards may be helpful from the overall group's perspective. Also the check cards, when we look at the pace of growth of check cards, it's not yet a very rapid pace of growth. So overall, their impact on our bottom line, I think, would also be gradual.

[Operator Instructions] We will take the next question. The next question comes from Prudential Investments. Jun Watanabe [ph] is going to ask the question.

Regarding the net NIM, net interest margin, Q2 you mentioned was 73% and -- 7.3%, well what you have mentioned is this, the bottom, do you think this will go back up?

Well, regarding NIM, 1.73% is just the bottom. Yes, the -- whether or not this is the bottom, we cannot be confident. However, we feel that we're very close to hitting the bottom and our basic approach for the growth strategy is the annualized growth rates. Even if it is 3%, if the margin is about 6 bps growth, it will not have an impact. So the NIM has been declining quite quickly, quite rapidly since 2012. However, it is showing a stabilizing trend and this is because -- and this is largely dependent upon what kind of price strategy withstands other banks have. We tried to defend our margin and at the same time, push for our growth strategy. I think this is the bottom or close to the bottom of our NIM margin. And in order for the NIM to increase, the yield curve itself becoming steep is not important, there has to be a parallel increase along with -- there needs to be a shift upwards.

Next question will be from Mr. Hong Tang Yong [ph] of Macquarie Securities.

Well, I have another question about the NIM. You said that the -- actually including merchant's fee NIM decreased by 7 bp quarter-on-quarter. Why is there this huge decrease quarter-on-quarter on the merchant fee included NIM? I don't see any special factors there.

Well, when we prepared the presentation, the merchant fee included NIM is at 3% ranges, but then there will be the change in accounting and we will have to take up the merchant fee. Look at the net bank and Shinhan Card which is around a 2.3% range. As you know the merchant fee were lowered for the smaller merchants but the merchant fee for the larger merchants were slightly increased and that does have a decreasing effect on our NIM. This old NIM, which includes merchant fees of course, will decrease. What we need to look at more is the RS-based NIM, which excludes the merchant fee and only looks at the interest income, which will be around 2.31, which actually, we have defended quarter-on-quarter which, we would like to emphasize more. And additionally, the one-off event in Q3 was that the card fee was reduced by about KRW 50 billion. So with the merchant fee increased, there has been a decline. However, if you look at the fee that does did not include merchant fees and just for the margin for bank and cards, you can see that there is a slight improvement.

We will take the next question. The next question comes from Mr. Hwang Seok Kyu from Kyobo Securities.

I'm Hwang Seok Kyu from Kyobo Securities. I have a question regarding provision for write-offs and also a provision. If you look at refunds in write-off, I would like to know the size. And my second question is well, you did mention the one-off event in terms of the write-offs and the exchange rate, I would like to know the figures. I think, in terms of provision, Tehan [ph] wiring or Tehan Tangsan [ph] will be included in the figures, so I would like to ask you for details? And when you were talking about check cards, you talked about the increase of deposits. There have been a very significant increase. I would like to know if this had an impact on check cards usage and I would like to know if you expect any more increase in the usage of check cards?

Well, you have asked 4 questions. Regarding asset quality, you have talked about the provision which has declined compared to the previous quarter. There has been a 13.4% decrease. Last quarter was KRW 251 billion, now this year is KRW 217 billion, so we did experience a decline. So in terms -- there has been reversal, which came from the loans to construction companies, KRW 32.3 billion have been reversed in our provision. So this resulted in a decrease in provision. And secondly, regarding the second question, regarding the write-off, STX write-off, KRW 35.4 have been added to our provision for loss and regarding the construction companies, there have been KRW 32.3 billion of reversal. And in terms of non-income there have been 2 sales of securities, which amounted to KRW 80.8 billion. First was SK Hynix shares and secondly, we sold Visa card, which resulted in KRW 37.3 billion. So these were the 2 biggest elements. And regarding the bank business, there we also saw the workout funds -- workout sales of KRW 41.3 billion, and regarding shipping companies, KRW 24.6 billion of profit was realized from CVA. And regarding non-income, we have experienced KRW 43.1 billion of loss from Alposco [ph] shares impairment. So that was the second answer. And regarding the provision for Q4, during the first 3 quarters, the current provision size stands at -- recurring basis, it is on the decrease and as our CFO has already mentioned, the overall credit cost has dropped to the 57 basis points level. However, the basis on -- based on the recurring basis, it is remain -- it remains at the KRW 260 billion to KRW 270 billion level. In Q4, we are going to test the provision based on the recurring basis, and in the case of…

We will take the next question. Next question comes from Franklin Templeton, Mr. Tun Muyen[ph].

My name is Tun [ph] from Templeton. I have a question about Shinhan Life. If you turn to Slide 26, we have the profits and you can see that the premium income has decreased compared to last year. I'm looking at other insurance companies and they don't show such a deterioration in their premium income net. Is there a special reason behind this decrease? The second question is on Page 27, on the new premiums. There is a huge drop between the first quarter and the second quarter. Can you explain that drop in new premium income?

I will take that question about Shinhan Life. Of the Shinhan Life's performance, it has been on a decreasing trend. I think I need to take this question from a more compressive approach. There's 3 reasons behind the decline in the performance. One is changes in various systems, which is decreasing of the operational profits, also there is a decrease in terms of the interest gain due to the decrease in the overall interest rate. Also, there is a decrease in terms of asset sales. So if you go into detail one by one, the third quarter accumulated net income is KRW 76.3 billion which is a 25.7% decrease quarter-on-quarter, 59.4% year-on-year decrease. There are various decreases in the operating profits, which is KRW 69.2 billion, also there is a decrease of KRW 52.5 billion in terms of interest gains. And also in terms of trading gains, there is a decrease of KRW 31.5 billion. These all add up, pre-tax wise of a decrease of KRW 153 billion, post tax wise, KRW 160 billion. These decreases due to changes in the system probably will last us another 3 to 4 years. The market rates being so low and that impact on the interest gain -- interest margin gain, probably that will not be improving unless the market rates go up. However, the contribution of Life within the overall group is only 3.9%. So the impact on the overall Shinhan Financial Group will be still limited. Fortunately though, compared to other subsidiaries such as Shinhan Capital, have been improving year-over-year in terms of their results. In terms of Shinhan Capital, there is an increase of KRW 15.7 billion and Shinhan Securities has been increasing in about KRW 700 million. So overall, that is offsetting the decrease in the Shinhan Life decrease in performance. So in a sense, it is a reflection of the diversification as a financial group, and also reflects a team play approach. We plan to increase the share of guarantee or protection-type products and also increase the gains from asset management, and also improve the retention rate and focus more on getting the high-end customers so that the Shinhan Life can get access to a stronger base for long, stable growth.

And it looks like there are no other questions at the queue. So with this, we will like to wrap up the Q3 earnings report for Shinhan Financial Group. Once again, I would like to thank all of the participants for taking time out of their busy schedule to join us. Thank you very much.