Good morning, and welcome to Grupo Supervielle's Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. I'm Ana Bartesaghi, Treasurer and IRO. Today's conference call is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] Speaking today are Patricio Supervielle, our Chairman and CEO; and Mariano Biglia, our CFO. Gustavo Paco Manriquez, Banco Supervielle''s CEO; and [Diego Pizzulli], CEO of Inverted Online, will also be available during the Q&A session. Before we begin, please note this call may include forward-looking statements. Please refer to our earnings release and SEC filings for further details.

Thank you, Ana. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. In the fourth quarter, we delivered results within our guidance range and positioned the balance sheet for industry recovery. The period was marked by elevated system-wide credit stress, which we were not immune to. However, in several key areas, we outperformed the industry. Let me walk you through the key drivers of our quarter results. First, loan growth continued to outperform the industry. Total loans grew 8% sequentially and 37% year-over-year. Growth was led by corporates, which expanded 25% quarter-over-quarter and now represents 63% of the portfolio. Retail balances declined sequentially as we prioritize risk-adjusted returns and tightened underwriting in response to the more volatile environment. Second, Asset quality reflects the peak of the stress cycle. The NPL ratio increased to 5%, consistent with industry trends, rapid loan growth since 2024 and the significantly restrictive monetary conditions early in the year. Cost of risk reached the upper end of our guidance range, also reflecting updated macroeconomic assumptions under IFRS 9. Third, funding remained resilient despite strategic deleveraging. Total deposits declined sequentially as we reduced wholesale institutional funding to optimize the balance sheet. In contrast, core transactional balances remain resilient. U.S. dollar deposits increased 42% year-over-year, gaining 60 basis points of market share, while remunerated accounts continued gaining traction among payroll and SME clients. Fourth, we reported an attributable net loss of Argentine's AR 19.5 billion, narrowing significantly from the third quarter loss. The improvement reflected margin recovery and strict cost control despite elevated cost of risk based on updated macro assumptions and system-wide credit stress. Encouragingly, NIM rebounded sequentially, supported by lower funding costs and better investment portfolio yields, while personnel expenses declined 6% sequentially. Importantly, CET1 strengthened to 15.4%, up 220 basis points quarter-over-quarter, preserving flexibility…

Thank you, Patricio, and good day to everyone. Let's turn to Slide 6. We reported an attributable net loss of nearly CLP 20 billion in the fourth quarter, improving materially from the CLP 55 billion loss in the prior quarter. November marked a turning point with declining rates supporting better margins towards year-end. Client net financial income increased 21% sequentially, driven by lower funding costs combined with higher loan volumes and yields despite a greater share of commercial loans in the mix. Market-related net financial income improved by PHP 85 billion sequentially, reflecting lower funding costs and improved trading results as sovereign bond prices recovered and investment portfolio yields normalized. Inflation adjustment increased 10%. Net fee income rose modestly sequentially, supported by brokerage activity. Personnel, administrative and G&A increased 6% sequentially, partly reflecting seasonal factors and commercial initiatives. For the full year, however, expenses declined 9% in real terms, confirming structural efficiency gains. Loan loss provisions increased 75% sequentially, reflecting higher system-wide delinquency and to a lesser extent, updated macroeconomic assumptions within our ECL framework. This was the primary driver of the quarterly loss. Turning to the loan portfolio. Loans increased 8% sequentially, outperforming 2% system growth and 37% year-over-year, in line with the industry. Commercial lending drove expansion, up 25% sequentially and 64% year-over-year, representing 63% of the portfolio. Growth was concentrated in working capital and export-related sectors where risk-adjusted returns remain attractive. Retail loans declined 4% sequentially and increased 8% year-over-year, reflecting stricter underwriting standards and deliberate moderation in origination amid elevated rates and higher system-wide delinquency. Our goal remains to return to a more balanced retail corporate mix as credit conditions stabilize. Turning to asset quality. The NPL ratio increased to 5% from 3.9% in the prior quarter, broadly in line with industry trends, reflecting higher delinquency…

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Brian Flores with Citibank.

I have a question on capital. Your core equity Tier 1 ratio rose about 15% in the quarter. And we saw, as you mentioned, it was aided by the election recovery and some shifts in the investment portfolio. So given that you mentioned 2026 is slated for a renewed expansion in lending I just wanted to check with you how much of this capital buffer is truly structural? And how much do you think it's a temporary reflection of the higher real rates and the low risk-weighted asset density. I just wanted to understand if we could see this ratio revert towards the 13% levels we saw now that the growth reaccelerates. And also, if I may, if you are planning on changing anything regarding your dividend policy here on capital.

Thank you, Brian, for your question. Regarding the capital level, as you said, we ended the year with about 15% of Tier 1 capital ratio. And with that, we can fund growth expected for 2026 and according to our guidance by the end of the year, the capital ratio will be in a range between 11% and 13%. The increase in the capital ratio compared to September is in part related to off-balance sheet losses because as of September, our investment portfolio had lower market prices than said balance sheet lows that was reduced during the fourth quarter. And that has an impact on deferred tax assets, which are [indiscernible] so this deduction or most of it, that's why we could increase our capital seeing that the result for the quarter was negative and we had a loan growth in the quarter. So from now on, that those extraordinary movements of balance sheet results were mostly neutralized. So we don't expect big changes that part of the composition of capital during 2026. The capital level will be set by reinvestment of utilities for profit and the loan growth that we now foresee between 25% and 30% in real terms for the year. So those are the dynamics on the Tier 1 ratio that we see for 2026. And then regarding to dividends, as we had a negative result in 2025, we are not expecting pay dividends in 2026. So profits during the year will be reinvested in 2027, we will decide or the shareholders will decide on profits of 2026. But so far for the next shareholders meeting, we are not recommending any [indiscernible].

Basically, sorry, to complement. So we believe that with our current capital base, it is sufficient to fund loan growth projected for 2026, while remaining comfortably between the range of CET1 that we announced.

Perfect. And if I just follow up, Patricio, Mariano and team, we have this sense speaking with investors that maybe there are limited catalysts for more enthusiasm in maybe the Argentine bank space. Just wanted to -- of course, Patricio, I think you mentioned in your remarks, maybe the FX liberalization, maybe the reforms. But if you could elaborate a bit on what do you think could maybe help a bit on the market sentiment, right, particularly for the banking segment, I think it would be great color here.

Well, I think that there are various catalysts. But let me first start with the state of the union address that was given by President Milei on Sunday. We have seen a very confident President talking to the Chamber and with -- and also stating that he is going to go for an extremely reform in agenda, a very, very ambitious performance agenda, which I think this is very good because it encompasses a lot of institutional building for Argentina. So I think this is positive. And what I think besides all the laws that have either been passed like labor reform or probably, I think in the next -- in the near future, the glaciers law, which is going to help for investment in the mining industry. I think that certain -- I think it will be essential if the government at a certain point decides to go to the top international markets, that will be a very strong signal for refinancing the treasury, but at the same time, impacting on the domestic rates and eventually lowering liquidity requirements because at this stage, the government is securing a restrictive monetary policy because they want to be reserves, they don't want to have a volatility on the dollar. And so I think it's all connected in a way. So that by itself would be one of the factors instilling confidence in the banking system. At the same time, with all these laws passed, particularly the fiscal reform and what's going on in the dynamic industries, I think it will improve the job market and eventually, this will also help instill more confidence. But I understand your question, and I am positive, but we need to wait.

The next question comes from Pedro Leduc with Itau.

First, on your loan book growth outlook for the year. You also grew a lot loans in the fourth quarter. And I'm trying to reconcile it with the still staggering pace of NPLs that we are seeing. And you even mentioned in the guidance that it will tick up again in the first quarter. But fourth quarter, again, was the peak of provisions. Just trying to reconcile everything that you're still seeing NPLs going up and you want to grow loan book at a pretty fast pace, but you feel like provisions are -- have peaked. I'm trying to put all of this together and maybe trying to really understand on the provision side, if it wasn't -- if it weren't more prudent for you to increase coverage along the year as you exactly want to keep growing on a fast pace.

Mariano will complement, but what we have seen is a clear improvement in collection trends in December. This continued in January and this continued in February. So I think that there is a peak. But of course, the NPL ratio reflects prior period delinquencies and -- but collection, as I said, performance has improved. But most importantly, we see the early signs of cost of risk stabilization. I don't know if you want to complement on that.

Yes. As Patricio explained, loan loss provisions, particularly for the retail segment they are charged in advance of NPLs because when we see delinquency in certain product, mainly in retail products. We make most of the charge before the credit gets to 90 days past due, which is the moment where we recognize it as a nonperforming loan. So in the fourth quarter, we saw a peak in loan loss provisions that most probably will translate into a peak of NPLs in the first quarter. But the actions that Fabricio explained that we were taking and we engaged also during December and January, the branch network in adding efforts, collection efforts to contain delinquency to resume payments in individuals and smaller SMEs that is translated into indicators of improvements that will most probably reduce charges in the first quarter of 2026 and have the NPLs of the first quarter as a big [indiscernible] and reduce there.

That's a very clear position, Gustavo. And if I may, on a follow-up regarding your ROE guidance of 4% to 9%. And I really like the slide that you put there, the main assumptions behind it, it's very useful. And as the year starts, however, 1Q, do you think we'll already be in the positive territory for ROEs or not just yet?

In terms of ROEs, we believe that we can expect sequential improvements throughout 2026. We saw -- as we mentioned just recently, just now in 4Q 2025, we saw recovery in NIM, then the cost of risk stabilization that we see [indiscernible] in the collections, which makes us construct with a constructive view on the broader normalization of credit costs. Interest rate volatility that we have seen in the first 2 months of the year, they have decreased. So this is also -- this should help enhance margin and profitability. And also with -- so we expect our ROE basically to move into double digits by the end of 2026. And as we continue expanding the loan book we look forward to higher margin lending -- higher-margin retail lending. And with sustained cost discipline, we should see the path back to high teens ROEs by late 2027 and 2028.

The next questions come from Pedro Offenhenden with Latin Securities.

I wanted to ask on the previous release, you highlighted a decision to deleverage the balance sheet during the quarter. Should we view this as a temporary adjustment to response to volatility? Or can we see it again moving forward?

Yes. Thank you for your question. These are mainly tactical movements because the reduction in the balance sheet size is related to wholesale deposits where on the other hand, we have requirements and securities. So these are tactical movements. It's not that what we expect for the rest of the year. So when we see opportunities, we can expand our balance sheet in order to profit.

But let me -- I think there is a more structural trend behind what we mentioned, which is a tactical move. And that relates to the strong growth we see in remunerated payroll and SME accounts from clients who activated these accounts. This mostly consists of new balances and not just simply money that was there and not being remunerated. And the funds, they come from either from mutual funds or for individuals from digital wallets. So this is helping us to improve and increase a stable source of funding. And I want to stress this is very important for us acquiring principality with our clients.

The next question comes from -- I saw Carlos -- from Marcos [indiscernible].

My question is if you expect to lower non-cost deposits to keep growing in the quarter?

Can you repeat the question? I didn't understand.

We saw that low-cost deposits had a growth towards the end of the quarter. We want to know if you expect that trend to continue in this first quarter [indiscernible]?

The focus is basically -- of course, there is a seasonality in the fourth quarter, but the focus is to have what we call the CASA deposits, which is current accounts and savings accounts to continue growing in 2026. We are -- we have a very strong focus on that. And this is going to help us improve our quality of funding.

Pedro, I see your hand. You have another question?

I did. It was more related to InvertirOnline. Here, we had a very nice performance as I'm seeing it, especially on the bottom line, ARS 8.1 billion. This operationally, assets under management, active customers also trending very well. I see that you increased the headcount here. Maybe just walk us over some of the initiatives that's undertaking there, what drove this quarter's profits upward and maybe a glimpse of what we should expect from EOL in 2026?

I will defer this to Diego, only saying that this market is a nascent market. We've seen over the last few years, high inflation. But with declining inflation, then there will be more risk appetite for investors. But please.

Yes. Thank you, Pedro, for your question. So many things were in place in last quarter that are going on this year also. We started to focus more on affluent clients. We believe that with the normalization in Argentina, this will be the highest valuable customers we can develop. So we are focusing our efforts in building not only products for them, but also advisers that can handle the growing number of customers we have in our wealth management business, also in SMEs and IFAs. So -- that was part of the switch you saw the trend you saw in the fourth quarter that it's going on this first quarter and will be the trend we are focusing on for 2026, 2027 and also 2028. We believe that the normalization in Argentina will open a lot of opportunities for us and for our business in -- regarding the high-value customers. Regarding the retail customers, of course, EOL is the leader in Argentina. We have 2,100,000 accounts. So we have a great UX and we make the experience of operating our platform very straightforward for our customers. It's very easy for them to operate. And last year, there were some [indiscernible] that arise and we were there for our customers to execute like some FX transactions in the market. Also [indiscernible] was a product that was very high demand last year. So I believe our platform allowed retail customers to operate easy, and that's why they made us the leading broker in retail.

Very good and much success there in 2026.

Sorry, let me complement something else about EOL is that asset management is a business that is starting to appear important in InvertirOnline. It already represents 10% of the brokerage fee revenues. And they are -- they are launching -- they are already -- they have their proprietary funds. They just launched the third fund, very successful a few weeks ago, already almost $30 million in deposits is a peso fund. But also the first fund they launched, the dollar fund, is the third largest in the country, and this is quite amazing. And so I believe that we have a very strong franchise.

We have a question from Carlos Gomez-Lopez with HSBC.

I hope you can hear me?

Yes, we can.

So I wanted to ask, first, I remember around this time last year, we had high growth and you had a contraction of spreads. I would like to know how spreads, both for corporates and for individuals, are evolving right now in light of the NPLs that we have had? And second, we are already in March, the middle of March, how is deposit growth and loan growth going so far? Because if you look at the aggregate figures, there's barely any expansion, and it seems a bit challenging to get to the growth targets for both deposits and loans that you put in your guidance.

Carlos, thank you for your question. Regarding spreads, we don't see contractions in spreads so far. We have the spreads both on corporate and retail only regarding NPLs is that we are growing more on the corporate side than on the retail side. So in fact, this gave us a composition of the loan portfolio with higher weight of corporate loans. But we are not reducing spreads. That's in pesos and in dollars we see that for longer-term loans, there are higher spreads, although this is still a small portion of the portfolio because most of the commercial portfolio is in pesos for working capital. But we are seeing some room to grow in longer term, which has higher spreads. And regarding the evolution of loans and deposits during the first quarter or the first month of the first quarter, we see a good evolution as Patricio explained before. Again, there is some seasonality in December, it increases not only loans but also savings accounts and current accounts. But aside of that, we continue with the trends we saw in the fourth quarter. Still we are being very prudent on the retail portfolio side as before, we have wholesale deposits and 2024 [indiscernible].

If I can follow up on the spreads. I mean the reality is that the second half of the year has been challenging for the system as a whole and the system as a whole has barely been able to make money even in the fourth quarter, which makes you wonder, I mean, spreads are quite in Argentina given the level of NPLs and the level of provisions is the system profitable? Or do you need to see an adjustment? Because if we need to see more growth, I mean, that will be problematic. I mean that as things are today, the banks are not making money.

Well, I mean this has to do, of course, with NIMs and NIMs, they depend on interest rate volatility, inflation. We just mentioned that the interest rate volatility, we started to see a decline that would be important to preserve good margins. But with inflation going down, government is very, very strong statement saying that inflation will go down by the second half of the year, then that will help decrease the interest rates, nominal interest rates. And then we could expect eventually a [indiscernible] in terms of our reserve requirements. And if there is an increase as the government is looking for of peso demand that will fuel deposits and that will allow expanding the balance sheet and of course, so more leverage for the banking system, and this will be a positive effect for the return on equity. That's the way forward. That's a positive way forward. And this is what we're looking for.

We have our next question comes from Kaio Prato with UBS.

I just have one follow-up here on my side, please, is on the retail credit portfolio. So we saw, as you mentioned, some contraction sequentially on the portfolio again. I think -- and in your slide, you mentioned about the retail segment resuming gradually as far as i'm understood. But just wondering if you can provide us a brief update about the retail segment at the system level as well. So how are you seeing, first, your credit models after this uptick on NPLs and the overall consumer demand and the overall banking appetite for this segment, not only from you but also from other banks and especially fintechs that might gain some traction at this current environment. So it would be good to have an overview on the segment. And when do you think it should start to recover at least on your side as well?

Yes. I think, as you said on the fourth quarter, contraction on the retail portfolio, and we aim to grow gradually into 2026 only when we see conditions -- improvement of conditions to grow in this segment. So far, as we said, we see better early indicators collections for the segments, what will be very important is the level of activity, the decrease in the volatility of interest rates that we saw between July and October and to some extent, continued January. So this is very important in order to resume activity across all the industries in Argentina because right now, it is very uneven between very dynamic industries that still have low levels of activity that will allow us to resume growth.

One or two things. Obviously, our main focus is obviously lending money to our customer base. So we are maintaining -- we adjusted our credit models in order to do that. Basically, our focus is our primary customers. But also, as Mariano mentioned before, we have all the retail branches on the retail segment focused on the collections. So we have an excellent results in order to do that. It's different things that as we do in the past. So we maintain our focus. We adjusted our models, and we want to keep in track our existing customers. Also, we are looking for new customers with new credit models in order to increase our credit and our retail credit book. So basically, we are changing some different -- some things in order to be more effective, obviously, get more profitability for that product.

In terms of looking forward for 2026, retail acceleration will depend on continued disinflation, reduction in nominal rates, improved consumer confidence, particularly on the job market and disposable income and eventually lower liquidity requirements. Fintechs are -- yes, they are on the screen. We are conscious and they will start loaning to certain segments. So we understand that and it's good competition.

We have a couple of questions in the Q&A box. One is from [indiscernible]. He says if the government allows banks to lend in U.S. dollars to borrowers without dollar-linked income, how would Supervielle position itself competitively? Would dollar lending improve spreads and return on equity structurally? Or would it mainly shift balance sheet composition?

I think that this is an ongoing discussion in the financial system because there is a lot of liquidity in dollars that are not being used by banks. But we believe that we have a cautious approach. Currency mismatch continues to be a risk. We need a fiscal anchor for quite a time and eventually also Central Bank independence, state agenda for the entire political spectrum. But we're not there yet. But still, we have a selective approach, and we will be open to basically lend top-tier companies that have good protections and so on. So we are looking for and if the regulations change, we will go for selective opportunities.

But the current regulations [indiscernible] lend dollars because you have the deposits base in order to -- you can lend dollars to the exports chain. And also if you have bonds or loans from external financing, you can lend. So today, you can lend dollars to the companies.

Not with deposits, but yes, with [indiscernible].

[indiscernible] customer deposits.

Exactly. So we will be -- we have a selective approach on that.

We have a couple of questions coming from Ernesto Gabilondo with BofA. Let me read some of them. We have a couple of minutes, maybe first on that I think we have not answered yet. The deposit requirement is expected to decline from 50% to 45% by the end of March. Is there any further time line to continue reducing this requirement to improve peso liquidity? Or does management believe the Milei administration will maintain a restrictive monetary policy to preserve fiscal surplus and manage FX stability ahead of the 2027 presidential election?

We don't have any news about it.

Only until the end of March. That's the only thing we have. No, it's because it's the regulation is maturing the reduction which was offset with securities. That's the only thing.

Continue with the same.

We believe that it will be -- in fact, in the state of the union address, he mentioned that they will continue to maintain a restrictive monetary policy. But -- so this is dynamic. They need to see if it's too much a hindrance for economic activity, and if they are more at ease with the building of foreign reserves, which currently they are doing a very good job, then maybe they will be less restrictive. But I think the bias will be restrictive.

Yes. Our best case scenario for the guidance or embedded in the guidance is without any assumption of further reducing [indiscernible].

[indiscernible].

I think the first one was already in terms of asset quality, NPLs, cost of risk. I think Mariano walked through that. The assumption behind thew guidance. I think it's in the presentation, but I don't know, Mariano, if you want to go quickly and this is the last question we look at.

Yes, the assumptions, the macroeconomic assumptions we have in our guidance is inflation of 22.4%, GDP growth of 3.7%, [indiscernible] 1,750 by the end of 2026.

So thank you all of you for participating. I think this is the last question. So the earnings call today comes to an end. We appreciate your interest in our company, and we look forward to meeting more of you over the coming months and providing financial and business updates next quarter. In the interim, we remain available to answer any questions I'm sorry, that you may have. So have a nice day.