Banco Santander-Chile - Earnings Call - Q2 2025
August 5, 2025
Transcript
Speaker 4
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I'd now like to welcome you to the Banco Santander-Chile second quarter 2025 earnings conference call on 5 August 2025.
Speaker 5
Please note that at this point, all.
Speaker 4
Participant lines are in listen-only mode.
Speaker 5
After the call, there will be an.
Speaker 4
Opportunity to ask questions. With this, I'll now like to pass the line to Patricia Pérez, the Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.
Speaker 6
Good morning everyone. Welcome to Banco Santander-Chile to the second quarter 2025 results webcast and conference call. This is Patricia Pérez, CFO, and I'm joined today by Cristián Vicuña, Head of Strategy and IR, and Andrés Sansone, our Chief Economist. Thank you everyone for joining us today to review our second quarter performance and results. Today, Andrés will start with an overview of the economic environment, and then Cristián will go through the key strategy points and the results of the branch in the second quarter of the year. After that, we will have a Q&A session where we will be happy to answer your questions. Let me hand over to Andrés.
Speaker 3
Thanks Patricia. On slide 4 we have our current outlook. Since our last webcast, the Torres Agenda has seen several developments. After postponing the implementation of new tariffs from June 9 to August 1, the U.S. reached trade agreements with multiple economies. This includes tariffs of around 20% on several Asian countries and 15% on the eurozone. For Chile, the 10% rate will remain in place, which corresponds to the minimum threshold stalls. Although there were initial threats of a 50% on copper prices, the Trump administration ultimately decided not to carry through liquid materials such as concentrates, cathodes, anodes, and copper stars, all of which were excluded from the final decision. While market reaction has been relatively new so far, price and geopolitical uncertainty has increased during the quarter. The peso briefly reached $1,000 per dollar following the announcement of on Eureka date before returning to the $939.40 range.
Speaker 5
However, renewed price actions have led to.
Speaker 3
Depreciation of the peso, currently trading around 970 pesos per dollar, is above our model base estimates of approximately 940. Long-term interest rates in Chilean pesos have declined, narrowing the space against the U.S. counterparts on the CBD highs. Preliminary IMACEC figures suggest GDP grew 2.9% year on year in the second quarter, or 3% when excluding mining. While we await the full National Account report on August 18, which we all think includes good first quarter revisions, the better than expected performance in the first half introduced upward bias to our full year 2025 growth forecast, currently at 2.1%. In terms of inflation, the second quarter inflation surprised on the downside due to a drop in food prices and discounts associated with CyberDay, with the annual change reaching 4.1% in June. We expect this inflation process to continue given the softer demand environment both globally and domestically.
Additionally, global trade diversion triggered by tariffs could reduce the prices of imported goods, supporting faster disinflation. We maintain our forecast for the U.S. at 3.6% for the end of 2025 and 3% by year end in 2026, in line with the Central Bank of Chile expectations with risk tilted to the downside. Last week, the Central Bank of Chile made its first policy rate cut of the year, reducing the benchmark rate from 5% to 4.75% and signaling openness to another cut later this year. In our basic scenario, the policy rate will close 2025 at 4.5% and reach 4% in 2026, which is close to its new growth level. On slide 5, we present recent developments in the regulatory framework in the context of the fiscal tax. The government announced the submission of a proposal to amend the income tax with a focus on SMEs.
The reform exempts most SMEs from the first category tax and also includes benefits for the middle class. The estimated cost of the measures is $1 billion annually, to be offset by higher personal income tax rates for the upper income bracket. The proposal does not include changes to the corporate tax rate for large companies. On the housing front, the mortgage subsidy bill was approved on May 20, 2025. The legislation targets individuals purchasing new homes valued at up to $4,000. It includes a 60 basis point subsidy on mortgage rates as well as a state guarantee of up to 60% for the loan term, covering up to 50,000 new homes. On June 19, the first auction was held with 12 financial institutions participating and a total of $10 million awarded.
In this initial auction, Santander secured 18.3% of the total, the highest among the awardees and just below our national market.
Speaker 5
Share in the stock.
Speaker 3
Finally, regarding the political landscape, 2025 is.
Speaker 5
A presidential election year in Chile.
Speaker 3
Elections will be held on November 16 with the potential runoff on December 14. Primaries took place on June 29, with the ruling coalition in Iladposili participating, their candidate Janel Kara was elected. Right wing parties chose not to participate in primaries. According to the latest Cadence poll, right.
Speaker 5
Candidates José Antonio Kast list the rights.
Speaker 3
With 30% support, followed closely by left-wing candidate Dennis Cara and center-right candidate Early Matai with 14%. While the presidential rates have gained visibility, we must not overlook the parliamentary elections where the entire lower house and nearly half of the Senate will be renewed. Polls show that Chileans remain highly concerned with crime, security, and the business environment. Simulations suggest the right-wing candidates may gain ground in comarcas driven by local campaigns emphasizing security. This implies that even if the left-wing candidate wins the presidency, Congress for Human Rights potentially moderating more radical policy initiatives. As such, while some electoral-related volatility is likely in the near term, we believe the longer-term market impact will be limited. However, rising political polarization will likely continue.
Speaker 5
To hinder the possibility of reaching meaningful.
Speaker 3
Agreements on legislation aimed at boosting the.
Speaker 5
Long term GDP growth.
Speaker 3
With that, I will now hand.
Speaker 5
It over to Cristián. Thanks, Andrés. During the year, we have continued to make important advances in assistance since 2025 that we are very proud of. We can see on slide 10, as we mentioned in our last call, we completed the milestone of migrating our legacy main service to the cloud in this project that we have linked gravity within Santander. Since the first quarter, we are now operating 100% on the cloud, an important step in the digital part of our strategy to become a digital bank with branches or Work Cafes in it. In this line, we have launched some interesting initiatives in recent months. Firstly, we have enhanced the functionality of our smart POS, allowing merchants to carry out banking transactional services such as receiving deposits and cash withdrawals, profiles, and payments of utility bills.
It is even possible to open a temporary giro account through these points of sale. We have also launched Transander and Tucomuna, a small transactional town near local district authorities where we can offer financial services to the community. These efficiency points are extending our footprint in communities, coming even closer to our clients in their day-to-day life. With a longer-term view of expanding our client base, we have enabled a simple savings account for children from birth, looking to compete in this product that up until now has been mainly centralized through the state funds in Chile. Overall, this initiative aims to increase transaction strategy and strengthen our funding base going forward. During the first months of 2025, we have continued to issue debt actively on the local and international market, issuing in Swiss Francs, Japanese Yen, and U.S. dollars. We have also been highly recognized on several fronts.
Speaker 3
We continue to be highly ranked in.
Speaker 5
terms of sustainability, with an 8 grade in the NSCI Sustainability Index and 19.2 points in sustainability with low risk, we are proud to have won the Best Bank in Chile by Euromoney and Best Private Bank. We also won the Copper Square certification for the seventh consecutive year. Furthermore, the mutual fund strategy broker won over 40 awards in different categories. On slide 8, we can see that yet again the bank produced impressive results, reaching an ROE of 25.1% in the first six months of 2025 with a.
Speaker 3
Net income of CLP 550 billion.
Speaker 5
An ROE of 24.5% in the second quarter of the year with a net income of CLP 273 billion. This is the fifth consecutive quarter with.
Speaker 3
An ROE above 20% as we will.
Speaker 5
See on the coming slides. This is a result of the sustained strong profitability in our main income lines, good cost control thanks to our strategy.
Speaker 3
Focused on legal grants with work address.
Speaker 5
On slide 9, we can see how our rapidly expanding client base is leading to higher fee generation. We currently have 4.5 million clients, of which around 60% are actively engaged with us, and some 2.3 million are digital, accessing the online platform on a monthly basis.
Speaker 3
The number of current accounts is increasing.
Speaker 5
10% year on year, driving the 7% and 8% growth of our acting clients and vehicle clients, respectively. With this increase in the client base, we are seeing a 12% yearly increase in credit card transactions and a 19% increase in mutual funds that we broker. Overall, our client maintains high satisfaction level.
Speaker 3
With the bank and our product offering.
Speaker 5
Furthermore, we continue to expand our footprint among companies where we have increased the number of business current accounts by 25% in the last 12 months. This is explained by the simple business accounts we offer to smaller companies and the integrated statements offered through Getnet. We now have more than 212,000 Getnet clients representing an annual interest rate of 21%, and Getnet now have a market share of 20%.
Speaker 3
In terms of numbers.
Speaker 5
As we can see in the table on the right, the increase in our client base and fraud is translating into high fees and results for financial transactions. RAWER 16.3 Our main products such as account fees, mutual fund fees, and Getnet continue to show strong results in the quarter, while chart fees followed similar trends to the first quarter this year. On slide 10, you can see how our net interest margins have been improving over the last 12 months to stabilize in levels of around 4.1%. In the last year, our NIMs have improved some hundred basis points. Firstly, when we compare the first six months of 2025 to those of 2024, we had a slightly higher U.S. variation, which, as you know, directly affects our readjustment income.
The first half of 2024, our negative margin was negatively affected by our balance sheet position related to ZC, the credit line given to us by the Central Bank of Chile. However, after the final payment of this in July 2024, we have seen a marked improvement representing 60 basis points of NIM in the period. Our tax and flows of our cost of funds have led to a further 50 basis point improvement in our net interest margin. This has been compensated by a contraction of interest and on our assets related to the decrease in our available for sale portfolios due to the payment of the SJX fees and a stable loan good year. Year on year, in the quarter, our net interest margin remained stable following the solid trends of the third quarter of the year. On slide 11, we can see how.
Speaker 3
Our recovery of income generation and type.
Speaker 5
Of component hunting fruit are keeping full performance metrics. Our efficiency ratio reached 35.3%, the best in the serial industry in 2025 so far, and our recurrence ratio reached 62%, meaning that over 60% of our expenses were financed by our season rates. During the first half of 2025, we have seen an increase in our operating expenses related to a migration of our maintenance February 2012 leading product increase in administrative expenses mainly in the first quarter of the year. However, overall our cost will be no inflation in the year so far. In the quarter, we continue to look for efficiencies in our VAT network, solving fast traditional granted while we remodel and refurbish to ensure a more efficient usage of.
Speaker 3
Space while upgrading scenic appearance in line.
Speaker 5
With our work at Fair Lucency Field, it is strength to these adjustments to our contact points with hires along with.
Speaker 3
The evolution of our digital platforms, then.
Speaker 5
We have been able to achieve this impressive level of operating efficiency performance. On slide 12, we show an overview.
Speaker 3
Of our cost of risk and asset quality.
Speaker 5
As we have seen in previous quarters, our cost of credit has been higher than our historical levels due to an increase in non-performing loans in recent quarters. Also, it is important to note that in June 2025, similar to the previous year, we adjusted the evaluation of guarantees in the commercial loan portfolio as part of our review of the provisioning model. This year we deviated this impact by using CLP 20 billion of voluntary provisions published in the previous year. From the graph on the right, you can see that our NPL and impaired portfolio shows a reduction in absolute value and also a ratio in terms of total loans despite stable loans, demonstrating tangible improvements in our asset quality and early signs of asset quality recovery. On slide 13, we can follow the improvements by far.
Firstly, in our mortgage loan book, we can see that in absolute value the non-performing loans have now stabilized while the incurred loans increased marginally as more delinquent clients renegotiated their mortgage. Overall, we have seen sustained improvement of the asset quality of this portfolio. Regarding commercial loans, the bank focused efforts on improving the portfolio with several reorganization initiatives and writing off some individual items. With this, we achieved an absolute value of non-performing loans and impaired loans falling relevantly, and our NPL ratio is now at 3.6%. On the other hand, our consumer loan book has remained healthy during this cycle thanks to our positioning of consumer lending to the mid to high income sector.
On July 14, we can see the CET1 ratio reached 10.9% in June 2025, far above our minimum requirement of 9.08% for December 2025 and demonstrating some 30 basis points of capital in the last 12 months. This was driven by our income generation in 2024 as compensated by the 70% dividend payment of our 2024 profits and the current 60% dividend provision of our 2025 profits accumulated so far. As we mentioned in our last call, we have a 25 basis point pillar two charge, which we have fulfilled.
Speaker 3
The 50% required by our regulator in June 2025.
Speaker 5
Recently, at the beginning of July, the CNS published the definitive guideline for Pillar 2. The regulation adopts the metrics related to market risk in the Hudson Group and the definition of when a bank qualifies as a prioritized bank. According to the CNS report, 10 banks could be classified as priority banks. This is the same number of banks who currently have a Pillar 2 track. Banks will have to start recording the new metrics related to the market risk of the banking risk in December 2025, and the other offset will be implemented starting with the Self-Assessment of Regulatory Capital report to be submitted in April 2027. Let's look at our outlook for the record 2025 on slide 16. Firstly, we are considering a micro scenario.
Speaker 3
Of GDP growth of around 2.1% with.
Speaker 5
The UI variation of 3.6% and AMF.
Speaker 3
Monetary policy rate of 4.9%.
Speaker 5
Given the demand that we have seen this year so far, we are lowering our expectations for loan book growth to low single digits. At the beginning of this year, we were expecting a reactivation of the commercial loan book with strongest trend sign from the consumer loan books too. However, now we are starting August and we continue to see good demand, and given the upcoming elections and the global uncertainty in the Barbara, we expect our loan book to grow low single digits. On the other hand, our net interest margin should remain within guidance. With the third quarter impacted by the lower expected inflation, we expect our non NII guidance to grow high single digits. With further interchange fee regulation not expected until the end of the year, our efficiency levels should remain around the current levels.
Considering that we now see better current terms in terms of asset quality. The cost of risk was 1.39% year to date. We expect the cost of risk to improve slightly during the second semester to see the year around the 1.35% area. Overall, we continue to see solid profitability in what remains of the year. We are expecting ROEs of 21% to 23% range. With this, I finished the presentation, so now we can start the Q and A session.
Speaker 4
Thank you very much.
Speaker 3
We'll now be moving to the Q&A.
Speaker 4
A part of this call. If you'd like to ask a question, please press Star two on your phone. That is Star two, and if you're dialed in by the web, you can also request to ask a voice question. We'll wait a few moments for the questions to come in. Our first question is from Ernesto Gabilondo from Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Speaker 1
Thank you. Hi, good morning everyone. Patricia Pérez and Cristián Vicuña, and thanks for the opportunity to ask questions. I have a couple on my side. The first one will be on the cost of risk. As of the second quarter, consumer loans represent 15% of the total loan group. What do you see as its transition in the future? How would you see the sustainable positive risk for Santander Chile? My second question is on your long-term sustainable ROE, as you guided it to be between 21-23% for this year. How should we think about it in the medium term? What would be the common equity Tier 1 ratio that you will be assuming on the tax scenario?
Speaker 5
Thank you. Hi, Aldexo, thank you for your question. Regarding the cost of risk on the consumer part of the portfolio, we are seeing some healthy growth demand from credit cards that will translate into consumer loans in the medium horizon. We expect that the consumer lending demand continues to be a little bit above our average growth of loss, right? With that in mind, we are seeing very healthy metrics from our cost of risk of the consumer lending portfolio. This is what makes us believe that we will be in the 1.35% range, so slightly improving in the second half of this year for the full portfolio. We expect to increase slightly the contribution of the consumer portfolio within the total loan. Regarding your long-term ROE, we reviewed our long-term ROE recently a couple of quarters ago from a range of 17% to 19% to almost 20%.
What we have seen after the pandemic period and the high interest rate environment is that most of the transformation decisions that we have implemented in terms of our pressure and the evolution of our digital stack are allowing us now to deliver very, very efficient levels for our retail Universal Bank. With that in mind and allowing our fees and non-NII income to grow constantly, we are expanding our customer base. We're confident we're going to be above 20% ROE for the long term.
Speaker 1
Thank you very much. Just to follow up in terms of the culture risk. Yeah, I understand 1.35% criteria for this year, but looking maybe to next year's administrative ratio to remain relatively at that level, considering this slightly higher contribution in consumer loans, or how should we think about this ratio?
Speaker 5
As we mentioned in the call, we are drawing slightly above our long-term average. We should have a harmonization. It's not going to be a fast normalization as if the issues were coming from the consumer lending portfolio. Those issues tend to solve faster. Issues in the mortgage portfolio tend to digest more slowly. We are going to gradually go back to levels closer to 1.2% cost of risk.
Speaker 3
So.
Speaker 5
I'm using the part of your QC1 function, so that should be closer to Leventhford scenario. Where we are now, where we are, where we feel like comfortable.
Speaker 1
Okay, excellent. Now, super helpful. Thank you very much.
Speaker 5
Thank you, Ernesto.
Speaker 4
Thank you very much. Our next question is from Tito Labakta from Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. Thank you for the call and taking my question.
Speaker 3
A couple questions also, I guess, first.
On your loan growth. As you mentioned, it seems mostly weakness in the commercial book, maybe partly going into the elections as well. Do you think going into next year, once you pass the elections, you expect the loan growth to potentially accelerate and if so, how much? The consumer you mentioned, auto credit cards are doing fairly well. Should the rest of the consumer portfolio also accelerate sort of after elections? Just to think about what kind of loan growth we could think about for 2026. Second question on fees, good performance there continues to grow at a fairly healthy pace. Also kind of thinking more beyond 2025 since you have your guidance for this year. Is this high single digit growth that you're seeing, do you think that can sustain as well into next year?
I know you said that there shouldn't be any impact I guess on fees into year end. Do you expect some new regulation to potentially impact 2026 as well? Just to think about longer term fee growth. Thank you.
Speaker 5
Thank you. Let me take the key question and I'll pass the word to Patricia for the Lombok expansion. First, it's a little too early for us to start into the 2026 drivers, but let me try to give you some clues of what to expect. This year, performance has been driven by the increasing fee explained by the expansion of our customer base. That dynamic has improved and that's why we are aiming at our core strategy to grow the non-NII lines handsomely and above our asset growth. That's something that should be expected. There are a couple of moving parts that we are seeing for next year. The first one, and maybe the most important one, is the impact that can come from further interchange fee limits on prices that we might suffer in the final quarter of this year.
There are some studies being done by the Ministry of Finance and the commission that is assigned for this decision, and we expect that to somehow move by year end. If you remember, our initial assessment of these two movements in interchange fee involved about CLP 50 billion of total impact and we have only seen half of that. That's one thing to consider moving on to 2026. Having said that, we are still expecting that our non-NII income will grow faster than the loan book. With that, I'll pass over to Patricia.
Speaker 6
Thanks, Peter, for your question regarding the loan growth. We are seeing, like on the retail part of our portfolio, as already mentioned, quite stealthy growth on the consumer loan, consumer lending shocks, and already have found signs of a ticker with credit card loans growing around 10% year on year. This should lead to more demand for installment loans. Regarding SMEs, we continue to grow strongly on the mortgage portfolio. We are seeing that this subsidy bill that was passed or may should help to activate the real estate market and market promotions as well going forward. As you already mentioned, large corporate have grown lower than we were expected at the beginning of the year. This is our big question mark. We think that this is too early to say something regarding loan growth for next year.
Obviously, the political landscape could help to reactivate all the investment project and projects and demand from larger output.
Okay, that's very clear. Thanks Cristián. Thanks Patricia.
Speaker 5
Thank you, Diego.
Speaker 4
Thank you very much. Our next question is from Pietro Nobili, RUS from BTG. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Thank you all for the presentation. My question is very related to the last one. I would like to know, given that the economic situation in the last year, your total loan portfolio changed the structure and the scorefield. What are your initiatives to change this and, for example, come back to a 17% in the consumer portfolios? How long can it take to come back to the numbers of HRC4?
Speaker 5
Thanks for the question. PSO so organic. We would like to grow our consumer lending book but without rushing it because nothing good comes from racking growth in those portfolios. You have to be a very, very smart and conservative lender in that area. That's what we're trying to do. We are trying to achieve growth with a good deployment of our categories there. There are some other initiatives that we might tap into, like we might try to rotate some risk or try to securitize some part of the portfolio if changes in regulation are implemented that we are currently discussing with the relevant player and regulator in order to reignite the securitization system within the country. That could help, but it could take a while. It's not going to be a fast movement.
Let's say we're going to convert into a four month to that basis, but we are taking the steps one by one.
Okay, thank you.
Speaker 4
Thank you. Our next question is from Neha Agarwala from HSBC. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Speaker 2
Hi. Congratulations on the result. Very quickly, what are the main risks that you see around the business with the upcoming elections? We are definitely seeing muted loan growth. Beyond that, do you see any other risks from the macro side or from any other risks on the asset quality that we should be mindful of for the rest of the year? Thank you so much.
Speaker 5
Thanks for the question, Ivan. Maybe Andrés, you have to from a.
Speaker 3
Macro perspective, the main risk to see this outlook continue to extend from abroad, particularly U.S.-China trade dynamics, and in that sense, a sharper than expected global slowdown, especially in the U.S., could have a meaningful negative impact on Chile's domestic economic momentum.
Speaker 5
As I've just mentioned, most of our risks are currently being assessed slightly from abroad. We are seeing a relatively positive scenario for the political elections given the surveys that we are seeing that yes, a more market friendly environment. Having said that, the result from the primary round population actually increases the same cold scenario but also increases the sales scenarios. Right. A more strange growth relative. That's also something to monitor. Okay, thank you.
Speaker 4
Our next question is from Daniel Mora from Credicorp Capital. Please go ahead.
Speaker 5
Hi, good morning.
Speaker 3
Thank you for the presentation.
Speaker 5
I have just one question regarding the NPL.
Speaker 4
I would like to understand where I should.
Speaker 5
The NPL normalize in the coming quarters or years?
Speaker 4
Because if you compare to the industry.
Speaker 5
Levels and PL is quite high, and due to this situation, I would like to understand what strategy are the reasons behind having that commercial LCL well above.
Speaker 3
The industry level and also a mortgage.
Speaker 5
NPL well above also the industry level. I would like to understand is this work related to the bank strategy, the loan needs? I would like to clarify that situation. Thank you so much. Thank you, Oliv. Let's take this part by far. Regarding our NPLs in our consumer lending portfolio, actually those NPLs are really above the average of our peers and show a very healthy performance. This is the locked asset part of the portfolio. Deterioration here is what impacts the NPL, also the CNL, the most. Regarding why our commercial portfolio does some structural tire NPL compared to the peers and industry, this is mostly because we have a higher penetration of SME lending within our total commercial loan book. About a third of our total loan book is concentrated on SME lending. This is something that is very related for prodigies to become a universal bank.
We cater to the regional customer. That's our specialization and that's expected to continue structurally, right, to having a higher NPL ratio. That's mostly explained by how we view ourselves as a more risk-oriented operation. Finally, regarding the certification on the mortgage portfolios, we have explained this in the past, but we have about 30% of our mortgage book that reprices on a variable rate. This is higher than the average of the industry. The typical lending mortgage will be originated on a 20-25 year fixed UF product, and we have a lot of 30% that is lent on a yearly UF rate portfolio. That's the part that suffered the most during 2023 and early 2024 where real rates in UF were high and not refreshing the payment capability of our customer base. That's reflecting in the 2.7% NPL that we are seeing now.
The good news is that the real rate scenario of UF is now below 2%. The repricing problem is not happening anymore. We are now focused on providing solutions to our customers so they can renegotiate and start paying again. What we are seeing now is that part of the portfolio is going to remain stable at levels of 2.7% and you can see that in upper terms is actually for the last.
Speaker 3
Six months pretty much stable, and that's it.
Speaker 5
What we expect to start improving on the next quarter. That's going to be a very gradual recovery. All in all, we are still expecting some better improvement of total ICL for the portfolio in the second half year. Most of the improvement will come from the commercial portfolio, further improvements than we are expecting. As a whole, we should still be slightly higher than the average of the industry, especially because of our composition of the commercial notebook and our SME orientation. I don't know if this helps.
Speaker 3
No.
Perfect.
Speaker 5
Very, very, very clear. Just to understand, the normal level of NPL will be very close to the industry level. Just to understand how far we are from.
Speaker 3
A normalized or level open field.
Speaker 5
I think it's a little too early to tell for ourselves where we are seeing long term. There are still some improvements to the current levels. It should be below 3% by early 2020, and that depends on how the evolution of the mortgage and general macro scenario environment evolves.
Right.
Perfect. Thank you so much. Thank you.
Speaker 4
Our next question is from Andrew Gary from Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Speaker 0
Thank you for the opportunity to ask questions here. I wanted to drill down on the net interest margin a bit more, and I realize this isn't an easy exercise.
Speaker 4
Can you try to?
Speaker 0
Walk us through how you're thinking about the path of NIM at least directionally considering your macro expectations for inflation rates, possible loan mix shifts, and then obviously your deposit beta. I know you said during the call 3Q will be impacted again by lower expected inflation, but how are you thinking about 3Q versus 4Q this year and then 2026 in terms of the direction of NIM? Thank you.
Speaker 5
Sure. Hi Andrew. Let's first review our general sensitivities for our balance sheet. We're still carrying a long inflation $8.5 billion on our net sensitivity to inflation and regarding our inflation too.
Speaker 3
This translates to something about 12.
Speaker 5
Basis points of inflation per 100 percentage points of U.S. radiation and we have about 4 to 5 basis points point of sensitivity per 100% touch points of average monetary policy rate variations on the sensitivity to interest rates. With that in mind, we in the third quarter saw a negative 0.4 U.S. CPI news in July and that's going to impact the July performances in the quarter. The rest of the quarter looks more normal. In the end, we should be at very high threes of NIM for the quarter and then we expect to come back to level of above 4.0% NIM in the final quarter of the year as the inflation fact suggests or the market expectations for year end. With that, we will be very close to 4.1% for the year, so around above 4% for the year and we expect something similar for next year.
There are between one to two interest rate cuts to be performed by the Central Bank of Chile in the second half of the year additional to the one that we saw recently. We are expecting monetary policy target reaching 4% by the final part of 2026. With that and inflation converging to 3%, we should be able to sustain NIMs in the current area.
Speaker 0
Okay, that's very helpful. Thank you so much.
Speaker 5
Thank you, Andrew. We have some feedback questions that we would like for you to answer after the final questions. I don't know if Luis, do you have any other questions?
Speaker 4
Yeah, we have no further questions, so we just shared the survey on your screen, and your feedback would be greatly appreciated. The question and answer section is still open, so just as a reminder, if you'd like to ask our questions, please press 2 on your phone. If you're dialed in by the web, you can also request to ask a voice question. We'll wait a few moments for the questions to come in.
Speaker 5
Okay, it looks like we have no.
Speaker 4
Further questions, I'll now hand it back to the Santander Chile team for the closing remarks.
Speaker 5
Thank you all very much for taking the time to participate in today's call. We thank you also for the answers you provide for our five-person survey, and we look forward to speaking with you soon. Have a great day. That concludes the call for today.
Speaker 4
Please note that the survey will remain open for a few minutes after the call closes. Thank you and have a nice day.