Banco Santander-Chile - Q4 2025

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and I'd like to welcome you to Banco Santander-Chile's fourth quarter 2025 earnings conference call on the 5th of February, 2026. Please note that at this point all participant lines are in listen-only mode. After the call there'll be an opportunity to ask questions. So with this I'll now like to pass the line to Patricia Pérez, the Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead

Patricia Pérez (CFO)

Good morning everyone, and welcome to Banco Santander-Chile's fourth quarter 2025 results webcast and conference call. This is Patricia Pérez, CFO, and I'm joined today by Cristián Vicuña, Head of Strategy and Investor Relations, and Lorena Palomeque, our economist. Thank you all for joining us today as we review our performance and results for the fourth quarter. Lorena will begin with an overview of the economic environment, followed by Cristián who will walk you through our strategic priorities and fourth quarter results. We will then conclude with a Q&A session.

Lorena Palomeque (Economist)

Thank you. Throughout 2025, Chile's macroeconomic environment continued to improve gradually after several years of significant adjustments. Inflation maintained a clear downward trend and continued converging toward targets, which allowed monetary policy to move away from a clearly restrictive stance. As a result, financial conditions became progressively more supportive, helping to stabilize economic activity. Here on slide four we can see the regulatory and policy environment. A key development in 2025 was the implementation of the Mortgage Subsidy Law aimed to lower effective borrowing costs and supporting the recovery of housing demand. This measure is particularly relevant in a context where affordability constraints and higher interest rates have significantly affected mortgage origination in previous years. While the impact is gradual, it represents an important step toward reactivating a strategic sector for the economy. In parallel, there were important advances in the regulatory modernization agenda.

Progress on the Fintech and Open Finance Law established the foundations for greater data portability, stronger competition among financial institutions, and increased innovation in digital financial services. Over time, this framework should enhance efficiency, improve customer outcomes, and support the development of new financial solutions while maintaining appropriate risk management standards. In addition, initiatives such as the Sectorial Permits Law are designed to simplify and eliminate redundant regulatory approvals. By reducing administrative complexity and execution risks, these measures aim to lower barriers to investment and accelerate project development. Together with a continued focus on fiscal adjustment and spending efficiency, they contribute to a more predictable and sustainable policy framework. The new administration will assume office in March 2026 with an agenda that includes three economic policy initiatives that may provide additional stimulus to economic activity in the period ahead.

Based on public communications, we expect an emphasis on large-scale investment projects alongside efforts to simplify permitting process and technical requirements in order to reactivate key sectors of the economy. These measures could have positive spillovers for construction activity, housing supply, and private investment more broadly. Another potential initiative is a reduction in the corporate tax rates. Currently, Chile's corporate tax rates stand at 27%, and President-elect Kast has indicated an initial target of reducing it to 23%. This would help improve competitiveness and attract domestic and foreign investment. Any such changes would likely be phased in another several years to mitigate fiscal impacts. In parallel, the administration has highlighted the importance of improving spending efficiency and strengthening fiscal sustainability through enhanced budget allocation and expenditure review processes. It is important to note that the implementation of these initiatives will depend on congressional approval.

While the new administration is close to achieving a majority, legislative dynamics will play a key role in shaping the scope, timing, and final design of any policy changes. As we can see on slide five, one of the most encouraging developments in recent months has been the improvement in confidence. Business confidence followed a steady upward trend and moved gradually into optimistic territory at the beginning of 2026. Also, differences across sectors persist. Commerce confidence is now firmly in positive territory, while construction, one of the sectors most negatively affected since the onset of the pandemic, has shown a significant improvement in recent months. This matters because confidence is a key indicator for investment and credit demand.

What we are observing is an economy that is gradually shifting from a defensive stance toward a more constructive mindset in which companies begin to reactivate investment decisions, and households may start to incorporate this improved environment in their financial planning. On slide six, we can see how the economy has been performing and what we expect for the coming years. Chile remained on a growth trajectory despite a challenging external environment and a still fragile labor market. The economy is estimated to have expanded by 2.3% in 2025, driven by a recovery in domestic demand. In particular, economic activity benefited from a strong increase in investment, driven by the execution of large-scale investment projects in the mining and energy sectors. In contrast, residential construction remains under pressure, meanwhile private consumption recovered gradually over the year.

Regarding inflation, after the implications associated with the adjustment of electricity tariffs at the beginning of the year, the Consumer Price Index followed a downward trajectory, closing the year at 3.5%. With inflation expectations well-answered in the medium-term and unlimited output gap, the central bank continued its normalization process, lowered the monetary policy rate to 4.5% in December 2025, and gradually approached its neutral level. The labor market gained some traction over the course of the year. Also, vulnerabilities remained. During the first half of the year, job creation was limited, but this shifted in the second half when employment began to increase. As a result, the unemployment rate closed the year at 8%, averaging 8.5% over the year, the same level as in 2024. For the next years, we expect labor market conditions to improve gradually as activity recovers.

Looking ahead to 2026, inflation is expected to remain marginally below the 3% target, while an additional cut to the monetary policy rate is anticipated in the first half of the year, taking it to an estimated neutral level of 4.25%. Economic activity is projected to expand between 2.1% and 2.4%, broadly in line with trend growth, before picking up in 2027. Even as global risk remains elevated amid geopolitical tensions and increasing economic fermentation, the local outlook appears more constructive. At the domestic level, expectations of a more market-friendly policy environment, combined with regulatory simplification and a stronger focus on competitiveness and investment, should translate into an improved business climate. This environment is supportive of a gradually recovering credit demand as confidence improves and financial conditions ease.

Importantly, this recovery is likely to be more balanced and sustainable than in previous cycles, supported by stronger macro fundamentals and a more resilient financial system. I will now hand over to Cristián for the rest of the presentation.

Cristián Vicuña (Head of Strategy and Investor Relations)

Thank you, Lorena. On slide 7, we outlined our strategy to create value for all stakeholders, anchored in our vision of being a digital bank with Work Cafés. Our focus remains on attracting and activating new clients, understanding their needs, and deepening engagement. We continue to target more than 5 million clients by 2026 while steadily increasing our active customers. At the same time, we're building a global platform that leverages artificial intelligence and process automation to scale efficiently. This supports lower cost per active client and reinforces operational excellence. Our goal is to sustain an efficiency ratio in the mid-30s or better, reflecting a disciplined and digital operating model. We are also broadening our transactional and non-credit fee-generating services. This supports double-digit fee growth and best-in-class recurrence, defined as fee income over structural operating expenses. As our client base grows, activity levels continue to increase, particularly in payments.

Our digital ecosystem encourages frequent and seamless interactions, strengthening engagement and loyalty. This growth is supported by strong CET1 levels, ensuring that expansion remains sound, responsible, and aligned with regulatory expectations. Together, this strategy positions us to deliver attractive value creation with ROEs above 20% and a dividend payout ratio of between 60%-70%. On slide 8, we can already see how our strategy over the last few years has succeeded in changing our income mix and creating a more efficient and profitable bank. Our key measure of value creation has been the strong growth in ROE, which has increased by more than 6 percentage points, more than double the improvements seen in the industry while maintaining solid capital ratios throughout the implementation of Basel III.

This has been supported by a 4 percentage point improvement in efficiency compared to 1 percentage point for the industry, reflecting disciplined cost control and the successful execution of our digital transformation. At the same time, fee income has increased from 15%-21% participation of our total revenues, driven by client growth and the expansion of non-credit services, including digital accounts, cards, asset management, brokerage, and acquiring. Industry revenue composition has remained broadly unchanged. This shift has driven our recurrence ratio to the best-in-class levels, now above 63%, well ahead of peers. We're very proud of the success of our study so far. As you will see later on, we are enthusiastic about the evolution of our results in the coming year. Now, in slide 10, we will take a closer look at the results this year.

As of December, the bank generated net income of CLP 1,053 billion, up 23% year-over-year. This resulted in a return on average equity of 23.5% and an efficiency ratio of 36%. Growth was supported by a 9% increase in fee income and an 8% rise in financial transactions. Mutual funds grew 7%, and the recurrence ratio reached 63.7% year to date. Net interest income, including readjustment income, increased 11% year-over-year, while NIMS remained stable at 4%. Our capital CET1 ratio stands at 11%, and we are provisioning a 60% dividend payout to be paid in April next year. We also began 2026 with a successful $500 million five-year 144(a) issuance at a rate of 4.55%. During the year, we received several important recognitions: Euromoney, Latin Finance, and The Banker, named us the best bank in Chile, while Global Finance recognized us as best bank for SMEs.

We also strengthened our sustainability profile. Our MSCI ESG rating, improving from A to AA, and our sustainability score, improving to 15.4 levels. On slide 11, we show the evolution of the quarterly ROE. We have consistently maintained ROEs above 21%, even in quarters with lower inflation. In the most recent quarters, UF variation was 0.61%, and ROE reached 21.9%. On a yearly basis, net interest income increased 10.9%, driven by a lower cost of funding, which improved by approximately 100 basis points year on year. As a result, year to date, NIMS reached 4%. Slide 12 highlights the continued expansion of our client base and its impact on fee generation. We now serve close to 4.6 million clients, with 58% active and approximately 2.3 million digital clients accessing our platforms monthly.

Current accounts increased 9% year-on-year, supporting 5% growth in active clients and 7% growth in total clients. This translated into a 15% increase in credit card transactions and a 7% increase in mutual fund volumes. Client satisfaction remains high across our products. We also continue to expand our corporate footprint, increasing business current accounts by 19% over the last 12 months, driven by simple business account and integrated payment solutions through Getnet. As shown on the right-hand table, higher client activity translated into 8.5% year-on-year growth in fees and financial transaction income, with card to Getnet account fees and mutual funds showing strong momentum. On slide 13, the income growth and disciplined cost control supported strong operating metrics.

The efficiency ratio reached 36%, the best in the Chilean banking industry in 2025, while the recurrence ratio reached 63.7%, meaning more than 60% of our expenses are covered by fee generation. Operating expenses increased temporarily in early 2025 due to cloud migration costs. For the full year, operating expenses grew just 1.6%. In the quarter, total core expenses declined 1%, driven by lower administrative costs, reduced data processing expenses, and the appreciation of the Chilean peso. Overall, we continue to deliver best-in-class efficiency and recurrence, and at the same time, we are evolving our branch network toward the Work Café, improving efficiency and customer experience supported by continued enhancements to our digital platforms. On slide 14, we show an overview of our cost of risk and asset quality. As in prior quarters, cost of credit remains above the historical average.

The bank has been actively managing different parts of the portfolio, increasing loan restructuring that is reflected in the increase in the impaired ratio, while our non-performing loans with 90 days' overdue or more have stabilized. On slide 15, we can see that the CET1 ratio reached 11% in December, far above our minimum requirement of 9.08% for December 2025, and demonstrating about 50 basis points of capital creation since December 2024. This was driven by our income generation in 2025 and considers a 60% dividend provision of our 2025 profits and a 2% increase in risk-weighted assets. Our capital ratios are now fully loaded, with complete implementation of capital deductions in the Basel III Chilean framework. In January of 2026, the regulator published the current Pillar II charges for the Chilean banks, where we were assigned a Pillar II charge of 13 basis points.

This is a reduction from the original 25 basis points that were assigned last year, demonstrating our solid management. Of the 13 basis points of Pillar II charges, about 8% must be met with Core Equity Tier One Cut. So on slide 17, we show our guidance for 2026. For this year, we're expecting a GDP growth of a low 2%, as Lorena already mentioned, with a UF variation just below the 2.9% and an average monetary policy rate of around 4.3%. We anticipate a more favorable business environment this year, supporting mid-single-digit loan growth with a stronger rebound in the second half of the year. Despite the slightly lower inflation, loan growth and slightly lower rates will help to sustain our NIMs on 4% levels, while our fees and financial transactions should grow mid to high single digits.

This does not include any impact for a further interchange fee reduction, which is yet to be defined by the Interchange Fee Commission. Our efficiencies should remain around the mid-30s, while our cost of credit should continue to improve gradually to reach around 1.3% for the full year. Based on these assumptions, our expectations for 2026 are for an ROE within the range of 22%-24%, highlighting the strong profitability of Santander-Chile. With this, I finish the presentation, and we can start the Q&A session.

Operator (participant)

Thank you very much. We'll now move to the Q&A part of the call. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star two if you're connected from the phone and wait to be prompted. It is star two if you're connected from the phone. And if you're connected from the web, you can also ask a voice question. We'll wait a few moments for the questions to come in. Okay. Our first question is from Ernesto Gabilondo from Bank of America. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Ernesto Gabilondo (Senior Financial Equity Analyst)

Thank you. Hi, good morning, Patricia, Lorena, Cristián, and all your team. Thanks for the opportunity to ask questions. My first question will be on the economic and political outlook. We have been hearing that there could be the possibility to reduce the statutory tax rate and also to reduce the credit cap limit. Any color on what you are hearing also will be very helpful. My second question is on your loan growth expectations. You were guiding between mid-single-digit, around that. Just wanted if you can break down in terms of how much we expect for each segment, also very useful. For my last question, is in the sale of Getnet, I don't know if you can provide more details on the implications behind it. I don't know if you obtain an amount of cash from this transaction.

Any more details will be helpful. Thank you.

Cristián Vicuña (Head of Strategy and Investor Relations)

Thank you, Ernesto, for the questions. So I'll pass the word first to Lorena for the economic-political outlook, and then Patricia will comment on asset expansion. I'll get the last question from Getnet.

Lorena Palomeque (Economist)

Yes. For the political and economic outlook, it's important to restate that we correct growth projections for 2026 and 2027 upward, mainly due to, on one side, improvement of copper prices, prospects, and better performance of trading partners and, of course, the dynamics of internal demand. But on the political side, we expect that the new government. We have a transition period, and tax reduction could take some time. So we expect the effects more in 2027 and in the second half of this year than in the short term.

Cristián Vicuña (Head of Strategy and Investor Relations)

Right. Regarding the credit card limit discussion, we believe that that's going to take longer to get discussed in Congress, so that we don't expect anything going on in 2026 regarding that change. It will be welcome news for the industry and for the benefit of the Chilean economy in general terms, but I believe it's going to take a while for that to get discussed.

Patricia Pérez (CFO)

Regarding the loan growth for this year, as Cristián mentioned, our guidance for this year is to be around mid-single digits, both for the industry and our bank. Assumptions behind this guidance are consistent with a macro that improves gradually within the year. First of all, on the consumer side, we are seeing steady growth, mainly in auto lending, though weaker demand still for installment loans that we are expecting to improve during the year. Regarding commercial portfolio, we already have seen a reactivation in investment in mining and a better investment cycle together with recent improvements in confidence, as Lorena showed us. However, this has not yet translated into stronger growth. But during the year, this should boost commercial lending, especially in large companies and other parts of the economy as well, and also help to drive higher consumer lending.

And finally, regarding mortgages, we have also seen gradual improvements in the demand during the year in line with better conditions in the construction segment, also the mortgage subsidy launched on May last year. And going forward, we are expecting better trends, especially in the affluent segment. All in all, we think we are well positioned in terms of liquidity and capital as well to support a higher growth scenario. In addition, we also think we benefit from the scale and synergy generated by being part of Santander Group, leveraging shared platforms and international market expertise from the global and local teams as well.

Cristián Vicuña (Head of Strategy and Investor Relations)

Thanks. Regarding the Getnet question, so we had a shareholders' meeting last week that considered an offer from Getnet Payments to acquire the minority stake of Getnet Chile in order to formalize a strategic partnership. The main goal is to strengthen the Getnet Chile position in a payments market that we believe it's increasingly competitive, both technologically and requiring global integrations. Bringing in large international players will allow us to access those capabilities, such as continuous innovation, scale, globally proven functions, and the international network that opens new business opportunities for our acquiring operation. It's very relevant that we are keeping control and the majority of the board, ensuring business continuity, indebtedness, strategic continuity while managing the business. And at the same time, we're adding a partner that accelerates growth and strengthens the efficiency and leadership for the next stage that we're seeing on the market.

So we think this is a decision to strengthen GetNet's future and create value that will benefit all shareholders. Regarding the transaction, we included an initial payment of CLP 68 billion and a service agreement under which Banco Santander provides infrastructure, staff equipment, and data processing to sell GetNet solutions. And Santander will receive. Banco Santander-Chile will receive the equivalent of 10% of the net operating revenues for the next 7 years with an automatic extension of that contract for additional 3 years. So all in all, we assessed about 65%-70% of the total net income of GetNet will go straight to Banco Santander-Chile for. So the impact in terms of P&L is negligible. And well, we had the meeting last week.

So the transaction was approved with the quorum was very close to 95% of total shares, and it was approved by close to 87% of the participants. Out of those, 29% were minority shareholders, and then majority of the minority shareholders voted in favor of the transaction. Chilean regulation requires that all shareholders must vote on the shareholders' meeting to achieve the quorums required by the law. So that's why the group also was forced to vote. But we had a very strong support from the minority base of shareholders. So that's pretty much regarding Getnet.

Ernesto Gabilondo (Senior Financial Equity Analyst)

Oh, very, very helpful. Thank you very much, Patricia, Lorena, and Cristián.

Operator (participant)

Thank you very much. Our next question is from Lindsey Shema from Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Lindsey Shema (Equity Research Associate)

Hi. Good morning, Patricia, Cristián, and Lorena. Thank you for taking my question. Just first, your 2026 guidance implies just a slight improvement in cost of risk. Just want to hear where you see that coming from and your projections for asset quality throughout the year. My second question is just we saw expenses falling year-over-year in this fourth quarter, and you mentioned some efficiency improvements you've been doing that can lower your efficiency ratio long term. Just wanted to get some more color on improvements you've been making there and how you see expense growth progressing going forward. Thank you so much.

Cristián Vicuña (Head of Strategy and Investor Relations)

Thank you, Lindsey, for your questions. Regarding risk, well, 2025 was in the neighborhood of the 1.4 cost of risk for this operation, and we are expecting that to improve to levels of 1.3 area. We did a relevant job in terms of improving NPLs in the commercial portfolio last year. And apart from the agro sector, we don't expect many, many new pieces of information from that part of the portfolio. So all in all, we are seeing a more sustainable and controlled cost of risk looking forward. In terms of, we saw a slight pickup, as I already mentioned, in December figures due more to seasonality on the start of the summer holidays that put some pressure on the collection teams by contact ability, but nothing that we are seeing very concerning.

At the same time, the mortgage portfolio, which has been increasing in MPL, is not going to pass through as cost of risk, and we expect this to start improving this year gradually. It's going to take a while because the judicial process of collections is taking longer. All in all, we don't expect this to pass through to cost of risk. That's why we are more comfortable guiding a slight improvement this year. To your question on expenses, the way to look at this is that we aim to control the growth in our expense base by trying to deliver inflation expansion or inflation + 1%. That's what we are seeing in the long term as an internal target.

We are addressing this through a strong confirmation in our technological platforms, improving efficiency, getting rid of routine tasks that can be avoided, and implementing new solutions and new technologies. And we are delivering some initial things on artificial intelligence that we're probably going to allow us to sustain on these trends. We are not expecting very relevant changes in the network size of us, so just slight modifications, maybe opening one or two new formats in Work Café and renovating some part of the legacy branch that we still have some 90 branches over there. But to your point regarding the improvement in the final part of the year, well, there was a relevant peso appreciation, and about 25% of our administrative expenses are linked to Euro and U.S. dollar currencies.

So that's also explaining a little, but it's also part of the whole story of how we are trying to achieve the best levels of efficiency in the Chilean industry. So thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question is from Yuri Fernandes from JPMorgan. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Yuri Fernandes (Managing Director)

Thank you. Hi, Patricia, Lorena, Cristián. Quick one just on the guidance, just checking if the guidance includes the reduction on Getnet stakes. I know it's small, but if you can remind us what is the relevance for ROE, and especially for the known NII guidance. This year, I guess you grew your fees closer to high single. I think the guidance shows a little bit of a slowdown, but not sure if this is Getnet or maybe multiple funds that were also very strong, maybe being a little bit more normalized. So just trying to understand if the guidance reflects Getnet. I understand it still needs to deconsolidate, so maybe you still consolidated 100% of Getnet for a few more quarters, but just trying to get some color on this. On your presentation yeah, go ahead. I can ask another one later. Thank you.

Cristián Vicuña (Head of Strategy and Investor Relations)

Okay. Well, regarding your questions, and thank you for that, in terms of the fee figures, you're not going to see any changes. You're going to see an increase in the final part of the P&L in the minority stake, in the net income assigned to minority shareholders, right? So that's where you're going to see an increase in that line that will be an effect that it's less than 1% of the total P&L of the company through the sale of this subsidiary. So it's nothing that's going to be seen as material in terms of ROE. Well, consistently, this should be in the neighborhood of 20 basis points of ROE, so we are not changing guidance for this matter, and it's included in the 22%-24% range. So you had another question, Yuri?

Yuri Fernandes (Managing Director)

Yeah. No, no. That's clear. So basically, it's, and sorry for that today. It should be a minority interest, the delta here. I have just another follow-up on the SME business. On slide 13, Cristián, you showed the NPS of SMEs, and you pointed at 37. And you are the first here. Probably, you are the best one, but 37 looks a little bit low for NPS. So just checking if the number is correct and if this is the real number, if you are happy with this number or if you are working to improve, that would be mine.

Cristián Vicuña (Head of Strategy and Investor Relations)

Well, in general terms, SME NPS in the local industry, it's slower. It's slower, and it's in the area of the 33-37 range for most of our peers. We track this with the same methodology consistently along the years, so nothing has changed on that side. We are trying to get to levels closer to 50, but the reality of the industry here in Chile is that all in all, NPSs in the SME area tend to be lower.

Yuri Fernandes (Managing Director)

Okay. No, thank you. And my final one here, just a broad one regarding the parent company and Santander-Chile, do you see any other business area where there could be synergies and optionalities similar to Getnet? Just trying to understand if we could see further partnerships like on investment bank. We already have, I guess, insurance, right, and asset management, but just trying to understand if there are other areas that could be synergies with the parent. Thank you.

Cristián Vicuña (Head of Strategy and Investor Relations)

So all in all, as a group and their operations in Chile, I think pretty much most of the pieces are in place. So you mentioned Santander Asset Management. We already have, and we acquired from a previous partner a couple of years ago. And actually, we control too the Santander Consumer Finance operation. That's another subsidiary of the bank. We, of course, leverage the partnership with the Santander Group through all the alliances that we can show as very, very effective and with great results in terms of the amount of new brands that we cover through the auto lender. So that's a good example of one area where we are tapping into the group resources. And the other part, it's direct acquisition that the Santander Group did in Chile, and it was announced in January where the group purchased an annuities company from Principal.

This is subject to regulatory approvals, and we expect that operation to be fulfilled by mid this year, so very close to third quarter. Well, there are some natural complements between annuities companies in the Chilean market and banks as we banks tend to originate longer. We have a very good capability of originating longer assets, but it's getting more expensive for us to store them, and those assets are quite interesting for companies like the one that was recently announced to be acquired. So I think that's pretty much the state of the art. We don't expect many moving parts going forward, and the group needs to integrate this new acquired operation into the area of control. So that's what I

Yuri Fernandes (Managing Director)

No, no. That's clear. On annuities, can the local banks own annuity companies in Chile, or you can't? Similar to insurance.

Cristián Vicuña (Head of Strategy and Investor Relations)

No, no. Capital from banks must be completely isolated from annuities companies. So we have to remain we have to control those businesses completely separated, and that's why it was the Santander Group that purchased that company.

Yuri Fernandes (Managing Director)

Okay. No, no. Thank you. Thank you, Cristián.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question is from Neha Agarwala from HSBC. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Neha Agarwala (SVP)

Hi. Thank you for taking my question. We are hearing about some discussions around removing interest rate caps for consumer lending. And given that you've been historically very strong in the mass market segment, how do you weigh that opportunity? And also, if you have any clarity as per that discussions, and how could that impact Santander-Chile? I'll ask my next question later.

Cristián Vicuña (Head of Strategy and Investor Relations)

So hi, Neha. Thank you for the question. Interest rate caps have relevant limits on the ability in Chilean banks to charge interest rates to customers. So credit cards are capped at 40%, and the typical auto lender will be lending on the area of 20%-22%, and so on. So it's a fine on different sorts of products, sizes of the credit, and durations. There is an early discussion regarding whether the system needs amendments on the definition of interest rate caps, but it's too early to say when this discussion is going to go from the government to the economic commissions in Congress to be discussed. So we don't expect pretty much this thing getting approved this year. We think it's too early to tell.

We need first for the Kast administration to take office, and then they will announce what the schedule is going to be like and what their priorities are going to be. We believe that it will be or it would be good news in terms of general bancarization access, especially for the part of the mass market, but we don't expect news to come on that front too soon.

Neha Agarwala (SVP)

Perfect. Very clear. Regarding your loan growth expectation, we are expecting the Kast administration to take office, and after that, maybe we could see a pickup in investments in general, which could improve the sentiment and the loan growth. Is that scenario already incorporated into your guidance, or could that pose a little bit of upside risk, mostly in the second half?

Cristián Vicuña (Head of Strategy and Investor Relations)

So pretty much what we're seeing is a low 2% year, so something 2.3 in that area. So one times that plus inflation places you on the low 5% area. We're expecting something between 5% and 6% for the year. Remember that Kast administration will take office on March 11th, so we don't expect structural changes to be made, at least until the second quarter, maybe more skewed to the final part of the year. So the pickup that we're expecting in terms of growth for the economy in general are more skewed to the final part of 2026 and into 2027.

Neha Agarwala (SVP)

You account for that in your forecast, right?

Cristián Vicuña (Head of Strategy and Investor Relations)

Yeah. Yeah. That's what we are considering in the forecast.

Neha Agarwala (SVP)

Perfect. Thank you so much.

Operator (participant)

Thank you very much. Just a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, it's star two if you're connected from the phone, and you can also ask a voice question from the web. Our next question is from Ewald Stark from BICE. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Ewald Stark (Equity Research Analyst)

Hi. Thanks for taking my question. I have two questions. The first one is if you can provide any details regarding your expectations for risk-weighted assets density for the year-end. The second is regarding sensitivity to inflation. It seems like sensitivity to inflation has decreased based on monthly financial results. Those are my two questions. Well, what do you expect going forward regarding net income from indexation units relative to inflation?

Patricia Pérez (CFO)

Okay. Thanks, Ewald, for your question. Regarding the risk-weighted assets for this year and the density, with a mid-single-digit growth in loans during this year, we are expecting, consistent with that scenario, a growth in risk-weighted assets around 2% for this year. That will keep the density within this level, assuming that the proportion of the growth is what we already mentioned in our loan growth projection, right? So that is our base scenario for RWAs. Regarding inflation for this year, we are considering an AVERAX exposure to inflation of around CLP 8.5 billion, which means around 15 basis points of sensitivity to every 100 basis points in inflation, right? So it is true that by the end of the year last year, we reduced our exposure given the low CPI prints that we had. The average for this year will be around CLP 8.5 billion in our base scenario.

Cristián Vicuña (Head of Strategy and Investor Relations)

Right. Could you clarify, Ewald, what do you mean by the net income from indexation?

Ewald Stark (Equity Research Analyst)

Well, if you decompose net interest margin, the NII is composed of two main elements: the net interest and the component of inflation. Yes.

Cristián Vicuña (Head of Strategy and Investor Relations)

Yeah. So regarding the readjustment part of the NII that you're mentioning, as Patricia already mentioned, we are carrying about 15 basis points sensitivity per 100 basis points of inflation movements, right? So that's pretty much in the area of the 8 billion loan inflation. So pre-tax, it will mean about $80 million per 100 basis points of inflation.

Ewald Stark (Equity Research Analyst)

Perfect. Let me check if I got this right. You expect risk-weighted assets density to mildly decrease throughout the year because they are going to increase by 2%, while assets will be growing by close to 5% given your expectations for loan growth?

Patricia Pérez (CFO)

Yeah. Right. If we assume that our density maintains during the year, an increase of 5% in loan portfolio will imply around 2%-2.5% risk weighted assets growth during the year.

Ewald Stark (Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. Perfect. Thanks. Thank you so much.

Cristián Vicuña (Head of Strategy and Investor Relations)

Thank you for your question.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We have a follow-up from Yuri from JP Morgan. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Yuri Fernandes (Managing Director)

Thank you for the opportunity again, guys. Just going back to the Getnet, a curiosity I have here regarding the appraisal reports, and I know it's not the company, right? But some of the appraisals, they had a little bit, in our view, a little bit conservative revenue CAGRs ahead, right? I guess revenue for Getnet should be growing 5% until 2035, net income decreasing minus 15% CAGR until 2035. Just understand, is this the view of the company? When we see your fee guidance and thinking about the total for Getnet, should we assume even more competitive environment, changing industry? This is the reality? Should Getnet grow revenues at 5% going forward? Thank you.

Cristián Vicuña (Head of Strategy and Investor Relations)

So, well, you mentioned that, well, that's for the long run in terms of what was in the different documents displayed some stronger still growth in the first two years. But actually, to your point, we believe that the industry is facing relevant transformations, right? So on the one side, some recent news have talked about how Trans bank now can renegotiate all the fee structure that were locked in by some court rulings. So that will create a relevant pickup in terms of competition from the largest player in the industry. At the same time, we've seen some M&A happening of Itaú and the initiation of the acquiring operation of Banco de Chile. And we also saw the Chilean Central Bank authorizing a chamber of payments that will provide functionality for instant payments in a similar way to PIX for the startup environment.

All of this is on the umbrella of upcoming changes in the regulation that are already approved, such as the open finance law. We are seeing a super intensive change in the way the industry is configured. We are seeing a relevant increase in competition. And as such, we expect that the economic drivers that were part of the success of the growth of Getnet for the last four years are changing as we speak in terms of now we'll be competing with more and more relevant competitors and not only an incumbent that had the hands locked by some court rulings. This is why we believe that it was the right time to incorporate the strategic partnership with PagoNxt to support the efficiency and the growth prospects of Getnet through the capability to enter into some cross-border transactions that we can get through this partnership.

That's pretty much the main key beliefs that are behind the transactions and that we have been seeing materializing in the last 2-3 months. Thank you, Yuri.

Yuri Fernandes (Managing Director)

No, no. That's a good answer, Cristián. Thank you. So basically, maybe the near-term, you still are doing fine, but competition is building up. So who knows what's going to happen, but it's likely that maybe we're going to see a more challenging environment for Getnet. I guess that's the summary, right?

Cristián Vicuña (Head of Strategy and Investor Relations)

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you.

Yuri Fernandes (Managing Director)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Looks like we have no further questions. I will now hand it back to the Santander-Chile for the closing remarks.

Patricia Pérez (CFO)

Thank you all very much for taking the time to participate in today's call. We look forward to speaking with you again soon.

Operator (participant)

We'll now be closing on the lines. Thank you and have a nice day.

Patricia Pérez (CFO)

Thank you.