Banco Santander (Brasil) - Q4 2025

Transcript

Camila Toledo (Head of Investor Relations)

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for our fourth quarter 2025 earnings video conference call. We are live from our headquarters in São Paulo, and we will divide this event into three parts. First, Mário Leão will address the main highlights of the quarter and the directions for our growth in the coming periods. Next, Gustavo Alejo will provide a detailed analysis of our performance, and finally, we'll have our Q&A session. I will now give you some instructions. We have three audio options on the screen: all the content in Portuguese, all the content in English, or the original audio. To choose your option, just click on the button in the bottom center of your screen. To ask a question, click on the Raise Hand icon at the bottom of your screen.

The presentation we are about to give is now available for download on our IR website. Now, I'll turn the floor to Mário to start the presentation. Good morning, Mário.

Mario Roberto Opice Leão (CEO)

Good morning, Camila. Good morning, everyone. It's a great pleasure for me to be here to give you the wrap-up of 2025, because 2026 is already in its second month. I would like to start by highlighting the main numbers. As you can see, we deliver a sequential performance or net income of BRL 4.1 billion, you know, almost 6% year-on-year and 1.9% quarter-on-quarter. So we maintain profitability at 17.6%, meaning that with everything that I will tell you further on, we will see that this is an intermediary step in our journey towards 20+ of profitability, and we can elaborate more on that further on.

We do that with a growing customer base, about 4.5 million clients. We will tell you that it's 64 million, rounding it up. The main thing that we will tell you about has to do with an NII that grows 0.8 in the quarter, and year-on-year is down due to the markets, and this is something that we've been telling you for quite some time. Market NII, as Gustavo will elaborate further, it's a bit more negative quarter-on-quarter, and this has a rationale behind it. Our, you know, overview for 2026 is better, but in terms of clients, there was a quarterly evolution that was up by 4.6, and there are further opportunities to improve it even further.

Our quarterly delivery is 3.6, quite positive in an annual comparison, slightly above, and we will see 3.6, you know, in details in some fee lines that are very key to what we are doing with our clients, strategically speaking. Our expense management in the quarter grew nominally, but quarter-on-quarter is impacted by the collective bargaining. Now we are 3 months ahead, in addition to, you know, seasonality, marketing expenses, et cetera. So despite this nominal growth in the quarter, year-on-year, the number was negative. That means, I mean, and we've been talking a lot about you, about how we are managing this line. I mean, certainly, this is what we control even more. I mean, efficiency ratio is up because of relationship amount markets, and we are, you know, earmarking our expenses, but we are in the right track.

Macro expenses remain the same. We're not changing the strategy. We are very disciplined in terms of managing our operation, very resilient. This is beyond just a quarter or a year. It's a midterm journey, but we are moving quite well in this direction, and we are constantly moving ahead little by little. The management levers are the same, the golden rules that we often talk about. We will highlight some of them further on. But as you know, the core of the strategy is our, you know, transformation of customer journey and primary relationship. Customer centricity, I already talked about the total number. At this point, we have more than 74 million clients.

Not only we are looking for, you know, looking to increase the number of customers, but we want them to be more active, to be more transactional, and this will allow us to be the primary bank of these clients. So we are focusing on these two levers, and one being hyper-personalization and the other one being AI. I mean, as for hyper-personalization, we highlight something quite positive, because in my view, 60% of all interactions we have with clients in the channels, all channels, not only digital, they are already hyper-personalized. Meaning that I speak to a client knowing name, last name, the way they like to be treated or spoken to.

We know the context behind the relationship that we have with the client, access to market, and with all of that, I have a context-driven conversation, and I know what the client needs to be unique. So this is, you know, the issue of having a primary client. We made important advances last year. There is a new app also that I will talk about soon, and there is also what we call the customer interaction platform, because it is our new CRM, but something much broader than CRM, that allows us to integrate all of the information about the client, market information, while at the same time we personalize campaigns. Between notifications, banners, and products, we are making important advances. Last year, not only we deployed all of that, but we conducted more than 1,400 campaigns that are hyper-personalized.

Also, we are intensifying the use of AI. Certainly, AI has one side, that is what we call AIs for efficiency, the use of AI to, to make the bank more efficient, to improve processes, to reduce manual processes and operating costs. We have ombudsman and fraud. In these two areas, volume is important. We have to be more efficient and to serve customers better. There is also AI for growth, meaning how AI can help us to improve our business, to, to enhance primary relationship with clients. There are some examples, one being Pitch Maker. That is the first tool that we launched in the midst of last year for our AAA and investment advisory system, and then we also bring there, that to our Select segment.

In 30 seconds, in only 30 seconds, we can, we can have a personalized pitch, allowing experts to address clients in a much more direct manner, instead of, you know, taking half an hour to recover emails and to look at the systems. But we can do that in only 30 seconds, meaning that the interaction level is much better. This is just an example. Now, to give you some business highlights, I will talk about consumer finance, transactionality, payments, and then I will talk about investments and corporate. I mean, consumer finance, we are very proud of our franchise.

Maybe this is one of the jewels of our crown. Last year, we posted a record year in our consumer finance because we grew the portfolio, we grew top line, bottom line. But more than that, and behind that, we are increasing and enhancing customer experience.

I mean, our consumer finance is our oldest business, so this is a journey of 90. Of course, the consumer finance focuses on finance, of course, you know, granting credit, but we are growing the capability of granting loans. We also offer insurance, auto insurance. There are many new insurances that we launched. You know, in terms of insurance and fees, we were up 73% year-on-year from a base of 100. Therefore, the consumer finance posted continuous progress. Again, we had a very good year last year, and we trust the business, and we know what we have to do in 2026. The middle column talks about a very central topic that is part of our everyday operation, and it has to do with the customer journey, and this involves payment and transactionality together.

This has been our focus for quite some time. We've been investing here. We delivered new journeys last year. We are bringing here, trazer dinheiro, bring money in open finance. This is a very simple journey. I'd say that is one of the simplest in the market for, you know, corporate and SMEs. We talk to clients and what they have in other organizations, financial organizations, so we encourage them to bring that to us in a simple click. You know, we give them, you know, additional overdraft capability. We want to post progress in Pix. All of the journeys related to Pix, you know, puts us in the industry standard, and with that, we increase volume. Even in the low income segment, we are, you know, advancing, even if credit appetite is low for low income.

We are growing 26% in fees in two years. Cards, we grew close to 20, 17%. But when we look to the right and look at investments, I will start with what is the last topic. In low income, we are growing deposits. So deposits grew by 24% in two years, and in high income, even more, 34. What I would like to say is that in that journey, that is pluriannual, to improve the funding of the book and to close that in retail, we reached an important landmark last year to reach 50/50 between corporate and individuals. It's not the end of the journey, probably the mid part of the journey. In 2023, it was 27.43. We are interacting a bit more, and this number was still higher in companies and lower in individuals, but now we are reaching a balance.

But obviously, this has to go on, so we have to reach at least 60% in companies and—I mean, in individuals and companies, more, you know, small and large companies. Now, here, Santander Empresas or companies, I already said that we have small and mid-sized companies that should double in a year. Of course, we have the necessary capital, teams, and offerings. We will grow disproportionately, as it has been the case in the past few years, but we want to do more. It won't be linear; it will be in all segments. Macro is an important element, and we'll take that into account. But in terms of our directions, we want to grow a lot more here. And to that end, we segmented things.

We segmented all the groups of customers per income in a much more surgical way, much more dynamic, and with that, our offering and our model to serve will be even more earmarked and dedicated. For small companies, we no longer have an expert in the bank. We have micro regions, and that's when you look at the map of Brazil, this is an actual map when we have all of our micro regions. As you can tell, we are scattered around Brazil. We had a campaign last year where the bank went out of the bank. We don't want a manager sitting at a desk with a desktop and waiting to talk to a client. I mean, the manager or the expert has to step out of the bank and call on customers, and these calls are more frequent.

They bring more NPS, better business, and a better portfolio quality. On the right-hand side, we talk about the offerings. Get is playing a more important role. It's a combined offering. Get is a separate company, is no longer part of Santander Brasil. In terms of business, it is very much present in the bank. It is part of an integrated approach, of an integrated solution, and we are certainly becoming stronger with this partnership. In addition to that, we are making progress with the [corporate] channels. We are working in the, you know, company arm of that, you know, and very soon we'll be able to talk more about it. We have a new brand positioning that's been around for about a year and a half. We are making great progress with a major campaign.

And finally, we're very much dedicated to what I mentioned before, and that is the rewards journey. And we will tell you more about how we are trying to engage both companies and individuals in the journey. To conclude my part and before I give the floor to Gustavo, this is just a zoom in into the subject. Since this is a topic that we've been delivering quite well, and we will certainly be focused on doing so, doing the same thing throughout this year, and I'm referring to our efficiency journey. In two years, and again, if you go, you know, a little bit further, you know, down that journey, in two years, we grew revenue by 17%. In the same period, our expenses grew by 5%. If we were to eliminate inflation, it will be minus 4%. But let's talk about...

I mean, let's leave actual evolution on the side by now. Growing 17% against 5% growth in expenses, this is quite positive, and this gives the bank some operating gains. But the way we invested the 5% is even more important, in my view. We grow in expansion and technology 16% over the past 2 years. That means where the bank has to grow and where the bank has to transform itself and engage customers even more. So we are growing 17, and this is spending funded with quote, unquote, you know, while the entire rest of the bank is at 0, so we have an aggregated view of 5, which is quite good, plus a very healthy mix, in my view.

The mindset to look for a bank that converts, that has a mindset of nominal gain, of a minimal, nominal expenses of zero, I mean, quarter and quarter or annually, you know, it was negative. But now I have two things that stem from them, is that our cost to serve was down both for high income, because they don't need as much because of the income and mass income, which is crucial. I've been referring to our mass income or low income segment. We need a much better cost equation to be feasible.

Of course, the portfolio or the credit mix has to be very healthy, and we are working in both directions, but we see a 43% reduction in two years, but obviously, we can do more. Productivity also increased. And on the right-hand side, I mentioned a few pillars.

I mean, the list could be much longer, but I talked about the technological spectrum that allows us to do that. So we are working together with the central bank on the Gravity project, and we will talk more about it, but this is a much more modern and efficient way to process the bank. I mean, we are leaving the mainframe and going towards a lower platform model that consumes much less and is much more dynamic in terms of management. We need that in many other large geographies. Brazil is one of the largest and very complex part is our credit card platform. It's already fully implemented for credit, and so this is a major step towards, you know, enhancing our efficiency.

And One App makes us proud. We have more than 15 million customers that migrated to One App, and it's a very active platform. Now in 2026, we will deploy new versions within the same core plan. With that, we will grow—we will enhance engagement in this new app that has been totally refurbished and remodeled, that was launched early this year. With that, I'll ask Gustavo to come and comment on the numbers, and I'll come back for the Q&A. Thank you.

Gustavo Alejo Viviani (CFO)

Thank you, Mário. Good morning, everyone. In line with what we have presented in previous quarters, we continue to make consistent progress across all lines and businesses, reflecting our dynamic portfolio management and ongoing focus on increasing risk-adjusted profitability in our operations. We remain cautious in grant credit, which translates into selective growth of our products, while it's prioritizing greater client loyalty and transactionality. I highlight the positive evolution of the main portfolios in the year-over-year comparison, with cards growing 13.4%. Also, another highlight is consumer finance, up 13%, and small and medium-sized enterprises also growing 13% year-on-year. With these increases, the relative shares of small and medium-sized enterprises, consumer finance and high-income individuals increased in the bank's local portfolio. That's very important in the mix. In retail banking, the focus remains on product mix and segmentation.

We continue to make consistent progress in lines with higher profitability, and continue to reduce exposure to higher risk profiles, as we have been saying in previous quarters. We still see room to accelerate growth in the high-income segment, and we continue to work to capture this growth. In large corporates, we continue to evolve positively, but always maintaining price discipline. On the funding side, its composition remains aligned with the strategy shown by Mário and the evolution we have seen, i.e., increasing retail share of funding, strengthening customer loyalty and transactionality. So what does that mean? The funding mix plan is evolving satisfactorily. In time deposits from individuals, we had a very favorable performance with an annual growth of close to 20%, which reinforces the evolution of our customer profile.

In turn, in demand deposits, we observed a reduction because there was a natural migration to time deposits. Client NII grew 1.6% in the quarter, and this increase was mainly explained by higher average volume of credit, which offset the lower number of business days in the period. In the annual comparison, NII growth was higher compared to credit volume, which demonstrates our discipline in pricing and the continuous optimization of the mix of assets and liabilities. With this more favorable mix, together with CDI increase, spreads increased in 12 months, as you can see. However, the quarter was impacted by fewer business days, a larger share of the non-interest bearing card portfolio, and an increase in different expenses of banking correspondents, an effect that has been gaining relevance over time.

These three effects combined account for more than 80% spread variation in the quarter, as you can see. In terms of market NII, we observed a slight improvement in asset management, combined with a deterioration in market making quarter on quarter. Fees performed more positively in the quarter, reflecting, of course, the seasonality, but with cards and insurance spending out. In cards, we had another positive quarter, driven by increased customer transactionality. Insurance, in addition to the seasonal renewal of a significant policy that we had, we saw an improved performance, also due to the strong commercial focus of our sales force and new products. In securities, brokerage and placement, despite a slight decline in the quarter, we posted significant growth in the second half of the year, supported by improved performance in debt issues. Now moving on to provisions.

We observed improved performance quarter-over-quarter, mainly reflecting two things: lower write-offs of losses, which I will discuss in a minute, and the absence of significant one-off effects, such as specific cases in wholesale. As mentioned in the second quarter, we anticipate write-offs of losses in operations with lower expectations of being recovered. Comparatively, in the first half of 2025, the volume of write-offs was 55% higher than in the second half. What does this mean? This has an effect on NPL over 90 days in Q3 and Q4 of the year. More precisely, in the fourth quarter, 25 basis points of the increase are explained by this effect. The other part of the increase in the over 90-day NPL relates to lower income segments, agribusiness, as well as operations guaranteed by government funds, which impact the delinquency rates for SMEs.

These operations structurally have lower levels of provisioning. Therefore, there is an increase in volume of the portfolio in Stage 2, but with lower coverage in the quarter, due to the better quality of the migrated credits. Despite the increase, the pressure observed in over 90-day NPL, we continue to see more well-behaved short-term delinquencies and a slight improvement in NPL formation. We recorded lower contribution from loan recoveries in the period due to increased activity of portfolio sales throughout the year. We continued to take a restrictive stance on renegotiations.

The increase observed in the renegotiated portfolio in the quarter is mainly due to the inclusion of transactions renegotiated before 30 days after default. So there has been no change in the renegotiation policy. Even after adjustments to underperforming portfolios, there may still be some additional pressure on quality indicators throughout the first half of 2026.

Still, we believe that this dynamic is consistent with the current stage of the cycle, and it is being addressed in an active and disciplined manner. The next slide shows the evolution of fixed assets. During the quarter, we saw the full effect of the new collective bargaining agreement, in addition to the typical seasonality of the period. Even so, we ended the year with expense growth below inflation as a result of our effective cost management. Higher expenses associated with business expansion and investment in technology were more than offset by reductions in recurring expenses. Over the last few years, we have demonstrated a truly solid management in terms of expense management and resource allocation. The one-off increase in expenses in Q4 impacted the efficiency ratio, but this is a seasonal effect, as I mentioned, rather than a structural effect. Comparing 2025 with 2024,...

We see an improvement of 100 basis points in the indicator, in this indicator. To conclude, I present our income statement. We ended the year with a 12.6% growth in profit and ROE of 17.6% in Q4, reflecting consistent revenue growth and controlled expenses. CET1 ended the year at 11.6%. Our loan book shows an increasingly better combination of risk and return, supported by well-balanced funding, as we've shown, in terms of instruments, customers, and prices. And this performance, even in a more challenging macroeconomic scenario, reinforces that, that the discipline with which we have, or reinforces the discipline with which we have managed our balance sheet in recent years.

It leaves us better prepared to face short-term volatility and sustains our trajectory of solid and sustainable profitability in the mid to long term. We will begin the Q&A session. Thank you.

Camila Toledo (Head of Investor Relations)

Thank you, Mario and Gustavo. We will now start the Q&A session. As a reminder, to participate, you need to click on the hand icon at the bottom of the screen. We will answer the questions in the language in which they are asked. We ask that each analyst asks only one question, please, so that everyone has an opportunity to participate. First question from Yuri Fernandes with JP Morgan. Yuri, good morning.

Yuri Fernandes (Equity Research Analsyt)

Good morning, Camila. Good morning, Mario and Gustavo. I think that Gustavo will stay one more quarter with us. I'd like to thank you for the partnership and wish you a lot of luck, Gustavo. I have a number of questions also related to other expenses, but let's focus on delinquency. SMEs delinquency. I think that there was some worsening in the delinquency ratio. I think that Gustavo actually mentioned that there was additional pressure. Mario mentioned that the cost of risk was not what he would like. It's not normalized. It should improve, perhaps not in 2026. So my question is, what's happening with the small mid-sized enterprises?

Santander stepped on the brakes before the others. You were more cautious. Is there a specific industry or level of company? I understand that high interest rates did not help, but this worsening drew my attention, both in short term and 90-day NPL. So any color you can give us would be more than welcome. Thank you.

Gustavo Alejo Viviani (CFO)

Thank you, Yuri, for the partnership. It's always good to be with you. Well, the pressure we saw in small and medium-sized enterprises is basically in the smaller companies, in the small enterprises. So we have felt some pressure there. It is more related to the size of the companies and less related to specific industries. We haven't seen any specific sector standing out, so it doesn't make sense to comment on any specific sector. It's more related to the size of the companies. The medium-sized enterprises are doing well, and the corporates, well, they operate with events. So for large companies, we don't see more, any more highlights. So it's basically smaller enterprises in the SME segment.

Mario Roberto Opice Leão (CEO)

And here I can add, Yuri. And thank you for the nice words. Here, I always try to make this very clear. SMEs is one of the lines of business that we believe in the most, that represents Brazil. Brazil is a big country of SMEs. It can be even bigger. I spoke about this in the board meeting, and I'll say it out loud today: We have an obligation to have the ambition to double this business. To double the bank's share is hard, because we don't control the other players, and no one is going to sit still. There are no fools in the market. But we want to have a business which is proportionally bigger than it is today. So we know we can do it.

We acknowledge that there's room for improvement, and we'll have the most impeccable execution to get there, which does not mean that it's gonna be done in a linear fashion.

If you do it in a linear fashion, it's based on an average. Although the whole segment is highly profitable, and even our small enterprises continue to have an aggregate profitability level above the famous ambition of 20/20+ return on equity that I have been talking about consistently, it's not that it fell below this, but since it has a potential and it should be running way above 20, when we see our most recent performance... That started in the last months of 2025, and we'll keep tracking that in Q1. We will see what kind of growth we wanna have, with which subclusters, so that we can continue with the average profitability of this segment well above 20%. We continue to believe in this segment. I think that this is more related to the macroeconomic context.

We are in our fifth year of a very high interest rate. Of course, this impacts the whole spectrum of enterprises. But the smaller enterprises, the ones that have less buffer, less size, or historical presence, they suffer more. Of course, we don't want to generalize, but this is something we are monitoring a lot, and we will calibrate our appetite so that we can grow in a disciplined and sustainable fashion. But it is a segment in which we believe in a lot. And thinking about PLL, does it make sense that PLL will grow more with the portfolio this year, Yuri? Again, as a re-reminder, we don't give a guidance, as you know, so I understand the reason for the question, the temptation to bring about that conversation. So I'm going to answer now based on the average.

We will look to evolve the portfolio in the healthiest way possible. Again, growing disproportionately in some business segments, and I mentioned just now that SMEs is one of them. High income is another one, and you can also test out these during the year. But at a price, deciding that our low income may be reduced throughout the year. Not that it may, it should. It doesn't mean it is not important. It doesn't mean that Santander is giving up low income. That's not the message. But Santander has more and more data and more and more technique, looking for an optimized low-income portfolio, which will be viable, healthy, and will be part of this ROTE healthy. So we'll grow the portfolio in a healthy way, and we want to have a PLL which is compatible with that.

A PLL, but which will not increase with portfolio growth. But PLL may still increase due to a carryover effect of the portfolio. In some subsegments, we can have provision for loan losses growing a little more, and that's why the mix is important, so that the whole mix of flow loans to grow the portfolio in a healthy way, continuing our de-risk, de-risking effort, which will continue in 2026, and in this aggregate, so that PLL will evolve in a more compatible way with the portfolio, although segments have different behavior patterns.

Yuri Fernandes (Equity Research Analsyt)

Thank you, Mário.

Camila Toledo (Head of Investor Relations)

So now we move on to Thiago Batista with UBS. Good morning.

Thiago Batista (Executive Director and Equity Analyst)

Good morning, Camila. Good morning, Mário and Gustavo. I mean, my question has to do with the answer you gave Yuri, related to retail and the journey transformation, plus the branches. When we look at it, I mean, you had a relevant reduction in the number of branches and stores, like almost 25% of your base. And last year, you said that the profitability of the mass income segment was even, you know, below what you had in mind. And now you told Yuri about this potential improvement in provisions in the mass income segment. My question is: What is relevant for you? How do you see the relevance of the branches in the midterm to serve this mass income segment or low-income segment, and if you can indeed have a return or ROTE of around 20?

Mario Roberto Opice Leão (CEO)

Thank you, Thiago, for the question. The answer is longer, but I'll try to be brief. What value do I see in the stores as, you know, part of the multi-channel offering to our, to our clients? I see that they still have a relevant role. They play a relevant role, but they have to be, you know, not so many stores, and they have to serve a different customer base. But let me say it differently. We are reducing the number of the stores, not for the mere fact that I want to reduce the cost. I mean, the output, I mean, is reduction. I become more efficient, and you can see that translated into, you know, net income. But that's not just related to the stores, otherwise we wouldn't reach that level of net income for that.

So it's not only about that. So we shut down the stores. I mean, I would rather say that we readjust our footprint, because the dynamics of the customers have changed. I mean, of course, depending on how you make the cuts, you know, in your year-on-year view, I mean, the number of people that visit us, visit the stores, is down by almost 70%. So the visit is much more concentrated on the ATMs rather than, you know, activities in the stores. So I don't need large spaces or even space per se, just to serve clients.

And since lower income clients are the ones that do not have a lot of, you know, elasticity or they don't have a such a big purchasing power or, you know, pay the banks or the platforms, we have to be very efficient. And, you know, do it in such a way that customers don't even have to go to the store so frequently. We are, we are still inaugurating new stores, but the focus has been on having two types of stores. What we call-

... A branch format store, this would be a traditional store, but much more modern, with a, you know, a high, table, good circulation, almost similar to stores that you see on shopping malls or out in the streets, which are also earmarked to serve low income, but they are different stores when compared to mass income. And the word cafes, they are like experience places. I mean, there's coffee, of course, and coffee is really good, I would say. And there is a lot of room to do business for clients and non-clients.

Therefore, the bank is focusing on having less stores. I mean, they have to be situated in some places because part of the channel is the physical channel, and the experience stores, which are very cool places, and we will grow the number of these spaces even more. So the store has a role to play, but it's no longer, you know, a focal place, because now this is digital. And then we have chat, the chat channel, because we want to include AI in the chat segment, because there is also the element of the human being.

But I have to have more humans in high income and AI for low income. And still speaking about profitability, and I've been talking about mass income segment for quite some time, but it's still our detractor in terms of profitability. This year, we will give an important step towards recovering profitability, but still, this will take probably two, three years until we reach the level we desire. Why does it take so long? That's a legit question, because from all of the portfolios, this is our longest portfolio.

The average duration of this portfolio is longer when compared to other portfolios. So it takes some time until you do the definite de-risking of the legacy or the older part, which is the most expensive part of the portfolio. It's in run off. I mean, we are looking at losses with sales of portfolios, but certainly, this requires demand, you know, tax management, and a series of things, but the de-risking takes some time. So we are still in the midst of this journey. It will take a few years until we accomplish, we get to what we want. I mean, if not 20, closing up to 20, and all of the rest should be way above of that. We have a blend of Santander Brasil, and certainly, we will have ROTE of 20% and recurring. You know, I'm sure that certainly this will not happen in 2026. I already tell you that. It's obvious, but it shouldn't be any time longer than that.

Thiago Batista (Executive Director and Equity Analyst)

Okay, thank you. Perfect.

Camila Toledo (Head of Investor Relations)

Next question is from Mario Pierri, with Bank of America. Good morning, Mario, and welcome.

Mario Pierri (Executive Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Good morning, guys. Congrats on your results. You cannot hear me? Can't you hear me? Oh, I'm sorry

Camila Toledo (Head of Investor Relations)

Good morning, Mario.

Mario Pierri (Executive Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Good morning. Congrats on your results. Mario, I would like to revisit one of the slides you showed that says that your, your tech expenses are growing 16%, whereas the other expenses are flat. I mean, how much more investment in technology we should expect going forward, and how do you think the bank is positioned vis-à-vis its peers in terms of tech investments? I would also like to have a better understanding, because when we talk to some of your peers, they talk a lot about deployment, putting AI in the credit models, and how this is allowing them to expand credit with lower delinquency.

During your comments, you said that you could use AI both for growth but also to gain efficiency. I mean, how are you deploying AI in your credit models, and whether you see a potential to improve the models to help accelerate credit growth?

Mario Roberto Opice Leão (CEO)

Great, Mário, thank you. I will start with the first part of your question, and then I'll ask Gustavo to answer the second part, and certainly, I can comment later on. I mean, as for expenses, that number 16 against 0, I mean, that means growth and technology. It's not only technology alone. Technology is certainly an important part of it, but that also includes expansion. So the term I used in the presentation is expansion. And what is that? Most of the time, it's people. When I talk about SMEs and the leap in small companies, in terms of micro regions, national coverage, and getting people out of the stores, I increased by 27% the number of people in charge of covering, you know, small companies, the S of the acronym, and that includes expansion.

So whenever I invest, it's our AAA with 2,000 people, you know, small companies, I have more than three to four. So I have dozens of people, and this headcount increased in the last few years, and this is part of expansion. Technology is certainly a relevant chunk of it. It's not 10%, it's much more, but we also have the expansion of the franchise. I mean, the compound effect comes up to 16. So we should see, I mean, the ratio should be different, but we should see the same dynamic going forward, because I will continue to invest in the bank's transformation.

I will continue to invest in the franchise where it needs to be invested. It's not that I will have to grow 27% every year for SMEs, but whenever I see that there is opportunity to improve the service model, and wherever I see profitability opportunities, I will invest, you know, unproportionally. I'm- I may have to flat out some investments so that the combined effect would be-

... That mindset of, you know, having a bank, not just to fight inflation, but we will fight inflation so much that we will reach a convergence point very close to zero. We will look for that, even though we, we'll continue to invest a lot in technology. You ask how much more we will invest? We still have to do a lot. We have to modernize legacy system, the core systems. The system I mentioned is just the mature evolution, but not a definite evolution of the way we process the bank.

So we want to remove the bank processing out of mainframe, because they consume expensive MIPS. I mean, it's there is also a monopoly in terms of the supply. We want to have a cheaper processing system, more based on platforms, which is much more dynamic and simple.

I think we will be able to deploy that until the end of the year. So little by little, we will be migrating the core systems. Of course, everything is already, you know, in the cloud, you know, AI data is in the cloud, but we still have to do the second phase, which is migrating the legacy system that will be in the platform, where we'll migrate to the new system. And this will involve heavy technology investment. But before Gen AI, you know, was a buzzword all over the place, we were using it already, you know, machine learning and AI in our risk model. So what we're doing, we are perfecting machine learning, something we always had, with Gen AI and with additional technologies that comes with it.

Gustavo Alejo Viviani (CFO)

Well, Marty, we have a very clear agenda that focuses on, you know, evolving, and evolving with AI and Gen AI, not only in terms of, you know, loan granting models, but we've been using AI in our recovery models as well. We connect all the models, and we are making good progress. We have a very clear agenda of how we can advance Gen AI in our models, but everything has its own risk appetite. We will have our models, and our models will deliver according to the risk appetite and LLP that we want.

Sometimes it's hard to compare, but we are making good progress. We just reinforce our teams. We have highly qualified people to help accelerate that, particularly in the risk area. And this will also lead to other progress in the operations, on the operations side. This is a process that is moving on quite well. It's important to separate what are the risk assets of every entity. I mean, we do have the capacity, we are enhancing this capacity, while at the same time, we have our own risk appetite, and we are monitoring LLP for every segment. Okay?

Mario Pierri (Executive Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Thank you very much.

Camila Toledo (Head of Investor Relations)

Next question from Eduardo Rosman with BTG Pactual. Rosman, welcome.

Eduardo Rosman (Senior Analyst)

Hello. Good morning. I would like to go back to the theme of low income. We saw a worsening of delinquency. I'd like to understand, do you envision a more generalized worsening, or is this linked to Santander itself? Because you're reducing the portfolio, and that might give you a worsening effect. We have seen the incumbent banks with a more cautious speech regarding low income. So do you have any information about a lower income statement for this segment? If you can speak about low income performance, I would appreciate it. Thank you.

Gustavo Alejo Viviani (CFO)

Well, there are some points to be mentioned. With a lower income statement, we haven't seen anything so far because it's just getting started. We imagine so, Rosman, but we can't say it yet. A second point to put things into context, and I talked about this during my presentation, is that we have a very clear and kind of strict policy regarding recoveries. We did not change the renegotiation policy because we believe that this is the best format in terms of the expected portfolio's performance. So when you don't change the policy, and when you do have a little more pressure in the low income segment, you start seeing this impact.

So this is on our end of the equation. Since we're not changing the renegotiation policy, this happens. In low income, we see more pressure. Like I said, we still see room for a better recovery of the agribusiness segment, individuals and agribusiness. Well, we'll have to see how the next vintages will perform. Perhaps we'll have more volume, and the average price will not necessarily be higher. It really depends on the crop. But we feel more pressure in low income, but we did not change our policy, and we are in this de-risking process.

So we'll let this flow, because there's a part of the portfolio that we will reduce, or we'll recycle, or we might recycle in low-income clusters, which we believe have a profitability potential. So basically, this is what's happening.

Eduardo Rosman (Senior Analyst)

Excellent. Thank you very much.

Gustavo Alejo Viviani (CFO)

Of course.

Camila Toledo (Head of Investor Relations)

Next question from Daniel Vaz with Banco Safra. Hello, Vaz. Welcome...

Daniel Vaz (Lead Research Analyst)

Good morning, Camila, Mário, and Gustavo. I think I'll stick to this theme. We were just speaking about the dynamic of the low income segment. I would just like to point out how difficult it is to play this game now. Is it because you expected it to have higher losses, or the cost to serve of the business is not adequate? Because I'm really trying to understand what is the biggest weight. Because, perhaps you think that you're not willing to play this game now, or you want to adjust the cost to serve, so that in two years' time, say, you would be attacking the segment in a more strongly manner.

Because there are some origination products, not necessarily very low income, but in the private payroll-deductible loans, and we are not seeing Santander being very enthusiastic about that. So if you could comment on that product, because with the average banks, we see a different stance. They are being more aggressive, and with a rate that looks like a clean credit, to try to protect from the operational risk and, and the cost of, of risk. So if you could comment on that, it would be great.

Mario Roberto Opice Leão (CEO)

Thank you, Daniel. I'll start, and then Gustavo will complement. From a macro standpoint, 'cause your question is really good, what is more relevant in our approach to low income? Breaking it down into short-term and mid to long-term. In mid to long term, undoubtedly, we need to have the cost of serve, the cost to serve at a different level.

In two years, we'll have a 43% reduction. Cool, but will 43% make the cost to serve viable? Because we have learned, and everyone in the market did, that there is a certain limit, so in our base is 100. Later we can speak about the nominal numbers, but we have to reduce the cost to serve by another 30+% , and this will happen. Because we want to have the low income segment, we have to have it viable. But we know that the way to make it viable will be by reducing the cost to serve. It has dropped 43%, it will have to reduce another 30+% . So in a couple of years, we expect to get to a cost to serve that will be even lower, and I will grow exponentially the base of clients.

If you change the denominator, it's all good, but I will be potentially bringing in some clients that I would like to have on board, and others that I would not like to have on board. We want to grow the client base, but we have to reduce the numerator, which is the cost to serve, and improving the cost to serve. So in the mid to long term, that's a fundamental period. Does it sort the problem of the quarter? No. In 2026, we will improve, but we won't be seeing the whole evolution. But in the short term, the context of performance affects more the results of the quarter. So Q4 is more individually affected by the performance of some rollovers, of some portfolios, because we grew a lot our cards business.

Together with that, there is some minor adjustments, not only in low income, also in high income, because we've had a significant growth in the cards business. Sometimes there are some delays, and we have to do more work in recoveries. That's only natural. We are not gonna stop growing in cards because of that. And I've been saying this over and over for years now, we have decided that checking accounts and cards are the pillars for our transactionality with our clients. We are delivering that. You can look at the data. We are one of the players growing the most, our checking account, and of course, volume, which derivates in the transactional liabilities are growing a lot in low income, although credit is shrinking. So that equation is working well.

Given the macroeconomic context, there is some higher delinquency, and that's what the fine-tuning, the weekly fine-tuning that we do. We calibrate it weekly, and it's more for the short term. Then we have to continue to manage well the new portfolio, which we do every day, and a material reduction in the cost to serve. Gustavo?

Gustavo Alejo Viviani (CFO)

As regards to low income, there are some other variables in the equation. Every player has a different risk predisposition, it's the cost of risk. We believe that we have a cost of risk that makes sense to us, versus the evolution of the cost to serve, so that's number one. And this cost to serve generates a certain amount of LLP. So it's not about increasing the cost of risk, we just have to continue to operate and adjust the cost of risk to a level that we believe is adequate. The other part of the equation that explains profitability is the loan-to-deposit ratio, so this needs to be verified. So every bank has a different view of this business.

To get to the profitability levels which are positive for the bank, Santander Brasil, are basically through these three variables in the composition of the portfolio of assets. This is what we are working on. We are at levels, adjusting the cost of risk, and we have to improve our cost to serve, and that's when the equation will be fine. But our cost of risk will not potentially increase, but it will not be reduced radically.

It will be at a level that will make sense in terms of total profitability of the segment. And it was about private, payroll-deductible loans. Good question.... And if we don't answer that now, the next question will be exactly this. We believe in the product, we participated in designing it. I've mentioned this, we were in Brasília for a meeting, the administration heard us, so the direction is okay. We know the product really well. We were one of the two leaders with kind of 30% market share in the previous version, which was a closed circuit version. Now we have more of an open circuit version, which is very good, makes the pie grow for the whole market, as we've seen. But in our view, this is naturally occur. We are studying the market, we're doing some tests.

If you get a quarterly average, we've been growing our origination. But, you know, we're not imposing ourselves a pressure that I have to be the incumbent of growing the most, or I have to get bankers share, but we are doing this, learning as we go with the market. We see some fintechs and other platforms growing disproportionately. We respect them. We hope that everything will work out for them. But on our end, which is what we control, we are doing it more gradually. I acknowledge that.

But with a direction of, yes, we believe in the product and in the business, but we want to test more before we expand in the proportion that we know how to do, that we've done in the past, and we believe that there is a market potential. So we should expect an ascending curve along 2026. But yes, it was more moderate in the first two quarters of last year, because we were testing and learning, seeing the first payment default. We know that there is a quote, unquote, "grace period," and it takes some months for you to test the first payment default. So we're being more cautious in making the curve more steep. But the direction is, we will be producing at a much higher level throughout 2026.

Daniel Vaz (Lead Research Analyst)

Thank you very much.

Camila Toledo (Head of Investor Relations)

Next question from Marcelo Mizrahi with Banco Bradesco BBI.

Marcelo Mizrahi (Equity Research Analyst)

Hello, how are you? Thank you for the opportunity. And Gustavo, thanks for this partnership all of these years, buy side and our sell side as well. My question is about payroll-deductible loans. I think in the last quarters, particularly, that portfolio is coming down. I mean, and we've seen a lot of new things related to INSS, origination, et cetera. There's still some room to go back to previous levels, that maybe in early 2025 and in 2024. I have two questions about payroll loans. How is the composition of your portfolio, I mean, between INSS and public? And how do you see the outlook for the portfolio going forward?

2026 is a year when we assume there will be a drop in interest rates, so this should be a portfolio that maybe the bank could see some growth going forward, probably with a more favorable perspective. So what is your view in terms of the payroll-deductible loan portfolio?

Mario Roberto Opice Leão (CEO)

Well, I'll start and then Gustavo will add up. Before I talk about payroll loans, I would just like to emphasize something that we've been telling you for quite some time. We are talking about the disciplined management of capital, choosing a loan product as a mechanism to increase transactionality, but loans as a means, not an end. And the very strong directing that we are giving to transactional credit products that generate cross-selling. We are delivering that quite well. Of course, every bank has to make, you know, have to make its adjustments, but the credit card, the overdraft, the overdraft limit, I mean, we are evolving quite well. In detriment of products that in our track record brings a much lower cross-selling and transactional relation.

Together with that, market or regulation parameters that escape our control leads to marginal credit profitability being below what we expected. With the ceilings that have been imposed by the government or, you know, the INSS, with the ceilings, the profitability equation is very low. So I can choose to do that with low profitability, or I can choose not to do it, and I choose the latter, because profitability is lower. I mean, we've tested that in the bank, so my capacity to do cross-selling based on their credit is also very low. I could probably have loans, you know, at 20, 30, or profitability, whatever the target is, because I can recover the rest through cross-selling. This works. I mean, this is banking, but we haven't seen that historically.

I mean, on the public side, cross-selling is slightly better, but not so much that would lead me to do some outside investments, and there, there is a cap there, too, with, with some agreements. There's no exclusivity, but we see that the dynamic, the pricing dynamic is, is cold, and the, the capacity to expand the credit in cross-selling and with a view of, you know, primary relationship, it's not convenient. Well, we grew in 2023 and 2024, much, you know, better than the market. We had organic origination, et cetera, because the profitability equation was quite different. I mean, now the equation changed.

And our discipline is very much focused on where we allocate capital, and since capital is finite, we chose to go to other products. I mean, despite the fact that the payroll has more risk, despite the new architecture, as Daniel reminded us, is not fully implemented, but there is more cost of risk on the public side than INSS. So we will certainly grow there, too, but it will take a bit more time with compared to others, because we're testing continuously, doing a lot of exercises.

We are working with a better, you know, company portfolio. We are working with, you know, more high income of that company and less lower income. We are still running many tests, but this is a business that we are very knowledgeable about, but the platform is new. So I think that's it. I don't know whether Gustavo would like to add anything. Yeah.

Gustavo Alejo Viviani (CFO)

We have a vision that goes, you know, product profitability and client product. Of course, the payroll loans is a longer term portfolio, therefore, we have to be very assertive when we grant credit because, you know, it's a longer term portfolio. But we are less concerned with products per se, but rather we are more concerned in pursuing our profitability objectives per segment, and then a combination among specific segments. This is very important. We do not define target per product, Marcelo. Maybe other banks do it so. But in our case, we first define how much we want to get in every segment.

Of course, this involves a combination that, you know, brings cost of risk and profitability or of that segment to an adequate level, and then we look at combination between segments that give me the profitability and cost of risk that I desire. So the product is just a means to reach the goal. But I don't say it has to be as, you know, X in, you know, mortgage, et cetera, with RWA, that has to be specific, but we look at the customer view as a whole. Thank you. And thank you, Marcelo, for the partnerships that we have throughout the years.

Camila Toledo (Head of Investor Relations)

Now, we have a question from Brian Flores with Citibank. Good morning, Brian.

Brian Flores (Equity Research Analyst)

Good morning, and thank you for taking my question. I would like to congratulate you as well, because the ROE has improved quite significantly, showing higher, you know, sustainability. But Mário, you said that we should see you gradually improving 20% ROE, and sometimes, maybe even more. In this journey, you also said that in 2026, we should see quite an improvement. So my question is, in your view, what will be the main levers that will lead to this improvement? And is, as you said, your risk appetite is still cautious. I mean, it still requires caution. So how do you see the combination of all these factors?

Mario Roberto Opice Leão (CEO)

Thank you, Brian, and thank you for your comment. We are very happy to find ourselves in this profitability level with a macro scenario, which is much worse. Thank you. Our ROE level, I mean, given the context, you know, makes us happy, but we know that we have to improve that even further. How are we gonna get there?

I'm just very careful with my use of words. I'm not suggesting that the ROE evolution in 2026 will be significant, but we will try to follow ROE's volume, you know, growing. Every time we look at it, we are getting closer to 20. That should not be the ceiling. I mean, I'm just saying that we are in the right direction. We are getting closer. It's not gonna happen in 2026, but we are getting very close. So it's very clear that not only we can reach 20, but we will be able to build the franchise so that we will have 20-something ROE. How are we gonna get there? By expanding credit disproportionately?

No, we are not gonna expand credit disproportionately, but we will grow in, in credit, disproportionately in segments that will allow us to reach a profitability level that we desire. So what I'm saying is that, you know, we have a very profitable portfolio, but I'm saying this growth is not gonna be linear because we still have, you know, challenges like losses in, in small companies.

So I'm not gonna put full load of growth right there, but I will be more selective. I will look for government lines. But in the, the mid and large companies, we see a lot of room to grow more. So we may grow more, a lot more there and in high income. So there is a part which is growing margin in the segments that I chose to grow. And if I decided to grow everything indistinctively, it wouldn't be good.

In addition to that, I will use capital more intelligently. So you should demand us that we will grow fees more than the growth of the portfolio, because I bring the efficiency of my fee management above the growth of the portfolio. So, okay, I am growing fees more than the portfolio, and I'm taking care of the margin via the mix, so this should lead me to have a positive top-line evolution. I cannot tell you what number that we have in mind, but certainly, we will grow the top line. And since top line is a line of BRL 80 billion+, every growth point is BRL 800 million. If I do that well with a very low PLL and with a expense base that we'll try to maintain, this is almost everything it will be net income.

So my operating leverage is quite relevant, growing top line and maintaining the other lines. What do I mean by other lines? I will try to pursue-

... Expense management, I mean, we are not giving guidance again, but the mindset of the management, so this is a term I would like to use, the mindset is to pursue a nominal, you know, expense line close to zero. It's possible to do that. We are showing a gain of many points vis-a-vis the inflation. The last quarter was very positive in that regard, and we will try to-- we'll continue to manage the bank in that direction. And you should try to monitor that very closely. Provisions, of course, there is a macro challenge, but through the mix, we will try to have a very healthy mix, and with that, having provisions that do not have to grow proportionally vis-a-vis the portfolio as a whole or even more. But we will continue to do all the provisions that we need to do.

Of course, that we do not control, I mean, some one-off things, you know, in the whole market. And we will continue to look to monitor our contingency line. And with that, again, we will create operating leverage where revenue grows, and the other lines will be flat, ideally dropping, and with that, we will certainly improve things even faster, you know, our earnings before taxes. This is what we did in 2025, and with that, we will increase our, you know, base of DTAs, which is something that will lead us to, after all, I mean, the bottom line, increase our profitability. It's a summation of many lines, but every quarter, this becomes clearer and clearer, and that's why we are so firm when we talk to you.

Brian Flores (Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you.

Camila Toledo (Head of Investor Relations)

Next question from Eduardo Nishio with Genial.

Eduardo Nishio (Senior Equity Analyst)

Good morning, everyone. Thank you, Gustavo, one more time. And Gustavo, I'd like to second everything that everyone has said, and good morning, Mario and Camila. I have a question again on the quality of assets. Looking at 90-day NPL, it is getting worse. 15- to 90-day NPL got a little worse, but at least we started with a higher level than last year, and Q1 is normally a heavier quarter in the 15- to 90-day NPL. On the other hand, your cost of risk has been dropping quarter after quarter. So I'd like to understand this dynamic. How do you see this for 2026? And how to improve the cost of risk, if it's going to be via the mix, how do you see this dynamic throughout 2026? Thank you.

Gustavo Alejo Viviani (CFO)

Well, Nishio, well, again, thank you for the kind words, and thank you for the partnership. Well, the evolution is kind of what we said before. We are working with the composition of the mix also for 2026. Every quarter, the mix is evolving. You will remember the relative share of SMEs, portfolio and, and consumer finance and high income, all of that increased over the years, so there was a shift. On the other hand, we reduced the low-income segment. In our numbers, we also see a reduction of some agribusiness portfolios, so that is advancing well.

And there is a very clear roadmap for 2026, and that is the point that is important. [Foreign language] In Q1, like I said, it is only more natural to have more pressure on the NPL. But what matters to us is how we evolve throughout the year. We don't focus so much on the quarter, but rather on the full year. In terms of portfolio composition track, we continue to have the same credit, the exogenous factors, such as events like court reorganizations, and this has to do with the behavior of the company.

Also, we are starting the fifth year with a high Selic interest rate. So we have a very controlled cost of risk, and I believe that that is the most important thing, and the mix will evolve. By the end of 2026, you will see changes in the mix. Some will be quite clear, some percentage points in relative share, and others that will become clearer in the segment of individuals. So that's kind of the composition. Of course, this is the roadmap. Some portfolios depend on the demand. Customer finance is doing really well, performing well. We'll have to see the demand.

If we maintain our credit appetite, we'll see what kind of growth level we'll have and the share of consumer finance, and the same for all portfolios. So the roadmap is clear. The mix is changing, but these are big portfolios. Each portfolio with some BRL billion, and we have to do this in the most correct way. Thank you, Nishio.

Eduardo Nishio (Senior Equity Analyst)

Thank you.

Camila Toledo (Head of Investor Relations)

Next question from Matheus Guimarães with XP. Matheus?

Matheus Guimarães (Equity Research Analsyt)

Good morning, Camila, Mário, Gustavo. Congratulations on the results, and thank you for the opportunity to ask questions. I think that many of the questions have been asked, but if you could elaborate about the FGC, you talked about this in your conversation with the press, so perhaps you could speak about, about the Credit Guarantee Fund, FGC... What can we expect regarding 2026, if, if this topic has evolved? And thank you.

Mario Pierri (Executive Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Thank you for the question, and for the kind words. Yes, I talked about this with the journalists a minute ago, or a while ago. We cannot really say what is not being designed by the banks. We have to design the replenishment or the FGC in coordination with the Central Bank and the National Monetary Council. Also, the rules for the FGC will have to be approved by the National Monetary Council and the Central Bank. Of course, the banks are important players. The incumbent banks, particularly the ones with a big base of deposits, Santander being one of them. We have about 10% of the FGC, which is rather material. So this is relevant for the banks.

The banks are trying to provide inputs and take part of the conversation, but the banks are totally aware that this is a conversation between FGC and the regulators that I mentioned. So I can't really know what's coming. What I can say, and it's just a feeling, given the conversations, is that given that a good part of the FGC will be used for the clients of Banco Master, which was the big event that happened in the market. Well, there are potential derivatives, the Will Bank, for example, and who knows, perhaps others.

So this volume has exited the FGC, so we'll have to replenish that, and we believe that this will happen in the short term. Short term being defined as I mentioned, perhaps this month of February. It is correct that this will happen, because the fund needs to be replenished. It will be a one-to-one replenishment, a linear replenishment. Of course, it will respect the proportions of deposits that every bank has in the FGC. This should not change. I don't think that it will be one to one. It will be some kind of design to replenish it with a short-term approach in a relevant volume.

It is, I'm not giving you any news here. This has been mentioned, perhaps an anticipation of future flow, perhaps a discussion regarding marginal contribution. But these are pieces of a puzzle that is being still finalized, and over this month, we'll have a final decision. To me, and I said this to the press, the most important point is that we should not just accept society as a whole, FGC and regulators, we should not accept that such a case could happen again.

This is a sine qua non condition. We have to solve the problem, the issue now, and the banks will participate, although most of them had absolutely nothing to do with the case. But we have to follow the rules and replenish the fund. But we have to improve the rules so that FGC and the whole system of deposits and FGC will not allow another case like this to happen. Central Bank has this in a clear agenda. The FGC has taken measures last year, but with a lagged execution and implementation, and there might be a broader scope of measures. This is what we are sitting down to discuss with the regulator. These are themes brought along by ABBC, Febraban. This aims up to have a positive evolution of the market, the competitiveness of the market.

Although in the short term, we have to replenish the fund and decide how this will happen. But we expect that the fund replenishment will happen naturally, organically, in a way that will not impact the depositing banks. But this will depend on how the final phase will be decided by the FGC and the regulator. And thank you for the question. I'm sorry I cannot give you more.

Matheus Guimarães (Equity Research Analsyt)

But this was super clear, Mário. Thank you very much.

Camila Toledo (Head of Investor Relations)

We will now switch to English to our last question here with Carlos Gomez from HSBC. Hello, Carlos. Good morning.

Carlos Gomez (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Hello, and good morning. Yes, please. The main reason to call is to thank Alejo for all these years. It's been great to be with you, and I wish you the best in whatever next role you have. Thank you very much for being with us. If I have to ask a question, the parent company announced yesterday a large section acquisition in the U.S., also buyback. Recently, they did another one, the 2024. They clearly show a real interest to reinforce their key markets. Obviously, Brazil is one of them. Again, I don't know the answer, but just today I have to ask, is M&A at all a consideration when you are laying out the strategy, or it is all exclusively an organic management of the banks that you already have?

Mario Roberto Opice Leão (CEO)

Well, thank you, Carlos. And I'll let Gustavo thank you for the very kind words, which are well deserved, by the way. But just starting with your question, Carlos, which is, it's a very good one. I mean... M&A is always an option to accelerate growth within the segments where we wanna be disproportionately higher. So we don't rule out as a for sure no in the next X number of years. But it's unlikely we're gonna deliver a larger M&A within Brazil, as we believe our franchise has grown, as has and has become more mature or enough mature to conquer organically the growth we wanna achieve within the segments which I've been sharing very transparently with the market, where we wanna grow disproportionately.

So it's not impossible, but it's unlikely. We welcome and applaud the movement that the group made in the U.S., which is certainly a market where we were smaller than we should be. Again, directionally speaking, the U.S. is a very large market with thousands of banks. You're there, you know well. But the fact that we are now a top ten player, within the U.S., with a very solid franchise we're bringing in, with a very solid franchise we've been working on organically over the past few years, I believe it's a very, very nice movement, which will benefit the U.S., for sure, benefit the group as a whole.

And as we have a stronger franchise in the U.S., as a third derivative, it ends up benefiting the whole ecosystem and therefore Brazil. So, I understand why the group is doing that in the U.S. It's a large sum, but it makes total sense, like they did last year in the U.K., to reinforce the U.K. realm, if you will. And now we have, I would say, solid and complete operations in, in the major markets we chose to be in. Brazil is one of them, like you pointed, but I don't believe we need M&A to foster the plans we've been sharing for the past hour and a half with you, which you know well.

Which is growth, with discipline, with resilience, and, focusing on return, and then obviously on the number, on the profit per se, and doing that systematically with a, with very large sum of discipline and technicality, so that we deliver to shareholders, to sell sides, and to obviously, Santander Group, the best possible results, over the years. So, thank you for the question again, and, and for, for participating.

Carlos Gomez (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you.

Camila Toledo (Head of Investor Relations)

Thank you, Carlos.

Gustavo Alejo Viviani (CFO)

Obrigado, Carlos.

Camila Toledo (Head of Investor Relations)

Thank you, Carlos. I would like to thank you very much for joining us this morning. Later on, myself and our entire IR team will be available to clarify any pending questions. Thank you very much, and have a wonderful day.

Mario Roberto Opice Leão (CEO)

Obrigado a todos.

Camila Toledo (Head of Investor Relations)

Thank you all very much.