This performance should continue to benefit longer delinquency in the coming quarters, that’s for sure. Total NII for this quarter stood at BRL15.9 billion. Market NII has turned positive showing an improvement of BRL1.3 billion in comparison to the same period of the previous year. And it will continue to evolve during the fourth quarter and also throughout 2024. Client NII fell by 9.6% in the annual comparison, reflecting lower volume of loans and a 0.6 percentage points decrease in average spread, which stood at 9.1% due to the mix of lower spread and therefore lower risk. We are below our total NII guidance range. Fee and commission income poses a challenge, reflecting regulatory aspects in the competition with new entrants that still have regulatory symmetries.
As the capital market reopened, we posted excellent underwriting performance that grew more than 100%. In terms of asset management, the changes that we have made to our strategy are already beginning to produce effects. In cards, the trend is to continue to improve due to the expansion and new products in the high-income segment. In relation to guidance, we posted an improvement and got closer to the range we had previously indicated. Total operating expenses were up 8.1% in the annual comparison. However, personnel and admin expenses together grew by just 0.6%. The large contribution to higher total expenses came from other operating expenses line due to the low comparison base in 2022. In the fourth quarter other expenses comparison base will be normalized, thus reducing the total expenses line’s annual growth.
The collective bargaining agreement of 4.58% came into effect as of September, so it impacted our personnel expenses line at the end, the final part of the quarter. Compared to the third quarter of ’22, this line showed a fall of 0.2%. Admin expenses in the same period only grew 1.4% as a result of our efficiency initiatives. We are promoting a far-reaching review of our service model with a focus on reducing the cost to serve. This involves adjusting our physical presence which will continue in the coming quarters and has the strategy of Bradesco Digital as one of its main levers. The income from insurance for the quarter was BRL4.6 billion. Year-to-date growth is 25.6%, at the top of the guidance. The quarter’s net income was steady at BRL2.4 billion showing a almost 24% ROE.
Premiums continue growing, reaching BRL28.2 billion in the quarter and BRL79 billion in the year-to-date numbers. The period’s result also benefited from improved operating efficiency and acquisition cost ratio in addition to financial income. Now turning to capital, we posted a 55 bps increase in our Tier 1 Basel ratio, reaching 13.4% and 50 bps in total base Basel, which achieved 16%. We continue to make full provisioning of interest on shareholders equity, which has now reached BRL8.6 billion for the year. Our liquidity position remains quite comfortable with LCR closing at 183%. So this is the end of the presentation. Thank you so much. And once again, thank you for joining us. And now I will join Cassiano and Firetti for our Q&A session.
See you soon.
A – Carlos Firetti: Hello, I am back now. And now joining me is aa Octavio and Cassiano. We also have the CEO of the insurance company. We will initiate now the Q&A session. Questions can be asked in either Portuguese or English. Answers will always be in Portuguese. And you can also resort to the simultaneous translation feature that you find in the platform. Our first question is from Renato Meloni from Autonomous. You may proceed, sir.
Renato Meloni: Good morning. It’s nice to see you again and thank you for taking my questions. You had a very important de-risking of the book this quarter. I would just like to understand whether this already places the bank in a position where you can resume growth as soon as the market improves? And what does that mean in terms of client NII for next year and for the coming quarter? Thank you.
Octavio de Lazari: Hello, Renato, good morning. Good morning, everyone. It’s a pleasure to be with you. Thank you for your question. Yeah, Renato, you’re right, we had to make some adjustments to our loan portfolio due to the delinquency levels that we noticed, especially coming from small- and micro-size companies. But looking at the numbers, we may be sure that we already reached the peak of delinquency. And from now on, we will continue to grow. I mean, we never cease to operate. We continue to operate normally. But the fact is that we were trying to work with safer portfolios with lower delinquency levels and we are now looking at the growth of mortgage loans and payroll loans and rural loans. But the more riskier portfolios had to be put on hold for a while.
