Banco Santander, S.A. (NYSE:SAN) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Jose Garcia-Cantera: Final implementation Basel III. We — as you all know, we still don’t have the final proposal — regulatory proposal. We have had some positive news for us, like the multiplying factor ILM equal to 1, which was finally included. As you all know, also, we are not affected by the output floor. We are going to be affected by some other items like the operational risk. But until the final legislation is written and approved, it’s difficult to give an accurate estimate. But what I can tell is that is not going to be significant, and we should be able to build plenty of capital in the next 2 years to compensate for any impact that we may have.

Hector Grisi: Ignacio — sorry, Ignacio, just very quickly on your first question. Okay, I don’t have the exact detail on the FICO of what you’re saying. But if you go to the page on the U.S. on the presentation of the left-hand bottom side, you can see there exactly what’s the mix that we have. So you have the rates that are basically 41% in the portfolio, that this is prime and near prime, which is basically what we have done in changing the mix that we have. And we couldn’t have done that unless we had the funding from SBNA that is basically now funding a big percentage of the portfolio. So this portfolio is mainly funded for that, and I can give you later the details on that. But that’s basically the change of the mix that we have at this point. So the risk is a lot less than we had before. You can see how it has been growing and changes completely. And 30% is funded with our own deposits, okay? So it’s quite important to understand that.

Begona Morenes: Thank you, Ignacio. We will get back to you from IR with the yields on the FICO, don’t worry.

Operator: The next question is coming from Ignacio Ulargui, BNP Paribas Exane.

Ignacio Ulargui: I have two questions, 1 a bit more focused on costs. If we look at the performance of the bank in developed economies, it has definitely been able to control inflation quite well. It has not been that — the case probably in Lat Am. Just wanted to see if there is any kind of additional initiatives that you can push forward to control a bit more cost growth in the region. And the second question is linked to the deposit franchises. Given your global footprint and the different experience that you have had in different interest rate cycles, how do you see banks performing or behaving in terms of deposit betas? I mean so we expect a material acceleration of deposit betas in Europe, or based on your Lat Am experience, you think that, that should be more controlled.

Ana Botin: So let me just give a high-level question. And then maybe Héctor, you can help me here. So in terms of cost control in Lat Am, let me just say that within the cost of risk — sorry, cost guidance we’re giving, to , we expect to be — in the U.S., we’re making structural changes. We started this a year ago. As you know, we’re not able to change the model until 12 months ago because of minorities and other issues. So we believe that cost will be flat or down in the U.S. Again, please confirm this for me. In South America, there will be stable. We are focused on cost control. Given the lingering effects of inflation, we believe that, that will be more or less flat. You will see some increase in Mexico. Again, in Europe, we expect to have cost.

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