Operator: Next question is from Andrea Filtri from Mediobanca. Please go ahead.
Andrea Filtri: First question is on the NII prospect. Have you been hedging your variable mortgage portfolio to protect the NII trajectory in your rate sensitive geographies? Can you please update us on your net interest income sensitivity with the forward rates curve and flat deposit remuneration? The second is a more conceptual question. You hit your 2023 guidance and keep on running ahead of consensus on profitability, while capital is growing. Yet consensus estimates are hesitant to meet your guidance and valuation stays undemanding. What do you say to the skeptics on Santander?
Ana Botin: What I say to the skeptics, look at, and what I tell everybody every time they evaluate something is look at the numbers, look at the track record. If you look at our track record, that’s why I showed a slide. By the way, the NII will answer, Jose will answer that on the hedge. But basically, I think we have gotten some recognition this year, way we need way, way more, absolutely. We are distributing to shareholders 10% of our market value, 5.5%. That is five times to shareholders, what we gave nine years ago, but very importantly on a per share basis, as we said this year, we’re up 50% as we increase the payout, 50% cash dividend per share, I mean, any number you look at is at the group level is I think, sorry to say this, but impressive, but very importantly we see a lot more upside in the next few years.
So, what I would say is just look at the numbers and that’s what we’re doing. Look at our track record, look at our model, look at our diversification. I think it’s going to be an, as we are preparing for this Cole, if you look at the group by global business, it’s a much more simple to understand group. But very importantly, by managing the bank now by five global business, we have a lot more upside for many more years. And this is the key. The market will see this year, we’re launching our own tech platform in the U.S. This is totally differential for the U.S., of course, but also for the group. There is, and this is really important, a plan to deploy, as Hector said, common business model, common operating model and common tech in both our retail bank and our consumer bank.
So you know as well, you know the numbers. Your recommendations are higher. I think you’re still way short by the way of how we see things, but that’s fine. So you’re not even half as bullish as we are. We own a lot of shares. And I think just to answer the last question, the market tends to look and this is the feedback we’ve got from a couple of long-term Santander investors. They look at us through the rearview mirror. And if you look at Santander through the rearview mirror, the first year where we are outperforming our peers on almost every dimension and not all our peers, but our goal is to outperform all our peers, don’t get me wrong, it’s ’23. And what they tell us is you need two years of consistency, and you will see that. I am very confident we will see that.
Hector and I are working together really well. We like what we do. We believe in this company. We have a great team. We just announced yesterday a top hire from a major digital bank in Europe to run our Openbank platform. We’re going to deploy our national digital platform in the U S. this year. All our customers from our current retail bank in the U.S. will be on the new platform in ’25. So just we’ll keep on delivering, and we’ll keep on buying shares at 18% ROI. So I’m sure this is something which we’ll get to. Jose, can you answer on the structural question?
Jose Garcia-Cantera: Andrea, NII and prospect sensitivity, et cetera, yes, you’re right. We had a hedging of our variable mortgages, which is basically expired already. It will expire by April, it will expire. So, the sensitivity that we’re going to have next year, it’s going to be the actual sensitivity of the portfolio. There are two ways of answering your question about future sensitivity. One is, let me give you the sensitivity to a drop, a parallel drop of 100 basis points. In Spain, it would be minus €1 billion, all things being equal. Another way of looking at it is the way you post the question, which is, if I use forward rate curves with flat cost of deposits, meaning that the cost of deposits in 2024 will be the same as we had in December 2024, which is probably not realistic.
NII is positive around €500 million. So, we will still have positive re-pricing next year with costs of deposits remaining flat. But again, that is not a realistic assumption in our opinion. So, I give you the minus €1 billion, a 100 basis points drop, plus €500 million with cost of deposits flat.
Operator: Next question is from Ignacio Cerezo from UBS. Please go ahead.
