Woori Financial Group Inc. (NYSE:WF) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

What would be the situation there? And secondly, in terms of your dividends, I do think that you’re saying that you want quarterly dividends to take place to try to enhance the overall visibility of dividend, but what would be the situation and how would that take place in terms of the actual?

Sung-Wook Lee: So maybe if you could just wait for a second, please. So for your first question about what happens when our CET1 falls under 10.5%, in actuality just a quick to the answer, I think that if it goes down to 10% or below 10.5%, realistically, I don’t think that this would be possible because right now, it’s 11.5% as of now. If it was a deflation of around 1% point then that would be the buffer that we would have. If it’s 1%, then that means that in terms of risk-weighted assets, that’s around KRW20 trillion in assets, corporate. So that would mean that it would have to be a very large-size securities company. And if it’s just a midsize, then in actuality, I think it would have an impact of around 50 basis points to 60 basis points.

So we don’t believe that in actuality the CET1 would fall under 10.5%, and there will be a very strict internal management about this topic, so I don’t think that this should be concern. And about the quarterly dividend payout in terms of what the size would be and what the way going forward would be, it has not been determined yet. But in general, I do think that on a per year basis on a per quarter basis, this is something that needs to be at the BoD level. But I think that the breakdown will probably be like four to one in terms of the quarterly payments versus the year payments, but this again is something that we will have to discuss and then determine.

Sang-Wook Chun: So this is Chun Sang, the President that is in charge of the group IR. So maybe just to elaborate a bit on the first question to answer, in terms of the numbers, of course, the CFO has talked about the numbers in themselves, but I do think that we are looking at M&A opportunities, and we are interested in acquiring securities or brokerage firms. But one of the main principles that we have is that we will maintain an appropriate level of capital adequacy ratios and also be able to have enough room to look at shareholder returns. So that would be the basic fundamental principle. So as a result of that, for the scenario that you just mentioned, we do not believe that, that would be a likely scenario taking place. Thank you very much.

Operator: Next question is by Baek Doosan from Korea Investment & Securities. Please go ahead with your question.

Baek Doosan: I am Baek Doosan from KIS. I have two questions. So first, with regard to AC, it’s about 105% and I can see that there is significant buffer with the LCR and then I think that in the case of NIM, by utilizing this, we may be seeing NIM to turn to a positive choice? Is there a possibility on that. I would just like to see that, I’d like to understand the exposure by subsidiary and how you are to manage this exposure? Thank you.

Unidentified Company Representative: Thank you. Just bear with us for just a moment, as we prepare to answer your question.

Sung-Wook Lee: I am Lee Sung-Wook, CFO. So with regards to LCR, 105%. So you can see that we still have a significant buffer versus the requirements. Last year, LCR due to the volatility so that we actually had a significant amount, but considering the capital market and the situation we don’t think that it will be the major issue to lower LCR because the situation has stabilized. So what we’re going to do is really we can — we will probably see an improvement in NIM and also to make sure to protect the downside.