Banco de Chile (NYSE:BCH) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript
Banco de Chile (NYSE:BCH) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript February 2, 2024
Banco de Chile isn’t one of the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds at the end of the third quarter (see the details here).
Operator: Good afternoon everyone, and welcome to Banco de Chile’s Fourth Quarter 2023 Results Conference Call. If you need a copy of the management financial review, it is available on the company’s website. With us today, we have Mr. Rodrigo Aravena, Chief Economist and Institutional Relations Officer; Mr. Pablo Mejia, Head of Investor Relations; Daniel Galarce, Head of Financial Control and Capital; and Natalia Villela, Investor Relations. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that this call is being recorded, and that information discussed today may include forward-looking statements regarding the company's financial and operating performance. All projections are subject to risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially. Please refer to the detailed note in the Company’s press release regarding forward-looking statements. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Rodrigo Aravena. Please go ahead, sir.
Rodrigo Aravena: Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you very much for attending this conference call today, where we will present financial results and the main achievements for the fourth quarter and, consequently, the full year 2023. Similar to previous presentations, we will share our analysis of the competitive landscape of the period, followed by the progress in our main strategic initiatives, and we will finally present financial results. But before moving to these slides, I’d like to highlight the most important achievements of our bank during the year. Please go to Slide number 2. We are very proud of our successful year. We led the industry in results and several aspects of the business, confirming our proven capacity to continuously add economic value to our shareholders.
On this slide, we present a summary of some of the main achievements of the bank during the year. On the financial front, we led the industry once again with a net income of CLP1.2 trillion, equivalent to an ROE of 25.1%, allowing us to increase the gap with our main peers. In fact, in 2023, we represented 27.2% of the total net income posted by the industry. It is worth mentioning that these impressive results were achieved despite the existence of headwinds faced in 2023, such as the recession for most of the year, the downward trend in inflation, higher unemployment, and increased delinquency, among others. We also led the industry in capital adequacy, by holding strong indicators and positive gaps in relation to internal and regulatory thresholds that enable us to be confident to face business-as-usual growth while dealing with potential stressing situations attributable either to the economic cycles or idiosyncratic exposures.
Likewise, our capital base enables us to address increased regulatory requirements established as part of the implementation of Basel 3 regulation in Chile. In addition, we posted the best asset quality indicators while maintaining the best coverage ratio of the industry of 2.7 times, when taking additional provisions into consideration. Similarly, we led the industry in terms of efficiency and maintained the best customer service in the country. On ESG, we achieved further improvements in external ratings, attaining the best evaluation according to Sustainalytics, and we issued social bonds under the Sustainability Financing Framework. In the rest of this presentation, we will present the basis behind these achievements. Let me start with the macroeconomic environment where we operated.
Please move to Slide number 4. The Chilean economy began to show signs of improvement after three quarters of negative YoY growth rates. As you can see in the chart on the left, the GDP rose by 0.6% YoY in the third quarter, and available information from the fourth quarter suggests a modest recovery, of 0.2% YoY%. Given this result, the economy probably didn’t grow in 2023. From a demand perspective, two opposite forces explained this result, a negative contribution from the domestic demand, given the fall in private consumption and gross investment. In contrast, the rise in net exports due to the sharp decline in imports contributed to the opposite direction. Nevertheless, there are some important factors to consider behind this outcome.
First, the recession between late 2022 and mid 2023 resulted from a normalization of the economy after the substantial rise of local spending in the previous year. Specifically, the absence of measures implemented during the pandemic, such as pension funds withdrawals, adjustment of the fiscal spending in 2022 and 2023, and the contractionary monetary policy, led to an important adjustment, especially in domestic consumption. The chart on the upper right shows the decline in commerce, where services have gradually been offsetting this decline. Secondly, it is important to be aware that this adjustment, apart from being temporary, has also contributed to reducing the macroeconomic imbalances. Notably, the current account deficit, measured as the accumulated figure of the last 12 months, declined from a peak of 10% of the GDP in 2022 to 3.5% in the third quarter which is the last available figure.
As we will see in the next slide, the narrowing in the external deficit and output gap has been reflected in a normalization of several economic figures. Please turn to slide number 5. As mentioned, the substantial decline in domestic spending was a key driver for the downward trend in local inflation, as the chart on the upper left displays. In 2023, the annual inflation rate went down to 3.9% after posting a yearly rise of 12.7% one year ago and a peak of 14% in August of 2022, returning to the tolerance range set by the Central Bank, which is 3% plus or minus 1%, for first time since 2021. All the core measures have been declining, reflecting lower pressures in the economy. Apart from its impact on local inflation, the sluggish activity has also affected the evolution of the labor market.
As the chart in the upper right shows, the unemployment rate has slightly been increasing. In the fourth quarter, it rose to 8.5%, which is 60 basis points higher than the figure posted one year ago, while in 2023, it averaged 8.7%, being 80 basis points higher than the unemployment rate of 2022. Even though higher unemployment is consistent with a weaker environment, it is worth mentioning that this trend has mainly been explained by the acceleration of the labor force rather than a fall in employment. In fact, as seen in the chart on the bottom right, labor participation has been recovering the lost ground during the pandemic, suggesting that the higher unemployment is a consequence of the greater labor supply rather than weaker employment.
In this scenario, marked by lower growth and more normalized inflation, the Central Bank began an easing cycle in its monetary policy in July of last year, when it reduced the rate by 100 bps to 10.25%. This decision was followed by further reductions during the 4Q23 that led the reference rate to 8.25% at the end of last year, with a clear expansionary bias, anticipating further cuts during this year. I’d like to share our baseline scenario for this year with you. Please go to the next slide, number 6. We have a more constructive view of the economy for this year. We expect the economy to retake positive growth rates, probably towards 1.5%, after the null expansion in 2023. As seen in the table, we foresee a recovery in domestic demand, mainly in consumption, on the grounds of both lower inflation and decreasing interest rates.
Nevertheless, we expect an expansion still below the long-term capacity of economy, which is estimated at nearly 2.0%, due to the lack of investment. On prices, the CPI should continue falling, from 3.9% in 2023 to 3.0% this year. In fact, the YoY inflation will likely reach the Central Bank target of 3.0% before mid-year. Based on this trend, and in line with the guidance provided by the Central Bank in its December Monetary Policy Report, we see room for further rate cuts to 4.5% by the end of this year. The chart on the right shows our quarterly rate and CPI expectations for the following periods. We acknowledge the existence of risks that could potentially affect the macro scenario. From the external front, the evolution of its main trade partners of Chile, such as China and the US, are worth paying attention to.
Internally, some aspects related to the discussion of some reforms, including taxes, the pension system and the healthcare system that could affect the economy or the financial condition of certain sectors. As we´ve mentioned in previous conference calls, banks are a good reflection of the economy. Having said that, I’d like to move to the next slide, number 7, to analyze how the economy impacted results in the financial industry in the fourth quarter and the overall year 2023. Last year, the local banking business was marked by declining loan growth due to weakened economic environment, as you can see on the chart on the upper right. Commercial and consumer loans suffered the largest declines, while mortgage loans decreased partially due to lower inflation as this product is indexed to CPI.
As a result, the industry's total loans grew by 3.2% in nominal terms but contracted by 1.5% in real terms on an annual basis as of December 2023. In this context, the industry reported a net income for the fourth quarter of CLP1.2 billion and CLP4.6 billion for the full year in 2023, equal to an ROAE of 15.9% and 15.4%, respectively. When compared to the prior year, full year net income fell by 16.9%. This decrease was primarily attributed to lower NII as inflation came down, higher operating expenses, and tempered behavior of expected credit losses that was a combination of an important rise in core credit charges that was offset by decrease in the establishment of additional provisions. Looking ahead to 2024, we anticipate several key developments.
We expect more dynamism in terms of loan growth driven by improved economic conditions, particularly due to increased consumption that would be partly counterbalanced by a slight contraction in private investment. Accordingly, we forecast real growth for the industry's loan portfolio within the range of 2.0% to 2.5%, led by consumer and residential mortgage loans. From a funding perspective, we anticipate a more normalized behavior of demand deposits in 2024, with real annual expansion aligned with GDP growth. At the same time, due to decreasing interest rates and lower inflation compensation for customers, we foresee a potential bias towards long-term funding that should increase in line with loan growth rather than short-term time deposits, resulting in marginal declines in the latter.
In terms of net income, we consider several factors influencing net interest margin with expectations of NIM falling within the range of 3.2% to 3.5% for the industry in 2024 depending on the balance sheet structure of each bank. Credit risk management will remain in the spotlight with an improved but still constrained economic outlook and the implementation of standardized provisioning methodology for consumer loans. Now I like to pass the call to Pablo, who will go into more detail about Banco de Chile strategy and financial performance.
Pablo Mejia: Thank you Rodrigo. I would like to begin with the advances in our main strategic focus. Please go to slide number 9. The solid track record of results that we have consistently achieved have resulted from our permanent focus on three strategic pillars, customer centricity, productivity, and sustainability. By focusing on these areas and implementing our core initiatives, we have exceeded our mid- term targets, as shown on the right of this slide. On the next page, we'll look closer at our main accomplishments in digital transformation, productivity, and sustainability. Let me start with digital banking. Please move to the next slide, number 10. To be the best bank for our customers, during 2023, we continued focusing on developing innovative solutions and creating a comprehensive digital ecosystem to provide the best experience to our customers.
Some of our initiatives were launching a digital onboarding current account in US dollars for individuals and companies and integrating the contactless mobile payment functionality through Apple Pay wallet as soon as it was available in Chile. In addition, we have offered digital accounts for diverse segments, including SMEs and teenagers that register 1.4 million accounts. Our initiatives were recognized by Praxis Xperience Index, which awarded us the bank with the best customer experience in the country. On the efficiency and productivity front, we continued implementing diverse initiatives to build a fast, timely, secure, and digital bank. A significant achievement has been the comprehensive review of our physical infrastructure, identifying areas for space rationalization and unlocking potential savings while ensuring our infrastructure remains efficient.
Additionally, we enhanced our investment planning process to ensure that our strategic initiatives are aligned with our long-term goals and introduced a new corporate procurement model to optimize resource allocation. Furthermore, we conducted a reengineering our branch service processes, resulting in an improved service time and customer experience. At the same time, we continued strengthening our ESG initiatives. Among many actions we have implemented towards sustainability, we´d like to highlight our issuance of social bonds under the ESG Framework to finance enterprises led by women, driving economic empowerment and gender equality. In line with our commitment to promote entrepreneurship, we continued implementing diverse national contests aimed at SMEs and students as well as several volunteering initiatives.
Our actions on sustainability led us to be the top performer in the local industry in the Sustainalytics ESG risk rating and to be recognized by several institutions both locally and abroad. Please turn to Slide 12 to go into detail about Banco de Chile financial performance. 2023 has proven to be another exceptional year of profitability for us as evidenced on the chart to the left. Every quarter this year, we surpassed our long-term sustainable ROE estimates and we posted an outstanding 30.2% return on average equity in the fourth quarter. When compared to our peers, our bottom line almost doubled that of our closest competitor. In terms of return on average equity, we posted a strong 25.1% level for the year. Our competitive advantages, consistent long-term strategy and solid governance practices have enabled us to achieve this positive outcome.
We acted consistently during the pandemic by maintaining a long-term view on business decisions that were focused on our core fundamentals. In the end, this strategy translated into the outstanding results we are seeing today despite the environment of normalizing economic factors such as inflation, interest rates, and liquidity. Let's move on to Slide 13 on operating revenues, where we will dig deeper into our figures. Operating revenues increased 7% when we look at the fourth quarter of 2023 versus the same quarter of the prior year, thanks to improved income from loans, enhanced results from financial instruments, and higher margin from deposits. For the full year, operating income decreased by 4% year-on-year, which was mainly due to the normalization of economic factors.
Specifically, the drop was due to non-customer income, driven by the sharp reduction of inflation that went from 13.3% in 2022 to 4.8% in 2023, as measured by the variation of the UF. This was, to great extent, offset by customer income that grew strongly by 11% year-on-year, boosted by a higher contribution from demand deposits and time deposits as well as greater income from loans driven by both growth and improved lending spreads in most of our lending products. Additionally, fee income also contributed to compensating this drop in revenues. The annual expansion in fees was supported by a rise in insurance brokerage premiums and transactional services, primarily associated to greater credit cards transactions, and increased fees related to loans.
When compared to our peers, we outperformed them in the main financial indicators such as net interest margin, fees margin and total operating margin, as shown on the charts to the right. On the next slides, we take closer look at how our assets and liabilities have advanced. Please turn to Slide 14. Total loans grew by 2.5% year-on-year and 2.3% on a sequential basis. Like what occurred at the industry level, this modest growth has been the result of four years of subdued economic activity, in an environment still marked by uncertainty and higher levels of interest rates and, particularly in 2023, delinquency indicators that are returning to normal levels, as expected. All these factors have affected supply and demand for loans in Chile. Mortgage and consumer loans have posted positive growth but expanding at a slower pace than in pre-pandemic years.
Residential mortgage loans grew 7.8% year-on-year in nominal terms. It’s important to highlight that mortgages are primarily indexed to inflation, so in real terms, growth was around 3% in 2023. As for consumer loans, we have seen slightly lower dynamism versus 2022 as some economic factors that benefited consumer lending such as a reduction in liquidity levels from pension fund withdrawals and the end of covid lockdowns in Chile have ended. In 2023, demand for consumer loans was more in line with long-term levels, especially when taking into consideration a weak labor market, consumer confidence and sluggish economy. Nevertheless, we managed to grow faster than the market, gaining 70 basis points in market share, by deploying targeted campaigns based on both business and risk intelligent models that pursue to accurately promote instalment loans among targeted personal banking segments and the expansion of the use of credit cards by reinforcing promotions and loyalty programs tailored to our middle and upper segments of retail customer banking area.
As for commercial loans, these continue weakening, dropping 1.5% year-on-year, but recovering 1.9% on a sequential basis. Still higher-than-normal interest rates, reduced private investment and business uncertainty, have significantly reduced the demand from the wholesale banking segment. Additionally, SMEs during the pandemic were heavily supported through a government guarantee program, which reduced the room to continue penetrating this segment with new originations in 2023. In 2024, we expect demand for loans to pick up in line with the improved environment. Total loans for us should grow in the range of 5% to 6% in nominal terms, in line with expectations for the long-term of loan growth to GDP elasticity of around 1.3 times, plus inflation.
In this baseline scenario, we are anticipating a recovery of commercial loans from negative territory to around 5% and retail loans should expand around 6%. This should permit us to pick up market share in our key strategic areas. Please turn to Slide 15. Over the last four years, there have been significant changes in our asset and liability structure. Financial instruments have grown substantially, now accounting for almost 20% of our total assets, when compared to just 9% in 2019. This increase can be attributed to the significant surge in liquidity within the Chilean economy that resulted in abnormal inflow of demand deposits, as evident in the demand deposit-to-total loans ratio shown on the table to the right of this slide. Additionally, the Chilean Central Bank introduced the FCIC program as a finance facility for banks to promote lending during the pandemic, which expires between March 30 and July 1st, 2024.
Both these factors contributed to high levels of liquidity. Due to the important amount of available financing, specifically from total deposits together with weak lending activity, we increased the volume of financial instruments on our balance sheet. The rise in current account deposits reached 68% in 2021, as shown on the chart to the right. This growth in demand deposits allowed us to promptly benefit from the hikes in interest rates given the contribution of non-interest-bearing deposits to the funding cost. However, as rates and inflation rose, demand deposits gradually normalized as customers pursued to generate income from these funds. Today, demand deposits as a percentage of total deposits and as a percentage of total loans have returned to levels similar to those before these events unfolded.
Consequently, the reductions in the monetary policy rate have reverted to the norm, and our cost of funds is decreasing swiftly on the grounds of the repricing of time deposits that became the main funding source of the balance sheet. The downward evolution in our core funding cost is expected to continue in 2024 as long as interest rates decline, which, in conjunction with improved lending spreads and a more positively sloped yield curve, will allow us to partially offset the decline in net interest income coming from the reduction in financial instruments. This is due to the fact that our excess liquidity will begin to gradually decrease in 2024 and we will have to move our funds from financial instruments to fund our loan portfolio. Despite this lower liquidity level, we will remain well above the regulatory liquidity limits, ensuring financial stability and the soundness of our bank, as shown on the charts on the bottom left.
Regarding our exposure to inflation, our net asset exposure stands at CLP8 trillion as of December 2023. The increase in the UF gap has been driven by our assessment of inflationary pressures in the short term, all while maintaining a balanced risk-return profile. It's worth noting that approximately CLP5 trillion of this UF gap is structural as it is linked to long-term assets in which we invest our shareholders’ equity to keep it hedged from inflation while earning interest rates. The remaining part of this UF gap is related to directional positions taken by our treasury area to capitalize on short-term shifts in market expectations related to funding rates and inflation. Based on this view, our structural UF gap has a strong business fundamental that has permitted us to profit from long-term asset exposures and reinforce our capital base.
Please turn to Slide 16 to discuss our strong capital. We ended the year with a Basel ratio of 17.5%. Our capital path of our CET1 over the past few years has also clearly outperformed both of our main competitors, as displayed on the chart on the bottom left. This has positioned us as the leading bank to meet and adapt to new regulatory requirements. As shown throughout the presentation, we have a unique position of high returns, high net income and high CET1. We have achieved this by focusing on our customers' needs and finding the right balance between risk and return. This has enabled us to grow our portfolio and bottom line in a sustainable way. Moreover, we have been able to keep offering a compelling dividend without compromising this leadership position, while keeping the largest margin of capital above the regulator limits to comply with Basel III regulations.
It is also worth mentioning that in January 2023, the Chilean regulator released a reference rate for additional capital associated with Pillar 2 for nine local banks, including us. The reference charge imposed to us was 0.5% of our risk-weighted assets, which should be gradually fulfilled over a period of four years, at a 25% rate per year, beginning June 30, 2024. This charge is derived from our exposure to long-term interest rate risk in the banking book as measured with the CMF standard model. It is important to note that our long-term interest rate risk in the banking book is primarily driven by our structural UF gap, as mentioned earlier, has a robust business fundamental in the long-run and has allowed us to benefit from economic dynamics.
I would like to highlight that we currently have a significant gap over the internal and regulatory thresholds to meet this additional requirement, the countercyclical buffer set by the Central Bank in May 2023 and the increasing limits scheduled as part of the implementation of Basel III. The current limits and their evolution over the next few years are presented in the table on the right. Also, it is important to take into consideration that as part of the guidelines set by our Board on capital matters, we manage internal buffers that reasonably overcome both the countercyclical buffer and the Pillar 2 charge, so we feel very confident this doesn’t represent a significant issue that could restrict our organic growth in the coming years.
Please turn to Slide 17. Core expected credit losses are in a process of normalization. This quarter, credit losses reached CLP128 billion, CLP5 billion above one year ago without establishing additional provisions in the 4Q23. For the full year, we posted CLP361 billion of credit expenses, down 17% from one year ago. However, when we exclude additional provisions, the normalization of our portfolio is very clear when compared to the low levels of core provisions in 2022 attributable a period of high liquidity that maintained risk indicators unsustainably low. Specifically, this rise has been mostly related to lower payment capacity among retail banking customers and some specific wholesale banking clients for which we have seen a worsened financial condition.
Nevertheless, the increase in credit risk expenses was significantly lower than those posted by our main peers, thanks to our superior credit risk management and a higher quality portfolio. The charts on this slide show how our portfolio and our risk management culture stands out from our peers. We have the best portfolio quality, the highest coverage ratio of 2.7 times when taking into account additional provisions that total CLP700 billion as the charts to the right show. This puts us in a better position than our peers if the economy does not keep improving. Finally, we need to emphasize how important our risk management practices are for our profitability. This is a crucial area where we have outperformed our competitors in the past, as you can see on the chart at the bottom right, and we expect to continue doing it in the future.
We have increased our leadership over our peers since 2021, even though we have a much higher coverage ratio, showing our outstanding ability to run our business. Also, I would like to stress that in non-credit-related risks, we are a very consistent with no material exposures or volatile behavior in managing exposures to derivatives or debt securities in the trading or in the banking book. Likewise, we are one of the soundest banks in terms of liquidity management. Please turn to Slide 18. Our expenses increased 12% year-on-year. This increase is mainly due to the high inflation that we experienced in 2022 of 13% and still high inflation of 4.8% in 2023, affecting our cost base. It is important to highlight that most of these expense line items, including salaries are tied to CPI.
We also incurred greater severance payments and higher costs related to the acceleration of deferred costs associated with former collective bargaining agreements due to the negotiation of a new agreement before the expiration of the prior one. As for the rest, the greater expenses are mainly tied to a rise in IT expenses related to software licensing, data processing services and amortization of intangible assets. In addition, we incurred higher expenses resulting from the relocation of part of our ATM network as we entered into a new alliance with a local retailer, which coupled with higher expenses that stemmed up from the implementation of VAT in services, starting January 2023, according to the last tax reform. In terms of efficiencies, we reached a cost-to-income ratio of 37% in the fourth quarter when compared to our peers.
We continue to lead and have widened the gap in efficiency, as shown on the chart to the right. Our strong emphasis on enhancing cost controls, increasing productivity and applying technology to improve our business management, should keep enabling us to achieve excellent results in terms of efficiency. However, we acknowledge that our present level of efficiency has largely been influenced by the impact of market factors that temporarily boosted our top line. Nonetheless, we are confident that we will maintain sustainable levels below 42% in the medium term and for 2024, we expect a cost-to-income ratio of around 40%. Please turn to Slide 19. The Chilean economy is poised for a rebound in 2024, moving out of a period of stagnation into one of growth.
With an expected growth rate of 1.5%, alongside a projected stabilization of the CPI and interest rates at 3% and 4.5%, respectively. In this context, the Chilean financial sector has a promising outlook if business and consumer confidence rebound, thanks to lower risks. With respect to Banco de Chile, we have successfully addressed these challenging times, not just maintaining our leadership position but by also excelling across key metrics such as profitability, operating revenues, asset quality, efficiency, and capitalization. Our robust risk management and commitment to ESG have also distinguished us in the Latin American banking landscape. Looking ahead to 2024 and beyond, Banco de Chile is well-positioned to capitalize on the economic upturn, especially with our superior capital position.
We aim to further enhance our operational efficiencies and seize new opportunities that align with our strategic goals. With a focus on sustainable growth, we are aiming for a long-term ROAE of approximately 18%, reflecting the confidence in our continued success and leadership in the industry. Thank you for listening and if you have any questions, we will be happy to answer them.
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