Banco Latinoamericano de Comercio Exterior, S.A. Class E Aktie

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Bladex Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. A slide presentation is accompanying today's webcast and is also available on the Investors section of the company's website, www.bladex.com. [Operator Instructions] Please note today's conference call is being recorded. [Operator Instructions]

I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Jorge Salas, Chief Executive Officer. Sir, please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today to discuss Bladex's results for the third quarter of 2026. I will begin with the key highlights. Annette, our CFO, will then take the call to walk you through the financial results in more detail. After that, I will return with an update on strategy and our outlook for the rest of the year. Finally, we will open the call for questions.

This was an outstanding quarter for Bladex. Our commercial portfolio and net interest income both reached new record levels. Also, net interest income grew significantly from a year ago, and we delivered strong earnings. We did this while maintaining strong credit quality, further improving the portfolio's risk profile as Stage 2 exposures declined and preserve a strong capital position. It is an encouraging combination of financial KPIs as we enter the final part of the year.

Our commercial portfolio reached a record of $15 billion, up 15% from the second quarter and 38% from a year ago. The quarter included a $1 billion 1 year sovereign loan to the Republic of Panama in support of the government's liability management program. This was a onetime opportunity distinct from the transactions we typically originate. There is a sovereign exposure to Panama, which S&P and Moody's rate investment grade with relatively low capital consumptions for its size and the spread well above the sovereign bond curve. This transaction clearly demonstrates our ability to execute at scale, supported by our funding flexibility.

Even excluding that single Panama sovereign loan, loans grew 7% from the second quarter and 29% from a year ago. That growth included trade and working capital financing with established clients as well as medium-term financing for acquisitions and energy projects, mostly in Colombia and Argentina. Needless to say, we have not relaxed our underwriting standards to achieve this growth. Most of the growth this quarter came from the higher-grade segments, where we found attractive arbitrage opportunities. We know the sponsors, we understand the exposures, and we know the risks.

Competition for high-quality assets continue to pressure lending spreads across the region. Latin American assets continue to attract investors' interest, supported by the region's relative distance from major conflicts and its role as a supplier of energy and other commodities. Regional sovereign risk premiums remain near historical lows. Net interest income reached a record of $79.8 million, up 9% from the second quarter and net interest margin rose to 2.30%. It is worth mentioning, however, that this quarter's margin improvement reflected lower funding costs and a temporary benefit from loan prepayments even as lending spreads remain under pressure. Annette will comment more on that shortly.

As planned, deposits continue to grow. Average deposits increased 6% quarter-over-quarter and 22% year-over-year, helping lower our funding costs and supporting margins while the commercial portfolio expanded. Our fee-generating businesses keep making good progress. Noninterest income reached $19.3 million, up 26% from a year ago. Letters of credit generated record quarterly income, supported by stronger trade finance activity, particularly in the commodity sector.

In addition, we completed 4 structured transactions, bringing our total to 13 for the first 9 months of 2026. Our syndication and project finance teams continue to generate strong distribution fees while working closely with our client derivatives teams to provide hedges that help mitigate risk, improve cross-sell and boost client profitability.

Total revenues reached $99.1 million, nearly 20% higher than a year ago. Our efficiency ratio stood at 25.8% for the quarter. Revenue growth is allowing us to advance our strategic initiatives while maintaining cost discipline. With budgeted planned investments underway next quarter, we expect the full year efficiency ratio to move closer to our guidance of 27% for the year. Provision expense increased as a result of portfolio growth and additional reserve coverage on existing Stage 3 exposures, reinforcing our conservative approach to credit risk management. Credit performance remains solid. Net income reached $63.2 million, 15% higher than a year ago and adjusted ROE was 15%. Our Tier 1 ratio ended the quarter at 16.2%. Both our ROE and our capital ratios are at the higher end of the range of our guidance for the year.

In summary, we are pleased with the profitability we delivered this quarter as the business continues to grow and we expect a solid business pipeline for the remainder of the year.

With that overview, let me turn it over to Annette for a closer look at the financial results. Annette, over to you.

Thank you, Jorge, and good morning, everyone. As Jorge highlighted, the third quarter was another strong quarter for Bladex, demonstrating the strength of our balance sheet and our ability to execute at scale.

Turning to our financial performance. Net income reached $63.2 million, up 15% year-over-year. Compared with the second quarter, net income was 5% lower, mainly reflecting the normalization of transaction-driven fee income, higher operating expenses and increased provisions, partially offset by higher net interest income. Return on average assets was 1.8% and adjusted return on equity was 15%, in line with our full year guidance. For the first 9 months of the year, net income totaled $186 million, up 9% year-over-year with a return on average assets of 1.9% and an adjusted return on equity of 15.2%.

Let me now walk you through the key financial drivers behind these results, beginning with the commercial portfolio. The commercial portfolio reached a record $15 billion at quarter end, up 15% from the second quarter and 38% year-over-year. Two factors explain this growth, a landmark sovereign transaction and continued expansion with established top-tier clients in markets and sectors we know well. The Panama sovereign transaction accounted for around half of our commercial portfolio growth during the quarter and includes flexibility for early repayment.

I want to highlight this transaction because it demonstrates 5 strengths of our business model. First, execution capacity, our ability to underwrite and execute large transactions capturing significant market opportunities. Second, asset quality, a short-term exposure to an investment-grade sovereign, consistent with our risk appetite. Third, capital efficiency, relatively low capital consumption under Basel III, generating a very attractive risk-adjusted return on capital. Fourth, funding flexibility, our ability to mobilize funding quickly through our correspondent banking network aligned with the tenor of the transaction. And fifth, earnings, a positive contribution to absolute net interest income despite temporarily diluting reported NIM.

Beyond this transaction, the growth was broad-based across our loan portfolio. Total loans reached $12.3 billion, up 18% quarter-over-quarter and 41% year-over-year. Growth was concentrated primarily in short-term lending, including increased financing requirements associated with higher oil prices and regional trade flows. Medium-term lending also contributed, supported by acquisition financing and energy sector transactions with attractive risk-adjusted returns.

Contingencies reached $2.5 billion, up 5% quarter-over-quarter and 16% year-over-year, supported by letter of credits and commitments, the latter related mainly to project finance and infrastructure. From a geographic perspective, Panama became our largest country exposure at 17%. Excluding the sovereign transaction, Panama would have represented nearly 10%, broadly in line with other major markets such as Colombia and Brazil. Importantly, this growth has not come at the expense of credit quality. Our portfolio remains focused on financial institutions, top-tier corporations and sovereign exposures with 68% scheduled to mature within 1 year, preserving flexibility to reprice and redeploy capital. Looking ahead, excluding the Panama transaction, we expect our full year commercial portfolio growth to be around 25%.

Turning now to asset quality. Credit quality remains strong despite the significant expansion of our portfolio, reflecting our disciplined underwriting standards and proactive credit risk management. At quarter end, 99% of total credit exposure or $16.4 billion was classified as Stage 1 compared with 98.4% in the prior quarter. Stage 2 exposure declined to $82 million or just 0.5% of the portfolio from $162 million in the second quarter, reflecting the sale of one exposure, the scheduled amortizations and credit rating improvements.

Importantly, exposures requiring closer monitoring continue to decline even as our portfolio expands, with no new exposure migrating to impaired status during the quarter. Additionally, Stage 3 exposure remained stable at $75 million, while their share of the credit portfolio declined to 0.4% as the portfolio expanded. Credit provisions for the quarter totaled $10.4 million compared with $8.6 million in the prior quarter. The additional provisions primarily reflect increased reserve coverage on existing Stage 3 exposures rather than new credit deterioration, together with provisions associated with the portfolio growth.

This is consistent with our proactive credit oversight and prudent provisioning approach. As a result, total reserve coverage of impaired credits increased to 1.4x compared with 1.25x in the prior quarter. Overall, these results reinforce the strength of our credit portfolio and our proactive and prudent approach to credit risk management even as we continue to grow our business.

Turning now to funding. This quarter clearly demonstrates the strength and flexibility of our funding platform. We expanded our balance sheet by $2 billion, supported by a diversified deposit franchise, broad access to international capital markets and a deep network of long-standing correspondent banking relationships. Deposits remain a central pillar of our funding strategy. Average deposits grew 6% quarter-over-quarter and 22% year-over-year, supporting an improved funding mix and more competitive funding spreads.

At quarter end, deposits stood at $7.9 billion, up 16% year-over-year. Our deposit base remains well diversified. Central banks and Class A shareholders accounted for 36% of deposits, corporations, 26%; financial institutions, 23%; brokers, 13% and multilaterals 2%. Yankee CDs continue to perform well with average balances increasing 19% during the quarter, further supporting diversification and the depth of our deposit franchise.

What distinguished this quarter, however, was our ability to leverage our broader funding platform to support significant balance sheet growth. The $1 billion Panama sovereign transaction was mostly funded through short-term facilities from our correspondent banking network aligned with the tenor of the transaction. This demonstrates the depth of our strategic banking relationships and our ability to mobilize substantial funding efficiently.

We also continue to diversify our medium-term funding, raising approximately $450 million across 3 debt programs: a public issuance in Mexico, public offerings in Panama and private placements under our EMTN program. The Mexican issuance also generated additional demand, allowing for a reopening executed during the quarter. Together, these funding capabilities provide diversification across products, maturities, geographies and investor types, giving us the flexibility to support significant business opportunities while maintaining a prudent approach to liquidity and balance sheet management. Regarding liquidity, we maintained a solid and conservative position with nearly $2 billion in liquid assets, representing 12% of total assets, consistent with our internal liquidity risk appetite and regulatory requirements.

Let me now turn to capital. The Basel III Tier 1 ratio ended the quarter at 16.2% compared with 16.6% in the second quarter, remaining above our 15% to 16% operating range. The regulatory capital adequacy ratio under Panama's framework stood at 14.3%, well above the regulatory minimum and consistent with our internal risk appetite. What is important this quarter is what these ratios show.

Loan growth was supported by our available capital with the Tier 1 ratio adjusting by less than 50 basis points. This is because most of the incremental growth came from investment-grade sovereigns and quasi sovereign exposures, which carry a lower capital consumption under Basel III and do not compute under Panama's local methodology. This is consistent with the capital management strategy we outlined following our AT1 issuance, deploying capital selectively into attractive opportunities while preserving financial flexibility. Looking ahead, we expect our Tier 1 ratio to move towards our operating range, supporting continued business growth.

Finally, reflecting our solid earnings performance, the Board approved to maintain a quarterly cash dividend of $0.6875 per share, reinforcing our commitment to shareholder returns while retaining capital to support our growth and protect our investment-grade credit profile.

Moving now to net interest income and margins. Net interest income reached a record of $79.8 million in the third quarter, up 9% from the prior quarter and 18% year-over-year. For the first 9 months, NII totaled $223 million, up 11% compared with the same period last year. The main driver was volume. Average loan balances increased 8% during the quarter, more than offsetting continued pressure on underlying lending spreads. Net interest margin stood at 2.30% in the quarter, 6 basis points higher than in the second quarter, while net interest spread improved to 1.73%.

Three factors contributed to this improvement. First, the accelerated recognition of deferred fees following early repayments of certain medium-term loans, providing a temporary benefit to lending yields. Second, improved funding spreads supported by continued growth in average deposits and optimization of our funding mix. And third, efficient yet prudent liquidity management, maintaining adequate liquidity levels with our risk appetite.

Importantly, underlying lending spreads remain under pressure, particularly in the highly competitive market for high-quality assets. As for the Panama Sovereign transaction, it was originated during the second half of September, so its impact on the third quarter NIM was limited. In the fourth quarter, its full quarter contribution is expected to temporarily dilute reported NIM while adding meaningfully to absolute NII. We are not managing our business to maximize NIM in isolation.

Our focus remains on generating attractive risk-adjusted returns and sustainable earnings while maintaining strong asset quality. With the significant growth in average earning assets and our strong ending loan portfolio, we entered the fourth quarter with a solid base to sustain strong net interest income generation, supported by our diversified and efficient funding platform.

Let me now turn to noninterest income, which continues to be a key pillar of our revenue diversification strategy. For the first 9 months of the year, noninterest income, excluding the impact of hedging derivatives, reached a record $57.6 million, (sic) $57.9 million up 19% year-over-year. In the third quarter, noninterest income reached $19 million, up 15% year-over-year, following an exceptionally strong second quarter. Within this total, fees and commissions amounted to $16.3 million. Letter of credits and guarantees generated $9.6 million, their highest historical quarterly level, supported by a strong trade finance activity.

Credit commitments contributed $3.6 million, primarily from project finance transactions and medium-term committed facilities, providing an additional source of stable fee income. Structuring and distribution generated $3.9 million in upfront structuring and syndication fees. During the quarter, we closed 4 transactions across the region, mobilizing $470 million with Bladex retaining $365 million. This financing also created opportunities for Bladex to arrange and distribute longer-term takeout facilities, which we expect to execute between the fourth quarter of 2026 and the first quarter of 2027. Year-to-date, we have completed 13 transactions mobilizing about $2.7 billion.

Client derivatives doubled to $2.6 million in the quarter. These pilot transactions continue to perform well, mainly linked to interest rate hedges on project finance transactions and provide a solid starting point as we prepare to launch our new treasury platform. Overall, noninterest income represented 19% of total revenues, reinforcing the growing contribution of these activities to our business. While these revenues are transactional in nature and may fluctuate between quarters, the breadth of contributions across business lines reflect continued progress in our revenue diversification strategy. And for the full year, we expect noninterest income to be closer to 18% of total revenues.

Turning now to expenses and efficiency. Operating expenses totaled $26.6 million (sic) [ $25.6 million ] up 7% from the prior quarter. The increase was mainly driven by higher personnel expenses, including specialized talent to support our strategic initiatives and variable compensation reflecting the bank's performance. For the first 9 months of the year, expenses totaled $71.4 million with an efficiency ratio of 25.4%, while the third quarter ratio stood at 25.8% compared with 24.1% in the second quarter.

Looking ahead, we expect operating expenses to increase in the fourth quarter, reflecting the usual seasonality of our business and the timing of planned strategic initiatives, which concentrate certain operating expenses at year-end. Based on our year-to-date performance and expected fourth quarter expenses, we now anticipate a full year efficiency ratio better than our original guidance.

Before I hand the call back to Jorge, let me briefly sum up. We entered the fourth quarter with a solid earning asset base, supporting continued strong net interest income generation. Looking ahead, 2 variables would influence fourth quarter profitability, the timing of transaction-driven fee income and seasonally higher operating expenses as we continue to execute on our strategic initiatives. And as Jorge mentioned, the main market challenge remains the continued pressure on lending spreads. Overall, this quarter shows that we can grow at scale while preserving the asset quality, capital strength and returns that define Bladex.

With that, I'll turn the call back to Jorge.

Thank you, Annette. Great job as always. Let me close with a few comments on strategy and execution and our outlook for the rest of the year. Growth in our commercial business and fee income showed that 2 pillars of our plan are delivering results. The third pillar, as you all know, is improving funding costs through transactional services. Almost a dozen of important corporate clients have shown interest in being part of our cash management pilot and expect to onboard them in stages, beginning with basic capabilities early next year.

In the transactional correspondent banking business for cross-border payments, we are close to completing onboarding of our second client and 3 additional institutions have begun the process. We remain firmly on track to ending the year with 3 of 5 correspondent banking clients, consistent with the gradual ramp-up we presented at our Investor Day earlier this year. As we have said, these services will ultimately enable us to capture more of the transactional flows we already finance, strengthening the relationship and activity associated with our existing businesses. Over time, this should also contribute to a more ample and stable funding base with lower costs. We are taking a measured approach to onboarding, ensuring that the necessary services and controls are in place as the business grows.

Now regarding guidance for the year, we expect commercial portfolio growth of around 35%. Excluding the Government of Panama transaction, growth for the year will be around 25%, still significantly above our original guidance of 13% to 15%. Average deposit growth should end the year at around 20%, also above guidance. As we mentioned earlier, because of ample liquidity and increased competition in the region, we expect net interest margin compression of around 5 basis points with NIM ending the year at roughly 2.25%.

The efficiency ratio will be around 27%, slightly better than guidance. We reaffirm our adjusted return on equity guidance of 14% to 15% and our Tier 1 operating range of 15% to 16%. This year's growth pace is exceptional, especially given the one-off Panama transaction. We do not expect to repeat it. Having said that, we do expect to sustain the larger commercial portfolio we have built as individual transactions mature.

Before I finish, let me briefly address our view on Brazil following Sunday's presidential election. The result has brought a pullback in equities and a weaker real, following the gains ahead of the vote. Regardless of Sunday's election outcome, the key challenge for Brazil's next administration will be addressing the fiscal imbalance and put public debt on a sustainable trajectory. Achieving this will require credible fiscal consolidation while navigating a more fragmented Congress. Making consensus building and coalition management will be essential to advancing the necessary reforms.

Brazil has a large, diversified economy and deep financial markets that provide important buffers during periods of uncertainty. In Bladex, we remain comfortable with our exposures in Brazil for 3 main reasons. One, by design, our credits were underwritten to perform well irrespective of this election's outcome. Two, we have been even more cautious in the last few quarters given the sharp increase in corporate defaults in the country. And three, since over 75% of the exposures in the country matures in less than 12 months, we believe we are well positioned to capture any potential repricing upside or even to reduce exposures if market conditions deteriorate. We entered the final quarter with strong momentum. We will continue to pursue profitable growth, maintain our risk discipline and advance the transactional services that will deepen our client relationships.

That concludes our review of the third quarter. Operator, please open the line for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Ricardo Buchpiguel with BTG Pactual.

I wanted to ask about 2 topics here. So we continue to see the acceleration in the portfolio growth, now approaching 25% when you exclude the Panama loan. I understand what you mentioned that this growth not necessarily should repeat itself. The 2030 guidance kind of points to a CAGR of around like 10% and the duration of the portfolio is low. But given the stronger activity you have been seeing so far, do you believe at least like 15% in 2027 is something feasible to expect? And to help on that, if you could explain in more details, which loan products have been driving more of this pickup and comment why potentially these loans might not necessarily be renewed and the portfolio growth would decelerate?

And to my second question, you discussed here that one of the challenging aspects of the year was the spread compression we have been seeing given the strong activity on LatAm bonds capital markets. But more recently, we have been seeing that global bond spread has been widening around the world. And I believe we start to see some widening also in LatAm bonds, right, more towards the end of September. So with that, do you believe it could be approaching some sort of inflection point on the spread side?

Ricardo, thank you for your 2 questions. Regarding growth in 2027, we are in the process of putting together our budget for next year. So I'm not ready to say what the growth for next year is going to be. I mean, between 13% and 15% looks reasonable, but we will give guidance for next year during next quarter call. As far as the products that have been driving growth, I think they're pretty spread over all our product suite. But maybe, Sam, you can complement on which products have been responsible for growth this year.

Yes. Just quickly on the growth, I just want to make a comment that I think we have 2 levers, the spreads and the volumes, right, and which we play constantly depending on where the market is. I think our view or my opinion, at least, is that we are in the moment of exuberance in the credit markets in LatAm all across, which we see that spreads are not necessarily reflecting the risk. In that scenario, I think this year, we've been opting to weight more our growth towards short-term exposure, not to trap medium-term capital in low profitability transactions. And of course, meanwhile, we'll continue to deploy our higher value-added products or product initiatives, which helps us to alleviate some of the margin pressure.

We do note that we are -- we see some though we haven't seen, let's say, a much change in demand for medium-term transactions, we've noticed what you mentioned, the slowdown in the DCM transactions, which clearly is a competitor to us and a modest increase in the spreads. If that persists, I think this could be a positive for us, and we are positioned to take advantage of it. And most of the growth you're seeing is on short-term exactly to gain time and to use our balance sheet and not trapped capital and have a good dry powder to absorb this repricing that you mentioned.

We, for example, start seeing possibilities of companies that have bonds maturing mid or end of next year that not necessarily think is a good moment to go to the bond market. Those we're talking about investment grade or quasi-investment grade companies that have an open access that they just want to delay, and this is a perfect moment to -- for us for bridge to bonds and give them more time, but of course, price accordingly or better than it will be if we would lend them directly in other circumstances.

In terms of product, we are -- for example, we're seeing -- given where the oil prices are, we're seeing very strong demand for trade finance, and we are definitely capturing that. That explains some of the growth in the short-term. We're also seeing still, I would say, good demand for project finance or event-driven transaction or M&A financing. But like Jorge said, I think it's well spread across our various product initiatives.

I don't know if that is a sufficient answer for your first question. On spread compression, you're right. I mean spreads in the global bonds have been widening. It's not our base case that we're going to be conservative, most likely going forward. We do see a lot -- as I said before, we do see a lot of demand for Latin American assets. So it could -- there could be upside in spreads in 2027. I mean it's -- I think it's too early to predict what's going to happen.

That's super clear. One quick follow-up on your revised NIM estimate, are you assuming any increase in the Fed fund rate, or this would be kind of an upside risk for 2026?

Annette?

As you know, the bank maintains a relative neutral position in our interest rate gap. So we expect that, yes, the capital benefit that we receive from the interest rate hikes that already happened and may happen in the future will have a gradual effect in our balance sheet as we reprice both the asset and the liability side. However, in the short-term, we'll see an impact initially on the deposits that will be then partially offset at the beginning with the liquidity also repricing. But as in the following weeks and months, then the loans will start to reprice and then that impact will be neutral going forward. But as long as we keep a positive curve on interest rates, that should benefit the bank.

The next question comes from Daniel Mora with Credicorp Capital.

I have a couple of questions. The first one is related to the $1 billion, 1 year transaction with the government of Panama. I would like to understand what is the transaction expected contribution to net interest income and NIM while it remains on the balance sheet and also to understand the impact on NIM, if it is related to the size of the operation of the transaction, the maturity, the yield or, if the impact is coming from the increase in the funding cost given the use of short-term borrowings. That's the first question.

And the second question is also a follow-up on margins. Given the ongoing pressure that you mentioned on U.S. dollar lending spreads and the benefit from the accelerated deferred fee recognition this quarter, what do you consider to be a normalized NIM level, excluding these benefits? And also looking ahead, how sensitive is the need to defer rates and if we could see the benefits coming from a higher for longer interest rates come from the Fed?

Let me just give a brief introduction to the first question on the Panama sovereign loan. I mean it's more earnings contribution and capital efficiency than maximizing NIM. It's actually dilutive to our NIM ratio, but the risk-adjusted return on that loan is probably one of the best ones we've had this year. I don't know, do you want to give more details, Annette on...

I think it's clear. The transaction -- it does have a very high RAROC in our own calculations. As you mentioned, it is due mainly to the fact that this is a short-term exposure to an investment-grade sovereign. Therefore, it consumes very low capital and the credit cost associated with the transaction is very low. As you mentioned, it was funded very efficiently in a much thinner through our correspondent banking network. So this is already reflected in the RAROC that it represents.

And as we move forward to the fourth quarter, we do see an impact in the NIM since this transaction was closed towards the end of September, the impact that we see in the NIM this quarter was limited. So as we move forward to this fourth quarter, the impact will be a little bit higher diluting the NIM a little bit. However, the significant benefit that we will have in the NII will be important as well.

And then regarding the second question on NIM, I think we already -- we're targeting 2.25%, we're already -- today, we're at 2.30% NIM, we think we'll close the year at 2.25% for the year, but we are seeing pressures on net interest margin. I mean the way to go around is to simply gather more deposits. Deposits, as you saw, are growing substantially. I don't know, Annette, if you want to -- and we do expect that -- obviously, as Annette said before, any rate hikes, potential rate hikes will benefit our net interest margin.

And I think we already provided the guidance for the growth of deposits. We do expect the growth of deposits to be around 20% this year. So we will be complementing the -- supporting the growth of the portfolio going forward, although -- I mean, the growth for the fourth quarter is a little -- a lot more normalized than the one that we saw during the third quarter. This will be supported by a mix of different funding sources as we move forward.

Our next questions are written questions from Juan Soto, Bancolombia. What level of total allowances for losses on impaired credit do you expect to reach over the medium term? Given your intention to increase this ratio, should we expect a substantial increase in the impairment losses to achieve the target?

No, I mean, our cost of risk has been very stable. It's probably, as you know, 20 basis points per year, and we expect to project that going forward. So we are not expecting a substantial increase in impairment losses to achieve the target. I mean it averages out, right? So it's -- it will be 20 basis points. That's our base case going forward. And it'll probably be what we're going to assume for next year's projections as well.

Next question comes from Andres Soto with Santander.

I have a few questions. The first one is regarding your NIM evolution this quarter. In the release, you mentioned the 6 basis points expansion was held by some recognition of deferred fees from some prepayments. You have also mentioned that this Panama transaction is going to put pressure into NIM for the fourth quarter. So can you help us better understand what is going to be the NIM trajectory going into the fourth quarter? How big is the compression considering the reversal of this one-off that you had in the third quarter plus the NIM pressure that you are seeing coming from the Panama transaction?

Okay. So yes. So this is the prepayments and the accounting treatment under IFRS, I'm going to let Annette explain. But we are seeing pressure, as I've said a couple of times before. Do you want to...

Sure. Andres, I think we've partially answered this, but we'll try to be as thorough as possible to address your question. So as we mentioned during the call, there have been different factors that helped the NIM improve during the third quarter. An important one was the efficient management of our liquidity levels, keeping them within our internal risk appetite and obviously complying with regulatory minimum. That was an important part of the improvement in the NIM. Also a slight improvement in funding spreads given that the average deposit balances were higher than in the second quarter that also helped the NIM in the third quarter.

And another important factor was the acceleration of amortized fees. Under IFRS, when you -- the fact that you receive payments upfront doesn't mean that they are recognized upfront accounting-wise. So when -- in general terms, when fees are associated with the origination of a loan that we retain solely in our balance sheet, these are paid upfront, but amortized during the life of the transaction, recognized as part of the net interest income.

And when we carry a lead role or when we arrange or syndicate a transaction, that's when the fees can be recognized upfront. Once that service is completed, given that the transaction is completed, that's when we recognize. So that's the kind of the difference. And some of the transactions that we have in the balance sheet have a combination of both. And that's when some of these medium-term transactions that are prepaid, the remainder of the fees that are not yet amortized, those are the ones that are accelerated, providing a temporary increase in our net interest income.

However, it is important to mention that the normal course of our loan portfolio does have recurrent prepayments from our clients. But this quarter, we did have an increase on prepayments that was about 2 to 3x higher than what we have seen in prior periods. So that was -- we decided to mention it in the call that the NIM was affected by 3 different factors, not only by liquidity and funding as it usually is. And obviously, tighter margins. That was the kind of the negative impact that we saw in the NIM. I don't know if I finished answering the question, Andres, or I don't know if I left something out.

No. I was just trying to get a sense of magnitude of the 6 basis points, yes.

Yes. I mean, like I said, most of the impact comes from liquidity. The prepayment does help the NIM. The prepayments were higher this quarter than in prior quarters, and we keep seeing pressure on margins. So I think those are the main conclusions for the third quarter. Going -- looking forward to the fourth quarter, as I mentioned before, the Panama transaction was closed towards the second half of September. It will have an important impact in the dilution of the NIM, but it will also have an important increase in our net interest income. And that's already in our guidance for the year.

It's probably worth mentioning that the Panama transaction allows for -- it could be prepaid. And in that case, it will also accelerate the fees.

And on that specific transaction, is there any tax implication? Because I understand the fact that you are tax-exempt for as long as you don't do business within Panama. Does this transaction changes that?

No, there are no tax implications with that transaction.

Okay. Thank you very much. That's all the questions we have for today. I'll pass the line back to the Bladex team for their concluding remarks.

All right. So thank you, everybody, for connecting and for your questions. Looking forward to a strong end of 2026 and see you in the next call. Goodbye.

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Bladex Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. A slide presentation is accompanying today's webcast and is also available on the Investors section of the company's website, www.bladex.com. There will be an opportunity for you to ask questions at the end of today's presentation. Please note today's conference call is being recorded.

As a reminder, all participants will be in listen-only mode. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Jorge Salas, Chief Executive Officer. Sir, please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today to discuss Bladex results for the second quarter of 2026. I will begin with the key highlights for the and then Annette, our CFO, will walk you through the financials in more detail. .

After that, I will come back and provide a quick update on our strategic execution, our view of the [ Macon ] and our outlook for the rest of the year. Finally, we will open the call for questions. Let me start with the headline. We are thrilled with our performance this quarter, not only because we reached record levels across several area business. But more importantly, because we're starting to see the strategy we share with you all at our Investor Day, translate into tangible results. We delivered strong commercial execution, further extend our funding base and continue to broaden a revenue mix just like we anticipated.

The commercial portfolio reached a record of $13 billion, up 8% from March, 20% year-over-year and 17% since year-end. Both loans and contingencies also closed at new heights. This is exactly the kind of disciplined capital deployment we had in mind when we completed the AT1 issuance last year. We're putting the capital work to support growth while maintaining a strong capital position. On the funding side, deposits reached a record of $7.9 billion, 8% sequentially and 20% since December. Funding kept pace with the expansion of the commercial portfolio and our diversified deposit base continues to provide a solid foundation for balance sheet growth. Turning to revenues.

Net interest reached another new high, increasing 4% for the first quarter, supported by higher average loan balances and disciplined balance sheet management. At the same time, margins remain under pressure. Net interest margin declined by 10 basis points to 224%, mainly reflecting higher average liquidity and continued competitive pressures on spreads. This remains consistent with the environment we discussed during the first quarter call. Noninterest income is perhaps the biggest highlight of the quarter. It is also a fundamental part of the strategy presented at the Investor Day. The focus is to diversify the bank's revenue base, which is particularly important when there is margin compression. This focus is clearly turning into visible results. Noninterest income reached a record of $25 million for the quarter, up 86% from the first quarter and represented 26% of total revenues in the quarter.

This is meaningful progress in making our earnings less dependent on interest margin. Just a few years ago, noninterest income over total income was close to 15%. And our loan syndications team had 1 of the best quarters ever, and the client derivative business is also starting to gain traction in line with plan. The pilot transactions continue to perform well and are primarily linked to structured transactions of our clients. Annette will take you through the composition of noninterest income and the activity in these businesses in more detail in a few minutes, expenses, on the other hand, increased as expected and as we continue to execute our strategic initiatives. Revenues, however, grew faster than costs.

As a result, efficiency improved meaningfully to 24.1% for the quarter. Now as we have said before, we do expect expenses to increase in the second half of the year as we continue to execute the investment plan contemplated for 2026. Provisions also increased during the quarter, mainly as a result of the strong portfolio growth and our prudent approach to risk management. Overall, asset quality remains sound. Finally, net income reached a record of $66.5 million, up 18% from the first quarter, which translates into a return on equity of 16.4%.

Our Tier 1 capital ratio closed the quarter at 16.6%, still comfortably above our target and providing capacity to continue supporting disciplined growth. This was an all-around excellent quarter. We've put capital to work, broaden our revenue base and improve profitability and efficiency despite continued pressure on margins. With that overview, let me now hand it over to Anit for a more detailed review of the financial results.

Annette, your turn.

Thank you, Jorge, and good morning, everyone. The second quarter was another strong period for Bladex with several key balance sheet and revenue metrics reaching new highs. Commercial activity and deposits continue to spend, net interest income increased and fee generation was particularly strong, while asset quality and capital remains sound.

Turning to our financial performance. Net income reached $66.5 million, up 18% from the first quarter. Return on average assets was 2% and while adjusted return on equity improved to 16.4%. For the first half of the year, net income totaled $122.8 million, resulting in a return on average assets of 1.9% and an adjusted return on equity of 15.3%. Given the transactional nature of structuring revenues, the quarterly contribution of noninterest income would naturally vary. Even so, based on our first half performance and expectations for the remainder of the year, we are reaffirming our full year adjusted ROE guidance of 14% to 15%.

Let me now walk you through the key drivers behind these results, beginning with the commercial portfolio. The commercial portfolio ended the quarter at $13 billion, up 8% from the first quarter and 20% year-over-year. Growth was broad-based across loan and contingencies, reflecting continued execution across our core markets. Loan increased to $10.5 billion, up 8% from the first quarter and 22% year-over-year, while contingencies reached EUR 2.3 billion increasing 11% from the first quarter and 5% year-over-year.

Importantly, average loan balances increased steadily throughout the quarter, providing the primary support for higher net interest income despite continued pressure on lending spreads. Commercial activity remained healthy across both trade finance and medium-term lending. This quarter's strong growth was driven by strategic industries and high-quality client relationships that support sustainable net interest income generation rather than by pursuing volume for its own sake. We also continue to originate medium-term transaction with attractive risk-adjusted returns, supporting a more balanced asset mix and enhancing the quality of earnings over time.

At the same time, strong trade-related activity preserve the portfolio predominantly short-dated profile with approximately 65% of the portfolio scheduled to mature within the next 12 months. Looking ahead, we expect portfolio growth to continue at a steady and disciplined pace, consistent with our long-term strategy. Quarter-over-quarter growth was led by Panama and Argentina, with additional contribution from Dominican Republic, Peru and Brazil. The portfolio remains well diversified across countries and industries. No single country accounted for more than 14% of total exposure.

Financial institutions represented 27% of the portfolio, while corporate exposures continue to reflect the diversity of regional trade flows. The commercial bank portfolio remained broadly stable at $226 million. Given current market conditions, we continue to prioritize lending opportunities or incremental investment purchases. This quarter demonstrates our ability to grow the portfolio while maintaining disciplined underwriting, broad diversification and prudent capital deployment.

Turning now to liquidity and the treasury investment portfolio. At quarter end, liquidity assets totaled approximately $1.9 billion, representing 13.3% of total assets and remaining well within regulatory requirements and our risk appetite. Our liquidity profile remains conservative. A significant portion is held at deferral Reserve Bank of New York, with the remainder primarily placed with high-quality financial institutions and multilateral organizations. The treasury investment portfolio totaled $1.4 billion at quarter end. It remains highly investment grade, short in duration and broadly diversified outside Latin America.

In addition to providing credit diversification, the portfolio serves as a source of contingent liquidity as these securities are eligible to be placed through our New York agency at the fraud Reserve discount window. Turning now to asset quality. Overall, credit quality remains sound, supported by disciplined underwriting, broad portfolio diversification and proactive credit risk management. At quarter-end, 98.4% of total credit exposure of $14.2 billion remain in Stage 1. Stage 2 exposures declined to 1.1% or $162 million, reflecting credit improvements, repayments maturities and the migration of our previously identified exposure to Stage 3.

Stage 3 exposure increased to 0.5% or $75 million, primarily reflecting the migration of debt exposure, which has been under enhanced monitoring. As part of our proactive risk management approach, we reduced the overall exposure by selling the bilateral loan component. The remaining deferred payment letter of credit exposure was reclassified to Stage 3 and remains currently reserved. Importantly, this migration was limited to a single exposure and does not reflect a broader deterioration in the portfolio. Provisioning expense totaled $8.6 million compared with $4.7 million in the first quarter.

Stage 1 provisioning accounted for $6.4 million, primarily reflecting continued portfolio growth. The remaining provision expense was largely associated with the specific exposure discussed earlier. As a result, cost of risk was 26 basis points compared with 14 basis points in the previous quarter. The quarter also included $8.6 million in write-offs related to 2 fully reserved commercial loans because these write-offs were charged against existing allowances they had no additional impact on second quarter results. We also recorded $1.1 million in recoveries from previously written off loans.

As a result, Total reserve ended the quarter at $93.8 million, providing 1.25% coverage of impaired credit. These actions reflect our proactive approach to credit risk management. identifying potential deterioration early, actively reducing exposure when appropriate and maintaining prudent reserve levels. Together with disciplined underwriting and a well-diversified portfolio, they continue to support a sound asset quality profile. Turning now to funding. Deposits remain 1 of the quarter's key strengths and continue to serve as a central pillar of our funding strategy. Deposits reached a new high of $7.9 billion at quarter end, increasing 8% from the first quarter and representing approximately 64% of total funding.

Our deposit base remains well diversified. Central Bank and Class A shareholders accounted for 34% of deposits, while financial institutions represented 27%; corporations, 23% and brokers 15% and multilateral institutions 1%. DGD balances also reached a new high, ending the quarter at nearly $2 billion. Continued demand reflects the strength of our distribution platform across the Americas, Europe and Asia. During the quarter, we also introduced green Yankee CDs with proceeds allocated to eligible green assets originated by our commercial team. This initiative further broadens our investor base while expanding our sustainable funding alternatives. Beyond deposits, we continue to selectively evaluate medium-term funding opportunities that enhance diversification, extend funding duration and improve overall funding efficiency.

Let me now turn to capital. The Basel III Tier 1 ratio in the quarter at 16.6% compared with 17.9% in the first quarter and remains above our 15% to 16% operating range. The regulatory capital adequacy ratio under Panama's framework stood at 14.3%, well above the regulatory minimum. The movement in Tier 1 reflects the continued deployment of capital to support commercial portfolio growth, particularly in medium-term transactions. This is consistent with the strategy we outlined following the AT1 issuance and with our expectations that capital ratios would gradually move toward our operating range as we put the capital to work. Our capital base continues to provide ample capacity to support future growth, absorb potential volatility and maintain the financial flexibility expected by our stakeholders.

Moving now to net interest income and margins. Net interest income increased to $73.3 million, up 4% from the first quarter. Higher average loan balances more than offset tighter lending spreads allowing net interest income to grow despite continued pressure on margins. Net interest margin was 2.24% during the quarter, down 10 basis points from the first quarter while net interest spread declined to 1.64. The decline in NIM primarily reflect higher average liquidity and continued competitive pressure on short-term lending spreads.

As abundant regional liquidity and strong demand for high-quality assets continue to affect pricing. Against this backdrop, we remain disciplined in our approach to short-term lending. Pursuing transactions at tighter spread only where risk-adjusted returns remain attractive. These additional volumes generate incremental net interest income while preserving the flexibility to reprice the portfolio as market conditions evolve. At the same time, medium-term origination with attractive risk-adjusted returns provided an additional earning contribution and held partially offset the pressure on short-term lending spreads.

On the funding side, continued deposit growth increased the contribution of lower cost funding to the balance sheet, partially offsetting the impact of tighter asset spreads. At this time, we are maintaining our full year NIM guidance while continuing to monitor competitive conditions, portfolio repricing and funding costs closely. Let me now turn to noninterest income. One of the key highlights of the quarter and an increasingly important contributor to our financial performance. Noninterest income, excluding the impact of hedging derivative reached $25.1 million, up 86% from the first quarter.

Within this total, fees and commissions amounted to $23.3 million. Letter of credits and guarantees generated $9.5 million, supported by a stronger transaction volumes and increased trade finance activity. The quarter also benefited from the distribution of a letter of credit facility originated by our trade finance team. Credit commitments contributed $5.2 million, providing a stable and recurring source of income, primarily from project finance transactions and medium-term committed facilities. Structuring and distribution generated $7.9 million in upfront structuring and syndication fees.

During the quarter, the team completed 7 transactions across 6 countries, supporting both financial institutions and corporate clients. Year-to-date, Bladex has mobilized approximately $2.2 billion while returning only 26% of that volume in our balance sheet, highlighting the capital-efficient nature of this business. Client derivatives generated an additional $1.3 million during the quarter. As Jorge mentioned, the pilot transactions continue to perform well and are primarily linked to structured transactions for our clients. This activity continues to progress in line with the strategy we presented at the Investor Day.

As a result, noninterest income, excluding hedging derivatives, represented 25.4% of total revenues reinforcing the diversification of our earnings and underscoring is increasingly meaningful contribution to profitability. Turning now to expenses and efficiency. Operating expenses totaled $23.8 million, up 8% from the first quarter. For the first half, expenses remain in line with our 2026 plan, while revenue growth outpaced expense growth. This generated positive operating leverage and improve the efficiency ratio to 24.1% from 26.5% in the prior quarter.

As Jorge noted, expense execution is seasonally weighted towards the second half of the year as a strategic initiative move into implementation. At this time, we continue to expect full year efficiency ratio to remain within our guidance range of 27% to 28%. As we invest, participant remains a management priority. We are allocating resources selectively with a clear focus on operating leverage and efficiency.

In closing, the second quarter demonstrated a strong and balanced execution across the franchise. Reinforcing our confidence in the full year outlook and our ability to continue delivering disciplined profitable growth while preserving the strength of our balance sheet.

This concludes my review of the second quarter financial results. Here, back to you.

Thank you, Annette. Let me just close with a few comments on strategy execution, the macro environment and our outlook for the rest of the year. On strategy, the first half of the year provides a good view of how our 2030 plan is beginning to move from design into execution. The commercial growth and revenue diversification pillars are developing in line with the direction we shared at the Investor Day.

And Ed has just taken you through the financial detail, so I will focus more on the next part of the build, the transactional services pillar. Transactional services is a little different from the other 2 pillars. As I mentioned during our Investor Day back in March, this is a longer-term build because it's more intensive in terms of technology, controls, compliance, and general operational readiness before we're able to scale. That said, the Phase 1 of the new online banking platform is already in place, and we're gradually adding letters of credit clients. We're also very close to completing the onboarding of 2 additional corresponding banking clients.

In parallel, we remain focused on end-to-end process redesign and automation, the objective here is to make sure we scale this part of the business with the right controls and operating foundations from the beginning. Now turning on to the macro environment. The global economy continues to show resilience, but uncertainty undoubtedly remains high. Geopolitical trade tensions, together with renewed inflation risks, continue to create a challenging backdrop for economic activity in financial markets. In the United States, inflation has shown signs of renewed pressure, while the labor market remains relatively strong.

As a result, the Federal Reserve has adopted a more cautious tone with rates likely to remain stable for longer. In Latin America, the electro cycle was an important focus for markets during the quarter, particularly because presidential elections took place in Colombia and Peru. The electoral results ease political uncertainty and boosted market confidence, but investors still concentrate on governance, fiscal performance and policy direction. Overall, regional assets performed well during the quarter, supported by constructive investor sentiment and tighter credit spreads. Looking ahead, our view for the rest of the year remains broadly unchanged. We are encouraged by our execution during the first half of the year and remain on track on the key priorities we established for 2026.

At the same time, we are realistic about the environment. Margin pressure has been stronger than we originally expected, mainly due to tight spreads, abundant liquidity and strong competition for high-quality assets in the region. We are managing the pressure through disciplined portfolio growth, funding execution, a broader revenue mix and continued cost control. Given this context, we reiterate our full year guidance. We will continue to manage the business with discipline, maintaining our focus on risks, returns and the quality and sustainability of our earnings.

That concludes our review for the second quarter. Operator, you can now open the line for questions.

[Operator Instructions]

Our first question comes from Ricardo Buchpiguel with BTG Pactual.

Good morning, everyone, making questions. I have the here on my side. So you comment that the competitive environment became more -- a little more intense in the second half -- second quarter of the year, pressuring spreads. And I wanted to understand whether you continue to see this trend in if your appetite to consider growing has changed in any way for the second half of the year, particularly as you -- your guidance now implies a sharp deceleration for the second half. .

And also in a way related to these went check, if you consider the opportunities that [indiscernible] bring to improve private relationship and increase noninterest income penetration when you are deciding how much you want to grow per client?

And finally, I just wanted to ask about asset quality. The coverage ratio is now closer to 120%. And historically low level when you compare it to the numbers since 2020. So I wanted to understand if it makes sense, you expect some pickup in provisions versus what we have been seeing in the last few quarters or perhaps only the NPL formation going downward will improve the coverage ratio in the coming quarters?

Thank you, Ricardo. I'm going to tackle the margins questions, and then Annette will tackle the the asset quality question. Yes, I mean, as you said, the margin pressure was stronger than we initially expected. I mean that's -- there is no change in appetite, and given our business model and given that we maintain around almost 70% of our commercial book maturing in less than a year, times like this of excess liquidity, put more pressure on Bladex than versus the average bank.

Now on the other hand, the strategic plan was designed exactly to navigate this kind of environment. We have seen -- we've been quite successful, I think, in containing much of the compression of the short-term deals through the execution of our core strategy. I mean, more structured products such as supply chain finance factoring account receivable financing, commercial prepayments, among others. The proportion of such deals will keep increasing, and we expect to continue growing and alleviate the periods of margin pressures like the 1 we have now. Same is happening with the medium-term transactions. I mean these are syndicated in our project finance deals. They come with a pickup on spread and also with more fees.

I mean, finally, on the funding side, I mean, that's also helping us contain the NIM since we're gathering more and more deposits has grown as a percentage of the funding base. I mean needless to say, as we scale the transactional deposits platform, the contribution of operational deposits to a lower cost of funds will be increasingly meaningful, as I said before, but that should come in the latter part of the plan. So all in all, there is more pressure on margins than we had expected. We do not -- will not change the appetite. But again, the repricing should help when conditions change. And, I don't know if that answers your question.

That's very clear. I just wanted to understand if you are not changing the credit appetite -- why not increase the portfolio guidance, right? You're already growing around 20% this year. I'm not sure -- I understand that the portfolio has short duration, but I just wanted to understand the idea here.

Yes, good point. I mean we're retaining the guidance until we have better visibility on on the second half of the year. I mean there might be upside here. But rest assured, we will not chase volume just simply to raise the number. .

Our next question next question comes from to answer on credit quality.

Ricardo. As we mentioned in the call, credit quality remains very strong in the portfolio. Only 98% of the total par exposure is -- I'm sorry, Stage 1 still represents 98% of total exposure with an extremely healthy portfolio. And in stage 2, we can see our proactive credit risk management declining this Stage 2 exposure to 1.1% of our credit portfolio. This decrease was mainly due to credit improvement that we saw in this stage, repayments and maturities.

And as we mentioned, we moved 1 single exposure from Stage 2 to Stage 3. This exposure corresponds to a single client in the petrochemical sector in Brazil that we already mentioned in prior calls. And this movement may increase to 0.5% of the portfolio. As we mentioned in the call, this was only a single client, and this client had -- the exposure to this client and have 2 facilities, 1 that was a bilateral loan, which was reduced during the quarter. And the remainder, which was a deferred payment that credit was moved to Stage 3 and remains very well reserved.

As a result, we increased provisions EUR 8.6 million this quarter. Most of this, around EUR 6.4 million was due to the growth of the portfolio and a total reserve increased to EUR 93 million. And looking ahead, we do not expect nonperforming loans to increase from the current levels. And we estimate that the coverage will move from the current 1.25 to around 1.5 to 1.6 billion towards the end of the year.

Our next question comes from Andres Soto with Santander. Sir, your microphone is open.

I have a quick question. If you guys are okay, I prefer to go 1 by one. The first 1 is on loan growth. we saw a significant acceleration in commercial loan growth despite competitive pressures. How much of this growth is reflecting structural gains from new businesses, such as brake finance, structural lending? Or is increased market activity in the countries where you guys operate? And as you look into second half -- do you see room for this robust growth to remain for the rest of the year?

Yes. Grace, Andres, on loan growth, I mean I would say it's split like evenly between our typical short-term lending, some of it with structured deals. And part of it, around half was also long-term type deals, mainly syndications but also some project finance deals in Panama and Argentina and the Dominican Republic. So as I said before, there might be upside in our guidance of loan growth, but we're not ready to say that yet. .

Understood. And my second question is on the fee income this quarter, which show another record level. Can you please help us distinguish how much of this performance can be considered recurring versus one-offs, which I believe were a few over the quarter?

Yes. So there are 3 types of fee income here. The syndication deals is -- I mean that we don't want to necessarily extrapolate for the rest of the year. We had some deals that were expected to close on the first quarter that turned into the second quarter. So I mean, there's -- it's hard to predict on the syndication deals. .

On the other hand, the letters of credit has been steadily growing and progressing according to plan. And we're also starting to see, as I mentioned during the call, the the derivatives, which is starting to gain traction. So a short answer is on the syndications, it's hard to predict. We have a good pipeline but deals move around between quarters. But the rest is, I would say, it's more structural, steady growth. In any case, this was an exceptional quarter in terms of fees. And for your projections, I do not advise to simply multiply the rest of the year because of the syndication part.

Can you hear me? Can I just compliment you guys hear me?

Sam. Okay. Go ahead,

Yes. This is Samuel Canineu, the Chief Commercial Officer. I just want to complement that if you look -- just to put what you rest in perspective, just 1 year ago, when we announced second quarter of 2025, then we had the Staatsolie deal in Surinam that was, let's say, a large historical one-off. As much as we can, as Jorge referred to not multiply the revenues, the restructuring fees for seed deals by 4. I think the fact that this year, second quarter or if we had the first semester of this year, we are in total fees and in restructuring fees equal or above last year without depending on 1 single deal.

And now this quarter, we actually had 7 deals, which was a record within a quarter. I'm not saying that it's not -- it's again to be multiplied but shows a direction, a direction of dependency on less individual transactions. Of course, there were exceptional transactions this quarter. for example, the acquisition of Banistmo in Panama, which we were 1 of the co lenders and that is a representative transaction. But I think the most important in that business is the direction is that we have with a bigger balance sheet with more products with closer to our clients being ready to access for episodic transactions such as the acquisitions, for example, are the ones that require certical funds, which should be more in a better position to continue to grow that we have presented in the last few years. Sorry, back to you.

Thank you, thank you, it was very helpful. We had relations to you on impressive commercial results. And my last set of questions is related to the strategic plan. On transaction banking, you guys mentioned that the first phase of the online banking platform is already operational and that you're close to boarding 2 additional corresponding banking clients. At what point sure investors expect to see this to be reflected in terms of improved funding costs in your numbers. .

Yes. Thank you for that question. It will be in the second part of the plan, Andrea. So we're still building capabilities. We have 1 corresponding bank working with us. 2 will join this year between 5 and 10 will join next year, but the meaningful contribution on cost of funds you'll see in the second part of plan. That means years 4 and 5, you'll have a meaningful contribution.

And we are already 4 months after the Investor Day. Where will you say execution is running ahead of your regional expectations and where it has proven more challenging so far?

No. Yes, it's been just 4 months. We are right on track. We are expecting to complete the treasury platform by the end of this year, the first part. And then the second part, first half of next year. Online banking is on track, compliance and monitoring systems are also on track. Today, I cannot say we are ahead nor behind in any of these initiatives related to the transactional services pillar, right on track. .

Our next question comes from [ Ricardo Bris with Mattison.] Happy to see increased exposure to Argentina and more recently, NLS. Can you provide more color in the nature of exposure in these 2 countries? Is this mailing loads to banks and corporates. In a related note, should we expect to see some exposure in Venezuela in the next few quarters. and congratulations on the continued solid performance.

Yes. Thank you for your question. Yes, Argentina was mainly oil and gas sector and some of it is short-term imports of gas in the winter period. Savador is mainly short-term financial sector related. Everything within our natural course of business. Regarding Venezuela, I'm going to say our position remains unchanged. Venezuela might represent an upside scenario over time, but it's not included anywhere in our current projections and our exposure today is 0.

We know the market, it was, at some point, relevant for Bladex, approximately 5% of our total portfolio a few years ago. And we are continuing to assess the appropriate timing and risk return conditions. If we reenter or I'm going to say when we reenter it will be gradual, selective and always consistent with our credit, legal and compliance framework.

Our next question comes from [ Juan Soto with Bancolombia. ] How sensitive is the current credit portfolio to application slow down in Latin America trade activity or commodity prices. Operating expenses increased year over year due to the investment in technology, modernization and personnel. When should investors expect these investments to translate into treasurable effect gains?

So I'm going to talk about the first part of the commodities in Latin America, and then you'll tackle the expenses part. I mean, we've seen volatility in the oil commodity. That's the main commodity that that is -- represents part of our -- significant part of our portfolio. The net effect of higher oil prices is generally positive for Bladex.

Our longer-term exposure is concentrated in competitive low-cost producers, where high prices can strengthen the cash flows and reduce credit risk. While the cargo values can increase demand and short-term trade financing. So it's overall positive. There are offsets, of course, importers may face higher working capital needs inflation and profitability pressure and severe volatility can tighten the financial conditions, many, many importer exposures are the strong national oil companies, our clients and have been our clients for decades. And the short-term tenor of the portfolio allows us to reprice quickly and reposition if needed.

So overall, this is more of a tailwind than a headwind and that's the way we see it. We're not seeing any slowdown in the region on the contrary. We're seeing more and more activity partially because of the shift to the right of very important countries in the region. And do you want to talk on the second one? Regarding your operating expenses questions, I think we can say that we are already seeing tangible efficiency gains from the investment that we have done since the beginning of the initial strategic plan. We have been investing in technology. We have been investing in people. And as you can see, we have bigger teams in the commercial area that are able to originate more sophisticated transactions to make sure the revenues from fee income remains steadily increasing as part of our main components of profitability and also investment in technology, we are already seeing the impact in the depreciation expense of the trade platform that was implemented last year, and that is already providing additional income to the bank.

As you can see, the trade finance, the letter credit income that we see in the balance sheet is increasing organically and sustain and also allow us to pursue other types of transactions like the 1 that we did this quarter, which was the restructuring of net of credit facility that supported part of our project finance transactions that we closed this quarter. So the -- we are already seeing tangible gains. Our efficiency ratios are still very attractive. I mean what we're making sure is that we keep investing in our strategic initiatives and making sure that the return on these are able to come to the balance sheet in the short term point I mean the investment plan it's designed throughout the plan so that the efficiency ratio is always between the 27% and 29% ratio.

So you're not going to see a spike in efficiency over 30% throughout the plan.

Just to add to that, and as we shared in the Investor Day is, we do expect efficiency ratio -- as we said in this call, to be between 27% and 28% towards the end of the year and the year '26 and '27 during the execution and strategic plan is going to have an increasing efficiency ratio. And then towards the second half of the strategic plan, as Jorge mentioned, where we're going to see the most impact from the operating deposits then that efficiency ratio will decrease towards '25 to '26.

Okay. Thank you very much. That's all the questions we have for today. I'll pass the line back to the Bladex team for their concluding remarks.

Yes. Thank you all. As I said, this was an excellent quarter with record results. But more importantly, we are excited to keep seeing strategy turn into tangible results. Thank you all for participation, and have a good day. Goodbye now. .

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Bladex's First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. A slide presentation is accompanying today's webcast and is also available on the Investors section of the company's website, www.bladex.com. [Operator Instructions]. Please note today's conference call is being recorded. [Operator Instructions].

I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Jorge Salas, Chief Executive Officer. Sir, please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today to discuss Bladex' results for the first quarter of 2026. I will begin with A brief overview [indiscernible] our CFO, will walk you through the financials in greater detail.

After that, I will come back with an update on strategy execution, some thoughts on the macro environment, and our outlook for the rest of the year. Finally, we will open for questions, [indiscernible] with a very strong quarter in terms of balance sheet growth, while maintaining solid profitability in a highly competitive environment with very tight spreads and wide open capital markets for LatAm issuers. The highlight of the quarter was the continued expansion of our commercial portfolio.

We reached a record of $12 billion or 8% quarter-over-quarter and 13% year-over-year. This was fully in line with the growth path we have been discussing in previous quarters and supported by the additional capital flexibility provided by the AT1 issuance completed last year. Growth was driven mainly by medium-term transactions across Colombia, Brazil and Guatemala.

On the funding side, deposits once again reached record levels, closing the quarter at $7.3 billion, up 11% quarter-over-quarter and 25% year-over-year. This strong performance was broad across all [indiscernible] segments with Janke CDs standing out surpassing $1.7 billion. This reflects continued client activity, strength of our franchise and our ability to continue growing deposits at very competitive spreads, which has also helped support margins in the current rate environment.

Turning to revenues. Net interest income totaled $70 million, down slightly in the quarter as the balance sheet continues to absorb the full repricing of last year's rate cuts. Latin America has been one of the more resilient regions in a volatile global environment. That has translated into strong liquidity, tighter spreads and increasing competition.

Even in that context, we were able to maintain our net interest margin at 2.34% supported by disciplined balance sheet management. Strong asset growth deposit increase and active liquidity management helped offset pressure on spreads. Fee generation in the first quarter typically runs below fourth quarter levels in our 2 main fee businesses, letters of credit and syndications.

So this seasonal pattern is not unusual. Importantly, when compared with the first quarter of last year, the underlying trend remains clearly positive. We continue to see healthy pipeline in fees for the second quarter, which is consistent with how activity is evolving. Expenses also reflected the usual seasonality at the start of the year. That said, we do expect expenses to increase slightly over the coming quarters as we continue to execute the investment plan contemplated for the rest of the year. Efficiency levels for 2026 will remain within guidance at roughly 28%. Net income for the quarter reached $56.4 million. Return on equity was 14.2%, and our Tier 1 ratio closed the quarter at 17.9%, allowing us to continue supporting growth from a position of strength. So overall, this was a quarter of strong growth and solid profitability despite a more competitive revenue moment.

With that, let me now hand it over to Annette for a more detailed review of the financial results. Annet, please go ahead.

Thank you, Jorge, and good morning, everyone. Let me walk you through financial highlights for the first quarter of 2026. From a financial perspective, this quarter represents a solid start of the year. We continue to grow the balance sheet with discipline while maintaining stable profitability in a lower rate environment, supported by continued strengthening of our funding mix and solid fee generation despite first quarter seasonality.

Starting with earnings and returns. Bladex delivered net income of $56.4 million, up 9% year-over-year and probably stable quarter-over-quarter, reflecting the consistency of our core earnings generation. Importantly, return on average assets remained stable at 1.8% even as we continue to grow the balance sheet. This reflects the bank's ability to expand while preserving sustainable profitability. Return on adjusted equity stood at 14.2% in line with the previous quarter and within our 2026 guidance range, reflecting stable earnings generation.

As usual, first quarter results should be assessed in context. The period is typically seasonally softer, particularly for fee income. And this quarter, we operated in a lower interest rate environment will naturally play some pressure in spreads returns. As we will see through today's presentation, despite this backdrop, our first quarter performance reflected the benefits of disciplined balance sheet growth, stable net interest income continue funding optimization and higher fee generation compared to the same period last year.

Let's now turn to balance sheet growth and commercial activity. The commercial portfolio reached $12 billion, increasing 13% year-over-year with growth across both loans and contingencies. Within this total, loan balances closed at $9.7 billion, reflecting continued execution of our commercial pipeline, while contingent exposures reached $2.1 billion. The quarter's performance was supported by the execution of a strong pipeline of medium-term transactions, including activity originated through our structuring and distribution team. At the same time, our focus remains on selective origination and efficient capital rotation with 64% of our exposures maturing in less than 1 year, supporting flexibility, disciplined risk management and repricing capacity.

From a composition perspective, diversification remains a key strength. Country exposures are well distributed with no single country representing more than 15% of total exposure. Guatemala, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico remain among our main markets, while the overall mix reflects a balanced regional footprint.

Industry diversification also remains strong. Financial institutions represent 25% of total exposure, while corporate lending is well spread across sectors linked to regional economic activity and trade flows. Starting this quarter, our commercial exposure include a small bond position, focused on LatAm issuers, recorded at fair value through OCI, totaling $234 million. This represents a tactical capital deployment tool, allowing us to selectively capture opportunities within our existing credit framework while continuing to prioritize loan growth.

The fair value OCI classification also provides flexibility to manage these positions over time, including adjusting exposures as credit or market conditions of consistent with our risk-adjusted returns objective. With that, let me now turn to liquidity and the investment portfolio. As we continue to grow the balance sheet, maintaining a strong liquidity position remains a key part of our funding and risk management discipline.

At quarter end, liquid assets, $2 billion, representing 14.5% of total assets. remaining well within regulatory requirements and providing flexibility to support commercial growth while preserving prudent liquidity buffers. The composition of liquidity remains highly conservative, with around 80% placed at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the remainder primarily held with high-quality counterparties and multilateral institutions.

The treasury investment portfolio closed the quarter at $1.44 billion, increasing 14% year-over-year. The investment book remained 96% investment grade. Geographically diversified outside Latin America and short in duration with an average maturity of approximately 1.5 years. These characteristics make it a strong complement to our liquidity structure, providing earnings support and contingent funding capacity as these securities are eligible for access to the feel reserve discount window through our New York agency.

Overall, liquidity and investment continue to provide flexibility, resilience and earnings support as we grow the balance sheet. Turning to asset quality. Credit quality remains strong and stable, consistent with the bank's disciplined approach to origination, underwriting and ongoing monitoring. At quarter end, total credit exposure reached $13.5 billion, with the vast majority remaining in Stage 1, representing 97.5% of total exposure. Stage 2 exposures represented 2.2% or approximately $300 million, while Stage 3 remained minimal at 0.3% or around $39 million.

This continues to reflect the high quality profile of the credit book. From a reserve perspective, total allowances reached $112 million with a coverage ratio of 0.83%, broadly stable compared to the previous quarter. In addition, coverage of impaired credit remained strong at 2.9x, reflecting a prudent reserve position. The increase in Stage 2 during the quarter primarily reflects our proactive credit assessment of selected exporters in the context of a somewhat more challenging operating environment.

Importantly, infra credits remained stable and no material credit events were recorded during the quarter. Asset quality, therefore, remains a core strength of the bank, supported by credit exposures for reserve coverage and continued proactive risk management. Let's now move to the funding side of the balance sheet. We continue to see strong momentum in deposit growth, which remains the foundation of our funding [indiscernible].

Deposits reached a record level of $7.3 billion, representing 63% total funding, increasing both in scale and relevance within our liability structure. Growth was broad-based, driven by corporate deposit, financial institutions and multilateral clients, while Class A shareholder deposits continue to provide a stable and efficient anchor. In addition, [indiscernible] cities reached a record level of $1.7 billion, further enhancing the diversification and duration of our deposit base. As a result, Deposits continue to support balance sheet growth through a more stable and cost-efficient funding structure, which remain an important driver of our ability to sustain margins within our guidance expectation. Beyond deposits, we continue to actively diversify our medium-term funding sources.

During the quarter, we executed an additional tranche under our Middle Eastern syndicated loan alongside other bilateral transactions for standing recently, we completed another successful issuance in the Mexican market of roughly $250 million, which was flat into U.S. dollars at a cost well over U.S. dollar curve. [indiscernible] quality, diversification and duration of our funding while reinforcing the role of deposits in supporting both margins, sustainability and balance sheet.

Let me now turn to capital. Our capital position remains strong and well above our target levels, providing to support continued balance sheet growth. At quarter end, our Basel III Tier 1 ratio increased to 17.9% from 17.4% at year-end 2025. While our regulatory capital adequacy ratio under Panama's banking framework stood at 14.7%, well above the regulatory minimum. It is important to note that these 2 ratios are based on different methodologies and therefore, do not really move in the same direction quarter-to-quarter.

The Panama regulatory ratio follows a more standardized framework, while the Basel III ratio is more risk sensitive and better capture changes in the underlying risk profile of our exposures. In the first quarter, the increase in the Basel III ratio was driven by lower risk-weighted asset intensity, reflecting the regular provision of our internal risk parameters, incorporating the continued strong performance of the credit book. Looking ahead, we continue to expect disciplined capital deployment through 2026, [indiscernible] in line with our broader strategic execution. As capital is deployed, we will expect Basel III Tier 1 ratio to gradually move towards our 15% to 16% Tier 1 guidance range, which remains the appropriate operating level for the bank.

Our capital position remains strong and continues to provide [ Kampo ] capacity to support [indiscernible]

performance and rate reshape by several dynamics. The rate cuts implemented in the quarter of 2025 had had some impact on. [indiscernible]

balance sheet growth more efficiently, reinforcing a more stable and cost-efficient funder. Taken together, these factors demonstrate the resilience of our margin performance and the benefit of actively managing both sides of the balance sheet. Let me now turn to fee income. In the third quarter, fees and commissions reached $13.1 million, up 24% year-over-year, despite this being a seasonally softer period for fee generation. Let of credits and guarantees remain the main source of is generating $7.4 million in the quarter. This activity means closely tied to our core trade finance business.

First quarter was affected by seasonality, but we see a good momentum as we move to the second quarter, supported by higher transaction volumes and increasing but gradual benefits of our trade platform. Credit commitments and other commissions were another important contributor, reaching $2.7 million, more than doubling compared to the same period last year. This reflects the growing relevance of medium-term transactions and committed facilities within our client offering. Our structuring and distribution team also continued to contribute to fee income, generating $3.1 million during the quarter, supported by 2 transactions closed in Costa Rica and Colombia. Importantly, this was a shift despite some transactions closing shifting from the first quarter into the second quarter. While fee recognition in this business can vary depending on execution timing, the syndicated loan pipeline remains solid. In addition, client derivatives are a part of our strategy to further diversify noninterest income.

We are seeing growing client demand, particularly in connection with transaction execution. The pipeline remains active. And while the timing of individual transactions may shift across quarters, we expect this business to begin contributing more visibly as execution builds over the upcoming quarters. Taken together, fee income continues to show solid growth and increasing diversification, supported by trade-related activity, committed facilities and restructuring capabilities with gradual contribution from client derivative as activity built through the year. To close, let me turn to operating expenses and efficiency.

Operating expenses for the quarter were $22 million, reflecting the usual first quarter seasonality, while also incorporating the impact of the strategic initiatives that have moved into production, including higher depreciation, IT-related expenses and the talent required to support execution. In that context, the first quarter expense base reflects the operating impact of initiatives already underway. The efficiency ratio for the quarter was 26.5% and remaining well aligned with our full year guidance of approximately 28%, and reflecting the bank's ability to a strategic investment while maintaining cost discipline. As we move through the year, we will continue selectively in technology capabilities, talent and execution capacity required to deliver on our strategic priorities while maintaining a strong focus on rating efficiency. In conclusion, first quarter reflected disciplined balance sheet growth, resilient margins, strong fee generation, relive to seasonal patterns, continue funding momentum and a solid capital position.

With that, I will now turn the call back to Jorge for his closing remarks.

Thank you very much, Annette. Let me briefly touch on strategy execution and make a couple of comments on the environment we're operating in. We continue to make good progress on our letters of credit platform. Processing times have consistently come down from almost 5 hours to about 1 hour per transaction. This productivity improvement has allowed us to handle smaller tickets profitably, deepen penetration with existing clients as we start to scale the letters of credit business. As outlined in our Investor Day last month, transactional deposits are a key component in the new phase of our strategy.

In that sense, we have already onboarded our first correspondent banking client still in pilot phase, and we're currently working on the second one. We now have the governance in place to incorporate additional corresponding banking clients during the year in a disciplined way. And we continue to see strong pipeline of interested financial institutions in the region for these services, which we see, of course, is very encouraging.

Turning to the macro environment. While global geopolitical and financial conditions have clearly become more volatile. Our region continues to show resilience supported by healthy fundamentals, stable trade flows and a positive investor sentiment. The reason is clear. Latin America's direct trade [indiscernible] Persian Gulf is very limited, and the region as a whole, a net commodity exporter. Higher curity prices are historically beneficial for Bladex.

Obviously, net commodity importers, mainly Central America and Caribbean countries, will face some headwinds. The ultimate question, of course, is how long will this last? In any case, our view is that this environment reinforces the importance of disciplined lending and highlights the value of our ability to actively adjust regional exposures given the short-term duration of our lending portfolio. So when we look at the year as a whole, our view remains unchanged. The first quarter was consistent with our expectations, and we continue to make progress on the strategic front that support the next phase of the bank. For that reason, and based on what we have seen so far in the year, we reaffirm our full year guidance.

We do so with confidence while remaining realistic about the competitive environment and the external conditions. With that, please open the call for questions, operator.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Inigo Vega with Jefferies.

Just a couple of comments on 2 areas: one, level of worry on the 70 bps sequential increase in Stage 2 loans in the quarter; and second, why RWAs under et are down 2% quarter-on-quarter when commercial portfolio is up 80% quarter-on-quarter, only RWAs and Panama aligned with asset growth.

Yes. Thank you, Inigo. I'll tackle the first question on asset quality, and I'm going to let Annette, our CFO, tackle the capital ratios questions. The short answer is we're not worried. Asset quality remains very strong. The Stage 2 increase reflects more of a proactive risk management approach than any deterioration. We're just being more cautious on selected exposures basically in Brazil. .

But we do expect normalization rather than deterioration going forward. I mean, the cost of risk is consistent with a disciplined underwriting of life and that, as I always say, has not changed and will not change. Annette, do you want to talk about capital ratios?

Sure. Yes. As we mentioned in the call, the -- we follow 2 different methodologies. One is the regulatory methodology as a bank regulated by the Sprint [indiscernible] banks, and we also for reference purposes to also file a Basel III Tier 1 ratio, and these are different methodologies. The Panamanian local regulator issue is based on a more standardized approach, where the exposures are assigned regulatory risk weights based on their categories. While the Tier 1 ratio is more resensitive inflects more directly the underlying risk profile of the portfolio, including the borrower quality, country risk, tenor, profitability of default and other characteristics.

This is why these 2 ratios can move differently in a given quarter. In the first quarter, our asset ratio improved despite the balance sheet growth because of the risk-weighted asset intensity that we had in the portfolio. This is reflected on the strong historical credit performance that we have that incorporated -- this was incorporated in the regular revision of our internal risk parameters.

Also, the Ecuador country upgrade during the quarter also lacked the Basel III ratio and obviously, the quality and the mix of the new exposures that we put in the balance sheet also affect the Basel ratio. On the other hand, the equity -- the Ecuador rate that was given, it is reflected in the Basel framework as we mentioned before, but it does not have the same impact under the Panamanian ratio. And this is 1 of the reasons why these 2 ratios behave differently from 1 quarter to the other. Looking ahead, however, we still expect Basel III Tier 1 ratio to gradually normalize toward our 15% to 16% target range as we continue to deploy the capital while maintaining ample capacity for disciplined expansion.

Yes. I think I'd say. I mean the main point is growth in assets that's not necessarily imply higher capital consumption. It's more about quality and mix are critical.

Our next question comes from Ricardo Buchpiguel with BTG. .

I have two here on my side. So first, as you mentioned in the presentation, you saw a higher concentration of credit transactions coming out more towards the end of the quarter, which had a negative impact on NIM. So it would be helpful if you could comment on what would be the like excluding this effect? Just so you can think a little bit about how is the starting point for NIM in Q2? And everyone can have their own assumption in terms of rate, but the baseline is also helpful. And for my second question, during the quarter, we saw a strong sequential growth in credit commitments and guarantees in the balance sheet and when we've seen the revenues, we saw a 14% quarter-over-quarter reduction, right? So it would be great if Sam could walk us through in more details how the the monetization cycle of this product works and how seasonality plays out throughout the year so we can have a better [indiscernible] on this line.

Okay. Sam, you want to talk about the commitments and Annette will talk about NII.

Sure. Thanks for the question, Ricardo. I'll start with the your question on commitments, and then I can talk a little bit about the overall credit -- letters of credits and guarantees also business evolution. So our -- the commitment fees that you see there is come from committed but funded exposure that is indeed growing and is in line with the expansion of our project finance in infrastructure and syndicated loan businesses.

For Project Finance and Infra, for example, is very common that part of the facility amount will be disbursed not in 1 go, but rather as CapEx is being deployed. On syndicated loans, those tend to be bigger facilities. So it's common to give the client a couple of months to fund the transaction. Also, it's -- those are commitments that will be funded in due time. There will be loans and the commitment period in those cases is much shorter than the tenor of the actual facilities. And most importantly, of course, it generates fees, and those tend to be 30% to 40% at the low margin.

I think finally, and important, the commitment fees -- the commitments that we have there, they are not to liquidity backstop facilities, which is a type of exposure that we don't like as they tend to be used when the underlying credit has deteriorated. So bottom line there is, yes, it's very much commitment fees should continue to grow as the project and anticipated business growth. In terms of letters of credit and guarantees, yes, the reduction in this quarter versus the previous quarter is -- or previous 2 quarters is more in line with seasonality.

I think there are certain types of letters of credit that they are issuing more start meet the second and third quarter. So we -- this is a business that will continue diet-focus as you know, and more new clients, and we do expect to pick up or return to normal levels as the year passes. So I think that's important to mention as well.

Yes. Ricardo, thank you for your questions. Regarding the NIM and NII during the first quarter, as we mentioned in the call, we've been proactively managing our balance sheet, both the asset side and reliability, which allow us to maintain a resilient NIM as we execute through the year. We mentioned our current NIM is affected by the rates that we gave towards the end of 2025. And this has an impact in this quarter, NIM. It also -- it is affected by the ample liquidity and competition for asset quality in the region. So we are seeing that, especially in the short term of our lending exposure, and also the fact that, as we mentioned in the call, some of this growth was towards the end of the quarter.

So we're hoping -- we're expecting that growth to reflect in the upcome quarter, providing a sustainable net interest income to the bank. We were able to offset some of these negative pressures by deploying steadily the execution of the medium-term transactions on the loan side, which provides a more stable balances and also margins was also offset by the growing dissipation of deposits and also the efficient liquidity management within the balance sheet. So with this NIM of around 2.3%, which remains within our guidance, we feel confident that this -- the guidance for 2026 will remain around $230 million, as we have mentioned before, more importantly, it is also important retain consideration that we are complementing our revenues with the growth of the fees, as Sandi mentioned, in order to make the bank less sensitive to rate movements and provide a more stable profitability for the bank.

That's very clear. And if I may do like a quick follow-up on this last point. Assuming that if you get your scenario where you don't have rate cuts not only in Q2 but throughout this year. Do you believe there is upside risk to the guidance, both in NIM and ROE.

Well, As we are seeing, as we've been mentioning for the last couple of quarters, we are seeing -- we see that as an upside, although we have seen a lot of pressure on margins. So I think most likely, I mean, we're already seeing a benefit from the higher for longer rates. However, I mean, this has been offset a little bit by the pressure we have seen on the loans origination. Now I was saying it has remained kind of like a neutral impact.

Our next question comes from Natalia Corfield with JPMorgan. .

I am going to go back to capitalization. Just to be sure on the decline on your Panama ratio and also wouldn't be this ratio, the Panamanian on more relevant than the Basel III since you were -- like since your requirements are based on Panama. Those are have my 2 questions.

Both methodologies are important to the bank. Obviously, we are a local bank in Panama regulated by a [indiscernible] and is our priority not only to comply with the ratios but have ample buffers versus the minimum requirements and that has been the way the bank manages ciliation levels. And yes, we are -- and our AT1 transaction is based on our regulatory ratio, which we allow and major closely. The fact that we include our Basel III ratio and in all our presentations to investors, this provides a more standardized reference point for investors to be able to compare to other peers in the region. Since as we mentioned in the call, the methodologies are not different and some characteristics of our balance sheet are not very well perceived by the local regulator ratio.

But basically, those are the 2 reasons why we follow and comply with both methodologies.

Perfect. And then if you could go again to the reasons for the decline on the Panamanian ratio, that would be great.

This responds directly to the growth of the balance sheet that we saw between the fourth quarter and the first quarter, which was around 8%.

But it's almost independent of the country risk and...

Yes.

That's why we talk the other one.

Doesn't [indiscernible] improvement some of our assets.

Yes.

Yes, it is very neutral to all the exposure outside Panama, especially the corporate positions, does differentiate between ratings or if it's investment grade or not investment grade, so those are the characters that the Basel III does incorporate into the calculation. While the Domanian ratio is more for local banks. And it's more detail about the positions you have locally than the positions that you have first quarter.

Yes. It's almost designed for almost for local banks with with a larger local exposure. And in that sense, Blix is an outlier in Panama. I mean our Panama exposure, as you know, is the 5% today. .

Okay. No. Understood. I'll just make a point that the Basel III is great that you do it, but looking through Latin America, I've seen that each country has its own Basel III regulations like I think it's -- each country adapted. And then also, your effort to be able to display something that's comparable. But at the end of the day, I find hard to compare portions across Latin America. Just a comment. But thank you very much for your answers.

Our next question comes from Andres Soto with Santander. .

My first question is regarding your top line growth. We saw a strong performance this quarter. And at the same time, you're using a offer competitive environment. At what point do you believe this competition will make a dent on your loan growth expectations? Or you believe that the readjusted returns that you are getting now are attractive, and you will continue to grow at the current pace. Or is your growth driven by the new products that you're introducing in your product offering?

Thank you, Andres, I'm going to let Sam our Chief Commercial talk about growth in the lending portfolio.

Thanks, Andreas. I think we're very confident to follow to meet our guidance in terms of growth for the year. As you know, our exposure is very short term. So things -- the landscape can change quarter-to-quarter. With that said, we have some ways to mitigate that, which is on one side build a solid medium-term more value-added pipeline, which is the case right now. in project finance infrastructure, in syndicated loans. I think so we're well I think, prepared for to continue deploying the speed that we're deploying and according to the guidance.

And we've also been working very hard to build the short-term pipeline, which is the pipeline for short-term transactions that is more, I would say, even more affected by the competitive landscape. I think the way to do that is through our product strategy that we have spoke a lot about in our Investor Day, particularly restructure trade and working capital solutions that also been growing at a good speed. And with, I would say, promising pipeline. I think last but not least, I think the increase in oil prices come as a good tailwind in that respect, right? Because a lot of our short term or part of our short-term exposure is really financing cargoes, and those cargoes are bigger in size right now. So that helps us as well. .

Okay. So Andres, it's very important for us. the quality and the durability of earnings is what is important, not just scale, not just scale. .

That's very clear. And connecting this with my question on fees. We also saw a strong fee on a year-over-year basis. And I appreciate the explanation that Sam provided regarding these products being fee reach and providing for those upfront and then on lending down the road, is the current pace for fee income growth sustainable, given the strategy for entering to the products such as better credit syndication, et cetera. Or are there any one-offs in the quarter that we should normalize going forward?

No, no one-offs. I mean, the first quarter is typically, as net mentioned a minute ago, softer than than most in both of our fee businesses -- so the point is some transactions shifted into the same quarter. So it's more a timing effect than a slowdown. Fees -- as you mentioned, fees are up 24% year-on-year. So the momentum is good. And I guess the bottom line is that fees are becoming a more structural revenue component over time. So no one-off up to now and something comes, of course, we'll mention it as a one-off. But we're confident with the guidance on fees. .

My question was actually sort of the opposite sense, given that the strong performance at that was looking for nonrecurring factors explaining the 24% year-on-year growth on the fee income side.

Our next question comes from Daniel Mora with CrediCorp Capital. .

The first one is considering that percent of the portfolio is related to oil and gas? Did you see or do you see any tailwinds or headwinds derived from the conflict between United States and Iran or if there is any other sector or country that should be heavily impacted, but the high international oil prices. I know that you mentioned a couple of points on this matter, but if we can go deeper, it will be great. And my second question is what will be those elements that could take the 2026 ROE closer to the upper band of the guidance, considering that loan growth has been quite strong NIM despite the pressure on interest rate has been -- you have been able to defend the NIM and fees even though the first quarter is is softer due to seasonality effects. It continued to grow by double-digit, 25%. So given this strong performance, what could be even better to take the ROE to 15%.

Sam, do you want to go ahead and talk about the oil and gas-related exposure?

I think is a great question. I think on a net basis, it's more -- much more of a tailwind rather than a headwind. The reason why is, for example, on the, let's say, exposure that is more long term, that tends to be linked to E&P investments.

They are -- we're financing the lowest cost producers in the region, the most competitive fields. And of course, with the current, even though the oil prices are more on a spot basis rather than, let's say, long-term forwards, but they are very positive for them. So I think it's -- it reduces the risk of the portfolio. On the other hand, as I mentioned also for the business, the trade business that is very short term, the size of the cargoes, the typical cargo is higher, so the demand tends to be higher. So I think positive in that sense. Of course, part of our business is we're taking risk on the importers of petroleum products, mostly in Central America, yes, you could argue that, that can be increased inflation in those countries and reduce profitability.

But in that -- those cases, we're really dealing with from the most place -- in most cases, national oil companies are very solid countries, which, let's say, it's more beneficial that we're financing bigger amounts than the tremental that can impact their their numbers, their credit quality. So I think on a net-net basis, definitely positive.

I think the short term of a portfolio and the ability to reprice and reposition quickly is the key. I mean the focus for Bladex is not predicting geopolitics, but managing how shocks transmit into spread trade flows and client risk, and we have the ability to do that, and we've been showing that.

I think your second question was about upside.

Upside.

Upside on the ROE guidance. I guess it's a balance between higher for longer and the margin and the margin pressures. I mean you have both playing at the same time and let's see what ends up happening. I mean it's hard to predict that at this point. .

Our next question comes from Patrick Abraham with [indiscernible]

Has the bank started looking at Venezuela as an opportunity for investment. And what is your outlook for the country?

Yes. [indiscernible], it's a good question. I mean, Venezuela might represent an upside scenario for Bladex. It is not included in our projections of today. I mean, we are very actively assessing the risks and the opportunities. Baldex used to be reactive in Venezuela, in the oil and gas sector and also with FIs and LCs I mean Venezuela used to at some point to represent between 4% and 5% of our total portfolio. Today, our exposure is 0.

We know the country well. And it's more a matter of timing and when to go back in.

Thank you. That's all the questions we have for today. I will pass the line back to the Bladex team for their concluding remarks.

Well, thank you all for your questions and your time today. We appreciate your continued interest in our bank because the year started in line with our expectations, and we remain focused on executing with discipline. Thank you again, and have a good day. .

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Bladex's 2026 Investor Day. Today's call is being recorded. [Operator Instructions]. The presentation is available for download at bladex.day.com. Following the management presentation, we will have a 5-minute break after which we will begin the Q&A session. [Operator Instructions]. We also value your feedback. A brief survey will be available following today's event.

Before we begin, please note that statements made during this call regarding the company's business outlook, operational and financial projections and goals are forward-looking statements based on the current beliefs and assumptions of management and information currently available to the company. These statements involve risks and uncertainties as they relate to future events, and actual results may differ materially. Investors are encouraged to consider factors related to the macroeconomic environment, industry conditions and other risks that could impact results. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Carlos Raad, Investor Relations Officer of Bladex. Sir, please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone and thank you for joining us today. My name is Carlos Raad, and I am Bladex's Investor Relations Officer and Head of ESG. It is a pleasure to welcome you to our Investor Day in many of my meetings with investors the same point keeps coming up. Given the progress Bladex has made in recent years is most of the story now behind us, our answer is simple. No. What we have built over the last few years has been very important, but in many ways, that was the foundation for what comes next. And today is about that next stage.

Let me briefly walk you through today's agenda. We will begin with opening remarks from our Chairman, Miguel Heras. After Miguel, Jorge Salas, our CEO, will open the day with a high level view of what we set out to do in 2022, what we have delivered and what comes next. He will also lay out the 3 pillars for the next phase of the strategy, growth with price discipline, higher noninterest income and lower funding costs by building and operating deposit base.

From there, then they will continue through 3 blocks. First, commercial initiatives. Jorge will stay with us for that first block and speak about transactional services, a natural space for Bladex and an important opportunity for growth. Samuel Canineu, our Chief Commercial Officer, will then cover the asset side and how we continue to strengthen our product offering while keeping price discipline. Eduardo Vivone, our Head of Treasury and Capital Markets will discuss how treasury is evolving into a broader client revenue engine.

Second, we will then move to our guardrails. Olazhir Ledezma, our Chief Strategy Officer, will speak about the execution and efficiency and how we make sure our investments are well designed and properly implemented. Alejandro Tizzoni, our Chief Risk Officer, will then cover the risk framework that supports this next phase, always within conservative risk appetite that defines Bladex. Finally, Annette Van Hoorde, our CFO, will connect these strategic pillars to sustainable ROE. After the presentations, we will open the floor for Q&A. Miguel, please go ahead.

Thank you, Carlos, and good morning. When I became Chairman in 2019, the Board and management share a clear conviction. Bladex has strong fundamentals, but we needed to modernize our operating model. So we could seize the opportunity ahead of us, profitably, sustainably and with greater impact for the region.

From the beginning, the Board worked closely with management to support that transformation, combining strategic ambition with the discipline and risk culture that have always defined Bladex. At our Investor Day in 2022, we turned that conviction into a road map, the 2022, 2026 plan. That commitment was clear: to strengthen our business model, diversify earnings invest in new capabilities and reinforce Bladex's role in facilitating trade across Latin America.

Today, as we move into the final stretch of that plan, I am very proud of what the team has delivered during the first phase of this transformation, record performance, a stronger balance sheet and funding profile, growing fee-based revenues and meaningful progress in the platforms that will support the next stage of growth. But the most important change is cultural. Today, more than ever, Bladex is one cohesive team, with stronger collaboration across the organization, a culture of execution and greater accountability.

That is why the 2030 plan we will discuss today is far more concrete than it would have been 4 years ago. We are building on proven results. Our values have been essential to that progress. They are not abstract statements. They are a compass that guides decisions every day, excellence, integrity, commitment, creating value and growth.

And those values are grounded in a corporate purpose beyond profitability, creating bridges between Latin America and the world for our clients on our region can grow and prosper. It is a purpose that creates pride in belonging within our organization, and it reinforces our long-term commitment to expanding trade across the region. So today is both a celebration and a transformation.

The transformation of the past few years has strengthened the foundation of the bank. This phase is about scale, expanding our platform, deepening client relationships, and broadening our role in trade finance in Latin America. As we enter the final stretch of our strategic plan, we are launching our 2030 plan. The next steps in Bladex's evolution to become a true trade Bank of Latin America, not only a specialized trade lender, but a more transactional trade banking platform, closer to clients, broader in solutions, more digital and increasingly fee-driven while maintaining the discipline in risk management and capital that has brought us here.

I have full confidence in our executive team and the broader leadership group. They have earned our confidence through consistent execution, and they are ready for what comes next. To our investors, thank you for your trust and engagement. We value the dialogue and remain committed to engaging openly and consistently. We look forward to your questions throughout the day. Thank you again for being here. Jorge, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Carlos, for setting the stage and thank you, Miguel, for your support and guidance during the last few years. Welcome, everyone. This is a very exciting moment for all of us at Bladex. I am glad to share that today, there are 3x more participants connected to this event than in our previous Investor Day almost 4 years ago. Let's go back to that day for just one moment.

When we presented this 2026 targets back in 2022, we made a clear commitment materially grow the portfolio, more than double the profitability and make the bank more efficient, all while maintaining high capital and increasing reserve coverage. These goals were clearly ambitious, especially given Bladex's prolonged period of limited growth and returns prior to the pandemic. The plan was never based on taking more risk or changing the nature of the franchise.

On the contrary, it was clear to us that our unique competitive advantages were being vastly underutilized and we saw a significant opportunity to lean into our strengths to drive growth and profitability without changing the risk profile of the bank. The results speaks for themselves. We did not simply move toward these goals. We exceeded them, and we did so 1 year ahead of plan. This was not just aspiration. It was strategy and disciplined execution.

Equally important, we did not just increased earnings. We improved earnings quality and we did so intentionally and by design. The vision that brought us here required Bladex to ensure we had a new management compensation system, more clear better aligned with long-term shareholder value and one that rewards not just growth, but the kind of growth we wanted to build. The growth that strengthens the bank, deepens client relationships and creates more value across each engagement.

In parallel, we redesigned several key processes. The outcome dramatically faster onboarding times and processing times. That, in turn, allowed us to substantially expand customer base while maintaining the same client profile. The consequence, more clients, same standard, better efficiency. The results were clear in our revenue mix. Deeper client relationships driven by increased cross-selling translated into a fourth full increase in noninterest income.

Once again, this was not accidental. It was intentionally designed to structurally improve the earnings model and it's the foundation for what comes now. We see the market's reaction to our results as a critical validation of how Bladex executed its strategy to date. We are very proud to have been able to deliver increasing returns to our fellow shareholders. Our stock price has tripled and the total shareholder returns have outperformed all comparable market med tracks.

The confidence and the support of our investors have driven our trading liquidity to nearly triple in recent years with very strong momentum in 2026. This recognition is also reflected in the expansion of our analyst coverage from 0 to 5. We deeply appreciate our analyst coverage all of whom are here today. The obvious question now is, how do we plan to continue delivering high-quality earnings at scale.

In order to answer that question, let me just zoom out and explain how our strategic focus has evolved up until now, and I will continue to shift towards 2030. The 2026 plan had 3 revenue drivers. First and foremost, lending spreads. We improved margins through better pricing discipline, product mix and align incentives, all without compromising credit quality. Second, funding. We held spreads stable through materially increasing the deposit base that shifted from 40% to 60% of total funding. This shift in deposits is fundamental to the next phase of our strategy. And third, noninterest income which grew significantly and now makes up a greater portion of our earnings.

So the first part of the plan was driven largely by better execution on the asset side together with stronger funding base and growing contribution of fees. Looking ahead, our model does not change, but our emphasis does. Simply put, our 2030 strategic plan should enable Bladex to experience continued spread improvement from a progressive reduction in our cost of funds, supported by capturing a share of our clients' operating deposits. At the same time, as transaction volumes climb across our trade finance and treasury platforms, we expect noninterest income to become an even larger contributor to the earnings mix.

Our 2030 strategic plan will be driven by 3 growth engines. Disciplined growth, lower cost of funds and higher noninterest income. These are the 3 pillars that will shape the rest of today's presentation. As we continue with today's presentation, please remember to keep this framework in mind. Each commercial initiative we address aligned with at least one of these 3 pillars.

So before going into the initiative themselves, let me step back and explain how the market opportunity is real and why is it relevant for Bladex. We see strong potential for a specialized bank with a set of structural competitive advantage operating in a vast market with clear white spaces.

First, let's consider total market size. The revenue pool generated by banks operating in Latin America is roughly $70 billion. If we narrow that broader revenue pool to the dollar-denominated market, the segmented addressable market is roughly EUR 22 billion. As a dollar lender, this is our core market, one where our commercial model, our funding access and the capabilities are more relevant. Today, Bladex generates about $300 million revenue while competing only in the trade finance and the lending segments with an estimated market share of roughly 4% on of those 2 specific segments.

Under this new plan, we intend to broaden our participation, expanding into cash management services by capturing operating deposits and also start penetrating the market segment through selected treasury solutions for our clients. This is not a move away from our core. On the contrary, it aims to increase share of wallet among well-established and long-standing relation.

Of course, a large market by itself is not enough. The real question is whether we have a differentiated right to win? And the answer is yes. We have structural competitive advantages that are hard to replicate and have been proven already many times. From the funding perspective, this includes direct access to Latin American central banks, reflecting their ownership stake in lags, strategic presence in New York with direct connectivity to the Federal Reserve, solid credibility across domestic and global capital markets.

Commercially, we have profound knowledge in long-standing relationships with the region's top banks and corporations. These relationships are further underpinned by a deep origination expertise and the ability to tailor solutions with speed, judgment and flexibility. These strengths are reinforced by a strong regional brand, supported by more than 40 years of operating history and investment-grade rating.

So the next phase is not about redefining what Bladex is. It is about further capitalizing on the strengths that already define this franchise. Our 2030 vision can be best understood through the lens of 3 simple pillars to unlock value for our investors. One, disciplined growth; two, a lower cost of funds; and three, higher noninterest income. These 3 pillars of value creation are guided by our disciplined approach to cost efficiency and strong risk management expertise, our guardrails.

Today, we are committing to continued disciplined execution that can achieve 16 to 17 sustainable return on equity through strong earnings quality and lower structural volatility. That is the financial ambition behind our 2030 vision.

Now I'd like to introduce something that is both natural but transformational for Bladex transactional banking. I will now explain how transactional services will help reduce our cost of funds through the growth of operating deposits and also, I will increase noninterest income as a broader part of our client relationships begins to generate fee-based revenues.

Until today, the trade flows that lags finances don't flow through the bank. We provide the credit. Other banks handle the transactions keep the deposits and collect the fees. We are simply not capturing the broader transaction flows related to the activities we support. That's the opportunity.

Our goal is to evolve our lending business into a broader transaction banking solution through the addition of transactional services. We know what it requires. Investing in new cash management capabilities, disciplined oversight of nonfinancial risks, particularly AML/BSA. And three, evolving our client service model while preserving the personalized approach that defines how we serve our clients today.

This is clearly the next step for Bladex and one that can be pursued with the same rigor that has defined the transformation of this bank so far. As we progressively introduce transactional services, we expect to capture a share of the operating flows that today remain outside of Bladex.

So over time, this is not only about adding services. It is about improving the funding profile of the bank, improving the earnings mix and making the model stronger and more resilient. Our objective is to deepen the relationship we already have with our 2 main client segments, financial institutions and top LatAm corporates. We believe we have a clear and differentiated right to win in both segments. The next phase is not about changing our client base. It's about becoming more valuable to the clients we already know well by offering them additional solutions that fit our model.

Let me start with financial institutions. We will expand our corresponding banking product offering to include cross-border third-party payments. We have deep, long-standing relationships with a very substantial portion of the banks that operate in Latin America. We have extensive knowledge of the region's macro dynamics, and we also have direct access to the federal reserve. These are meaningful advantages in a business where trust, connectivity, resilience and execution are critical.

Let's talk about the market. From a corresponding banking perspective, we segmented the market in 3 broad archetypes. At one end, are the underserved institutions, typically smaller banks often operating in a single country with a limited supply of corresponding banking relationships. At the other end, are the sophisticated institutions, larger banks with broader capabilities and already well served by a strong network of correspondent banks.

Between those 2 extremes, sits a middle segment where there is a clear market fit for Bladex. The main idea here is that this market is not uniform. Because client needs vary significantly among these groups using a segmented strategy is essential to compete effectively so that we can concentrate our efforts where our value proposition is stronger.

Our primary focus will be the partially served institutions. These are clients with real corresponding banking needs, but without the same level of coverage or attention that the largest and more sophisticated banks typically receive. That said, we are not excluding other architypes where the fit and the economics make sense, we can also serve clients at both ends of the spectrum.

We believe the opportunity is particularly attractive today because corresponding banking has become increasingly selective. That creates room for a focused regional player with strong relationships, deep regional knowledge and the ability to respond with agility and the additional advantage of balance sheet support. Our lending products create the case for reciprocity and that gives us stronger foundation to deepen the relationships and increase cross-sell over time.

This is not something we expect to build overnight. The approach is gradual from one existing client to 5 corresponding banking clients by the end of this year, growing to 15% to 30% by 2030, measured, selective client by client. If executed well, this segment could contribute between 5% and 7% of total deposits by year 2030. That is a meaningful contribution. But the key point is how we get there with the right controls, the right economics in the same rigor that has guided the rest of our strategy so far.

On the corporate side, the logic is similar, but the opportunity here is even more concrete. We already disbursed around $23 billion a year in loans. The trade products we provide are typically linked to transactional services that Bladex does not offer today. As a consequence, these flows are not captured by the bank.

Our starting point here is very clear. We have been lending to most top corporations in every country in the region for decades now. When we disperse our lending facilities, the funds are credited into the client's account at other banks. So once again, we financed the flow, but the transactional activity and the deposits sit outside the bank because we simply don't offer operating accounts yet. That's the gap. That's the opportunity.

Similarly, evolution of this initiative happens in stages. We began by disbursing into Bladex's accounts rather than other banks. We will then introduce basic cash management solutions around those disbursement, deepening the relationship over time to the point with the flows associated with our supply chain finance solutions also move through Bladex accounts.

This is not a binary shift. It's a gradual process of bringing more of the clients' operating activity into the bank. If we execute well, we believe that by 2030, deposits generated in this segment could represent 3% to 5% of total deposits. Ultimately, it is pretty straightforward. By adding transactional services, our vision is to capture meaningful flows and balances in Bladex's account from both corporate clients and financial institutions.

So taken together, our objective is for operating deposits to represent between 8% and 12% of total deposits and transactional fees, to be between $3 million and $5 million, all by 2030. That matters because operating deposits carry a lower cost than market-based funding and that should translate into a meaningful improvement to our cost of funds. Just as importantly, they are part of a broader shift in the model, one where Bladex captures more of the flows, it already finances, generates more fee income and builds a more diversified earnings base over time. With that, let me turn it over to Sam, who will speak about how we plan to increase the value generated by our lending products. Sam, go ahead.

Thank you, Jorge, and good morning, everyone. I am Samuel Canineu, Chief Commercial Officer at Bladex. I joined the bank 5 years ago with a clear mandate to transform our commercial engine and unlock the full revenue potential of this franchise. Today, I'll share both the results we have delivered and the growth strategy ahead. My presentation has 2 parts. First, the outcomes of Phase I while we have proved that growing the loan book and expanding margins are not mutually exclusive. Second, the product level engines that drive our 2030 commercial strategy across 4 verticals, structured trade finance, letters of credit, syndications and project finance and infrastructure.

During Phase 1, the commercial team had one clear objective, scale the loan book while widening spreads. We delivered on both fronts decisively. As [ Jay ] outlined, early delivery of our 2026 strategic plan was not accident. It was the result of a deliberate effort. In our case, it included an overhaul of how we originate price, structure and manage our portfolio, transforming what had been a straightforward trade lending operation into a diversified multiproduct platform serving several hundred clients across more than 20 countries.

Total loans grew from $5.7 billion to $9.2 billion, a 1.6x increase and the primary engine behind the doublings of Bladex's commercial portfolio. We achieved this while sustaining a strong credit profile in an increasingly competitive environment, keeping nonperforming loans at historically low levels. At the product level, structured trade finance and working capital solutions more than doubled, growing from $900 million to $1.9 billion, project finance and infrastructure launched in 2022 reached total exposure of $1.4 billion by year-end 2025 and the volume arranged by our syndicated loan franchise, scale took $4.9 billion in 2025, 7x the historical average.

Equally important, our average lending spreads expanded by 86 basis points to 2.94%, even as credit spreads across the market compared to historical lows. While competitors accepted lower yields to maintain volume, we have taken the opposite approach, growing volumes and commanding better pricing simultaneously. A fundamental premise of our strategy is that every asset on our balance sheet must earn its place.

Every transaction is evaluated through a dynamic pricing model that captures real-time market data and counterparty specific risk. We add new products only when they are margin accretive and aligned with our risk appetite. Our incentive model ties compensation directly to risk-adjusted returns, aligning the team around value creation, not volume.

Credit performance is explicitly incorporated into the scorecard, ensuring risk discipline at every level. Our structural advantage compound over time. First, a fast turning book. Almost 2/3 matures within 12 months, providing continuous repricing opportunities. Second, uncommitted credit lines with very frequent reviews allows us to adjust exposures up or down faster than our competitors. Third, a flat organization structure with frequent credit committees and full board empowerment, enabling faster decision-making, the clients are more than well often willing to pay a premium for us.

Fourth, a broad geographic reach across more than 20 countries in the region in shares that were present wherever our clients need support. Lastly, a strong capital and funding base allows us to capture every attractive opportunity with detect. All of these features are becoming increasingly difficult for competitors to replicate. Importantly, contingencies grew even faster than loans during this period, reflecting our deliberate decision to position letters of credit as a central pillar of our strategy. This acceleration underscores the capital-light fee-driven direction we're building toward. Phase 1 proved that disciplined growth and margin expansion can coexist.

Now let me take you through our 2030 strategy. Our 2030 strategy rests on 3 pillars: disciplined loan growth, reducing cost of funding and expanding noninterest income. My focus will be on the first and third where commercial execution impacts more directly. On loan growth, we will continue expanding within our proven risk-adjusted return framework. Now at a greater scale across structured trade finance, syndications and project finance. On noninterest income, where we see the single greatest incremental opportunity we will scale both letters of credit and syndication fees. We have identified key drivers and they are already in motion.

Let me now focus on each of these 4 product verticals that bring these pillars to life. Structured Trade Finance is deeply embedded in our DNA, but we have fundamentally reimagine how we execute it. To be clear, this is distinct from our traditional letters of credit business. Here, we provide complex working capital solutions, supply chain finance, inventory and receivables monetization tailored to multinational corporations and large local and regional players. The results speak for themselves with double the size of our book while almost tripling our client base and almost doubling spreads.

The transformation is evident. 5 years ago, our trade finance offering was simple. We focus on basic bilateral loans on discounting single invoices and deals of exchange for a limited client base concentrated by geography with nonrecurring transactions. Pricing was tied to market conditions, and we had no product-driven alliances. Today, we delivered a sophisticated suite of trade finance solutions for each of the main working capital accounts. Our client base has broadened considerably with continuous onboarding.

Revenue is more recurring, spreads are steadier and the business is significantly less vulnerable to economic cycles. A key enabler has been our alliance strategy. We have forged partnerships with leading fintech platforms and specialized originators that elevated vendor finance from a niche product into a strategic client enablement tool. Today, our alliance originated business generates approximately 1.5x the margin of legacy vendor finance with much higher recurrence and more stable profitability.

During our Investor Day in 2022, we outlined plans to establish 4 strategic alliances. I am pleased to report an exceptional execution rate. Three of the 4 alliances have been successfully launched and today are a meaningful part of our business. The fourth marketplace initiative was discontinued at a negligible cost after it failed to deliver on its promise of new clientele position. We're disciplined not only on what we pursue, but equally in what we choose to exit.

We have also partnered with banks to access the working capital programs and are currently piloting a couple of new alliances with nonbanking institutions. Bladex remains a highly attractive partner given our competitive advantage. At the same time, we remain selective, preferring to scale existing relationships where we still see significant growth potential.

In this slide, I have included a few examples of programs we have built with some key clients. Each of these solutions share a common feature, conventional [ lateral ] lending to these clients would not clear our return herds. Instead, each structure solves a specific problem for the client, whether in payables, inventory or receivables that incentivizes them to pay a premium over standard lending.

Given time constraints, I will highlight the inventory solution in the top right. A major utility client in the Dominican Republic had worked over 6 months with a global institution without finding a viable solution that preserved existing commercial contracts with its suppliers. In contrast, we structured a solution through a trading company that extended payment terms while suppliers were paid as usual with no changes to the commercial contracts.

Given its effectiveness and simplicity, we were able to capture 100% of the purchase volumes and have already begun replicating this model across other countries. By solving real problems with more sophisticated structured trade and working capital solutions, we expect a further 50% expansion in this vertical, targeting a total of around $2.7 billion by 2030.

Let me walk you through the main growth drivers in more detail. On technology, like we did with letters of credit, we will implement a platform to automate processes and enhance the client interface. Our experience with CGI gives us an edge. On alliances, we will continue scaling our existing partnerships to access new clients and markets while selectively onboarding new alliances where we see a compelling fit.

On securitization, we're off to a strong start. We have already structured several transactions not only in U.S. dollars but also in Mexican and Chilean pesos and have successfully distributed a number of them to investors. We see significant potential to grow this franchise funder. On commodity finance, we have rapidly expanded from a limited number of counterparties a few years ago to a large number today, maximizing our access to trading voices for discounting.

Today, we work with virtually all global regional commodity traders active in the region and are positioning ourselves to cover their full transactional flow, from imports at Origin outside Latin America to the final buyer England, creating significant cross-sell opportunities for letters of credit and lending and cash management, as covered by Jorge, a key opportunity is capturing payments from our supply chain finance programs, tapping the billions of dollars we finance annually.

Having covered structured trade finance, let me now turn to letters of credit. Letters of credit are among our most capital-efficient products and a powerful lever for improving return on equity. As off-balance sheet instruments [indiscernible] generate fee income without consuming risk-weighted assets in the way the loans do. Total LC fee income grew from approximately $12 million in 2021 to nearly $32 million in 2025, a 2.6x expansion. This was driven by expanded commercial coverage now with dedicated resources also in Brazil and Mexico, a broader suite of tailored solutions, meaningful cross-sell from newer product verticals and improved monetization. Our clients increasingly view Bladex as their primary LC provider for intraregional and Latin America to the rest of the world trade corridors, a position that creates significant stickiness and recurrence.

End-of-period LC is balanced doubled to $1.5 billion in 2025. Transaction volumes tripled, and we meaningfully expanded our active client base. Aligned scorecards embedding LCs into the broader commercial agenda enable a cultural shift. As prior to 2021, LCs were not actively offered as a stand-alone product. We fundamentally change that. Looking ahead, our target is to double LCV revenue to approximately $60 million by 2030.

We see clear levers to accelerate. First, launched in 2025, the new corporate portal built with CGI has fully automated internal execution and increased capacity. We're now starting to onboard corporate clients to a self-service front end, a meaningful competitive advantage in a historically analog business. Second, we will continue deepening LC penetration and cross-sell. Today, only 25% of our clients have letters of credit with us, yet we estimate that nearly 60% of our client base uses LCs. That gap represents substantial upside potential in volumes through increased penetration, client penetration alone. Third, we're expanding structure and tailor-made LC solutions. These transactions occur less frequently but tend to be larger in size, highly profitable and more recurrent. We have been steadily increasing origination in the segment.

Fourth, we will grow letters of credit participations alongside our syndication and project finance deals. This has been a powerful engine of our more recent growth, and we still see significant potential. Fifth, integration with cash management. Most of our letter credits involve payment to an exporter or seller, creating natural payment flows. With cash management capabilities, we can capture a portion of the several billion dollars of LCs we opened annually as a captive business. Finally, we will expand wallet share with our higher-grade clients through a combination of smaller ticket, better price transactions and higher volume and more competitively priced ones.

Now let me turn to loan structure and syndications. Our syndications franchise has undergone a genuine transformation. What makes Bladex distinctive is our originate to share model. Unlike other banks that originate purely to distribute and hold nothing, we keep a substantial portion of every loan we generate. Participant investor value this practice deeply, confident that when we bring a deal to the market, we have real conviction of in the credit.

Out of over 100 syndicated loans closed historically, only one has required restructuring. That track record has made us the preferred partner for over 100 banks and institutional investors, with some having effectively outsource part of their credit process to us.

The scale of the transformation is significant. The average annual volume we are raised up to 2020 was approximately $670 million. In 2025 alone, we arranged almost $5 billion for our clients. It's important to note that this includes the Block 58 oil project for Suriname's national oil company state, a $1.4 billion transaction that was the largest fee event in Bladex's history and earned us multiple awards. Even normalizing for that, exceptional deal, the growth multiple remains very substantial. A few years ago, we were nowhere near having the capability to lead a transaction of that scale and complexity.

Total syndication fee grew nearly 5x to over $20 million showing material growth even normalizing for the one-off [indiscernible] deal. What is important to highlight is that in 2025, we activated an entirely new revenue stream for Bladex through secondary market distribution. Given our excess capital position, it was traditionally more profitable for us to originate for our own balance sheet. That equation is changing as we grow and reach capital efficiency, as we did in 2025 before the AT1 issuance.

Our new established available-for-sale book allows us to warehouse loans and sell them at a game on the secondary market later. Particularly on deals with syndicate, we can anticipate market appetite and time sales strategically, generating incremental fees while also enabling us to reduce risk exposure and manage our capital buffers proactively.

We target over 50% growth in syndication fees to $30 million to $32 million by 2030, giving a number of concrete drivers: first, higher underwriting capacity. Today, we can underwrite up to $400 million to $500 million in a single transaction. Second, a larger and more experienced team that strengthens our execution and coverage capabilities. Third, expanded product and industry expertise, our new verticals, particularly project finance, generate transactions that require syndication and commend higher fees.

Fourth, strengthened [indiscernible] credentials. Regional and global investment banks value us as a co-underwriting partner because we bring deep regional knowledge without competing in their DCM or M&A businesses. Fifth, enhanced agency capabilities through our growing team. And sixth and final, also particularly important, our new established available-for-sale loan book.

Over time, we expect this to evolve into a full-fledged credit trading book, which could account for up to 30% of our syndication income by 2030. Client credit profile within the available-for-sale book is on average, stronger than the rest of the portfolio. And for each of this position, we maintain the readiness to hold to maturity in the event we cannot sell at a gain.

Now let me move to the last of our 4 growth verticals, project finance and infrastructure. Project finance and infrastructure is our newest vertical and one I'm particularly proud of. Launch from 0 in 2022. By year-end 2025, we completed 41 transactions with total exposure reaching $1.4 billion. An important clarification. Not all of this exposure is pure project financing involving construction risk.

Nearly half is made up of infrastructure deals from a sector standpoint. Mostly corporation with very predictable revenue streams, some with contract revenues that allow for higher leverage, giving cash flow visibility. Peer construction risk project finance remains within the boundary of 5% to 7% of our commercial portfolio, as indicated at our 2022 Investor Day, and, in many cases, include completion guarantees from sponsors.

In just 3 years, we moved from pure participations to selective lead growth, building track record developing industry expertise and establishing relationships with key infrastructure sponsors across the region. Growth exceeded our initial expectations, reflecting strong client demand and the strategic hire. Given the macro backdrop strongly supports continued expansion and the key drivers identified, we're targeting project finance infrastructure portfolio of around $2.5 billion by 2030.

Latin America faced significant infrastructure gap across energy transition, near shore, transportation and digital connectivity, while several global players have pulled back, creating space, we're well positioned to fill. We combine structuring sophistication of global players with deep regional understanding and the trust that comes from a permanent presence in the region. The risk return profile is compelling, low default correlation during crisis, strong collateral, higher fee generation and long-term tenders that add stability to our otherwise short duration portfolio. Our plan is to capture growing regional infrastructure needs through multiproduct integration, layering syndication, LCs, working capital and derivatives alongside core finances, lead lending to boost fees and selectively adding local currency solutions. With that, I have covered our 4 product verticals.

Let me bring it all together. Over the past 4 years, we have fundamentally transformed the commercial engine of this bank, scaling every product vertical, expanding margins in a compressing market and building entirely new capabilities from ground up, all while sustaining a strong credit profile. Looking ahead, we will continue scaling smart, building a commercial franchise that is more resilient more profitable and more deeply embedded in our clients' operations than at any point in Bladex's history.

The growth drivers are already in motion, firmly within our execution capability and well diversified. So we're not reliant on any single product, geography or revenue type. The first phase was about proving our ability to execute. The next phase is about scaling that execution and unlocking the full potential of our commercial platform. Thank you. And I will now hand the presentation over to Eduardo Vivone, our Executive Vice President of Treasure in Capital Markets.

Thank you, Samuel, and thank you all for joining us today. I'd like to focus on how treasury fits into Bladex's broader strategy and how its role is evolving. In 2021, treasury operated primarily as a funding provider and investment management units focused on balance sheet optimization and funding diversification. Between 2022 and 2024, we delivered on our 2022 Investor Day commitment by materially expanding our deposit base, strengthening funding resilience and enabling asset growth while maintaining a disciplined cost of funds.

By 2025, treasury entered the next phase, executing Bladex's first client derivative transactions. While the revenue contribution in this first year was relatively modest, this tightly scoped pilot operations validated demand and confirmed, we can extend risk management capabilities into client solutions in a capital efficient and well governed way. The key priority here is direction.

Treasury is expanding its mandate in a progressive, disciplined and repeatable way, evolving from balance sheet optimization toward a scalable client-oriented revenue engine. From 2021 to 2024, the priority was resilience, strengthening the funding base and ensuring flexibility across cycles. As we move towards 2025, that foundation remained firmly in place, while treasuries mandate began to broaden. We started deploying new capabilities through pilot derivative transactions and early client solutions generating an initial contribution to noninterest income.

Looking ahead to our 2030, the focus is scale. Treasury evolves from pilot activity to a scaled client-facing offering, generating sustainable noninterest income and delivering a measurable impact on funding efficiency and ROE generation. As we will see, this is a deliberately based evolution underpinned by a progressive expansion of Treasury's role fully aligned with Bladex's long-term strategy. And that progression brings us to a practical question. Where does treasury create value across the franchise?

Treasury support the franchise across disciplined growth funding efficiency and noninterest income. Our contribution is concentrated on 2 core levers: first, FX and derivatives, generating fee-based noninterest income; second, local and multicurrency funding, improving funding efficiency and enabling local currency lending without FX exposure as a complement to our traditional dollar-based offering.

These are not standalone treasury products. They are integrated solutions embedded within lending, project finance and syndications in direct support of client transactions. FX and derivatives extend pricing and risk management capabilities. While multicurrency funding captures relative value funding opportunities, reduces costs and supports local lending together, reinforcing disciplined and sustainable growth, scaling safely and consistently also requires the right infrastructure. With this objective, we are implementing a new treasury platform, [ Nasdaq Calypso ].

A key advantage this new platform provides its time to market, which allows us to unlock new opportunities across both client activity and funding execution. On the client side, speed matters. Clients expect swift, [indiscernible] execution, particularly when FX and hedging solutions are embedded within financings. Faster execution improves relevance, conversion and overall client experience. Speed is equally critical when capturing time-sensitive funding and currency opportunities, where market windows can be brief. The ability to act quickly and consistently is what allows those opportunities to be realized.

The platform enables this by providing real-time visibility across FX, interest rates and liquidity positions, enhancing pricing accuracy, execution speed, operational efficiency, risk governance and responsiveness across currencies and tenants. So this is fundamentally about unlocking new profitable opportunities, allowing treasury to execute faster and more consistently, while scaling a disciplined, while governed way that supports noninterest income growth and funding efficiency.

Unlocking these opportunities, requires not only the right platform but also a disciplined execution model. Our approach is deliberately paced and client anchored. Capabilities scale progressively through client needs linked to lending, trade and project finance rather than through stand-alone activity, ensuring growth remains resilient, repeatable and aligned with the franchise.

We began in 2025 with client-driven pilots delivered back-to-back with financings, with validated demand and confirms our business case. From there, the rollout progresses in phases. The first phase starting in the second half of 2026 focuses on expanding flow-based activity and product coverage, supported by close coordination with risk, IT and relationship management. The next implementation phase planned for the second half of 2027 introduces greater product sophistication, including nonlinear solutions alongside expanding multicurrency and local currency funding and lending capabilities.

The result is a progressive controlled rollout under a strong risk governance framework unlocking new opportunities step by step, while remaining fully aligned with Bladex's strategic focus and risk appetite. All of this brings us to the quantified impact of the model we have described. By 2030, treasury is expected to generate nearly $1 billion in incremental multicurrency funding and a tenfold increase in derivative related fees, reaching $10 million to $12 million annually. It is important to clarify how these figures were derived. The $10 million to $12 million range is not aspirational. Projections are based on a bottom-up assessment conducted by our strategic planning team, business team and treasury.

Starting from our active client base with project finance and syndications identified as a primary driver, but not the only ones, we estimated underlying volumes and applied conservative pricing and capture assumptions to arrive at a realistic income potential. Nonlinear products are included in the 2030 range. but their contribution is weighted to the later phases of the ramp-up. [indiscernible] are driven primarily by linear client anchor solutions with product sophistication increasing progressively, our scale, infrastructure and risk governance mature.

Local funding is different in nature. Its value is opportunity-driven rather than volume driven. One matters is the ability to act quickly when opportunities arise, particularly in funding and currency execution. We are already doing this in markets such as Mexico and the new platform significantly enhances our ability to capture these opportunities through faster execution and improved time to market. The combination of these elements results in disciplined capital-light growth with a direct and measurable impact on earnings diversification, funding efficiency and ROE generation fully aligned with Bladex's long-term strategy.

Let me close this section by reinforcing the core message and what it means for you as investors. Treasury is evolving in a disciplined delivered way. From managed optimizer to client-oriented revenue engine without changing Bladex's risk profile or capital intensity. This delivers diversified earnings improved funding efficiency and stronger returns supported by governance and faced execution. FX and derivatives expand noninterest income in a capital-light way.

Multi-currency funding includes funding efficiency and execution. And as Sam noted, local funding opens opportunities on the asset side of the balance sheet, particularly in working capital solutions, project finance and the infrastructure. Finally, the new platform allows us to capture opportunities more consistently and at the right time. Importantly, this is not about doing everything at once. It is about sequencing growth thoughtfully, scaling proven capabilities and introducing additional sophistication only when the infrastructure controls and economics fully supported.

The result is a treasury model that is more predictable, more resilient and more scalable, one that contributes directly to earnings diversification, funding efficiency and ROE generation and supports sustainable long-term value creation for shareholders. Thank you. I will now hand over to Olazhir Ledezma, our Head of Strategic Planning.

Good morning, and thank you, Eduardo. I am Olazhir Ledezma, and work you through how we have driven efficiency and productivity across the bank. As a Chief Strategy Officer, my focus has been on ensuring we execute with discipline and efficiency while the business scales. Over the past few years, we have demonstrated the productivity and efficiency gains are not at odds with growth. On the contrary, we have been able to achieve our commercial and financial objective was significantly improving the way the bank operates. It was possible thanks to a focused execution agenda. We translated the strategy into concrete priorities, backed by a strong governance and disciplined resource allocation.

There are 3 main levers, we have this transformation. First, we convert the strategy into a clear set of initiatives, each with specific objectives and defined accountability. To ensure consistent execution, we established a strong PMO, supported by a clear governance model with regular oversight at the Executive Committee level and quarterly visibility at the Board level. This allow us to continuously prioritize initiatives, relocate capital and operating resources when needed and stop efforts that no longer create strategic value.

Second, we have taken a disciplined approach to capabilities. We knew it needs to emerge with their high-critical skills or develop them internally through reskilling and workforce evolution. That has allowed us to build the talent base required for the next stage of transformation. And third, we are designed on compensation model. As Jorge mentioned earlier, this was a fundamental chief in how we align incentives across the organization.

Today, the model is simpler more transparent and better aligned with value creation at both the individual and company level. We introduced balanced scorecards that clearly linked personal performance to see objective, ensuring everyone understand how their work contributes to the overall success. This means the [ motor ] combined short-term performance with medium-term strategic objectives, ensuring that means portion of compensation reflects progress against a multiyear agenda.

Moreover, we extend performance shares to our entire executive segment, including media management expanding for 4% of employees in 2021 to approximately 20% today. This redesign has a strength in alignment commitment and execution across the organization and is a key reason why we're able to deliver consistent results while transforming the bank. The resource are visible in operating makes revenue [indiscernible] per employees grew from $707,000 to $910,000. That's a 60% increase while our cost-to-income ratio improved from 38.3% to 26.7%.

These are not isolated efficiency gains. They are evidence of a structurally stronger operating model, which is now the foundation for our next phase of growth. And we look forward to 2030, we have identified 4 areas that require continued strengthen to sustain the trajectory. First is commercial excellence. As our product offering expands and resales evolve, we must continue upgrading the service model and scaling commercial capabilities through better methodologies process and technology. It's essential to drive growth with consistency and quality.

The second is data readiness. We need to continue strengthening our data architecture so that the organization become increasingly modern, integrated and truly data driven in the sense that every decision from process improvement to product pricing is informed by integrated real-time data. The third is the ongoing modernization of our technology platform, not only through tools and systems, but also through internal processes that improve speed, scalability and reserving.

This includes [ complaint ] and implementation of the new platform, social Nasdaq and [indiscernible], investment that will double our processing capacity without doubling cost. And fourth, we're deploying artificial intelligence across the organization with a pragmatic approach. Our focus is on capturing everyday efficiencies in daily activities, while selectively investing in a limited number of larger initiatives where we see a clear attractive return profile. Together, the foreign enabler will support the next wave of productivity improvement while reinforcing execution capacity across the bank.

Let me now walk you through how we plan to invest behind these priorities. To deliver its agenda, we intend to maintain technology spending at around 7% of revenues. This allows us to invest strategically while protecting our efficiency ratio. In practical terms, this means continue to prioritize investments that support our core pillars: fee income growth, loan balance growth, payments are enabling capabilities and technology, data and AI. Importantly, this is not simply about maintaining spend. It is about maintaining discipline.

Let me be clear. This is not about capping investment. It is about maximizing return on every dollar we invest through rigorous prioritization. We operate in a strong governance model, in which most initiatives are business led. We closed partnership from technology and with a clear business case behind each investment. Prioritization and portfolio review take place on a recurring basis through a formal project portfolio committee.

We're also reinforcing execution through strategic partnerships with leading global providers, which I said before, [indiscernible], by combining those partnerships with agile delivery models. These partnerships allow us to access best-in-class capability without building everything in-house, accelerating time to market while controlling costs. At the same time, we're expanding the use of AI tools and agent to capture everyday efficiencies across the organization, while carefully selecting only a few of laser AI initiatives this year where the impact is measurable and the return on investment is compelling.

This balanced model disciplined investment, a strong governance, strategic partnership and selective [indiscernible] deployment is what gives us confidence in the sustainability of our efficiency gains going forward. And the final labor and perhaps the most critical is our people. In the first phase of transformation, the priority was to strengthen the organization by filling critical roles and by hiring structure in areas that were in [indiscernible] for execution, such as the PMO and key technology capabilities.

In the second phase, particularly across 2024 and 2025, the profile of hiring began to shift. The majority of new capabilities have increasingly come from areas such as data, [indiscernible] analytics, AI and the management of the new tools being deployed across the organization. Looking ahead, that trend is expected to intensify. A growing share of the talent we will bring will be focused on capabilities we do not yet fully have a scale today.

The evolution in the workforce is a critical enabler for our long-term productivity agenda. As a result, we believe efficiency per employees can continue to improve meaningfully, pricing for approximately $900,000 per employ to close to $1.2 million or [indiscernible] 2030. This represent a folded 20 improvement, building on the 60% gain that we have already delivered.

So in closing, the message is straightforward. We have already proven our ability to deliver growth and a stronger financial performance while becoming more efficient. Going forward, we will continue doing so through disciplined execution selective investment capability building and a sharp focus on productivity at the scale. Thank you. I will let Alejandro to continue with the presentation.

Good morning to everyone. Over the next 10 minutes, I will show you how we are scaling our franchise while preserving the low-risk investment-grade profile that has always defined us. Risk discipline is 1 of 2 strategic guardrails in our 2030 plan. And today, you will see how we have strengthened our capabilities, defined clear boundaries through our risk appetite framework and build the controls needed to continue growing and managing higher complexity, all while keeping our structural discipline intact.

In 2021, we made 3 commitments to preserve our intrinsically low risk model, to upgrade our risk talent and capabilities, modernize our end-to-end risk infrastructure and to strengthen our governance architecture. By 2025, we had delivered on all 3 while maintaining our core risk profile preserved with stable investment grade rating at BBB among the top 10 banks from LATAM, a high-quality credit portfolio with very low NPLs conservative capital levels and a predominantly short-tenured U.S. dollar credit portfolio with our FX risk that allow us to reprice and rebalance with agility across cycles.

Within that same discipline, the commercial portfolio evolved exactly as planned, still short tenure with 67% maturing in the next 12 months, but with a duration extending from 11 to 16 months. FI concentration declining from 42% to 27% and a healthier balance driven by corporations plus the addition of Project Finance, 6% of the portfolio with Tier 1 sponsor as a new stable segment.

In parallel, we transformed the risk function. We build specialized teams in project finance, derivatives and from an insurance, while we strengthened the local credit teams in these strategic markets, expanded cybersecurity talent, upgrading our defense in-depth model and monitoring architecture. We kept an active participation of operational risk in all major strategic initiatives to assess risk mapping since inception on formally integrated ESG and climate risk into our credit processes.

We reinforces model risk of burdens, upgraded our methodologies for new products and elevated our economic reserve function to anticipate sovereign macro and sector trends more proactively. We also upgrade governance. We built a comprehensive [indiscernible] appetite framework with over 30 KPIs, deepening bore engagement and embedded risk by design into all major strategic initiatives.

Finally, we modernize our analytical infrastructure across all risk while start the certification of our core processes to international standard like ICO, 27,000. In short, we preserve our low-risk DNA while materially upgrading our structural capacity to scale with discipline. The upgrade to talent, governance, methodologies and tools ensures that the risk function is not just a control function but a strategic enabler of disciplined growth fully aligned with our long-standing culture of prudence and our investment-grade profile.

Growth without boundaries is risk, growth defining within clear structural limit its strategy. Our [ camel-based resappetite ] framework with over 30 KPIs defined not only how much risk we are willing to take, but how we take it and under what conditions. It spans every dimension, capital strength, asset quality and liquidity, earnings stability, market sensitivity, operational resilience [ fro ] cyber poster and ESG consideration, among others.

For each dimension, we define 3 levels: appetite, where we operate normally tolerance our early warning threshold and capacity, our higher limits, all calibrated under stress scenario and align it with both regulatory expectation and rating agency methodologies. It brings broad and granular scope, multilayer structure, integration of quantitative and qualitative garages, forward-looking calibration and it's embedded in strategic execution, guided portfolio composition, funding strategy, product development, among others. Importantly, this framework is not a static document and it ensure that as a complexity increase discipline does not dilute. This framework is approved by our Board Risk Committee and monitory continuously. It's not aspirational. It's operational.

As we move towards 2030 interim risk will increase because the business model become broader and more complex. Our objective is not to eliminate that complexity, but to manage it within clearly defined boundaries. The 2030 plan represents an evolution in complexity, not a shift in our risk philosophy. Even as the franchise scale, financial risk remains stable, supported by greater diversification, disciplined [ undergriding ] and strengthening analytical capabilities.

In credit risk, the expansion of structured trade, working capital solution and project finance reflect a broader product set, not a shift into riskier client segment nor an increase in interim credit risk. Conservative underwriting remains the foundation even as the loan book growth our client base remains fundamentally the same, high-quality corporates and financial institutions. What change is the breadth of solutions we provide, not the risk profile of the counterparties.

This product can bring naturally concentration dynamic typical of wholesale banking, but we are managing this proactively by deepening sector expertise and strengthening active credit portfolio management, through distribution, insurance mitigations, allowing us to actively shape the portfolio as we spend. In market and derivative risk, greater client demand back-to-back hedges linked to lending and enhances local funding without taking FX risk require more sophisticated measurements.

We are deploying an integrated [ Calypso ] NASDAQ platform, as Eduardo described before, to strengthen forward-looking views of potential future exposure and credit value adjustment, supported by capital-efficient and conservative sensitivity limits as well as independent validation. Where we see the largest directional increase is the nonfinancial risk driven by scale, transactionality, enhances product offering, digital integration and third-party connectivity.

This is where we are investing the most to ensure residual risks remain contained. In operational and business continuity risk, higher transaction volumes and increases trade-through processing, raise the risk of brakes control failures and service disruption, particularly during period of change, big activity or incidents. Our response, new end-to-end platforms are materially strengthening our control environment.

As manual activities are replaced by automated controls, we are reducing operational errors, shortening cycle times and simplifying workflows, driving discipline and efficiency. At the same time, strengthened BCM and via framework, embedding operational risk team early in strategic initiative and deploying an integrated third-party risk management framework, extend resilience across a broader ecosystem. In technology and cybersecurity, scaling digital channels, APIs and real-time payment increased exposure.

As mentioned by Olazhir, we are investing in building an IT robustness and advancing under ICO aligned processes, strengthening our defense in depth posture and evolving the Bladex portal with maker checker controls, strong identity validation and real-time monitoring. We complement this with deeper penetration testing and stronger oversight of critical vendor through independent scoring and sub-2 aligned standards.

In compliance, AML and financial crime payment and corresponding flows structurally elevate interim risk. We are strengthening KYC process, onboarding discipline and corridor selection, governance to ensure clients products and geography risk remain within appetite as transaction volume growth. A core pillar of the road map is the implementation of a new platform that will enable more [indiscernible] transaction monitoring capabilities across corresponding banking and third-party payments, including alerting, screening and case management, building a scalable and automated financial framework.

In [indiscernible] reputational risk greater channel exposure requires real-time detection. We are implementing a fully governed real-time model with rule-based detections over patterns, velocity, geo locations, divide intelligence and beneficiary risk through the new platform for our model. In data model, an AI governance, analytical complexity increase model and data quality risk. We are reinforcing model risk management, independent validation, back testing and explainability and implementing stronger AI governance standards across the bank.

Finally, across all risk types we are progressively embedding AI centralized and decentralized agents into monitoring, early warning, anomaly detection, scenario analysis and decision support, allowing the risk function to operate with higher frequency, greater granularity and faster response times while keeping overall residual risk aligned with our conservative appetite.

So let me be clear. Interim risk does increase under the 2030 strategy, particularly in nonfinancial risk, but will be managed through a gradual and orderly escalation process, supported by strengthened capabilities and always preserving our risk discipline and control framework. The bottom line is that we are scaling a more complex franchise while preserving the same disciplined risk philosophy.

As the bank's scale in sophistication and transactionality under the 2030 plan, our structural risk profile remained firmly intact. Bladex continue to operate under the same low-risk DNA that has defined in our business model for decades, routing in discipline, stronger [ burnance ] and a deeply embedded risk culture. The evolution toward more structured solutions and higher operational complexity builds upon these foundations ensures that the core strength of the model remains central as we grow.

Our portfolio continues to be predominantly short-term and U.S. dollar based, preserving our ability to reprice, rebalance and derisk it rapidly through the cycles. Country and industry diversification remains a core pillar of our model, limiting concentration risk and providing resilience against idiosyncratic shocks across Latin America. Our underwriting discipline and conservative credit standards remain unchanged, even as we scale project finance, structured trade and working capital solutions.

Through a disciplined active credit portfolio management framework, we actively managed portfolio concentration and capital consumption by embedding originate to distribute optionality and selectly using insurance preserving balance sheet flexibility. Capital strength is a defining feature of our risk posture. Tier 1 ratios above 15% reflect a [ robo ] solvency profile well above regulatory and rating agency's expectations supporting growth without compromising prudence.

On liquidity and funding, operational deposit broaden our liability base. That's a positive evolution. We maintained strong liquidity buffers, access to the Federal Reserve discount window through our New York agency and [ Camel ] based metrics enhances by behavioral analytics on deposit or stability. The risk function operates under a risk 1.5 model, a proactive second line that engaged early, challenged effectively and embeds risk by design into every new products, process and platform.

We are scaling thoughtfully without altering the structural risk profile that defines these institutions. That structural discipline underpins the financial trajectory you are about to see. With that, I will turn it over to our CFO, Annette Van Hoorde De Solis to walk you through the financial outlook and projections.

Thank you, Alejandro, and good morning, everyone. So far, you have heard the strategic commercial and risk logic of the plan. Let me now bring those elements together from a financial perspective. Before discussing the path to 2030, it is important to start with where Bladex stands today.

Between 2021 and 2025, Bladex underwent a meaningful financial transformation. Bladex today is larger, more profitable, more diversified, efficient and resilient. Over this period, the commercial portfolio increased by 71% while deposits nearly double, strengthening both the scale and the stability of our balance sheet. At the same time, the quality and diversification of earnings improved materially. Net interest margin expanded by 104 basis points while noninterest income increased fourfold.1

Operational efficiency also improved significantly with the cost-to-income ratio declining from 38% to 27%. This was not simply balance sheet growth. It was a clear improvement in the mix, scalability and the quality of earnings. Importantly, this transformation was achieved while preserving the strength of the balance sheet. Asset quality remains strong, while capital levels stayed solid at a Tier 1 Basel III ratio of 17.4%. In other words, the Bladex of today is already a stronger and a better bank than it was just a few years ago. And that matters because the plan that we're presenting today is not built on aspiration alone. It is built on a track record of execution and in a franchise that is already stronger, more profitable and better positioned to scale.

As Jorge said out in his opening remarks, and as each speaker reinforced throughout the earlier presentations, the financial strategy behind our 2030 ambition can be summarized in 3 pillars. First, disciplined portfolio growth, expanding the earnings base while maintaining underwriting and pricing discipline, Second, funding optimization is structurally lowering the cost of funds and strengthening the liability side of the balance sheet. And third, a stronger contribution from noninterest income, further improving both diversification and capital efficiency.

Each of the initiative you have heard today has a clear financial line of sight to one or more of these pillars. Transactional services contributed by increasing operational deposits improving both the quality and the cost of funding while also contributing gradually to noninterest income. Commercial execution supports growth through better portfolio mix, deeper client monetization and stronger fee generation and treasury capabilities at capital-light revenues while improving funding efficiency and balance sheet flexibility.

Taken together, these pillars support our objective of delivering adjusted ROE of 16% to 70% by 2030. Through a better earning mix, stronger balance sheet economics and a more scalable financial model. Let me start with the first pillar, disciplined portfolio growth, which remains the foundation of the earnings model. By 2030, we expect the commercial portfolio to grow from $11.2 billion today to about $20 billion.

But what matters most is not simply the size of that growth. It is the quality of that growth and the economics behind it. The expansion is built on continued growth on ongoing core businesses, together with greater scale in areas such as letter of credit, structured trade finance and working capital solutions and structuring indications, businesses that deepen client engagement and support attractive economics.

We are also continuing to build complementary capabilities in project finance and infrastructure, broadening the opportunity set while remaining fully aligned with our underwriting discipline. This is a value-driven growth plan. This also matters for profitability. Our short-term or lending model provides repricing flexibility while a growing contribution from higher-value solution supports spread resilience. So the objective is not simply to grow in size, but to grow with the right mix. So that margins remain resilient and NIM stays around 2.3% as we execute the plan, supported not only by portfolio mix, but also by funding improvement that I will discuss later. The result is a larger earning base with growth that is intentional, diversified and fully aligned with our conservative risk framework.

Balance sheet growth is only part of the story. The second part is building a broader and more resilient revenue mix. That brings me to the second pillar. The growing role of noninterest income, which is one of the most important changes in Bladex's earnings profile. As highlighted throughout today's presentation, by 2030, fee income becomes a core pillar of profitability alongside net interest income.

Growth comes from areas where we already have a clear momentum and visible execution path. Trade Services and letter of credits, treasury solutions, including derivatives, structuring and syndications and fee streams linked to transactional services as well as project and infrastructure finance. These activities generate revenues that are capital efficient, scalable and closely tied to client relationships.

As a result, noninterest income is expected to nearly double increasing from $68 million in 2025 to approximately $125 million by 2030, contributing to a more diversified earnings profile. And the [ structural achieve ] is even clearer when you look at the mix. As Sam noted earlier, noninterest income in 2025 benefited from extraordinary syndication activity. So a better baseline is the average for the first plan from 2021 through 2025, when noninterest income represented about 15% of revenues. By 2030, we expect that mix to increase to around 20%, making fee income a more meaningful and durable contributor to the bank's earnings.

So far, I have spoken about how we improve revenue quality. Let me now turn to how we improve funding economics. The third pillar focuses on the liability side of the balance sheet, and it represents one of the most powerful drivers in the plan. Through transactional services and treasury initiative, we are increasing operational deposits and strengthening local funding capabilities. At the same time, the bank continues to optimize funding mix currency and tenor, reducing reliance on more expensive wholesale sources.

Together, these actions are expected to lower our structural cost of funds by approximately 20 to 30 basis points. improving margin resilience and supporting the profitability of growth. What matters is that this goes beyond funding in the narrow sense. Operational deposits improved not only pricing but also the quality, stability and strategic value of the liability structure. In that sense, this is a structural improvement in the economics of the balance sheet, one that supports NIM resilience, strengthen the returns on growth and contribute meaningfully to the ROE expansion.

Of course, growth in revenues only creates value if we can grow the franchise efficiently. To scale these pillars effectively, operating leverage is essential and cost efficiency remains one of the key guardrails of our 2030 financial ambition. Our approach is to invest with discipline in capabilities that improve productivity and support revenue growth. Most of these investments are tied to specific initiatives in technology, data, trade execution, treasury infrastructure and process automation, improving client experience while supporting scalable growth.

In the near term, this creates an investment cycle. So efficiency may not improve linearly in every year. But over time, revenues should outpace cost growth, allowing us to sustain efficiency as a structural advantage. Bladex also benefits from a unique operating model, broad regional reach across Latin America without the fixed cost of physical branch network. That makes the franchise inherently more scalable and supports positive operating leverage over time.

So this is really about investing with discipline, so we can scale efficiently translate growth into operating leverage and keep the efficiency ratio within our 25% to 27% target range. As we scale the franchise, strong capital remains one of the anchors of the plan. Our capital allocation approach balances growth, resilience and shareholders' returns.

As shown on this slide, Bladex has consistently maintained ample compliance with regulatory requirements while preserving strong capital levels under Basel III framework. As we execute the 2030 plan, we intend to operate with Tier 1 Basel III capital in the range of 15% to 16%, consistent with our internal capital risk appetite and support of disciplined growth. That capital strength is not incidental. It's one of the conditions that allow us to grow with resilience across cycles.

In addition, our strategy is designed to be largely self-funded and capital efficient. We expect to reinvest a meaningful portion of earnings to support growth while continuing to return value to shareholders through dividends. For planning purposes, our assembly payout ratio of around 40% over time, with actual dividends continuing to be approved and declared by the Board on a quarterly basis. Our Tier 1 capital is now supported by both common equity and the recent AT1 issuance, which give us additional flexibility to support growth while preserving common equity strength and dividend capacity.

In summary, our capital philosophy is to support disciplined growth, preserve resilience and continue delivering value to shareholders. When we bring together the 3 pillars introduced earlier, disciplined growth, lower cost of funds and higher noninterest income, the financial logic of the plan becomes clear. This bridge shows how those peers translate into our target adjusted ROE. The first 2 pillars come together through net interest income. Disciplined growth expand the earning asset base, while a lower structural cost of funds improved the economics of that growth. Together, these 2 levers strengthened the net interest income and supports the profitability of the balance sheet.

The third pillar is noninterest income. As discussed earlier, a greater contribution from fees increases the share of revenues that are more diversified, more capital efficient and more resilient over time. This is why noninterest income becomes such an important part of the earnings profile by 2030. Of course, part of these benefits are offset by the cost of scaling the franchise including the investments required to support growth as well as the cost of risk and operating expenses associated with our larger and more scalable bank.

When you bring these elements together, the result is passed to our adjusted ROE of 16% to 17% by 2030. Our plan also assumes a normalized U.S. dollar interest rate environment. And as rates normalize, some of the temporary benefits from capital carry will moderate, and that dynamic is fully reflected in our assumptions. Just as importantly, this improvement is not driven by higher leverage or greater risk appetite, but by a better business mix, deeper client relationships continued asset quality discipline and a strong capital as core priorities of the plan, making profitability, more sustainable and less sensitive to rate movements.

Let me close by bringing the 2030 financial ambition into clear focus. By 2030, we expect to scale the franchise with discipline, expanding the commercial portfolio to $18 billion to $20 billion, while preserving the underwriting pricing and capital discipline that defines Bladex. At the same time, we expect interest margin to remain around 2.30%, supported by the resilience of our short-tenor model a better business mix and continued improvement in funding structure.

We also expect noninterest income to continue growing, becoming a more meaningful and durable contributor to profitability. All of this is expected to be achieved while maintaining strong efficiency levels in the 25% to 27% range, even as we continue investing in the capabilities that make the franchise more scalable. Taken together, these drivers support our objective of delivering adjusted ROE in the range of 16% to 17%, while maintaining Tier 1 capital between 15% and 16%. And consistent with our commitment to resilience, balance sheet strength and disciplined growth.

From a macroeconomic perspective, these targets are built on planning assumptions that include a normalized interest rate environment with Fed funds in the low 3% range. moderate Latin American GDP growth of approximately 2.6% and continued expansion in regional trade flows of around 5% to 6%. In sum, the financial profile we're building is that of a bank with higher quality of earnings, stronger client economics, lower rate sensitivity and greater capacity to compound value over time. And that is what underpins our confidence in the plan and in the returns we believe Bladex can deliver through 2030. And with that, let me hand it back to Jorge for his closing remarks.

Let me just close by summarizing today's presentation. in 5 main points. First, we delivered an ambitious growth plan 1 year ahead of schedule. And we did so while also putting in place the integrated platforms that are essential to scaling this franchise. Second, the market opportunity in front of us is substantial, and we believe we have a differentiated set of structural advantages that allows us to participate more broadly in that opportunity and deliver sustainable returns in the mid-teens over time, increasingly less dependent on swings in market rates.

Third, perhaps the most transformative aspect of this next phase is the introduction of transactional services. This should support a structural improvement in our net interest margin while also strengthening fee generation over time. At the same time, while this is a natural evolution of our business, and a standard capability across banking globally, it is new for Bladex, and it brings a new set of challenges for which we are realistically planning and preparing.

Fourth, disciplined execution of these capabilities together with a gradual and risk-based scaling of transactional activity will be critical to managing the emerging nonfinancial risk appropriately and to preserving the quality of service that has historically differentiated Bladex in the region.

And fifth, our purpose has not changed. We remain committed to connecting Latin America with the world and the essence of our business has not changed either. We remain a niche selective low-risk bank with a diversified short-term credit portfolio focused on blue chip corporates and financial institutions across the region. No foreign exchange risk, no deviation from our conservative credit profile.

The business model is not changing. It's scaling. But as our Chairman said at the very beginning, Bladex has gone to a deep cultural transformation. That transformation has been essential to what we have achieved so far. And it is equally important to our vision of becoming a true trade bank for the region.

Now consistent with that culture and transformation and with the 2030 vision we have shared today after 20 years, Bladex is updating its brand identity. Our new identity is simply a reflection of our evolution and a bold expression of where we're added. We chose this day in this specific moment to unveil our new identity for the very first time.

[Presentation]

This concludes the management presentation. We will now take a 5-minute break before proceeding with the Q&A session.

[Break]

We will now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions].

Our first question comes from Ricardo Buchpiguel with BTG.

Congrats on the event. I have 2 questions here. So first, related to this goal and expanding to cash management and transactional services. I wanted to hear in more details why do you see Bladex [indiscernible] sins in the segment, right? And also if you could comment on which countries are these advantages stronger then also, where do you believe would be the main challenges on this front will be very helpful.

And for my second question, it would be interesting to understand a little bit more on how the plan will evolve throughout the years, right? So looking in the next 5 years, does it make sense to expect the investments you mentioned in terms of OpEx to function similar like a J-curve, so you initially have some ROE pressure initially and then you see the benefits of the plan more in the future? Or since a lot has already been done on -- related to this plan, we should expect more incremental over time? And how can we think about this?

Thank you, Ricardo, very good questions. Let me start with the corresponding banking questions and how are we competing with the big banks and then I'll hand it over to Olazhir, who will talk about the investment part that we have already done.

The point with corresponding banking here is that the business case for Bladex looks very different than for the big banks or the big global bank. And that's true, not only from a risk perspective but also from a commercial perspective. The banks that we are planning to serve from the payments and corresponding banking side are banks that we know very well that we've been servicing them from the lending side for years.

So we -- not only that, but we also have feet on the ground. We know them very well from -- so we can assess the risk very well. But perhaps even more importantly, is the commercial side. The fact that we've been lending to these banks for years builds a case for reciprocity. That's not true in most cases, for the big banks. Also -- and this is also very important, they value, personalized service which the big banks typically do not offer for the type of banks that we are going to serve.

Also, scale here plays almost like the opposite role. Being a small bank, clearly, we value more operating deposits than the big bank does. So that's basically our approach. And as I said, during the presentation, we are targeting the banks in the middle segment that are not the underserved nor the bigger banks that typically have a much larger offer. I guess that's the answer to your first question.

To your second question, we have been preparing for this phase of the plan for years now. As a matter of fact, most of the basic infrastructure is already in place and it needed to be in place to do the interfaces with the platforms that are already running. I guess, like 40% of the total spending is already in place. I don't know, Olazhir, if you want to complement.

Sure. Well, basically, we will continue doing what we have done, which is basically -- we only will be additional investment when we know what the revenues are going to be there. So you can expect to have the growth in revenue going before potential growth in investment and expenses. As Jorge said, we have already invested the majority of what we need to keep growing especially in the cash managed marina. So we don't see it like a J-curve as you mentioned before. I don't know if I answer your question.

Our next question comes from Andres Soto with Santander.

My first question is regarding the size of your ambition, you clearly mentioned your target is to gain a [indiscernible], deeper penetration with your existing customers, you are not going to put customers elsewhere, right? So I would like to understand what is your current assessment of what is the market share of Bladex today? And with the plan that you are presenting, what is the target and which country segments will be the priority for you?

We get this question a lot. Actually, it's given that our portfolio is such -- like 70% is maturing in less than a year. It's difficult to predict how the country shares are going to look a year from now. But I'm going to let Sam complement that a little bit more.

Well, thanks for the question. I think when we conceptualize what we -- how -- let's say, how big we can grow profitably, I think we focus very much on the existing client base? What are the current demands that we're not serving as well as our target line base.

Today, for example, as I mentioned during the -- my presentation, take the letters of credit business. Today, 25% of our clients were currently we have onboarded on the levels of credit business, but yet almost 60% of them, they have letters of credit. So if, let's say, if we have 100% penetration within our client base, the ones that use the product, we can, in theory, double our volumes. Of course, that's easier said than done, but -- and we don't expect to double with the existing clients, but there is quite some room to grow.

And that is true for almost every product that we currently have in our portfolio. And I think our ambitions are very much tied to how much profitability or how we can continue to have the same profitability and profitability in terms of margins, in terms of fees. And if we ambition was to grow by volumes, then volumes could be much bigger than what we have presented, but it comes with a mix of between volumes and profitability, of course.

That's exactly right, Sam. This is more about share of wallet with existing clients than just growth for the second.

Perfect. And my second question is regarding -- when I look at your plan, you see the commercial portfolio growing beverage growth that you're expecting over the next 5 years is at around 11%, similar number for revenue, similar number for expenses. I would like to understand in terms of the timing of this, what we are going to see first is going to be expenses first and revenue later in terms of revenue, which are the ones that you think are sort of the low-hanging fruits here, what are going to be more dated back to the end of the plan? And in that regard, from this strategic plan, where do you feel is going to be the easiest to achieve? And where do you see the main challenges going forward?

I guess, very good question, Andres. I guess the main point that we want to share here is that we are favoring risk and controls and also quality of service during our ramp up. So it will be a risk-based ramp-up. So you will see the benefits more after 2027, 2028, you'll start to see. Having said that, there are a lot of opportunities that we foresee particularly on the asset side, as Sam mentioned.

Also on the investments, again, about 40% of the investments have been done already. And as Olazhir said, I mean, we're not seeing more -- I mean, that the ROE is going to suffer in 2026 that much. As you'll probably recall, we already gave guidance for 2026, and we are already looking at between 14 and 15 ROE for this year. So that's almost 100 basis points below that we have today. I don't know, Annette, do you want to complement on the rate side?

Not sure. Just to add to the investment cycle, I mean the strategic plan is based on the 3 pillars and each of them work together and a different intensity throughout the execution of the plan. Currently, yes, we are going to see an investment cycle reflected in our efficiency ratio guidance that we gave for this year differently from the one that we're providing for the end of the plan.

For 2026, the guidance is around 28% and while we're expecting the efficiency levels at the end of the plan to be between 25% and 27%. And that reflects the put in production of the different platforms that we are implementing. We already have the trade platform in production, and we're scaling in the process of scaling that those initiatives that will add more interest -- noninterest income to our revenues.

And towards the end of this year, we are also launching the treasury platform that will also allow us to increase both interest income -- I'm sorry, fee income as well as supporting the growth of our portfolio. So with that, we will see an investment cycle at the beginning of the plan and also seeing the benefits of having invested in this platform towards the end of the plan, where we see a higher ROE than we're providing for 2026 guidance.

If I may add I think it's very -- when you look at the last 4 years or the last 5 years when we launched the 2022 strategy, I think everything that it has to do with structuring solution based and not necessarily relying so much on technology. This should have a more gradual linear increase and that's valid for structured trade finance and working capital solutions business that is valid for project finance infrastructure for our syndication business.

Everything that depends more on technology which is, for example, the letters of credit business with our new platform, the derivatives business that Annette mentioned as well as the cash management, they tend to take longer to scale. So -- but like I think I'd like to emphasize that Bladex for everything we do with pilots and the pilot is already profitable, we don't invest a lot to later collect revenues. And this has been the case throughout our first plan, and this should be the case throughout our second phase of the plan.

So in other words, taking a step back, you'll see of the total additional revenues, you will see more fees at the beginning and the benefits on the cost of funds, you will see more towards the end because of the risk-based ramp-up.

That's very helpful. And finally, just a follow-up. What are going to be the core rates that you are going to use in order to decide how much expense you are going to dedicate to this? It's going to be efficiency. It's going to be measured as cost-to-income is going to be ROE. What is the level at which you will decide not to spend more and focus on regaining profitability?

Yes, sure. Well, the main focus for sure is the ROE, that's the -- that's we have. In the meantime, what we want to make sure is the investment will have a charge payback. We usually aim for 12 to 24 months and that way we kind of make sure that we have a quick return. And then definitely, we have to have a solid business case. So as long as we have the cost-to-income [indiscernible] to incremental levels that and had mentioned, and we're aiming for the ROE that we're looking forward. In other words, as Sam said before, there's no deviation from the way that we've done things up until now.

Our next question comes from Inigo Vega with Jefferies. On your 2030 bps planned cost of funding reduction, can you share some of the main assumptions behind it? For instance, what PCT of your deposit base becomes noninterest-bearing? Also, is there an upside on the 2030 BPS estimate? And how does your cost of funding compare with peers in the market?

Yes, are very good questions, Inigo. The most important thing to keep in mind here is all of our deposits today are interest-bearing deposits. And all of them are at so far plus a spread. To the extent that we start building operating deposits, we're going to get deposits in balances at sulfur minus spread. Now we are expecting to pay on those most banks, especially the bigger banks do not pay for those deposits in their accounts.

So we are expecting to do so. I guess the other point I wanted to make is it's not just how much we're paying. It does matter, but the mix on the funding base I think it has a very important strategic value for the franchise because we'll structurally enhance our margins. I don't know, Annette, if you want to complement?

I think you've said it quite well. I think just to emphasize on the cost of the deposits, it is more of a relative value that we are bringing into the balance sheet or in the liability side of the balance sheet. We currently offer to the deposits that we capture. This represents surplus liquidity that our clients have. So they do expect market rates on those -- and the operational deposit balances are going to be driven more on the transactionality. The number of transactions that go through our platform and also the relationship that we have with those clients. So pricing is not a fixed number. It is more driven by the volume that this operating deposits bring and also with the relationship that we have with those clients.

Yes, we're going to have the luxury. Thank you, Annette, of being competitive on the pricing side because how much we value. Now having said that, the target is deliberately conservative. And it is so because we are -- I mean, this is a standard service offered by probably all the banks in the world, but we recognize it's new for us. So we are playing it very safe, especially at the beginning.

Okay. Our next question comes from Ricardo [ rise ]. As you model ROE into 2030, what are your assumptions about share repurchase? Would other future potential transactions like the AT1 in effect, allow for a higher level of share repurchases? What are other constraints around buybacks?

That's for you, Mrs. CFO.

The plan currently, as we mentioned, we did issue an AT1 at the end of 2025, and there was a strategic decision that the bank made. It was not only to support the growth resulting from the different initiatives that resulted from the 2026 strategic plan, but also to prepare the bank for the growth of the upcoming plan and we do not want capital to be a limitation of the growth that we are planning to achieve.

So yes, the AT1 is currently part of our capital structure, and it does allow us the way we issue this AT1 does allow us the optionality to reopen the transaction if needed. However, it is important to mention that the 2030 plan does not include any additional capital actions in order to support the growth that we're projecting. And in addition, it doesn't take in consideration any buybacks. It does take in consideration supporting the growth of the bank in a very conservative way, maintaining capital ratios around 15% and also keep returning value to our shareholders.

So buybacks are optional but are not a core driver of returns in our base case.

Ricardo has a follow-up question. Can you describe how you view any incremental risks of introducing derivatives to customers?

Alejandro, do you want to take that one? Or ...

Do you want to start? So yes, thank you for your questions. So we have been preparing on the second line of defense. We bring new resources with a lot of track record in derivatives we settled down our risk appetite. We define what type of derivative we're going to do in this first stage [ plain vanilla ] derivatives like interest rate swap, cross-currency swap.

So -- and mostly tied to transactions that we underwrite, like in project finance or medium-term transactions that we do originate. So we do consider this as a cross-selling product. We do assess our clients, they fulfill their questionnaires. We take into consideration the main risk measurements that the industry use, this potential future exposure, the CBA, we settled down limits.

So I think obviously, I think it's a new product as a new product is a new risk, but we've been preparing ourselves. As Jorge mentioned, risk discipline is first, settle down the limits, bring in internally the capabilities. And after that, I think scaling. And in this case, we're going to have, as Eduardo mentioned, in his presentation, [ Calypso NASDAQ ] platform that is an end-to-end. It brings also a risk model and will give us an enhances the capability to scale transactionality. Eduardo, do you want to talk about that?

Yes, probably, what I would like to add is that this is precisely why this is a phased rollout. I mean we're advancing step by step because we want to make sure that before we deploy the next step, we are in full control of all the risk management and governance model that we have to -- we want to implement. And also it's important to highlight that this is a client solution-driven model.

We are -- this is not [indiscernible] trading. We're just converting the instrument they have been using so far to manage our own risk into client solutions that we will deliver to our clients. But they propose, the model we are developing is not a proprietary trading model. We are not planning to compete on trading with a major derivative houses. It's essentially client-driven and the fact that we are running it out in a phased fashion is present because we want to maintain a very tight control on the whole initiative step by step.

I want to add that if you look from our clients' perspective, we're talking about derivatives that are used to hedge. Hedge by nature is to mitigate a risk that our clients have in their underlying business, being it currency risk being interest risk. So if anything, I think we're helping our clients by giving the full solution to hedge risks that they have and today are being done by somebody else. If we do it, we guarantee that is done and is done in the right way. So I think on the net basis, of course, mitigating all the markets and operational risks that we have which are well prepared to do, I think this reduces the risk of our client base.

Well said, Sam. I mean these are all products that our clients have been asking for years. I mean they're really surprised that we don't offer them. And that includes corresponding banking that includes transactional services, that includes derivatives. So the main point I want to share here is this is something that we know for a fact that the demand has been there for decades now. It was a matter of adding the capabilities, not changing the risk profile.

Our next question comes from a private investor. Could you help us understand the risk-adjusted return profile of this strategy? The incremental profitability looks relatively contained compared to the risk being added.

Yes. You could look at it that way. But maybe Annette can share more on this. But the main idea is that our 2030 base scenario does include a lower market rate than what we have today. Also 2025 was, as Annette said before, impacted by a one-off transaction. So if you normalize that, it seems like 100, 150 basis points additional. But if you look on our 2026 base case, it will mean almost 250 basis points.

Correct, yes. And I think that those considerations are very important to take into account. First, 2025, what we're showing in our presentation as a starting point, it does include a higher interest rate environment that we're still -- we're benefiting from in the ROE level and also, as we have mentioned in our market calls, 2025 also had an extraordinary transaction that increased our fees in a significant form.

So I think for practical purposes, the guidance that we have provided for our 2026 year is a more normalized ROE that reflects most of the normalized interest rates that we were pricing into that guidance and also reflects other factors, such as the full year impact of the AT1 issuance and the impact of the investment cycle.

So if you look at it that way, we're starting from a starting point between 14% and 15% ROE adjusted ROE. So we are growing ARR through the net interest income as well as noninterest income, providing an incremental impact around 200 basis points. And then this is also offset by the cost of risk of growing the balance sheet as well as the operating expenses and investments that we're doing. And that brings us to the 16% to 17% ROE range.

Yes, we have a follow-up on that. How are you going to compete with global banks in correspondent banking?

Yes. I think I touched on that before when Ricardo Buchpiguel from BTG asked it. I mean, the essence is that the economics for us to look very different than for the big banks, and especially because we have -- we value more operating deposits. We are able to do almost a tailor-made service for our clients, unlike the bigger banks, and that's the essence of it. Also, obviously, we value more those deposits so we can have the luxury of even paying interest on them.

Thank you. This concludes today's Q&A session. I would now like to turn the call back to Jorge Salas for closing remarks.

I just want to say thank you, everybody, for connecting today and look forward to the execution of this plan. Thank you very much.

Thank you. We appreciate your participation today and value your feedback. Please scan the QR code displayed on your screen or visit bladexday.com to access a brief survey and submit your feedback. A replay of this event will be available on the company's website at bladexday.com. This concludes Bladex's 2026 Investor Day. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Bladex Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. A slide presentation is accompanying today's webcast and is also available on the Investors section of the company's website, www.bladex.com. [Operator Instructions] Please note today's conference call is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Jorge Salas, Chief Executive Officer. Please, sir, go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining. Today, we will discuss Bladex's Fourth quarter and full year 2025 results. I will begin with the key highlights and then, Annette, our CFO, will walk you through the financial results in more detail. After that, I will comment on the macro environment and its implications for Latin America and for Bladex. Finally, I will discuss our guidance for 2026. After that, we will open the call for questions.

This same week a year ago, we shared detailed guidance for 2025. As you can see from our 2025 guidance slide, we delivered in all key metrics we guided for in 2025. Achieving this in a year marked by high global liquidity, declining market rates and elevated geopolitical volatility, speaks to our execution capacity and focus on building an even more resilient earnings profile through different cycles.

Moving on to the next slide on the highlights of the year. 2025 was the fourth consecutive year of record results. And turning to the balance sheet, our commercial portfolio grew 11.5% year-over-year, driven by a solid expansion in our loan book and an even stronger increase in our contingent portfolio of more than 20% year-on-year.

Loan growth was led by Guatemala, Colombia, Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Argentina, reflecting our ability to originate selectively where we see attractive risk-adjusted opportunities and strong client activity.

On the funding side, deposits grew 22% year-over-year and now represent more than 60% of total funding. Class A shareholder deposits remain a core anchor of our funding base, and our Yankee CD program performed strongly, reaching $1.5 billion by year-end.

Beyond deposits, we remain active across capital markets and syndicated financing. As you probably recall, in September 2025, we successfully completed our first AT1 issuance, marking an important step in further strengthening our capital structure and enhancing our ability to support the growth of our commercial portfolio going forward.

Moving on to the P&L. Despite rate cuts and in a more competitive environment, net interest income reached another record, increasing by 5% year-over-year, supported by volume growth and active balance sheet management. Our net interest margin ended the year at 2.36%, slightly above guidance, reflecting a very active optimization of our portfolio exposures by type of client, industry and geography.

In 2025, we continue our progress on revenue diversification. Noninterest income also set a new record, growing 54% year-over-year, and now representing 20% of total revenues coming from 13% 4 years ago when we started executing this plan. This was driven by strong performance of our 2 main fee-generating businesses. Letters of credit, was definitely a very good year for letters of credit in. Fees were up 20% year-on-year while the team completed the implementation of the new trade platform. It was also a record year for our syndication team. Fee generation increased more than 70% from last year. The team was able to close on a record of 13 transactions across 11 countries totaling over $5 billion.

On expenses, operating costs grew according to plan as we continue to invest in transformation. We ended the year with an efficiency ratio of 26.7%, again within guidance, reflecting our ongoing cost discipline. All of this translated into a record net income of $227 million, up 10% year-over-year, and a return on equity of 15.4%.

In summary, we continue to strengthen our balance sheet, and we continue to diversify our revenue streams, delivering record results year after year. We're doing so while we implement top-of-the-line IT platforms that will enable us to scale our fee businesses going forward in an even more efficient manner.

Let me now hand it over to Annette, our CFO, for a detailed financial analysis. Annette, your turn.

Thank you, Jorge, and good morning, everyone. Let me start with the net income and returns for the year. As Jorge mentioned, 2025 was a record year for the bank. We delivered net income of $227 million and an adjusted return on equity of 15.8%, reflecting another year of strong and consistent profitability. These results were driven by sustained commercial portfolio growth, solid revenue generation across both net interest and fee income, disciplined cost management, well-contained credit costs and a strong capital position that continues to support expansion. Importantly, 2025 also shows that Bladex is becoming structurally less rate sensitive.

Over the past year, the Federal Reserve implemented 75 basis points of rate cuts. Despite that, we increased net income year-over-year, maintained stable return on assets and kept margin above our target range. This reflects 2 structural improvements in our model, a more diversified revenue base with record noninterest income and a more balanced funding mix with growing deposit balances.

Full year net income grew more than 10% year-over-year, demonstrating our ability to perform in a declining rate environment. In the fourth quarter, we generated $56 million in net income, one of the strongest quarters in our history, supported by robust top line generation across both interest and fee income.

Moving to returns. Full year adjusted ROE was 15.8% compared to 16.2% in 2024, and fourth quarter adjusted ROE was 14.2% compared to 15.1% in the third quarter. While both comparisons show a moderate decline, it is important to frame this correctly.

Returns on assets remained stable in both cases, confirming that underlying operating performance and asset profitability were unchanged. The moderation in ROE was driven primarily by the impact of the [ 175 ] basis points of rate cuts since late 2024 and the higher capital base following the AT1 issuance. In other words, the core earning power of the balance sheet remains intact even as rate decline.

Looking ahead to 2026 as we expect 2 additional rate cuts, returns will continue to be influenced by rate environment. However, as we deploy the balance sheet capacity created by the AT1 issuance and move forward towards our target capitalization levels, we expect that continued commercial portfolio growth, further improvement in funding mix and increasing contribution from free base income will support profitability and returns over time.

With that context on profitability and returns, let me now walk you through the evolution of our credit portfolio. At year-end, our total credit portfolio reached $12.6 billion, representing 12% year-over-year growth. This was driven by loan growth of roughly $800 million or 10% year-over-year, while contingent business grew 21% versus 2024. Importantly, this growth was achieved with that compromising sector or geographic diversification and was supported by a 9% expansion in our client base. This outcome reflects a planned growth strategy, aligned with prudent capital management and our focus on preserving margin and maintaining strong risk discipline.

During the first half of the year, growth were primarily driven by off-balance sheet capital-light activity, particularly in letter of credits and commitments. This allow us to support client activity while preserving balance sheet flexibility in a highly liquid and competitive market.

In the second half of the year, loan growth became more pronounced as we began to selectively deploy balance sheet capacity. This was especially visible in the fourth quarter following the AT1 when the loan balances increased by 5% quarter-on-quarter, driven mainly by longer-tenor transactions with attractive risk-adjusted returns. As a result, medium-term loan balances increased by more than $750 million in 2025, while short-term balances remain broadly stable. This mix is reflective of our business model. Short-term loans provide flexibility and active risk management while medium-term transactions allow us to lock in returns where pricing and structure justifies the use of capital.

As shown in the chart, the commercial portfolio remains well diversified with a duration of approximately 15 months and about 67% of exposures maturing within the next 12 months, supporting an agile business model.

Geographically, growth during 2025 was driven mainly by Guatemala, Argentina and Colombia, with the Dominican Republic contributing in the fourth quarter. From a sector perspective, growth was well diversified across corporate clients, while exposure to financial institutions remain a stable and meaningful component of the portfolio. Overall, this evolution reflects disciplined execution, a capital-aware approach to growth and a prudent risk management.

As we move into 2026, the bank is well positioned to continue expanding the loan book without altering its credit risk profile, deploying capital selectively and in line with our return thresholds to support sustainable and resilient profitability.

Before turning to asset quality, a brief update on liquidity and the investment portfolio. At year-end, the investment portfolio totaled $1.4 billion, representing a 19% increase year-over-year, in line with balance sheet growth and our liquidity objectives. The portfolio is managed with a conservative risk framework with approximately 91% investment-grade exposure and a composition largely outside Latin America, supporting credit diversification and our liquidity contingency planning. By design, the portfolio remains short in duration and is held through our New York agency with their securities are eligible for use as collateral at the Feral Reserve Bank of New York discount window.

Total liquidity closed the quarter at $1.9 billion, representing about 15% of total assets within our target range. As of December 31, approximately 91% of liquidity was placed with the Feral Reserve, reinforcing our conservative liquidity management approach. Overall, our liquidity position remains strong and prudently managed.

With that, let me now turn to asset quality. Asset quality remains very strong and stable. As of the fourth quarter, Stage 1 exposures represented 98.2% of total credit portfolio, up from 97.2% in the third quarter, reflecting the high-quality profile of the book. Stage 2 exposures declined to 1.5% from 2.6% in the prior quarter, representing a decrease of roughly $128 million, driven mainly by improvement in credit quality with exposures migrating back to Stage 1, scheduled repayments and maturities and the migration of a single exposure of approximately $20 million to Stage 3. As mentioned in the prior call, Stage 2 provisions this year were largely driven by a single client exposure added in the third quarter from the petrochemical sector. This exposure represents just under 1% of the total credit portfolio and is split roughly 50-50 between trade acceptances and uncommitted bilateral facilities, all with a short remaining tenor.

This was an isolated situation, and we continue to see no sign of systemic risk in the portfolio. During the fourth quarter, the client made a scheduled payment, further supporting our Credit assessment. At the same time, we increased coverage as part of our ongoing credit oversight. This explains the increase in Stage 2 provisions even as overall Stage 2 balances decline. Stage 3 exposures remain very limited, representing just 0.3% of total credit portfolio at quarter end. The increase reflects the reclassification of the small exposure that had been in Stage 2 since 2024. Importantly, this exposure was already closely monitored and well provisioned while in Stage 2, so its migration to Stage 3 did not require a material increase in provisions.

Exposure represents less than 0.2% of total portfolio and relates to a client in the upstream gas sector.

From a reserve perspective, coverage remains very strong. Total allowance for credit losses stood at $107 million at year-end, representing 276% of impaired credits, underscoring the discipline of our provisioning approach and providing a solid buffer against potential credit deterioration.

In addition, during the fourth quarter, we recorded $0.6 million in recoveries related to a loan previously written off, reflecting the continued effectiveness of our recovery processes. Overall, while provisions increased modestly due to this single client, they were partially offset by recoveries and upgrades in other exposures that migrated back to Stage 1.

The portfolio continues to demonstrate strong credit quality and disciplined forward-looking provisioning.

Let me now turn to funding. Throughout 2025, our funding strategy remains centered on supporting balance sheet growth while strengthening funding stability and optimizing our cost of funds. Deposits continue to be the foundation of our liability structure, representing 62% of total funding at year-end despite the usual seasonality we see in the fourth quarter. This funding structure has allowed us to grow the balance sheet with lower reliance on wholesale markets, reinforcing funding resilience and supporting a more efficient cost structure as volumes expanded.

From a composition perspective, Class A shareholders remain a structural anchor, representing 35% of total deposits at year-end. Deposits from financial institutions increased steadily during the year, reaching 27%, while corporate deposits remain a stable component of the mix, representing roughly 24% of deposits in the fourth quarter. This growth was accompanied by a broader and more diversified depositor base with the number of depositors increasing by approximately 10% during last year, further strengthening the resilience and the granularity of our funding profile.

From a product perspective, the bank's deposit offering remains primarily investment oriented, including demand deposits, time deposits and Yankee CDs. Within this structure, Yankee CDs represented 23% of total deposits at year-end, with about 13% distributed through brokers, contributing to a more diversified and longer tenor financial liabilities.

Beyond deposits, we maintain ample access to corresponding bank's credit lines, preserving flexibility to support loan portfolio growth as capital deployments accelerate. During 2025, we executed 2 important transactions that expanded our funding capabilities and investor reach. We completed a Costa Rica and [indiscernible] issuance under our Panamanian program, the first foreign currency bond ever issued in the Panamanian market, which enabled us to begin offering local currency financing to our Costa Rican clients. We also executed a 3-year global syndicated loan with first-time participation from several Middle Eastern banks, raising $150 million and further diversifying our funding sources.

Looking ahead, while the pace of deposit growth is expected to normalize, we expect deposit balances to continue increasing in 2026, preserving deposits as our core funding source. At the same time, we are advancing in initiatives aimed at attracting more stable transactional balances, which should support a gradual improvement in our cost of funds over time, with initial contributions beginning in 2026.

Now let me briefly turn to capital. Following the AT1 issuance completed in September, its full impact is now reflected in our capital ratio and returns, moderating ROE in the fourth quarter ahead of full deployment. Capital deployment has already begun through new medium-term transactions, reducing our Basel III Tier 1 ratio from 18.1% to 17.4%, still with ample headroom as we continue deploying capital to support portfolio expansion.

From a regulatory perspective, our capital position remains very strong. Our Panama regulatory capital adequacy ratio stood at 15.5%, well above the required minimum.

Given our fourth quarter performance, the Board approved an increase in the quarterly cash dividend to $0.6875 per share, up from $0.625, representing a 46% payout of fourth quarter earnings. We believe this level appropriately balances returning capital to shareholders, maintaining strong capitalization and preserving financial flexibility to support growth while safeguarding our investment-grade profile.

Overall, Bladex enters 2026 with strong capital buffers, a solid transaction pipeline and the flexibility to support balance sheet growth while maintaining prudent capital management and full regulatory compliance.

Let me now turn to net interest income and margins. During 2025, we delivered another year of growth in net interest income and maintain margin resilience despite a more challenging rate environment. Since late 2024, policy rates have declined by 175 basis points and the yield curve remain inverted in 2025, creating a less supportive environment for spread generation. At the same time, we experienced the rollover of fixed rate funding raised during the low rate period of 2020, which was replaced this year at higher rates, adding pressure to interest spreads.

Active balance sheet management allow us to absorb these headwinds gradually over roughly a 12-month horizon. Strong deposit growth improve our funding mix and supported a more efficient cost of funds. In addition, we maintained disciplined loan pricing and efficient yet prudent liquidity levels. As a result of these combined actions, the fourth quarter delivered the strongest margin of the year with a NIM of 2.39%. For the full year, net interest income increased by 5% year-over-year, and we closed 2025 with a net interest margin of 2.36%, above our guidance of 2.30%.

Net interest spread declined modestly to 1.67% compared to 1.75% in the prior year, reflecting the rate environment and funding repricing dynamics.

Looking ahead to 2026, while additional rate cuts are expected, we believe that continued deposit growth, disciplined pricing and active funding and liquidity management will allow us to keep margins broadly in line with our guidance.

Let me now turn to fees and noninterest income. For the full year, noninterest income reached $68.4 million, reflecting strong execution and continued progress in diversifying our revenue base. As a result, fees and other noninterest income represented close to 19% of total revenues, up from 15% last year, reinforcing the growing structural contribution of fee-based income.

In the fourth quarter, noninterest income totaled $8 million. Excluding the extraordinary fee associated with the Staatsolie transaction earlier in the year, quarterly performance remained above our historical run rate with contributions across all major fee lines. The largest component on noninterest income continues to come from fees and commissions linked to our core trade finance and structuring activities, which generated $59 million in 2025, mainly driven by letter of credits and guarantees steady growth throughout the year, generating $31.8 million. Loan structuring and distribution was another important contributor, executing 13 transactions across 11 countries with total transaction volume of approximately $5 billion.

Bladex underwrote about 30% of that volume and retained roughly 24% on balance sheet, generating $17.7 million in upfront structuring and syndication fees.

As our participation in medium-term structured transaction continues to expand, credit commitment have become an increasingly stable and recurring source of fees, contributing $11.6 million during the year. Secondary market loan activity was an important complementary source of income as well, generating $2.6 million as we proactively manage capital and optimize client credit lines. While activity may normalize following the capital raise, we continue to see selective opportunities in 2026, where pricing and balance sheet optimization justifies execution.

In derivatives, income remains modest for strategically important, totaling $1.1 million in 2025. Our focus remains on building the commercial pipeline and deepening client engagement. These early transactions are positioning us to scale derivative-related income meaningfully once the treasury platform is fully deployed in the second half of 2026.

Overall, fees and noninterest income performance in 2025 reflects stronger diversification, disciplined execution and growing momentum across trade finance, restructuring, commitment and treasury-related activities. As our platforms mature and client penetration deepness, we expect fee income to play a progressively larger and more stable role in the bank's earnings profile.

Let me now turn to operating expenses and efficiency. Total operating expenses for 2025 reached $90.6 million, representing a 13% increase year-over-year. This increase reflects investments to support the bank's strategic priorities, particularly in technology, digital capabilities and business initiatives, including its associated operating cost and depreciation. Personnel expenses also increased, reflecting selective headcount growth aligned with the strengthening of our execution capacity. These investments are directly linked to higher business volumes and long-term strategic execution, and we expect revenue growth to absorb incremental expenses over time.

In the fourth quarter, operating expenses totaled $27.4 million, up 20% year-over-year and 28% quarter-on-quarter. This increase primarily reflects seasonal year-end effects, including higher accruals and variable compensation adjustments aligned with the full year performance as well as the continued implementation of key initiatives. As a result, the fourth quarter efficiency ratio was temporarily elevated. However, for the full year, the efficiency ratio closed at 26.7%, broadly in line with 26.5% in 2024, demonstrating our ability to absorb strategic investment while maintaining cost discipline.

Looking ahead to 2026, we expect expenses to normalize toward a more consistent quarterly run rate. Cost disciplines will remain a core management priority. We will continue to invest selectively in a strategic initiative and capabilities while carefully managing our talent base to support the next phase of execution. This balanced approach is designed to preserve operating leverage and maintain efficiency ratios around 28%.

Overall, 2025 reflects disciplined execution across growth, profitability capital and cost management, positioning the bank to continue delivering sustainable returns as we move into 2026.

With that, let me now turn the call back to Jorge and thank you very much.

Thank you, Annette. Let me now share our perspective on the macro and trade environment and our guidance for this year. 2025 was clearly a year of heightened uncertainty and renewed trade pictures, yet global activity remained resilient and trade flows held up better than many expected. This was in part by a pull forward of shipments ahead of policy changes and ongoing supply chain adjustments. There is no doubt that policy uncertainty, particularly in tariffs, and pace of rate cuts will continue to shape confidence and risk appetite.

In the United States, our base case scenario is a soft landing with inflation gradually converging towards the Feral Reserve's target. In that scenario, we are assuming that the Fed will proceed with gradual easing, including 2 additional rate cuts in 2026. We anticipate, however, that the markets may remain sensitive to policy changes and political developments during the year.

Now turning into Latin America, the region remained relatively insulated from global trade tensions in 2025. Latin America has had relatively low tariff exposures compared to other parts of the world. Fundamentals were broadly resilient. International flows into LatAm improved on the back of ample global liquidity and better risk sentiment. This is all consistent with tighter credit spreads and a constructive FX backdrop across several markets, including Colombia, Mexico and Brazil.

Looking ahead, we expect regional growth to converge towards potential, supported by the easing cycle and the recovery in consumption and investment. At the same time, elections in several countries, including Peru, Colombia and Brazil, can create pockets of volatility, and therefore, potential opportunities as the year progresses.

Let me now turn into our longer-term strategy and positioning. At our Investor Day back in 2022, we laid out a 5-year plan with clear targets for 2026. 4 years into the plan, we have achieved 1 year ahead of schedule every single objective in the guidance we shared back then, size of our commercial portfolio, margins, efficiency, reserve coverage, capital and return on equity. The significance of reaching these goals a year early goes far beyond the metrics themselves. It reflects the renewed culture of focus and execution in Bladex.

Our next phase is essentially about scalability. Our Investor Day on March 24, will evolve essentially about scalability and our 2030 vision. That day, we will walk you through the next phase of Bladex's Evolution, including how we're expanding our role from a specialized trade lender to a more transactional trade banking platform for Latin America, scaling fee-based products and capturing trade flows across the region.

We strongly believe that this, together with a robust enterprise risk management framework, will be key in our path to a sustainable value creation.

Going on to the next slide. Let me close with our guidance for 2026. We see 2026 as a transition year for Bladex, bridging the final stretch of our 2022-2026 plan, and the next stage of our evolution as we look towards 2030. We enter this transition year with strong momentum as we continue to scale what we have built. Having said that, in 2026, we expect a highly liquid and competitive environment, with additional rate cuts and ongoing spread compression in the region. In that setting, our guidance reflects a disciplined approach on profitable growth, price discipline and prudent risk management, while we keep investing in the capabilities that will support the next phase of our franchise.

So for 2026, we expect commercial portfolio growth between 13% and 15%, average deposit grow at a similar pace, net interest margin around 2.3%, efficiency ratio in the 28% area, reflecting disciplined expense control while continuing to invest in our strategic IT platforms. ROE will end up between 14% and 15%, and Tier 1 capital will be in the 15% to 16% range.

Thank you again for your time and your continued interest in Bladex. Operator, please open the call for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Ricardo Buchpiguel from BTG.

Everyone of making questions. First, I just wanted to clarify if the ROE guidance is for the accounting or the adjusted figure? And for my questions, we noticed that 2025 was a very strong year in terms of fee income, particularly if you look at the restructuring fees pipeline, which is naturally provides a tougher comp for 2026, right? But at the same time, you have all these new initiatives that you mentioned with treasury products picking up and also the new trade finance platform. So my question is, what is reasonable for us to expect in terms of noninterest income with these moving parts for 2026?

And for my second question, if you can provide more color on how much the duration of the portfolio increased in Q4? And how much that contributed for a higher NIM during the period? And also, if you should see a continued increase in the duration of the portfolio being a tailwind for NIM?

Thank you, Ricardo, for your 3 questions. First question, yes, the guidance is adjusted ROEs where it doesn't take into account the additional Tier 1 capital we issued back in September. Guidance for 2026 in terms of fee income will be around what we saw back in 2025. Recall that 2 things, 1, we had some one-off important transactions that generated fee income, including, but not limited to the statutorily big loan. And then the other thing is that, as I mentioned, 2026 is a transition year, right, a transition year because it's where we'll be transitioning to the scalable business model. So this is where the the 2 IT platforms gradually start to gain traction. So that's why we're targeting a similar fee income for next year in terms -- in relative terms. So it will be higher in nominal value, but around between 18% and 20% for next year.

Do you want to add something, Annette?

Yes. To the last part of your question regarding how duration is impacting the NIM of the bank, especially in the fourth quarter. I think there is more than one factor that impacted the record NIM of 2025, which is, it does include the impact of medium-term transactions that were deployed during the fourth quarter resulting from the strong pipeline that we've been building up. And that indeed represented a higher margin and -- but -- and that protected the short-term margin that we are seeing in the short-term loan origination that we have mentioned that we -- there is a lot of margin pressure in the market and ample liquidity. So that protected on the asset side of the balance sheet.

Another component that was important was a very efficient level of liquidity especially compared to the third quarter in which we had the $400 million maturity, and we were in the execution of the AT1. So since we did not have any clear date for the -- going back to -- going to the market and issuing the AT1, we did kept a little bit of extra liquidity during the third quarter. So that impact is another factor that improved the NII -- I'm sorry, the NIM in the fourth quarter.

And the last factor, which is very important is that during the fourth quarter, even though the end-of-period balances of deposits are lower in the third quarter, the average balances of deposits were higher than the third quarter and the overall cost of funds of the other liabilities that we have in the balance sheet also improved margins just as we're seeing pressure on the asset side, we are also capturing those tightened margins in the liability side. And all of that allow us to improve our net income spread resulting in a higher NIM in the fourth quarter.

As far as looking at 2026, regarding our guidance of the NIM of [ 2.30% ], we are factoring the rate dynamics not only the ones that we are projecting for 2026, but also the cuts that happened in late 2025 that will impact the results of 2026. However, this is compensated by growing deposits and active asset and liability management as well as very disciplined pricing on the loan side.

Our next question comes from Ms. Nelli Miranda from Santander.

Just 2 quick ones from my side. The first 1 is regarding the 13% to 15% portfolio growth guidance. How much of this is driven by overall market growth? And how much is market share gains? And my second question, a quick follow-up on NIM. I understand there were extraordinary factors helping NIM in the fourth quarter, and your 2026 guidance shows stability, but more on a medium-term sense, is that 2.3% NIM through the cycle margin? Or should we expect it to normalize more in the 2028?

Thank you, [indiscernible]. Let me tackle the first part of both questions and then probably Sam can give you some additional color. In terms of market share, it's hard to understand what Bladex's market share is. We are essentially a very small fish in a big pond, if you consider trade flows in our Latin America. I mean we're talking -- we're essentially a trade bank and trade in Latin America is $3 trillion, and we're a $12 billion back. So we are seeing a lot of opportunities all across the region, but it's hard to put it in terms of market share. I don't know if you want to give additional color there?

Yes. Not sure. Thanks. I mean, to be honest, we don't even look at market share. I mean it's not how we measure our business, our opportunities. We feel that the -- well, the region in which we play is not only growing, but we're still very small to what we can become. So that's not a relevant metric for us.

But that said, Yes, like Jorge said, the growth in 2025 came, I would say, well balanced. Of course, there were some countries like Guatemala that we, let's say, grew more than the average and for all the good reasons, sorry. And we see, for example, a country like Guatemala, as s a very attractive market to us, given the combination of a persistent moderate growth, fueled by the drive of a very punching private sector. And that's a -- and as those conditions persist in a country like Guatemala, we will continue to grow, always, of course, with clear boundaries and very defined risk appetite. But for 2026, that grow as -- what we see right now, it should be balanced as always. For example, a country like Argentina is a country that we're still very underexposed by the size of the economy, but that was the [indiscernible] because of what the whole -- what the country was going through. But now, for example, there is quite some good opportunities and investments in the [indiscernible] complex, which is very competitive, and we see as could be a driver for growth for us. So that's how...

I don't know if that answers your first question, Daniella?

Yes, very clear the first one.

And then so targeting your second question, as far as margins going forward, yes, it will certainly be a challenge as we're all seeing, there is significant pressure on margins. Currently, they have reached probably the lowest level of spreads in the last 20 years. Now structurally, the only way to continue to -- is to continue to be disciplined in executing the strategy we've been working, which is centered on value-added transactions. Sam, do you want to give more color on that?

Yes. Well, I think in the context that we're seeing in the market, a few have been doing a pretty good job in defending and even more challenging, defending our margins while we are growing our credit book. In the short run, as Jorge said, the pressure is there. And I think we have enough capital to defend net interest income with more volume, if needed. In the medium run, as Jorge also mentioned, we just need to continue to execute our strategy. In times like now of a more friendly market, we noticed a significant more stability in margins in the more structured business such as working capital solutions, event-driven lending, project finance, infrastructure. So our margin stability or, let's say, falling less than the market is not by luck, it's really by design.

Our next question comes from Mr. Daniel Mora from the CrediCorp Capital.

I just have 1 follow-up question regarding loan growth. I would like to understand what will be those countries or regions that should drive the growth of 13%, 15% amid available cycle for emerging markets? You already mentioned Guatemala and Argentina [indiscernible], but I would like to know if there are other cost region regions that should go to the loan growth of 13%, 15%.

And also, what will be those countries in which you anticipate reducing the exposure, or in which you see high competitive pressures?

I'll start by the second. Well, actually, reinforcing a remark that was already made. I think at this point of the year, besides what was already mentioned, like in a country like Argentina that we're underexposed, in a country like Guatemala that we see a lot of like higher demand compared to other countries for quality indeed, we expect to achieve the guidance. We expect a good balance. We don't expect, at least in what we're seeing right now any like, let's say, a much larger grow in any specific country. But given our businesses is dynamic, our book is so short that could happen as we see good opportunities.

In terms of the like countries that were more concerned, I would say Colombia and Brazil and for 2 different reasons. In case of Colombia, as much we see improving performance from many of our clients there, the country's fiscal situation is a point of concern. And if that continues, there is a real risk of a sovereign rating downgrade. In case of Brazil, though from a macro perspective, there seems to be good improvements, there is an increased number of bankruptcies as well as potential cases of default from very large corporations that can materially increase refinancing risk to other companies, and that's something that we're watching very closely.

On the other hand, for the same reasons of concern that I've just mentioned, that could open interesting opportunity for Bladex to grow in such countries. So in the past, as we saw deterioration in specific countries, we were able to grow as other banks step down. This could happen with both Brazil and Colombia, while we monitor very closely our current client base. So that takes me back to the first question, and not to be repetitive, I think it's -- it will be well balanced. And at this point, there's no other than was mentioned. There's no specific ones that we can bring it up.

Remember also that still 70% -- almost 70% of our portfolio matures in less than a year. So this is -- I mean, you have to understand that this is all about a constant reshuffling, trying to maximize risk return exposures. So it's hard really to say. I think some gave a very good. You want to add something?

Just one last thing that I think it's worth mentioning. In times like this, there could be opportunities in the secondary loan market as for example, the situation of Brazil, situation of Colombia. And today, we have, let's say, a very strong capital base that will allow us to capture opportunities more than in the past. So that's something we're monitoring very closely, and that could drive growth as well.

That's all the questions we have for today. I will pass the line back to Mr. Jorge for his concluding remarks.

All right. Thank you again for your time and your questions. Just a quick reminder that our Investor Day is on March 24. It will be a virtual event. Sam, Annette and a few other members of the team will cover the next space of Bladex's evolution, including, as I said, the shift towards a more transactional trade banking platform in our 2030 vision. We look forward to see you all there. Bye now. Thank you very much.

This concludes Bladex's conference call. You may disconnect your lines right now. Thank you, and wish you a very good day.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Bladex Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. A slide presentation is accompanying today's webcast and is also available in the Investor Relations section of the company's website, www.bladex.com. [Operator Instructions] Please note that today's conference call is being recorded. [Operator Instructions]

I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Jorge Salas, Chief Executive Officer. Sir, please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us to discuss our third quarter results. I'll start with the quarter's highlights, and then Annette will walk you through the financials in detail. After that, I will briefly comment on the region's economic outlook and also provide an update on the implementation status of the 2 main IT platforms that underpin our path towards scalability and enhanced fee generation. After that, we will open the call for questions.

Despite the more challenging environment marked by rate cuts, high regional liquidity and wide open capital markets for Latin American issuers at historically tight spreads, we delivered very solid results in the third quarter, fully aligned with our expectations and guidance. And I'm particularly proud of the fact that in mid-September, we successfully issued our first additional Tier 1 capital instrument. The deal was led by JPMorgan and Bank of America as joint book runners and was more than 3x oversubscribed. It attracted investors across Latin America, the United States, Canada, Europe and the Middle East. I want to recognize Annette, our CFO, for her leadership in this landmark transaction for Bladex. Annette will cover the details shortly. The objective of this additional Tier 1 capital is straightforward, to strengthen our capital base to support the very robust pipeline of high-value transactions we are building and executing. This will ensure we sustain growth through the remainder of this year and into the future.

Now turning to our commercial portfolio. Balances were stable quarter-over-quarter and up 12% year-over-year, driven by loan origination in Mexico, Guatemala and Argentina. Notably, the commercial team has continued to onboard new clients. As a matter of fact, new client onboarding is up 7% year-to-date. Regarding funding, deposits rose 6% quarter-on-quarter and 21% year-on-year with a quarter end record of $6.8 billion. The quarter also benefit from another significantly oversubscribed issuance in the Mexican debt capital markets, allowing us to secure medium-term funding at highly competitive terms. On the P&L front, interest income was stable quarter-over-quarter despite the impact on rate cuts and ample market liquidity. Noninterest income performed well, down sequentially given the one-off transaction we highlighted last quarter, but up 40% year-over-year, supported by strong activity in both letters of credit and our syndication and structuring team.

During the third quarter, Bladex acted as sole lead arranger in the acquisition financing of CEMEX Panama by a leading Dominican business group, another clear example of how Bladex supports intra-regional expansion across Latin America. Our net interest margin showed a slight decline of 4 basis points down to 2.32%, but still remains above our full year guidance. This stability on margins is a reflection of proactive portfolio management, including a shift towards corporate clients that now represents 73% of our portfolio versus 68% last quarter and a healthy momentum in medium-term transactions, all without extending the average duration of our commercial exposures, which remains slightly below 14 months.

Operating expenses were stable, and our efficiency ratio closed at 25.8%, even better than our full year guidance of 27%. We closed a solid quarter with $55 million in net income and a 15% return on equity. The quarter-over-quarter decline in ROE reflects the one-off transactions referenced in Q2 as well as the dilution from the increase in the capital base resulting from our AT1 issuance. If you exclude these 2 effects, it is very clear that the performance is consistent with the guidance for the year.

Let me now hand it over to Annette for a more detailed look at the financials. Annette, please go ahead.

Thank you, Jorge, and good morning, everyone. Let me walk you through the main financial highlights for the third quarter, which once again reflects disciplined execution and solid results, supported by resilient margins and strong fee generation, while further strengthening our capital and funding base, all of this while navigating a more competitive environment with abundant liquidity and continued rate cuts.

Let me start with capital, given the relevance of the AT1 issuance this quarter. In September, we executed a $200 million perpetual non-call 7 Additional Tier 1 or AT1. Market conditions were exceptionally constructive for this asset class, and we timed the issuance to capture a favorable window with comparable AT1s trading near historical tight spreads and well below our estimated cost of equity. This instrument is Basel III compliant and meets local regulatory requirements and under IFRS, it is recorded as equity, further strengthening our capital base. Its perpetual non-call 7 structure provides the optionality to recap the instrument over the next 2 years if additional capital is required, while still in full compliance with local regulation, giving us the flexibility to support portfolio growth and capture opportunities across the region while maintaining a solid capital position.

Following this transaction, our regulatory capital adequacy ratio rose to 15.8% and our Basel III Tier 1 ratio increased to 18.1%, both comfortably above internal targets and well ahead of regulatory minimums. This additional layer of capital reinforces our strong positions and keep us well prepared to execute on our growth plans. In line with these solid fundamentals, the Board approved a quarterly dividend of $0.625 per share, consistent with recent quarters, representing a [4.2] payout ratio, reaffirming our confidence in the bank's sustainable earnings capacity.

Let's now take a look at earnings and returns. Third quarter's net income totaled $55 million compared to $64 million in the previous quarter, which included the extraordinary syndication fee from the Staatsolie transaction booked in the second quarter. This quarter's performance translate into a return on assets of 1.8% and a return on equity of 14.9%, fully in line with our full year guidance of 15% to 16%. The decline in ROE versus the prior quarter mainly reflects the impact of the AT1 issuance in late September, which increased our equity base ahead of deployment as well as the one-off fee recognized last quarter, which boosted those results.

Looking at the first 9 months of the year, ROA stood at 1.9% and ROE at 16.2%, highlighting the bank's solid and consistent profitability. As mentioned earlier, the AT1 is recorded as equity under IFRS, expanding the denominator and mechanically diluting the ROE. On this basis, our reported ROE was 14.9% for the quarter and 16.2% year-to-date. To provide additional clarity, we also calculated an adjusted return on equity, which excludes the AT1 from the denominator, reflecting the return to our shareholder base. These metrics provide a clear view of underlying profitability from a shareholders' perspective.

Under this measure, the adjusted ROE was 15.1% for the quarter and 16.3% year-to-date, with the slight difference versus reported ROE, mainly reflecting timing as the transaction closed late in September and its full effect will be seen next quarter. As we deploy the new capital into medium-term pipeline, we expect returns to normalize to our historical levels, reaffirming the strength and consistency of Bladex earnings model. Overall, this result confirm that Bladex profitability is driven by a diversified and recurring earning base, not dependent on one-off transactions and that our strategy continues to deliver sustainable, predictable returns.

Let's move on to the credit portfolio. Total credit portfolio reached $12.3 billion, a new all-time high, up 1% from the previous quarter and 13% year-over-year, supported by growth across loans, contingencies and investments while maintaining a conservative liquidity position. Our commercial portfolio, which includes loans and contingencies stood at $10.9 billion, reflecting a slight growth quarter-over-quarter and up 12% year-over-year. Within this total, the loan portfolio closed at $8.7 billion, an increase of 2% from June and 8% compared to last year, reflecting steady client demand, despite high market liquidities and tighter capital market spreads. In this environment, we continue to prioritize disciplined short-term origination during the quarter, complemented by the execution of our medium-term pipeline. This moderation in growth also reflected prudent balance sheet management, leading up to the AT1 issuance as we maintain a capital cushion while the transaction timing was being finalized. Now that the transaction has been completed, we are well positioned to resume disciplined expansion in the coming quarters.

On the contingent business side, which includes letter of credits, guarantees and credit commitments, balances closed the quarter at $2.1 billion, down 4% from the previous quarter after a very strong first half, but still 33% year-over-year. What is important is that our letter of credit business continued to grow, both in average volumes and fee income, showing healthy underlying activity. Letter of credits remain central to this business line, directly supporting our mission of facilitating regional trade flows, while commitments have evolved into a resilient income source as we continue to structure medium-term transactions that foster lasting client relationships. With our new trade finance platform implemented, we are prepared to support higher transaction volumes of letter of credit and expand our client base. In terms of performance by country, Guatemala, Mexico and Argentina were the main drivers of growth this quarter, reflecting healthy commercial activity and strong client engagement in these markets.

Looking at the commercial portfolio diversification, financial institutions remain our largest exposure, representing about 1/4 of total credits, while our exposure to corporate clients continue to grow across sectors and countries. This mix help us to stabilize margins and reinforce the resilience of our earning base. Overall, our commercial portfolio continues to expand with discipline, supported by the successful completion of the AT1 issuance, growth across key markets and a well-diversified client base that positions us to capture new opportunities ahead.

Now turning to the investment portfolio and liquidity. The investment portfolio totaled [ $1.4 billion ], up 4% from the prior quarter and 18% year-over-year, consistent with our liquidity strategy. It remains predominantly investment grade, about 88% of the portfolio and is largely composed of non-Latin American issuers, providing both credit diversification and a reliable source of contingent liquidity. The portfolio is short in duration by design with an average maturity of about 2 years and is primarily held through our New York agency, where these securities are eligible as collateral at the Federal reserve discount window. Liquidity ended the quarter at [ $1.9 billion ], representing 15.5% of total assets, in line with our target range. As of September 30th, 95% of liquidity was placed with the Federal reserve, highlighting our prudent and proactive liquidity management. Together, our high-quality, well-diversified investment portfolio and a strong cash position with the Federal reserve provides a robust liquidity foundation and the flexibility to fund new opportunities while maintaining a prudent balance sheet strategy.

Let's now look at asset quality. Credit quality remains remarkably strong. By the end of the quarter, 97% of total exposures were classified as Stage 1, reflecting low credit risk across the portfolio, while nonperforming loans stayed near 0 at just 0.2% of total credit. Our coverage ratio remained above 5x, confirming the strength and resilience of our asset base. Provisions charges totaled $6.5 million, slightly higher than in the previous quarter, mainly reflecting the reclassification of a single client exposure from Stage 1 to Stage 2. With this, total allowances reached $101.5 million or 0.8% of total exposures, fully consistent with our prudent and proactive credit management approach. All-in-all, credit portfolio remains solid and well diversified with Stage 3 exposures stable at 0.2% and overall asset quality remaining very strong.

Let's move on to funding, where we continue to see strong momentum in deposit growth. Deposits continued their strong upward trend, growing 6% quarter-over-quarter and 21% year-over-year, reaching $6.8 billion and now accounting for 2/3 of total funding, the highest share in Bladex's history. Deposit growth was driven by corporate clients' deposits, which rose over 26% from June, supported by cross-selling efforts, while higher balances from financial institutions also contributed to the overall growth. At the same time, Class A shareholders' deposits remained stable, providing an anchor of funding stability. This performance highlights the depth of our client relationships and the success of our Yankee CD program as a diversification strategy, which continues to lower our overall cost of funds.

In July, we issued MXN 4,000 in the local market. The deal was very well received and oversubscribed, giving us a competitive cost and further diversifying our funding base. The proceeds were swapped to U.S. dollars, which provided a cost-efficient source to fund new business opportunities. The favorable evolution of our deposit base, combined with the proceeds from the AT1 issuance provided the resources to repay our $400 million benchmark bond that mature in mid-September. And looking ahead, we continue to monitor medium-term funding opportunities to further diversify our investor base and maintain an efficient cost of fund structure. This combination of strong deposit growth and continued access to market funding has strengthened our liability profile, making it more diversified, stable and well aligned with the growth of our commercial portfolio.

Moving now to net interest income and margins. Net interest income remained stable at $67.4 million, showing resilience despite margin pressure from higher market liquidity and the gradual impact of lower reference rates. Our net interest margin stood at 2.32%, down 4 basis points from the second quarter, while the net interest spread narrowed from 1.70% to 1.64%. This slight margin compression is the result of a short-term liability sensitive position in the context of an inverted yield curve. It also captures the initial impact of the recent Fed rate cuts on our liquidity balances, which will be followed by the repricing of the remaining assets and liabilities in the upcoming months, consistent with our largely neutral positions to base rate movements. These effects were partially offset by a lower cost of funds, supported by continued deposit growth, greater funding diversification and disciplined loan origination across the portfolio. Overall, margins remained stable and well managed, reflecting disciplined pricing, a strong funding base and the resilience of our core earnings models.

Now let's turn to noninterest income. Noninterest income totaled $15.4 million for the quarter, following the record level we reached in the second quarter. If we exclude the extraordinary fee from the Staatsolie transaction last quarter, this would have been a new record with results stronger than our historical quarterly fee results with contribution across all line of business. Fee income this quarter was led by letter of credits and credit commitments, reflecting healthy trade activity and client engagement. As announced last quarter, we launched our new trade finance platform. And while we are still in the fine-tuning phase, this marks a major step towards future scalability. The platform is expected to be fully optimized by the end of the year, enabling us to process higher transaction volumes and enhanced client experience, reinforcing our competitive position in trade finance.

In syndications, we closed 4 transactions totaling $431 million, including new originations and upsized deals across Panama, Costa Rica, Paraguay and El Salvador. Among them was the acquisition financing for CEMEX Panama, where Bladex acted as the sole lead arranger. Together, these operations generated around $2 million in fees, reflecting the depth and strength of our structuring and distribution capabilities across the region. As we expand our presence in structured medium-term transactions, credit commitment continue to grow as a relevant and stable source of fees since many of these deals include committed facilities as part of their structure. We also saw additional contributions from the other noninterest income sources. Our secondary market distribution desk generated almost $1 million in loan sales this quarter and about $2.5 million year-to-date. We expect this figure to continue rising over time as our deal flow expand and market activity remains strong.

In addition, our treasury team closed a large interest rate swap tied to a project finance deal we led in Peru, a transaction that validates our growing project finance and infrastructure strategy. This type of business not only brings healthy margins and structuring fees but also creates cross-selling opportunities in areas like derivative. These early derivative transactions mark an important first step in building our treasury-related noninterest income business, positioning the bank to capture future hedging and risk management opportunities once the NASDAQ platform goes live in the second half of 2026. Overall, fees and noninterest income and gaining strong momentum, supported by recurring fees, broader diversification and solid activity in trade and syndications, they now account for around 19% of total revenues, up from 14% last year and will continue to grow as new platforms and client solutions drive the next phase of our diversification strategy.

Finally, let's look at expenses and efficiency. Operating expenses totaled $21.3 million, about $0.5 million above last quarter, reflecting a 2% sequential increase. This was mainly driven by higher personnel expenses related to compensation adjustments and new hires supporting strategic projects, partially offset by lower operational costs. As several technology and strategic initiatives move into production, we expect depreciation costs to begin rising next quarter. Our efficiency ratio closed at 25.8%, slightly better than our guidance of 27%, and we continue to expect to end the year within that range. This demonstrates our ability to grow revenues faster than expenses while continuing to invest in modernization and future growth. Overall, Bladex continues to operate with one of the best efficiency levels among the regional peers, a reflection of disciplined cost management and our focus on sustainable growth.

That concludes my reviews of the financials. I will now turn the call back to Jorge for his closing comments.

Thanks very much, Annette. Very clear, great job. The global economy is adapting to a more protectionist trade setting. Recent agreements have tempered some tariff pressures and push growth expectations higher as recession risks have largely faded. Having said that, volatility persists. This is visible in international financial market swings and a stronger safe haven demand, including gold. In the United States, our base case continues to be a soft landing. However, inflation remains above target and could face upside risk from tariff tensions. In our view, this limits the scope for rate cuts and points to a structurally higher terminal rate than in the prior cycle. Latin America, however, has largely remained insulated from global trade frictions, supporting stable growth in 2025, although with significant variations across countries. The IMF now projects 2.4% growth for the region in 2025 and 2.3% in 2026, with the 2025 upgrade led by stronger performance in several economies, especially Mexico, where recession risks have diminished.

As usual in Latin America, inflation is advancing unevenly. Most of Central America has converged faster to inflation targets, allowing lower policy rates, while the larger economies in South America and Mexico are normalizing at a slower pace, leaving less room for further interest rate cuts. For trade, the outlook is mixed. Tariff noise and policy uncertainty weighed on Mexico and parts of Central America, while nearshoring and supply chain diversification continue to create structural opportunities, particularly in manufacturing and agribusiness. In this context, Bladex is well positioned to help clients navigate uncertainty and capture these opportunities through medium-term structured solutions in our trade finance expertise, reinforcing our role as a trusted partner in cross-border flows.

Next slide, please. Let me now close with a quick update on strategy execution. Since launching our strategic plan in 2022, we have strengthened our operating capabilities to support a meaningful growth in volumes and profitability. At the same time, we have developed new business lines to raise noninterest income and diversify revenue sources. As we announced last quarter, reaching full operational capacity on our new trade finance platform powered by CGI will take until next year. That said, the first quarter operation with the new platform is already delivering tangible results, higher transaction volumes and faster cycle times, including shorter processing times for letters of credit. These early outcomes enhance the client experience and improve our operational leverage.

Also, as you probably saw, we recently announced our partnership with Nasdaq's Treasury and Capital Markets platform. We selected its front-to-back cloud-enabled API-driven solution to scale treasury and capital markets. The state-of-the-art platform supports client hedging in FX and rates, broadens local currency and structured funding and automates core workflows, enhancing speed, controls and risk management. Teams from both Bladex and Nasdaq are already making good progress on the implementation, and we expect to have the first phase fully operational by Q3 2026.

Moving on to the next and final slide. Just to note here that based on year-to-date performance, we reaffirm our full year guidance. With that, let's open the line for your questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Inigo Vega with Jefferies.

A couple of very short questions. One is on capital. Obviously, you got the AT1. You moved from a capital ratio of 15% to 18%, so I'm wondering if you can give some color on what is your new target in terms of capital ratios once you've done this AT1? And if you answer me like we're going back to 15%, what is the timing to deploy that capital, like how many quarters, how many years you could go back to, if you say 15%?

The other question is on credit quality. I mean, I can see that Stage 3 remains very low. I think you commented that there's been a pickup on Stage 2. I mean, running the numbers, I get to something like 20 basis points more of Stage 2, which is like $50 million. So if you can sort of explain what is the visibility on that ticket, how concerned? And what is the sort of probability of default? I guess classifications of Stage 1 to Stage 2 is basically the day-to-day, but if you can give some color on that would be helpful. And probably the last one is, I reckon that you are working on a new stake plan. Do you have any timing in terms of announcing the new stake plan?

Inigo, good questions, as always. Regarding the capital, you're right. I mean, our target remains unchanged in the mid-teens and 15%. The AT1 transaction was more about having dry powder to deploy, as we said, on the pipeline. In terms of that deployment, we expect to put that additional capital to work over the, I would say, the 12, 18 months. That's the time -- that's a normal life cycle that takes between origination, structuring and syndicating the medium-term deal. So obviously, we'll prioritize risk-adjusted fee accretive opportunities, but the bottom line is the targets remain unchanged, and we will deploy it in the next year to 1.5 years. So there's no impact on the guidance that we've communicated, the long-term guidance.

In terms of increase in Stage 2, you're right, it was driven by mainly one client. In terms of how worrisome, Inigo, I'll put it this way. It's short term, it's trade finance exposure, which is what we do. It's primarily letters of credit to support imports for essential goods for the country. All facilities are uncommitted. They are maturing quarter-by-quarter. The client is current. We have increased reserves as we do with every loan that falls into Stage 2, we're monitoring closely. But importantly, even when running the stress scenarios with the info we have today and given the size and the terms, this will have no effect on our ROE we've indicated for the year. And that's why we just ratified the guidance. So in short, we're being prudent. We're on top of it, but business as usual and the bank remains strong. As far as the Investor Day, we're in the final stages of approval of our 2030 strategy and vision by the Board. And we're super excited to host the new Investor Day with the 2030 vision in Q1, I mean, right after we have the full year 2025 results. So right after we published the first quarter -- I mean, the end of the year 2025 by the end -- I guess by the end of the first quarter, we'll share the 2030 plan.

Our next question comes from Ricardo Buchpiguel from BTG Pactual.

I have a couple of questions here on funding. The bank deposit franchise has been growing very strong recently, especially in the last quarter and its funding cost is a bit below the bank's overall borrowing cost, right? So I just wanted to understand whether this deposit could mainly help to lower the short-term funding cost over time or if that could eventually help to reduce long-term funding instances, bringing more meaningful reduction on NIMs? And also will be great if you could comment on the opportunity to improve the funding cost with operational deposits, right? You already make several payments into our customers' account when you're granting loans. And I understand you already have been investing in this banking account offering. So I'd like to understand whether we can see further funding cost gains as kind of a low-hanging fruit over the next couple of years?

So let me start with the second question first on operational deposits. You're right. We see it as a low-hanging fruit. That's something that Bladex, despite being a trade bank, we don't have too much of operational deposits. Of course, that involves some basic cash management capabilities that we're building. How are we going to do it? How much of that are we going to do? That's a big part of what the Investor Day is going to be telling about on Q1. So you have to wait until our Investor Day for that, but it could be a very significant upside there in terms of cost of funds.

Regarding the shorter term question on funding, it's true. I mean, this quarter, first of all, we had the AT1, and that helps, of course, there was an influx of $200 million. Then we increased deposits as obviously the more efficient cost of funding avenue that we have. And also, we have an issuance in Mexico also at very good rates even when swapped to dollars. So that was part of the increase in the -- I mean, the benefit in cost of funds that we had this quarter. I don't know, Annette, if you want to complement that.

As Jorge mentioned, funding keeps being complemented by the participation of deposits. We feel confident that going forward, as we increase our cross-selling capabilities, we're able to keep growing our depositor base organically as we do the cross-selling and also as we increase our client base as part of the strategic plan. So we are projecting growth in the organic deposit balances. And for the upcoming years, as part of the strategic plan, as Jorge mentioned, this will be further complemented with more powerful deposits from a cost point of view, even though these are new to the balance sheet.

Very clear. I'm just wondering that when I see the average balance of your interest-bearing liabilities that you have like around like $2.6 billion in terms of long-term borrowings, right? I wanted to understand eventually if this component of the funding would be more diluted over time and this would improve your overall funding cost even without the benefits of the operational deposits or it should grow like kind of in a similar [ weight ] over time, like since it has a more long-term duration. What can we expect here? Like can the time deposits help to lower the funding cost on this kind of longer part of the funding?

Yes, Ricardo. I mean, as we have mentioned before, we always maintain a very well structured funding profile, maintaining a percentage of funding in medium-term transaction and that we are planning to do so. Here, I will pass the word to Eduardo from our treasury that can comment on the different possibilities that we're seeing that will strengthen our medium-term funding structure.

Yes. Just to make it very, very short. I mean, on the one hand, deposits have been growing and the share of the total funding, as you have seen, -- the incorporation of operational deposits by definition, are much more stable will very likely allow us to reduce the participation of medium-term funding. But until that happens, medium-term funding will continue to have a similar participation in funding mix because, as Annette said, we want to maintain a healthy maturity of our profile of our liabilities. Having said that, they have been gaining significant share as compared to other short-term sources of funding. So the expectation is that we will see efficiency -- the cost of funding gaining efficiency in the next -- in the forthcoming months. And I would say that the key to reduce reliance on medium-term funding will be the growth of operational deposits. But doesn't mean that deposit will not benefit the overall cost of funding in other ways because they have been replacing other short-term sources of funding that were more costly for the bank.

Our next question comes from Daniel Mora with Credicorp Capital.

I have just 2 questions. The first one is regarding loan growth. I would like to understand where do you see the most interesting growth opportunities to deploy the AT1 capital? Is there any market that is gaining your attention? Is Argentina a new option after the election results in the last weekend? That will be my first question. The second one is regarding NIM, considering that you reduced the sensitivity to interest rates, what should be the NIM performance from current figures considering, one, the movement in interest rates; and two, the funding changes that you have been mentioning during the presentation?

Daniel, so the first question in terms of opportunities to deploy our capital in the pipeline, we're going to let Samuel, our Chief Commercial Officer, respond that. But yes, we're being very cautious in Argentina. Argentina is one of those countries, and I'm going to let Sam give a little bit more color on that pipeline. And then Annette will tackle the net interest margin question. Sam?

Sure. Well, we continue to see good momentum in the Central America region across the board. We're seeing a strong fit in that region with our enhanced capabilities of our structured trade and working capital solutions business with our project finance infrastructure business and also our acquisition financing and syndication capabilities. There are less competitive pressure in that market, in that region compared to South America. And of course, we see this positively and we drive resources accordingly.

In South America, while we are ready to -- we have more dry powder now with the AT1 to tap potential opportunities that may arise from increased volatility in countries that will go through presidential elections next year, and there are a few, I would say that we see a more balanced growth in South America. We think it's important to say we keep building our pipeline for more structured transactions and syndicated ones in line with our target to continue to grow fees. I think also important that we are starting to see as we build up our derivative capabilities, the pipeline is starting to grow there, and we hope to continue to show a gradual increase in that line of the business as well.

Going to Argentina, yes, we actually grew the last quarter. Argentina, I think we're still -- as Jorge referred to, we're still very selective, and we are quite pleased with the quality and return for risk of our current exposure. We really only work with the top tier names, ones whom we have worked for years. We're mostly focused on exporters, dollar-generating sectors, oil and gas and soft commodities. And while the quality of our exposure is not necessarily affected by an eventual change of government, we're very positive with the recent win of the ruling party in the latest elections, and that should bring good opportunities for us to grow hopefully next year.

Net interest margin, right?

Yes, sure. Regarding your questions regarding NIM, obviously, the bank has been very successful at managing its assets and liability very proactively, and this is something that we'll keep doing. We have improved our mix, both in the asset and liability side, increasing our exposure to corporates, increasing some of the medium-term transactions that we have been talking about that not only are very accretive from a margin point of view, but also from a fee point of view, trying to mitigate our impact of interest rates in our bottom line. So we'll keep doing that. Obviously, on the assets -- on the liability side, we are doing the same thing, increasing the percentage of the deposits as part of the total funding of the bank. And as Eduardo just previously described, deposits will keep being an important part of the growth of the liabilities in the upcoming months.

Regarding the operational deposits, we'll see those increasing gradually as we execute the new strategic plan, and we'll share more information about that in the Investor Day. Nonetheless, we are expecting interest rate cuts going forward. So those will have an impact on the NIM. And what we have shared before that the sensitivity of the -- about 100 basis points in rate cuts will impact our NIM in around 12 to 13 basis points. So that's what we can share right now regarding the NIM, but for the 2025, we are maintaining our NIM guidance of 230 for the year.

Our next question comes from Mario [indiscernible] from Itau.

Just one question on -- I mean, I had a question about the NIM, but I guess it's already answered. So I'm focusing on the evolution of the deposit composition. I saw that the corporations actually increased their share from 30% to 35% in just 1 quarter, right? So that's -- I mean, that seems like a huge impact very rapidly, right? So I just want to understand, I mean, how positive -- if it's positive for the cost of funding? And how should we -- how should that evolve going forward? I mean what's behind that? I mean, I know that you talk about your relationship with many clients, but -- that seems like a huge advance in just 1 quarter, right? So I just wanted to understand what's to come going forward and how that should impact the cost of funding?

Mario, I think Eduardo was very clear about the growth of the deposits coming from different type of exposures. They are all growing proportionately. But as we grow our client base on the commercial side, and we are working on the cross-selling efforts, we are seeing those translate as well into our depositor balances. And that's kind of the reason why you see the growth in the corporate section of the deposits. This is not a one-off. This is the result of working with our clients, working the cross-selling capabilities as we develop and foster more strong relationship with our clients, we're seeing that translated into our deposit balances as well.

I would just add, I mean, if you zoom out, Mario, a little bit and you look at this sort of the broader picture with the 5-year back, I mean, believe it or not, our client deposits were minimal. I mean they've been growing because we basically changed the incentive structure and now simply the commercial team, the front line has some KPIs in their balance scorecards that simply foster this. And that will continue to be the case going forward.

That's very clear. And just to be clear, I mean, those deposits are remunerated close to the Fed rates, right, or the software rate?

Mostly market rates, yes.

Our next question comes from Andres Soto from Santander.

My first question is regarding the growth in clients that Jorge mentioned at the beginning of the call. I heard an increase in 7% in new client onboarding year-to-date. I would like to understand what is the profile of those clients? Number one. Number two, if you expect this strategy to continue, are you expecting to add clients or growth ahead is mostly based on doing more business with your existing client base and benefiting from increased trade across the region?

Yes, 7% growth in onboarding so far year-to-date. The profile is the same, Andres. So we're not changing our client profile. Going forward, we do expect growth, and I'm going to let Sam talk a little bit about where are we seeing more potential of client growth. And it's basically -- I mean, the 2 biggest economies in Latin America. Sam, do you want to put some color there?

Sure. When it comes to -- first of all, I think we're always looking to grow our client base, and that's how we help to be concentrate, which is one of our objectives. I think our clients -- the 7%, I think, is very balanced. I think balanced in terms of all the countries we operate. But I think what is important to mention there is the new clients are very tied to our enhanced product capability. Most of the clients that we are onboarding are clients that have been there that we know for a while, we want to get in, but we didn't have the right product suite to be able to add value to them to be very transparent. And as we develop new products, we start to have a product offering that is more attractive to them and profitable enough for us, right, to be able to onboard such clients. For example, this year, I think I would say probably in terms of percentage, the biggest growth has been on the letters of credit business. So both in terms of new clients, which were not active before, but also in terms of cross-sell.

And I think to the second point you made, we -- of course, I think it's cheaper to cross-sell, it's more efficient to cross-sell to existing clients, and we are very strongly focused on that, but we also see opportunity to continue to grow our client base. So in terms of speed of growth or quantity, it is really -- it's hard to say. Again, we know -- I would say that we almost know all the players that we want to bank, right? LatAm is not such a great region in terms of number of corporations that fit our credit profile. But we have a very, I would say, target plan to where we want to get in, and there's many names that are in our pipeline that we're about to onboard. So I think we hope to continue to onboard new clients as we did in the past.

And it's both FIs and corporate, but perhaps more corporates.

Perfect. That's very clear. And then can you give us a sense of what is your current market share?

That's a hard question and a very good question. If you take the profit pools of dollar financing in LatAm, then you get about between $5 billion and $6 billion in dollar financing and letters of credit. Our revenues are around $300 million. So you do the math there. We have obviously more share if you consider the smaller countries, Central America and the Caribbean than the bigger countries. If we take share as dollar financing in terms of loans and trade finance in general, that will be my answer. I don't know, Sam, do you want to complement that?

I think the message maybe is that I think we still have a low market share. We don't measure our business by market share. I think in wholesale banking, that is our business. I think we don't -- it's very dangerous to try to grow by gaining market share. We try to grow by really onboarding the clients profitably. We don't even measure so much what our market share is. I think there is an opportunity to grow as we lower our cost of funds. I think then we could enter clients that today we cannot tap because we're not competitive enough. But as the cost of funds start coming down, we could enter that -- those clients more competitively, so I think that could grow our market share. But the message is, yes, it's not -- I would say, it's not that -- we don't target growing market share. We target to grow and grow profitably.

That's helpful. And my second other question is regarding the asset quality and the Stage 2 that we saw this quarter. I would like to understand a little bit more about what was the reason why you had to move to Stage 2? And I understand the client is still current. A little bit more about the profile and what to expect going ahead.

Yes. I mean the definition of Stage 2 is clients, again, that are current, but the conditions have deteriorated. And that's exactly what's going on with this client in the petrochemical sector.

Is it specifically to this client or it is more sector-based, country-based? What is the driver?

No, I mean we review the whole portfolio. This is a single case. There's nothing systemic about the country or the sector, if that's the question. And we feel very comfortable with -- again, with the information that we have today and the scenarios that we run, that's why we're confirming guidance and profitability guidance in particular for the year.

For as long as the client remain current, no additional provisions will be required, correct?

No, I mean the client -- we have proactively provisioned as we do with every client that falls in Stage 2. Even including that provision, we're ratifying the guidance is what I'm saying.

I think maybe to complement with the information that we have available, I think we're well provisioned for that specific name, and it's very straightforward. As there are rating downgrades, like in our models, a certain rating downgrade takes to Stage 2. And this is -- and that's what happened but the client, as Jorge said, is current and our exposure is short-term trade, and we expect to collect.

As a matter of fact, in this same quarter, we -- there was some -- actually, our biggest exposure in Stage 2 was fully repaid and that went out of Stage 2. So I mean there's a lot of moving parts in Stage 2 provisions.

Our next question is from Arthur Byrnes, Deltec Asset. What types of loans constitute your 15% exposure to oil and gas? And what type of business are you doing in Argentina?

Okay. I'll take that one. That's a good question. I would say oil and gas is a key sector for us and we are seeing excellent opportunities to continue to grow and is a great fit with our product suite. Not as important, along with financial institution is probably the sector that we have built the most knowledge throughout the years. In terms of what type of loans we're doing, say it's a combination, very short-term trade-related exposure to national oil companies in several of the countries that we operate. I dare to say that we have the widest coverage in such names in Latin America compared to any other bank, which makes us a key counterparty to the global trading companies that wants to discount their sales to such companies, which is something we do much more profitable than if we sometimes lend directly to those companies. So this is a very important source of business. It's short term. Some of those clients, we've been doing for over 20 years. So we have built a lot of experience in doing the business, and I would say it's the bulk of our exposure.

Of course, then on the more longer term, on the CapEx financing for such companies, I think we've also been active in financing CapEx. We're, of course, much more selective for medium-term exposure. Those are typically secured where like, for example, when we're financing E&P players, we're looking the ones with the projects that have the lift costs, the more competitive that could sustain prices of low cycle in terms of oil prices, also fields that are not very difficult to extract and with the right operators, the right partners. So we've been doing some of that. I think we're also growing our project and infrastructure business into midstream, which is, I would say, a low-risk sector, which very moderate, if no construction risk, no demand risk and typically no price risk. We, as a bank, we don't like to take commodity price risk. And as we work and expand our oil and gas portfolio, that's something we look at very carefully.

Thank you very much. That's all the questions we have for today. I'll pass the line back to the Bladex team for their concluding remarks.

Well, thank you, everybody, for joining. I mean this was clearly a very strong quarter for Bladex. We're very happy with the execution and progress we're making on the 2 platforms. The pipeline, as I said, remains robust, and we are confident in delivering the full year guidance. Thank you, everybody, for joining, and we look forward to speaking with you in the next quarter and then also on the Investor Day, hopefully, before the end of March. Thank you.