Halyk Bank of Kazakhstan Joint Stock Company (HSBK) Earnings Call Transcript

Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining us on this conference call to review Halyk Bank's unaudited financial results for 9 months and Q3 of 2025. My name is Mira Tiyanak, and I am Head of FI and IR. We have our executive team joining us on the call today, including Mr. Umut Shayakhmetova, Chief Executive Officer; Mr. Dauren Sartayev, who is Deputy CEO for B2B Banking, Marketing and PR and Acquiring; Mr. Murat Koshenov, CFO and Deputy CEO for Finance Subsidiaries, Compliance and International Activities; Mr. Roman Maszczyk, Deputy CEO for Risk Management, Data Science and Collateral; Ms. Olga Vuros, Deputy CEO of Corporate Banking; Mr. Nariman Mukushev, Deputy CEO for B2C Banking and Digital Government Services; Mr. Andrey Zavarzin, Deputy CEO for IT and Ecosystem; Mr. Viktor Skryl, our Strategy Director; Mr. Almas Makhanov, our Finance Director; and Rustam Telish from IR team. The format for the call today is as follows. We will start with our presentation by the Halyk team covering our B2C and B2B business segments and 9 months financial results. Then we will open up the floor for questions and answers. And please note that this call is being recorded. And we will begin today with an update on B2C segment. Let us remind you that our B2C platform, the Halyk Super-App, form the core of our digital ecosystem and gives consumers access to our banking and finance services as well as broad area of lifestyle solutions that help them manage their daily lives. In 9 months 2025, we saw the number and volume of transactions carried out through the Halyk Super-App grow by almost 29% and 23% year-on-year, respectively. The Super-App now has 8.3 million monthly active users, including 5.8 million who carried out transactions and 2.9 million daily active users. Halyk Bank has a total of 11.3 million active clients as of the end of the Q3, and we account for 38% of active [ salary cards ] in Kazakhstan. Next slide, please. 94% of the retail loans we issue are arranged through the Super-App. Our gross B2C loan book rose by 16.3% year-over-year, reaching KZT 4.5 trillion, though on the back of lower loan issuance, and we have an 18.2% market share for retail loans in Kazakhstan. Next slide, please. In terms of deposits, Halyk Bank has a 28.2% market share in the country and 71% comprised of the deposits in tenge. A full 94% of deposits are now opened digitally through the Super-App. Q3 saw a large increase in the number of deposits opened to more than 276,000. B2C deposits grew by 18% year-over-year, thus strengthening our leading market position. Next slide, please. Taking a look at some of the value-added services in our digital ecosystem. You can see remarkable growth in our car insurance offering with almost 2x year-on-year increase in the number of clients and a 2.4x growth in the volume of premiums. The GMV of our entertainment tickets platform, Kino.kz, grew by 55%, while the number of tickets sold increased by 15.7%, showcasing increasing user engagement. Travel bookings grew by 27.6% as compared to 9 months of last year. Next slide, please. Halyk Marketplace and Halyk Market both saw GMV growth by almost 23% and 37%, respectively. We have substantially more partners working with us versus a year ago, thereby increasing product choice for consumers. Halyk Market now has 2x as many SKUs as it did just 1 year ago. Next slide, please. Now let me move to our digital brokerage platforms, where we offer [ Turkey ] solutions, Halyk Invest and an absolution within our Super-App and Halyk Finance, provided by our investment banking subsidiary. We continue to see a strong growth in this segment, reinforcing our market leadership. In Q3, the number of active clients rose by 43% year-over-year. Transaction volume expanded by 80%, highlighting an increased client engagement. Assets under management and total brokerage assets were both substantially high year-on-year at the end of the third quarter. I should also note that Halyk has a 66% share of pension assets under management and 68% market share among private asset managers. We will now move and take a look at our B2B segment. Let me again remind you that Onlinebank is our platform for the B2B segment, offering a range of tools to help our commercial clients and particularly small and medium-sized enterprises with banking, lending, insurance, payroll solutions and more as well as access to Halyk Marketplace. Next slide, please. We continue to strengthen our product offering to B2B clients through innovative solutions. Today, we would like to present 2 new products which we launched and continue to roll over. First is [ Online Dukim ]. This is B2B platform for small businesses fully integrated in the banking infrastructure. We digitalize processes between convenience stores and their distributors, including placing orders and settlements. Though it was launched in 2024, we already see strong traction in terms of connected stores and volume of orders. Second solution is called [ Rikasa ]. It provides a number of solutions for SME segment, including cash register, sales automation and tax accounting. Next slide, please. Monthly active users for Onlinebank stand at 318,500, including 235,000 monthly transactional users during the third quarter. Daily active user stands at 113,000. In 9 months, the number of payments processed through the platform rose by almost 25% year-on-year and the volume of transactions was 29% higher at KZT 113.6 trillion. Next slide, please. 60% of our corporate loan portfolio are in local currency. As you can see from the industry breakdown on the right, we finance clients across a range of sectors, from trade businesses to industrial enterprises in every industry. Our corporate loan book has grown by 20% year-over-year. Next slide, please. Halyk Bank works with 86% of Kazakhstan's largest taxpayers and accounts for 48% of loans to legal entities, along with almost 33% of their deposits. We have strong product penetration among our 3,000 active commercial clients, who carried out 2.7 million transactions during the third quarter. Next slide, please. You can see here that our gross SME loan portfolio is up 26.5% year-on-year, while digital loans, in particular, are up over 25%. We continue to see a notable growth in insurance of digital performance and bid bonds via our platform. 93% of new loans were issued via Onlinebank, reflecting our strong digital capabilities. Our SME clients carried out more than 5 million transactions or the amount of KZT 14 trillion per month during the third quarter. Now I would like to hand over the call to my colleague, Rustam Telish, from IR team. Thank you.

Thank you, Mira, and good day, everyone. Now I will take you through the financial results for the 9 months and third quarter 2025. I Here, you can see the composition of the net income growth in 9 months 2025 versus 9 months 2024. It was primarily driven by the increase of net interest income by 22.3% year-on-year and other expense, noninterest income, which was impacted by the base effect of one-off recognized loss due to the early repayment of the deposit of KSF in 9 months 2024. Net income was negatively affected by excess profit tax, which was introduced on profit from certain banking operations for 2025 only and by an increase of minimum reserve requirements in the third quarter 2025. The net income growth adjusted to effect from the early repayment of the deposit of KSF, excess profit tax and an increase in minimum reserve requirements would be 20.6%. Here is a quick look at the balance sheet. Total assets of the group increased by 10% year-to-date due to increase in amounts due to customers. Average interest-earning assets at the same period grew by 16.9%, which led to increase in its share in total assets from 82.4% to 87.6%. Total deposits to total liabilities ratio was at the level of 82.6%. Despite the dividend payment in second quarter and third quarter 2025, as of the end of 9 months, 2025 total equity of the bank increased by 6.5% compared to the year-end 2024, mainly due to the net [ int ] profit [ earned ] by the bank during 9 months 2025. Loan-to-deposit ratio was at the level, 87.7%. Interest income for 9 months 2025 was up 26.4% versus 9 months 2024, mainly due to increase of average balances of loans to customers. Interest expense for 9 months 2025 increased by 30.5% versus 9 months 2024, mainly as a result of the increase in average rates and balances of amounts due to customers as well as the growth in the share of KZT amounts due to customers. Despite the increase in average rate in amounts due to customers in 9 months 2025, NIM was positively impacted by the increase in share of total interest-earning assets versus total interest-bearing liabilities. As a result, net interest margin has grown to 7.2% for 9 months 2025 compared to 7.1% for 9 months 2024. In 9 months 2025, the average rates of total interest earning assets has grown to 14.8%. The average rates on securities grew to 8.6% in second quarter '25, mainly due to the growth in the rates of FX securities. The increase of freight of [indiscernible] from credit institutions and interest-earning cash and cash equivalents from 13% -- 13.1% in second quarter 2025 to 14.7% in third quarter 2025 was due to the increase in the share of KZT balance. Average rate of total interest-bearing liabilities has increased by 0.8 percentage points from 8.1% in 9 months 2024 to 8.9% in 9 months 2025, mostly due to higher interest rates on the amounts due to customers following the increased base rate in March 2025. In 9 months 2025 compared to 9 months 2024, the overall dynamics of fee and commissions income and expense was driven by the transactional activity. Net fee and commission income for 9 months 2025 increased by 10% versus 9 months 2024 due to increase in net transactional income of legal entities, as well as in fees on letters of credit and guarantees issued. Net transactional income of individuals slightly decreased due to an increase in the amount of bonuses for the [ lot ] program. There is -- our overview -- here is an overview of operating expenses, which increased by 22.5% versus 9 months 2024, mainly due to the indexation of salaries and other employee benefits, including the cost of long-term incentive programs as well as IT development-related costs. The cost-to-income ratio decreased to 16.9% compared to 17.6% for 9 months 2024 and with high operating income for 9 months 2025. Compared with the year-end of 2024, [ lost the ] customers were up 8.2% on growth and 8.3% on a [ net ] basis, with retail loans growing by 9% while the loan portfolio of legal entities increased by 7.8% on a gross basis. The share of FX loans in total net loans was 23.4%. Cost of risk in 9 months 2025 was at the level of 1.4% compared to 1.3% in 9 months 2024. Total Stage 3 loans increased to 6.9% as at the end of third quarter 2025 as a result of the moratorium on the sale of problem retail loans the collection agencies until May 2026. Compared with the year-end 2024, the deposits of legal entities as a deposit -- and the deposit of individuals were up 11.3% and 7.2%, respectively, due to inflow from the bank's [ plants ]. At the end of 9 months 2025, the share of KZT deposits in total deposits was 71.2% compared to 69.1% as of the year-end 2024. In corporate deposits, the share was 71.7% versus 71.9% at the year-end 2024, while the share in total retail deposits was 70.7% versus 67.5% as of the year end 2024. On a consolidated basis, capital adequacy ratio of the bank decreased to 7.1% -- 7.5% in the third quarter 2025 as a result of second dividends paid by the bank for the financial year 2024. RWA were up by 3.8% following the increase of retail on portfolio. We would like to provide updated guidance for the full year 2025 and also provide indicative targets for 2026. Before going into details, we would like to make the following disclaimer. The indicative targets are forward-looking statements, and the bank's ability to achieve them will depend on a number of factors, many of which are outside of its control, including significant business, economic, geographic, regulatory and competitive uncertainties and contingencies and risks. As a result, bank's actual results may vary from the indicative targets, and those variations may be material. We would like to update our guidance for 2025 across certain KPIs. As a result of the revision guidance of net income improved to the level of more than KZT 1 trillion compared to previous guidance at the level of KZT 1 trillion. This updated guidance includes tax and minimal reserve requirements effects for 2025. Going forward, the bank will continue its organic growth despite the fact of increase of taxation and minimum reserve requirements. That being said, we are a target for 2026 as follows. Growth in loans to customers is between 12% and 16%. Net interest margin is in the area of 7%, cost of risk in the area of 1.5%. Fee and commission income increase is between 10% to 15%. Cost-to-income ratio is between 18% to 19%. And return on equity is in the area of 30%. CET1 ratio, from 70% to 90%. And this gives us a target for net income in the area of KZT 1.1 trillion. Our target for 2026 incorporate all the changes in the tax code and other changes in regulations, including increase in minimum reserve requirements. With respect to this -- to the base rate, we expect that we may benefit from improvement to 16% closer to the end of 2026. Dear ladies and gentlemen, that's a quick look through the financials. We will now open the floor for your questions.

[Operator Instructions] And the first question comes from [ Parvian ]. Please go ahead.

[ Parvian Momendo ] here from [ Ecron ] Partners. Congrats on the release. Could you go into some more detail around the updated guidance? So the loan growth targets have been lowered, but it seems like it didn't affect profitability at all. What are the main drivers here?

Thank you for your question. Actually, the decrease in loan growth at the first place is triggered by the [ matter ] changes as far as you're probably aware, like increase in the base rate. Which also probably, in our opinion, is delaying utilization of certain facilities at the large corporate clients. But -- and secondly, it's also affected by some more tightening at the regulatory level with regards to consumer loans. Saying that we have other interest-earning assets, and we see better utilization of interest earning assets. This is reason number one. Secondly, we see that we are on target with our transactional income, net fees and commission. But also, we have other [ interest ] generating sources, which would include dealing and net insurance. And we continue to be disciplined on the operating expenses. So all that in combination bringing our guidance in terms of the bottom line and net profits firmly above KZT 1 trillion.

And the next question comes from Simon.

Thanks very much. So you've given targets as well indicative guidance for next year. And you're looking for profits to, I guess, rise slightly despite the tax changes. Do you have any more clarity on the impact of the new tax code on the results? And any kind of color there would be useful.

Simon, thank you for the question. Yes, we indeed operating new tax code provisions. Saying that, let me to remind you that for 2025, in addition to, let's say, regular tax regime, which we have in Kazakhstan for banks, it was introduced the excess profit tax in the amount of 10% for certain income. The page of that would be including the income from state securities. So the effective tax rate is increased for 2025 already. As you can see from our results, specifically for the 9 months of this year, the income tax increase is almost exceeding the 40% increase. So we do not expect the major changes or already higher tax base into the next year. And one additional reason is that on top of the bank, we have subsidiaries, nonbanking subsidiaries for whom the corporate income tax would remain at 20%. This is reason number one. The reason number two, the corporate income tax, which would increase to 25%, it would also incorporate 20%, which will be applicable for the revenues from corporate lending. And because the corporate and semi lending for Halyk Bank is relatively high. So we also expect that altogether, the change for the effective tax rate into the next year would not be materially different from 2025. It will be obviously much higher than 2024. But given the fact that excess profit tax would not be applicable for the next year, the tax [ mutation ] would not be materially different from current year.

Okay. To summarize, you're saying that you expect the effective tax rate to be similar next year as this year as the excess profit tax washes...

I cannot probably give you the exact percentage terms. But looking from the bigger perspective, yes, you have increased in the corporate income tax, but also the excess profit tax, which is one of the largest components of increased tax this year would not be applicable for the next year.

And I think you gave guidance that you expect the excess profit tax to be roughly KZT 38 million this year? Or has that calculation changed a bit? I think you booked KZT 30 million in the first 9 months, right?

Yes, you're correct. 38 -- roughly KZT 38 billion, close to KZT 40 billion FX for 2025 is what we're expecting.

And then just 1 last one, if I may, on margins. So you're guiding for roughly flat margins going into next year. Why are you confident that you can have flat margins when you're facing higher [ vana ] reserve requirements?

Because we continue to grow our loan portfolio, we see that utilization of the assets, meaning utilization of interceding assets is also improving. And we also expect that there will be some headwinds in terms of the increased [ menu ] of reserve requirements. But in the second half of next year, we expect that the decrease in the base rates in the interest rate would provide support to the net interest margin.

And the next question comes from Olga Naydenova.

Congrats with great results. I have a few questions, if I may. One, also a follow-up on your 2026 guidance. If you may shed some light on why you see your cost-to-income ratio somewhat higher than we've seen last year, this year, if there is any anything beyond that? My second question is regarding your insurance income in the third quarter. It was really great. And -- are there any seasonality? Or are there any one-offs in there? Or could you explain what to -- what you expect from insurance business going forward? And my last question is about the unified QR code that is being introduced in Kazakhstan, like these days -- what impact do you expect on yourselves from this measure? Just broadly, where do you see your parameters from that? Or any growth you expect from there?

Olga, sorry, I was on mute. Actually, regarding your first question on the cost-to-income ratio. We're still providing, let's say, a range here. And I think by any measure, I think it's still grades -- showing great efficiency of the bank. Saying that we see that the minimum reserve requirements might be the headwind for the operating income next year. That's why we are putting at this point of time, cost-to-income ratio, EBIT on the cautious side. Regarding your second question on insurance, yes, we have actually two insurance companies. One is working in the life, one is looking on non-life area. And actually, there might be some peculiarities in terms of [ Finfr 17 ], which might be impacting quarter-to-quarter results. But if I'd be talking from, let's say, a larger perspective, both of them are market leaders, Halyk Life is #1, and Halyk Insurance is #2 in their respective markets. We see good developments in both companies. They're also working on the digitalization, and you probably saw in the presentation, our [ in short-term ] product is also getting a good traction. And both of companies has actually investment portfolios, and we expect that will be two components of source of income. One would be related to the regular business insurance, and the second component would be interest rates because of the interest rates -- expect the interest rate reduction, that might be supporting factor for overall revenues from our insurance subsidiaries. Obviously, on a consolidated basis, some positions would be showing in the insurance, while other positions would be [indiscernible] in the interest rate lines of consolidated P&L. Regarding your question on the unified QR. Yes, you probably saw news today. It was the symbolic launch, and we see as one of the other CEOs of the banks who is joining at -- as I would say, first line with banks. We do not see any, I would say, negative from that news. In fact, we're fully cooperating with the National Bank. We think for our clients, it will be beneficial to have more convenient instruments, we consider that as an overall improvement on the payment infrastructure in the country. And when infrastructure is improving, we as Halyk Bank, are always supporting that.

Okay. Nothing on your P&L or business growth expectations in relation to that?

We do not expect any material change, which is also -- can be seen from the -- our indicative targets for the next year.

And the next question from [ Constantin Razanza ].

This is [ Constantin ] from JPM Research. So two questions that I wanted to ask. The first one, so I've seen the outlook slide that you provide guidance, and you commented on this in the presentation for the corporate and SME line growth. I wanted to ask, is it possible to kind of roughly comment on what you see by these two segments? So corporate first, and then SME second. And if you see any material changes, say, in 2025, '26 in each of these two segments relative to the historical growth rate trends in each of these segments, could you please also mention why are these changes happening? The second question. Could you please comment on the impacts that you see from the development program through [ Batrac ] on the growth in the corporate lending -- corporate and SME lending as well? Separately, corporate and SMEs, if you could, please.

Yes. On the retail loan, I think [ Pashwed ] commented that. So we overall see a few factors which is affecting the level of growth, which we show as Halyk Bank. One is regulatory tightening. Secondly, I probably could mention the overall base effect because our retail loan portfolio was very actively growing in the past 3 years. And it's -- in the percentage terms, it's always more difficult to show same growth levels if your base of your portfolio has increased substantially. We also see that inflation is affecting the overall credit quality of the banking sector. And the limitations in terms of the selling portfolio to the collection agencies is impacting the NPL levels of the sector. We see still that the sector is growing probably quicker than us. From Halyk Bank perspective, it's -- I would say it's more deliberately action. We see that probably, the momentum is not favoring getting the more aggressive position on retail this year. We're also consciously looking into the next year. But if we would see that the situation with retail portfolio together would be improving, we would be able to increase our sales force. For now, we've taken a bit more cautious approach on the retail side. In terms of the corporates and SMEs -- and this is partially related to your question regarding the state programs -- we do not expect or we are not counting on increasing the state support to the [ purpose ] and SME sector. Means that most of the growth would be coming from commercial interest of the companies. And here, obviously, the demand is impacted by the interest rates. We have sufficient pipeline, which we have, and even design documents, but we see that when the interest rates start increasing, including the recent increase in the base rate, we see postponement in terms of the utilization. That somewhat impacted our guidance for this year. We also a bit conscious but still remain cautiously positive into the next year because where we expect that the base rate might stay at 18% level for quite some time. And we still expect that in the second half of the next year to start decreasing to the level of 16%. And if the rate situation -- the inflation situation will be improving, we might be in a position to look again and might revisit our guidance.

And could you please just -- on this [ plate ] program -- so in terms of the large corporate lending, to what extent -- do you see any substitution with borrowers switching from commercial banks to development banks? Is it a big factor kind of possibly pressuring lending growth in large corporate lending? And secondly, on the SME lending side, this increased guarantees through [ demo ], are the material driver of this? Decent growth, I think, from what is in the data in SME segment or not?

Yes, I understood your first question. Yes, we see some companies are preferring to go into the state sources of funding compared to the commercial segments. But still, we see [ the term ] demand from our clients who is sticking for us, either for relationship reasons or in certain cases, they might not fit into the criteria which is set by the state programs. Because typically, these state programs, they have certain criteria, and not all companies might fit into them. Regarding the [ demo ] guarantee, yes, we have these instruments, but because the guarantee is costing, so it's not given for free. That might increase the overall cost -- the final financing cost for the clients.

And the next question comes from Ronak Gadhia.

Congratulations on the results. My -- I've got three questions, mostly just really follow-ups. So maybe going back to Olga's question on the QR code payments. You said there's no impact on -- from a fee income perspective. But could you just give us some guidance on what the agreed take rate is on these transactions? Is there a unified take rate that's been agreed by the banking sector and the regulator? And how does that compare with your current take rates on acquiring volumes? That's the first question. The second question on this implementation of the CRR. So if I look at the amount of reserves you're holding as a percentage of your deposits, that ratio has gone up from roughly around 2.5% as at first half to around 6% by the 9-month period. Could you give us some guidance on where that ratio could end up once you fully implement the additional CRR requirements, which I believe are being phased out -- phased in over the next 12, 18 months? And then finally, again, just sticking to the regulatory then. One of the other regulatory changes that was introduced this year was the tax on government securities, if I understand that correctly. Has that -- have you seen the full impact of that on your P&L? So -- and how do we see that impact? Is it just -- it reduces your effective yield on government securities? Or how does that play out in your P&L?

Ronak, thank you for your question. With regards to the commission rate, which is introduced for QR, as I understand, initially, it's set at the level of 1.7%. Regarding the minimum reserve requirements, we actually provided -- I can refer you to our previous presentation, where we provided detailed information on the minimum reserve requirement levels and timing. But briefly, at the moment, the foreign currency -- the minimum reserve requirements for the foreign currency liabilities set at 10%. It will increase to the level of up to 15%, but certain categories will remain at 10%. And with regards to tenge liabilities, it's set at 3.5%. Some categories will retain that level, and some categories will grow to 5%. So altogether, we expect that for 2025, the negative impact of minimum reserve requirement on our interest income would be at the level of KZT 30 billion. And for the next year, it will be KZT 137 billion. And our guidance, which we provided, it's already incorporated the lower revenues or impact from minimum reserve requirements into the next year.

Sorry, Murat, just to clarify. So you're expecting the net impact of the higher CRR in 2026 to be KZT 130 billion. Did I...

KZT 137 billion, yes. It's on the net interest income. So it's pretax. It's pretax.

Okay.

Okay. And regarding your question on the taxes, yes, the -- it is called excess profit tax. As I said that we already increased our -- expenses -- tax expense for this year. And for 9 months, we already accrued KZT 173 billion, which is roughly 50% increase year-over-year basis. So for the next year, the excess profit tax would not be implemented, but it will be replaced by the regular tax. And the regular corporate income tax is 25%. But for the state securities, there will be a possibility to reduce the taxable income by 50%. So meaning that the effective tax rate for the state securities would be 12.5% for next year. And you'll see that not as a decrease in the interest income, you will see that in the line of income tax expense.

Okay. So for next year, there's a possibility that the tax rate of state securities could be 12.5%. But that's only for 1 year?

No, no, no. It's -- it will be -- since it will be a new tax code, so it will be actually incorporated as a regular tax provision.

And the next question comes from Can Demir.

So my first question is on 2026 guidance. I just wonder, is there something other than increasing taxes that holds the bank back next year? Because the margin is flattish in your guidance. Cost of risk, a slight uptick, but nothing much. And you're guiding for roughly KZT 1.1 trillion net income. And this year, you're likely to be there anyway, around KZT 1.1 trillion. So what's causing that? That's my first question. And on the cost of risk guidance, I was actually expecting the cost of risk to go down, maybe even significantly given the inflationary growth environment that usually boosts the value of collateral. So why is the cost of risk picking up next year? Is it the mix impact? That's the second question. And the third question is the -- maybe as a follow-up to Ronak's question on the national QR system, you mentioned, Murat, that the take rate can be as high as 1.7%. So the question is why would any merchant use a system that's 80 bps more expensive than the going rate in the market? That's the third question.

Can, thank you very much for your questions. Well, actually, we are guiding the net income for this year to be more than KZT 1 trillion. So it's not the area of KZT 1.1 trillion. So I think there are difference still between these figures. So we think it's a positive development in terms of net interest income. Secondly, even if you would interpret the -- and earn interest income because of the minimum reserve requirement for next year, so in the absence of minimum reserve requirement, the figure would be even better. But because we're interpreting them, so we're staying where we are. So it's not like -- so you cannot, I would say compare them on a like-for-like basis. Yes, if I understand what I mean?

Yes, but the margin doesn't change, no? I mean, the margin guidance is the same for both years. So it doesn't look like it made an impact. I understand where you're coming from, but it's -- if the volumes are growing, the margin doesn't change much. Cost of risk doesn't change much. Is it just a tax rate that also bank back or wholesale net income growth tax? That's what I'm trying to understand.

Yes. But NIM is at the area of 7%, but the balance sheet is expanding. The loan portfolio is expanding. That's why the net income is also expanding.

Okay. Yes, yes, that's what I meant. Okay.

But if there will be no minimum reserve requirement changes, that means that the NIM for next year would be even higher.

Okay. Got it.

And last -- and I think we answered that question during our previous calls, where we estimating that the medium reserve requirement is having impact of 10 to 20 basis points on the net interest margin.

Okay. So can I squeeze in one more question? So would you expect the rate hike make a significant impact on the fourth quarter margin, then? Let me twist the question a bit like that.

What we actually see that the -- this time, the sharp increase in the base rate is impacting mostly the [ total ] end of the interest curve. We didn't see much of -- so it was not a parallel shift. So there was some impact, but not to the previous cycles of increase or previous instances of increase.

Okay. Got it.

Regarding QR, your question on QR. Well, first of all, I said it's improving infrastructure because it allows clients of any bank to use post terminal of another bank using the QR. So it's in similar manner as you can do with your cards of the international payment systems. When it comes to the bank which already have QR system like Halyk Bank, for example, so if our client is coming to the post terminal, so obviously, it will be our clients on our QR system. But we would be able to accept QR payments from declines of other banks. So it's actually the -- improving the accessibility of the payment instruments.

Okay. Okay. But I -- as far as I understand, if there is a substantial price difference or take rate difference after currently dominant 2 players and the national system, then the market structure will not be changing much, right? I mean, do I understand it right? Because price is extremely important now. I mean, the merchants don't really care about financial stability. I mean, that's more financial...

The take rate is different depending on what instruments is using. If you are using the international payment cards like Visa, Mastercard UnionPay, yes, then the rate is higher. Actually depends on the merchant type, but it easily can go 2%, even higher. But when it comes to internal QRs of each bank, so typically, it's below 1%. So 1.7 is spending some way in between.

And the next question comes from Milosz Papst.