Banco Santander-Chile (NYSE:BSAC) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript May 14, 2024 9:00 AM ET
Company Participants
Emiliano Muratore - Chief Financial Officer
Carmen Gloria Silva - Economist
Cristian Vicuna - Chief-Strategic Planning & Investor Relations
Conference Call Participants
Tito Labarta - Goldman Sachs
Daniel Mora - Credicorp Capital
Olavo Arthuzo - UBS
Neha Agarwala - HSBC
Paulo Gonzalez - Banchile
Ernesto Gabilondo - Bank of America
Alonso Aramburu - BTG Pactual
Operator
Hello, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to Banco Santander Chile's First Quarter 2024 Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Please note that this call is being recorded. Following the presentation, there'll be a question-and-answer session.
I will now hand over to Emiliano to begin the presentation.
Emiliano Muratore
Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Banco Santander Chile's First Quarter 2024 Results Webcast and Conference Call. This is Emiliano Muratore, CFO and I'm joined today by Cristian Vicuna, Chief of Strategic Planning and Investor Relations, and Carmen Gloria Silva, our Economist.
The agenda for today is: first, Carmen Gloria will discuss the macro scenario; then Cristian Vicuna will review the strategy and results of the first quarter and guidance. And finally, we will have a Q&A session where we will also comment on the recent material facts that was published this morning.
First, I want to express my gratitude for your presence at this quarterly meeting. Let's get down to business where I will discuss our performance during the first quarter and recent results. The macro conditions have continued its expected trend and the first installment of the FCIC approximately 54% of the position was paid on April the 1st. All this helped our margins and net income recovery in April, where we showed a back to normal net income of CLP71,000 with an ROE of over 20% on demand. We expect Central Bank of Chile to continue its rate reduction strategy, although at a lower pace for the latter part of the year. This positive impact on funding costs. We'll delve into the specific of our quarterly results in a moment.
Now, I hand over to Carmen Gloria for our macro overview.
Carmen Gloria Silva
Thank you, Emiliano. Last year the economy had a significant adjustment reversing the balances accumulated from previous periods. By the end of 2023, we saw a modest rebound with GDP growing 0.2% for the year, surpassing previous estimates. However, domestic demand was weaker than anticipated suffering a decline of over 4% largely [Technical Difficulty] month of 2024, pushed by more external demand, better supply factors like the greater added value of power generation and a new rise in consumption.