BSAC - Banco Santander-Chile (BSAC) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript
2024-02-04 12:02:07 ET
Banco Santander-Chile (BSAC)
Q4 2023 Earnings Conference Call
February 02, 2024 08:30 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
Ernesto Gabilondo - Bank of America
Yuri Fernandes - JPMorgan
Neha Agarwala - HSBC
Ewald Bittencourt - BICE Inversiones
Daniel Mora - Credicorp Capital
Presentation
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. And I would like to welcome you to Banco Santander-Chile Results Conference Call on the 2nd of February, 2024. At this time, all participant lines are on listen-only mode. The format of the call today will be a presentation by the management team, followed by a question-and-answer session.
So, without further ado, I would now like to pass the line to Mr. Emiliano Muratore, the CFO. Please go ahead, sir.
Emiliano Muratore
Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Banco Santander-Chile's fourth quarter 2023 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.
First, I want to express my gratitude for your presence at this quarterly meeting. Let's go down to business. We are here to discuss our performance during the fourth quarter. The macro conditions were more favorable as we anticipated in our last call, which helped our margins and net income recover. The Central Bank of Chile has continued its rate reduction strategy, which has had a positive impact on funding costs. We'll dive into the specifics of our quarterly results in a moment.
Now I pass the line to Carmen Gloria for the macro update.
Carmen Gloria Silva
Thank you, Emiliano. On slide 5, I present a summary of the macro overview in the country. After a necessary process of macroeconomic adjustment 2023 was marked as a year of strategic [ph] global economic growth, extended global financial conditions and emerging geopolitical tensions. All of this occurred in a context was the process of inflationary convergence was consolidated, which would have facilitated the end of the cycle of rate hike by the main monetary authorities.
In this global environment economic activity in Chile continued its deceleration during 2023. Investment persisted in the adjustment profit of previous years and private consumption presented year-on-year reduction in response to elevated interest rates and the continually deteriorating labor markets.
Indeed, the labor force participation rate showed visually no progress hovering around 61% of nearly the entire year below pre-pandemic levels and the unemployment rate escalated to 8.5%. Despite this weakness, economic activity was bolstered by strong case effects emanating from specific supply factors....
Banco Santander-Chile (BSAC) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript