Operator: Good morning. This is the Chorus Call conference operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Nexi First Half 2026 Financial Results Presentation. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Bernardo Mingrone, CEO of Nexi. Please go ahead, sir.

Bernardo Mingrone: Good morning, everyone, and welcome back to our first half results call. I'm here today with Piergiorgio and Stefania. We will take you through our documents. And then at the end, we will open up the floor for Q&A as is usual. Let me start with a few introductory remarks with regards to the highlights of the first half. I would say that the first half has been very much consistent throughout the first quarter and the second quarter. As you can see, revenues grew 1% overall, similar to what it was in the first quarter also for the second quarter. Importantly, our underlying growth is pretty steady at around 5%, as we have discussed at length also during the Capital Markets Day presentation back in March. Our EBITDA in the first half was broadly stable. And I would like to highlight how excess cash generation was EUR 400 million, pretty similar to what it was in the first half last year. So a figure of data, which is comforting and puts us in a good position compared to our guidance for the whole year. The second thing I'd like to focus on is how we're shaping Nexi for our future profitable growth. In this, I just highlight how we continue to make progress on our road map to close the valuation gap at least between how I and the management team perceive Nexi's underlying and true value to be and what it is perceived by investors. And we spoke of this back in May with the first quarter results. Overall, our strategic initiatives are well on track. We've spoken of in the past our efforts in the ISV space and the all-important convergence of software and payments, where our initiatives are proceeding as per plan in the geographies in which we operate. Today, we announced an organization simplification, which has been underway for the last couple of months, and this will help us approach our journey going forward in the most efficient and effective way in the future. And it also helps us with our continued and ongoing steadfast commitment to cost containment and discipline, and Piergiorgio will speak about our cost performance in a few minutes. Overall, I also like to highlight how with regards to creation of value for our shareholders, in the first half, we have successfully, as expected, obviously, paid out EUR 350 million of dividend back in May. We have completed the acquisition of the Banca Popolare book in the beginning of the second quarter, and we have paid down over EUR 1 billion of gross debt. I think this was part of an overall strategy that we also discussed back in May of the capital allocation and the most efficient use of the cash balance on our books. We started the year with just over -- just under EUR 2 billion of cash. This cash is being used, as I said, to pay down debt, and we'll continue to pay down debt as it comes due; make dividend distributions and also complete the M&A transactions that we had announced. As you will see, gross leverage, therefore, has come down and our net cash balance has come down as well. And we will continue to use that cash in the most efficient way, which right now is reimbursing maturities as they come due without accessing capital markets. Second thing I would like to speak about is something we'll definitely be hearing more of in the future, and it is the Digital euro program. As you know, Nexi has been a member of the Digital Euro stakeholders group since the start since 2021. We have been part of the MAG, the Market Advisory Group. We have contributed to developing the rule book. We are on the Italian Payments Committee. And in general, we are part of the overall ecosystem that is participating led by the ECB in defining the rules and implementation of the Digital Euro. Back in '22 and the beginning of '23, we also developed the first Digital Euro prototype, and we have been participating as we've spoken of in the past, the ECB's public tenders. In a consortium led by [ G&D ], we won the tender on the offline, and we're now participating in remaining tenders in the infrastructure part of the Digital Euro. So we are keen to play an active role in the development of this critically important infrastructure. Finally, we have recently announced or the ECB has recently announced that we were selected to participate in the pilot phase of the Digital Euro, something we're keen to leverage on in promoting a system-wide solution for other banks that would be able to benefit from the technology Nexi is developing in the Digital Euro in order to socialize the cost of this opportunity and position us as an infrastructure provider for the Digital Euro to market participants and something we will be speaking more of going forward. That said, let me hand the floor over to Piergiorgio, who will take us through the details of the second quarter and the first half performance, and then we'll come back to you open the floor up for Q&A.

Piergiorgio Pedron: Thanks, Bernardo, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today and for your interest in our company, Nexi. Let me start from where we left off a few months ago during our first quarter results call. The message we shared back then remains fully consistent with our Q2 results and confirms once again that we are a business built on a resilient and diversified growth drivers, both from a geographical and operational viewpoint, supported by healthy underlying trends. We remain highly disciplined in managing costs and investments, and we continue to deliver strong EBITDA and a robust excess cash generation. Overall, Q2 confirmed the resilience we saw in Q1 with solid underlying growth and sound profitability despite the expected impact of bank contract effects across both Merchant Solutions and Issuing Solutions as well as some softness in consumer spending, particularly in Germany. Starting with the top line, year-to-date revenues are slightly above EUR 1.7 billion, up 1% versus 2025, broadly in line both with our expectations and what we saw in Q1 and consistent with the back-end loaded growth profile we outlined at our recent Capital Market Day with no major deviation to highlight. Year-to-date EBITDA at EUR 870 million is in line with last year and with our guidance, while Q2 EBITDA at EUR 473 million was slightly below 2025, reflecting the expected normalization of OpEx phasing that I anticipated and we discussed back in May. I would, therefore, strongly encourage you all not to look at this quarter in isolation. I will come back to operating expenses later, but let me say that we are very pleased with the first half OpEx growth slightly below 2%, while keep on investing to support the top line initiatives discussed during the CMD. Year-to-date EBITDA margin at 50.1% was just below 2025, which closed at 50.6%, supported by disciplined execution and the cost control initiatives we put in place over the past few months. In Merchant Solutions, Q2 revenues were broadly stable year-on-year. This brought year-to-date performance to minus 0.8%, improving from minus 1.4% at the end of Q1. We are beginning to see the gradual recovery we discussed with further acceleration expected in Q3 and Q4 as our strategic growth drivers gain traction and the impact of bank contract effect reduces. To this point, I'd like to underline the positive contribution of direct channels where we keep on investing, as outlined again during the CMD and ISVs, whose impact to our sales is slightly better than our original assumptions. Looking at the underlying performance, revenues increased by around 3% year-on-year. On volumes, the value of managed transactions continue to expand, supported by processing activities and the ramp-up of the Bancomat processing hub consolidation in Italy. This remains an important development as it further strengthened our positioning as an infrastructure provider within the payment ecosystem. At the same time, the macro environment softened versus Q1 in one of our markets. In Germany, consumer spending weakened during the quarter, putting some pressure on volume growth, even as new customers acquisition continued to run ahead of last year. So far, the overall impact has remained contained. Let me now move to Issuing Solutions. IS delivered another robust quarter with revenues up 1.5% in Q2 and approximately 3% in the first half of the year. despite the impact of the bank-related contracts. The results were supported by solid core business trends with the value of managed transaction remaining very robust and growing by 7% in the first half. Looking at the main drivers, the momentum was supported by the ongoing ramp-up of the Nexi Bancomat processing hub in Italy and the completion of the onboarding of a large customer in DACH, together with sustained expansion in international schemes. This was further complemented by the positive contribution of our business levers, including international debit in Italy and the increasing penetration of value-added services across our current portfolio. As we highlighted in May, the first quarter results also benefited in part from favorable timing of [ sterling ] projects and initiatives, which mainly explain the difference growth rate between Q1 and Q2. Going forward, we expect the nonbank-related headwinds to become a bit more pronounced in the second half of the year. As a result, we anticipate full year growth for Issuing Solutions to be in the low single-digit range, fully consistent with the framework we have previously shared with the market. Moving on, DBS delivered strong results with revenues up 6% in Q2 and 4.5% in the first half. This was supported by solid volume trends across SEPA Clearing, Open Banking, Network Services and PagoPA, together with the contribution of new projects and business initiatives. We also benefited from favorable timing of certain activities, including bank M&A-related work while seeing additional contribution from initiatives such as verification of pay -- Zippay and the digital Euro-line project Bernardo just talked about. As we have consistently highlighted, DBS is structurally more exposed to project-based revenues than our other businesses. And part of the first half progression reflects positive project phasing. While the underlying business trajectory remains very sound, we continue to expect full year growth to be in the low single digits. Moving on to the next slide, our geographic diversification remains one of Nexi's strength, helping us to deliver resilient and predictable growth despite localized headwinds in specific markets. Starting with Italy, revenue grew 0.4% year-on-year in the first half, improving from a decline of 0.4% at the end of Q1. Let me remind you that Italy is the region most affected by the bank-related contract effect. In the Nordics, revenues declined by 1.7% or EUR 5 million in H1, mainly reflecting the migration of a large issuing client at the end of 2025, as we have discussed many times in the past. Excluding this effect, the underlying trend remains solid, supported by sustained momentum in e-commerce, value-added services and national scheme. Also in this case, Q2 improved compared with the start of the year, and we expect further progression in H2. Moving to DACH. The region delivered strong growth overall with revenue increasing by more than 7% in the first 6 months. Austria and Switzerland remained very strong also in Q2, continuing to benefit from healthy commercial momentum and disciplined execution. In Germany, however, we experienced a second soft quarter, reflecting a challenging consumer environment, particularly in hospitality, where our exposure is relatively higher. As evidence of this challenging scenario, Germany recorded one of the highest levels of corporate insolvencies in the last 2 decades. Despite these market conditions, commercial momentum remains encouraging with new customers acquisitions increasing at a faster rate over last year. Finally, CSEE continued to grow, even though at a softer pace in Q2, mainly because of some phasing in non-volume-driven revenues and ongoing mix and pricing pressure in our Polish e-commerce franchise. Let me now turn to cost performance. As I highlighted, our first quarter call, looking at the single quarter in isolation does not provide a meaningful view of the underlying cost trajectory of our business because timing and phasing effects can influence quarterly performance. For this reason, I believe the first half as a whole provides the most relevant perspective. In the first 6 months of the year, total cost increased by slightly less than 2%, moving from EUR 850 million to EUR 866 million despite ongoing inflationary pressure and on labor and other operating expenses, as well as higher volumes. This result was achieved while investing in the strategic priorities outlined during the CMD, which will support Nexi future development. Personnel costs increased broadly in line with our expectations at about 4%, at the same pace we saw in Q1, reflecting salary adjustment and investments made during 2025, plus what we did in 2026 -- the beginning of 2026, specifically to support our strategic growth drivers. At the same time, operating expenses remained essentially flat year-on-year. This reflects a combination of continued operating leverage, disciplined expense management and the first benefits from several cost control measures launched over the past few months. These initiatives span both technology and nontechnology spending and are increasingly supported by AI-enabled productivity improvements across the organization. Overall, I am very encouraged by the progress we are seeing so far, and the first half results reinforce my confidence that we will continue to manage our expense base with discipline throughout the remainder of the year and to deliver our full year profitability and excess cash objectives. Moving on to CapEx. As we indicated at the beginning of the year, we continue to invest in key pillars of our strategy: growth, platform modernization and consolidation and product quality, innovation and security. In the first half, CapEx amounted to approximately EUR 168 million. This was broadly in line with last year and slightly better in terms of both absolute CapEx and CapEx intensity, while we continue, as I said, to invest in strategic growth drivers. This reflects once more disciplined execution, clear prioritization and our continued focus on cash, cost control and efficiency. Let's now move on to cash generation. Our cash conversion profile remained a key strength in the first half. We generated EUR 400 million of excess cash during the period, once again demonstrating the strong cash conversion characteristics of our business model. This result was achieved while continuing to invest in the business and funding the strategic initiatives we have discussed many times. Overall, H1 results confirm the resilience of Nexi cash generation model and give us full confidence in our ability to deliver around EUR 750 million of excess cash for 2026, consistent with our guidance that we reaffirmed today. The strength of our cash generation has also enabled us to continue executing our capital allocation priorities. As Bernardo just said, during the first half, we repaid approximately EUR 1 billion of debt maturities, paid around EUR 350 million of dividends to our shareholders and completed the [ BPS ] deal, leveraging our strong liquidity position while maintaining a solid financial position and preserving our investment-grade credit profile, which was reaffirmed very recently by both Fitch and Standard & Poor's just in July. Let me conclude with our outlook for the full year. As you can see on the slide, we are confirming all elements of our 2026 guidance. On revenues, the underlying business drivers remain intact and Merchant Solutions is progressively reaccelerating as expected. At the same time, we continue to see a somewhat softer consumer environment, particularly in Germany, as I said, and the second half includes important seasonal periods such as the summer and year-end, which naturally carry a higher degree of variability. Taking this factor into account, our current view remains that revenues are on track to be in line with our guidance with a final landing point depending on the normal evolution of consumer spending and seasonal dynamics over the coming months. Importantly, we also have a high degree of confidence in our ability to deliver our EBITDA guidance and our excess cash target of around EUR 750 million. Once again, this confidence is supported by the flexibility we retain on our cost base and by the strict cash control we demonstrated in the first 6 months of the year. With that, we can start the Q&A session. Thank you.

Operator: First question is from Sébastien Sztabowicz from Kepler Cheuvreux.

Sébastien Sztabowicz: First of all, on the short term, how do you see volumes trending since the start of the quarter? Have you seen any specific change versus what you have seen in the second quarter? And I know you mentioned some softness in Germany, but also in Italy. Could you please elaborate a little bit what is happening in those countries? And second question is on the ramp-down of some specific projects, including Banco [ BPM ] in Italy and Nordea issuing. Where are we standing right now in terms of progress? Are you in line with the plan? Or are you doing it better or worse than initially expected?

Bernardo Mingrone: Thanks for your questions. With regards to volume evolution in the first half -- throughout the first half, I would say there's not been anything material to call out in terms of fluctuations or others. As we always point out, it's very hard to glean any information from one week to the next. And I would say that overall, the 6 months were pretty much aligned with our expectations in terms of development. What -- this is throughout the group then Piergiorgio called out, I think, Germany rather than Italy and Germany. And in Germany, indeed, I mean, we all read the press, and we've all read about very substantial redundancies being called out in the auto sector with hundreds of thousands of people being laid off. And in general, the macro environment, in general, in Germany has been worse than our own macro expectations, which we had put underlying the plan. Now this is obviously contributing to a slower-than-expected performance in Germany. But I wouldn't make anything more than that out of it because, as you know, as we've discussed in the past; most of our growth comes from increased levels of penetration. And in Germany, in particular, our real bet is not so much on macro performance, but on increased penetration levels. Germany is one of the countries with the lowest levels of penetration in digital payments and increasing market share because we are a smaller player in Germany than some of our competitors. That said, Germany is suffering from the macro, but as hopefully, that things will improve over time, and that will also help us. But in general, the environment in terms of also the holiday season and tourism, et cetera, doesn't highlight anything we should be concerned about. With regards to the migrations, I would say, on the customers that you mentioned in Italy, I think what you see in our first half numbers reflect -- largely reflect our expectations with regards to the migration away from next year of those banks that churned back in 2023 and '24 that we spoke so much of during our Capital Markets Day. So what we -- and the churn was both an issuing and acquiring with regards to Banco that you mentioned earlier. It started with acquiring. And now moving into second half of the year, we are going to kind of benefit from the fact that, that is over compared to last year where it was in full swing in the first half of this year when it was being completed. So what we had guided you to was that we would have a gradual improvement over 2026 between first half and second half on the Merchant Solutions revenue front. And you can see that the negative growth in Merchant Solutions in the second quarter is improving compared to the first quarter because of this effect. So the lapping -- the year-on-year lapping of the exit of Banco is coming to an end. And in the second half, we expect an acceleration in Merchant Solutions simply from the comp effect. So that's happening. And then we also said that this would switch from -- the migration away from us would switch from Merchant Solutions or from acquiring to issuing, and that is starting and Banco has started. And as you can see, issuing has slowed down in the second quarter compared to the first quarter, and this will continue in the second half of the year. So I would say this is mostly planned. On the issuing front, we also have the Nordic customer that you mentioned, whose impact also started during the first part of the year and actually started many years ago and will be exhausted by the end of this year.

Sébastien Sztabowicz: And just on Germany, what was the trend exactly in terms of revenue in Q2 and in Q1, just to understand a bit of the deterioration that you mentioned?

Bernardo Mingrone: The second quarter, I'll hand the floor to Piergiorgio, who can give you more details, but obviously, the second quarter is slightly worse than the first one.

Piergiorgio Pedron: Yes, Sebastien, I believe that -- and thanks for your question. If you look at our slide where we present the revenue by geography and you do reverse engineering compared to what we presented in Q1, you would see that Q2 overall, I mean, DACH region is growing more or less by 2%, give or take, right? As I said in my remarks, in my written remarks, DACH is the sum of Germany, Switzerland and Austria, with Germany being the biggest player by far. So this plus 2% is a little bit better than what Germany did per se since, as I said, Austria and Switzerland doing fine. So a ballpark number, call it, between 1% and 2% in Germany and the other two geographies that growing mid -- a little bit more than a mid-single digit -- mid- to high single digit.

Operator: The next question is from Justin Forsythe from UBS.

Justin Forsythe: First question for me. I just wanted to ask around excess cash and the moving pieces. I think we were expecting a little bit more of a 2H weighting despite the tax impacts as you flagged and consistently hit in 2H. So maybe you could just walk us through if there's anything you're expecting that maybe you weren't expecting initially to hit excess cash negatively in 2H and walk us through the moving pieces there. And I wanted to ask a follow-up on Germany. I just was wondering if you could be -- you talked a little bit, Bernardo, about the layoffs in the automobile sector. Piergiorgio, you flagged specifically hospitality. Maybe you could just talk a little bit about the specific challenges there? Like is that, say, people flying to Germany from places in the Middle East? Is it more due to economic hardship across the region? Is that more in like food and beverage? Just trying to get a feel for the dynamics there. And what does this imply for the rest of the year? I guess you feel very comfortable reiterating the guidance. So you again still expect that acceleration in Merchant Services through the rest of the year? And I guess one other follow-up on Germany. You spoke a little bit about software-led or ISV distribution in Germany. I remember that business actually being a lot of direct distribution. So maybe you could talk a little bit more about where you're having success with the ISV business? Is that more Orderbird? Is that partners that you're bringing up through the pipe, et cetera?

Bernardo Mingrone: Okay. Thanks, Justin. Let me try and answer all three of your questions, all four, but I'll place the fourth one with the second on Germany and then Piergiorgio obviously can help me where I get stuck. But with regards to excess cash, there is some seasonality with it, so -- especially on things outside of the P&L. So if you think of CapEx and the phasing of CapEx, that obviously helps or contributes to cash generation. And the timing of that is less predictable, it's less of a flow. It's more lumpy and got to do with projects. That said, so indeed, given our guidance of for the year and the fact that the second half is generally 52%, 53%, I would say, weighted compared to the first half of the year in terms of EBITDA generation and hence also cash generation notwithstanding taxes being in the second half. All that said, a bit better than we expected, but that is also to do with one of the points I made earlier. One of the things that we're working on is obviously to try and perform as well as we can on costs and in general, cash generation. I think we're being successful on that front. So I believe that the cash generation in the first half is a good indicator of our performance for the year and the fact that we are very confident that we will meet our guidance at this stage of the year. So there's nothing lumpy one-off that you should normalize for. It's just in general, something that we're working on and we're doing well on. On Germany, I go back to my remarks about how Germany is, for us, a market in which we win or lose more on -- based on our ability to develop our distribution channel successfully and our ability to win market share from competitors given where we start from and on the fact that the German market, the kind of rising tide of payments that lifts all players in that space. That's much more important than the macro. That said, when you're talking about 1 percentage point, 2 or 3 percentage points of growth, which is EUR 1 million or EUR 2 million or EUR 3 million in the year; obviously, also macro impacts. And I think everything we mentioned and you reiterate contributes to that negative effect. The fact that unemployment is going up in Germany or people are being laid off, obviously, that leads to consumption being under pressure. In general, the HoReCa space is less -- is not growing as much as it used to. It's actually hitting a rough patch. And I'm not able to answer the question as to whether this is Middle East tourism that is coming down. In general, what we see is restaurants and hotels being less productive than in the past for us in terms of volumes. What I'm focused on is how our strategy to win market share is performing. And on that front, given that you asked the questions about the channels, I think we're doing pretty well, if not very well, on the ISV channel and the partner channel. So that includes the ISV channel, obviously includes Orderbird. But in general, in the ISV channel and the partners are doing very well. Where we need to think long and hard about our strategy is the direct channel where we're struggling a little more. Again, this is growing pains, I would say, in a market which represents for us a great opportunity, given its size and given the level of underpenetration. And with Thomas, who came onboard last year, about 1 year ago, actually; we're seeing if there's anything we need to change in terms of the direct distribution effort to make it as productive as we can. With regards to the rest of the year, the forecast for the rest of the year, in general, I mean, we always caution not to read too much into short-term performance because there are quarterly swings tied to project work timing of certain issues, et cetera. But I think the first half this year has been very steady, very predictable. And I would just stick to what I said earlier. I think we -- and Piergiorgio reiterated, I think we feel very comfortable in terms of our overall performance for 2026, given our guidance. And the further down you travel in the P&L, the more control we have. And we feel most comfortable, obviously, on the cash generation where we have the most levers to act on and the way we closed the first half is a good place to be.

Operator: The next question is from Nooshin Nejati from Deutsche Bank.

Nooshin Nejati: Two on my side to maybe follow up on Justin's questions actually. I appreciate you mentioned seasonality and that there was no one-off to account for. So what are the main reasons not to think this continues in H2, the excess cash and you would basically end up above your guide? I guess I'm asking if guidance is now conservative or there are specific elements to consider for H2? And then maybe if you can please help us bridge to FY margin outlook. How should we think about cost growth in H2 relative to Q2 and maybe the difference between the quarters?

Bernardo Mingrone: So I think you're trying to force us into revising our guidance, which we're not going to do. I mean the guidance is what it is, and we're planning to do at least $750 million of excess cash. We are at $400 million. There is no unusual seasonality that I expect in the second half of the year compared to prior years. We pay taxes in the second half of the year, so you have thatBut the second half of the year is also heavier in terms of cash contribution coming from the business because of the summer months in December, and that is true every year. I think in general, what we're doing, I go back to my opening remarks, we're working -- Piergiorgio and I and the rest of the team is very supportive of this. We're working to make sure that we can fund the investments we're making in our growth strategy, which we spoke of at length during our Capital Markets Day through greater efficiencies. And of course, the world is evolving very quickly and AI and other instruments that are available to us today are helping this efficiency gain that helps fund these investments that helps our performance. But again, we give guidance on a yearly basis, and we will report on a quarterly basis how we're doing, and that's the EUR 400 million compared to the EUR 750 million minimum level for 2026. And on the cost growth, so we saw -- we closed the quarter or the first half at just under 2%, 1.9% cost growth. We are shouldering the cost or the investments we are making in ISV and the direct sales force, primarily, I would say, in the ISV channel and the direct sales force, but not only, obviously, as we deploy AI more pervasively throughout the company, we have increasing costs related to that. But it's an investment well placed in my mind. And notwithstanding this, we are able to contain our cost through continued efficiencies. And I think a number of times we've spoken of how Nexi has come together as 3 companies back in 2021, and these 3 companies brought with them a number of platforms and complexity, which we are working on to minimize and reduce. And the cost out coming from the reduction of this complexity helps mitigate the upward pressure on costs. And this has always been true. I think we've always been consistent in terms of being able to manage our cost growth in a way that it is lower than what you'd normally get inertially from just volume growth, inflation, wage drift and the likes. Also thanks to the fact that we started with a pretty articulate and complicated IT landscape that we're working to simplify. And this will continue in the second half. So we do our best and we work to try and do as well as we can and to beat the guidance that we've given you, but that remains the guidance.

Operator: The next question is from Alexandre Faure from BNP Paribas.

Alexandre Faure: Got three questions, I'm afraid. First one is going back on cost growth that you just talked about now, you talked about this sort of simplifying the organization and so on. Should we expect any cash outflows relating to those efforts coming through in the second half maybe or in 2027? Second point, sorry to get back to that, but on the guidance question. And I heard what you say on sort of EBITDA and free cash flow guide. I was more curious on your net revenue guide. Does this hold at current macro or you need macro to go back to what it was in Jan and Feb in the second half to sort of get to that net revenue mark? And finally, I was surprised to see that Merchant Services installed base revenues seem to be coming down quite a bit again in Q2. So if you could remind us of what's in there and what's causing the decline for a couple of quarters in a row now?

Bernardo Mingrone: Sorry, Alex, I couldn't find them. But you shouldn't apologize for your questions. We're here to answer them. So I'm happy to take them. So cost growth and simplification, as I said, we are in the process of reorganizing ourselves so that we can be as lean as possible in terms of all our decision-making processes, in terms of our go-to-market. And this reorganization will generate efficiencies, which were probably not baked into the numbers back in March because simply they were born out of a change, which occurred after the Capital Markets Day. And this is obviously going to help us, I would say, more so next year than this year, given where we stand in the year and when these things are actually happening. But obviously, there is some benefit in 2026 as well. But what I'd like to point out is the way we have approached this as a team is that we need to fund all investments, so including in our efficiency from the business. So I don't expect any -- so the guidance we've given you includes anything we're spending in order to become more efficient. So it's -- there's not going to be a surprise between now and year-end and saying there's a big restructuring charge or something like that associated with it. So our guidance is including everything, which doesn't mean there's no cost associated with it, but it's funded by other savings, other initiatives, other, let's say, also phasing effects or things we might decide not to do period. So you're not going to get the restructuring charge like we had in 2024 or something like that. That said, going forward in the next few years, every, I think, 6 or 7 years, we have the opportunity in Italy, in particular, to have early retirement windows open, et cetera. This is not something we're considering today. It doesn't mean that in the future at some point, we might not do so again. But as I said, nothing is planned. Nothing was in the planned numbers, and nothing will be happening between -- for sure between now and year-end on that front. On the revenues front, I'd say, go back to the comment on Germany, it actually holds true for the rest of the group. Obviously, better macro helps, especially when revenues are growing 1%, every little bit helps to improve that revenue growth and macro does as well. I stand by my -- our numbers support our numbers, our forecast for the year supports the fact that we believe that revenues will grow in 2026 similar to how they grew in 2025. And obviously, we hope that macro helps us achieve this and we do better. But right now, that's where we are. And so we'll stand by that. And then finally, on MS, let me -- on installed base revenues in MS and the quarterly evolution, I'll hand the floor back to Piergiorgio the detail there.

Piergiorgio Pedron: Yes. Just an additional comment, if I may, on the cost guide. I believe even though it was not part of our official guidance, going back to the Capital Markets Day, we showed a slide with was saying that we would have expected our cost base, our OpEx to increase '26 over '25 by 5%, 6%. So if you do the reverse engineering of where we ended up in Q1, you would end up with a growth -- OpEx growth rate implied in H2 of around, let me say, 5-ish to 6% kind of. We are, I would say, aiming to be on the lower side of that range, the 5% to 6% we talked about, and that is going to give us all the flexibility we need in case of further deterioration of macro conditions or variability to deliver what we committed to deliver. So that really makes us comfortable there. When it comes down to installed base revenues vis-a-vis non-installed base revenues for MS, as you might remember, give or take, 25%, 28% of our installed base revenues -- of our revenues in MS are driven by installed base. So it just takes a couple of millions more quarter-to-quarter to change those percentages. I wouldn't read too much into that number. If I look at the volume and I compare Q1 '25 with Q1 '26 and once again, if you go back and look at the numbers, you would see that the volume revenues is increasing nicely, I would say, it's around 1.5% installed base revenues quarter-on-quarter are going down. If you look at is the same story, they're going down by 8%. But there, once again, you have some phasing of projects plus some pressure on [ terminals ], price pressure on [ terminals ]. But again, most of it, I would say, is phasing of non-volume driven.

Bernardo Mingrone: Okay. But I think it's just -- in general, it's fair to say that there is margin pressure, I would say, on -- or more pressure on the terminal pricing than there is in acquiring, which we're compensating with acquiring. And that's throughout the market, some players offering terminals for free, maybe ahead of IPOs or things like that.

Operator: The next question is from Antonio Gianfrancesco from Intermonte.

Antonio Gianfrancesco: Just one from my side on Digital Euro. I was wondering if you can help us to understand what kind of investments, let's say, in terms of CapEx are required in the next 12 months, 1, 2 years? Whether they are already included in your current CapEx plan? And when we could start seeing an impact in terms, let's say, of incremental revenues?

Bernardo Mingrone: Thanks for the question, Antonio. And our guidance includes everything we're doing. So it includes also the work we're doing on Digital Euro. Right now in the start-up phase and this pilot phase that we're working on, the investments are -- if we're talking about the work we're doing with the ECB and helping the ECB develop the framework, obviously, they're compensated by revenues associated with them. We're not talking about huge amounts of revenues. We're single-digit kind of million euros for the time being and similar amounts of investments associated with them. And with regards to the development of the pilot, the capabilities to participate in the pilot phase, again, given where we are in the year, smallish investments required. But I think significant potential going forward because the whole -- let's say, my ambition would be that Nexi can serve its partner banks, not only in Italy, but across Europe in helping them socialize the costs of being able to adopt the digital euro by having us invest once and then using us as a common infrastructure for them for sure, on the acceptance rails, but potentially also on the wallet side of things going forward. And obviously, Digital Euro is only expected to come into being in 2029. So revenues will become -- potential revenues will become realizable from our positioning in the market as this kind of an infrastructure provider probably in 2028, I do not expect it to be sooner. Right now, we're trying to position ourselves for the pilot banks, and we'll see how that works and that might bring some benefit sooner, but not materially in the short term.

Operator: The next question is from Hannes Leitner of Jefferies.

Hannes Leitner: So the first question is like you talked quite a lot about macro weakness, softness and that the guidance depends on consumer spending. It feels a little bit like a cautious stance. So where do we are in those trend lines? And so that's the first question, like really getting a little bit more granularity, where do you see actually you have more outperformed your plan to get to the headroom? Because clearly, macro looks worse today than a couple of months back. And then the second question is again on Merchant Services and maybe there, international schemes have been slowing. Is that partially related with the contract runoffs? Or have you done the migration mostly in Italy and now you have a much bigger share in international schemes? And just the last one is, if you look at underlying growth for the group, you talked about 4%, Merchant Services just 3%. That would imply underlying growth in Issuing Solutions around 5% or reverse EUR 10 million headwind from the bank contract runoff. Is that the quarterly cadence we should expect now for, let's say, for the next 9 months or 10 months?

Bernardo Mingrone: Thanks, Hannes. Let me try and answer these and then obviously, Piergiorgio can help me with the greater granularity looking for. But in general, overall, the macro weakness is -- ultimately, our revenues are growing 1%, right? I mean they're not growing 5%, which is the underlying. And part of that, we're not outperforming our own guidance also because of macro. I think it's pretty homogeneous throughout Europe. We called out Germany because it's definitely suffering a bit more than other regions. In the past, we discussed Finland and Sweden. They're smaller than Germany, so lower contribution. But I would say that no one is doing particularly well. I mean the Nordic country, Denmark and Norway, nominal growth is actually quite healthy there with a bit of inflation, economies that's like close to 5%, if you want. And that helps. So I'd say they're probably doing better than elsewhere. Italy is not doing that badly also for us in terms of our revenues. But it's not like there's one country that's firing on all cylinders and outperforming and dragging everything else up. I think in general, the climate is subdued. And hopefully, things will improve as time goes by, this will also help us close that gap between where we're growing at today and historically where we've been growing at. And that comes to the last point you were making, the 5%. And yes, it's actually 5% on average for the group. Of course, if you look at the second quarter, it's 4%. But I always go back to what we caution, which is quarterly performance, you need to then normalize for weekends, for holidays, for the weather, all these kind of things. Overall, I think we are pretty stable around that 5% mark historically and for the first half of the year. And as you were noting that we have a very diversified group, which makes it difficult for us, given the diversification of businesses of regions in which we're in, so levels of penetrations of the countries in which we operate in. And therefore, the structural capability of the group has both the cons of being diversified. So it's unlikely that as a group, we can grow our top line mid-teens in terms of growth, even though within the group, we do have businesses that grow in double-digit space like e-commerce, like historically, for instance, some areas like Poland or whatever. But as a group, the diversification is such that on average, we'll grow less, and we've highlighted how we believe that structurally, we're capable of growing in line with our historic underlying growth. But that said, also on the diversification helps us when Merchant Solutions is growing less than expected, you have issuing, which is very predictable and is growing 5% and pulls the average up. And it also has to do with the phasing of the exit of the bank contracts that you were speaking of or I was speaking of earlier. So far, we've suffered on Merchant Solutions most than the migration away of us from us because it's easier to migrate away a merchant from your acquirer, you give them a new terminal and they start accepting on that, and it's easier. Migrating a [ card ] portfolio is much more complicated and much more time consuming and frankly speaking, also from an operating standpoint, risky. And that's taking longer, and it will evolve over the next probably 12 to 24 months. So we fight tooth and nail to try and make it as slow and painful as possible to migrate away from us. On the other hand, they're trying to do it as quickly as possible, and we'll see who is most effective. But that's how it will evolve. For sure, it will hit us -- it started to hit us in 2026, the issuing side and will continue throughout next year. I don't know, Piergiorgio, if you want to answer anything on that.

Piergiorgio Pedron: No, I have nothing to add. You covered it very well.

Hannes Leitner: International schemes.

Bernardo Mingrone: Sorry? Okay. I think we have no more questions. So I hand it back to the operator.

Operator: So ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over. You may disconnect your telephones.