Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS) 2014 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Good morning, and welcome to the presentation of Scotiabank's 2014 first-quarter results. My name is Peter Slan, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations for the Bank. Presenting to you this morning are Brian Porter, President and Chief Executive Officer; Sean McGuckin, Chief Financial Officer; and Stephen Hart, Chief Risk Officer. Following their comments, we would then be glad to take your questions.

Also in the room with us to take your questions are Scotiabank's business line Group Heads: Anatol von Hahn from Canadian Banking; Dieter Jentsch from International Banking; Chris Hodgson from Global Wealth & Insurance; and Mike Durland and Steve McDonald from Global Banking and Markets. As with prior calls, we also have joining us Sabi Marwah, Vice Chairman and Chief Operating Officer, and Jeff Heath, our Group Treasurer.

Before we begin, I'd like to refer you to slide 2 of our presentation which contains Scotiabank's caution regarding forward-looking statements. And, with that, I'll now turn the call over to Brian Porter.

Thank you, Peter. And welcome, everyone. We are pleased to announce a good start to the year. Scotiabank earned net income of CAD1.7 billion, or CAD1.32 per share, representing growth of 6.5% from last year. Our first-quarter performance reflects strong results in the Global Wealth & Insurance and Canadian Banking, along with more moderate operating performances in International Banking and Global Banking and Markets. Strong top-line revenue growth of 9% reflects our well-balanced and highly diversified business model. In addition, ROE remains solid at 15.4%.

Our capital position is very strong, with common equity tier 1 ratio of 9.4%, an increase of 120 basis points from a year ago. Our ability to generate high levels of capital has allowed us to increase our quarterly dividend by CAD0.02, to CAD0.64 per share. This increase reflects the confidence we have in our ability to continue to generate sustainable earnings growth and successfully execute on our disciplined growth strategy.

Before I talk about our business lines, I would like to speak briefly about the recent volatility in emerging markets, which our senior team has been monitoring closely. Diversification is one of Scotiabank's greatest strengths and most powerful advantages. It's a strategy that differentiates us from our competitors, helps us manage through challenging times, and provides consistent and predictable results.

Our operations in emerging markets are an important long-term growth story for Scotiabank. Not all emerging markets are created equally. We do not have significant operations in the countries that have been the subject of most of the press coverage.

We have deliberately chosen opportunities to invest in stable Latin American economies such as Chile, Peru, Colombia, and, of course, Mexico. These countries have demonstrated sound economic management and discipline, and have strong banking and regulatory frameworks. Each one has great potential, with a growing middle class, as well as a young, increasingly well-educated and under-banked population.

We are well positioned to participate in the good growth opportunities these markets present. An important part of Scotiabank's success has been our long-term approach. We believe the likelihood of faster growth in these emerging economies remains strong.

Now, let me touch briefly on each of the business lines. Canadian Banking had a good first quarter, with all of our retail and commercial businesses doing well. Loan growth was solid against the backdrop of a cooling housing market, moderating consumer spending, and the run-off of our ING mortgage portfolio.

In particular, we achieved strong double-digit growth in auto lending, a traditional area of strength, and in credit cards, which is a key area of focus for us. This growth in higher-spread products is helping offset some of the negative margin pressure from the continued low rate environment.

We remain focused on expenses and have several initiatives underway to help reduce structural costs in the business. One of these initiatives that you've heard me talk about recently is our operational efficiency initiative, which is moving some of the middle office functions out of the branch network. We expect this initiative to provide meaningful savings, which we have begun to see in fiscal 2013 and 2014, with the balance coming in 2015 and 2016.

Finally, on another note, we'll be hosting an Investor Day here in Toronto, focusing on our Canadian P&C operations on April 24. We hope that many of you will be able to join us, either in person or by webcast.

Turning to International Banking, we had strong volume growth in our loan and deposit portfolios, and a modest improvement in margins compared to last quarter. From a regional perspective, we had strong double-digit loan growth in Latin America and Asia this quarter. Growth in the Caribbean and Central America was more modest.

However, expenses are up this quarter due to foreign exchange, inflation, business growth, and the integration of Credito Familiar in Mexico, which was completed in December. As I mentioned last quarter, one of our key priorities is to translate this strong volume growth to the bottom line. While the lower margin level will be a headwind for earnings growth in 2014, it has recently stabilized.

We continue to focus on streamlining our operating model and maximizing the efficiency of our operations across our footprint to reduce structural costs. With that said, we expect International Banking to deliver positive operating leverage in 2014.

In Global Wealth & Insurance, strong momentum continued across our businesses, resulting in double-digit earnings growth from last year. We will continue to focus on expanding our international capabilities in our wealth and insurance businesses.

In Wealth, strong net sales and improved financial markets drove strong growth in AUM and AUA. In Canada, we saw improved sales performance in Dynamic, while sales of ScotiaFunds continued to perform very well. Internationally, we launched several new products across the LatAm region and launched our first fund in China through our joint venture with the Bank of Beijing.

Turning to insurance in Canada, we continued to increase our creditor insurance penetration against the backdrop of slowing volumes from our mortgage-lending business. Internationally, our key markets in LatAm are performing well.

Finally, for Global Banking and Markets, earnings were stable this quarter, although down from a strong quarter last year, due mainly to lower contributions from fixed income. However, offsetting that weakness were record results from our Canadian corporate lending business and renewed strength in our investment banking business, which is seeing good momentum as we have been a key participant in several large Canadian M&A transactions and follow-on financings. We continue to focus on growing our wholesale business internationally within the Bank's existing footprint, and we are seeing very good growth in this business.

Overall, I'm pleased with the start of the year and I expect our growth to accelerate throughout 2014. With that, I'll pass it over to Sean.

Thanks, Brian. Slide 7 shows our key financial performance metrics for the quarter. Earnings per share were CAD1.32, up 6.5% year over year, as good results from Canadian Banking and strong results from Global Wealth & Insurance compared to more moderate performances in International Banking and Global Banking and Markets.

Revenue growth continues to be strong, at 9% year over year, a result of higher margins, strong broad-based asset growth and acquisitions. Also contributing was an increase in banking and wealth management fees, the positive impact of foreign exchange, and higher security gains, partially offset by a decline in trading revenues.

Expense growth was 10% year over year. Excluding the impact of foreign currency translation and acquisitions, the growth in expenses was 7%. Adjusting further for timing and hedging impacts on performance-based and stock-based compensation, as well as a presentation change of certain revenues and expenses in Global Wealth & Insurance, the underlying expense growth was 5%. Our productivity ratio in Q1 increased modestly from last year to 54.2%, although it improved slightly from the fourth quarter of last year.

Moving to capital on slide 8. The Bank improved its strong, high-quality capital position that is well above regulatory minimums, and positions us well for continued business expansion. Our common equity tier 1 capital ratio was 9.4%, an increase of 30 basis points from the prior quarter.

Risk-weighted assets were up CAD14 billion, or 5%, from last quarter, to CAD302 billion, due to a combination of organic growth and foreign currency translation. This growth also included CAD5 billion in risk-weighted assets from the adoption of the first year phase-in of Basel III CVA requirements.

As Brian mentioned earlier, our strong capital position and the confidence in our ability to continue to generate sustainable earnings growth has allowed us to increase our dividend by CAD0.02, or 3%, to CAD0.64 per share. We are also eliminating the discount on our dividend reinvestment plan, which is currently at 2%, effective upon the Q2 dividend payout. We will, however, continue to offer shareholders the opportunity to automatically reinvest their dividends in common shares of the Bank.

Turning now to the business line results, beginning on slide 9. Canadian Banking had a good quarter, with net income of CAD575 million, an increase of 7% from a year earlier. Revenues were also up, 7%.

We continued to see solid loan growth of 5%, despite the headwind of the ING mortgage runoff, with particular strength in credit cards and consumer auto loans. We are seeing good traction from our focus on core deposit gathering, including through our ING Direct channel, resulting in total deposit growth of 5%.

The net interest margin was up 1 basis point sequentially, driven primarily by increasing volumes in higher-spread products. The low rate environment continues to negatively pressure margins.

Credit performance remained stable this quarter, up 1 basis point from last year, as provisions increased 14% to CAD134 million, due mainly to a modest shift in product mix. Expenses increased 6% year over year, primarily from increased compensation, advertising and loyalty program costs, and the full-quarter impact of ING. The productivity ratio improved to 50.3%, benefiting from positive operating leverage.

Turning to the next slide on International Banking. International Banking's net income was down 2% from last year. Revenues were up 6%, as strong loan growth of 17%, particularly in Latin America and Asia, helped mitigate the declines in the net interest margin. There are also higher expenses and higher provisions for credit losses.

On a sequential basis, the net interest margin improved by 3 basis points, as a result of margin improvement in the Latin America region. Provision for credit losses was CAD219 million this quarter, compared to CAD207 million last quarter. However, the PCL ratio remains stable at 87 basis points.

Looking at expenses, expenses grew by 11% year over year, which included the negative impact of foreign currency translation and the acquisition of Credito Familiar. Underlying expenses increased 7%, largely due to higher compensation costs, inflation, and continued reinvestment in the business.

Turning to slide 11. Global Wealth & Insurance reported earnings of CAD327 million, up 15% from last year, due to strong growth in both our wealth and insurance businesses. Revenues were also up, 15%.

In Wealth, assets under management and assets under administration grew 17% and 11%, respectively, driven by growth in mutual fund net sales, improved financial markets, and the acquisition of AFP Horizonte in Peru last year.

In Insurance, we had double-digit revenue growth from last year, due to higher cross-sell success in Canada and stronger sales internationally. Expenses were up 15% from the same quarter last year, due mainly to higher volume and remuneration expenses, driven by business growth and acquisitions. Operating leverage was slightly positive at 0.4% year over year.

Looking at slide 12, Global Banking and Markets net income was down 13% from last year's strong performance, to CAD339 million this quarter, due to challenging conditions in certain capital markets businesses. Year over year, revenues declined 1% as strong revenues from corporate and investment banking in global equities were offset by lower revenues in fixed income and precious metals.

Credit quality remained strong, as provisions for credit losses were low at CAD3 million this quarter. Expenses were up 12% over last year, from higher technology and support costs, and the timing and hedging impacts of certain performance-based and stock-based compensation costs. Compared to the prior quarter, the increase in expenses was entirely due to Q1 seasonality of stock-based compensation accruals. The effective tax rate was also higher this quarter at 28% versus 26% a year ago, due to a higher level of tax recoveries in the prior year.

I'll now turn to the other segment on slide 13 which incorporates the results of group treasury, smaller operating units, and certain corporate adjustments. The results also include the net impact of asset and liability management activities.

The other segment reported net income of CAD13 million this quarter, compared to a net loss of CAD77 million last year, and net income of CAD16 million in the prior quarter. The year-over-year change in the quarter was due mainly to higher securities gains and higher revenues from asset and liability management activities.

This concludes my review of our financial results. I'll now turn it over to Stephen who will discuss risk.

Thanks, Sean. The credit quality of our portfolios remains quite strong. The overall loan loss ratio modestly increased to 34 basis points in the quarter.

Canadian Banking's loss rates were up slightly from historical lows, due mainly to a shift in mix to higher-margin products. International Banking's loss rate remained stable from last quarter. And Global Banking and Markets credit performance continued to be exceptionally strong.

In dollars, the provision for credit losses was CAD356 million, versus CAD310 million last year and CAD321 million in the prior quarter. The increase over the prior quarter was primarily due to higher provisions in Canadian Banking and International Banking's retail portfolios based on our growth initiatives. Net formations of impaired loans in Q1 increased to CAD408 million, driven by retail growth in Peru and Mexico, as well as lower commercial recoveries in Colombia.

Market risk remains well controlled. Our average one-day all-Bank VaR was CAD19.7 million (sic - see slide 15 "CAD19.8 million"), up from CAD17.9 million in the prior quarter, with only two trading loss days in the quarter.

Turning to slide 16, this shows the trend in provisions over the past five quarters for each of our business lines. As you can see, Canadian retail provisions remained relatively stable, although increased from low levels due to volume growth. The overall portfolio quality remains high, with 94% of our assets secured. Canadian commercial provisions also increased modestly, both year over year and quarter over quarter, but remain well below historic norms.

Quarter over quarter, International retail's provisions increased as higher provisions in Mexico were partly offset by lower provisions in the Caribbean and Central American region. International commercial provisions declined from last quarter, with the previously advised higher provisions in Colombia partly offsetting lower commercial provisions in the other countries. We expect provisioning in Colombia to remain elevated for another quarter.

In Global Banking and Markets, credit quality remained strong, with low provisions for credit losses of CAD3 million this quarter, compared to reversals of (inaudible) in the prior quarter.

Slide 17 shows our Canadian Banking residential mortgage portfolio. Our total portfolio of residential retail mortgages is CAD189 billion. Our portfolio continues to be approximately 90% freehold and 10% condo, with approximately 55% of this portfolio insured and the rest uninsured.

The uninsured portfolio has an average loan-to-value ratio of approximately 57%, which is unchanged from prior quarters. The loan to value, credit score mix and delinquency rates for our condo portfolio are not materially different from that of the overall mortgage portfolio.

Credit quality and performance of the residential portfolio remains strong and has been stressed under many severe assumptions, confirming it is well within our risk tolerance. Our disciplined and consistent underwriting standards through all of our origination channels have resulted in particularly low loan losses.

And with that, I'll now turn it back to Sean.

Thanks, Stephen. That concludes our prepared remarks. We will now be pleased to take your questions. Please limit yourself to one question, then rejoin the queue to allow everyone the opportunity to participate.

Operator, can we have the first question on the phone, please?

John Aiken from Barclays.

Good morning. A question for Stephen.

Stephen, in terms of Canadian retail banking provisions, there was an uptick sequentially on personal lending. Can you let us know whether there was any specific portfolio that was driving this?

John, yes, it was basically we're seeing because of our initiatives in the credit cards, which is a higher margin product, but is also a higher loan loss on a bp basis, so between that and the autos, which were both growing strongly, we had a slight uptick, 1 basis point overall.

Thank you very much.

Steve Theriault from Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

A quick question for Anatol. Anatol, I was hoping to get your thoughts on commercial trends.

The regulatory data that we've seen suggests pretty consistent month to month deceleration in commercial loan growth. But we've had mixed messages from peers this quarter so I was hoping you could talk to what you're seeing in your book and your medium-term expectations for growth. Do you see a decelerating trend or an accelerating trend the next even 1 to 2 years?

Let me break that answer up into two types in the commercial portfolio, if we look at the medium to larger loans and then the smaller ones, because we're seeing different trends in them. In the larger portfolio, I'd say we're continuing to see good demand. And I expect that to continue to happen over the course of the next -- we'll speak for the next year or so, the next four quarters.

In the smaller and medium size businesses we're seeing a lot of restructuring where companies are taking their loans and either terming them out. But we're not seeing a lot of growth there. What we have seen is some changing of banks and it really comes down to terms and conditions.

I think we're going to see that's a real reflection of the economy and I think we're going to see some growth there. Our pipelines are still quite good in both segments, but if I had to look forward for a year, I think we'll see more on the larger loans and somewhat less on the medium and smaller ones.

What's your weighting between the large versus medium and small, roughly?

In terms of outstandings?

Yes.

It's about two-thirds, one-third. Two-thirds larger, one-third smaller.

While I have you, if I might, can you tell me what the card growth was year over year for you guys?

We've doubled. In terms of the volume of new credit cards, we're generating about twice as many new credit cards this year over last year. In terms of outstandings, it's somewhat lower. And in terms of purchases through the credit cards it's substantially higher.

So, the outstandings are a touch lower year on year?

No, it's less than double. So, whereas the number of credit cards are doubling, the outstanding isn't at that same pace. But the amount of volume with which those credit cards are purchasing goods is about double.

Thanks, Anatol.

Robert Sedran from CIBC World Markets.

A quick question on the currency translation, for Sean. On page 7 of the report to shareholders, it shows about a CAD0.02 or CAD0.03 impact from currency translation. So, a couple of questions around that.

First, is that just US dollar or is it all currency translation? And can you perhaps talk about how we should think about your US dollar exposure? There's a lot of different areas in which it affects Scotia.

And I'm wondering on the hedging side, as well, if you can just go through how you guys look at the hedging, whether you're hedging income statement or just capital, please?

All right. So on page 7, although we only show the Canadian/US dollar change in exchange rate, the dollar amount we quantify is for all currencies. So that CAD35 million, I think it was, is for all currencies.

Our US currency would be about half of our foreign currency exposure. We would have mostly in International Banking and Global Banking and Markets. A little bit in Wealth but not very much.

In terms of hedging, we look at the earnings both in the subsidiaries and the branches and we hedge a large portion of that at the beginning of the year and as the year progresses. In terms of the hedging of our net investment position in our subsidiaries, that is also hedged to really try to mitigate the capital ratio volatility. So, as you may see, our capital ratios moved only about 5 basis points because of foreign exchange, notwithstanding the large foreign currency changes.

Sean, if I think about the income statement impact then, you've got hedges in place, so the currencies move quite rapidly. Is this something that will then bleed in over the year or is it longer or shorter than that?

If rates stay generally where they're at, at January 31 for the balance of the year, we would expect to see a slightly higher number than the number you saw in Q1, that CAD35 million, a bit higher than that for the remaining three quarters of the year.

Thank you.

Michael Goldberg from Desjardins Securities.

You had CAD252 million of gross formations in international. How much of that was in the Caribbean? And can you also comment on how stressed credit quality may be in the Caribbean now?

Maybe, Mike, I'll start that. It's Dieter Jentsch here and then Steve, you can add to it. The Caribbean had a reduction in our loan losses this quarter, and it's from moving our loans of historical. We actually have a very solid position in our retail portfolios in the Caribbean.

Most of the increase in international came from retail and came from Mexico and Peru. And in Peru there was a change in the credit card legislation which required people to make the minimum principal payments, and resulted in some increase in PCLs along with growth.

And in Mexico, we launched an unsecured product and we brought up the allowances in line with the new product offering on a risk-adjusted return. It's performing well but we need to bring over allowances to take into account the unsecured nature of the product.

I was actually asking about the gross formations of CAD252 million. If you could tell me about that in the Caribbean.

Yes. Most of that was on the retail side. The commercial portfolio in the Caribbean has actually stabilized and we're continuing to see new interest, new money coming into the region. So most of that was showing up for international retail.

Our commercial portfolio, the formations were mainly, the largest ones were down in Colombia, which we had mentioned before. We had a couple that we're still cleaning up from the acquisition of a year ago.

So nothing really serious for you in the Caribbean?

Definitely not, no.

Okay. And can you just comment about credit quality? Because it seems like there is some -- some of your peers are showing more negative trends in credit quality in the Caribbean.

I would go back to this. We've actually seen, Michael, some increased international interest in the Caribbean, money flowing back into the Caribbean.

We've taken conservative positions over a period of time in the Caribbean. And, quite frankly, as I mentioned earlier, we're actually seeing our delinquent numbers and our loan loss ratio fall in the Caribbean. And our experience in the Caribbean is playing out the way we anticipated.

Thank you.

Peter Routledge from National Bank Financial.

A quick question for Sean or maybe Jeff Heath, if he's there, on the other segment. Just looking at the net interest income line, and it's going from a significant cost and now it's trending -- it's a revenue contributor. So can you give us a little color what's driving that and how sustainable it is?

I'll give some color on that. The other segment is the residual of what gets allocated out to various business lines. One of the things that has been occurring over the past year is, some of the higher cost term debt that was put on just after the crisis five years ago is now paying off, and being replaced with much lower cost debt.

And as the assets of that original debt was funding have been refinanced over the last couple of years, i.e. mostly mortgages, then that cost, that higher cost was being borne in the other segment. So as that higher cost debt burns off, then that's a benefit to the other segment.

So a lot of that has now been burnt off so you won't see the same lift. There will be a bit more lift next quarter but nowhere near the same lift year over year as we saw this quarter.

And, as well, the subordinated debentures, which are at a higher cost, we had some maturities maturing last year, which also reduces the cost that's left behind in the other segment.

Okay. Thanks very much.

Darko Mihelic from RBC Capital Markets.

Also a question with respect to your supplemental. So I'm going to take you to two different pages, actually. On page 5 with the International Banking, there's some significant growth in the other assets.

And also, as well, on page 7, similarly with the Global Banking and Markets, there was also very large growth in others assets quarter over quarter. I realize there's probably going to be some FX in there. I'm just curious what these assets are and how important they are to the net interest margin?

A good portion of those assets relate to -- we have a significant deposit from our pension fund in Peru and we would have put them in securities as we wait for the outcome of the pension funds investment. About CAD1.2 billion of those assets accrue on our balance sheet and would be put in the other category.

The other assets in the Global Banking markets, I think that's the deposit mark-to-market on derivatives, which moves around a lot, as you know. And foreign currency would have a big part of that because many of the swaps in that would be foreign currency-based, as well.

Just a follow-up, why are those not included -- on the international side, why wouldn't it be included in the investment securities portfolio?

We're not sure on that exact point. We'll get back to you on that, Darko.

Thank you.

[Manny Grummond] from Cormark Securities.

I just had a question about two of the more difficult regions that you operate in, less important areas for you. But otherwise wondering about Thailand specifically and the impact of the civic unrest there on your business, on your interest there? And also you have an interest in a Venezuelan bank, and the situation there seems to be getting from bad to worse. And I'm wondering what your thoughts are there in that country specifically?

It's Dieter Jentsch here. First of all, in Venezuela, the situation, as we all read in the media, is troubling in Venezuela. We have a very good bank that is still performing well, interestingly enough, notwithstanding the turmoil.

We're not quite sure how this is going to play out. Our net equity exposure's about CAD200 million, so we have a relatively small investment in Venezuela. And, at this point, the prognosis of Venezuela is uncertain at best. Meanwhile, our bank there continues to perform, as I mentioned, reasonably well, given the circumstances.

Moving to Thailand, Thailand as we all know is undergoing some uncertain times with the economy, certainly pulled back a lot in the last two quarters of the fiscal year. There's been some positive news where the various parties are now talking about how to resolve this issue. And there's no doubt that at this point we do not know how long this will be prolonged in terms of the discussions.

Meanwhile, the economy, as I mentioned, has slowed. The country remains in a highly -- from a banking point, very liquid. Our bank there is very liquid and continues to operate in a satisfactory manner.

The outlook, in terms of going forward, depends, of course, on when we have the government return back to a more normalized operating mode. And we anticipate if it's prolonged it could impact us up to CAD10 million a quarter going forward until this is resolved.

Thank you.

Sumit Malhotra from Scotiabank.

My first question is for Dieter Jentsch in regards to the International net interest margin.

Dieter, you'd given us some pretty specific reasons last quarter or last two quarters for the NIM compression and why you thought some of those should be able to turn around as we saw in a small way this quarter. Do you feel that there's a few more of those levers that you're able to pull in regards to NIM in Q1? Is there more left in that area to see that margin continue to expand as 2014 progresses? Or is it more macro-driven at this point?

As you can see, our margins have stabilized and we're up modestly this quarter, about 3 or 4 basis points. And we continue to see and anticipate our margins to improve from where we are currently to about the 4% range.

It is fair to say, though, there will be headwinds for the remainder of the year, as we work through some of our asset allocation and some of the interest rate drops we had in the various markets. But we believe we are at a level set and moving forward to in the range between where we are to 4%.

Thanks for that. And then very quickly for Brian on capital.

Certainly a very good turnaround for the Bank from where it was, the capital ratio was a few years back. And wanted to talk to you about deployment versus the regulatory environment. We've heard about the buffer that may be required over the 8% OSFI floor. You've certainly got a decent one right now.

So wanted to ask you, do you feel that it's more prudent in the environment we're in right now to maintain the capital position at this elevated level? Or the reference that the Bank has made to buybacks being part of the tool kit, is that a tool that you're ready to take out of the box right now or would you prefer to maintain capital at a heftier buffer?

Sumit, as you said, we made a lot of headway on common equity Tier 1. We're up 120 basis points year over year. We like how we're positioned here. It provides the Bank some optionality.

And, as you know, acquisitions have been part of the Bank's strategy from time to time, as we've been opportunistic. So we like where we are and we'll monitor accordingly. And as I said in the last call, we like to have buybacks in the kit bag, and, again, that provides us optionality.

Thanks.

Mario Mendonca from TD Securities.

A question on, Brian, your comment about getting to positive operating leverage in international in 2014. Is there anything specific you can offer in how you get there? Is it more on the expense side, revenue side, both? That's the first part of the question.

The second sort of related is, you refer to inflation as being an issue in terms of driving higher expenses year over year. Is there any reason why inflation would have a more meaningful impact on the expense line and not impact, say, for example, the revenue line?

Good question. I was in Mexico the week before last. Inflation in Mexico is running at 3.5%, 4%, and that gets embedded in your cost structure of any bank. Inflation rates are somewhat a little lower in Colombia and Peru and Chile, but there's still evidence. So that's a reality of operating in these different economies.

But you've heard us say, too, we're seeing it in terms of asset growth where we see, if we have GDP in a country of 4% or 5%, we expect to see asset growth of 2 to 2.2 times that in terms of loan growth over a period of time. So, you do make up for it on the asset side, or at least there's some congruency there.

Just go back -- your first question again?

The reference to positive operating leverage in International for 2014 just seemed positive and ambitious, particularly in the context of the negative 5% operating leverage this quarter. So it would be helpful to understand what gives you that confidence?

Dieter and his group have been working on their structural costs. As you know, we've been acquisitive throughout the region and we've acquired a lot of different businesses over time. And we're working on a number of efficiency exercises, whether it's data centers or contact centers, and just making the whole operation become more efficient. Dieter, you might want to add.

I think if you were to look at this quarter and you were to adjust for foreign exchange and the sale of the nonstrategic business that we had in Q4 of last year, which is about CAD25 million, if you adjust for those, International, in fact, had flat operating leverage. To Brian's point, if you look at the complexity and breadth of our business, we can anticipate we're going to have some quarters of negative operating leverage, but we have a target of positive operating leverage by the end of this year.

We are undertaking a series of initiatives and a framework to deal with our core structural costs, dealing with our platforms, consolidating our platforms in Latin America, looking at how we combine some of the back office processes. And it's really focused on moving our structural costs down over the next 2 to 3 years. But certainly, I want to reiterate that we continue to have a target of positive operating leverage by the end of this year.

And just for perfect clarity, when you say positive operating leverage, I want to make sure you mean for the full year 2014 and not, say, by the end of the year in Q4.

I mean for the full year by 2014.

Thank you.

John Aiken from Barclays.

Good morning. A follow-up for Anatol.

Anatol, we got Dieter's viewpoint on the outlook for net interest margins. But what's the outlook for your operations? And can we see any additional benefit coming through from ING or is that largely played out?

Two things. One, in terms of, as we look for the Canadian Bank on the margin, I think you've seen it stabilize. We've had a small increase quarter over quarter, and also if you look at us year over year for the quarter. I think that's where we're going to see it.

We're seeing pressure on the deposit side. The loan side, particularly on the mortgages, there's still a little bit of room. A lot of it will depend on how the spring mortgage sale period goes forward.

But I think you'll see it stable. I don't think you'll see any big changes.

Anatol, on the deposits, is there any particular pressure between personal or commercial?

No, I'd say we're sensing small business commercial and on the retail side. It's a lot more visible I think in the retail segment. But the pressure's there. It's back to the traditional all-out fight on the street for the deposits, for the business.

Great. Thanks, Anatol.

Michael Goldberg from Desjardins Securities.

Thank you. Brian, you were talking about emerging markets and there was increased uncertainty in the past quarter. Does this represent increased opportunity for Scotia? And what emerging markets in particular look interesting to you?

As Dieter said, and his team is very focused on our principal markets of Mexico, Peru, Colombia and Chile, because we're working on different efficiencies exercises in all those markets. As I said, we've been very acquisitive and we think that there's work to be done on our cost structure there. And we see tremendous growth opportunities in those marketplaces.

And as you know, Michael, you've watched this bank over a long period of time, we have the tendency to be opportunistic from time to time. And if we see something that looks interesting that's on strategy, we'll take a good, hard look at it.

I'm sure you're not going to tell us any specifics but do you see any particular opportunities at this time that you could potentially be acting on over the next one or two quarters?

No. It's consistent with the theme you've heard from the Bank before, Michael, is that it's not just the international business. We see opportunities in the Global Wealth & Insurance business from time to time. And, as you know, we were acquisitive in that business last year. The phone continues to ring and there will continue to be opportunities within our footprint.

Okay. Thank you.

Darko Mihelic from RBC Capital Markets.

Thank you. I apologize if I missed this. I just wanted to revisit the Colombia, the remark you made during the opening statements about elevated for another quarter in terms of loan loss provisions. Why is it going to remain elevated and why should we think of it as elevated for just one more quarter?

As you know, we picked up our Colombian operations a little over a year ago. And we've been going through the portfolio in a more intensive manner, facility by facility.

So, as that's happened, the formations have occurred over the last six months. And as we take a look and look at action plans for these formations, that usually results in the provisioning coming through. So that's just the natural process of taking over a new operation.

Okay. And maybe one last follow-up for Dieter. With the concerns emerging in emerging markets, we could see your quarterly results in terms of asset growth.

But I wanted to ask if you'd seen anything recently on the ground with respect to business confidence, or any change in consumer behavior as a result of these concerns, or if it's still not reflected at all with your customers?

When we look at -- and Brian mentioned this in his opening comments -- the markets where we predominantly our business is in, those economies of Chile, Peru, Colombia and Mexico are all continue to expected to perform well in 2013 and 2014. And, in fact, in Mexico, you've seen a much renewed level of confidence as the government now takes full hold of some of its reforms.

Our projections from growth and what we've heard from the business community tend to be very positive, still sitting anywhere from 3.5% to 5%, depending on the economy. So, to your question, we have not heard any negative underlying themes. And quite the contrary, it tends to be very positive.

Darko, I was just going to add to that. I was in Mexico two weeks ago on the Prime Minister's visit there. With the structural reforms in the economy, whether it's labor reform, fiscal reform, energy reform, there's a lot of potential for Canadian business there, and that was reflected in that trip.

I you would also say -- and I'm a frequent visitor to Mexico, I'm there three or four times a year -- the amount of investment we're seeing in Brazil and Mexico or Chile and Colombia throughout this footprint is significant and continuing to grow.

Okay. Thanks very much.

Peter Routledge from National Bank Financial.

A follow-up for Sean just on the other segment. On the other operating income line, you adjust for the taxable equivalent adjustment. It looks like that line's had a big ramp-up the last couple of quarters.

If you can quantify what securities gains might be in that number, and what's the sustainability of those gains through the balance of this year?

The security gains would be the largest component of that other operating income. I would say about 60% of the security gains this quarter were in the other segments. A higher percentage last quarter.

In terms of sustainability, we've seen very good equity markets. We would expect security gains to be somewhat elevated again next quarter. That's about as much color as I can give on that.

Okay. Thanks very much

We have no more questions.

Okay. Thank you for all participating and we look forward to talking to you next quarter. Thank you.

This concludes the conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now all disconnect.