On the mode. However, you'll have an opportunity to ask questions at the end of the call. This can be done by pressing star one on your telephone keypad to register your questions. If you require assistance at any point, please press star zero and you'll be connected to an operator. I will now hand over the call to your host, Robert Swaak, to begin today's conference. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our Q1 results, joined by Ferdinand Vaandrager, our CFO, and Caroline Oosterloo, our interim CRO. I'll update you on the main topics for the quarter. As usual, we'll be happy to take a Q&A at the end. Let me first take you through the highlights of Q1 on slide two. We had a very strong start to the year with a net profit of €674 million and a return on equity of 11.6%. Business momentum remained good. Both our mortgage portfolio as well as our corporate loan will grow. Net interest income is resilient as we still benefit from the current interest rate environment. Compared to the same period last year, our fee income went up by 6%, driven by good performance of all client units. Our credit quality remained solid. We saw limited impairments.
We maintain a strong capital position with Basel III CET1 ratios of 13.8% and a Basel IV ratio of around 14%. We continue to focus on the optimization of our capital position, pleased to have finalized our third share buyback in the beginning of May. Let's turn to slide 3, where I'd like to say a few words on the progress of our strategy. Over the past 200 years, we've always been an enterprising bank with a wealth of expertise, always putting our clients' interests first. Our new brand promise For every new beginning, which we launched in March, projects this history effectively into the future. With our brand promise, we aim to evoke the excitement of beginning. We put our clients' mindset and their challenges first and promise to be ready with all our expertise in whatever way we can support them best.
To live up to this promise, we are focused on being a personal bank in the digital age with a clear license to grow. As you know, sustainability has always been at the heart of our strategy. We set climate targets for two more sectors, agriculture and inland shipping. That means that 68% of our total loan portfolio is now covered. We're working hard to set targets for the additional sectors, all of which is in line with our NZBA commitment. The ongoing improvements we've made in the mortgage customer journey have contributed to a market share and new production of 19% in Q1. This made us market leader, held by a strong position in the first-time buyer market, an important strategic client group for us. We aim to support our clients at all important financial steps in their life.
Buying your first house, for example, is an important milestone for all our clients. Supporting them in this decision is often the beginning of a strong and trusted relationship. All that we're doing in a Dutch economy, which we talk about on slide 4. Overall, the Dutch economy does remain resilient. Unemployment is still low. The housing market is increasingly buoyant. Consumer spending is holding up. Manufacturers are getting more optimistic. The Dutch manufacturing industry even seems to recover faster than in adjacent countries. Looking ahead, our economic bureau expects that economic growth will slowly increase, driven by domestic demand. With interest rates expected to drop in the second half of the year, making financing of investments easier, we expect growth to pick up further. House prices have started to rise again. We're almost back to the record level of July 2022.
Our economic bureau has revised their house price forecast, upwards from 4%-6% for this year. The prospect of interest rate cuts and higher wages has helped sentiment among house buyers. The number of transactions is also on the rise. It is expected to remain subdued for a while as supply does remain limited, also due to lagging new construction. Turning to our first quarter performance on slide 5. As I mentioned earlier, our market share of new production in the Dutch mortgage market rose to 19%, leading to EUR 800 million growth in the mortgage portfolio. That indeed is healthy business momentum, also for our corporate loans in Northwest Europe. That continued. We welcomed new clients in our focus segments, new energies, digital, and mobility. The downward trend in consumer lending continued, driven by runoff of several products and lower client demand from stricter lending criteria.
Looking at our client deposits, we saw a decrease this quarter, mostly in current accounts. This drop was mainly in January, as some of our retail and private banking clients faced payment requirements for taxes, dividend payouts, and invoices, for example, at the beginning of the year. We also saw some further migration to term deposits. The outflow of client money to other banks remains very limited. Our total deposits actually went up due to an increase in professional deposits. Now, this mainly reflects movements at clearing as clients brought down their position towards year-end and reversed this in Q1. Turning to slide 6 on our NII. We saw that NII improved in Q1. Our treasury result benefited from the current interest rate environment, margins on our assets, as well as deposits. It declined somewhat this quarter.
The latter was driven by migration from current accounts into professional and time deposits. At current interest rate levels, it does remain beneficial for clients to move cash into term deposits. Given the current interest rate environment, we are confident to reach our guidance of around EUR 6.3 billion net NII for 2024. Now, this is based on an expectation that our treasury result will improve in the second half of the year. This will be partly offset by gradual normalization of deposit margins and some limited asset margin pressure. Turning to fee income on slide 7. Again, a good start of the year for fees with an increase of 6% compared to the same period last year. This increase was driven by all client units. Retail banking fees increased due to higher payment volumes and the increased pricing of payment packages as of the start of the year.
Fees at wealth management benefited from the continuation of the good performance of equity markets, leading to higher assets under management. This quarter, we also saw an increase in net new assets, driven by around EUR 800 million inflow in securities. At corporate banking, we had a successful first quarter in capital markets, which led to high fee income. Looking at other income, which is volatile by nature, we saw an increase compared to Q4 last year. We booked higher asset and liability management results at treasury. XVA results were higher also. Turning to slide 8 on costs. Now, we will continue to remain focused on cost discipline. As you can see, our underlying costs, so excluding regulatory levies and incidentals, came down from the elevated Q4 cost level.
Now, in addition to the cost discipline, this was partly related to high consultancy and marketing costs in Q4, latter related to the launch of our new brand promise. As we mentioned last quarter, we do expect costs to increase during 2024 from additional investments. We continue to upscale our resources, especially for data capabilities and regulatory programs. Also, our CLA is up for renewal at the end of June. So given these developments, we expect a full-year 2024 cost to lend at around EUR 5.3 billion. Turning to slide 9 on impairments. Credit quality remains solid with limited impairments of EUR 3 million. Inflow in stage 3 was mainly in our corporate loan book and somewhat higher than we've seen in previous quarters. This was not in one specific sector and was largely offset by stage 1 and 2 releases from improved macroeconomic scenarios.
Additionally, we had a small release of management overlays related to products and runoff. We still have prudent management overlays in place, currently around EUR 250 million. As we mentioned in Q4 last year, we expect a gradual normalization of impairments this year. So the full-year cost of risk is expected to be at the lower end of our through-the-cycle cost of risk of 15 to 20 basis points. Now, this actually does underline the good quality of our loan book and the de-risking that we've done over the past years. So then turning to capital. Our Basel III CET1 capital ratio stands at 13.8%. And we continue to be well capitalized with 320 basis points headroom above our MDA. We said in February, we have largely addressed our AT1 shortfall through a successful issuance of new EUR 750 million AT1 instrument. Moving to RWAs.
RWAs increased by EUR 4 billion in the quarter, mainly reflecting a rise in credit risk RWAs and to a lesser extent, higher operational RWAs. Now, the increase in the credit risk RWA can be largely explained by two drivers. Firstly, we took EUR 1.7 billion model-related add-ons as part of an ongoing effort to simplify our model landscape. And secondly, we saw a reversal of the year-end balance sheet reduction of clients at clearing, leading to a seasonal business growth in Q1. Our CET1 capital remained stable despite our strong first quarter profit, as it was impacted by approximately EUR 300 million of capital deductions. Looking forward, we see upside as we progress on our data capabilities. And downside can still come from further model-related add-ons. Our Basel IV CET1 ratio declined in Q1 more or less in line with Basel III and is now around 14%.
We still expect that the implementation of Basel IV will have a favorable effect on our CET1 ratio. So let me wrap up. We had a strong start of the year with an ROE of 11.6%. We were market-leading in mortgages and also saw growth in our corporate loan book. Both our NII and fee income were strong this quarter. We remain committed to cost discipline. A solid risk profile and the resilient Dutch economy have led to limited impairments in Q1. We continue to focus on the optimization of our capital position. We're fully committed to generating and returning surplus equity to shareholders in combination with targeted growth. So with that, I would like to ask the operator to open the call for questions. Operator, if you can open the call.
Sure. Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. We will take the first question from line Giulia Miotto from Morgan Stanley. That line is open now. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning. Two questions from me. The first one on capital. Would you have more visibility now versus what you had in Q4 to sort of guide us to when the end of these model updates can be? So what sort of order of magnitude do you still have coming? And how can these model updates also impact Basel IV ratio so much? Because I thought part of this process was to prepare ABN to Basel IV and sort of front-loading. But they seem to also impact Basel IV. So this is my first question on capital. And then secondly, on the NII guidance, EUR 6.3 despite the better curve versus Q4, is this conservative? Or is this because maybe, I don't know, deposit migration is worse than what you were expecting?
Is there any sort of negative compensating the better curve versus the previous time you gave the guidance? Thank you.
Thank you, Giulia . Let's turn it over to you to take NII, and Caroline Oosterloo wants to comment on capital. Go ahead, Caroline.
Yeah. So thank you for the question. And understandable question. So I think there are two elements to the CET1 ratio, of course, the capital side and the RWA side. And let me for now focus on the latter. So we are continuing, as also announced before, to simplify our model landscape and to review our models. And that will be continuing. There are upside and downsides to this. So there are upsides when we have improved our model landscape—sorry, our data landscape. And we have downside if we have to take add-ons for reviews of our model landscape. We have anticipated by moving certain portfolios to less sophisticated approaches, indeed, for Basel IV. And some of the add-ons we have taken will count through to Basel IV. Others will not, as they will be absorbed by the floors in Basel IV.
Yeah. And then Giulia, hi , good morning. And then coming back to your question on NII. We're confident with the guidance we provided at Q4. And that was given at the then-current interest rate outlook as the start of February. If you look at the underlying trends for this quarter, treasury results quarter-over-quarter net up. So there you still see really the benefit from higher interest rates and also less steering cost, specifically for our mortgage portfolio. Deposit income was slightly down. But as Robert said already in his opening remarks, the outflow we've seen in current accounts were mainly seasonal Q1-related, as you normally see payments at year-end, tax payments, and also dividend distributions. And then lastly, the asset side of the balance sheet, we are becoming definitely a bit more optimistic on the back of the economic outlook. So mortgage market is stronger.
Our market share was 19%, so market leader in new production. Also on the corporate side, you see a reasonably well-filled pipeline. The only thing still on the asset side is the consumer loans, where we still have some portfolios in rundown. To conclude here, we're confident with the outlook we provided. Let's see how the year develops before potentially updating our guidance, Giulia.
Understood. Thank you.
Thank you, Giulia .
Thank you. We will take the next question from line Sam Moorhead from Barclays. The line is open now. Please go ahead.
Hi. Morning. Thanks. Two questions, unfortunately, on the same topics as Julia asked. So firstly, on the RWA developments interquarter, I understand that EUR 1.4 billion of that is due to the seasonal Q1 rebound of the clearing business. So am I correct that we should assume in Q4 this year, the majority of that would reverse as you get the other side of the seasonal impact and that your capital return announcements with Q4 results will be based on that Q4 CET1 ratio? And then secondly, on the NII, you've noted that you were the market leader for new production this quarter. Should we read into that that your pricing has been more competitive? And then perhaps more broadly, could you expand a bit more on your outlook for lending margins going forward? Thanks very much.
Yeah. Thanks for the question. I think we'll give a short answer on your first question. Yeah, you should expect to see that reverse. And when we determine our share buybacks, we will then absolutely take the CET1 ratios that are relevant at that time to come to decision on share buybacks. I think on NII, we can confirm that we've been competitive in the pricing. But what we always do in terms of our pricing points determination is that we look at, one, market share as an objective. But at the same time, what we don't want to do is sacrifice margins if it does not contribute to our overall position of our mortgage book. So you should look at this as a very dynamic process in which we have indeed been extremely active.
And this has now been ongoing for a number of quarters on what I would call very active pricing continuously. And it actually proves not only the maturity of our ability to act in that market, but it also, what it again proves, is the deep knowledge we have of the client base but also our knowledge of our intermediaries. And that allows us to price very actively. And therefore, now get to a market share that we're extremely happy with.
Yeah. And maybe Sam, to add to that, if you look at the new production, we've been in the segments where a big part of the growth was that was in the five-year segment and also the starters. And that's where we priced competitively. And if you look at the new production for us, EUR 3.9 billion in the quarter, that was up 16% versus the previous quarter. And you still see limited redemptions. In terms of pricing, you do start seeing that front-book margins are actually at the same level or slightly higher than our overall backbook in a more stabilized rate environment. But we do still see some outflow of higher margin mortgages. But the picture in terms of margin, yes, we price competitively. But overall, the margin is starting to bottom out.
Great. Thank you.
Thanks, Sam.
Thank you. We will take the next question from Farquhar Murray from Autonomous. The line is open now. Please go ahead.
Morning all. Just two questions about that. Firstly, with regards to capital modeling, it was made very clear that we should expect a kind of mix of add-ons and mitigations to come this year. On cue, it's obviously a bit more add-ons and deductions. So I just wondered if you could give a sense of what we might expect from here to the year-end just in terms of net outcome. And then more broadly, just on the data mitigation exercises, are those on track versus where you thought we were to be at the start of the year? And then secondly, there was a report from the CBRE on Monday on potential repayments of overpaid rent. And potentially, there's read-across from that into the buy-to-let market. I just wondered if you could frame the size of your buy-to-let mortgage book. I think it's actually quite small.
And also maybe the underwriting characteristics of that book. I kind of suspect the LTVs are probably lower than primary residences. But I just wouldn't mind checking. Thanks.
Yeah. Thanks for the question, Caroline.
Yeah.
Do you see the capital unfairly on the buy-to-let?
Yeah. So first, your question on the data mitigation, if these activities are on track, these are on track. Then the capital deductions and RWA add-ons. Maybe good to explain a little bit more about the capital deductions and how that works. So we have seen regular capital deductions, mainly in NPE deductions and in IRB shortfall calculations. They're just due to normal movements in our portfolio. We see these each quarter. They can come up, and they can come down. And then we have an impact that is related specifically to moving our large corporate portfolio to a less sophisticated approach. You can see that in the Pillar 3 report that we moved that portfolio, anticipating Basel IV to foundation.
I think that's a good example where the treatment under Basel IV is more positive as the prescribed LGD percentages are lower under Basel IV than they are under Basel III.
Okay. Thanks, Caroline.
Yeah. And Farquhar, you read the newspapers well. The case is not new. This is on the back of a CBRE study against the sort of residential rent increases and potential overpayments there. So this is specifically for the houses in the private sector. As you say, mitigant here for us, buy-to-let, is a very small part. And as you mentioned already, the LTV there is significantly lower as well. And if you look at the very short supply in the market and rising house prices, I would say there is a limited risk. But for us, let's wait for the Supreme Court to see if we're actually going to see a ruling against these so-called arbitrary indexation over the past few years. But I expect limited impact of this for ABN AMRO.
Great. Thanks, Bob.
Thank you.
Thank you. We will take the next question from line Kiri Vijayarajah, from HSBC. The line is open now. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning, everyone. A couple of questions from my side. So firstly, on the current account outflows, it sounds like they were already factored into your NII guidance for the full year. So all kind of anticipated there. But my question is more is what proportion of those outflows from current accounts have you been able to recapture on the AUM and fee side? And is there kind of a little bit more momentum to come through, particularly as interest rate cuts come through at the back end of this year? And then just coming back to the treasury NII result, it sounds like that's remaining stronger for longer than you previously guided. I just wondered, is there any feel for what's the capital or RWAs associated with those treasury revenues?
Does the capital consumption in treasury eventually come down as the NII contribution also comes down at some point next year? Just sort of line of sight on how the treasury balance sheet and capital might move going forward. Thank you.
Freddie.
Yeah. Let's start with your first question, Kiri, that is related to the seasonal outflow. Overall, it's a normal trend you see. It is not only the higher number of invoices and tax payments or dividend distribution. It is also what you see for tax reasons that customers switch into savings out of investments and then switch back at the start of the year. So clearly, underlying here, if you look at net new assets, we have been able to recap some of that outflow in current accounts into our net new assets in wealth management. If you look at the overall migration within our deposits, as signaled already at Q4, we really expect that to slow down. So you still saw some migration towards term deposits.
But with the current outlook in rates and for us also lowering our contribution on term deposits, I really think the mix will not really change from here. Then your question on the overall treasury results. It's very difficult to look ahead because it's really an overall portfolio where all our hedging is done. And also you have in there your steering cost, for example, for your mortgage portfolio. As we say here, you can sort of, if you look at the specific equity mismatch results, it's a sort of portfolio with a duration up until 3-4 years. So there we really expect the current interest rate curve to be supportive throughout the rest of the year. Any sort of potential capital RWA related to those revenues, yeah, that is clearly fairly limited. But that's not something we disclose here.
Yeah. Okay. That's helpful. Thank you, guys.
Can I ask you a question?
Thank you. We will take the next question from line Johan Ekblom from UBS. The line is open now. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Maybe first just to come back to the capital. I think Giulia asked if you could quantify kind of the headwinds from model changes. I don't know if you did. Just see if we can get any more steering on kind of how much further you expect. Then maybe related to the capital, I mean, given where your average risk rates are today, there should be quite a lot of capital optimization. SRTs is all the hype at the moment. You haven't used any as far as I can see. Why not use significant risk transfers to at least bridge the gap between Basel III and Basel IV and not show this recurring pressure on your capital ratios? That's the first question.
And then the second, just to pick up on what you said in the answer to the last question, if I look at the net new assets in wealth management, you had 10% net inflows in the quarter, so 40% annualized. How's that possible organically? Or is there anything funny going on there?
Okay. I'll ask Freddie now to take the NII. And on your two questions on models, just let me maybe put a little more clarification on this. It is hard to quantify. We've always said we will continue to upgrade our models, simplify our model landscape. I think in previous calls, we indicated that the majority of RWAs taken are well behind us. And what you're seeing is actually the effect of us continuing to do so. That goes hand in hand with what Caroline already talked about, the data remediation that we undertake as we review models. And that means that it's hard for us to guide on what and therefore to give you quantification. As we said, the majority of RWAs take-ons should be behind us given we've been at this for quite some time.
We've always said it could well be that we would expect some RWA growth to continue. The optimization that you talked about, RWA optimization, clearly, that's something that we will utilize as we steer the business going forward and as we have been doing. It means that we will continue to look for ways to optimize but also to use the allocated RWAs in the business itself. That is a process that we have ongoing in the relevant parts of the bank. We will continue to execute that portfolio allocation very diligently. On NNA, Freddie?
Yeah. Yeah. On NNA, if you look at the total assets, that can be volatile because that can be related to short-term custody, for example, related to M&A transactions or other elements in there. So the two elements in there are, number one, clearly, a good market performance. So you see a rise in total assets. And secondly, you will see shorter-term volatility on the back of short-term custody accounts. Underlying asset, net new asset, you saw some outflowing cash and inflowing securities. So we see that as a positive trend.
But maybe just to follow up, I mean, the largest increase you've had in the last five years is EUR 2.6 billion in wealth management. And it's EUR 19.7 billion this quarter. So I mean, this is not normal volatility, right?
Yes. It's 19. So this is specifically related to very short-term custody money, Johan. So this is really a one-off. And for example, cash to finance an M&A transaction by a wealth client, as an indication. So this can be volatile. But most likely, we will not see it again next quarter.
But we should assume there's a big negative next quarter then?
Yes. Correct, Johan.
Okay. And then just on the capital, I mean, maybe it's for you to take away and think about. But I mean, when you say the majority is behind us, I mean, you have EUR 55 billion or EUR 53 billion of add-ons now. It'd be really helpful to get a sense of if the majority does that mean 10 is left? Or does it mean 40 is left, right? So if we can maybe try and get some better steer on not an exact number but just the order of magnitude of headwinds that we face because it's clearly a key input into capital return and ROE assumptions, etc., which look increasingly stretched after today's results.
I appreciate that question very much, Johan. We'll see what we can do. What we are trying to do is be as clear as we can be given what we know today. But your question is fair. We'll take that into consideration if there's any further clarification or quantification, I think, is a better word, to give.
Thank you.
Thank you. We will take the next question from line Guillaume Tiberghien again from BNP Paribas Exane. The line is open now. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you very much. The first question, sorry about that, is still, again, about the RWA add-on. The question, I guess, the way I would phrase it is to say we don't really understand how fast they go up, how far they will go up. And maybe when they start going backwards. Is it going to be also a question of we won't know how low they will go and how far they will go down, all these add-ons? Because you seem to have suggested that there's going to be some mitigation. So I think trying to understand whether the 51 of Q4 is definitely the end game, that would be useful. The second question is relating to the year-end buyback. Will it be driven by the Basel IV equity tier one? Because ultimately, you will announce the buyback based on Q4 results, which is Basel III.
But we will already be in a Basel IV world by the time you announce it. And I guess, joined to that question, do you expect to build capital from the level of Q1 level at 13.8?
Yeah. Thank you very much for the question. Very understandable. Let me take your second question. I'll ask Caroline to comment on your first question. So when we determine our share-based buyback, that will—sorry, share buyback—that will be based on our capital framework. Our capital framework we've utilized is a threshold, which we've identified, of 13.5% Basel IV. So that will be our reference. So we will be using a Basel IV as we have been very clear about what our capital framework actually is like. You're absolutely right. This is a first quarter that we're now looking at. We've seen a very strong result coming into the quarter. As you look at our guidance and also, we have the outlook for the rest of the year, we continue to see ample opportunity for capital generation. That's something to not forget.
As we navigate a full year, by the time we will determine share buyback. So I would definitely confirm that we're looking at capital generation for the duration of the year. And then maybe, Caroline, you can give a bit more color on the RWAs ups and downs.
Well, Robert, you said on the earlier question that we can't quantify exactly. You asked about, I think, the timing also of the upward and the downward movement. That is actually not easy to predict. When we do model reviews, it takes a long throughput time until we know the final impact, which we will then take immediately. When we improve our data, we can only take it when we know the complete impact. It flows through our models. So there is this timing issue that is difficult to predict. What we do guide, and I think that gives some more clarity, is that we expect that the Basel IV CET1 ratio is favorable to the Basel III ratio.
Maybe if I can rephrase, let's assume your add-ons go to 70 just for the point of the exercise. Then they're going to start going down. Are we going to stop at 50? Or are we going to be surprised that maybe they'll end up only at 40, for example?
As understandable as your question is, I think that's a very difficult question to answer. We need to have more visibility, as Caroline has said, as we undertake these reviews. But I think it's important just to keep in the back of your mind that as we determine our capital framework and we determine our guidance over the course of the year, as we discussed also in Q4, there is a view that we have as we develop our models. And there is a commitment on our side to share buybacks. We've talked about this before. And I think we've executed that also over the last couple of years. So we will take into consideration the question of is there any more specifics that we can give on RWA movement?
At this point, just given exactly as Caroline has said, I think, as we also said in the previous quarter, it does take some time to actually get these models either validated or the analysis completed. It is very difficult to give you right now, as I would call it, the up or down movement that you've requested. But we absolutely appreciate the question. And we'll see what we can do in terms of a bit more granular information on this as we get more sight on the space.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. We will take the next question from line Tarik El Mejjad from BofA. The line is open now. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning, everyone. Just a few questions from my side. The first one, I'll be back on NII. So if you take the moving parts for NII, I mean, I'm really struggling with the EUR 6.3 billion. So I want to clarify where the swing factor is. And I think the treasury reserves is where you could miss or achieve the guidance. So can you give us comfort on why you think this will be higher? Because the funding costs should go down should go up because you expect volumes to go up. And then the rates will come down. So what makes you confident that these will remain high? And can you confirm that my view that, I mean, asset spreads still under pressure, volumes yes, you argue volumes are going up.
But actually, when you take the corporate mortgage and netted off lower consumer, it's up 0.4% quarter-over-quarter. And then you have the replicated portfolio, the short part of it that actually will become a headwind. So can you just maybe, I mean, comfort us on the treasury reserves? Because that's the, I would say, lower quality part of the NII. And then can I ask a question about 2025? And what do you think the evolution will be for 2025? Because that's the most relevant, I guess, for everyone. And then the second question is on the SME's legal case. There were some headlines a few weeks ago. If you can comment on that, perhaps what can be maximum size and timing for this? That would be very helpful. And is there any provisions for it? Would that be booked in costs or in provisions?
How does that impact your EUR 5.3 billion guidance for the full year? Thank you very much.
Thank you. I'll take your question on the SMEs and maybe a bit more explanation on NII.
Yeah. Morning, Tarik. If I look at your question on treasury results, so yes, if you look at the underlying NII run rate, NII need to go up to get to our guidance of EUR 6.3. Clearly, we saw quarter-on-quarter a positive trend on the treasury results. But I also said to the previous question, the mismatch results is not a ring-fence portfolio of swap contracts. But it's all on and off balance interest rate all on and off balance interest rate risk exposure, what we manage there. But to give you a sort of direction, and we said that before as well, the remaining maturity is up to four years. So you will see a continued tailwind from treasury results throughout the year. And yes, the steering costs have come down.
But the steering costs are significantly elevated if you see a lot of prepayments because then the duration changes of your markets book. And we do see good new production. But that does not mean that the steering cost will need to go up. Then replicating portfolio, yes. We said that last time as well. We expect it still to be a tailwind towards mid-year. But then aligned with the markets, we expect the first rate cut in June. And it's our expectations rates will go down to 2.75% at the end of the year. So then you will start seeing a shift from a tailwind into a slight headwind in the second half of the year. And then overall, as it spreads, yes, it is roughly flat. But I said earlier, on mortgages, you really start seeing the margins bottoming out. On the corporates, it's indeed wait and see.
With TLTRO out of the market, we do expect that towards the coming quarters, margin might start improving here. Yes, we still see the pressure of our consumer book. But on our total balance sheet, it's less than EUR 10 billion. So that effect is not significant of the rundown of portfolios we're doing there. So if you add this all up together and if you look at the current curve, we are confident in the 6.3 for this year. But let's see how the year evolves before we start giving any sort of look-through of expectations for 2025, Tarik.
Did I answer your question, Tarik? Then I'll take the SME part.
Yes. Thank you. I mean, look, it answers. Thank you for giving this detail. I think there's a sense that there are many moving parts that it's difficult to appreciate, especially treasury reserves from the outside. And that gives this lack of confidence, at least from my side, on the guidance. But thanks for the efforts of explaining it.
Yeah. But Tarik, it's also what we said clearly in our guidance earlier was it's based on the current interest rate outlook. And if you compare that to February, it's an important driver. Economic outlook is an important driver. And then we also said in the guidance that we expect deposit migration to slow down. And I said earlier, I think the mix will not really shift from here. And then it's also the price tracking on our savings accounts. And in our assumption is that that will not change. So with interest rates going down, it's implicitly an increase in the beta. So I think that might be seen as conservative.
Thank you.
Then maybe on your question on the SME claim. We're very much aware of this claim. We've received at least a writ of summons to start or to commence the collective action. What we actually continue to state is that we don't have any substantiation of any of the claims or damages claimed. And that continues to be the case today. It is apparent that there's an argument that's being used by the claim foundation that earlier Kifid rulings that actually relied on revolving consumer credits with variable interest should now be applied to small enterprises. We continue to state that the Kifid ruling was exactly for consumer credits. So it cannot be one-for-one applied to smaller entities. We've also said that we believe that what they're probably referencing is a product we call in Dutch, the name is OndernemersKrediet.
This is a credit for smaller entities that we've actually stopped and that we're phasing out. We can also state that if we've received any complaints, we've settled with the very client. At this point, there is no provision for the reasons that I've just indicated. We'll just have to see how this further evolves.
Okay. Thank you. If I can just add a quick one on capital, maybe for Caroline. So you said that the Basel IV went down in line with Basel III by 50 basis points quarter-over-quarter. Does that mean that your full year Basel IV CET1 was 14.5? Because we tried all to figure out what was the around level it was in before. So yeah.
I fully get that you would like to know the exact decimal number. But that is still a little, yeah, you can always and I understand that. But first, maybe the Basel IV movement of the last three quarters. We gave them rounded numbers. I would like to say that the decrease over the last three quarters, we believe, is closer to 1% than to 2%. So I think that gives some better indication. On Basel IV uncertainties, although the regulation is now approved, still all the technical standards are actually not ready. So the final implementation, we get these well, they come out now. They have impact on the actual calculation standards and data definitions. Until we have them, we just can't calculate very precisely. Then it doesn't make sense to give you any precise number.
Okay. Thank you very much for your answers. Thank you.
Thanks for the questions.
Thank you. We will take the next question from line Raul Sinha from J.P. Morgan. The line is open now. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thank you very much for taking my questions. I think on the model add-ons, we've asked enough times about all the details. So I'll spare you another question on that. But I just wanted to come back to the timing aspect of this. I guess in the context of what's going on, we understand your prudence in moving to an annual approach on buybacks last quarter. But my question is just to understand whether you think that these data quality issues will be largely resolved by the time you get to the year-end process where you kind of, I guess, need some clarity around your capital position to be able to decide the capital surplus and distribution. So that's the first question.
I guess the second question, Freddie, just coming back to your assumption or your confidence around the deposit migration is over and that there will not be further mixed changes from here. I was wondering if you could give us some sense of what the current deposit beta is as you see it so that we can try to estimate deposit tracking. When rates go down, what happens to the beta? Thank you.
So thanks for your questions. So look, on data quality, as we identify issues on data quality, we work hard to resolve them. We've talked about some examples in the past. Are we completely finished? That's very difficult to state because we have ongoing reviews. And we do want to simplify. This is something that we've been at for quite some time. And we'd like to do this right. So you can rest assured that as we identify data quality issues, that we then work to resolve them as fast as we can. That is the reason why we're also being transparent about what we are actually doing in simplifying our model landscape. But to tell you we're going to be completely done by the end of the year, that's almost trying to predict what we're going to be finding over the next couple of periods.
While we're executing this, exactly as Caroline said, to pace and to timing, and we resolve the issues as quickly as we can, I cannot say that we can completely resolve anything. But we are working as fast as we can to resolve them. We have line of sight on what it takes to get it done. On deposit migration beta?
Yeah. Raul, on migration and beta, if you would look at the simple sort of calculation, savings coupon over ECB deposit rates, had the saving coupon as 1.5% with a 4% ECB deposit rate. So there, the deposit beta is 35%-40%. If you look in European context, saving rates are actually at a higher level than many of the surrounding countries. In our assumption, the 1.5% stays the same. So with the ECB deposit rate coming down, most likely as of next month, that implicitly means that in our forecast, there's an increase in the deposit beta in our assumptions for the rest of the year. If the tracking is down here as well, every 10 basis points of client rate has an impact of EUR 100 million if you look at the total savings base we have.
Then on migration, specifically there, if you look at the switch, I think most clients have optimized their savings portfolios by now. It's also in the second half of the first quarter, we started lowering our remuneration on term deposits. Also with the current interest rate, I think it is unlikely we're going to see any significant further migration of our deposit base. Hence, my confidence that it will stay around the same levels.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. We will take the next question from line Benoît Petrarque from Kepler Cheuvreux. The line is open now. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning. So the question is on share buyback and actually your convergence towards the 13.5% CET1 ratio by 2026, how fast you want to converge. Because when I look at your Basel IV, it's 14%-14.5% range. Consensus expects EUR 750 million share buyback next year. So that will put the proforma today at a range of 13.5%-14% already. Now, I appreciate you will be generating capital in the next three quarters. But you are also talking about risk-weighted assets add-ons. I mean, we're also talking on the market about potential provisioning on the SME revolving credit. So will that be fine for you to be actually relatively close to the 13.5% Basel IV by end of 2024? That's something you don't want to see at this stage. And you are willing to push towards more 2026. So that's the first question.
Number two will be on the treasury result, on the NII result. So you said on the duration of the equity, you have a five-year four- to five-year duration. How much is kind of short-term within that bucket? I'm asking because I like to get a bit of feeling about how sensitive the treasury NI result will be to ECB cuts. I understand that 25 might not be 25 basis points might not be a significant impact. But maybe in 2025, that could be a bit more negative. So just checking that. Third one is on the cost guidance. I know you're in discussion now with unions on this new CLA. But could you remind us how much you have in terms of salary increase in the new CLA in your cost guidance for the next three years?
Just finally, on the net new money, it will be useful to get a kind of clean net new money, excluding all the noise we've seen, also money market. Kind of, yeah, quality net new money kind of type of figure, which will make sense given we are talking about wealth management. That should be quite clean at the end. Thank you.
Thank you, Benoît. Let me take the share buyback and the cost guidance and maybe Ferdinand to comment on treasury and net new money. So on your question on share buybacks, look, we've given you where we now currently stand and what our thinking is in terms of the RWAs as much as we can. Yes, indeed, we still have a full year or three quarters to go in terms of capital generation. And we've targeted 13.5% in 2026 as a framework. All that will go into determining a magnitude or quantu m of a share buyback towards the end of the year. But I would also continue to emphasize that as we generate capital, as we work to resolve issues as we've identified them, that all will go into the factoring of quantums. So I think it's really, A, it's early in the year.
But, we will give all the considerations that have gone into quantum of share buybacks at the time we communicate about a share buyback. But we have a 13.5% target for 2026. That capital framework in and of itself is not changing. On treasury, Ferdinand?
Yeah, Benoît. It's difficult to start providing indications how much is short-term versus two, three, four years on the treasury result. We have been always quite open on our replicating portfolio. But here, it's also the more flexibility you have. It's not four to five years. I've said before, it's maximum four years. But also what we've seen in the previous quarter with an inverse curve where you have a pickup on the shorter term, then we will steer towards that. But overall, it's just the overall resulting exposure and what we manage within the treasury bucket. And it includes also the effects of past interest rate steering. So we will not provide any sort of more underlying sort of indicators of that. Then looking at net new money, it's a fair argument, Benoît. And we will look into that to make it very clear.
What is the net new assets? I think we disclosed that. But also if you have some shorter-term volatility, specifically related to what we mentioned earlier, so short-term custody, that we make that more visible so you can see the underlying drivers there.
Benoît, your question on cost guidance in relation to the CLA. As we said, the CLA is now due end of June. So negotiations currently are ongoing. But when we talked about a 60% cost income in 2026, so to give you a little bit of feel how we dealt with inflation generally as we began to determine an absolute cost base for 2024, but also the 60% cost income ratio, we took an average of around 3% inflation. So that's on average for the calculations that we did to come into a 60% cost income ratio. So that's an assumption. Clearly, to go into any further details, let the negotiations take place. And we'll see in due course what that reveals. Benoît? You still there?
Yes. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.
All right. All right. Take care.
Thank you. We will take the next question from line Patrick Nielsen from Goldman Sachs. The line is open now. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good morning, everyone. It's Chris Hallam from Goldman Sachs. So I just have two housekeeping questions left. So first, could I just check in terms of OpEx, what your latest view on regulatory levies is for this year? With Q4, you said you'd expect that to be around EUR 200 million this year. But given Q1 was lower, is that still the right figure for 2024? And then second, on the capital deductions, are there any more sizable portfolios moving to a less sophisticated approach either this year or early next year?
Okay. Thank you for the question. Yeah. So on reg levies, we do expect full year 2023 to be around EUR 335 million. And oh, sorry. Full year 2024 sorry. Full year 2023 was around EUR 335 million. Full year 2024 will come in significantly lower. Our estimates run about EUR 175 million.
Yeah. And that is specifically, Chris, here, what changes. On one hand, you're going to see in 2024 an increase in the Dutch banking tax. For us, that will go up by EUR 30 million. And secondly, last year in Q1, we had EUR 200 million in single resolution fund contribution. And the target size of the fund has been reached. So that has gone to zero. So overall, on the regulatory levies for this year, we expect actually a bit lower than the EUR 200 million we indicated earlier because we had not expected SRF to go to zero.
On capital?
Yeah. Based on your question of moving any other portfolios to less sophisticated approaches, we don't expect any of those to be happening this year. But for 2025, as we announced before, we do expect some smaller portfolios to still move to less sophisticated approaches. And really, depending on the composition of those portfolios at the time we move them will determine any capital deduction at that point in time.
Got it. Thanks very much.
All right. Thank you.
Thank you. We will take the next question from Farquhar Murray from Autonomous Research. The line is open again. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Apologies. Just a very quick follow-up. I know you've not updated the guidance commentary. It's quite early in the year, arguably. On costs, you have come in massively better than consensus expected. I just wondered, as a management team, do you think costs were coming in a bit better than expected? You may have thought at the start of the year and maybe also obviously, probably within the rounding of the guidance. I just wondered if you had a more directional sense of how you felt the quarter came through.
Yeah. That's a very fair question. Keep in mind that the quarter came in when you referenced, for example, Q4. Q4 was slightly elevated with particular costs relating to brand and brand release. But certainly, we continue to exercise good cost discipline. And at the same time, we want to continue to invest in the capabilities that we need for the bank as we continue to execute our strategy. And that means that we will continue to invest in areas of data requirements, IT requirements, regulatory requirements. So those levels of investments will continue. So that's why we are still sticking to EUR 5.3 billion guidance for this year. We will continue, as I said, to exercise tight discipline. We know exactly where we want to invest.
This goes also hand in hand with the fact that we're looking at a cost income ratio in 2026 where we really want to make sure that as we invest, we allow the bank to grow. I think that's the reason why we're creating the room for the investment whilst we exercise strict discipline on cost control.
Okay. Just as a question then, did you have a bit just as a follow-up, did you think you had a bit more room for investment in 1 Q than you expected then?
Well, if we're coming in lower than expected by default, and we'll carry that into next quarters if that's necessary.
Okay. Thanks a lot.
Bottom line, the 5.3 will stand. We'll continue to exercise exactly the discipline that you've seen now in this quarter.
Okay. Thanks. All right.
Thank you. If there's no further question at this time, I'll hand it back over to the host for closing remarks.
Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you, as always, for your questions. We've absolutely taken your questions on capital to heart. We'll see if there's anything we can do to further clarify. I look forward to talking to many of you over the next few weeks. Thank you. Bye-bye.
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